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.
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