fading...or departing. Yet Ariel felt a stubborn refusal to believe this might be their last Spring together. She would find a way, and she kicked defiantly at a clump of last year’s dead leaves that had been deposited on the bridge by the racing stream beneath her.
Across the bridge and up on a small knoll set back in the trees, smoke curled lazily from the chimney of their cabin and the delicious scent of birch logs incensed the air. Bluejays were already cackling in the nearby trees, preparing to swoop down with a squabbling din as they would battle over the crumbs and seeds the sisters scattered by the front porch each morning. When the jays departed, purple finches, sparrows, chickadees, and nuthatches would quietly scavenge for what was left. Ariel admired their cabin from a distance with its spilt cedar siding giving a pleasing, wavy appearance. The corner posts stood as straight and true as they ever had and their enormous woodpile nestled cozily under the overhanging roof on the south side of the cabin where it would catch the most of the weak winter sun.
The cabin was much like Randle Marsh’s cabin down near the foot of the mountain. That was understandable; the sisters had mercifully helped him build it many years ago. When he first came to the mountain, Randle’s first attempt at cabin building had been moderately to severely pathetic. It began to leak in short order and to lean precariously shortly after that. His outhouse was a better effort and would have been quite serviceable for the purpose had he not constructed it practically on top of two very lively anthills.
Yet none of this deterred Randle who was determined to make Bakers Mountain his home and who would treat it with love and reverence his entire life. The Boudine sisters soon understood this as they often watched him pass nearby in his long rambles through the woods. He passed near their cabin any number of times without imposing on their privacy. A couple of times they had even allowed him to see them. When he did, he tipped his hat, said “good morning,” and discreetly went on his way. It was this wonderful discretion that led the sisters to travel down the mountain almost every day for a month and a half to give Randle a hand building a fine new cabin. They had a lovely bonfire one evening with Randle as they burned down the infested outhouse and drank wild grape wine together. When they replaced the outhouse, they showed him how to construct gutters that would guide rainwater into suspended barrels and from there into an honest-to-god flush toilet. After that, they met more often and they taught him other things that had stood him in good stead during his long life on the mountain. He in turn had given them good company and made them laugh with his gentle humor and sometimes bumbling ways. Folks in Cedar Falls became aware of this strange alliance and were hardly surprised. “Odd folk will sure as shootin’ find one another and no mistake,” Emma Bailey once commented, even before the events that had led to the demise of her Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, which, by the way, ran about a hundred and fifty dollars. But now Randle was older and illness had entered his body. He did not get out and about as much these days, and of course with Tara as she was, neither did the sisters.
Again a gust of wind came from the south, a harbinger of rain later in the day. Ariel caught at her hair as it blew across her face and again she curiously noted the flecks of gray. How long had it been like that? Their bathing pool below the falls, or else the windows of their cabin served as their only mirrors, and of course they showed no color. She let her hair go and shivered slightly, whether from the wind or from the vague disquiet she always felt now, a disquiet that sometimes threatened to well up into fear. Was it anxiety about going back into the cabin, to be reminded again what was happening to Tara? Or was it the knowledge that the same must happen to herself one day, when she too would be called to enter into the full moon mists?
She left the bridge reluctantly and decided that, smelly or not, she would gather a large handful of the purple trilliums before returning to the cabin. It was time to welcome Spring; time to rouse Tara as best she could; time to banish these stray disturbing thoughts that hovered around her as unwelcome visitors.
Inside the cabin, Tara was wrapped in a blanket and sitting on the wicker couch in front of the fire, a cup of tea in her small hands. Ariel walked over and placed a trillium in Tara’s hair above her left ear. Tara laughed as Ariel’s cool hand tickled her ear and then tossed the rest of the flowers into the air, some falling on Tara and others sailing out across the floor. Ariel sat close to Tara and together they shared the mint tea as they watched the fire dance on the fragrant birch logs. Sparks spit noisily off the logs and disappeared lazily up the chimney.
Ariel watched to make sure Tara was drinking the tea, and then abruptly asked, “Do I seem older to you, Tara?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean my face...my hair...my...everything. Outside this morning, I could see the gray in my hair again, as if I am seeing something that was apart from myself. It wasn’t the first time of course, but this time I became cold all over and afraid.”
Tara reached up playfully and curled a strand of Ariel’s dark hair around her finger. “You can hardly see it; it’s just a touch of dawn coming into your tresses of night. You should welcome it like the dawn.”
Ariel tried to share Tara’s lightness but failed and looked away again. Outside the jays continued to battle noisily for crumbs beyond the front porch. Tara reached out again for Ariel’s hand to regain her attention.
“Time runs differently here in this place we live and in this life we lead. But time finally touches even us. Does that frighten you? You’ve always known it.”
Ariel felt suddenly small and vain. “I’m sorry. How can I be speaking of my stupid hair? I don’t know why I did...forgive me.”
Tara smiled. “It is because you must now look ahead, beyond me, and you are feeling sad and guilty that you already are.”
Ariel looked down again at her hands but after a moment faced Tara’s bright eyes again. “It’s just that if you really are...fading...and if I am to grow old already, then I can’t help wondering if I am ever to have another companion. Perhaps your departure is to be the end of it.”
“Of course not, dear one. What we are and what we do must continue, and it will. Why would it end now? Just because a Spring day finds you with your hair changing? The world changes all around us daily, does it not?”
Ariel felt stung. “You see me as small and foolish.”
“No, I find you frightened as all living creatures are from time to time. Do you forget that long ago I was in the place you are now?”
Ariel nodded. “Do you remember the one who was before me? We never speak of her.”
Tara did not answer right away, and for the first time this morning, she looked away herself. The birds were gone now and the morning had become very still. Only the muffled sound of Black Brook could be heard and even the fire was silent as it had burned down to shimmering embers.
“I remember her now only in dreams. And I see other faces as well. I believe they are the others who have dwelt here long before us. Do you never have dreams such as those?”
“No.”
Tara hesitated and then squeezed Ariel’s hand. “There is more. Lately I’ve dreamed of one who has never come into my dreams before.”
Ariel caught her breath and her own voice sounded far away to her when she spoke. “Do you believe this is the face of the one to come after you?”
Tara nodded. “And I wonder sometimes if she dreams of me. Or of you and of this place. I feel her moving toward us even now, though she would not know this yet.”
Ariel felt a chill pass through her body and she instinctively pressed in
