Once a year, a great wind blew through the valley. It howled and swooped with such force that the small blue house began to lean forward, as if preparing for flight. Anna and her grandmother watched from inside as the wind wrestled with the oak and maple trees in the yard.
“What if the wind blows the house down?” Anna asked with a shiver.
“Not this wind. He’s not a destroyer, he’s a traveler,” said the old woman. “My mother called him the wind god. He flies around the world, looking for adventure, carrying news. If you listen carefully, he tells stories about the far places.”
As she grew up, Anna would stand by the window, shut her eyes, and listen, wishing to see those far places outside the valley. She began to hear the wind’s deep voice, laughing and singing, as he described beautiful marble cities, rushing green rivers, and vast golden deserts.
Anna never told anyone but her grandmother what she heard. She translated the songs of the wind while the old woman sat on the sofa, knitting.
“You have the gift of understanding,” her grandmother said. “Not many have that anymore.”
When her grandmother passed away, Anna inherited the house and took a job at a nearby factory. Burdened by the cares of survival, she began to forget the wind god and his secret language. Sometimes, while she washed the dishes or cleaned the house, dim memories of the green rivers and fantastic cities came to her.
“There’s no sense in wishing anymore,” she chided herself. “Those were just old stories Grandmother told to comfort me during the storms. Grownups don’t make wishes.” And she went about her business, alone and quiet.
Yet the desire to see the far places remained in her heart.
Then, in the middle of the night the following year, as darkness wrapped its velvet blanket around the house, Anna heard the wind god.
He roared with a mighty voice that rattled the doors and windows. The tips of his feathers brushed the roof and rustled around the chimney. Soft shivers traveled down her back. Electricity sparked across her skin and the fine strands of hair on her neck and arms began to rise. She wanted to—and yet didn’t want to—believe that he was real.
Nervous, tired, and mindful of the next day’s chores, Anna tried to block the wind’s noise by placing a pillow over her head.
But it didn’t help. The god rustled. And rattled. And roared.
Unable to bear any longer the sounds and the sensations they evoked in her, she went outside. In the yard, the trees bent to and fro in the restless wind. Her long, brown hair flew in wild waves as she walked, looking for him.
Up in the sky above her, the shape of a man with wings shimmered under the pale light of the crescent moon.
“Why have you come back?” she pleaded. “It’s late and I have to work tomorrow.” The swirling pattern of air stirred by his wings caught her voice and drew it upward to him. “What do you want?”
He rose above her, enormous white wings stretched to their full span, arms opened to her.
“You,” he said, in his booming, laughing voice. “The one who understands my language, as I understand yours. I remember that you wished for the wind to take you to the far places.”
Anna nodded. Tears shone in her eyes as hope leapt within her heart.
“I travel around the world in search of the one woman who wants to fly with me.” His wings drooped. “But I did not find her in the cities, or in the deserts, or by the rivers. Only you have ever held onto the wish. And I am here to grant it.” He flexed his wings, the thousand small feathers rustling.
She nodded. “Yes.”
The god swept Anna into his arms and flew her up to the stars. She leaned back in ecstasy and embraced her new life as queen of the sky.
