Willow Chapter 5: Sonia Drifts (serial novel)

Photo by Lewis J Goetz on Unsplash

Sonia shrugged and moved down the hall. She let the conversation with Sarah Brown pass from her mind, the little bit of intrigue she felt washed away in a tide of relief that the encounter was over. Surely this was the last she would hear from the old woman.

The elevator took her up. The top floor, where she and her father lived, had a different feeling than the other floors. Sometimes she pictured it as a vaulted cave, a place carved under layer upon layer of tarpaper that made up the roof. She let herself into the apartment. Silence greeted her. The light that streamed in through the fire escape window was heavy with dust motes.

She did not mind the quiet, the solitude. The city pressed in on her and she was glad to escape upward, although the surroundings were humble. The radiator covers were rusty. The dishes in the cabinet were chipped. Most of Sonia’s clothes came from thrift stores, as much out of ecological awareness as budgetary constraints.

Her father did not care about these details, he would have been happy to wear the same clothes for thirty years and eat lentils every night. In another time and place he might have been a Buddhist monk, he trod so lightly upon the earth.

By contrast, his social agenda was extensive and his ability to provoke unparalleled. He tempered that with a wry smile, as if to say, I know I am a feather in a storm — but I am a feather with conviction. The wind blows, and still I try to determine my direction. Here, now, it is 1977 and my intentions exist in a vortex of indifference. Few people care about pollution, or eating lower on the food chain. Yet I persist.

Sonia co-existed with these heady ideals as she might have with a sibling. To her, they were something that was neither good nor bad, but simply was.

It was hot in the apartment, and she opened the window onto the fire escape and sat in the window seat. White ash drifted on the breeze like a summer snowfall from the chimney above. Her mind wandered to the photo of Sarah Brown driving the carriage. There was a sticking point in the image, but she could not put her finger on it.

Weary and aimless, she let her mind drift like the ashes on the air. Her eyes closed. The image of Sarah, the horse and the carriage grew brighter and more detailed at the front of her mind, as if projected on a screen in a dark theater. Again, she noted Sarah’s proud posture, her confident hold on the reins. For the first time she noticed how, even in the black and white image, the white horse gleamed in the sun.

The horse in the picture was well muscled and stood poised, waiting for the signal to pull. Its ears were pricked forward, and there was something familiar about the horse’s expression. The horse seemed to be taking everything in, alert but patient. Its head was pretty, with large eyes and broad forehead that tapered down to a delicate muzzle. As a horse lover, it was not unusual that Sonia would notice these details. Still, there was something more about the horse in the photo that she couldn’t place, something familiar.

In her mind’s eye, the image of another horse began to appear. It was an image of Willow, the horse she knew so well from her riding lessons. For a moment her beloved Willow was superimposed on the image of the carriage horse, and she saw Willow’s similarities to the horse in the picture. Then her eyes flew open and she sat up, startled. It couldn’t be, she thought. It couldn’t be.

Click here for Chapter 4: Maggie Arrives