More Wingsense

Mara turned and half dove into the cool of the river, here in a deep stretch where it became a different world. Blind, mute, and nearly deaf, Mara knew everything by touch alone. The cooler dampness pointed down, and down her hands reached, to touch the gravelly silt as she felt herself carried along. Touching from the harsh other world, filtered through the muddy depths, a faint call reached her ears, and the sharper mutterings of the birds filled in what her ears had missed. Surfacing, she turned to see as much as hear her aunt, standing from the little yellowwood porch, calling her.

She swam now because it was more efficient, faster and more graceful than trudging waist deep through the muddy water, but when she was younger she had thought herself beautiful and extravagant, often swimming with her legs together in a clumsy and vain approximation of some river creature. At some point, however, she had come to realize that not only did this look ridiculous, but her aunt would have turned back to other things long before the display could be properly admired. As with most things, Aunt Alondra and her daughter Wren chose simply to ignore Mara’s differences and unusual habits… living there was like being always a guest, a welcome guest amoung close relatives, but a guest nonetheless, expecting a home but not instruction, a bed but not a raising.

For whatever reason she had always been a bit separate, like the new cousin instead of a sister. Perhaps it was because she had come later, when she was five and already her own person in the ways that mattered most. It wasn’t as obvious at first, when running around the house and to the little millpond was all the exploring she sought, but as she grew older it became apparent… she was a hawk, while the others were chickens. She spent lazy afternoons exploring sky blue springs and darkling caves downstream, while Wren was happier sitting on the little porch, overlooking her familiar stretch of river, reveling in the comfortable sameness.