Sailing the Green Sea

The paper awaits Hazel on her windowsill when she wakes. When Hazel overcomes her apprehension at its dubious origins and method of appearance she snatches it from the sill.

The paper is torn at the edges, a crumpled piece of recycled document, with fragments of illuminated script cut off where it has been torn in half. Scrawled in old fashioned calligraphy it reads:

Hazel Everill

You are cordially invited to a picnic most fantastic

Please bring treats

Awaiting you at noon in the field

Hazel dresses quickly, the paper resting on her pillow as she ponders what to bring. She pauses as she puts on her coat, glancing outside the window where the pale sunlight makes a pattern of waves across her floor, and drops her coat unceremoniously on her bed.

The hallways are almost empty, staff meandering to and from temporary places as they complete the morning tasks. The kitchen is the busiest destination in the house, bustling with the cooks, gardeners, maids and other staff consuming breakfast prior to their morning duties. There is an air of calm that Hazel disrupts by quietly requesting of the cook a small basket of food.

The cook designates the task to another of the staff before returning to the preserved fruit for the following evening. “Is it just for you?” the kitchen maid asks, gently prodding a baguette.

“No, for my… friend, as well.”

“Are you taking some to Peter too?” the maid asks.

It has not occurred to Hazel to invite Peter. Though Peter and her have become Hazel’s best friends, out of compatibility more than necessity, they have yet to meet each other. Hazel is worried about the dichotomy about their roles in her life, about their separate worlds clashing and her being stuck in the middle of it.

Still, Hazel cannot think of another way to introduce them to one another. She nods and within minutes Hazel holds a well-packed bundle of bread and cheese and fruit. She thanks the maids, bows her head shyly to the bevy of staff gathered on the opposite side of the kitchen, and departs by the back door, into the herb garden.

Hazel has pulled her hair into a lopsided bun and stuck it with two ornamental sticks strung with beads her father brought her from Japan. They swing close to her ears as she walks swiftly toward Peter, waiting in the tea garden.

Peter nods when he sees her approaching, though he is bent over an unruly plant and its trimming seems to occupy his entire attention. He clips at it savagely until Hazel greets him.

“Peter, good morning.”

Peter puts down the sheers and takes a step away.

“I have something for you,” Hazel says, before he opens his mouth.

Hazel takes a moment to rally her determination, and when she has she plucks the paper from her pocket and holds it under the sunlight for Peter to see.

Peter takes a moment to skim its contents before raising a questioning eye at Hazel.

“I want you to come with me,” she says.

Peter continues to gaze at her quizzically.

“Please Peter, we never have any company,” Hazel says, omitting that their seclusion is attributed mostly to her.

Peter hesitates, then nods. “Alright, what do we do?”

Mr.Everill’s study is well organized, an impeccable filing system that only he and a few of his colleagues understand. Despite the neatness of the space it takes Hazel the better part of a quarter hour to find what she is looking for. Before she does she stumbles upon a framed picture in the topmost drawer of his desk, an image of her father and a woman. Though Hazel has few memories of her mother she does not doubt the woman under the rose bower, whom her father gazes at with much adoration, is her late mother. She wears an old fashioned floral dress, which looks older next to Mr.Everill’s sharp suit, and holds his elbow, laughing as he speaks.

Hazel gazes at it curiously; so silent that Peter’s voice startles her. She had almost forgotten when he was there.

“What are you looking at?” he asks, venturing further into the room. There is a hint of urgency in his voice but he does not reprimand her for pausing in her search.

“A picture of my mother,” Hazel says, briefly turning the picture toward him. When he does not say anything Hazel turns it over, looking at the back of the frame. Small metal tags old the back against the wooden frame. Hazel gently pushes them aside and removes the back, lighting it out of the way to better examine the picture. In the corner there is something scribbled in blue ink, and in a hand both pretty and wobbly, too much so to be her father’s. It is dated eleven months before Hazel was born.

Hazel replaces the back of the frame and returns it to it’s spot in the drawer. She continues searching the desk until she finds the compass beeath a stack of accounts from three months ago.

“Found it,” she says, carrying it to Peter, who has retreated to the door once again.

The compass may once have been well cared for and polished regularly, but now the wooden base is scratched, the face dusty. Hazel watches the needle bob and spin, coming to rest pointing just to her right.

“It is right?” Peter asks.

Hazel nods.

Though the compass has been broken since her fall in the garden pond, Hazel continues to wear it. It rests alongside her silver and turquoise locket on her breastbone. The needle swings about, conforming only to the laws of gravity. Nevertheless, Hazel and Peter navigate their way through the meadow and into the outer edges of the forest with it, keeping their watch on the sun as much as the broken compass.

It is a marginally farther distance than Hazel is used to walking to find her but Peter points out interesting sights along their route, botanical landmarks like misnamed trees and wild uncommon perennials.

Hazel and Peter take turns reading the map as they approach.

The weather is uncommonly pleasant, no hint of rain or an impending drizzle. The sun shower in the morning is brief and now there is only glittering grass beneath a wheat-golden sun as they re emerge in a neighbouring meadow.

The field is empty, grass beneath sky with no one else in sight. Hazel halts and puts out a hand to stop Peter, oblivious to anything beyond the flurries of dragonflies, from continuing on without her. She glances at the map, wondering if perhaps they took a wrong turn.

After carefully scrutinizing the directions and their progress from the mansion Hazel returns her gaze to the field.

She is standing some ways away, watching Peter and Hazel with the cautiousness of an unhappy cat.

Her red hair is particularly vibrant against the cornflower blue of the sky. Her dress is the dark mossy green and old-fashioned creation she has worn in all the years Hazel has known her.

Hazel approaches more quickly than Peter, greeting her, though her attention remains on Peter, coming closer through the tall grass.

“This is Peter,” Hazel says, when he has neared enough to hear them. “I though he would enjoy the day with us. And I brought this,” she adds, hefting the basket of food.

Her expression hardly changes as her gaze shifts from Peter’s hair to his shirt, spending a considerable amount of time between.

“Hello,” she says finally.

The grass ripples in the breeze like a sea, long green ribbons studded with dragonflies.

Hazel, Peter and her lie in a flattened patch of grass, an embroidered blanket Hazel liberated from her father’s lounge spread beneath them, through Hazel still occasionally pushes aside rocks and twigs pressing into her back. They lie with their heads together, gazing heavenward. Dragonflies appear and depart in a flutter of prismatic wings and iridescent blue streaks.

“Dragons are ancestors to dragonflies,” she tells them when the insect in question pauses overhead, wings catching the light as it hangs suspended in the air.

They play hide and seek, running from tree to tree, catching glimpses of lace hems, faded brown trousers and glinting auburn hair. They strain to hear footsteps on leaves and moss among clicking insects and birdsong. When it is too dark to see more than shadows among the woods Hazel and Peter bid goodbye.

“I didn’t know it was this late,” Hazel says, glancing at the slanting rays of sunlight fading in the twilight.

“Will you come back?” she asks, directing the question to Peter.

Peter nods.

They take turns bringing both food and stories. Hazel regales them with Irish fairy tales from Mr.MacMahon. Peter reads them letters from his brothers and sisters. She shares very few stories and volunteers little personal information.

Days pass in this matter. The summer comes to an end.

Text by Lucie MacAulay