Disclaimer: I own neither the sheer brilliance that is the fantastic, magical realm of Harry Potter, nor the lilting music-box waltz that is Josh Ritter's lovely song (which I highly recommend listening to, by the way).
Long ago on the ship, she asked, "Why pyramids?"
He said, "Think of them as an immense invitation."
She asked, "Are you cursed?" He said, "I think that I'm cured."
Then he kissed her and hoped that she'd forget that question.
-The Curse, Josh Ritter
Faded Apple Blossoms
It's a lovely little room, the room with the big, bright window and the pale muslin curtains.
The walls are a warm cream that speaks of the simpler times that she reads about in books; of petticoats and apple blossoms and fountain pens scratched swiftly against thick vellum in dark, sweeping, graceful precision.
The desk and chair are made of honey-colored wood, tucked perfectly in companionable tandem into the corner by the white-framed window where the blue curtains billow gently on days when there's a breeze and the latch is lifted.
The bed is small and comfortable; safe. It is the bed of child – a soft, lavender quilt of comfort and a pillow embroidered like an Impressionist garden. It lies exposed to the air and the warmth of the room: no heavy curtains hang about it to close it off from the world around it, and it soaks in fresh air and sunshine and the scent of rain like a sponge.
The closet is full of clothes: dresses and blouses and jumpers and shoes – pastel, sweet; the wardrobe of a little girl. They've not been worn for nearly a year, and the pastels are growing paler due to fading and disuse.
The walls are bare save for a dainty overhead light fixture and a delicate silver-framed mirror that hangs near the door, slightly dusted-over from neglect. Once it was full of hopeful eyes and shy smiles and girlish ambitions; quiet freckles punctuated by the way the occasional shaft of sunlight would fall through the window and throw a square of laughing light on the floor.
Three-quarters of an entire wall are filled, ceiling-to-floor, with books of all shapes and sizes: with crisp, well-cared-for covers and spines cracked from overuse; with gilded pages and dog-eared chapters, printed calligraphy on the front cover and a name written in a neat, pointed hand on the inside. A small stepping stool that rocks slightly when used waits attentively in front of the shelves, its wood worn smooth in one spot where small feet once eagerly raised up on tiptoes.
The bedside table supports a sophisticated reading lamp with a scarlet lampshade, and the rich dark of the stand stretches smoothly down to graze against the honey-colored wood that matches the desk and chair. In the drawers lie bookmarks and a silk-covered journal and sheets of clear, crisp, lined paper and a black ballpoint pen and the beginnings of a childish fantasy that will never be finished.
It is a place of light; of sunshine and youthful dreams and an innocence she has almost forgotten. It is a picture from a time she can hardly remember, a picture that speaks to her of apple blossoms and lullabies and childhood just as clearly as the cream of the walls. It is a haven; a sweet, warm nest that belongs to a girl she doesn't even know anymore.
She pauses in the doorway, one hand still resting on the handle, the other gripping her trunk. There is nothing impressive about her revelation, nothing dramatic. It is merely a sudden, startling realizing that spreads in a painful ache from where it takes root in her very core and drips slowly, thoughtfully, into her heart as she sits and stares.
This was where she spent her childhood: here, among the soft colors and sweet scents and friends she crafted for herself from the ivory gentleness of fairy tales and climactic adventures. She cried here, laughed here, dreamed here; spilled her countless fears and even more enumerable ambitions to the sunshine-painted confines of this room.
And now it's so unfamiliar that it brings her up short.
She does not know this place, not anymore. She recognizes it vaguely, looking back through the fogged-over window of a train pulling out from a rainy platform with a billow of steam, but she is a stranger here now, and this world of childish fantasy and possibility does not belong to her any longer. The knowledge cuts deep into her suddenly as a soft burst of wind makes the pale blue curtains billow, and for a moment she finds it hard to breathe.
She'd known, a year ago, that it would be hard to leave this place she'd loved so well for so long.
She just never dreamed that it would be even more difficult to return.