A Fey for Valentines Day

Off the Map

Central Park in February is a study in contrasts.

All around me the paths are salted, but still treacherous, patches of ice hiding beneath thin layers of slush that break under your foot. The cold water threatens to seep through your shoes if they're not water tight. The trees are bare, dormant branches outstretched like the most beautiful cracks of porcelain. Snow clings to places where the sun can't reach — the north side of the boulders, the shadowside of the bridges, the spaces beneath benches where pigeons huddle for both food and warmth, their feathers puffed up against the cold.

Turning right, I head toward Ladies Pavilion, one of my favorite spots to sit and watch the world go by. The ornate cast-iron gazebo from the 1870s usually provides me with a peaceful respite.

Today, however, there's no such luck. Everywhere, despite the bitter air, are couples.

On a bench within the gazebo, a couple sits wrapped in a plaid blanket they must have brought from home. The woman was leaning into her partner's chest, her eyes closed, as he read aloud from a paperback book. I can't hear a word of it, but I can see the way she smiles at the sound of his voice. A thermos beside them, probably full of hot chocolate or coffee, and their mittened hands intertwined on top of the blanket.

I decide to keep walking. Searching for somewhere I can be alone with my thoughts.

Along the path, a man in a red scarf leans down to whisper something in a woman's ear — causing her to blush as I walk toward them. Despite my presence, they stop in the middle of the path to kiss, oblivious to the jogger behind them who has to veer around, and I feel the familiar ache of loneliness bloom in my heart.

This is what Valentine's Day looks like from the outside. A series of tableaux, each one a small portrait of love and connection, of belonging, of all the things I've somehow failed to find in my life.

I walk past them, my boots crunching on the salt beneath my feet, my breath fogging in the cool air. I keep walking without a destination, choosing instead to let the path guide me as I attempt to lose myself. I let my feet lead and my eyes wander, looking for something — anything — that might spark inspiration.

The park has always been a sanctuary. In a city of eight million people, it's the one place where I can feel alone without feeling lonely. Usually.

The trees don't care if I have a boyfriend, a husband, a career, a life. The rocks don't expect anything from me. Even the water in the lake reflects the world for you without asking why you're staring at it or what you can offer it in return.

Today, though, the park feels different.

I end up wandering to Bethesda Terrace, one of my favorite parts of the park, and find myself face to face with a real-life down-on-one-knee marriage proposal — which I should have expected. It's one of the most romantic spots in the park after all.

I stand frozen at the top of the stairs, watching the man wearing a dark coat and a nervous expression as he waits for her to answer his question. She nods softly, then more emphatically. There's a moment, just before she says yes, when her whole face lights up and transforms into pure happiness.

Will anyone ever look at me like that?

Will someone offer me forever one day?

As the questions began to rise one by one, I shove them down. This is not the time for self-pity. This is a beautiful moment for two strangers, and I will be happy for them. But suddenly I find myself unable to breathe, fighting back tears that sting harsh as ice as they meet the cold air.

I turn and quickly walk in the opposite direction, deeper into the park.

The Ramble swallows me within minutes as I wander deeper and deeper into the heart of Central Park-winding paths, dense vegetation, a maze of sound buffer that makes you forget you're in the middle of New York City. I know this place. Every inch of it.

Which is why I notice immediately when something is amiss.

The path I'm walking should curve to the left. I've walked it a hundred times — it winds past a moss-covered bounder that looks like a wolf howling at the sky, under a stone arch, then opens onto a view of the lake. I've painted there, beside the shore numerous times.

But today, the path doesn't curve left.

Today, it continues straight into a section of trees that I've never seen before.

I stop walking. Listening to the most peculiar thing of all — there's music coming from the trees. Not the sound of a radio, but that of a genuine orchestra. A waltz, maybe.

Every rational instinct in me is screaming at me to turn back. I've studied the maps of Central Park obsessively and this section of the Ramble simply shouldn't exist. Not shouldn't — it doesn't exist.

Except that, right now at this moment, it does.

The trees ahead shimmer slightly, as if the air moving between them is denser, more alive. I take a step forward. Then another. The massive oaks are older than any I've seen in the park. Their trunks wider, their branches higher, their bark aged by centuries, not decades. The snow on the ground is pristine — no footprints, no animal tracks, no evidence that anyone has disturbed it.

The rational part of my brain keeps screaming at me as I wander forward further into the trees. But there's another part of me, buried so deep down that I'd almost forgotten it existed, that keeps me moving. The part that still picks up pennies on heads, the part that makes wishes on shooting stars. The part that wants to believe in the unbelievable.

That part, the little girl lost inside the woman, wants to know where the music is coming from.

I push through the tangle of branches, stumbling as my foot catches on a root. Tripping forward, the space suddenly opens up, and I find myself in a small clearing.

And there it is. The music is coming from ... a fountain?

For a long moment, all I can do is stare. My mind is trying to find any explanation to make sense of what I'm seeing — a fountain with ornate sculpturing that had to have been installed decades ago, somehow missed on every map I'd ever seen of the park. Perhaps a private installation by some eccentric millionaire? Or just a hallucination brought on by cold and loneliness?

But as I reach out and touch the pale stone, none of those explanations account for what's actually in front of me.

Three tiers rise skyward, each more beautiful than the last even as they grow smaller, connected by spouts shaped like open mouths. The craftsmanship is extraordinary — the sort of work you'd imagine finding in a Renaissance Cathedral or guarding the entrance to an ancient palace, not hidden in the thickest parts of Central Park.

The base is surrounded by a wide basin brimming with sculpted figures that make my breath catch. Dancers in masks and lavish clothes. Carved in stone, frozen mid-step around the fountain's edge. Each pair is different — a woman in a gown that flows seamlessly with a man in a Renaissance-style tuxedo, masks adorning both their faces. Two figures in matching armor, visors raised; a dancer in something like moonlight partnered with a shadow. Their masks are elaborate, beautiful, and deeply unsettling — some feathered, some jeweled, some shaped like animals or abstract patterns.

Figures carved with such skill that they seem almost alive. Each line, each fold of fabric, each ripple of hair is individual and defined. Each masked face holding its own expression.

But it's not just the craftsmanship that steals my breath, extraordinary as it is.

It's the water.

The fountain has running water despite the freezing temperature, water that almost glows in the faint gray winter light, as if illuminated from within.

That's impossible.

Every fountain in Central Park is drained of water for the winter. The pipes are emptied each fall to prevent freezing and bursting. I painted the Bethesada Fountain in December, its basin dry and filled with dead leaves, it's angel presiding over nothing below. I know how this works.

But this water cascades from the top tier in a steady stream, catching light that doesn't come from the overcast sky above. The light shimmers with color — purple, gold, and silver-blues. They seem to shift and change as I watch, like the aurora borealis in liquid form.

The music rises from the fountain itself — I'm certain of it. Rising from the water, or the stone perhaps, or maybe the surrounding air, or perhaps from all three at once. The closer I get, the louder it gets, the more alive the dancers seem. Fine details stand out — the stitching on a glove, the individual feathers of a mask, the tiny flowers embroidered on the hem of a dress. One dancer wears a gown covered in what looks like real stars, pinpricks of light embedded in the stone. Another has wings folded against her back, so delicately carved I half expect them to flutter.

I stretch my hand out, wanting to know what their texture feels like. But think better of it just before my fingers touch.

Come, it whispers, and I feel the word more than hear it. Touch me. Just once. I won't bite.

And I want to know, I want to know what the water feels like, the dancers, the wings, all of it ... just once.