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Scarlet
by Mary T. Lademan

The world was wrapped in winter, blanketed in fallen snow. She sat on the wall of the graveyard where all was white and gray. She was framed by a gray sky with gray barren trees rising like crooked fingers to etch white words in the clouds. The snow slept on the hillside, not a breath of frozen air stirred, and the gravestones rose up like exiles, bent over beneath their burden of fallen snow, fleeing in crooked rows through the unmarked silence.

She was wearing white. She walked like a Chinese widow through the passionless landscape, and sat like Wisdom waiting at the threshold of life. She was a pale, soulful thing. A slip of a girl with cold hands and a quiet, soft-spoken voice. Her movements were slow and deliberate, she seemed like a porcelain doll; beautiful and awkward, not yet come to life. She sat on the hillside and looked down on the wintry valleys below, and never sensed a change in the wind.

The silence was smitten unexpectedly with the sound of a song, and the wind took a tentative breath. Over the brow of the hill came a scarlet figure-a person alive from the tips of his dancing feet to the sparkle of his laughing eyes. He left a merry trail of footprints behind him, and touched a sudden smile to the lips of the girl when she saw the exuberance of his bearing. He gloried in being. His red cloak made a mocking shadow on the ground and his flute, as it fell from his lips, let slip one last lilting note. He stopped a little ways from her, in the shadow of a birch grove, and considered the girl before him.

She spoke not a word, nor did she meet his eyes, but she looked at the ground steadily. At last, with a glance at the waning light on the hillside, he took a seat alongside her, upon the gray stone wall.

"What land is this?" he asked, and his voice was gentle as if he were talking to an invalid, or to a wild animal.

Her eyes remained fixed on her white, twisting hands. "It is Winter, sir," she replied with her voice falling as soft as snow.

"It's a cold name," said he with the warmth of his red cloak coloring his voice.

"It's a cold land, sir."

"And a cold maid to tell me so."

"Truth has no need of warmth," she answered with eyes still downcast.

"Alas, I am only a human and still want for the lack of it."

"Will you need a fire, sir?" she questioned, for the first time daring to raise her eyes.

"Faith, yes, for it's a chill welcome your land has given."

"We give what we can, sir."

"Can you build me a fire, lass?" he asked.

"I will try, sir," she said, all unwitting.

"Then lead on, white lady," he laughed as he helped her to rise.

She led him through the pine forest to her city on the riverbank. It was a small town, with high, stone walls surrounding it; dead ivy hung from the battlements like locks of Rapunzel's hair falling to touch the frozen water. He stopped to survey the city before him.

"So this is Winter."

"Aye, sir."

"And is it never spring here?"

"I know not what you mean, sir."

"Indeed, lass? Well, no doubt you will learn."

She took him into her city, and there he abided for a time, singing his songs and dancing about like a merry robin through their bleak and barren halls. He woke the day with laughter and ended the hours with singing. In time he taught them revelry and even gave them the glimmerings of happiness. Even she laughed at times for the sheer joy of living. Living was what he did best. He gloried in every breath he inhaled. He loved life with a passion and lived it with enthusiasm. He was a vital, willful being.

He also taught the girl to love. In silence, he schooled her. Through their talks, and his laughter, through his wit and her admiration, she learned to love; but in this knowledge the student surpassed the master.

One day, he spoke of leaving. They were sitting in the courtyard looking down on the snow which had begun to melt, reveling in the sudden and striking brilliance of the sunlight, when she spoke of her joy at the birds returning, and he said, "Are they? I had not thought it so late in the year. I have often wanted to fly. Perhaps that is why I stretch my wings so often. Oh well, the warm weather will always call me from my sleep, like any wild thing, and I guess I'll soon be exploring that great wild blue o'er yonder."

She was silent a moment, frozen, watching a gleam of water sparkle like a tear on an icicle and then fall to a niche of snow below it in the courtyard. "You'll be leaving us?"

"I cannot stay forever, lass. I must be off. The wanderlust has me. There are adventures along that road. I cannot know where it will lead me."

"Will you go alone?"

"It's the only way I know. I'm comfortable with my lone company. All I need is a bit of wind to converse with and some stars to wink back at me."

She held her breath a moment, before she flung herself after the impulse, and a smile leapt to her lips for the pure daring of the moment. "Take me with you," she turned to him. Her voice quivered and her hands leapt together like the folded wings of a bird. "Take me with you. Let me travel the road alongside of you. I'll be a good companion."

He kept his face turned upward, considering the light that caressed him. His eyes were dark and inquiring when at last he turned to her. "Why?"

"Because I-Because I'd go with you."

"But why?"

"Because I-love you," she bent her head over and colored the scarlet color of his cloak. Her voice was all golden, all warmth, full of life.

His face was white and untouched. "Love?" he inquired, and his eyes were distant and wary.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'd care for you. I'd wish to talk with you, to listen to you, to know you better, to know you throughout all of my days," she answered him, raising her eyes and looking at him directly.

"It's a lot to ask," he said.

"Of whom? Of whom is it a lot to ask?"

"Of you."

"I don't mind."

"Of myself," he said at last, with truth. His eyes seeking sanction in the white sunlight once more. "It's a hard thing to be known. It's difficult and its more frightening than all the wonders of the world."

"You don't love me," she said, the sudden realization striking her unexpectedly.

"I never thought to love you," he answered carefully, now looking at her with concern.

"Do you love another?"

"I love no one."

"Have you loved before?"

"I have loved no one."

"But how-when you are so full of life?"

"I enjoy my life," he said. "I feel no lack. I have friends and companionship. I make them as I go along. I read to keep myself occupied, and I travel to keep myself content. I have no need of love."

"Why are you speaking of need? How can your need decide for you whom you will love?"
"I am content, lass, leave it at that. You will not force a man to love you."

They were silent a moment, and then she spoke again. She was fully awake, her eyes were looking at him and she saw fearlessly and with love. "Did you never once think to love me?"
He answered her honestly, after a silence while he too watched the sunlight strike tears from the melting ice. "I did think it, at first. I did think it, but..."

"But what?"

He looked at her now and his eyes were dark and sad, but they were set. "You wanted to know me, and suddenly I saw all the terror of that road. I saw that every day I would turn to you and I would see myself reflected-You would be the truth of who I am and you would never let me be, but I would always see myself more truly than I had ever known. I looked at you and you were my measure. I saw all the dark woods stretching ahead. I saw all the detours, the impasses, the times when we would have to strike out on our own, creating a new way, hewing it and paving it and then perhaps crawling along it on our knees. I saw that the road would no longer be my own. I would no longer follow my fancy, the stars would no longer guide me. I would no longer answer to myself alone, but to you. You would be my judgment and I would be your creator. I would answer for the person that you became, and all the daring of my nature could not dare that journey."

"You were afraid?"

"I was afraid. I met you, and you were a child, and there was no fear in growing close to you, because I would always be the one to show you the world and tell you which path to take. You grew up and suddenly you knew more than I did, and you wanted more than I had ever thought of giving. You saw more than I had ever wanted seen. You saw me as only one person could."
They considered each other in silence. She was flushed and breathless, her cheeks red, and her eyes full of tears. He was still and lifeless, his merry form frozen in sorrow. "I'm sorry, but something in me will not let you love me, lass. I will not take you with me."

"Then you will never fly and you will never reach that wild blue o'er yonder. Your road will never lead you to any adventure greater than the one before it. You will always know the way before you and never cross the unexpected."

"I know it," he said in sudden regret. "I know it, but I will not change."

He stood up.

"Are you leaving now?"

"There's no reason to stay longer."

"Will you not remain my friend?"

"No, lass. Friends travel together and I will not take you with me."

"Goodbye," she said, and he did not answer, but he dropped his scarlet cloak about her shoulders.

He was gone and with him went the winter, for the girl had been visited by spring.