"What are you doing, sweetums?" Grandmother Blythe had come to set a pie made by Nan--Auntie Nan was famous for her apple pies--on the table in the Ingleside kitchen, and found it covered with pieces of newsprint and sticks and bits of string. Presiding over the mess was a very flustered Cecilia, whose fingers with sticky with glue.
"I'm making a kite," Cecilia said, not looking up from her work. "Or at least I'm trying to. Uncle Bruce will be back from his visit to Charlottetown on Thursday--in time for us to go to the shore again. Oh, Grandmother, isn't a kite a marvelous thing? When you fly it, you can feel like part of your self is up there, soaring about in the clouds."
The visits to the shore had become a regular thing. They went at least once a week, just Uncle Bruce and Leslie and since Leslie had gone, sometimes Trudy, who was just over her summer cold. Joy had not given up her fight to be included, but Uncle Bruce seemed to really see into Cecilia's soul and know that there was some rift there between her and Joyce. But he never asked about it, and he never made remarks about what a pity it was that the girls didn't get along, like the other aunts and uncles. He seemed to know that some people, though they were connected by blood, were not of the same kindred.
Cecilia had benefited from those trips. The warm sun and sound of the waves was healing to her little hurt soul. She had mastered all sorts of different strokes-- the backstroke, the side crawl, and the butterfly, and the repeated exercise had made the muscles in her arms and shoulders long and lean. That, along with the caramel color of her sun-bronzed skin and the dear little freckles that popped out over her nose, made Grandmother Blythe reflect that perhaps she really was the beauty of the family-- she did not have the overblown prettiness of Joyce or the sweet, apple-checked ruddy good looks of Merry and Trudy, but there was something dark and velvety and haunting about her face.
"I'm going to get you a red kerchief and some gold-earrings and you'll look just like a gypsy child," Grandmother Blythe laughed. "Darling, why don't you run down to the House of Dreams and see if Uncle Ken is around? He's not a whiz at putting things together like your own father is, but he'll do in a pinch. Have a piece of apple pie, first, darling-- why, she's already gone!" It was true-- Cecilia had flown out the door and down the lane before the words were hardly out of Grandmother's mouth. That fine woman turned her eyes to the wake of chaos on the table and she shook her graying head in mock dismay.
Anne Blythe pressed her lips together and bit her tongue gently to keep from saying something truly grandmother-ish about all this fuss over a kite. She knew that when you are fourteen the most unexpected things can have a secret importance, known only to your own heart. She would not clear away the mess. Instead, she took a stack of plates and napkins out to the verandah and started setting the little round table. It would be a nice change, to eat under the shade of the birches and to drink in the blue sea that was shining in the distance.
By the time Uncle Bruce drove up the Ingleside drive, his car already loaded with cold drinks and the beach umbrella, Cecilia had her kite. It was not a colorful, beautiful kite like she had wanted, but Uncle Ken had assured her that it would fly much better if it was shaped this way. Cecilia had colored it with crayons, but the bright colors could not dull the starkness of the newsprint. Uncle Bruce's face creased in a grin--which he quickly hid-- when he saw her coming down the walk with the contraption carefully under her arm.
"Where is Trudy?" asked Cecilia, after kissing him, settling the kite gingerly on her lap.
"She's being punished," said Uncle Bruce gravely. "Apparently she was impertinent at dinner time. Shall we go pick up Merry? Or Nelly Douglas, or Cathy?"
"No," said Cecilia absent-mindedly. "Let's just go the two of us today."
So Trudy had been impertinent again. As the days narrowed between Trudy and her own fourteenth birthday, she and Aunt Rilla seemed to be always at odds with each other. Cecilia had heard that it was often like that-- girls fought with their mothers during their teenage years. It was a way of showing independence. Nelly Douglas and Mary Vance had terrible rows that could be heard two blocks away! But Cecilia hadn't expected such behavior of a Ford, of Ingleside.
"I know if Mother was here, we wouldn't be fighting," she thought, fighting the lump in her throat. "Not ever." Uncle Bruce again seemed to discern what she was thinking, and wisely left her alone to her thoughts instead of trying to pull her out of them.
They drove in silence, Cecilia staring out the window unseeing, until they passed the Four Winds Light. "Oh, wait!" Cecilia suddenly cried. "Aren't we going to the Bay Shore?"
"I thought this would be a nice change," Uncle Bruce said, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, no, Uncle Bruce," Cecilia began. "You see--I thought-- but we have to go to the Bay Shore!"
"Oh really?" said Uncle Bruce in a droll tone.
"Yes!" Cecilia almost shouted, and then tried to compose herself. "What I mean is, the current is much gentler at the Bay Shore than in Four Winds. I had hoped to practice my strokes today. And you know what a poor swimmer I am."
She said all this with her eyes downcast so she would not see the grin on Uncle Bruce's face. They both knew Cecilia was a champion swimmer.
"Well," said Uncle Bruce gravely. "If we must, we must." He turned the car onto the Shore road and Cecilia heaved a sigh of relief. Bruce turned on the radio and started singing along so that Cecilia would not see his wild desire to laugh. The poor dearie! And that monstrous kite! Her face was like a book-- anyone could see why the Bay Shore was where she wanted to go.
The boy with the kite had been there every day. Cecilia wondered if he had any parents? How was he able to get away so often? Where had he gotten his kite? He certainly hadn't made it-- if he had, he was a much better craftsman than her and Uncle Ken. She had taken to going on long walks every time she saw his bright beacon flying, under the pretense that it was good for digestion. When she neared the boy on the dunes she pretended to be looking for shells, and though there were beautiful shells there, like tiny unicorn horns, she never saw them. She was too busy watching the colored kite swirl and dip, and the boy's broad, bronzed back as he flew it.
Once she had gotten close enough to see the melancholy look on his face.
He never spoke to her, though she willed him to. But perhaps he thought they had nothing in common? That was why she had made her own kite. So he would see. At least, Cecilia thought that was how it was done. It struck her that Mother really should be here to advise her on such matters. She could ask Grandmother, and Aunties Rilla or Nan, but really, it was a Mother's job. For the first time, a flare of anger against her Mother welled in her heart, though she quickly quashed it.
As she drew near to the dunes now, she felt her cheeks flush. It wasn't that the sun was beating down on them--she had forgotten her hat. It was something else. Setting herself up a short distance from the boy, she unfurled her own kite-string and ran about a bit, getting it off the ground.
How laughable her own kite looked in comparison to his! She cringed; what if he laughed at her?
The boy had noticed her, though, and he wasn't laughing--only smiling a little. He met her eyes across the dunes and, like a challenge, raised his own kite even higher.
Cecilia raised hers and smiled back triumphantly. Uncle Ken had been right about the shape.
The boy made his kite swoop down to ward the ocean, and then back up again.
Cecilia did the same-- even though she hadn't the faintest idea how to do it or how she did it, and laughed aloud. It was like they were playing a game, without even speaking. They stayed that way for a while, matching each other action for action, every swoop and dip.
Until the boy did some complicated maneuver where the kite twirled three times overhead, and then dipped almost to the sand, before pulling it up again. Cecilia lamely attempted to do the same--she managed the three twirls and then a dip-- and the kite came down with a thump and a whack on her head that made her sit down suddenly in the sand, dazed. For a moment the world spun around her, and when it righted itself, he was at her side.
"That's some bump!" he said. "I thought you were down for the count. Sit here a moment-- that's it, just to make sure you aren't hurt."
"You might not have done something so complicated when you knew I couldn't match it," said Cecilia grumpily, forgetting all the words she had rehearsed saying to him at their first encounter.
"I didn't know," the boy said, laughing now. "For all I knew, you might have been a kite aficionado."
"Or virtuoso," he added skeptically, when he saw her newsprint bird.
His name was Sid Gardiner. He was visiting relatives at the Bay Shore, and he said he would teach Cecilia to do what he had done with the kite. But first she needed a good one--her little homemade kite had been ruined when it fell from the sky. Sid picked on from the store--a bright, royal blue one that he knew was perfect when he saw it. It was the exact same color as her eyes.
Cecilia had never found it so easy to talk to anyone, outside of her own family. She began begging Uncle Bruce to take her to the beach more and more, until it was an almost daily trip. After swimming halfheartedly for a while, she waited until Uncle Bruce was immersed in his book before setting off down the beach to meet Sid. They would stand very close to each other, arms and legs akimbo, flying their kites but not even noticing the fantastic patterns they made against the bright blue sky. They were too busy watching each other-- if they were not careful their strings got tangled, and the kites crashed to the ground. But they did not notice that either.
Then they would sit and talk while straightening the knots in the strings. They were very much alike, Cecilia found. It was so easy to tell Sid everything-- even about Mother--even about Susan. It was easy to tell him. For Sid had lost someone, too.
"Her name was Bets," he said one day, staring out at the blazing blue water. "Bets Wilcox." He told her how pretty Bets had been, and how sweet, and kind, and good, and Cecilia felt inexplicably a pang of jealousy for the dead girl, while at the same time wishing she were not dead. For if Sid had loved her so much, surely Cecilia would, too, since she and Sid were so obviously alike.
He had loved her--that much was evident.
" Even though she was my sister Pat's friend, mostly," he explained. "But when we were together--it was as if we didn't even need to talk, because we already knew what the other was thinking. You know?"
"Yes," said Cecilia, thinking of Little Susan and the bond they had shared. "I know."
"Pat's torn up with grief," Sid said matter-of-factly, busying himself with his string so that Cecilia would not see that his eyes had gone pink. "So they shipped us off to the Bay Shore Aunts for the summer. We normally live at Silver Bush--it's not so far from Ingleside."
They smiled at each other at that-- the fact that they would be able to see each other almost whenever they wanted, even when this magical summer ended.
"Have you ever loved anyone?" Sid asked one day. Cecilia, who would have minded anyone else posing that question to her, did not mind his asking.
"My mother--and father--"
"No," Sid said. "Not like that. Have you ever felt that there was someone who understood you completely, perfectly?"
"No one except--" Cecilia had been about to say except Blythe. But somehow Blythe did not seem to matter so much now. Leslie had been right--he was always off mooning over something, instead of doing. That was part of the reason she liked Sid so much. He was a great person for doing things. And Blythe had always been so focused on-- on himself. Yes, he had written her poetry-- but he always read it aloud so that everyone could tell him how wonderful he was.
"No," she amended herself. "I haven't. But--" She and Sid exchanged a shy look. "I think I could."
It might have been the end of summer, but when Cecilia's hand crept across the sand to Sid's own the two little unhappy souls felt that it was spring in their hearts.
Thanks for the reviews!
Una: Yes, Shirley is about 2 years younger than Una, but I didn't think that would really matter.
Emma: The idea is kind of weird, but first cousins are allowed to marry, and are always doing so in LMM books. I don't know about double first cousins and although Blythe and Cecilia marry in one of my Juliet of New Moon fics, they might not in this one. We'll see.
Terreis: I have NO intention of killing Una off. She's my favorite "next generation" LMM character-- I like her better than any of the Blythe girls and I wouldn't want anything to happen to her.
Marzoog: I like Bruce, too. I always felt that he would be an understanding, kind person, after how he was characterized in ROI.
New chapter up soon! Those of you who are writing stories, update! Those of you who arent-- you should!
Ruby aka Cathy