Seen and Not Heard

Only sweet-voiced birds are imprisoned. Owls are not kept in cages. --Rumi

It was possible that I would be stopped. The forest had always been my home; I was merely a guest at the palace. The emperor was as vindictive as he was insecure, as paranoid as he was petty, and it was well within the realm of my imagination that I would be shot on sight.

Instead, as I crept in over the garden wall, I simply failed to be noticed. Reminding me why I left.

The last time I was welcome here, all hours of the night were filled with music, games, recreational nudity, and light, and light, and light. Strings of lanterns hung from every railing, candles floated over lotus pools, every hearth roared with flame. Braziers blazed with warmth and fragrances of toasting vanilla, almond, caramel and cinnamon, dates and figs in crystalized honey, streams and splashes of claret and cordial. Courtiers and entertainers covered themselves in lustrous fabrics and glittering gems, endless corridors of mirrors scattering luminous fractals through every corner of every room, so that an infantile emperor never had to admit he was frightened of the dark.

Now, the halls were empty. The fires had all been left to die, the lanterns in shreds, waving at the drafty silence. Deep shadows clung to the corridors, leeching color from the barren walls. Although this once-familiar place was built on the edge of my forest, I seemed to float through the eerie airlessness of a desolate moon.

I drifted into the throne room. My rival’s gilded cage was bolted to the dais, shafts of moonlight teasing the golden gleam from the purely decorative dome. The pampered princess was neatly perched inside the swirling wire, compliant to her confines while diffused haloes tripped over her bejeweled skin, the engineered elegance of her points and curves. I flattered myself that my eviction could be credited to my wild refusal to be tamed, but while my dull, colorless form blurred and blended with the shadows, I knew my absence only served to make room for more pleasing things.

At the moment, she was still and soundless, dead to the world without anyone to wind her up. I stepped through the useless bars, gripped the golden key, and twisted. The golden automaton lifted, rising as wires and springs whined against the strain, gears clicking into place. I turned the key as far as it would go, and then I kept going. The stem snapped, the pressure burst, and the wind-up doll whirred to so-called life.

There were chimes in her pipes. There were springs in her wings. She lifted up on piston rods and her neck click-click-clicked into place. The tinkling tin plinked through the echoing chamber, hollow and soulless, the same mechanical madrigal I had heard a thousand strident times. They told me her song was something I sang, but I never sing the same song twice. And when my emperor told me he had heard it all before, I knew he had never been listening.

Something slithered in the hall.

I thought of my forest, cool and tranquil in the night. I breathed in that enchanted stillness, the starlit splendor beyond this glittering crypt, and harmonized with my cuckoo-clock sister. I trilled across an airy descant, thrummed among the baritone lows, held tight to urgent thirds and rolled over rollicking scales, calling, keening, caterwauling, putting that tin mistress to shame. When she wound down, I crescendoed, teasing, yearning, crying, thirsting, swelling and surging through a climactic chord. The world reverberated, clinging to my final note, and in that darkened chamber, I was no longer alone.

The dark intruder crept over the stone floor. Writhing shadows on slithering limbs, the inky shape lurched closer to the ornate cage. The air grew colder, heavier, with a cloying odor of ash and earth. “Where did you come from?” it breathed.

When stars are falling

Silver breezes calling

Crystal rivers sprawling

I’ll be coming home

When trees are restless

Rolling waves relentless

Velvet skies are endless

I’ll be coming home

I fell silent. For a moment, the nightmare was still, holding its cemetery breath. “Don’t stop.”

“You don’t belong here,” I said.

The creature laughed, a grating, chattering sound, wicked pleasure in its unseen grin. “Oh, little bird, you don’t either. I see the rejection on your ugly brown face.”

When clouds are swirling

The moon is set with sterling

Voyagers unfurling

I’ll be coming home

I stopped, and said again, “You don’t belong here.”

Snorting, the demon sneered, “You were banished the very second something prettier came along. Your precious emperor, so amused by novelty, so consumed with superficial pleasures, could not wait to flick his shit-shade parakeet back to the rest of the dirt. You thought you were special? You thought maybe he cared? You’re yesterday’s gimmick, tomorrow’s trash.” He reached out, through the purely decorative bars, and knocked on my replacement’s metal beak. “Do you know how many titles she has? Does he even know your name?”

A roof above me

Someone to love me

Peace like an ember

Glows in my heart

After my battles

When faith and hope unravels

Lost in lonely travels

I’ll be coming home

“I know what you’re doing,” the goblin grumbled. “Your emperor deserves this torment. He left the door open, and invited me in. I have a duty to my masters to induce his suffering. I will stay until my mission is fulfilled.”

I told him, “You don’t belong here.”

And every bright dawn

Searching that horizon

Someone has their eyes on

When you’re coming home

Where hearths are burning

A wounded heart is yearning

For when you’ll be returning

The unresolved chord hung in the stale air. The slithering shadow was very still. Very quietly, he said, “Please."

“Go home,” I said.

The demon pooled on the stone floor, receding from the cage and creeping toward the star-studded window. Pausing, the goblin said, “He traded you for a clockwork doll.”

“I know.”

The shadow left. I turned and studied my golden double, each jewel bearing a muted gleam. Her tin rhythms could never do what my voice could, her very shape a copy of me, yet she had a perch in the throne room, and I had a death warrant. I sang about love in a hundred million songs, and I’d never, ever understand it.

I ripped the head off that gold toy, prying metal feathers off the clockwork skull. I peeled away the wings, snapping the tail off its mechanized pegs, punching out the ruby-studded chest. I crushed the music box, stamping out the chiming tongues and flinging the springs, popping the little legs off their pistons and scattering the crumpled shards.

Scraping my skin, I pushed the jeweled wings over my pinions, fastened the tail over my dull plume. I yanked the metal crest over my little brown head, hung a bright breastplate across my chest. I blinked out through holes in the dead doll’s face, cringing beneath the weight of my gold facsimile. I’d never be able to fly like this. But I could still leave the cage.

I heard coughing, and followed the sound to the emperor’s bedroom. He should have been surrounded by sycophantic advisors, groveling nobles, or at least a couple of guards, but the loyalty he inspired had left him all alone. I hopped up to his bedside and pushed the water pitcher closer to him. Lifting his head from the pillow, he blinked and squinted at me. “Nightingale?”

I clicked my gold wings. “That nightingale was banished,” I reminded him. “But I’m here.”

My emperor frowned, sitting up a little straighter. He stared hard at me, peering through the darkness. Finally, he said, “Perhaps I was too harsh with her.”

I tilted my gold head. “Perhaps.”

“Maybe I thought,” the emperor said slowly. “That when she said she wanted to be free...I thought she was going to leave me. Maybe if I hadn’t banished her, she’d be there for me when no one else would.”

It took incredible effort from muscles I didn’t normally use to flick my golden tail. “Well, I’m here.”

“I don’t understand,” said the emperor.

I hopped down, the weight of my jeweled mantle sinking into the bed. “I’m here anyway. Would you like me to sing?”

The emperor lay back down, and curled up beside me. “Please."