Pence Read online

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  The white bird had set the nut wren to task plucking tiny shards of glass out of the whale’s back, most of which were centered around a bottle-sized blowhole. Pence watched her work from within the safety of the white bird’s patchwork purse. She had insisted he ride there–the high winds just below the clouds were unforgiving, although the whale sheared through them easily enough.

  “But can this behemoth fly as fast as the Prince rides on his iron donkey?” Pence called over the wind to the white bird.

  In response, the whale snorted like symbols rung underwater and blasted fountains of air from the staggered holes on its back. This sent the great beast into a swift descent that nearly whipped Pence free of his makeshift saddle.

  “All right!” Pence yelled, his hands cemented over his eyes to keep them from getting chiseled away by the hammering wind. “I get it! You’re the boss! I’m a shrimp! Let up!”

  The whale pulled up sharply. Pence was sure its wings would break off like the arms of a windmill in a hurricane, but they withstood the tremendous force and the whale returned to cruising smoothly above the mountains at a passenger-friendly pace.

  “I ought to thank you for letting me ride in your purse,” Pence said to the white bird, “it’s very chique. Although, myself, I’m more of a cape man.”

  The white bird whistled her indivisible tone.

  “She says it was her honor,” translated the nut wren.

  “And also thanks for saving my penny. That catch was primetime.”

  The white bird bobbed her head modestly.

  “Will we be able to see the garden from on high? It seemed like a pretty big place when I was there, but I never realized the world was so…” Pence trailed off as his eyes drank in the full of the earth, “…so much bigger.”

  The white bird whistled curtly like a woman to her horse.

  “She knows the way,” said the nut wren.

  “You do?” Pence excitedly asked the white bird. “Have you been there before? Do you know my old man? He’s a card. You can nest in his beard–it’s very dirty and unkempt–I’m sure you’ll feel right at home.”

  The white bird whistled; the nut wren translated, “I was there once, child, before the man, before the tree. I have not returned.”

  “Why not?” asked Pence, tone-deaf to the melancholy in the white bird’s melody.

  Again the nut wren translated her elder: “You ask more questions than the old woman. I like your spirit. You strike me to be a well-grounded boy.”

  Pence was beside himself with pride.

  The white bird continued, “There was a time I might have gone back… there was a village I always wanted to visit… it seemed so important at the time. None of it matters now. I flew away. When the White Tree fell, I lost any reason to return. Will the old woman return to the tower, now that it lies in pieces in the sand? Of course not. Neither I to the garden.” Near as the nut wren tried to translate the white bird’s song into notes Pence could make sense of, there was no way to relay her pining emotion as she whistled, “What would a bird say to a stump? Would she sing for it? Give up the wings she wished for? Those endings are a girl’s daydreams.”

  “My old man told me the stump is wise. I’m sure you could find something to talk about.”

  The white bird whistled bittersweetly.

  “She will not return to the garden,” said the nut wren. “The White Tree is felled. She will leave you to your own devices when we arrive, and return to the sea.”

  Pence looked down glumly. Were his old husk nearby, he may well have crawled inside to sulk.

  “But I won’t!” blurted the nut wren all on her own. “I’ll take him in,” she whistled to the white bird. “I’m not scared of that ugly purple man–I already tore up one of his little tricks. Besides, an old friend offered me some free food last time I was there and I hate missing a fresh meal.”

  The white bird nodded her approval and said no more for the rest of the journey.

  Pence studied the horizon. Couched inside the mountains were ravines teeming with unbridled forest growth. He saw waterfalls rushing down ice-capped cliffs, rivers roaming every which way, fish leaping, birds flocking in urgent formation, villages, cities, and entire kingdoms of man, and above them all the omnipresent sun gave light and warmth without license.

  They flew for the rest of the morning and the better part of the afternoon. The sun looked Pence square in the eye, as honorable adversaries must do before an escalating showdown. “You could have done me in easily when I was stuck on that weird vine,” Pence said to his lifelong nemesis.

  The sun said nothing but spoke of tranquility.

  Pence looked away, ashamed. In the distance, he saw the craggy ring of upheld hands–the perimeter of mountains that he had seen when he first left the garden.

  “You gave light to the white flower,” Pence said reluctantly to the sun. “You gave it life, and that gave my Princess life. You did not kidnap her. I think you watched over her. You traveled over the mountains every night for a hundred years to keep her flower alive.”

  The sun twinkled like an old man’s wink.

  “I may be getting on in age,” said Pence, regarding his own sun-browned, parched, and wrinkled skin, “but I still have much to learn.” He stared into the light, deep in thought.