sailing farther into the distance and further into the future, away from this Harbor and toward a new one. He imagines it so clearly that he almost believes it will happen. He can see himself, away from this place, free from its rules and constraints, bound to nothing but her.
He can almost see the stars.
He pulls the girl close to keep her warm. He kisses her shoulder, pretending he will have her for a lifetime when in truth they have only minutes left together.
The time the pirate sees in his mind is not in the city now. It is not soon.
The ships are far from the shore. The bells behind them are already ringing in alarm.
The pirate knows, though he does not wish to admit it even to himself, that they have so far yet to go.
The girl (who is also a metaphor, an ever-changing one that only sometimes takes the form of a girl) knows this as well, she knows it better than he does but they do not discuss such things.
This is not the first time they have stood together on these shores. It will not be the last.
This is a story they will live over and over again, together and apart.
The cage that contains them both is a large one that does not have a key.
Not yet.
The girl pulls the pirate away from the glow of the Starless Sea and into the shadows, to make the most of what moments remain between them before time and fate intervene.
To give him more of her to remember.
After they are found, when the girl meets her death with open eyes and her lover’s screams echoing in her ears, before the starless darkness claims her once again, she can see the oceans of time that rest between this point and their freedom, clear and wide.
And she sees a way to cross them.
The small girl stares with wide brown eyes at each person who comes to observe her. A dark cloud of frizzy hair surrounds her head, stray leaves hiding within it. She holds a door knocker the way a smaller child might handle a rattle or a toy. Tightly. Protectively.
She has been placed in an armchair in one of the galleries, as though she is herself a piece of art. Her feet do not touch the ground. Her head has been examined and some concern has been raised over injury, though she is not bleeding. A bruise blooms near her temple, a greenish hue spreading over light brown skin. It does not seem to bother her. She is given a plate of tiny cakes and eats them in small, serious bites.
She is asked her name. She appears not to understand the question. There is some debate over how translations might work for someone so young (few recall the last time there was a child in this place) but she understands other inquiries: She nods when asked if she is thirsty or hungry. She smiles when someone brings her an old stuffed toy, a rabbit with thinning fur and floppy ears. Only when the rabbit is presented does she relinquish the door knocker, clutching the bunny with equal intensity.
She does not recall her name, her age, anything about her family. When asked how she got there she holds up the door knocker with a pitying look in her large eyes, as the answer is terribly obvious and the people peering down at her are not very observant.
Everything about her is analyzed, from the make of her shoes to her accent as they begin to coerce single words or phrases, but she speaks rarely and all anyone can agree on is that there are hints of Australia or possibly New Zealand, though some insist the slight accent on her English is South African. There are a number of old doors left uncatalogued in each country. The girl does not give reliable geographical information. She remembers people and fairies and dragons with equal clarity. Large buildings and small buildings and forests and fields. She describes bodies of water of indiscernible size that could be lakes or oceans or bathtubs. Nothing to point clearly toward her origin.
Throughout the investigations it remains an unspoken truth that she cannot easily be returned to wherever she has fallen from if her door no longer exists.
There is talk of sending her back through another door, but no one in the dwindling population of residents volunteers for such a mission, and the girl appears happy enough. Does not