Fish Tails Read Online Free PDF Page A

well-­traveled road and would have brought her to the monument with a fraction of the time and effort she had expended. On that occasion she had collapsed in tears and agonies of frustration that had absorbed a good deal of time and fury even though she used that easier route to return to the place she referred to and occasionally thought of as home .
    She had intended to take Needly along that route as soon as it was light so the child could actually climb onto the pedestal and touch the Listener. That climax to the experience was now . . . not possible. The ledge at the foot of the Listener’s pedestal was already occupied. She hadn’t seen it at first. Half blinded by dawn, she’d been looking past it at that curling, crimson glory, but now her eyes had dropped onto the ledge that should have been empty. This morning it was occupied by an unreality.
    Since neither she nor the child had seen it arrive, it must have been there during the darkness: a fantasy only slightly dwarfed by the Listener above it. It was obviously a mythical thing; anyone who could read knew that! No matter how the old woman blinked and wiped her eyes; incredible or not, there it was! As the sky-­flung stone above it faded from fiery copper and blazing bronze, the creature below it on the ledge received the metallic sheen and, enlivened by it, moved its great wings, the long primaries unfolding upward, the arc of the feathers that followed repeating the arc of the overarching formation, successive quills rising on either side of the massive chest, two perfect vertical fans that framed the prone body, the regal head with its queenly crest, the burnished mane that seemed to shine with its own radiance; the great beak like a shield of bronze, all this living assembly shining while the morning held its breath until the escutcheon was complete.
    There it was. Whole. Alive. And awake! A Griffin! A living Griffin!
    Needly and Grandma were still hidden in the cup of shadow below. Before starting on this birthday journey, Grandma had shared certain memories: her own sensations on first seeing the Listener; her wonder and delight; her perception that Earth itself seemed to rejoice at this particular revelation. Now she felt something approaching fear. Not terror, not yet. But things with great beaks like that, they did eat things, and Grandma and Needly were very probably among the types of things they . . . ate. She and the child were still hidden. The trees were only a few steps away. If they did not delay, they could creep away. They should do that right now, while darkness hid them . . .
    They did not.
    Why? A subtlety. Though Grandma could not possibly have expected this additional marvel, its presence was a perfect and suitable completion of the occasion. One did not flee from perfection!
    So, standing silent, her hand on the child’s shoulder, she swallowed apprehension and assured herself it was good that she was not too old and the child with her was not too young to see and hear and feel. They stood while the quivering wings still cast reflected sequins of gold and glory across the valley, the fiery light faded slowly, and the Listener’s brilliance slid into more muted shades. The darting lights seemed to evoke a tingling over the surface of her body and the child’s, and she—­they—­heard an almost inaudible ringing, as of innumerable tiny crystal chimes.
    Needly’s eyes had not blinked since her first sight of the marvel. Her voice was only a dazed whisper, a sliver of sound emerging from a bubble of enchantment. “Grandma. If you had a barley field made of glass, it’d sound like that.”
    â€œMight. Yes.”
    â€œIf the winds were gentle, if the stalks were made of music.”
    â€œYes. Could be. If.”
    â€œAnd if the sound could go on and on and on, even when the wind stopped . . .”
    â€œIf all that, I suppose, yes.” The old woman