Melinda frowned, puzzling over the letter that she’d found
on the table, addressed to her. The envelope was weathered and a bit crinkled,
as if it had travelled a long way to get to her tiny house in the woods. She
carefully lifted the letter to examine it. It had several strange stamps on it,
as well as something written in a language she did not recognize. However,
there in the middle of the letter, written in a small clean script, was her
name and address.
“Who’s that from?” asked her mother, as she entered the
kitchen and saw Melinda holding the letter. Melinda shrugged and held it out to
her.
“It looks like it’s come from far away…” Melinda suggested.
Her mother gasped, delighted.
“Oh! Melinda dear, it must be from Mr. Cochon.”
Melinda’s heart froze. Nader Cochon was the son of a friend
of Melinda’s father. He had served in the war across the sea, and had stayed
there when it ended, which would explain the foreign script on the letter. He
was seven years older than her, and their fathers were more of old
acquaintances than great friends, so the two had never met. And, once
arrangements were made, she too was to be sent across the sea to marry him.
Melinda’s mother was nearly shoving the letter into her
hands before she reluctantly took it. Holding it away from her, as if it might
bite, she excused herself and hurried up the narrow stairs to her bedroom.
She dropped the letter onto her desk and stood, eyeing it
from afar. It had fallen next to a framed photograph, one of Melinda’s
favorites. It was an old photograph of her and her older sister Morgana,
dressed in lace and with carefully curled hair. Her sister, dark haired, wore a
smile so faint, that half the time Melinda wasn’t even sure it was there. There
were other photographs framed on a desk as well; a young Melinda gently tugging
and braiding Morgana’s long black hair, Melinda dressed for a school play in a
ridiculous horse costume, Morgana floating in the water (Melinda had taken that
picture herself one summer).
Her heart ached looking at the photographs. She hadn’t seen
her sister in several years. The older girl had been married to a sea captain
and shipped away to the distant coast. The sisters had kept in touch at first,
but over time the letters arrived less and less.
Her gaze slowly returned to this new letter. The sender, her
own husband-to-be, frightened her. It frightened her that she had never seen
the man, it frightened her that he would take her so far away, and it had frightened
her when his family showed her his picture.
Finally, she told herself that it was no good just sitting
there, and what was the worst thing this letter could possibly say?
Unconvinced, she reluctantly opened the envelope.
Only one thing fell out; a photograph. For a moment she
studied it, silent. Then she let out a tiny giggle, and finally laughed out
loud. It was a picture of a carriage, similar to the ones she saw in town, being
pulled by an enormous ostrich. A man was leading the bird, looking almost
straight up to see up its long neck to its tiny head.
Still giggling, she turned the photograph. On the back, in
small neat handwriting, was one short message:
“Caire Strommeyer and his ostrich offering rides through the
park. They both look forward to meeting you.”
She looked at
it for a long time, not sure how to feel. Finally, she set the picture against
one of the frames on her desk. When she didn’t think about who had sent it, the
photograph made her smile.
--
About a week later, Melinda returned from school to find
another letter on the table. It was just as mistreated as the last had been,
and covered in that same foreign script. It made her heart lurch again, but
this time her interest in what could be inside the envelope subdued her nerves.
She pulled it open and slid out another photograph.
The photo showed a man in some sort of elaborate, foreign
costume. He wore some kind of monstrous mask and a large, ornate headpiece with
what looked like two long antennae sprouting from it. He wore an intricately
detailed robe and had a beard so long that he had it wrapped around his waist
and held off in his hand.
“What on earth is that?” Melinda’s mother had heard her
daughter’s giggling from across the house, and now stood eyeing the photograph
skeptically.
Melinda turned it over to see if the sender had written an
answer to her mother’s confusion. She read aloud:
“The dancer Shi Puat was on his way to perform for the
emperor, but he allowed me to take his photo before he left. When I told him of
you, he promised to perform a special dance just for your arrival.”
“Well, isn’t that lovely,” her mother said, trying very hard
to look as though she really did find it lovely. “I’m sure it will be, er, a
wonderful place to live.”
Melinda had been smiling at the picture, but her smile
vanished when she remembered that soon she would indeed be living across the
sea with these people who wore masks and traveled by ostrich. Suddenly the dancer’s
mask didn’t look funny, it looked frightening.
When she returned to her room, she took both photos and
tucked them into the desk drawer. She spent the rest of the afternoon seated at
the desk, staring at the old photograph of her sister and wondering what it
felt like to leave home forever.
--
Several weeks and letters later, however, Melinda’s fears
were replaced with dreams of strange dancers with long beards and sword
swallowers and trapeze artists standing on one another’s shoulders. In her dreams,
she rode an ostrich through villages and past gigantic trees, under enormous
stone sphinxes and beside long-legged birds wearing shoes.
Her desk was covered with photographs of these strange
people. Each came along with a message; “the birds outside my home wear shoes
so they do not get their feet dirty”, “these girls made a pyramid so tall I was
sure they were going to topple over any second”, and always “they all look
forward to meeting you”.
At first she had kept the photographs in her drawer, but she
was constantly taking them out again to look. Finally she propped them back up
against the frames on her desk. By now, there were so many pictures propped up
that it was hard to see the old images of her sister behind them. She liked to
look at them all together, imagining the strange world from which they all
came.
When the last letter came, she eagerly opened it without a
thought. The photo that fell out seemed different then the others; it was
somehow more dark and dreary. It was an image of a soldier in a strange,
pointed mask. He was seated on the ground, looking tired. She turned it over.
“When I first left home for this country,” the note said. “I
was very frightened. Everything seemed so strange and different from home. But
over time I came to realize how exciting and beautiful something so different
can be. I fell in love with this place, and made my home here. I hope these
photos help you love it as I have come to.
I especially look forward to meeting you.”
Melinda smiled at the letter. She smiled at the strange man
in the mask, as well as at the dancer with the beard and the ostrich and all
the rest. She smiled at the thought of the adventure that awaited her.
Suddenly struck by an idea, Melinda rushed upstairs to her
desk. She reached into the drawer until she found a fresh, white envelope. Then
she paused, looking over the old photographs on the desktop. Slowly, she
reached out and chose her favorite; the picture of her and her sister as
children, her sister with that small smile. She carefully pulled it out of the
frame.
Then, she turned it over and began to write.
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