I open the large bay doors at the rear of my cottage just in time to see the dying glow of the suns final rays disappearing below the dark watery horizon.   The wind wraps around me like a sheet of ice and I pull my long, navy trench coat tighter around myself to brave the journey out to the cliff’s edge.   Below the waves come crashing in with the strength and sureness that has always been the oceans greatest gift of comfort to me, but also my greatest weakness to reminisce.  Siri.  Even after the eighteen long years since you were taken from me, you are never far from my thoughts.

I reach inside my jacket and find the hard, bright red ,waxen tip of a freshly made paper glider.  The wax helps weight the plane so it can withstand the ocean breezes, as does the firm bright white card from which it is made.  The invariable love expressed within it’s folds a haunting and sad testament, almost a prayer, to a love that most would have learned to live without long ago.  But not I.  Many would call me a fool, others a hopeless romantic, others still noble of heart and pure of soul.   But aren’t we all if we search hard enough?  For myself,  I simply cannot forget the love and the joy she brought me, and hence my search has now brought me here.

“The day is gone, and all it’s sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and languorous waist!

Faded the flower and all it’s budded charms

Faded the sight of beauty from mine eyes,

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise –

Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve,

When the dusk holiday – or holinight –

Of fragrant-curtained love begins to weave

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;

But, as I’ve read love’s missal through today,

He’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.”

Luckily the bay here is actually quite sheltered, or even a sturdy plane would not hold up to the winds that can tear at a coastal dwellers home.  In a calm moment I launch the plane into the icy void, and watch the last golden rays of the sun glow from it’s pure white wings.  The breeze lifts it high into the air as the wind from the cliff face below rises from where , beneath the cold deep green waves, possibly the greatest friend I’ve ever had, lies in slumber.

Soon I will be with Pegasus again, soon I will again be with my Princess. But will I ever again be with my Siri ?  Even if I do find her, NO, when I find her, it will mean a battle more fierce than any history has ever known.  So be it. I have to hold onto hope.

As I loose sight of my cry for love into the pending night, I turn and walk slowly back into the warmth of my cottage and close the tall glassy doors behind me.  Within waits another of my  great passions,  my Snow White Steinway Piano.  As I begin playing I know my new friend and colleague the Librarian won’t be far away.

“Princess”,  I call into the building warmth.  “ Yes Professor Merin.”  “ How’s the documentation coming, any references yet?”  “ Not yet Professor”  ‘ Any sign of our friends?”  “ Not as yet Professor, I’ll be sure and let you know immediately if they do.” “ Thank You Princess.”

“Riddle me this Professor,  what do the following words all have in common, “deft, first, calmness, canopy, laughing, stupid, crabcake & hijack”?”  She always had loved her riddles, never could understand it though.   “I’ll have to think about that one Princess.”  “ As you wish Professor.”

The open fire crackles and sparks,  giving a friendly glow to the inside of my temporary reprieve from the outside worlds.  I play my Steinway, loosing myself in the movement of my fingers dancing across it’s immaculate keyboard, and the crescendo of sound that lifts my heavy heart like few things still can.

An interesting thing to note about the Professor, if you were to meet him.   As with all entrants to the Estate, the Gatekeeper had given him seven Sigla on his forehead in an uneven row, the intriguing thing about the Professor was an eighth Siglum, centered below the others.  Many of the other residents had asked him the meaning of the extra mark, but as nobody was really sure what the marks meanings were it was an easy enough question to avoid.  If only they knew ;   Merin knew.

For  Lisa.