The Finch

• Ella Wise, Grade 09, St Vincent's College
• Short Story
• 2019

Finalist in the 'Inspired 2019' competition

It all began and simultaneously ended on December twenty third. It was two days until Christmas; the town was covered in a thick blanket of snow and holly hung from every window. Slow classic carol songs echoed across the cobbled streets, giving the town a dreamlike state. Put into slow down just like every winter.
The fiords surrounding our village were frozen over and dampened the joyful mood as this meant, no food, no water, and no way out. It was late afternoon and the sun was obscured by the clouds. Snowflakes were falling lightly and swayed to a rest on the floor like small dying angels. I was deeply mesmerised in the hidden wonders of winter when an abrupt knock woke me from my daydream.
I stood up prim and proper, puzzled by the unexpected visitor but our maid reached the door first. A man about my age stepped in to the landing tracking muddy snow. A heavy hood of deer fur obscured his face and I drew a sharp breath when he removed it. He was handsome but the way his ebony hair was slicked back and his ice cold gaze, empty beneath, unnerved me. He was just the type of man my father would love.
I was right.
My father fawned over him, feeding him our finest food and letting him sit in the formal dining room, a place we hadn’t entered since my mother passed. I was furious at my father wasting our precious food and treating a stranger better than his only child.
My father told me it was for my own good; it was time for me to go into the world as a woman with a man by my side.
The next day I was to start my new life with a stranger.
As soon as the fiords began to crack he took me far away to a distant peninsula. A small cottage by the sea. He gave me many things in a vain attempt to buy my love. One of which was a finch in a powder blue cage, trapped and alone.
Time became merely a number as day and night melded together. The only time I would bother to look out the picture window was to watch the sun sink in the sky, fading, drowning in the sea.
It was the first time he had left in the many months since we had been here and the first time I was ready to do what I needed. I grabbed the powder handle of the finch's cage and approached the cliff. I released the finch off into the cool night and looked down towards the roaring sea, an ethereal peaceful place that would greet me with open arms.