The Hanged Man: Part 3: Samhain
Post #14: In which a songbird is silenced and a woman waits ...
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CHAPTER 7
Morfran left Bala Lake on a warm spring day of sun and high clouds. He didn’t hurry, but made his way steadily south, sometimes solitary, sometimes traveling with others. He was friendly but spoke little, preferring to listen. Now and then he rested for a day. He preferred small villages and towns and narrow, less traveled roads. He liked to stop near a village, replenish his stores, eat a good meal and sit in the local inn hearing news and talk.
One day, while scouting the way ahead as a crow, a little sparrow spoke to him. She was a pretty thing, quietly clothed in grey and brown. He knew at once she was no more a true sparrow than he was a crow. He’d never met another shapeshifter, aside from his foster mother and Gwion. He was fascinated.
She was distinctly odd. When he asked her name she fluttered away, as though panicked, looking clumsy and half demented. He flew along with steady wingbeats, seeming to ignore her distress and doing his best to project friendly acceptance. Eventually, she began to fly less erratically and circled around him in graceful swooping circles.
“I’m Cassandra,” she said.
“I’m Morfran,” he said, as though to a timid child. “I’m going to fly down to the road now and take human shape. I’d like to talk more with you.”
Without waiting for an answer, he shifted into his true form. Somewhat to his surprise, she didn’t fly off at once. He felt curious about her own true shape but she remained a sparrow, flying along beside him or just above him.
He wanted to question her, but her air of extreme fragility made him afraid even the gentlest approach would send her away. He settled into his familiar lurching pace and made himself quiet, waiting to see what she would do.
She began to swoop in circles around him, rising and falling, and he could hear her murmuring to herself. He caught snatches of words.
“Fiery key and fiery castle…he of black desert and silver fish…sea wolves chasing white horses…dancing kings bound in a golden chain…” She fell silent, flew two more circles, and fluttered to the ground as though to rest.
He was conscious of how huge he must seem from her point of view, huddled there on the dusty road. He didn’t allow himself to stop walking, but said, “If you’d like to ride on my shoulder we can talk more easily and you can rest.”
A few steps on, a soft sound of feather and wing brushed his ear and she alighted on his shoulder.
“I never met another shapeshifter before,” he said casually.
“I’m really not,” she said, sounding quite ordinary. “Do you know Minerva?”
“Commerce, wisdom, weaving, ingenuity,” said Morfran promptly, remembering Ceridwen and her lessons with a pang of affection.
Cassandra laughed with a sound like a leaf falling. Morfran relaxed.
“Yes. She loves birds, especially—“
“Owls.”
“Owls. She’s my friend. She made me a bird so I could be free …”
She lifted off his shoulder and flew, swooping and gliding. Morfran, watching her, sensed some indefinable wrongness. She might be any other songbird in the world—almost. There was a subtle sense of something broken in her movements, as though she didn’t quite possess the proper number of feathers or some tiny fragile bone in her wing was missing.
She returned to his shoulder. “I don’t know what happened,” she continued. “Out of nowhere a hawk struck at me and I didn’t know where to go or what to do…”
Morfran made a sound of compassion in his throat, feeling any word would be too rough.
She shivered, settling her feathers.
“I broke my wing. I fell under a tree and a man came. He picked me up. I was in pain and terrified. He took me home. He cared for me, but his mind was filled with bloody thorns! Bloody thorns! They pierced and tore so cruelly!”
Once again, she lifted off his shoulder, flying erratically in and out of tree branches arching over the road. Morfran wondered if any of what she said was true. Her distress was certainly real enough, but she seemed half mad.
She returned to his shoulder. Bit by bit, she told the story, every now and then taking to the air as though to relieve her agitation.
“He bound up my wing and made a place for me inside an open window while I healed. I tried not to see the thorns. I tried not to know. But his shadow wore a crown of blood and his eyes were dark.
I got better. One morning I felt so well that as dawn came I sang a song. Birds in trees outside the window sang too, and light was born in the midst of our voices.
My friend woke. ‘No need for an alarm clock with you in the house!’ he said. ‘Today I go back to my life.’ But it wasn’t life he held his arms out to. It was death and silence, a gag of thorns that tore at his lips…and there was nothing I could do.
He left with hardly a word to me. He forgot to change my water and give me fresh food.
It was a long day. I watched and listened to the world outside the window. It was dark when my friend came home.
He looked tired and tense. He gave me food and water and made himself a meal. He ate silently and went to bed. My presence didn’t comfort him. I couldn’t help him.
The next morning, I woke at dawn. I sang, welcoming the morning, trying to give my friend hope and joy in a new day.
He made an irritable noise from the bed. ‘Be silent!’ he said. ‘It’s too early!’
I stopped singing. I hadn’t helped, only irritated. I put my head under my wing and wept. The sun rose and other birds sang, but I kept my head and face covered in the soft darkness under my wing. I felt afraid of the thorns. I didn’t want his blood to drip onto me.
That’s how it was. The man was gone all day and into the evening. Sometimes he took care of me and sometimes he didn’t. I was afraid to sing.
A day came when my wing was normal again. I flew out the window. I was back under the sky with the breeze and the sun and the trees’ heartbeat! Birds ate, preened, talked and sang around me. No tragedy or pain was in the treetops.
The man noticed my absence when he came home that evening. The next morning, he came to the window and called.
I flew to him at once, because he was my friend. I thought I could blunt the thorns or pull them out, and the bloody holes they left would stop welling with pain. I perched on his finger and spread my wings to show I was well. I sang the passion of being alive.
He frowned and shook the finger I perched on.
‘Be silent!’ he said.
I flew out the window and into a tree. That day I stayed alone in the treetop, silent and sad. I thought of leaving but I couldn’t leave him alone with the bloody thorns.
One day he called and I flew to him. He was so sad I sang a song of cages and thorns, loneliness and the slow drip of blood in a dark, hidden place no one sees. His face set like stone. His eyes went flat. He reached out the window and broke a thorn off a rose bush growing there. Before I knew what was happening, he forced open my beak and thrust the thorn through my tongue.
‘Don’t sing!’ he shouted. ‘Be silent!’”
Morfran raised a gentle hand to caress her where she perched, trembling, on his shoulder, but she flew clumsily from him, as though still in pain, and circled in the air. When she returned, she no longer trembled and allowed him to stroke her with a fingertip.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, filled with anguish and anger.
“I didn’t know my blood dripped from the thorns, too,” she whispered.
“I flew out the window into leaf shadows. I wanted to die. I stayed still.
Night came. In the dark, I began to come back to myself. The pain in my tongue was dreadful but what I felt in my heart was worse. I waited for dawn and when it came I flew away. I never went back.”
Morfran turned his head to look at her, perched there on his shoulder. She wept, tears wetting tiny brown feathers on her face.
“The thorns! The thorns!”
She rose off his shoulder and flew once more. It was a bright, breezy day and she circled for a time in the warm air and then perched in a tree beside the road some way ahead. As he drew near, he heard her singing. She flew to his shoulder again.
“What will you do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding desolate. “His whispering lies snarled in my mind and I pick at the knots, pick and untwist, but nowhere can I find my own whisper, only everyone else’s!”
Again, she rose and this time she darted right and left, rising and falling but mostly rising, changed direction over the trees and blundered out of sight.
Morfran hoped she wouldn’t fly like that long. She was bound to catch the attention of another hawk.
All afternoon he turned Cassandra’s story over in his mind. He thought about Creirwy and her brightness, realizing for the first time much of her light came from her feeling. She was like a spring, he thought, a spring flowing out of and into life, never going dry. She laughed when she felt delighted, wept when she felt sad, demonstrated every feeling of love and affection, held nothing back. People spoke of her innocence. Perhaps what they meant was how openly she lived, how unashamedly she expressed her experience, whatever it happened to be. He thought with a grin of her infrequent but impressive fits of anger, for she hadn’t been an angel, in spite of her looks!
He wondered if he’d ever see Cassandra again. It scarcely seemed possible she’d survive long on her own in any shape, poor creature. If Minerva really did watch over her, he hoped she watched carefully.
***
One day, Morfran found himself in a prosperous-looking village. People gave him friendly greetings and it seemed a happy place. Morfran wandered into a thick wood nearby, hoping to find a quiet place to camp. He discovered a small house with a garden alongside a singing river. A woman worked among a few fruit trees. He drew near enough to call to her, not wanting to startle her with his sudden appearance.
“May I camp for the night here near the river?” he inquired.
She smiled. “Well, it’s not my river, you know,” she replied. “You’re welcome to camp, of course. Would you like to share a meal? As you can see, I have plenty!” She laughed. The basket beside her was heaped with carrots, cucumbers and summer squash.
Morfran set his bundle down under a tree and stretched the kinks out of his back. He knelt by the running water and splashed his face and neck and then joined the woman.
Her name was Juliana. Morfran reveled in being in a garden again, and this one was productive and well cared for. It reminded him of Ceridwen’s garden, where vegetables and fruit grew in happy companionship with herbs and flowers. As they worked, he told Juliana about Bala Lake and Ceridwen. They were easy together, like old friends. Her hands were callused and brown, hands that worked and spent time outside. Her hair was a strange mixture of gold and silver. She’d tied it in a loose knot against the back of her neck with a piece of cloth, but it curled around her face, the knot unraveling. It was beautiful hair and he wondered what it would look like loose. He realized with surprise he wanted to run his hands through it.
He helped her feed the chickens and they picked pears, gold and green, from a tree in the orchard.
An orange cat with long hair and a tail like a question mark strolled out of orchard grass, churled at Juliana and came to rub against Morfran’s ankles.
“That’s Ranger,” said Juliana. Morfran stooped to run a hand down the cat’s back and he arched against his palm. The cat accompanied them back to the house.
The house was more of a hut, consisting of a small kitchen, a larger living room with a fireplace, and a tiny room for sleeping. In the corner of the living room, opposite the fireplace, stood a loom of polished black wood. He exclaimed with pleasure at its beauty and familiarity. Here was another piece of home!
They prepared a simple meal and ate together. Morfran was hungry and enjoyed the fresh bread and salad. Juliana made an omelet with herbs and cheese and he ate enormously.
He finished telling her about Creirwy’s death and his journey. He told the little sparrow’s story as well, for it now seemed woven into his own. As he talked, they washed dishes and made themselves comfortable outside with mugs of tea and transparent yellow slices of pear. Ranger settled at Juliana’s feet, paws tucked under his chest.
She listened eagerly, asking questions and revealing a quick and sensitive understanding. She listened with marked interest to Cassandra’s story and he thought perhaps it held some special meaning for her.
He ran out of words and they were silent for a while. The river seemed to grow louder as daylight faded. The frog chorus swelled. They sat in deep fragrant grass starred with a purple flower whose name he didn’t know. As she listened, she twirled one of the small buff-colored mushrooms dotting the grass in her fingers. She wore a long skirt of wrinkled cotton in a rich rose color with an orange shirt that looked as if it had once belonged to a man. It was too large for her and she’d rolled the sleeves up. The top buttons were unfastened, showing tanned skin on her neck and chest. Thin gold bangles clinked musically together as she moved. Her feet were bare, their tops tanned, and she wore a toe ring on her second toe. It was unexpectedly exciting for some reason, the thin silver band around the toe. She sat with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, looking like a child, except her face bore lines of experience and that magnificent hair didn’t belong to a child.
“I think you’re searching for more than your sister’s killer and your family,” she said. “Perhaps you’re also searching for yourself, who you’ll allow yourself to be in the world.”
“Who I’ll allow myself to be…” Morfran repeated.
“Yes. We’re the ones who decide our limits. Many say they’ve no choice because they’re victims of circumstance, but what they mean is they lack the courage to change. I’ll tell you a story about that…”
“Once upon a time there was a woman who waited. But that’s not where the story begins.
Once upon a time there was a woman who moved. She didn’t always move fast and she didn’t always move with grace, but she moved. And then one day a prince came. Yes! A real, live prince. She knew he was a prince because he was everything she’d ever wanted and when he kissed her, she knew he was The One.
That lucky woman knew Happy Ever After had arrived and she settled down to make a home there.
Then a funny thing happened. The Prince needed to go away. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone.
So, the woman began to wait. She waited and she waited. She cried because her heart hurt and this wasn’t Happy Ever After, but she knew the importance of loyalty and being undemanding and not sulking, so she tried to wait with grace. She didn’t tell anyone how she felt because she didn’t want to complain about someone as wonderful as the prince.
She waited a long time and one day the prince came back. Oh, it was wonderful! He kissed her again and she remembered about Happy Ever After.
But quite soon he needed to go away again. And again. There were lots of good reasons why he couldn’t be there. He was busy. Sometimes he was confused. Sometimes he was afraid of his feelings for her. Sometimes he was tired or didn’t feel well and sometimes she disappointed him.
Waiting Woman tried hard to understand everything about what the prince needed and wanted. She tried to be perfect so he’d want to be with her and live in Happy Ever After. Sometimes she’d think she was good enough at last, but then the prince would go away again and she began to feel she’d never please him. Perhaps something was wrong with her. But maybe she just didn’t try hard enough.
So years passed, and Waiting Woman waited. And she got older. And she got sadder. And now we come back to the beginning, remember?
Once upon a time there was a woman who waited. While she waited, other people were moving and some passed by her. Some asked her to join them but of course she couldn’t do that, because how would the prince find her when he returned? But she did enjoy watching them go by. Sometimes they gave her gifts.
One day a golden woman with round breasts and hips and thick hair the color of wheat gave her a bag filled with seeds. She didn’t speak, but pressed the bag into Waiting Woman’s hand and walked on.
One joyous spring morning when Waiting Woman heard the first meadowlark of the season a young woman came by wearing a gauzy dress and a bracelet of bells around her ankle. There was something wild and fierce about her. She handed Waiting Woman a pair of soft dancing slippers and a small drum with a handle carved into the round frame and bells attached to the sides, and continued on without a word.
Then came a perfectly ordinary afternoon when a perfectly ordinary man whose face she forgot the instant he turned away handed her a bag of skeins of wool and flax and other material. Some of the skeins were dyed in rich colors. “These belong to you, I believe,” he said courteously, but without the slightest interest, and he too walked on. She stood with her arms full of hanks and skeins and her mouth open.
One afternoon, after a day when she’d felt particularly sad, so sad she’d not bothered to wash her hair and dressed in the clothes she’d taken off the night before, a pair of children came by, a boy and a girl. They laughed together as they walked, and Waiting Woman smiled, finding their joy contagious. Solemnly they handed her a stone bottle of liquid and a wooden stick with an empty carved circle on one end of it. ‘We heard you liked these,’ the little boy said, looking up at her with shining eyes. ‘We like them too.’ And they walked on.
Waiting Woman had liked bubbles once, but she remembered, a long time ago, the prince saying he didn’t like people who were too bubbly. She knew, of course, that didn’t mean this kind of bubble was wrong, but she thought, just to stay safe and get to Happy Ever After, she should stay away from bubbles of any kind. She hid the bubbles and wand away too, rather wistfully.
One day as she sat and watched the world go by, along came a strange wooden cart drawn by a horse. It stopped right in front of her in the middle of the road. A man leapt nimbly down from his seat. He wore a cloak of purple so dark it was nearly black. It swirled gracefully about him as he moved and hundreds of beads and ornaments caught the light, glittering. She saw rich embroidery in a pattern like water with leaping fish…a pattern like stars… spirals and planets and snakes. She’d never seen anything like it and longed to examine it more closely, but he carelessly slung it into the cart out of sight, raised some wooden flaps, propped some others, tethered the horse in the shade to graze, and with a sweep of his arm covered a wooden counter with a riot of clothes from inside the cart. With a flourish, he opened up a wooden box lined with velvet, revealing jewelry that sparkled and shimmered in the sun.
He came to her, bowed, smiled and took her hand. His own hand felt callused and strong. His face was lined, but the lines were from squinting in sun and smiling, not from frowning. He was attractive and she felt ashamed of herself for noticing.
“I brought some things for you to look over,” he said. “Already paid for, mind you. Perhaps you’d like to come and see?”
In fact, he seemed to carry every kind of color and clothing she most enjoyed, right down to underclothes. He remained so completely matter of fact, so objectively interested, she soon lost her shyness and began to enjoy herself.
He hung a piece of brocade over a tree branch and put down a scrap of carpet for her to stand on so she could try clothing on in privacy. Once or twice she even modeled for him to get his advice. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed new clothes! Somehow, she hadn’t had much heart for it while waiting.
When the clothes she chose were folded between tissue paper and piled in luscious layers of color and texture, they turned to consider jewelry. She discovered bangles and earrings and toe rings and even an ankle bracelet with bells like she’d seen on the woman who gave her the dancing shoes. She found a fine gold chain with a small oval with the word “precious” engraved on it to hang around her waist. He showed her how to wear it so the charm rested just above the cleft of her buttocks.
Then the peddler put away the rejected clothes and shut up the velvet-lined box and brought out oils and sprays and lotions and scents and, somehow, they were all what she most liked. She chose from among them happily, hoping the prince would be pleased.
“Now,” the peddler said when she finished, “before I forget, there’s one more thing.” He disappeared behind the wagon and appeared again carrying a loom on his back. “This is just a small one to make friends with,” he said, and he walked straight into the house and set it down, appearing again before she could follow him in or ask any questions.
And then it was done. She watched as he hooked up the horse in the traces, neatly whisked away the bottles, took down props, put up wooden flaps and sprang into the seat. He looked down at her. “It’s an illusion, my dear,” he said, and clicked his tongue at the horse.
And so Waiting Woman waited and the world passed by and she thought new thoughts. Hope rose and fell within her like a tide. It seemed like nothing changed.
But one day she decided to move.
She didn’t move far away. She stayed within calling distance. Her heart felt so full and painful she thought she couldn’t bear to continue to wait. For something to do, she took a skein of wool and the shuttle in her hand and clumsily began to weave it onto the loom. At first, she struggled and many times she stopped, unwove everything, and restrung the loom, but she began to get the hang of it. She found when she got into a rhythm of shuttle and weave, ideas and thoughts floated up in her mind. She was astonished and ashamed of some of these, but they gave her a lot to think about.
One day she moved farther away and took some things out of hiding and played with them.
When she was sure no one could see or hear, she began to make friends with the drum. One night when no one could see her in the dark, she dressed up and danced.
Well, in the middle of all this, I bet you can guess what happened. The prince came back. Waiting Woman was glad to see him, of course. Glad, but maybe not quite as delighted as she’d been before. That night she’d planned to try dancing again and she’d looked forward to it all day.
But oh, my goodness! She thought Happy Ever After had come at last! He kissed her! He caressed her! He wanted her! He had time to spend with her!
She blossomed and bloomed and wore some of her new scent and new clothes. He noticed! He paid her compliments. She began to feel beautiful again. She didn’t think of dancing. Her loom lay hidden away. Other things lay even more hidden away.
And then, guess what? The prince needed to go again. It was her fault. She knew it. In her happiness, she had said something incautious and he didn’t like it.
Back to waiting.
Except…
One day, Waiting Woman packed up her possessions. She dug out the deeply hidden things first, and then the not so hidden things, and then the things that didn’t need to be hidden. She stopped waiting. She started moving.
That same day the prince returned, as if he sensed a change. Waiting Woman wasn’t there! He couldn’t believe it! As he searched, an old woman in a ragged cloak and hood came by with a dangerous-looking amber-eyed wolf dog at her heel.
‘Have you seen a woman on the road?’ he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he called, ‘My love, where are you?’
‘What is she like?’ the old crone inquired.
‘Oh, well, she has hair…and, you know, eyes…and she’s waiting. For me.’
Waiting Woman, peeking at him from around a tree trunk, felt grim amusement.
‘A woman with hair and eyes, waiting for you,’ said the old woman dryly. ‘I haven’t seen her. Perhaps she left.’
‘Oh, she’d never do that,’ he assured her, and then raised his voice again. ‘My sweetheart, I want you! I’m back! I can’t wait to see you! I’ve realized while I’ve been away how much I love you!’
The old woman and her dog walked on. Waiting woman stayed put behind the tree. She noticed for the first time the prince’s face looked rather pale and strained. She also noticed his clothes didn’t fit as well as formerly. He turned in a circle to look for her and she saw he was beginning to lose his hair—just a little on top. She wasn’t the only one getting older!
‘Oh, my love!’ called the prince. ‘I’ve decided I want to spend the rest of my life with you!’
The woman thought to herself, no sale. She picked up her bundles. And that gardening, dancing, drumming, weaving, bubbling, precious, beautiful, scented, giggling woman moved on!”
She looked at Morfran and laughed. He laughed with her. “And here you are!”
“And here I am,” she agreed. “But only because I finally decided to choose something different.”
“He was afraid,” said Morfran, “like the man who rescued Cassandra.”
“Yes,” she agreed sadly. “He was afraid. He didn’t want to get too close or feel too much. I think he felt happiest when he could think about me at a distance. Probably after I left he loved me the best, because then he was safe from ever actually being with me.”
“I don’t think I know much about feelings,” said Morfran slowly. “I’ve told you that was Creirwy’s role in the family—to express feeling. I’ve always been better at using my intellect. Maybe I’m afraid to feel. Maybe I’m just unskilled. How does one make friends with one’s feelings?”
(This post was published with this essay.)