text: When she was ten, she went to the woods to find a flooded house. She can't remember if she was bluffing or if she really knew it would be there- if she had been there before or if she had guessed and gotten lucky. But eventually, the trees cleared into tall grass, and a house really was there. And the house really had been flooded, baby toys and clothes spilled out of the doorways. She took a locked wooden box with her when she left. Later she went to live with the Mazatoya's, to study weaving with the oldest sister, a master spinster. She woke at 8am and sat for 12 hours, spinning, weaving, talking, and every few hours eating, before going upstairs to fall fast asleep, dreamlessly. The Mazatoya's had three daughters, two of which were very practical people, each had chosen a craft in her youth and each had mastered it by late adolescence, working dutifully and with purpose. Anna was quite the opposite, which was why she had been sent to the Mazatoya house- she had no direction and, while interested in most things, she had mastered nothing. The third daughter, Lunetta, was, as though fated at her christening, even more lost than Anna, a pearlescent wanderer, constantly changing and leaving. She studied art in Paris, animal husbandry in Nice, and continuously made great efforts to get on a boat. But, she was no laborer and most men could see the mistake in sending a wealthy young woman from a famous family out to sea with rude and lonely men. Lunetta was saved, however, from the title of "black sheep" by the Mazatoya's live-in cousin, Brutus. At 10am one morning, Anna sat with Clara, the oldest daughter, spinning yarn and watching Clara's long and graceful fingers, her beautiful and clear grey eyes and serenely focused expression. "So you don't think then that Brutus is talented?" "It's not my kind of thing," Clara said, calmly. "I consider him to be one of a kind." "I only ever really enjoy sonatas, canons, that sort of thing. With melodies." Clara gathered the soft, swirling pile of dark violet yarn at her feet, and begun to wind it into a tight ball. Anna struggled to decipher Clara's opinion of her, based on this disagreement about the music, but studying the young woman's face, she found only knit brows, intelligent eyes, and no clear feelings about anything at all, other than a desire to do the job before her well. That night Anna went to see Brutus after working, after everyone else had retired to their own rooms. She brought two oranges with her and took the back staircase, which was always cold with stone walls and floor. She found Brutus in his room, sitting on a patterned rug, most-likely woven by Clara, and playing guitar by candlelight. Brutus barely acknowledged her entrance, and she sat down next to him, placed one orange between them, and started to peel the other. He continued to play his simple and strange discordant melodies- melodies that, to Anna, felt very true. "Sometimes I wonder why I'm not like them," she said, finally. "Not like who?" "Your family." "Well, you haven't met all of my family..." "The ones I have met." He continued playing in a way that made her uncertain whether or not she'd been heard, before he asked, "In what way?" "They know everything about who they are, they know what they like, they know what to do... and they do it." "Well, don't you?" "No." She felt chilled. She had expected Brutus of all people to understand, to be able to explain, to- though she didn't admit it to herself- compliment her for her difference, for the way she was. He took the orange she had peeled from her hands and said: "Thank you." She sat for a moment, before grabbing the other orange. "I'm going to bed now." She stood up to go. "Goodnight," Brutus called, as her hands pushed the door open. The next morning Anna decided not to weave. She couldn't bear to do it, and instead lie in bed, chastising herself for her laziness and luxuriating in the warmth of the linen sheets. A little past 8am, a knock came to the door. It was Eunice, the woman of the house, Mrs. Mazatoya. "Hello, Anna?" "Yes?" "Are you feeling well?" She peeked her head into the room. "Not really," Anna replied. "Okay, well, I'll make sure we have some meals brought up for you. Feel better." She shut the door. Anna wondered that such an industrious woman from such an industrious family would be so accepting of an excuse not to work. She heard another knock at the door. "Yes?" Eunice Mazatoya stuck her head in. "Would you like some tea?" "Yeah, yes, sure," replied Anna. Anna suddenly felt more energized and looked out the window, where she saw Brutus playing guitar under an orange tree. She suddenly felt a great need to be outside, and decided to take the back staircase, the same back staircase that she had taken to his room the night before, to the courtyard, in her pajamas. She entered the courtyard and felt the warm, golden glow of the sunlight, the small round pebbles beneath her, threatening her bare feet. She held a pale hand up to shield her eyes and realized that most days she didn't go outside at all. The cool morning breeze blew her hair off her shoulders and refreshed her. She suddenly wished that she had learned to ride horses. She breathed in deeply. "Hi," she heard. A beautiful young woman with rounded edges approached from the side. "Oh, hi!" she said. It was the girl who lived up the hill. "What, do you need something?" Anna wished she knew how to be more polite. The girl just shook her head and looked down at her hands, which held a note, before looking out at the orchard where Brutus sat playing, and suddenly Anna understood. This girl was there for Brutus, she had been called, this flutteringly feminine and gentle, selfless girl was enamored with an object like Brutus, callous and selfish and interested. When the girl looked at Anna, a whole world of hope and wonder in her eyes, she realized how alone she was, in this house. With the Mazatoya's. She saw the picture as it was being painted, and herself like a jarring red stroke in the upper left corner of the canvas. "You should go find him," Anna said. "I'm sure he's waiting for you." The girl smiled, and looked out distractedly. She began to walk, then to run, toward the orchard. Anna looked back up, at her room, at the window where she had sat earlier, at the window where Clara now sat spinning, at house she had lived in for quite a long time. She went back upstairs, and found tea made with fresh mint waiting for her. She took the wooden box out from under her bed and smoothed her hands over its polished lid, tracing the flowers and leaves, and for the first time, something popped within the mechanism and the box opened. Inside was a small piece of ribbon, and a note, that just said "go".