STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THEUNICORN
Chapter Six                                            The Ocean                                                   Part ten


                     Joe awoke still huddled on the floor.  It was dawn.  Outside the sky was pink.  He looked around the room, Clare has disappeared.  He ran upstairs to the tower.  The puzzle lay unfinished on the floor, but he knew now what the puzzle would say.  It was the school desk beneath the window that was the only thing left for him to know and understand.  He sat at the desk and lifted up its lid. Inside there was a pocket sized book bound in leather.  The ink well rattled as he brought the lid down too suddenly with a bang, in  his eagerness to discover the contents of the book.  He looked through it, the pages had yellowed, it had been written in a neat, slanting hand, the first half in watery brown ink and the last half in faint lead pencil. He turned back to the beginning and sitting at the desk with his face bent close to the page and his tired eyes squinting at the faded lettering, he began to read.



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              Today I saw a girl in the woods.  She was beautiful.  She was lost.  I love her.  She stood before me but I have to search for her to find her.  If I find myself I will find her.  I ate the flesh of an apricot and I gave her the seed.  Then I left her to begin my search.
               So I sit at my desk in my tower and write. There is only this school desk.  Algebra and alphabet, history books and maps, my sweet governess, her soft eyes and tidy bun of shiny hair are all gone.  I am alone with the memory of the girl in the woods.
               Her figure is slight and nimble.  Her face is uncertain and childlike.  Her eyes are deep brown, they are intense, foreboding sadness, filled with a fear too close to see, filled with a thousand tears not yet shed.  Her hair is the red brown of chestnut, its thick locks flow over her shoulders, uncombed, disarrayed.  She is clothed in wealth and sophistication that is not hers.  She wears cream satin and white lace  but she has walked through the fields and the earth's dust has marked them. Her dress is a casing that cannot contain her.  She is wild. She is fay.  I know this vision but I do not know her name.  I wish I knew her name.