Cinnamon (Shooting Stars 1)

There's something about growing up, about being in society and mixing with real people that restricts your imaginative powers. If you say something that seems like fantasy, people laugh at you or make you feel self-conscious about it, so you smother your make-believe and drive the creative thoughts down into the grave, bury them in the cemetery of originality, and work harder at being like everyone else, safe, unremarkable, just some more wallpaper. It takes courage to revive your imagination and risk the ridicule. In an ironic sense, it takes a brave soul to contrive exaggerations, fantasies, elaborate and eloquent lies.

I flipped the switch and the dark attic became illuminated, but not so brightly as to drive away the small shadows and brighten the dark corners. Neither Mommy nor I wanted it that well lit anyway. Some darkness is comforting, warm, inviting. Mommy used to say it felt protective.

"Most people are afraid of the dark." she said. "They'll never trespass on our privacy."

There was some old furniture up here, dusty and worn. If Grandmother Beverly ever made the trek up the second set of narrow stairs and opened the attic door, she would gasp and vow instantly to have it immediately cleaned out. None of it had any real value anymore. That was true, but there were other kinds of value than monetary value. For Mommy and me this small, dusty room had always been cozy, inviting, comfortable.

Dust particles spun in the beam of the light, glistening like particles of diamonds. It had been a while since Mommy and I were up here. When we were coming up here more frequently, we did do some cleaning, washing down the two windows and sills, vacuuming and some polishing. We wanted it to maintain its special charm, but we wanted it to be clean enough to inhabit as well.

If there were rodents up here, they were excellent at keeping themselves invisible. We never found any droppings and the worst thing we did discover were spiders. Mommy thought we should leave some of the webs untouched. They weren't poisonous spiders. She called them nature's housekeepers who kept any other insects in check.

There were some areas of dampness, places where rain had seeped through or in between cracks. We would bum incense to drive away any musty odors or sometimes spray some flower-scented air freshener.

I went directly to our incense burner and lit a stick. Then I opened the window so the tiny smoke, would spiral in that direction.

Mommy and I always felt the attic had been someone's hideaway at one time or another. On the floor there had been a brown oval rug, worn through in many spots and very faded: why would anyone have put a rug up here if it wasn't a place for some sort of retreat or privacy.

"Maybe the children used it as a playhouse," Mommy suggested, "or maybe Carolyne Demerest had a lover and brought him up here for romantic trysts," she pondered, her eyes widening with excitement.

We both decided that was more fun and elaborated on the story. Carolyne Demerest had fallen in love with the young groundskeeper. "Who was a closet poet, leaving the poems tacked to a special tree."

"And she fell in love with him through his words!"

"Just like Elizabeth and Robert Browning," I added.

"Exactly, and the first time they met up here..."

"It was snowing. The window was glazed and she sat in this old rocker wrapped in a heavy shawl she had made herself."

"He fell to her feet and held them against his cheeks and said..."

"I have dreamed all my life of this moment,"

We both laughed and laughed. What fun it was. I could almost hear her laughter now and feel her hugging me. We were like sisters. truly. I was the sister she had wanted, and her daughter and best friend forever and ever.

Mommy. I cried looking at the empty rocking chair.

I sat there on the small settee and wondered what she was dreaming in her deep sleep, what were the images and the words. What could hold her so firmly and keep her from wanting to see and be with me so much that she couldn't overcome her mental problems?

Surely, I'll wake up tomorrow morning to the sound of commotion, lots of footsteps, doors opening and closing, a car horn and some cries of delight. I'll rise from my bed and look down at our driveway where I will see a car stop and Mommy step out, looking like her old self, strong, full of energy, joyous at the sight of her beloved old home.

She would be cured and the first wards out of her lips would be. "Where's Cinnamon? Where's my little girl?"

Mommy. I would cry inside, Mommy.

And I would practically fly out of my room. descending the stairway so quickly that I couldn't remember my feet touching a step, and then I'd go charging out the front door and into her awaiting arms.

She would hold me and kiss me and say. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm back.

"All will be well again." she would promise.

She and I would enter the house and she would look up at the wall and demand to know where her two works of art were.

"Who dared take them off the wall?"

Daddy would hurry to the basement-- or wherever they had been hidden-- and he would rush to get them up.

"Sorry," he would say. "I just wasn't paying attention to these things." "Well, now that I'm home, see that you do," Mommy would tell him.