Arthur and the Moon

She lives in a cabin, on the top of a small hill, surrounded almost entirely by a glistening, golden salt marsh field. The wind blows through the stalks, sometimes humming, sometimes hissing, but always a constant and a comfort. The walls are strong, exposed beams, with white plaster filling the gaps between. The wood, once rough hewn, is now worn smooth with time. The light comes in jagged diamonds across the floor, refracted by the pattern in the warbled, old, leaded glass windows. She can often be found working in the wilds of the garden, which holds wonders untold. A hunched little form, working, bent bodied, pulling weeds from the disordered-order that is her masterpiece.

"Witch..." the children whisper, as she walks through town in her layers of silk, and hand tatted lace. Her hair, once a glorious, fiery red, has not been tamed in her old age. It grows in huge, sweeping, riotous abandon, sprouting from her little head like lost ideas of grandeur.

But this is not a tale of old age. This is a story of love, won and lost, too young. Her name is Moon.

No one knew how old the cabin on salt marsh hill actually was. It had always just been there, as if it had grown with the landscape that surrounded it. Moon, also had always been in the cabin it seemed. She stood out, wherever she happened to be. Her hair caught the sun like a torch, and it was impossible to look away from her smile. A soul like that calls to love like a siren, no gentle lullaby, fierce, like the ocean in a storm.

The first time he saw her, he was riding his bicycle along the island road, offering his young services as a handyman, to whomever needed the help. She was sitting on the green carpeted grass that surrounds the cabin. Her head was thrown back, her eyes closed to the brilliance of the sun, and she was completely at ease with her curls blowing in the wind. There was a small smile on her face, and his world just stopped spinning. Unfortunately, so did the wheels of his bike, and he fell in an ungraceful lump in the middle of the rocky, dirt road.

His name was Arthur, like the fabled king of old. He'd grown up on the mainland, but had always dreamed of living among the island people, there was something special about them. Moon jumped out of her daydream, a wandering mind brought back to the light of day. She ran to him, looking down into eyes, yellow green, like the color came straight from the sea grass. Her world stopped, too. That look, that one look, lasted an infinity, and nothing in the world mattered more to either again.

From that day on, they never separated. Moon lived as she had, making breads and pastries, and selling them to the people of the island. She'd always start baking before dawn, in the cabin's brick oven. It was cooler then, and she'd throw the windows open, singing her own magic into the sounds of the morning. Once everything was prepared, Moon would wrap the pieces in tea towels that she'd embroidered with flowers or fairies, or sea shells - whatever suited her mood. Her morsels were then loaded into a large basket, and she was on her way.

Arthur loved the sea almost as much as he loved Moon. In the dark of the early morning, when Moon was quietly waking to craft her fare, Arthur would walk sleepy eyed into the darkness, to the ocean side of their small barrier island home. The water was warm, for most of the year. Warm enough for him to run, childlike and free, into the rush of an approaching wave. He'd dive deep into the dark, welcoming depths, and would stay submerged until his lungs started to hurt from the exertion of not breathing. In the dark of the predawn, phosphorous does glow in the waters of the Atlantic. Arthur would swim out past where his feet could still touch the sandy bank. There he would find himself surrounded by the diminutive forms, glowing, and shooting past his body in the water. The ocean on a summer's night looks like it holds the cosmos inside. The little bits of light zip in and out, over and about, moved by the current. He'd wave his hands through the water, cupping them, and looking down into the glow. He liked to pretend he was a God, holding the stars in his hands. Then the light would start to come, the barest flush of magenta purple on the ocean's horizon, and he knew he needed to head home to begin their day.