The Hanged Man: Part 4: Yule
Post #28: In which a woman integrates all her aspects ...
(If you are a new subscriber, you might want to start at the beginning of The Hanged Man. If you prefer to read Part 4 in its entirety, go here. For the next serial post, go here.)
Mary woke. She lay on her back, warmly covered. Her body felt absolutely at peace. The old woman was hanging up towels to dry, tidying the round table, wiping bottles of oil and putting them in their places. Mary lay dreamily, thinking of nothing, listening to the comforting sounds of someone else taking care of things. At last she stirred and stretched.
Mother came to her and helped her sit up, offering her a large glass of water. “Drink this, now, and help your body flush itself out.”
Mary drank. She handed the glass back. “Thank you. That felt marvelous. I don’t think anyone ever touched me with such love.”
“Good! Now, I suggest you go out into the fresh air and take a walk. I’ve found some warm clothes for you. When you come back you can eat again, and drink a pot of tea, and then rest. It’ll snow later, so go now and let the sun see you for a few minutes. There are paths in the woods. You won’t lose your way.
When she opened the door and stepped out into cold sunlight, the air felt like a sluice of icy water in her face. Her old vitality stirred, perhaps not entirely gone after all. She thrust mittened hands into her pockets and settled her chin into the folds of a wool scarf around her neck. Her feet found the path as though they’d always known it. As the path wound, she discovered the landscape rose and fell, revealing slabs of rock iced with snow, mounds of bushes and, unexpectedly, a view down to a sea inlet. She followed the path, feeling like a child, excited to be exploring and free of responsibility. She could see forest ahead, its outer edge consisting of bare-branched trees, and the path took her toward it until she walked among thick evergreens.
Through trees she spied movement — a flash of red. She paused, trying to see more clearly. Someone came toward her, running, laughing! It was a child, a child with honey hair twined about with ivy, running headlong. Without thought Mary knelt and held out her arms and the child flung herself into them.
“You’re here! You’re here! I’ve waited and waited and every day Mother said soon, soon now, but I thought you’d never come! And here you are and oh, what took you so long?”
Mary couldn’t to speak. The child hugged her fiercely, words tumbling out in excitement, her head pressed against Mary’s shoulder where the twins’ heads had rested, in the place that seems especially formed to receive the sweet weight of a child’s head. How long it seemed since she’d left them! And who was this girl? She seemed vaguely familiar, but this ecstatic welcome spoke of more than a passing acquaintance. Had she been mistaken for someone else? Reluctantly, she put the child away from her, resting her hands on her shoulders, and inspected her.
She looked about ten years old, with thick hair in a tangle halfway down her back, an unraveling crown of ivy and some kind of red berry, and wide hazel eyes. Her mouth was generous and the red coat made her skin glow. She looked entirely healthy and radiated joy. She giggled.
“You look surprised! Mother told me I should introduce myself properly but I’m so glad to see you I forgot.” She held out her hand. “How do you do? My name’s Molly and I know your name’s Mary — we almost have the same name, don’t we? And I’ve waited for you for days and days because Mother told me we’d be special friends and I’ve been so lonely — I’ve needed a special friend ‘cause there’s no one to talk to but Mother and she’s wonderful — I love her — but she can’t run and play and do everything I want to do!”
Mary put her hand in the child’s extended one, drew her close, and kissed her. She couldn’t help it. This beautiful child and her welcome touched her cold, weary heart the same way the old woman had touched her body. She stood up and they walked, hand in hand.
“I know you’re kind of tired,” Molly continued. “Mother said you needed lots of rest but she said what you needed most of all was love and it was perfect because what I need most of all is someone to love. That’s my favorite thing, is to love things and help them grow and be beautiful. So Mother said we’d find each other. That’s what she said. We’d find each other. And so I started loving you right away, so you’d feel better even before we found each other. I like this path. It’s different than mine.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mary, startled.
“Oh, everyone has a different path here, didn’t you know? When you come out the back door there’s a path, but it’s not the same path other people use. It’s all your own and it takes you where you most need to go, Mother says. Isn’t that strange? I’ve never heard of that before in any other place. I saw you from my path just now and ran to you, but this isn’t my path. On my path, there’s a tree with an owl’s nest way at the top. I can’t see the nest but I can hear the owls — I love owls! — and so I like to go there every day and check on them. Sometimes I get up very early, while it’s still dark, and then I hear them talking to each other before the sun gets up. I love owls and I love seeds, too. They’re my favorite things. Have you ever seen an owl egg?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Mary. “But I know a lot about seeds because they’re my favorite things, too. I brought some with me, in fact. I’ll show you. And I know a story about owls.”
And as they walked, Mary recounted the story of Blodeuwedd.
Molly listened raptly. When the story was over, she said, “They wanted her to be tame, didn’t they?”
“Yes. And she was a goddess. She was wild and mysterious.”
“The White Lady.”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t mind being an owl, did she?”
“Not she! She was free. She could do more than just be a woman, even a queen. She wanted to be free to be everything she could be.”
During the telling of the story, they’d turned back for Janus House. Clouds hid the sun and Mary remembered Hel and Mother predicting snow later in the day. Now they broke out of the trees and looked out at the inlet under the iron-grey sky.
“I didn’t know the sea was so close!” exclaimed Molly.
“Nor did I. I want to explore down there, but not today. It’s going to snow and I want something to eat and a hot drink.”
Janus House came into view, appearing and disappearing as the path wound and dipped.
“Look!” said Molly, pointing with her mittened hand.
Hel stood on a high balcony, right up under the eaves of the house. She was shaking out feather beds with strong arms in the cold air. A breeze blew and chilled Mary with sly fingers, finding warm skin exposed between hat, collar and scarf. Hel looked tall and forbidding there, high against grey sky. As they watched, she snapped the feather bed in her hands and it billowed out. She snapped it once, twice, three times, and Mary imagined feathers fluffing out inside their envelope. As they stood there watching, big flakes of snow began to swirl in the breeze.
***
One cold, forbidding afternoon Mary and Molly settled down in front of the common room fire. Mary set a tray with a pot of tea, fresh baked bread, and jam on a low table and they curled into a soft, deep sofa draped with sheepskins. Mary poured tea and left Molly to get something out of her room. She returned with a cloth sack with a drawstring, patched, mended and stained, held carefully in her cupped hand so nothing could fall out and be lost. She untied the fraying rawhide drawstring and tipped out the contents onto the table.
“Seeds!” said the child in delight. She stirred them with a finger. “So many different kinds! How do you know what they are and where they’ll grow?”
Mary stirred them, too. “I can’t name them all, but I recognize some of them. Wherever I go, I collect them. It’s part of my work. Plants can make more plants without any help, but it takes them a long time to travel very far, so part of what I’ve done with my life is collect seeds and then scatter them. I’ve carried that pouch — oh, for so long and over so many miles! That’s why it’s worn out — see? And I’ve worried about making a new one and also what to do with these. No use in planting a seed here — at least not right now, in winter! Maybe I won’t plant any more seeds — but then who should I give these to? They need a hand to carry them into the future where there’s sun and light and water and good, rich earth. They want a chance to live. The day we found each other you told me you loved seeds. There are some in the world, you know, whose work it is to gather and plant seeds. I can tell you stories about them. Some are women and some are men, for men are Seed Bearers, too. We’re only half of what’s needed. You’ll learn more about that later.”
“I’d like to be one of those who collect and plant seeds! Do you think I might grow up to be someone like that?”
“Do you want to be someone like that?”
“Yes!”
“Well, if you want to take these with you when it’s time to leave Janus House, you may. But we must make a new pouch for them or they’ll be lost.”
Hel came into the room with an armful of logs, greeting them with characteristic remote courtesy. She knelt to put the wood in a basket by the fire, dusted her hands, and joined them.
“That won’t do,” she said, indicating the pouch. “You need a new container for all this life.”
It was a strange way of putting it, Mary thought. “Yes,” she said rather shyly, “I’m afraid this one is worn out. But I need a scrap of cloth or something to make a new one.”
“Come with me,” said Hel.
They followed her into the back of the house. She took them into a workroom lined with shelves on which sat bottles, jars, dried bunches of herbs and grasses. Mary saw a pile of mending, a pile of hides and furs, a chair with a broken leg, a pottery bowl cracked into pieces. Long strips of something fibrous soaked in a wide, shallow basin with a couple of inches of water in it.
“Birch bark,” said Hel. “We’re using birch wood in the fires right now and I like the bark — so useful. I strip it off before they cut the trees into logs and save it. It’s more pliable to work with if you soak it first. You can make yourself a pouch for the seeds out of it. I’ll show you how to do it. I think you’ll want something to line it with, though, to keep the seeds dry and the smallest from coming through the weaving. We’ll think of something to use.”
“Oh, thank you, Hel!” Molly threw her arms around the tall woman’s waist in a hug. Hel looked down, smiling, and touched the thick hair in a brief caress. “You’re welcome, child.”
“You’re kind. Thank you,” echoed Mary, feeling stiff. She envied Molly her easy display of affection.
Hel showed them how to cut the wet strips into thinner ones and then how to weave them into the sides of a pouch. They pierced the edges with holes and stitched the pieces together with heavy waxed cotton thread, tying lengths of cord to the top rim so the pouch could be tied around neck or waist. Mary then made another one on her own, somewhat clumsier than the one Hel helped them with, but still serviceable. They still needed some kind of waterproof lining, but Mary thought they’d find something before Molly carried the seeds away.
Mary couldn’t count the days. The moons waxed and waned. Snow fell, drifted in wind, fell again. Sometimes the cold, low sun shone, making the ice in the inlet gleam with pale fire, dazzling the eyes and falling on tender winter skin. Day after day, good food and hot drinks came from the kitchen, fireplace baskets were emptied of logs and filled again. Mary sank into her soft bed and slept while stars moved in their vast dance in the black sky over Janus House. Molly shone like a thread of joy and renewal through the days. Mother’s wisdom and nurture cradled and comforted her.
Between the child and the old woman, the dragging numb feeling of emptiness transformed into hope and vitality. Mary felt she’d come near to the end of something, and then the end receded and she turned in another direction. Or perhaps she’d walked through the end and into the beginning of something else without having noticed. It didn’t seem to matter.
She vaguely noticed her body was changing, hips and breasts broadening and thickening, hair becoming duller in color, though as thick as ever. She had a tendency to fall into a doze in her chair in front of the fire. I’m becoming an old woman, she thought, and felt no distress. She couldn’t remember ever feeling such peace, such joy in the most unremarkable moments, as she felt now. All her senses were clear and sharp. The texture of clothing or clean sheets against her body gave her pleasure. Taste of hot tea, fire’s heat, cold air, were each a special joy and delight. She found herself laughing like a child at simple things, like the shower of snow that fell down her neck when the wing of a bird brushed a laden branch over her head. She overflowed with the richness of every moment, feeling herself too small to contain all she experienced. She poured her abundance over the child and the old woman they all called Mother.
One day, Molly, catching sight of her coming in from a solitary walk (she’d been looking for seals) called out to her, “Mother!”
As Mary came closer, smiling, Molly was startled. “You look so much like her, Mary! I thought it was her, wearing your scarf!”
If Molly shone like a thread of joy and renewal, Hel was a thread of strength, a background of bone and stone against which they moved. Tireless, strong and reserved, she seemed to know of every want and need as it occurred. She oversaw the fires, the food and the work of the house. She was ever present, yet remote, and Mary sensed some great hidden power in her, far beyond her work as keeper of Janus House.
One night Mary, Molly and Mother set out to listen to for owls. It was clear and cold, the moons dark. The black sky glittered with stars. The path took them among trees like gnarled black fingers reaching from underground. Their feet squeaked in the snow. Molly led them onto her path, finding her way easily in the dark. The snow glowed with the dim light it seemed to contain even on the darkest night, as though the ice crystals carried their own frosty illumination. The quiet night was vividly alive. Mary thought if her range of hearing was greater, she’d hear earth and sky humming together. She could feel the vibration of it in the bones of her feet and head. It was a night of power, a night of magic.
Mary tucked Mother’s arm into hers and took the child by the hand. They didn’t speak. They stopped at what Molly called “the Owl Tree.” Mary found herself holding her breath. Her heart beat warmly under layers of clothing, coat and scarf.
“There!” whispered Molly. An owl called, some distance away. Another answered.
“Look!” Mary spied a dim light, far off between trees. It looked as though someone carried a lantern. The owls called, back and forth. Mary and the others stood still, watching the light and listening.
The light moved slowly closer, but not directly towards them. The owls were the only sound in the deep night, gently inquiring and plaintive, as though asking the same question over and over, and receiving the same assurance. The light bobbed, glimmering in between trees. Now they could hear footsteps, fumbling and unsure, and the sound of harsh, labored breathing came to them, stark in the stillness. It sounded like someone in the last extremity of exhaustion. The light moved closer still and they made out a figure, bent, with a rounded back under a ragged short cloak. Attached to the cloak’s shoulder was a huge golden feather, warmly glowing. It was this that lit the old man’s path. They saw a thin straggle of long pale hair and beard.
His hands were bare in the cold and he labored among the trees, which seemed to support him and pull him along. His breath sobbed in his throat.
The owls seemed to be right overhead now. Mary thought she must be dreaming. She knew that cloak, that feather. She’d held them in her hands.
The old man clearly needed help, but she couldn’t move or speak. Mother and the child stood quietly on either side of her. The old man’s attention was fixed on some destination ahead. He seemed not to see them at all, though he passed within yards of them. Beads and embroidery on the tattered cloak glinted in the feather’s light.
Once he’d passed, Mary stepped forward, following. Mother and Molly walked with her and the three of them, linked together, wove through the forest, following the feather’s light, while the old man labored forward, a step at a time.
Now another light shone ahead, a large, warm flame. The old man seemed to be exerting every bit of his failing strength to reach it. Step by step, tree by tree, they drew closer, the old man and the three silent watchers behind him.
The old man fell headlong into a wide clearing in which a bonfire burned. He sprawled limply, a jumble of bones.
(This post was published with this essay.)