A Midnight Stroll

         The wind chimes tinkled in the light southerly breeze. High and bright, the moon lay fair in the night sky, filling the manicured lawn with a dusting of white frost. Fireflies were out and dancing to the lively tunes of the crickets’ swift moving legs.
         The lights from the windows cast moving squares of shaded yellow onto the grass. Figures could be seen behind the curtained glass: talking, standing, moving, dancing, and laughing. The muffled sound of music drifted out onto the back porch.
         A fine night, Malcolm thought, it’s a pity that she has let this party nearly ruin it. He fingered the silver band on his left hand and sighed. He walked down the four steps that led to the garden and treasured the lovely sound of his shoes on wet cement. A low fog had left a shimmering blanket of dew on most of the grounds. The mist still held in the lower pockets of turf, shifting around his feet as he moved past the topiary shrubs that stood silent sentinel at the path’s head.
         High hedges filled his vision, towering several feet above his head; a maze that shaped his ambling gait into sharp lefts and angling rights. Walls of green, dense leaves closed him in leaving him cut off from the lights of the house. Drifting shadows and tendrils of heavy air filtered about the grass at his feet. Looking back, he could see the footprints he had left behind, darker ovals of disturbed dew.
         A lightning bug sparked before him and slid away into a hedge, a living fire swaying into blackness and green. The path turned and he followed it. A fountain bloomed from the earth, sending trickling petals of water to the ever-moving pool below. At its pinnacle, a boy stood – carved of white stone – holding a pail that spilled over and ran to join the water underneath him. His shoulders sprouted great, still wings that seemed to billow and move in the dappled, midnight shadows that rode over him. A smile was upon his face. His eyes were blank depressions in rock.
         “Hello.” Malcolm breathed, his voice barely above a whisper, “You don’t mind me being here, do you?”
         A firefly alighted on its sculptured hair and pulsed. Wind toyed with the edges of Malcolm’s heavy, blue coat. There was a great, green silence broken only by the minute trickling of water splashing back home again.
         “He who is silent is understood to consent,” he said, a quiet smile spreading his lips, “I won’t disturb anything. I promise.”
         Malcolm removed a pipe from his coat pocket, filled it with tobacco from an old leather pouch, lit it with a silver lighter, and breathed out cool smoke into the night. A strong smell of holly and blackberries filled the air. The tobacco soothed him and he filled his lungs with it. He savored the acrid sting as he exhaled through his nose and sat on the stone edge of the fountain. Dipping his hand into the water and enjoying the chill that rode up his arm, Malcolm let his eyes travel across the center of the maze. Small metal and wood benches lined the geometric paths that veered in from four separate openings in the hedge and joined in a wide circle of grass about the fountain. Wide, ornamental flowers of white and red spread in fragrant fleur-de-lis before each entrance, the tips pointing to the sharp breaks in the high, green hedge. The moon, gibbous and round, sent beams of cool white to mingle in mist and envelope him.
         As quiet as a cathedral, he thought, breathing in the silence with his pores and basking in the solitude.
         “Come back inside, Malcolm.”
         He started and stood. A woman reclined behind him, clothed in gossamer and mist, on the grass. Her flame red hair was curiously stirred about her pale face by a wind that he could neither feel nor sense and her eyes glowed with a faint hazel-green in the passing light of cloud and moon. Long and slender, her body seemed to shimmer with a pale incandescence that glinted from the dew about her. Her fingers toyed with the blades of grass upon which she lay. She neither smiled nor frowned and a flower bloomed yellow in her hair.
         Shaken, afraid and lost, he spoke quickly, “Who are you?”
         Her laughter blossomed white flowers about her, “Do you not know?”
         “I think…I…” he stammered.
         “Come back inside, my love.”
         In the moonlight on the damp green before him, the woman shifted and sat up; her body a perfection carven from winter snow, pale and lovely. She traced her slender fingers over the grass and lilies broke from the earth. She smiled. “I miss you. I need to have you near to me, my love.” She spoke again and the scent of roses filled the air.
         She rose and moved to him, as graceful as grace itself. Her steps left no mark on the verdant turf and her eyes never left his. His breath came in ragged surges. Her arms surrounded his neck and she placed her ear to his chest. The smell of growing things and bright sun filled his senses. Her body was small and her touch thrilled him.
         Her voice was breath and wind, “Come back to me, Malcolm.”
         He closed his eyes and felt her against him; summer warmth, spring joy, autumn sadness and winter beauty. Years slipped by, seasons blurred, wine aged and became sweet to his tongue. He breathed her in and swam in delirious drunkenness.
         And she was gone. A phantom dispersed by the breeze. He stood alone by a fountain in a garden surrounded by hedges. Malcolm was shaken but smiled. He turned and moved through the green behind him, back to light and sound, back to friends and family.
         As he felt the solid cement of the first step of the stairs leading to the porch under foot, he heard the back door open. The sound of crickets returned and Annie stood, outlined in light and warmth, in the doorway.
         “I was wondering where you’d run off to,” she said.
         Her hair was pulled back above her neck, red and glorious. Her pale skin shone, her wedding band glinted on her finger – a match to his own. Her clothing was plain, simple and unpretentious.
         Malcolm engulfed her in an embrace and lifted her into the air. “I heard you calling for me.”
         “But I didn’t…” she began to protest, laughing as he spun her under the moon.
         He kissed her and tasted spring. He let himself be led back into the house, where delight and music devoured them both.

The End