The Clockwork Ballerina

She jumps regularly.  There are many who have seen her, the clockwork ballerina.  She walks through the halls of this old castle, up to the ramparts, and pauses for a while, contemplating the view.  Then she climbs up, with an expression of terrible peace, and lets herself fall.  She fades in mid-air.

She has never been caught on camera, but anyone who wishes can see her.  It’s not timed by the calendar or the clock.  It’s not at the same time of day, or the same time of year, not every month, but most of them.  Every so often, she will begin her journey again, as if for the first time.  Sometimes, sun shines through her, or rain, or snow.

Many have seen her jump.  Only I have seen her dance, as far as I know.

The castle came into my family via an uncle, or a distant cousin or some such, long ago.  It had fallen into disrepair then.  My family had kept it, but it wasn’t one of the properties we used.  Who would want to live here, knowing that she will walk frequently, and jump over and over again? 

Well, me.  I didn’t know.  I didn’t believe.  There are no pictures, no recordings, she cannot be caught on film.  There is only word of mouth, and, forgive me, I thought they were crazy, or stupid, or gullible.

I wasn’t scared of her, the first time.  It was August.  I was out in the grounds, near the lake, and I saw her from a distance.  I was surprised, of course, but not frightened.  It’s hard to be frightened in August, in the sunshine.

When it came to return to the castle, to the few rooms which are still habitable, I began to feel nervous.  I barely slept that first night.  I know her journey is always the same, and that she doesn’t enter my room  - as far as anyone has ever witnessed, a thought which was not comforting – and that thought eventually allowed me to sleep.

I didn’t see her for three months after that, though I looked.  I read up on her.  There were books here, in the few habitable rooms, including histories and diaries.  Veronica, I learned, though no one knew much else.  The diaries and letters reporting her went back dozens over years, perhaps a hundred.  Perhaps the story had been hushed up by an uncle or a cousin, someone far removed.  None of my close family knew; like me, they’d dismissed her as village gossip, the imagination of those who never stray beyond their own back garden.

It was November when I next saw her.  The snow had begun to fall.  I was on the ramparts, a blanket wrapped around me, watching the sunset.  I turned to see her, walking behind me, her gaze fixed on her part of the wall, on the sky beyond it.  Goosebumps came up on my neck.  I followed her, terrified that she would turn around, a ghostly Orpheus to my Eurydice.

She never did.

She stood contemplating the sky for so long that I was able to grip my courage and move in front of her, to gaze upon her face.  It was calm.  She smiled.

She turned and climbed up, in quick neat movements.  She looked up at the sky as she let herself fall.  I darted forward to catch her, forgetting, for a moment, how late I was.  How late she was.  I could see the trees and the lake through her, as she fell, as she faded.

I had been sent to the castle to convalesce, to return only when I would no longer embarrass the family with my hysterics, my upset, my inability to cope.   Mother paid someone to bring food from the village once a week, and all bills were taken care of.  I had no worries, or cares, beyond those I created, which were quite enough to keep me occupied.  I had my piano, my music, and time to devote to it.  It seemed to help.  I hadn’t sought out a blade, though I wouldn’t have found one if I had.  No food arrived which required anything sharper than a butter knife, and I travelled down to the village every so often to be shaved by the barber.  Mother cared, in her own way.  Father liked to pretend I had succeeded.

I started writing music for her.  I tried to capture her peace, her ethereality, her ungraspability, both in concept and reality.  She could never be touched.  I would never solve her mystery.

When June came around again, I had seen her on three more occasions.  I had seen her fall from five different viewpoints now, and was still no closer to understanding why she looked so peaceful, so sure, when she was doing something so terrible.  My death would not have been a tragedy; hers must have been.

I had moved the piano to one of the rooms which was no longer habitable, one in which a wall was missing, opening it to the elements.  The wilderness had begun to encroach and daisies grew through the gaps in the floor.  I liked it, in summer, in the sunshine.

I was playing her song when I saw her.  She was not on her walk; this was a side of her I’d never seen.  Her hair was plaited instead of loose, her face open and bright.  I stopped playing and watched her in silence, a movie I’d never seen before.

She gripped something invisible at the wall – a barre?  - and began to perform movements I recognised from my sister’s childhood.  She was warming up.  When she stepped away from the barre, I regained my senses and began to play.

She was a wonderful dancer.  I had noticed her grace, her serenity, in her walk.  Now I saw those, and more besides.  I saw joy.

Watching her dance I knew I could never keep with her.  I was a hundred years behind and losing more ground every day.  I could never dance with her, speak to her, hold her.  I could only be her accompaniment.  It was enough.

She faded as the music reached a crescendo, though I kept playing through to the end.  I hoped she would return.

I kept the piano there as winter rolled around again.  I played for her at midnight, as the wind blew autumn leaves around my feet.  I played for her when my fingers began to numb with the cold, when my mother had long since grown tired of me and threatened to stop keeping me if I didn’t begin doing something, anything.  I didn’t know how to tell her that I was doing something.  I played her into spring, through rain, and sunshine, and snow.  The scars on my wrists stopped hurting.

I saw her jump again, several times.  From that room, I had a view of the ramparts, and of the lake.  Sometimes, I would look up, startled, to see her fading, her long dark hair streaming out above her.  Other times I would watch her as she stood, contemplating the sky.  On more than one occasion I ran towards her, despite knowing that I would be too late, that I would always be too late, that I had always been too late.

I recorded the music.  Veronica’s song.  I began to play the phonograph when she came in.  As she began to dance I stepped into the circle of her arms, following her movements.  I wasn’t quite right; I had watched her enough to be in time, to predict her movements, but still there were times when we were not in sync, when our arms passed through one another.  Her eyes were closed.  She felt of nothing.

There was once last time that I saw her, when summer came around again.  Now they dismiss her like they do all other ghost stories.  They believe that she is the product of fevered minds, of boredom, of some gossip that has had all the detail leached out, like a photograph left in the sun.

I was lying by the lake, as I had been when I first saw her.  I lay on my back, contemplating the sky.

When I looked up she was there, sitting beside me, looking up as I did.  She turned to smile at me; I smiled back, my heart pounding.  Had she sat here with someone else, a hundred years before?  Had that lead to her walk, to her leap?  What else could this be a recording of?

I saw that her eyes were brown.  I had never been close enough to know that before.

She said one word, before she disappeared from my life forever.  She said my name.  “Sebastian,” she said, and I realised she was seeing me, really seeing me, like no one has in a very long time.  Not in the years I’ve spent living here with her, and not in the years before either.  Perhaps that’s what I did for her.

She smiled again and added “goodbye….”

I reached for her like a drowning man and grasped only common air.