Once Upon a Window, Part 6

Kevin and Kate helped Great-grandmother for quite a while the next afternoon, but neither of them could figure out what to say to her or whether to say anything at all. They cleaned windows (but not the front window), washed the kitchen floor (they were both drenched by the time they were done with that job) and finally dusted the front room while Great-grandmother sat and mended some clothes for the children’s mother. (Most of them belonged to Kevin and Kate.)

Finally they finished the last of the chores Great-grandmother needed them to do, and she sent them downstairs to play. As soon as they were down in the playroom, they started whispering to each other.

” Well, were you going to ask her about the window?” Kate demanded.

“I don’t know. I thought we were going to wait,” Kevin replied.

“Yeah, I guess we were, but we aren’t going to learn anything that way. And as long as Great-grandmother can’t go out and work in the yard, we probably won’t get a chance to look out the window ourselves either.” Kate sighed.

“Maybe we could take up one of those scrapbooks of hers and see if we can get her talking about Great-grandfather or something and just kind of slip into talking about the window,” Kevin suggested.

“That’s a good idea, but that made me think of an even better one. There’s a scrapbook around here with pictures of their old house, and that same stained glass window that Great-grandmother brought here when they moved.” Kate ran into the next room and began rummaging in a storage closet.

A few minutes later and little bit dusty, the children came up the stairs with the scrapbook.

But when they got to the top of the steps, they stopped and stared. Great-grandmother, who was always very much in control of herself, stood at the window looking through the blue pane and crying. She was very quiet, but the children could see the shaking of her shoulders and the track of a tear sliding down her cheek from under her glasses.

Kate dropped the scrapbook and the children ran to the old woman.

“Great-grandmother, what’s wrong?” Kate asked as they both hugged her, one on each side.

“What are you seeing out of that blue pane that’s making you cry?” asked Kevin.

Great-grandmother sniffled and gave a little laugh, wiping her eyes with her lacy handkerchief.

“I thought you two had found out about the window.” She hugged the pair of children. “I was seeing Great-grandfather, and remembering, and missing him. I do miss him very much sometimes. Come and let’s sit down and talk. Great-grandmother led the way to the couch.

“How did you know we figured out about the window?” Kevin asked.

“That wasn’t hard, Kevin. You two aren’t nearly as sneaky as you think you are.” Great-grandmother was smiling as she said this, so they knew she wasn’t angry. “The way you insisted on playing in the front, some of the strange remarks I got from the neighbors, and the step-ladder you insisted on storing under this very couch,” Great-grandmother prodded backwards with her foot, “were all very good clues.”

“And,” she continued, “while you two can be a handful at times, you usually don’t bicker quite so much or get into quite as much trouble as you have lately. Really, Kevin, dangling by your tie!” To the children’s surprise, Great-grandmother laughed.

Kevin and Kate looked at each other. They hadn’t realized they were so easy to see through.

“But how does the window work, Great-grandmother? I mean, we saw the future the way things might be if people made other choices, but then the other day we saw Great-grandfather from when he was sick – and you see him in the window, too.” Kate was puzzled.

“And where did it come from?” added Kevin.”

“Let’s start with where it came from. A long time ago,” Great-grandmother began, “when my grandfather was a young man, he worked as a glass maker. He blew glass into wonderful shapes, and molded useful items out of it, and sometimes he would get an order for sheets of colored glass. He got one of these orders – and it was a very large one – from a man who lived in a huge mansion. People said that the man was a wizard, or a magician of some sort. Now my grandfather didn’t know whether this was so or not, but the man was willing to pay a lot of money for some very fancy sheets of glass to make into a stained glass window, so my grandfather agreed to fill the order.

“It took my grandfather and his apprentices a long time to get the order done, because the colors had to be just so and it was hard to get the large sheets of glass just right without fancy modern machinery. When they finally finished the order and delivered it, the man told my grandfather that he had had what  he called a ‘reversal of fortunes’, meaning that he wasn’t wealthy anymore, and he couldn’t pay for the glass. So he offered a trade, instead.

“The man said that if my grandfather would let him keep the glass, he would make a magic window for my grandfather out of part of the glass. Moreover, he would make it a stained glass window, for that was something he was skilled at. The artistry of the window itself would be worth quite a bit, the man told him, and the magic in it would make it worth even more.

“Since my grandfather would be stuck with the special order otherwise, he reluctantly agreed. He thought that if nothing else, he could sell the stained glass window and get back some of his money.”

Kevin and Kate were listening as hard as they could as Great-grandmother continued.

“A few weeks later, the man sent word that my grandfather was to come and pick up his window. I remember my grandfather telling me that when he first laid eyes on it, he knew he had made the right decision. It was truly a thing of beauty, he said, whether it was magic or not.

“Then the man showed him the magic in the window. ‘Each pane will show you a different time or place,’ the man said. ‘If you want to see the past, for instance, think about when you want to see and look through here,’ and he pointed to a certain pane, ‘And if you want to see a city far away, think about the place and then look through here,’ and he pointed to another pane. Each of the panes had a certain magic in it, and he explained each one. ‘Last of all, if you want to see the future, look here.’ Again he pointed out a particular pane. ‘It will only go a very short time into the future, though, for the future is too uncertain.’

“My grandfather tried out each pane as he was directed to, and was amazed. ‘This is worth far more than the glass I made for you, sir!’ he told the man. But the man told him that the glass had been made and delivered in good faith, and that payment was due. This was the best payment he could manage since he no longer had the money.

“My grandfather took the window and put it in his house and kept it. He couldn’t even think of selling it. He and all of his children enjoyed it for many years. Then, one day, the neighbor’s house caught on fire and the fire spread to my grandfather’s house. The house was destroyed, and the window was, too. When my grandfather and his family went back to see what they could salvage from the fire, they found that most of the window had shattered into pieces too small to save. The one exception was a piece of blue glass.

“My grandfather made the blue piece part of a new window and soon discovered that although it was the only piece of glass left, it seemed to have the properties of all of the pieces of the window combined. He said that he thought the fire must have fused all the magic into that one piece.”

Kate and Kevin looked wide-eyed at the blue pane of the window. “So it’s really magic!” Kate breathed.

Kevin said, “How many people know about it? I mean, besides us.”

“My grandfather always let people find out about the window on their own. I don’t know why; probably because it was such an unlikely thing that he didn’t want people trying to steal it. His children, including my father, knew of course, but beyond that, not everyone found out about it. I did, and one of my brothers, a few of our cousins, and so on. Your father figured it out, too, but you two are the only ones since him to know about the window.” Great-grandmother looked at them and smiled. “I should have known that you two would figure it out.”

“So tell me,” she asked, ” what have you seen through the window?”

Kevin and Kate told her about seeing the future as it might have been, and trying first to help others and then to help themselves with it. Great-grandmother burst out laughing several times as Kevin and Kate turned red remembering their mistakes and accidents.

“That really does explain some of the comments I’ve received from people,” she chuckled. “And I think you two get the prize for the most creative use of the window of anyone in the history of the thing!”

“How come it always went wrong, Great-grandmother?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah, I mean even when we were trying to help other people, it went wrong,” Kate added.

“That’s probably because, like the man who made the window said, the future is such a changeable thing. Any action you take can make the future you saw change. The window is good for amusement, for making you thoughtful, for remembering things, but it won’t really change things in a desired way.”

Kate and Kevin looked thoughtful and nodded. “I think I get it,” Kevin said. “We tried to make the future go the way we wanted it to by using the window instead of thinking about what we were doing.”

“Yeah, and we were trying to change things we didn’t have any control over sometimes, too, instead of changing our own actions,” Kate agreed.

Great-grandmother hugged them again and said, “I think the window taught you something very valuable, children. Now let me tell you about some of the trouble your father got into with that window the time he used it to study history instead of using his history book…”

She Wolf © 2008