The Lost Boy

As a child, I remember watching the Princess Bride with my father, and being in awe of the dashing and witty Westley. But as a young woman, I find myself rewatching the film and wondering how Buttercup could be so sure of her faith in her farm boy. What if in another world, Westley hadn’t made it in time?

She remains seated there, on the edge of her windowsill in nothing but a silken night robe, wondering if he too is awake. The cold stone of the sill feels rough as it scratches against her bare calves. The last gibbous moon of winter lazily glides through the sky, and she realize that it has been almost four months since she last spent the night in company of the stars, unravelled and indulgent in memories of him. But tonight, it is the last time. After tomorrow, she knows she will be in a new home, with a new bed, and in the embrace of another’s arms instead of the still night air that currently wraps itself around her.

She calls out to the moon “Do you remember when we met?”, as she remembers the start of the autumn harvest, a golden glow that lasted days. Perhaps if she is persistent enough, the night will carry her questions to him over the moon beams. “How could I have known that a new farmhand would become my everything? You, with your dark hair and darker eyes. You, with your smile that could warm me even in the chilliest of autumn nights. You said we would be careful.”

The night does not respond.

***

They lay hidden in the corn fields. Some ears of corn began to tickle her ankle as she attempted to shift away from the hot afternoon rays. The farmhand took her hand in his and whispered into her ear.

“You are mine.”

“Is that what you want?” she responded softly.

“I cannot imagine wanting anything more. Is it what you want too?”

She gasped. Nobody had asked her that before. Nobody cared about what she wanted. Papa had already told her that this winter he’d begin searching for a suitor who could take care of her now that he was getting too old. But this boy was different. She was fearful that we would burn out too fast. However, eventually his persistence and promises to be careful wore her resolve thin.

“We would be like the evergreen pines of the North that can withstand even the harshest of winter storms.” he explained, whenever her furrow creased and her worries surfaced.

But it had been a lie. They weren’t the hardy green of pine, but instead the supple green of maple, that by mid-autumn became a deep, burning scarlet, right before its eventual fall. Oh, but what a beautiful scarlet they were.

***

“Do you remember the end-of-harvest bonfire, where the entire village gaped in awe as we danced most scandalously around the flames?” she questions the moon. “I had just returned from a few days’ journey to the neighbouring village with Papa to sell our last bushel of crops.” As she leans back against the window frame and closes her eyes, the sound of tonight’s wind is easily replaced by his voice from that night, gravelly from all the bonfire smoke, telling her how much he had missed me while she’d been away. Her mind replays a series of memories of their courtship. And then she recalls the evening that changed it all; the evening they climbed on to the baker’s roof and stayed up talking till dawn.

***

“Have you ever loved another?” she asked him quietly. The smell of fresh bread had begun to waft up to them from an open window as they watched the first few beams of sun begin to lighten the inky sky. A tea kettle rang shrilly from somewhere within the bakery.

“You mean, before you?”

What a dangerous thing to say, she mused as she chuckled and straightened his collar, feeling the stitches in the rough cotton between her fingers. His promises to be careful were thrown to the wind as he unabashedly declared his heart to her. She couldn’t tell him that she too loved him that night, but little did he know that she thought it. And she continued to think it all night long as he carried her home and tucked her into her sheets before Papa could discover her absence. She thought it the next morning, and the night after that, and eventually every waking moment since.

And then came the morning before he left to go see his mother. He followed her down to the cellar to put away the barrel of cider as Papa had requested. Down there, unbeknownst to all the people in the house above them, he told her that he had made a mistake. Perhaps he loved her in brief moments, and had hoped he could string those moments together eventually. Or perhaps, he never loved her, and simply wanted another to hold so that the days of labour on the farm would become more bearable. But that love wasn’t sustainable and he had to leave before the fruits it bore began to rot. No matter how much she pleaded, he could not give her a reason, other than to claim that sometimes, love just ended.

***

Just like autumn, the golden hour was up and her farmhand was gone. He returned to the farm weeks ago, but now she avoids him in the fields and refuses to meet his gaze in the corridors of the farmhouse.

When Papa asked him to bring home fresh flowers from the florist with which to freshen the house for the engagement, he brought home stargazing lilies, remembering that they are her favourite. When he escorted her to visit the tailor for the last alterations on the dress, his eyes would not stray from her reflection the entire time.

“Are all these moments lost on you?” she asks desperately. “Do you not see that you remain the same boy that loved me with passion redder than any maple can bleed?” But the stars provide her with no consolation.

“And now, I must keep treacherous thoughts about us at bay. I am to be married tomorrow, after all. Even now, you remain lost in a summer haze, unsure of what you yourself feel.”

Trusting him meant placing her happiness in his hands and watching as he let it drop. Loving him meant losing herself the day she lost him.

“For that is what you are, a lost boy. I can’t lead you home lest I lose my own way once again; you must follow the North Star and find the way back yourself.” She says, as she tries to spot the North Star herself. The constellations seem brighter now that she has chosen to reclaim her life.

She has only just begun to put the shattered ice shards of her own freezing heart back together, knowing after a winter of waiting that he won’t do it for her. Now, she prepares for spring, and the redemption that comes with new beginnings. A new season is upon them.