“The story goes that some time ago there was a girl not much older than you two, who’d go down every summer just as you do to visit her Nana. And every evening, before she went to bed, her Nana would tell her to shut the windows tight and if she heard any whispers of melodies in the night, to burrow deep under her blanket and cover her ears. And do you know why?”
“To keep insects out?” the younger one suggests.
“No.”
“To stop robbers?” the older one offers half-heartedly.
Their grandma laughs from her chest and grins. “No, practical, but no. You see, her Nana told her what every Nana knows, that the wind at night carries the sound of pan pipes. Naïve, and full-hearted, and timid, loud and impulsive and longing, the sweet sound of pan pipes rushes through trees and makes leaves laugh.
And if your window is open even just a crack,” she continues, leaning over to slide the window shut, “the sound slides through the space between and sings in your dreams. It animates your arms and legs, even when you’re fast asleep and persuades you…” she explains, her arms stiff and rigid, “to follow the sound of music.”
“Tccch,” the older cousin scowls, sucking her teeth and slumping down in her mattress, “we’ve all heard of the Pied Piper. It’s just a story to scare kids.”
“Oh, I’m not talking about the Pied Piper. I’m talking about Piper Pan,” Nana corrects. “The Maestro of Mischief herself.”
The younger one’s eyes grow wide in elation. “The Maestro of What?”
“Piper Pan?” the older one repeats hesitant, but intrigued. “I don’t know that one,” she admits.
“That’s because no one’s told it yet.” she replies ruefully, before continuing.
“Now Piper Pan is as fast as a flick of a flame, as sudden as dew in the morning, as wily as the coyote before his plan goes awry. She’s as brave as a dare, as impulsive as a snare as it snaps, and as elusive—” she pauses coyly, “as the wind.”
“Have you met her?” the younger one asks with inquisitive excitement, but her Nana does not answer. She simply continues her tale. “Since the little girl’s Nana had told her to always keep the windows closed, and since you should always listen to your Nana, the little girl made sure to shut the windows tight every night.
But one evening, when the sky hung close to the ground in the oddest of ways, the little girl heard something whacking at her window pane. It was loud and persistent, different from the usual wind that rolled down the hills and whistled in the valley. At first the girl thought it was merely her imagination. But then she heard it again.
“WHACK, WHACK, WHACK!” It was so loud and distinct that she couldn’t sleep, so she pulled off her covers and went to take a look.
“And then she saw her?” the younger cousin asks, interrupting her Nana and jumping to conclusions.
“No,” she replies, shaking her head. “All she saw was a shadow. But curiosity got the better of her, so she unlocked the window. After all, she told herself, there were rules against music, but not against shadows.
And just as she opened the seal, the silhouette wisped in and motioned with flustered panic for the girl to shut it. The girl closed the window as quickly as she could, but as she did the shadow suddenly collapsed to the floor.
“Are you alright?” the girl asked with alarm.
It nodded pointing to the shadowy foot that was still trapped in the window’s mouth.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I must have shut the window too quickly. I’ll open it again,” the girl said, rushing over to it.
But the shadow shook its head, indignant. “If I don’t open the window, how will you get your foot out?” the little girl retorted with a humph.
The shadow tilted its head to the side and tapped its finger impatiently.
“Well, if that’s not the problem then what is it? What do you want? And why are you here?” the little girl interrogated the apparition.
It’s not that she minded strange things; in fact, she was rather fond of them, but you have to remember it was past her bedtime, so she was tired and her patience was thin.
The shadow sat up straight and held up one of its shadowy fingers. Tied around it and through it was a thin piece of thread, knotted tight at its end.
“How did you manage to do that?” the little girl asked, examining the shadowy knot carefully.
But the shadow pointed to itself and shook its head.
“You didn’t do it then?”
The shadow nodded again, motioning quickly to the part of it still trapped outside the window.
“Well, what does this have to do with that?” the little girl inquired, growing increasingly exasperated with this game of charades.
But the shadow hit the floor impatiently, causing the desk to rattle and the dresser to shake.
“Alright, alright, don’t make such a fuss, you’ll wake the whole house up,” the little girl scolded, untying the string, and as she began to pull, it got longer and longer and longer, and right as she pulled loose the other end, the shadow slipped the rest of its foot into the room and flew straight into the little girl’s middle dresser drawer.
“Where did you–?” The girl turned around, confused. “Well, that’s just great,” she sighed with defeat as the shadow rumbled and knocked through her dresser. “Are you going to live in my clothes forever?”
There was a laugh like the sound of wind chimes on a quiet afternoon, and then silence. The little girl collapsed on the ground and decided that this was all too much for so late at night, so she made sure the window was shut tight and tried to go back to sleep. But not a second after her head hit her pillow did she hear another tap on the window.
She tried to ignore it, but the rapping and tapping and rapping and tapping was so loud that she had to look up.
And there floating outside was a boy, a little boy like summer. He was just a bit older than her, and he looked irritated.
Now the little girl was very annoyed, but the boy wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t stop banging on the window, so she opened it again and he tumbled in, crashing loudly against the floor and making a terribly large mess of everything.
“Would you keep it down?” the little girl scolded in a whisper. “And don’t you know it’s rude to trash other people’s rooms.”
“Have you seen my shadow?” he asked, ignoring her question.
The girl shook her head. “If you haven’t, then I certainly have not.”
The boy sighed, “not again, it’s gotten free.”
The girl looked at him quizzically, as it was a very odd thing to lose a shadow. “Does this happen a lot?” she asked.
“Oh, all the time.” he replied, looking around.
“That silly little thing. It gets free and tries to get away from me, wanting to go on its own adventures.” He looked one way and then another, and the little girl saw the shadow try to sneak past him, but the boy turned around quickly and caught it.
“Gotcha!” he yelled, tackling it. They wrestled and tussled crashing through everything they hadn’t crashed through already and even some twice over ‘till finally the little girl,who had had quite enough yelled at them both to—
“STOP IT!”
And quick as they’d come the shadow and its little boy were gone and the little girl’s Nana was standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing making all that noise?”
“Nothin’,” the little girl answered truthfully.
“Nothing?” her Nana repeated skeptically, “ well you were doing nothing very loudly.”
“I had, uhm, I think I had a bad dream.” the girl stammered.
Her Nana paused and looked at her quizzically, “so you threw everything on the floor?” The girl wanted to say more, but what could she do? Who would believe that a shadow and its boy had smashed through her room.
“It was a very bad dream,” she insisted.
“Well would you like some water?” her Nana asked.
“No, I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?” she asked again.
The little girl nodded. “Honestly, I’m fine. I’ll just go back to sleep.”
“Not before you pick all this up,” her Nana instructed. “And why is your window open? What did I tell you about that?” she scolded, crossing the room and shutting it. “You’ll let the wind in and with it the sound of pan pipes.”
“I forgot,” the little girl said, picking up the lamp that had fallen to the floor.
“Well, don’t forget,” her Nana warned as she helped the little girl pick up her things.
“Outside is wide and long and it’s easy to get lost.” She motioned for the little girl to get into bed. “Now I can’t keep these windows shut forever, but I want you to always remember. If you ever lose your way, know that I love you. Past every star and the bright big moon, there is no space and no place where my love does not reach you.”
“Okay, Nana,” the little girl yawned.
“Good,” she replied, shutting the door behind her. “Sleep well, little one.
But not a moment after it closed did the little girl hear a laugh from her dresser, and rapping and tapping from outside her window.
“Ohhh you’re not both still here, are you?” the little girl moaned, looking across the room. And of course, hanging upside down on the top of her dresser with a flute in her mouth was the shadow, taunting the boy who tapped rapidly on the other side of her window.
“Where would I have gone?” the shadow asked, sticking out its tongue and making rude gestures at the boy. “This is all so much fun,” it continued laughing.
“What fun?” the girl mumbled, annoyed. “You got me in trouble.”
The shadow shrugged. “Trouble, fun, it’s all the same.”
“Not for me, I don’t want anything to do with your jokes and flutes that kidnap children.”
The shadow suddenly stopped and quirked its head to the side. “Kidnap? What’s kidnap?”
“It’s when you take someone away.”
“Oh yes, I do that,” it agreed, floating up from the top of the dresser, its body becoming less of a shadow and more like a girl, a girl like summer nights.
“Well, it’s wrong,” the little girl scolded.
“No, it’s not. Wrong is being left alone with no one who cares. Wrong is being sewn to someone else’s feet and forced to be their shadow,” she scowls, baring her teeth and making faces at the boy still knocking at the window pane.
“Wait,” the little girl said, getting excited. “I know this story I do–you’re, what’s his name, Peter Pan—or he’s Peter,” she said, turning to the window and putting the pieces together. “And you’re his shadow, you’re the one that Wendy sewed back on—”
“Wendy,” she interrupts, her voice laden with disgust, “and John and Michael.” she spat each name out with a scathing vitriol.
“Well, why are you always trying to escape?”
“Why would I want to stay sewn to someone’s feet, dragged along wherever they go?”
The girl furrowed her brow, confused as she tried to remember the tale. “I heard that they’d go on the most amazing adventures.”
The air suddenly turned bristly and cold and the melody for her flute was rancorous and dangerous.
“Nothing is amazing when you’re trapped. Forced to be all the burdens he refuses to carry,” she seethes, her eyes looking piercingly out the window.
“And besides, they weren’t my adventures. Who wants to go around collecting thimbles and playing house over and over and over again?” She slumps down in exasperation, the myriad of vassal flutes clinking against each other as they hung from her waist.
But then her furrowed brows and deep set scowl turned suddenly to a mischievous smile as she went to the window and knocked on it, mocking the boy outside.
“But now I’m free. I can do whatever, whenever I want.” She looked at the little girl with an overjoyed gleam in her eyes.
“Thanks for untying my string by the way, in return I can play you a song.”
“NO!” the little girl yelled adamantly and tried to grab the pan pipe from her mouth, but the shadow, now girl, flew effortlessly just out of her reach and looked at her, confused.
“You are strange,” the shadow girl declared. “If you don’t like my pipe and you think I’m a thief, why not open the window and let the boy in?” she asked, leaning close to the little girl’s face, her eyes wide with confusion. “You still have the string, or maybe you don’t know how to sew?”
The little girl diverted her eyes from Piper’s glance. “It’s not that,” she responded nervously, picking at the edge of her blanket. “You said you didn’t want to be a shadow.”
“You care what I want?” the shadow girl asked, her voice suddenly soft.
“Of course, no one should be a shadow if they don’t want to.”
The girl watched as Piper paused, taken aback, hovering in the air in contemplative silence. And she could not tell if she was mesmerized or terrified.
“You are really very strange,” the shadow girl decided, finally breaking the tension between them. “Most people on this side of the stars don’t care for those in the shadows. You’d be great in… Neverland? I think that’s its name most recently. It’s a marvelous place…usually…depending on where and when… and what it is.”
“No, it’s alright,” the girl admitted. “I’d rather stay here.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a song?” Piper asked again. “I know more than I let on.”
“Only if you sing it,” the little girl mumbled.
“Why?” Piper asked.
“Because you’re the Pied Piper,” she stated resolutely.
“What, no, I’m Piper Pan, the Maestro of Mischief, the Conductor of Chaos.”
“I—” the girl hesitated, those don’t sound much better, but in any case it doesn’t matter. When you play your pipe, children forget everyone they love and go away with you.”
The Maestro shook her head. “No, it’s not like that, I’ll show you.”
“I really don’t want to hear it.”
“You see, my music only calls to those who want to listen to it. To anyone who dreams of being anywhere but here. If they want to stay…” she trails off, shrugging, “the music sounds terrible, like thunder cracks and bone snaps.”
“Either way, I’d rather not hear it,” the little girl insisted.
Piper shrugged, losing interest. “Well, okay, hide under your covers and close your ears,” she said, fiddling with the flutes dangling from her waist. “It’s been so long, I have to test to make sure they’re not broken.”
So the little girl pulled the sheets over her head, clasped her hands tight over her ears, and waited— at first. Then curiosity got the better of her, and just for a moment she listened.
And the sound was the most melodious thing. It was warm like the sweetest dream you’ve ever dreamed, and the little girl had to admit that for just a second, she wanted to follow it.
But then she thought of her Nana and how much she’d miss her, and she covered her ears again.
When she opened them, the music had stopped, but Piper was still there, sitting on her dresser, legs crossed, fiddling with one of her flutes.
“You must be very happy,” the Maestro said nonchalantly.
The little girl didn’t answer, but looked out the window where the sky was empty and silent.
“Where did Peter go?”
“Who cares,” she says, floating in the air and adjusting her pipe. “He probably ran away. He can’t fly when he’s sad.”
“Oh, so how come you can?”
“Cause I’m not Peter or Pied, I’m Piper,” she answered curtly. She yawned a few times, stretched the distance of the shadow the lamplight cast across the floor, then suddenly she was at the little girl’s window sill. She opened it just a crack, peeked out to make sure the coast was clear, then turned back to the little girl.
“Well, it was nice to meet you. Although I’m certain I’ll forget you. But, while I still remember, I appreciate what you did.”
And quick as candle wick, she was gone, and just as quickly I wondered if I had seen her at all, a little girl like summer nights playing pan pipes.”