Take My Word For It

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Alfred J. Kwak

Copyright: Hermann van Veen

"I congratulated you – and flew away?"

Rarely had Alfred heard the calm and elegant Winnie raise her voice, but when she did, the results were powerful. Her golden bangles clinked together, her eyes flashed, and even her mane of curls seemed to crackle with indignation. Alfred blushed. Would he ever learn how to avoid dangerous situations – especially those involving women?

"I'm sorry … I didn't mean to upset you," he said cautiously, "But you did ask me to tell you what was wrong. It was just a dream, really. Nothing to worry about."

Winnie sighed at the teacup in her feathered hands, swirling it around to get her anger under control. The light from the fireplace danced across her features, making her lovelier than ever – so much like the Winnie from his dream, it made him shiver.

"In my country, a dream is never just a dream," she said tightly. "If we were there right now, we could go to a shaman to drive the evil spirits out of you. Even some of the scientists at the university agree that dreams can reveal more about a person's hopes and fears than they would ever admit in the waking world."

"Really? Interesting. Did Professor Ramses say that?"

She shot him a hard glance, ignoring his clumsy attempt to change the subject. She knew as well as he did that her archeologist employer knew notthing about brain chemistry. "And I find it difficult to believe," she continued, "That even in a nightmare, you would think so little of our relationship and of me."

"What?" Alfred's voice, still boyish even after several years of adult living, went up dangerously high. "Winnie! What makes you think – how can you – of course I don't think little of you! I think so much I can't even talk about it, ever since I met you – so why – "

"Why would you have a nightmare about being forced to marry the witch from Hansel and Gretel, and then watching me, of all creatures, abandon you to her?"

He blushed again and bowed his head, avoiding her accusatory stare. Sspoken out loud, it only sounded ridiculous, as most of his nightmares did. The fact was, however, that for a healthy, cheerful and fairly sane young drake in the daytime, he did have a strong capacity for nighttime terrors. Sometimes he saw his family's clog house flung across the rain-soaked road; sometimes he was trapped down the Well of the Exiles with Dolf again, or falling through empty space because he had outgrown Henk's house and the mole had silently locked him out. One morning, he had spent hours on the lake just to convince himself that he wasn't about to die of thirst alongside the ragged, skeletal desert mice for whom he would later build that canal.

Perhaps, he thought, it was because many of his nightmares were real, or even partly so.

This one wasn't, though. As horrifying as the fairytale witch had been with her slimy hands and warty skin – and even more horrifying in her attempt to become beautiful – he had to at least try to separate dream from reality this time.

"Honestly, Winnie," he said, making an effort to speak calmly and lightly, "If you saw me with a gorgeous lady duck who had … you know, uh … curves … and said I was her fiançé, wouldn't you be right to get annoyed with me?"

Winnie's beak twisted with the effort to hold back a smile; her own lack of curves had always been a sore point, but seeing Alfred try to gesture his way through a description seemed to amuse her.

"Not," she finally said, the stern note still present in her voice, "If you told me it was nothing but an illusion. Not if you wanted her to let you go."

Alfred stared at the clock on the mantelpiece, concentrating hard on the ornate black hands to keep his sight from growing dim. Let me go, his one-year-old self sobbed. I swear I didn't do it! How many times, during his travels in the name of knowledge, peace and justice, had he screamed through a prison door and heard nothing in response?

"You would take my word for it? Just like that?"

"After everything we've been through together," Winnie said simply, "How could I not?"

Even in the middle of an argument, her sparkling black eyes turned to him with trust and admiration. It was the same look he had seen the first time they met, when she and her family had stowed away in his train compartment and he had promised to see them safe across the border. As always, he felt unworthy of such a gift, and it took his breath away.

She stretched her wing across the table. He covered it with his, brown feathers and mingling with golden ones by the light of the fire and candles.

"I don't know how to do this, Winnie. This … being a couple."

She smiled sadly. "Neither do I. Father says no one does, at first … but I didn't expect it to be so difficult."

"I make so many friends when I go traveling, but then I'm gone after only a few days. No one except Henk, and now you, ever stuck around for the really hard times – I don't mean fighting or getting locked up or any of that, I mean … after."

Winnie nodded.

"That's when my imagination runs away with me, and I get these nightmares, and start freaking out about the stupidest things like Ollie's jokes and Michael Duckson and those fairy tales. I get so scared of losing you, even though you're right here. Because I could, you know. Lose you. It could happen any second, just like it did to my parents."

"I know," said Winnie.

Of course she knew. Her parents were two of Gooseland's most notorious activists in the battle against apartheid. Like him, she lived every day with the possibility of loss.

"But you can't let the fear take over. You need to trust me. Trust that what we have is worth the risk." She caressed his wingfeathers, as lightly as a breeze. "That's what I loved about you from the first, Alfred. The way you always find something worth fighting for."

"Winnie … "

It was all he could think of, but to him, it meant everything. I will always fight for you, die for you if I have to, and live for you too. Being a couple won't be easy, but if I could have chosen any duck in the universe for it, it would have been you.

He could see in her eyes and feel by her touch that she understood.