A story of… GARNET

I have no name because nobody ever cared about me long enough to give me one, but she used to call me Marie. I have no idea why ‘Marie’ – perhaps she thought it suited me, or perhaps she thought that it was my name already – she always was a little strange in the head. I hope you don’t think I say that to be nasty and she was the nicest, loveliest sweetest old lady to ever knit sweaters for her grandkiddies but it’s undeniable that she was somewhat dotty. She didn’t even have grandkids.I don’t remember meeting her, but it must have been very cold. Whiteness, wind and lots of cold… then warmth. A fire in it’s place and me, wrapped cosily inside something woolly, slowly trying to bring feeling back into my extremities. She was at a table, just a little old lady eating soup and bread but I was terrified! Where was I? Suddenly my snug blanket was oppressive, I couldn’t move! Why couldn’t I just fly away? That was when I realized… I couldn’t move my left wing. I was trapped, caught, and awaiting my punishment – no doubt a cage of some kind. Why else would a person bring me into their house?

My movement attracted the woman’s attention, however. “Oh, Marie, you’re awake!” She looked right, at me, and said that. “There, there, you’re all right, you’ve just had a bit of an accident that’s all – you’ll be fine in a couple of days. Lucky I saw you or you would’ve frozen to death out there!”

She didn’t try to come near me though. That would’ve been too much. As it was, I was afraid enough, in this strange place. You see, I was such a little bird and what could I have done if she’d decided to put me in a pretty, gilt cage? Or even worse, what if she’d decided to eat me? Or cast a spell on me? But she wasn’t a witch and she didn’t have a cage, so instead she’d given me a nice warm bed, lined with a small sweater she’d knit herself. She fed me milky mash, seeds and other delicacies – better than I would’ve found outside in the snow, let me tell you that much for nothing!

I guess we became friends (as much as you can with any human, really) in the short time I was there, but as soon as I was better I knew I had to leave. I did feel sorry leaving her all alone in the cottage but I can’t live in a house! It’s the way of the world and birds are not meant to be house-pets. We should be free – hence the expression ‘free as a bird’. And I was free, free to go as soon as I could fly and look after myself. But I promised her, or myself really as she couldn’t understand me, that I’d be in to check on her every once in a while.

It was still winter when I left but early daffodils were up already and we both knew it was high time I was gone.

So I left.

I flew out the window early one day before she woke up, soaring silently through the dawn but it’s true that I missed her already. I missed sitting companionably in the evenings with her. I missed her calling me Marie and the way she’d shyly look at my wing and tell me it was healing nicely and that one day I’d use it to fly out of the cottage and out of her life.

I didn’t want to forget her but I had to move on and live my birdie life. About a week after I left I decided to give her a gift, to thank her for her kindness to me and for saving my life, gently, in that little cottage of hers.

Of course, I didn’t know what to get her so I racked my brains and eventually stumbled across it quite by accident – a smooth, polished red thing. It was so pretty; I just knew she’d love it. But I also knew that the people prized these sorts of things for other reasons and thought that maybe with it, she could buy a nicer place for herself, or some new cardigans.

She was surprised, I think, to see me fly back in her window but I wasn’t to stay so I just dropped my offering into her lap and flew right out. In truth, I was embarrassed and afraid that if I stayed to stay hello that would be the end of my wild days and hello to Marie the house-bird!

But I did call back, though she didn’t see me. I noticed that she put the stone – a garnet, I think she called it – on her bedside and when I peeped in her bedroom that evening, I saw that she’d gone to bed early and beside her that stone was shining brightly like a lamp with all the love and gratitude that I’d poured into it.

She never did sell that stone.