[se] woven web of dreams

MELITA

Wings would suit you was one of the nicest compliments Melita thought she’d ever received, a rosy, ignited grin unfolding across her face at the vivid expression. “How wonderful it would be to fly.” She would’ve liked to have been a Phoenix, like the Sparkbird, a ring and halo of fire around her, feathers spread in embers and ashes, cinders and infernos, dedicating herself to the world in either ruin or sanctuary. A winsome sigh flickered around her as she thought of thunder too, as it burned its way along her mind, days beneath storms and tempests, waiting for an egg to hatch, then losing it all. But she wouldn’t allow the Rift to take from her today – this one was for the summer wind and settled hearts. She hummed and crooned afterwards, again and again, giving and granting them no notes or stanzas because it would lose its beauty with her discordant, raucous voice.

Her hands melded and molded, braided and folded, and she wished her sister were there again, on the other side, working in tandem, laughing. Maybe she was amidst them in spirit, a piece of the grass, an intonation of the flowers, a buzz of the bees; and she shook her head once or twice to clear the cobwebs, the locks from her face, wishing and wanting to see ghosts.

Amalia continued to talk though, more about the bakery, about a place Melita has rarely visited. It was family that buzzed between those nuances though, ones lost and cherished, and the honeybee child could understand, could fathom, the bonds intertwined and then fallen, gone, vanquished, within the blink of an eye. She didn’t ask about them, didn’t tarnish them, but her smile softened, a complexion of filaments and strands, beatific notions without needing to bring them to the surface. “But it sounds like it’s not just you,” and here she laughed, a light giggle of mirth in the boughs of unknown gods. “Maybe you have more around you than you think.” Her hands glided, one pattern after another, the basket forming, finally taking a reasonable shape.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight