If you missed someone that much, it would have been good to add the story you memorized and recite it every day, but that person focused on studying rather than reminiscing.
Uncle Shawn’s reading class progressed more smoothly than planned, and soon it was time for writing.
It was a class that even Sir Arthur Gillen, who had trouble reading sentences in order, would have found quite difficult.
However, Uncle Shawn had devised a writing method that perfectly suited that person once again.
To learn to write in that way, first of all. Sir Arthur Gillen had to say aloud the story he wanted to write. Even if he could not write, he spoke very well.
Then Uncle Shawn busily wielded his pen to take down what he said. That was quite a challenge for Uncle Shawn. Truly, it was a relief that Sir Arthur Gillen’s speech was slow.
When the writing was complete, it was Uncle Shawn’s turn to read it aloud. He paid attention so as not to speak too quickly, reading each character slowly and clearly. Then, Sir Arthur Gillen sat in front of the old walnut desk and copied down each character.
Indeed, countless sheets of paper were wasted. Yet Uncle Shawn did not begrudge it.
He said that if a boy who grew up feeling inadequate because he was slow to read and write, like Sir Arthur Gillen, learned to read storybooks and write his thoughts in letters, then it was worth using thousands, even tens of thousands of sheets of paper.
Sir Arthur Gillen, not to waste Uncle Shawn’s kindness, always laid bare his honest heart and faithfully copied it down.
Thus, every night, I lay on my stomach on the attic floor and listened to his innermost thoughts.
I kept his low and sweet voice, and his somewhat amusing tone, in my ears. After Uncle Shawn swiftly wrote it down by hand, he read it back in a rough voice, not missing a single character, which I kept in my heart. Finally, in the silence, I thought about the sincere words that would again be written in clumsy script.
In the stillness of the late night, I occasionally heard the sound of a pen scratching against paper. I recalled the longing that might lie somewhere between those rustling noises.
Aunt Marilyn, I knew.
I knew how many days and nights he stayed up, trying to write the name Edwina properly.
He sometimes filled an entire sheet of paper with just that name. And, still not satisfied, he said he would write it as neatly as possible and wrote another sheet, then said he just liked writing that name and wrote yet another sheet, tucking it against his chest.
Everything he wrote was a love letter directed toward that woman named “Edwina.”
On some days, it was about me and Primrose’s stories, and on the next night, he drew a view of Uncle Shawn’s general store.
On the rare occasion when it rained and the night air felt chilly, he spoke of the harsh cold the two had endured together. When the cabin’s roof collapsed and he slept again in the leaf house, he talked about how beautiful the night sky looked through the leaves the following day.
He wrote all of it down and took it to the cabin, then tucked it away in an old wooden box, so cherished that he never once showed it to me.
When I secretly opened that box once, I truly was astonished. Papers burst forth with a pop, like a bomb.
Even so, you would have thought he would use another box, but he always crammed more sheets into that little wooden box every time.
I sometimes snuck a quick read of the one on top. I also lay in the attic, secretly listening to many more stories. The more I heard, the more I knew, the bigger my feelings for him grew. That is what it meant to know someone. The more you knew, the more your heart swelled, opened, showed its tender light, and grew larger, like a water-soaked pinecone drying out.
Sometimes, the stories I overheard in secret made my heart ache. Among the many sweet words he spoke were layers of yearning that pierced the heart.
I pitied him for missing someone so much, and then, suddenly, I disliked that person who left him alone, the woman named Edwina—just like the mischievous princess of Winzerton.
Was this the feeling called jealousy that I had only heard in a minstrel’s song?
Yes, that was right, Aunt. I finally awakened to a new emotion. Now you knew why I declared from the very first page that I would end this letter briefly, and why I confessed I was living in anguish too great for someone thirteen years old to bear.
However, at that time, my heart had not yet been torn to shreds. I still held hope in one corner of my heart.
I believed that the feeling of longing would soon disappear. Edwina seemed to live far away somewhere, you see. Primrose said that if you did not see someone, your heart naturally grew distant. I heard that and decided at once. That I must never grow distant from Sir Arthur Gillen’s sight.
I would stay right by Sir Arthur Gillen’s side, listening intently to his countless thoughts, getting to know him more each day.
Then, if much time passed and I grew up, perhaps something unexpected might happen.
If I became taller than Primrose, if I turned fifteen, sixteen, or twenty, then maybe he would see me not as a cute child but as a lovely woman and cherish me.
Yes, Aunt Marilyn. You could scold me if you wished. I lived for quite a while in such worthless, wicked fantasies. Right up until yesterday.
You asked what happened yesterday?
You wondered if a storm had blown through and doused the embers of hope that had been growing well in my heart?
No, Aunt. Nothing like that happened.
As always, the western forest was clear. When I opened the window in the morning, a gentle breeze blew pleasantly. Whenever the wind tickled the trees, their leaves rustled with a refreshing sound, as if singing. Everything was perfect that day.
My sister Primrose and I happily packed lunch and went to Sir Arthur Gillen’s cabin. After lunch, we all lay on the ground looking for a four-leaf clover.
That was when it happened. Suddenly, there was a rustling sound. Just like when my sparkling forest-fairy knight, the silver angel, the moon goddess-like Selene wizard, Sir Arthur Gillen, arrived.
I turned my head, feeling a slight tremor in my heart. And just as he had done, someone reached out, pushed aside the barrier like a curtain, and came trudging along.
The second person who lightly crossed the barrier of the western forest.
That person was not as tall as Sir Arthur.
She was shorter than my sister Primrose, yet her eyes were just as large and clear, and they were dark green, like the pointed, aged leaves of conifer trees.
Her hair color was even more striking. Red hair was not extremely rare in Winzerton, but it was the first time I had seen such a truly vivid red.
It looked like a fire burning down an entire castle, or fresh blood running over a newly inflicted wound. That twisting, long red hair made her white face look so tiny and delicate.
Yes, that person was a woman. And a very beautiful one at that.
Her round cheeks were flushed red, as though she had long suffered the cold. Seeing her gasping for breath, I realized that she had run here in a hurry. She looked so prim, proper, and refined, so I wondered why she had ended up running. And then her rose-tinted lips parted.
And then, words completely at odds with her appearance came out.
“Damn it, Reiner. You said I’d find it right away.”
He had been so immersed in searching for the four-leaf clover that he had not noticed the unfamiliar presence, but then he finally turned his head. And he froze like ice.
He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe, with his breath halted and no words escaping, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, so the red-haired woman spoke the words I wanted to say instead.
“Breathe first.”
Like a newborn baby letting out its first breath, he finally regained the breath he had lost. Then he blinked, as if unable to believe the person before his eyes.
The red-haired woman, possessing a spirit mismatched with her small stature, strode right up to him. Then she gave a wide grin. My sparkling first love, who had always been poised like a great adult, barely managed to say a single word, as though a newborn were letting out its very first cry.
“Did you read my letters?”
Sir Arthur Gillen, pouting his lips and about to burst into tears like a child throwing a tantrum, looked as unfamiliar as he was adorable.
Surely the red-haired woman, having eyes of her own, must have thought the same as I did. He was so cute, she must have wanted to tease him. Perhaps that was why. Putting on a mischievous expression, she asked this question.
“What letters?”
Sir Arthur Gillen turned pale and tried to dash for the cabin.
“Good heavens, then where on earth did it all go?”
That was when I finally realized it. My wizard had also trapped time itself in that treasured wooden box. He had stuffed so many sheets of paper in it that it was bursting, and somewhere inside it lay a path leading to the red-haired woman.
So he could not possibly put it anywhere else.
That was why he stayed up all night, writing and writing again.
Because they were not letters he could not send.
Because they were not feelings that could never reach her.
Hoping and hoping again, until his hands were swollen and his eyes turned red.
And during midday, he nodded off repeatedly.
Would that woman even know how he felt? To the red-haired woman, everything seemed so easy. She adeptly walked up, grabbed his shoulders—he was at least two heads taller than me—and turned him around.
And then she spoke.
“I missed you, Reiner.”
…that was what she said.
Sir Arthur Gillen had no composure. He did not even have time to ask whether she had felt the same way he did, whether she had longed for him as much as he had for her, because the red-haired woman moved without hesitation.
Her slightly pouting lips boldly collided with his. While they shared a clumsy yet intense kiss, my first love trembled.
As if everything was happening for the first time.
As if he could not believe that the person he missed had also missed him, had also thought of him occasionally.
That face of his, which had glowed like a pearl, now turned beyond pink and became as red as the woman’s hair.
Seeing him like that, the woman smiled gently and said,
“I read them all. The letters. After reading them, I missed you terribly, so I came running.”
No sooner had she said those words than my first love collapsed to the ground in sorrowful tears. The red-haired woman, as though she had anticipated even that, knelt down and patted his back while he clung to her like a child.
“Edwina, I… I-I….”
Each time words forced their way out between sobs, she whispered soothingly at his ear, like one comforting a newborn, hushing him in a soft voice.
“I know, Reiner. I felt the same. I missed you too. I missed you so much.”
Aunt Marilyn, now you must understand.
Why I was in such pain.
That day was a beautiful one, with a gentle breeze that made the leaves sing.
The silver-blue spruce caught the late-arriving sunlight, adorning the backs of its pointed needles with a silvery hue. Beside it, the pine forest had neatly dropped round pinecones, as if tidied up just for that day.
Low willow trees swayed and fluttered their leaves as if dancing. The beech trees’ grayish-brown bark gleamed smoothly, and the blossoms had begun to bloom one by one. The bluebells, more than ever, bore a vivid shade of purple that day.
We found a whole pile of four-leaf clovers in the field of clover. On such a perfect day, when it felt as though all good fortune had been gathered and sent to the edge of the western forest, I found myself heartbreakingly rejected in love.
My first love shattered like a teacup dropped on the floor. Now, I could not even cling to hope.
So, Aunt Marilyn, please have pity on a thirteen-year-old girl’s sorrowful heart.
I could do nothing but replay yesterday’s scene in my mind.
The two of them clinging to each other like a one-legged knight and a paper doll lady, merged into one body, as if they would stay that way until they turned to ash.
That person of mine, who had always been so adult-like, now wore a tearful, childlike face before the petite woman. And that woman, so spirited, teased him with a smile, as though she felt no pity at all.
Do not scold me, asking if I made a fuss just to give up so easily. Of course, I would still love to keep adoring him.
But what could I do?
It was so obvious that there was only the two of them in each other’s eyes. It was so clear that they had been one from the start.
I only realized it now. That my sister Primrose was indeed smarter than I was. She had been right. Without even telling me she was dating Leon, she said it to me once.
She asked how I could not see what was obvious: that he liked her, and that the two of them had fallen in love.
I scoffed at those words. I thought love was just an emotion, a mere abstract noun, so how could it possibly be visible?
Only yesterday did I realize that I had been a fool.
Aunt Marilyn, love could be seen.
Gleaming like moonlight breaking through the darkness.
Burning red like the blazing sun.
So very vividly, love showed itself.
From the attic of the western forest
In the depths of pain, having failed in my first love,
Hyacinth Blossom.
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