SUNSHINE THROUGH WINDOWPANES

          Rough floorboards had little give under Elodie's frozen toes as she crossed to the door of her small bedroom. She noted her sister’s sleeping form, deep beneath the white duvet. May’s soft snores were the only sound in the room. As far as Elodie could tell, they were the only sound in the whole house. The metal knob was cold in her small hand but opened easily to the darkened hallway beyond. Elodie crept her way through the darkness, smoothing her hand along the wall as her eyes adjusted. She toed her way to the top of the short staircase carefully before she placed her small foot to the fist stair. She crept her way down silently.

Elodie felt the silence of the bottom floor oppressing, especially compared to the warmth of her bedroom and May’s continuous snuffles in the dark. Making quick work of her task, she grabbed a quilt from the couch and navigated her way around the sunken boxes scattered around and made her way back up the wooden steps.

By the time she reached the tiny window just beyond the staircase, the sun was just cresting above the trees. She pulled the lace curtain behind her thin frame and wrapped the quilt closer over her shoulders. She folded herself closer to the wooden window frame and shuddered as the cold faded slowly from the floor beneath her and pressed her freckled nose against the cool glass.The fog was illuminated above damp grass as far as Elodie could see. The flat dew seemed to go on forever, her neighbors seeming to exist in the tendrils of a fading dream in their own tuft of fog.

In the distance, Elodie watched as the warmth of the sun eased its way through the thicket of trees; so far it seemed to belong to a different world than the one that was her backyard. She heard the soft chirp of a bird. Suddenly, as if a trance was broken, the song grew and expanded all around Elodie as more birds began to sing. This was when the world woke up, she knew, and let her eyes drift to the wood that sat at the edge of her yard.

                As the sun glowed behind their leaves, the trees waved at Elodie, framed tiny and dark in the window of the cottage. She smiled and waved back eagerly, promising to wake May once the sun rose enough to reach her perch at the window. For now, though, she just waved back at her forest.

                Her and May would climb those trees as high as they could, trying to reach the sky. Often, they would lie in the winter chill and watch the stark limbs sway just beneath the sun. When the trees were full and autumn reached their cottage, Elodie and May would run between the gnarled trunks and capture the glowing oranges, reds and greens. But, whenever they left the last line of trees into the open grass of the yard, their magic seemed to have gone. The leaves no longer hummed between their clasped hands or danced as easily when held to the wind.

                Elodie sat with her legs crossed under the confines of her cotton night gown. She thought of the forts built in the spring breezes and the ghosts chased in the dusky October setting sun. She looked down the hallway, much brighter now than before, and pictured May sleeping cozily in the bed beside her own. May, who had grown heads above Elodie this past summer, and who seemed to have grown busier as each day passed. Elodie grimaced, and instead thought of their soft beds of leaves and moss, almost feeling their cooling softness beneath her back even now. Her and May lounged for hours, giggling into raincoat sleeves while the trees bent close to hear their stories. She looked at her dancing trees now, trying to hear their whispers from so far away.

                In the small hallway, Elodie could ignore the emptiness of the house, or her sister's growing reluctance for play time each day, and certainly the dwindling time she had left with her forest. Elodie watched the morning begin to peek through the branches. She thought of clapping games with the unicorns and the gnomes who would always win at hide-and-seek in the shadows. She thought of her mother, who would stand at the door to the yard and hear their peals of laughter behind the line of trees as they ran from one end of the forest to the other, skipping over large rocks and throwing leaves.

            Often, when her and her sister would invite friends over, Elodie and May would rush them into their forest to introduce them to the elves that liked to sleep on the leaves. They would look eagerly for the unicorns that grazed in mossy patches, or even the gnomes who always rushed towards them whenever they came to the wood. Elodie’s friends would bounce on their toes as they anticipated their play with the fairies and share stories with the ghosts, but whenever they stepped foot in the forest, everyone seemed to have left. Elodie would call to friends that would never show, leaving her to play outside the wood with her school friends.

            What lay behind that first line of trees was special only to Elodie and May, which came to their realization much later. The gnomes never spoke to their mother or even their closest cousins. Warmth grew in Elodie as she rested her rounded chin on her fist looking back at the wood now. For some reason, it had chosen her and May to be the winners of the gifts that lay beneath its limbs.

            In the weeks that passed after the first box was packed, Elodie found herself waking to the deep quiet of the house. Before, she would be rustled awake by May or by the sounds of breakfast in the small kitchen. She would doze for hours beneath the sun as it warmed her room well into the morning, and Elodie thought of those bright beginnings as she sat behind the lace curtain. As the house slowly packed itself away into boxes, Elodie had realized the small cottage no longer belonged to late mornings filled with pancakes and squeals of laughter across the wooden table in the kitchen. In the rear of her mind, Elodie became aware that the creaking wooden floors and drafty windows were no longer hers, either. The day she realized that the forest would stay with all that as well was when she started to wake with the fog.

            She discussed this with May through bleated cries, but she was not as concerned as Elodie. She mustn’t have noticed how their friends in the wood wouldn’t talk to others or how the magic from the leaves would fade with each step that took them farther from the trees.

“Elodie,” she chastised, brushing her long hair in the wide mirror of their shared bathroom, “They are where they belong, being in the forest.”

“But—” Elodie tried to interrupt, but May stopped her quickly.

“What are you going to do, anyway? Pack them up in one of the boxes? That wouldn’t be very nice of you.”

            Elodie had watched May in disbelief as she continued to run the brush through her silky hair. She took in her own appearance and tried to remember the last time she took a brush through her own unruly hair. The auburn strands danced around her head in knotted curls that had been whipping through the wind all morning. Ignoring her own hair, Elodie invited may out to the wood for play before tea, but May was busy planning her outfit for the next morning, and couldn’t find the time to make it outside before dark. The next morning, Elodie woke to the gray of dawn.

            Elodie furrowed her brow as she moved the quilt over her head and crossed its corners beneath her chin. Her nose was making breathy dew on the cold glass of the window and she brushed it away with her fingertip, bringing the forest into view once more. Again, the branches waved, and she couldn’t suppress a smile. When it got warmer in the late morning Elodie would run to dance with the leaves once more. In the wood, packing boxes and hairbrushes did not matter, and Elodie would run through as many adventures as she could before lunch. Peeking behind into the hallway through the patterns of the curtain, Elodie smiled softly. She would let May sleep a little more, she thought. Turning once more to the small window, Elodie watched the trees sway towards her again as the risen sun warmed her face.