Near the riverside, a girl with walnut hair sat with her back to the crowd. Her legs were pulled up to her chest, and she wore a white skirt that flowed over her bare feet and dipped into the water, a pallid sludge of brown bleeding up into the fabric. She stared at the water, at its currents, its ripples, its transient surges. Her freckled face was completely blank.
I watched her from afar. A few of the others had approached her, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t move, either. I wondered if she even knew we were there.
We’d arrived a few hours back, dumping our bikes on the grass and whooping into the open fields. The day was spent drinking and bathing in the late June sun. No one saw the girl arrive. She was just suddenly there, alone by the river. There was a whole group of us, and she looked around our age, but something about her felt faraway, as if we existed on different planes of reality. She didn’t speak to us, didn’t look at us. After a while some of the guys started jeering at her. I wondered if she was cold.
‘Anyone got a beer?’ Matt shouted.
‘Take this,’ said Lily. She glanced over at the girl. ‘Should we offer her one, too?’
‘Nah,’ said Matt, opening the can with a crisp hiss. ‘Already offered. Is she, like, ok?’
No one answered.
‘Pass me that lighter, Lils,’ said Matt, ‘I want to see how long it takes for the grass to burn.’
Lily rolled her eyes, then handed over the lighter. He winked at her, then got to work on burning the soft, green blades. He plucked them individually from the ground, raised the lighter to the tip; waited with greedy, wide eyes as it started to singe. It took a moment for the grass to ignite, then abruptly, the green would flash up in an amber glow, and singe down to a dark, hairy string.
Matt and Lily laughed at the small flames. I stared at the girl. I must have been drunker than I realised, because I swear I saw her shiver every time a blade set alight.
The sun was beginning to set, and the sky melted into a warm, honey cider hue. Someone started a bonfire in a dry pit of dirt. We gathered round, warming our hands and holding our wine-filled plastic cups to the flames in a languid attempt at making mulled wine.
I stared again at the girl, wondering again if she was cold.
The others started to sing, swaying, arms flopped over each other’s shoulders. I got up and walked over to the riverbank.
Something about her reminded me of a nymph. A part of me wouldn’t be surprised if when I reached her, she vanished into thin air. As I got closer, I noticed how much she was shivering, like a small bird in winter. The river water had inched all the way up her skirt, making it more brown than white. Her arms clasped around her legs and she rested her chin on her knees, staring downwards.
She didn’t move as I sat next to her. The drunken songs of the people behind us and the soft ballads of evening birds merged in a strange, evanescent harmony. A siskin darted metres away from our faces, and I smiled, feeling strangely bonded to this girl.
‘Would you rather be a person, or a bird?’ she asked. I looked up, startled. She was staring ahead, her eyes as green as the hazel tree swaying on the other side of the bank.
‘Um, a person, I think?’ I answered. She nodded, as if considering my answer with great sincerity.
‘I think I’d rather be a bird,’ she said. Her eyes flicked up to the sky, where a murmur of starlings swooped in mercurial patterns.
I stared at her. I wanted to rest my head on her shoulder, hug her like how I hugged my sister. ‘But you would miss out on so much if you were a bird.’ I looked behind us, at the people laughing and singing in the summer breeze. A couple leaned over to kiss one another, and behind the fire, Lily and Matt danced in each other’s arms. ‘All this.’
She smiled at the water. ‘That’s ok,’ she said. Her fingers dug down into the dirt, so deep that her palms became wet with mud. She stared at the river as if it was an old friend, then looked up to the sky, her eyes so wide she looked like a child. ‘I’d have all this.’
I suddenly felt that this girl was close to some drastic, life altering change, and that there was nothing I could do to save her from it. Without breathing, I reached out, touching her muddy hand. She held her palm up and pressed it gently into mine. A wet press of mud showed on my hand. She let go and I stared at the print, my hand so close to my face a flick of earth touched my nose.
I drew my hand down and she was gone.
I looked around, having not heard her leave. In the distance I could see her walking along the riverside, her stained skirt flowing gently in the breeze. Her arms were raised out to her sides, floating up and down, up and down. A sparrow cawed overhead, and faraway, I heard her call back.
