Link to part one: here Wordcount: 905 Part: 7/9
Synopsis: Jasmine and the thunderbird find their common ground at last.
The thunderbird dove into the clouds and was gone. I spun to face the emptiness of the bell grove around me. “He’s gone again. He flew away. Tormaigh, where are you?”
Thunder rolled and the wind blew against the multitude of bells. The musical drone rose in pitch and volume, notes against the rhythm of the storm. I searched the trees for Tormaigh. I knew he must be nearby. He didn’t wander far from me. Lightning pulsed from the approaching cloudbank. I scowled at it. Maybe the bird liked bells, but clearly, his real problem was storms. How was I supposed to get anywhere when he was always flying off to jockey lightning bolts around the sky? Where was Tormaigh?
“Well, follow him,” he said, standing at my elbow. “Aren’t you going to go after him?”
I faced Tormaigh. “I can’t. He flies so much faster than I can run, and when he gets above the clouds, I completely lose him. Besides, I can’t get him to listen when he’s thundering.”
“You might be surprised.” He crooked an eyebrow. “He’s always been listening to you.”
I shook my head. “What’s the use? I can’t find him now.”
“Try.”
I sighed and turned toward the darkness. Light burst inside the towering cumulonimbus clouds. For a few minutes, I watched for the bird, but he didn’t appear. Tormaigh had gone. All that was left to do was start walking.
My hands dropped into my pockets and I trudged through the dark navy water to the glass shore. I was glad I hadn’t bothered with shoes that morning when I tiptoed out onto the dewy lawn. I would definitely be getting blisters by now. For about twenty minutes I walked against the wind. The sound of the storm grew.
Then, he dropped out of the clouds, blazing with electricity, feathers combing upward through the wind. Lightning burst everywhere, spreading to the edges of the sky. The mammoth bird dove, wings spreading, crests fanning to an enormous frill that spread out all around its head. It called, drowning the thunder for an instant. I drew in a breath and ducked. There was another flash and he pulled in his wings.
A shockwave broke through the atmosphere and I fell on my hands, jarring my wrists. I spun back around and looked up. The bird was standing there blinking at me intently waiting for me to get back up. I got to my feet and he jumped backward a good seven or eight feet. He landed bending one knee and stretching his other leg gracefully straight out behind him. He swept his arms back and made eye contact with me.
I couldn’t respond. Dancing? He jumped, spinning around in mid-air and landed a few feet in front of me, emitting a brilliant ringing call. His ears flared and flicked down. He jumped backward and repeated his bowing routine. Again, his eyes focused on me. “You want me to dance?” I asked. Before I could finish the question, he trilled and sprung toward me again spreading his arms toward the flickering sky. I couldn’t help but smile. “I can’t dance like you.”
The bird ignored my objections and circled around behind me. The sound of the bells and the wind was changing. I could almost hear a full chord emerging out of the ambience. I’m sure what happened next must have been my imagination. When the bird circled back in front of me and spread his arms skyward, I cleared the lingering frustration from my mind and mirrored him. For a second he held the position, and I let my thoughts settle into dance mode. I could do this.
From there I followed his every move. Every step was clear and smooth, a natural transition from the one before. He started slow, the solid black eyes absorbing the rhythm of my dance. The wind picked up and thunder sounded overhead. We were moving faster now. We sprung sideways to the left and took sweeping steps backward away from each other, in perfect sync. Soon, I realized I couldn’t tell if I was following him or if he was following me. I found myself anticipating the moves as if I were formulating them myself. The delay between his movement and mine had been erased.
We closed the space between us and lightning swept over the glass prairie. The bird trilled and I smoothly pivoted so that I faced away from him. We now faced the same direction, yet the difficulty never entered my mind. I struck out into an arabesque and leapt back onto my trailing foot. He must have jumped at exactly the same time. Electricity pulsed through my veins. There must have been something to that—the charge that raced over my skin when we passed within inches of each other. He was generating some kind of an electrical field.
Lightning spread over the sky, forking off in every direction. I spread my arms back and upward. Feathers brushed against my wrist. I spun back to face him, and thunder ripped through Echoland. I couldn’t see the wings, but I knew they were there. He stepped back from me, and for an instant, his face changed. For an instant, he was human, he could understand me. But I couldn’t shake myself from the spell. I jumped back toward him, and the dance picked up like the storm that circled us.