The Secret Door

Standing tall above all the others, her beauty radiated like the shimmer of the sunlight. Slim as a pencil, with long spindly fingers, a garment made from the finest emerald velvet, covered her entire body, down to her ankles. The woman stood high, on golden heels of silk, towering like a heavenly goddess. Her four arms extended, cascading down the dress she wore, just hanging loose. The wings attached to her back were smooth to touch, little mountains that repeated the pattern. They fell just below her legs dragging on the cool floor. Her face was the most beautiful of all. A backward facing bird head, with beady eyes in the back of her skull, the colour of brown, grainy sugar. Her beak pointed at the end of her nose, golden and sharp like a knife. It was unclear if she could even smile, but she was the one I had loved. I could not love her enough, but the secret she kept, only kept her away from me.

When the dawn broke, and the sun had yet to awaken from its slumber. I heard tiptoes outside my bedroom door. The room was still covered in a blanket of darkness, but I could just make out a figure at the window besides me. As I peered out, the clouds still grey and light not fully visible, searching among the newly cut grass and rose bushes of my flower garden, I saw her gliding along the path, her beak pointed north, her beady black eyes focused on what was happening in front of her.

Slowly and quietly, I dressed myself in a dressing gown, made from exquisite silks I had bought when I visited India. Creaking the door, I tiptoed through the house and along the mahogany stairs, that rattled as I walked, wandering into the garden of thorns. She was just out of view. I chased my lover, the gentle breeze in the air blowing my long, blonde locks into my face as I ran. I was now so very close to her; I could smell her scent inside my throat.

I hid behind a rose bush and peered through, my hands just peeping over the hedge, my round glass eyes watching her every move.

Like an angel, she walked as though she were on a thin piece of ice. She turned her head to face the front, so she resembled a human, checking all around her for any movement. I was safe. She could not hear or scent any part of me. Using her gangly arm, she reached inside her velvet garment, pulling out a tiny, golden key. She walked towards a simple tree, its trunk exposed, it’s green leaves still swaying in the wind, and pushed the key towards it.

From the tree bark, a lock appeared. A key shaped hole, surrounded by the shape of a heart, made from gleaming metal. One push with her twig like fingers, and just like a door, the tree trunk released itself. An opening of wonder, a secret world different from her own. Her head spun around clockwise. Nothing. I was silent as I watched, holding in my breath. As she gracefully stepped down into the darkness, I waited for a moment for her return. Nothing. It seemed she was not coming back for a while.

Leaving the comfort of the rose bush, I gingerly stepped in front of the tree trunk. The darkness inside the hole inviting me inside. With one deep breath in, I ventured into the unknown.

I was invited into a forest. Thick and dense unlike the garden I was used too. In the distance, my lover sat crossed legged, upon a branch high above me. As I climbed high, using all my strength to clamber up, I could see a large human sized nest coming into view. The trees and leaves covered the shaggy nest of twigs, but through the trees I could see the babies.

I loved this woman of mine, but it seemed she was a mother already. Her children cried out for love and attention; their mouths wide open like a blue whale. Tiny, grainy, brown sugar-coloured heads with miniature golden beaks, their four human arms dangled besides their wings.

From her own beak she began to feed them all. Large, juicy worms with slimy bodies squirming, a beautiful thing to witness. It seemed I was torn, heartbroken that my lover would keep such a secret from me but touched watching over her mothering ways. I smiled to myself, but then felt myself beginning to fall from the branch I was holding onto. Too weak to hold my weight, I felt it cracking into two pieces tumbling to the ground. Not such a soft landing, I fell flat on the earth undergrowth, and as I began to look at my wounds, the figure of my lover came flying into view.

As she landed upon the ground, more gracefully than I had done, I was met with a comforting smile of forgiveness.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me right now.” She said with a whisper.

To which I replied. “I should be the one begging your forgiveness, I should not have turned away, I should have respected you.”

We both touched each other’s foreheads and touched lip and beak together, under the cool morning sun.

“Come and see my children.” She suggested, her golden beak radiating. “It’s time that you should