Willow's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Willow could not sleep, so she walked into the woods at dawn. The man's story stayed with her. His daughter's laugh, the fever, the thistle in his coat pocket. She carried her guitar on her back and listened. She needed a melody that held his grief. Birdsong, wind, the creak of branches. She wanted the forest to hand her the first notes. Far off, she heard a low sound. It rose and fell like someone humming through tears. Willow stopped walking. The sound pulled at her chest. She stepped off the path and followed it between the trees. She found a weeping willow in a clearing. Its long branches swayed though the air held still, as if the tree danced to the song. Willow stared. High in the branches sat a bird the color of flame. Its tail feathers trailed long and bright. It opened its beak and sang the low, mournful tune she had followed. Willow sat beneath the tree. She did not reach for her guitar. The song was better than anything she had written. It was grief made into sound. She closed her eyes to hold the notes in her memory. The branches brushed her shoulders. The bird sang on. Warmth spread through her, and sleep took her before she could fight it. In the dream, a girl stood over her. Long red hair fell past her waist. Her white gown gently flowing in the wind. Willow saw through her to the tree trunk behind. She was the ghost of the traveler’s daughter. Her beauty was eclipsed by her sadness. "You carry my father's thistle," the girl said. "He told you about me." Willow's breath caught. The man's daughter. The fever. “You're her," Willow said. "You're the girl in his story." "Fiona." She said softly. "He hasn’t been the same since the sickness took me from him. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how much I loved him. How much I still do. What I would give to be able to talk to him one more time.” “I have tried to leave messages for him along the way. A thistle here. A birdsong there. I tried to sit beside him and whisper in his ear. He hears and sees nothing." She looked at Willow directly. "You he will hear. Your song, he will hear." Willow understood. The weight of it pressed on her. "You want me to put it in the ballad." "Say it for me," Fiona said. "Give him the gift of peace. Free him from his sorrow.” Willow woke with a start. The clearing was empty. The red bird was gone. The willow hung still now, its branches dead quiet. Dew soaked her sleeve. The low song still rang in her memory, note for note. She pulled her guitar around and played the melody back. It was perfect. But it was no longer only the man's grief she had to carry. Now she had to carry his daughter's last words, and find a way to make him hear them.