The Hanged Man: Part 4: Yule (Entire)
In which you can read without interruption ...
CHAPTER 12
MARY
The pains began at twilight. In the light of candles, she sat at the window and watched night bid farewell to day. It was the longest night of the year. Deep within her, more powerful than her own will and strength, a great clenching pain gathered and rose and then broke, receding. It left her breathless, sitting quite still as though afraid if she moved it would find her again. It didn’t immediately return and she consciously relaxed, moving her hands over the taut skin of her belly, breathing as deeply as she could. She felt the chair supporting her, the floor under her feet, the fire’s heat pushing against her legs. Drops of water beaded the curved lip of a pitcher on the table. She’d always liked the shape of that pitcher with its graceful handle, glazed an earthy brown. She thought of the water it contained, cool and clean. In a minute, she’d pour some into a cup and drink. Then she’d begin to walk. In a minute. Now, though, she felt she could fall asleep, doze here in firelight with night’s elbows on the window ledge, breathing its cool breath into the room.
Hecate came in. Mary looked up and their eyes met. Hecate left, returning in a moment with an armful of fresh linens. She set them down and pulled the low birthing stool from against the wall to a place nearer the fire. She poured water and handed the cup to Mary. It tasted just as she’d imagined, cold and sweet. She drank thirstily. Hecate helped her out of the chair.
They walked. The moons rose. Hecate spoke, her voice ageless, sexless, like the voice of eternity. She spoke of cycle and wheel, the rise and fall of stars as seasons came and went and came again. Now and then pausing to add wood to the fire, she spoke of seed in dark ground, quickening, growth, bud, leaf, flower, fruit, falling leaves, harvest and seeds falling again to dark ground. They passed the loom in the corner and Hecate spoke of wool, flax, linen, hemp, spindle and distaff, loom’s warp and weft, dye, needle and silk. She spoke of inexorable tides ebbing and flowing, and Mary felt the echo within her and thought of two little fish caught in that tide, silver and gold, pulled irresistibly into life by birth’s current.
Night paused at the open window to be with her, cooling and comforting her labor. Stars were silver flowers of frost in the dark sky. Resting on the birthing stool, Mary looked up and saw a white owl at the window. Hecate welcomed it, inclining her head, and told its story as Mary labored.
“A tale is told of Llew, a mighty man, the son of kings. Llew couldn’t take up his mantle without a wife. It happened that Llew was cursed, so he was unable to possess a human wife. His two uncles, Math and Gwydion, were magicians. They were determined he should fulfill his kingship, and so together took the nine sacred flowers of primrose, cockle, bean, nettle, chestnut, hawthorn; the blossoms of oak, broom and meadowsweet, and created from them the fairest maiden man ever saw. They breathed life into her and called her Blodeuwedd, or Flower Face.
At the same time, they cast a spell to keep Llew from death, as they feared misadventure and treachery when he took his rightful place as king with a wife by his side.
The two magicians were proud of their work and instructed Blodeuwedd carefully in her duty as a fitting wife to Llew. But their pride was at once too little and too great, and they were careless of the power of the nine sacred flowers. Strength of oak; life of primrose; earth of bean; wild protection of nettle; love and magic of hawthorn and the sweet, healing scent of meadowsweet — all these created a Goddess of Spring, a woman entire, a wild woman, the White Lady, and she was not theirs to control and command. Her destiny was far greater than wife or lover.
So, Blodeuwedd did not love her husband, Llew.
She caught the eye of Goronwy the hunter, handsome and treacherous, and he desired her. She made him a tool with which to gain her freedom.
Blodeuwedd coaxed from Llew the secret of his protection from death, and so overcame the spell with the help of Goronwy.
She and Goronwy tried to kill Llew, but failed. Gravely wounded, Llew turned himself into an eagle and disappeared. As an eagle, he suffered until found many weeks later by his Uncle Gwydion, whose eyes looked past his shape and recognized his nephew, the king.
For many months Llew lay ill, passing death’s borders and then wheeling back into life. In the end, the king rose from his sickbed, made greater than whole by his dark journey, and ruled again.
Then Gwydion turned his thought to Blodeuwedd and punishment for her treachery.
A great chase began over mountains and rivers, until at last she stood at bay, proud and lovely.
Gwydion, terrible in righteous anger, said, ‘Be now a bird, and for shame you shall not show your face in the light of day. You shall keep your name, that all shall know you and your faithlessness and treachery!’ With his staff, he struck her and she flew up as an owl.
She rose in the air, heart bursting with joy. Free! Free from Goronwy and his weakness! Free from Llew, whom she had made a king among kings! Free in darkness and moonlight!
And so Blodeuwedd brushes the night with silent wings, communing with waxing and waning moons and tides. She is wisdom and fertility, mystery and prophecy of flowers in frost and frost on flowers.”
As the story ended the owl spread its wings in a soundless silver sweep and floated away, but Mary didn’t forget its queenly regard and the next day found a shining feather on the sill.
Now Hecate spoke to the unborn ones, little fish, silver and gold, calling them forward. Mary groaned, panted, breathed, drank cool water, felt held and comforted in Hecate’s words, leaning to rest in the old woman’s arms when rest there was.
Then there was no more rest. Pain held her, inexorable, huge. She pushed, felt herself stretch and open, stretch and open. In a pause, she opened her eyes and realized night had passed on, was even now embracing day. Pain once more took her in its own embrace and she pushed with all her strength and felt the child slide out of her into Hecate’s hands. The child was silver and shadow, grey eyes wide as though with wonder. Hecate tied off and cut the cord and wrapped him in clean linen. Mary held him, warm and slippery, against her. His heart beat quickly. She rested her cheek on his damp head, smelling the place within her whence he’d come. Once more pain clasped her and, holding her dark little boy, fresh from the water of another world, she gave birth to his brother, fair and ruddy and green eyed, and he roared with a sound like triumph with his first breath.
In the following days, Mary rested and her sons fed and slept and throve. Hecate cleaned and polished the birthing stool, blessed it, and took it away. A wide cradle stood in the room. Winter enfolded Yule House, where loom waited, fire burned, babies slept and nursed and slept again.
***
“Visitors,” said Hecate one afternoon. She stood aside for a brisk, elderly woman with a cap of short white hair and an armful of packages. A younger, smaller woman followed her. “Put those on the table, Minerva.”
As the newcomer did so, Hecate said to Mary, “This is Minerva, and this is Cassandra.”
Haunted brown eyes in a gaunt face framed by a riot of luxuriant brown hair met Mary’s for a moment before the woman looked away, managing to convey a flinch without moving a muscle.
Minerva’s sharp eyes were grey behind her spectacles. Dar looked up at her solemnly as she bent over Mary to inspect him. Minerva offered him a finger, and at once the tiny starfish hand grasped it. Minerva laughed.
“Congratulations, my dear. He’s beautiful. Come and see, Cassandra.”
“Deep-drinking roots where fish perch, silver and gold, silver and gold,” said Cassandra. “Mirmir whispered it to me.” She stood awkwardly, as though afraid to approach Mary.
“Mirmir knows all stories,” said Minerva.
“It’s not bad. I don’t need to stop fish swimming or roots drinking, do I, Minerva?”
“No, my daughter. You don’t need to stop anything, even if it is bad. I think you know you can’t always stop bad things.”
Cassandra’s face crumpled in bewilderment. “I do need to. If I know about something bad, I need to tell and try to make it stop. I must make them believe…”
“I know a wonderful story about that,” Hecate interrupted.
“Oh, I like stories!” Cassandra was diverted. “It’s not a bad story, is it?” she asked, frowning again.
“Shall we sit down? The babies might like to hear the story too.”
“Yes,” said Cassandra uncertainly, still motionless. Mary pulled herself to her feet, her deflated body awkward and sore. “Come and meet Lugh,” she said, taking Cassandra’s hand and leading her to the cradle.
“Silver and gold, silver and gold,” crooned Cassandra as Mary pushed the blankets aside.
“We call the silver one Dar and the gold one Lugh,” said Mary.
For a long moment, hazel eyes met brown in perfect understanding.
***
While Minerva strung the loom and unwrapped hanks of wool she’d brought, Cassandra had a hot drink and something to eat with Mary, who ate frequently throughout the day. Hecate poured a cup of tea for herself and settled into her chair by the fire.
“Were you going to tell a story, Hecate?” Minerva asked from the loom.
Hecate’s lips quirked. Cassandra put her hands in her lap like a good child. “It’s a small story about a magic man like you, Cassandra.
“There lived a man who was so good the Gods offered him the gift of miracles. Humbly, he refused the gift, but when pressed he asked that he be allowed to do a great deal of good without ever knowing it.
So, the man went about his life as he always had, doing each day’s tasks, and wherever his shadow fell behind him, it cured illness, soothed pain and comforted sorrow. His shadow brought green life to arid ground and springs of fresh bubbling water to the earth’s surface. He trailed joy wherever he passed, but he never looked back, so remained unaware of the blessing of his passing.”
“He trailed joy wherever he passed,” repeated Mary. “I like that.”
“He made things good and didn’t even try,” said Cassandra.
“They called him the Holy Shadow,” said Hecate.
***
“What are you making?” Mary asked Minerva respectfully. Hecate had told her of Minerva’s skill, her school and her business, but refused to say why she came to Yule House.
Minerva looked up from the loom, though her hands continued to weave. Her gaze sharpened over the top of her spectacles, which perched halfway down her nose.
“Every cycle I weave cloaks for twin boy babies born at Yule,” she said. “The Norns — you know of them, the three Fates who spin, wind and cut the fiber?”
“Yes. Cassandra mentioned Mirmir. Doesn’t he guard the well at Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, where the Norns live?”
“He does. The Norns and Mirmir are great friends. Well, the Norns prepare the wool and I weave it. Then we dye it and make the cloaks. It’s a kind of ritual, and it means I can take a vacation, play with babies, see old friends and students.”
“Lugh — I mean their father, Lugh,” Mary said, indicating the sleeping twins, “and his brother wore cloaks. They were beautiful. I wonder if you made those?”
“I did,” said Minerva.
“Oh,” said Mary, rather blankly. “Well…thank you.”
Humor gleamed on Minerva’s face. “My pleasure,” she said seriously.
While Minerva wove, Mary rested, rocked with a child at her breast or on her shoulder, half listening and half dreaming as Minerva and Hecate talked. Cassandra, on good days, helped Hecate with household work. Other days she clung to Minerva or Mary; Mary found an odd comfort in Cassandra’s presence.
Mary dozed, dreaming of wool woven out of firelight, frost and flake and star, cool taste of water, scent of baking bread, tart pomegranate on the tongue, the smell of baby diapers, thin sticky milk gulped eagerly from her heavy breasts and the feel of clean linen against her skin.
Cloth grew on the loom. Mary’s torn body healed. She ate with appetite. She felt content to drift and do nothing. Her mind felt weary. Something of herself had moved into the children as their lives were cut from hers. It wasn’t love. Love, a separate thing, rose endless within her for each babe as she held him, nursed him, noted the awakening of awareness. Not love, but some other vital essence of herself they’d taken into themselves. She no longer felt whole in the way she’d felt before. She felt a deep weariness and longing she couldn’t define or name. She wondered if the babies’ father felt this way before he and she parted, depleted even beyond the ability to care. She wanted to step back, step away, be still and quiet.
Her body, too, seemed no longer quite her own, no longer the familiar and trusted place she once knew. Silver threaded her hair and her skin would forever bear marks of childbearing and nursing. Back, hips, belly and thighs were suddenly strange to her. She understood for the first time the sacrifice demanded for new life.
She sat cradling the dark head and then the fair one at her breast and looked out the window, thinking about increase and decrease.
Into this time came Baubo, arriving on a sunless winter day. A second piece of cloth grew on the loom. Dar had nursed and rested against Cassandra’s shoulder, and Lugh nursed. The door opened and Baubo came into the room.
She was a figure to smile at, nearly as wide as she was tall. She wore shapeless and not very clean clothes, a skirt of rough homespun in drab brown and a tunic of grey. A tangle of curls grew from her pink scalp and she wore stockings, having left her cloak and boots at the door when Hecate welcomed her into Yule House. A hole in her left stocking revealed a dirty toe with a yellowed nail, much too long, poking out.
She walked straight to the rocking chair by the window and looked down at Lugh where he nursed. He’d just latched on and his greed had released the milk, but when he saw Baubo’s homely face and wide smile, he let go of the nipple and grinned up at her. Milk squirted against his cheek, wetting his mother’s clothes as well as his own gown, but Mary could do nothing about it. The sight of the old crone and the new babe, one so homely and well worn, one so fresh and new, grinning at one another was so ridiculous she snorted with laughter. The babe then transferred his gaze to his mother and chuckled, waving an arm towards her face, and she laughed harder, feeling the milky damp patch growing. She realized as she bubbled with laughter it had been a long time since she’d laughed. Baubo reached down and scooped the babe in his sticky gown into her own arms and Mary, now quite helpless with mirth, took a piece of linen from her shoulder and held it against her squirting breast to stop the flow of milk. She laughed and laughed and felt her breasts quiver and jiggle, one empty and slack, drained by Dar, and one heavy and uncomfortable with milk, felt the loose skin of her belly and the fat under it shake, and she didn’t care. She laughed anyway. Baubo and the babe laughed with her and then they were all laughing. Dar, held in the crook of Cassandra’s arm, looked around at the hilarity and joined in with his own chuckle, waving a fist in the air.
Order was restored. Hecate brought fresh tea, new bread and butter and soup. The unfed twin returned to the breast and this time drained it before joining his brother in slumber. Mary sponged herself clean and put on a fresh gown. Minerva showed Baubo her work on the loom.
Evening fell and Hecate lit candles and put more wood on the fire. Minerva left her weaving and joined the others by the hearth. Silence fell, content and easy.
“Tell a story,” said Cassandra to no one in particular.
“Yes, do,” agreed Mary.
“What about?” asked Minerva.
“Singing bones,” said Cassandra.
“Oh, yes,” said Minerva. “I haven’t shown you yet.” She groped under skeins of raw wool near the loom and came back to the fire with two objects in her hands.
“Oh,” said Mary in wonder.
Minerva handed her a bone flute, slender and curved to follow the original shape of the bone. One end blossomed in an ivory sculpture of petals, pierced with holes. The other end was cut off cleanly, bone end smoothed and plated with a collar of gold. There were bands of gold, too, down the length of the shaft in between regularly placed holes. Gems were inset in the thick end, topaz, garnet and tiger’s eye.
Cassandra examined the other flute. The bone was similar, but the mouthpiece and banding were of silver, and the gems pearl, crystal and moonstone. “Singing bones,” she said dreamily, “sand and ice and cavern.”
“That’s right,” said Minerva. “Nephthys began it.”
“Lost and found, lost and found…” chanted Cassandra to herself. Then, to Minerva, “Tell about Nephthys.”
“Yes, please do,” said Mary, wondering who Nephthys was.
The others murmured assent. Hecate rose from her place and fed the fire. The women watched in silence as fresh logs caught and burned. Minerva began to speak.
“Like a pimple on a flat cheek, a ruined stone cistern erupts from horizontal, featureless desert. It’s been there a long time. Sun bleached and crumbling, part of a rounded side still stands amid fallen rubble, creating a rough cave.
Nothing moves in the sky over the cistern. The desert exhales in shimmering waves.
A woman sits in the shade of the curved wall amid the fallen blocks of stone. Her eyes are empty. The place stinks with the eye-watering smell of urine and feces. The woman has sores around her lips and her hair is a dirty no-color snarl. Her shapeless clothing is the same color as the desert. Sun glares like a hot, hard headache. For a long time, nothing changes.
Then, a vulture wheels a long way above the desert. A long way distant in that blank landscape an upright figure makes its way slowly toward the tank.
An hour, a day, three days later, a vulture floats in the sky on the desert’s warm breath. The approaching figure is a female child, breasts just beginning to bud. Her hair is a thick dark cloud. She’s creased with sand and wears nothing but a ragged strip of cloth about her middle and dangling gold earrings. A tattooed series of dots, dashes and lozenges curls about her left arm like a snake. She’s dried and hardened by the desert, an old woman child with ageless eyes that are black as the life-growing earth of the flood plain. She carries a bundle strapped on her back and a grimy bag around her neck.
She reaches the ruined cistern. Inside it, Lost Woman goes on being lost. Nephthys reaches in, takes her by the arm and hauls her onto the sand. Lost Woman stands there, caked in her own filth and wrapped in stench. She says no word, makes no move. Her gaze rests incuriously on the child.
Nephthys doesn’t speak, for Lost Woman is lost and can’t be found with words. They’ve lost their power to call her.
With a few deft movements, Nephthys releases Lost Woman from her clothing and lets it fall onto the clean sand. She sees scars, foul open sores, shrunken withered breasts, a fleshless scaffold of bones. She pulls Lost Woman down to kneel, stoops and fills her hands with clean, bright sand and begins to wash Lost Woman gently. Starting at her neck, she rubs in slow, delicate circles with handfuls of sand. It falls down Lost Woman's thin back, sifts into the cleft of her buttocks, dusts fine hairs on her body. As Nephthys works down her body, she pulls Lost Woman back to her feet. The child rubs away filth from hips and buttocks and legs. She polishes scars. She rubs every crease and sag and fold of skin. She washes elbow creases and under arms. She cleanses inner thighs, behind knees, around delicate ankles. She rubs between each toe, the arch of each foot, between each finger and around brittle wrists. It takes a long time. She rubs away all that’s come before. She goes carefully around each open sore.
Once again tugging on Lost Woman’s hand to make her sit in the sand, the child rubs Lost Woman's face. With the lightest touch, she rubs forehead, temples, nose and cheeks. She rubs around sores about the mouth. She rubs the lips themselves, behind the ears, the chin. As she works on Lost Woman's face and looks into her eyes, something quickens in their empty depths. Something fragile looks out and Lost Woman’s eyes are no longer quite so empty.
Nephthys steps away, dusting her hands together and then clapping with satisfaction. Lost Woman stands obediently at the child’s gesture, and Nephthys drops to her knees in front of Lost Woman and puts her mouth to a sore above her right knee. Her mouth is as gentle and cool as a river in the sore place. She licks the wound. She moves around Lost Woman's body, first on her knees and then on her feet. She searches for every sore and scar and puts her mouth on each in turn, kissing, licking. It takes a long time.
Lost Woman, utterly naked in the foulness of her wounds, begins to weep. She weeps without sound and tears fall down her face, drip from her chin, fall onto her withered breasts, and fall onto the child. And there’s water in the desert as Nephthys cools the lost one's wounds, holds them in her mouth, licks them with long strokes, bathing each hurt in attention and reverence.
An hour, a day, three days later, a vulture flies high above on the warm desert’s breath. Lost Woman is sand polished and kissed back into the possibility of life. The white sky blazes. Nephthys reaches into her bundle and brings out several cooked eggs, wrapped in cool, moist leaves. She gives the eggs, one by one, to Lost Woman, who peels them and eats.
Nephthys takes from her bundle a folded square of stiff cloth, olive green, and hands it to Lost Woman, and then she turns her back on the empty tank and walks away. After a moment, Lost Woman follows her.
As they walk, the old cistern falls farther and farther behind. Once more, the desert looks empty. Neither looks back. The child walks steadily, strongly, as though on a path instead of endless sand. Lost Woman feels sun and air on her new skin, on open sores. She feels muscles stretch in her legs and feet as she walks in the sand. She feels herself breathing. Nephthys walks on and the lost one follows her.
An hour, a day, three days later, nothing stirs in the white sky. Nephthys is on her knees, scooping away sand with her hands. Lost Woman crouches beside her and puts out a tentative hand to the uncovered shape. It’s a bone, gently curved. Lost Woman picks it up and feels its strength and lightness. It’s cool from lying buried in sand. The shape of it in her hand reminds her of an old memory of cupping her own breast, firm weight of her flesh, nipple thrusting against her palm. The child unfolds the green square of cloth and knots three corners together. She gestures to the bone. Lost Woman puts it into the knotted pouch. Nephthys hands her the unknotted corner and walks on.
An hour, a day, three days later, two upright figures walk in the desert. Each drags behind her a rough pouch of heavy olive-green cloth loaded with bones. The bones are of every shape and size, some old and brittle and some new and hard.
Sometimes there’s been food and sometimes there’s been water. Sometimes there’s been sleep and dark desert sky. Sometimes a vulture circles lazily high above them in the white sky on the desert's breath.
Lost Woman sees life in the desert. The sand tells the stories of those who move upon it. Delicate footprints, beautiful curved trail of a snake and drag of a lizard’s tail whisper of life in this place. Sometimes a trail of footprints ends with a wing’s brush mark.
The child sees every trace of movement recorded in the sand. She reads a dropped feather, a shed skin and a tuft of hair caught on a thorn like a map. She collects seeds when plants offer them and puts them carefully into the bag around her neck. She follows the high paths of kite and vulture. A woodpecker drumming in cactus, the place where the grouse has taken a dust bath and the harsh language of the raven speak to her. The desert is utterly trackless to Lost Woman's eyes, but Nephthys moves over it with confidence and familiarity.
Lost Woman has watched Nephthys play with desert dogs and sand cats, dance with spiders and race snakes. She’s watched her gold earrings sway, glinting and shimmering like warm stars as she skips over the desert. She’s seen the smooth childish back with its round bumps of spine under a thick wiry tangle of dark hair and pointed wings outspread like arms over the desert, then woken from a sun-drunk doze and thought the vision for a dream.
On some nights, clear and cold and crowded with sharp stars, Lost Woman awakens and Nephthys isn’t there. The fire burns low and she feels safe. The night desert vibrates with life. A great heart lies underneath the smooth flanks of sand, beating steadily and slowly, intermingled with light, rapid pulses of many other lives. Movement and breath are about her. Sand shifts and murmurs. Wings are in the air. Coyotes howl in the distance. Her breath and heartbeat are part of the night song. She’s alive. She’s in the desert. She’s alive in the desert.
Every place they go there are bones. Some lie clean and bleached in the sand and some are buried and hidden. Many are broken and many are so small Lost Woman wonders how they ever came to be found at all. Most of the bones go in Nephthys’s pouch but now and then she hands a bone to Lost Woman and with each one Lost Woman is a little more found.
A finger bone reminds her of picking pine nuts. She puts the bone in her pouch and all morning, as she walks, she remembers the smell of dusty hot pinons. She can see their squat bushy shapes, feel the smooth small nuts in her hands.
The memory is like water in the desert.
A hip bone like a wing tells an old story about a strong young woman who stood upright with shoulders back. She remembers the stretched feeling after a night of love a little too big to be held between her thighs. She remembers the ache of a long walk in the autumn and the smell of leaves underfoot. She remembers a loose tired feeling of pain wrapped about her body like a blanket, the smell of blood, the weight of a baby in the crook of her arm.
They gather bones. Lost Woman learns how to sieve desert sands. Bones call out to her and she hears.
An hour, a day, three days later, the land changes and they come to a winding canyon. They walk along its floor, dragging their knotted pouches of bones behind them. Canyon walls rise gently as they walk, giving shade. After a while they climb, hauling their pouches after them. Nephthys leads them to a dark slit in the canyon wall that seems too small to enter, but enter they do, the child and the other behind her.
The cave widens out. A rough fireplace lies under a hole in the rock roof where a shaft of light comes in. A heap of skins nestles against a wall. Water from a spring trickles into a natural stone basin and drains away again.
There’s water in the desert.
They work together, and an hour, a day, three days later, a fire burns. There’s been food and drink and the blessing of bathing. Lost Woman’s sores are nearly healed and tell an old story now. She sits on an animal skin with another draped over her shoulders.
Nephthys unknots her pouch and spreads its contents on the floor, revealing her collection of bones. She smooths a large area of sandy floor with a twig broom and begins to lay out the bones. Fire burns. Night desert sky looks down. Time is not present. Nephthys murmurs, a child at play. She hums a lullaby, a prayer. She chants in a low whisper. Beneath her small, callused hands, white landscapes begin to take shape. There are what might be a mouse, a wild dog and the slender, weightless frame of a bird. Watching her, listening to the sound of her voice, Lost Woman sinks into a kind of dream.
Without thought, she goes to the pouch she’s dragged through the desert. She smooths another place on the sandy floor with the twig broom, and then, one by one, she puts the bones down and builds…she builds…oh, she builds…
Everything lost is found again. Her voice is found again. She lays out her vibrating bones and, to help them, to call and claim them, she takes a breath and sound flows through her and hums out her mouth, out her nose. The joints in her body loosen and sound fills her. She opens her lips and song swells and overflows, rising up her throat. Shapes under her hands tell her where the bones belong and she lays them there, one after another. Her song fills the cave and Nephthys picks it up, joins with it, supports it and lifts it, and they sing, Lady of Bones and Lost Woman, and the bones under Lost Woman's hands bind themselves together with cartilage and tendon and muscle.
The song goes on and deepens and the bones cover themselves with flesh and then skin, and there are breast and belly and hip and moist cleft between the legs. There is thick cinnamon hair and beauty and strength. The song beats like great wings against the ceiling and walls while Lost Woman puts her mouth to the mouth of the creature she’s made, presses herself against her and into her, and the woman opens her eyes, chest rising and falling with breath. The song finds the cave entrance and rushes out on falcon’s wings, wild and free, holding the women within it, and Lost Woman is found, soaring back into herself, into life.”
They were singing, a wordless tumult of passionate sound rising slowly to a triumphant crescendo of clapping and stamping and full-bodied voices holding nothing back. Mary saw tears on Baubo’s face. Gradually, the song fell away, quieted, softened, until it sheltered under their tongues and in the back of their mouths, humming and ebbing and then drifting into rich, firelit silence.
That night, when Mary slept, she dreamt of singing bones.
***
Minerva wove the wool into two generous yardages of midweight cloth, and it was time to begin dyeing.
Mary sat in the kitchen, having a bowl of soup while the twins slept, watching Minerva and Cassandra unearth the largest cooking kettles, when Cassandra swept her arm against a leaning pile of pots and pans and they fell clattering onto the stone floor.
“Wake,” she said, with an odd inward gaze Mary recognized. “She wakes, she lives, she wakes, she lives, she comes ever after…everything lost is found again.”
Mary heard Hecate answer a knock at the door.
They were still matching lids to pots and putting them away when Hecate brought the newcomer to the kitchen.
The strange woman’s gaze fell on the two cauldrons sitting ready on the table. “Good!” she exclaimed with pleasure. “I’m just in time.”
Cassandra approached her tentatively, like a shy child, a hand going to one of several braids plaited with a leather thong on which small brass bells trembled. The woman turned her head obligingly, so the braid hung within easy reach. An earring swung gently. Holding still so Cassandra might explore, the stranger met Minerva’s eyes, her own full of tears. “Minerva.”
“Briar Rose. My dear daughter. It’s good to see you again.” They smiled at one another.
“Silver fish in blossoming rose,” said Cassandra to Hecate, who stood in the doorway watching.
“I hope it’s careful of the thorns, then,” said Hecate seriously. Cassandra stopped caressing the bell-strung braid and turned away, losing interest.
“I’m Briar Rose,” said the newcomer to Mary. Unexpectedly, she stooped and kissed Mary warmly on the cheek. “I’ve come to help with the cloaks.”
Briar Rose sorted through her bundles, keeping one out, and Hecate took the rest away.
For some days, Briar Rose and Minerva worked like a pair of witches in the kitchen, heads bent over mortars and pestles and packages. Strange and occasionally unpleasant smells wafted through Yule House. Bits of dyed wool, each sample pointing to a needed adjustment in ingredients, timing or heat, littered the table top. Hecate’s amber-eyed wolf, coming to the back door in hopes of a tidbit, sneezed violently and retired in disgust, making them laugh.
At last the wool was transformed into several yards of crimson with body and depth, a joyous, heart-lifting color. The other length was dyed deep purple, nearly black in some light. It mingled shadows of grape, plum and fig. It was the color of storm clouds in autumn.
With this accomplished, they gathered to spread out gifts for the twins. Minerva and Briar Rose unpacked and laid out what they’d brought. Baubo held Dar, who watched everything gravely, but smiled for those he knew and trusted. Mary held Lugh, who wept and laughed with equal passion and recognized everyone as a friend.
Minerva laid out owl feathers wrapped carefully in a piece of linen. On seeing them, Mary took from a box the silver feather Blodeuwedd left at the window on the night of her labor and added it to the others.
“Flower face,” said Cassandra, picking it up. “White flower. Snow flower.”
“Blodeuwedd keeps you close, then,” Minerva said to Mary with satisfaction. Hecate smiled to herself.
The feathers were of many colors and Minerva laid them out in fans of white and cream, brown and grey. Dar’s eyes widened in wonder, and when Baubo picked up a grey feather and brushed it against his cheek he smiled.
“These for the purple cloak, I think,” Minerva said.
Briar Rose unfastened a large package containing many smaller bags and wrappings. These she unwrapped, one by one.
There were tiny bells of silver and brass. There were amber beads on a string, warm to the touch, smelling faintly of honey. They opened a package of carved bone and ivory beads. There were charms of silver, copper and brass in different shapes. There were shells like fingernails, pink and brown and cream. Wooden beads in every shade of brown and red were carved into beautiful patterns and shapes. Glass beads glowed and shone richly as they were revealed.
Minerva brought out two wooden boxes, plain and unadorned. They contained string after string of tiny pierced gems, jade, tiger’s eye, garnet, obsidian and amethyst. There were quartz beads and crystals.
As they stirred their fingers through this treasure, weighing, examining, exclaiming in delight at some minute bit of carving, Minerva talked of graceful foreign ships and merchants. Her workshop was in the port of Griffin Town, and she did business with travelers from all over the world. She also traded with the Dvorgs and Dwarves, those incomparable jewelers and metalworkers. Briar Rose entertained them with tales of crossroads and marketplaces, and peddlers carrying riches.
Cassandra reached out and touched a charm bracelet around Briar Rose’s wrist. “Wake,” she said. “Wake.” Briar Rose smiled at her. Minerva took off her glasses, sat back and told the story of how Briar Rose came to Yule House to lay treasure before them.
“Once upon a time past and coming again soon, there lived a king and queen who longed for a child.
The king was a proud man, anxious to make a fine show, and he feared people would think him weak and unmanly if he didn’t sire a child.
The queen spoke little, and as far as the king was concerned was quite perfect. She was beautiful, obedient, and a credit to him. She sat down at table with him, laid down at night with him, and rose in the mornings with him. She was a skilled weaver, spinning her own thread and coaxing marvelous colors out of herbs, roots, bark, and even insects. The other kings envied him his wife. If only they had a child!
While the King went about his duties, every day the queen and her most faithful attendant stole away to a pool in the forest.”
Minerva paused, an affectionate look passing between her and Briar Rose.
“The castle and its grounds were surrounded by a thick hedge of brambles and briars, and this pool lay in the forest just outside the hedge. The queen found an opening in the hedge and for many years had come to this secret place to bathe. The forest creatures knew her and took no notice of her presence. Indeed, she’d made quite a pet out of a frog living in the pool.
It came to pass that the queen at last bore a child, a lovely little girl. The king, beside himself with joy, ordered a feast to which he invited all his relatives, friends, and acquaintances. He took special care to invite all twelve fairies in his kingdom, and set a table apart for them. Their dishes were gold and crystal, their cloth the finest damask. Silver shone like glass and innumerable candles lit the scene. The fairies possessed the power to give the baby marvelous gifts, if they were properly encouraged by the richness of the king’s hospitality. (Naturally, each fairy would take away her place setting.)
One by one, the fairies rose and blessed the baby with perfect grace, happiness, health, and everything needed for a life of unblemished peace and joy. The company was impressed and the king felt satisfied. His daughter would be a perfect princess, a credit to him.
The queen, as usual, said nothing.
Suddenly, the door opened and in came an old woman in a plain hooded cloak with a stick in her hand. The company fell silent. It was the Wise Woman of the kingdom, who hadn’t received an invitation to the banquet.”
Minerva smiled sardonically. “It was you!” said Mary, catching on.
“Wait till you hear the curse!” said Briar Rose, chuckling.
“The crone hobbled over to the elaborate cradle where the baby lay. She bent and made a sign over the child.
‘Child,’ she said in a clear voice, ‘beautiful child, here’s my gift to you. You shall one day prick your finger on a spindle… and WAKE!’ She turned and shuffled back out the door.
A murmuring broke out among the throng. ‘What did she say?’ ‘What did she mean?’ The king turned to the queen, who looked wordlessly back at him. He hadn’t understood the old one’s words, but it seemed clear the child would be in danger from a spindle, so he ordered all spindles in the kingdom to be burned immediately, along with spinning wheels, distaffs and, for good measure, looms and shuttles. As an example, he made a public display of burning the queen’s spinning wheel and loom first.
As usual, the queen said nothing.
Years passed and the princess, who was called Briar Rose, grew in loveliness and was perfectly happy. She fell in love with the prince next door and they were married. Naturally, they conceived three handsome, strong, sons. However, the first son grew to be a wastrel and a gambler. The second son took to drink and chased women. The third son left one day to seek his fortune.
The prince, now king, was a proud man, anxious to make a fine show. He stayed busy with his kingly affairs.
Briar Rose, now queen, spoke little and, as far as the king was concerned, was quite perfect. She was beautiful, obedient, and a credit to him. She sat down at table with him, laid down at night with him, and rose in the mornings with him. Other men envied him his wife.
One day, while the king went about his duties, Briar Rose took one attendant, an old woman who’d served her mother before her, and they walked about the castle grounds. The hedge of brambles and briars was high and thick, but Briar Rose found an opening in it she’d never seen before. She followed a path to a forest pool. Longing for the water against her skin, she bathed. A frog squatted on a rock, watching her intently. She drew near to it and it jumped away, as though in play. Next to the place it sat lay an old key with scrollwork on its shoulders. It was encrusted with red gems. Wondering, Briar Rose took the key back to the castle with her.
As the king went about his daily duties, Briar Rose visited the forest pool every day. The days seemed long and the castle large and empty. Briar Rose climbed stairs and walked down corridors she couldn’t remember seeing before. She peered into empty rooms. One day, exploring the attics, she came across a locked door. The jeweled key was in her pocket; it fit the door and she opened it. There sat the old servant who accompanied her to the pool every day, in a shaft of sunlight at a whirring wheel. Briar Rose came close; she’d never seen a spinning wheel before. The old one deftly turned a wooden dowel in her hand. As though in a dream, Briar Rose reached forward to touch the spindle, and pricked her hand.
She learned to spin, dye the yarn, and weave. She collected feathers, hair, bones, snake skins, and twigs. In the market, she bought glass beads and charms of copper and silver. She planted an herb garden so as to make her own dyes, tended it barefoot, and went to bed late with grimy soles. In the market, she met a peddler, lean and dark, his face worn with weather and laughter. He played a bone flute. His haunting, insinuating melodies filled Briar Rose with longing.
The peddler presented her with a bracelet of bells for her ankle and one day, hearing the flute on the other side of the bramble hedge, she unbound her hair, picked up her skirts, and danced.
She caught a cold dancing under a summer full moon. Her chapped, red nose appalled the king. She’d never been ill before. Her transparent white skin freckled from sun. She flaunted the grey in her hair and the king felt ashamed of her. In the pool, Briar Rose traced silver lines of childbearing on her body, lifted her breasts, laughed and wept, and lay naked on moss to let sunlight touch her.
Briar Rose gave her weaving to the peddler. The pieces were strange, like nothing anyone had seen before. Bits of bone, owl feathers, animal hair, beads and bells and charms intermingled with texture and color, making people stare. The peddler made good money from selling them.
One day the king woke to find Briar Rose was gone.
The peddler broke her heart, of course, but she lived awake ever after.”
The babes slept. The women at the table held the story for some minutes in silence.
“Silver, gold,” Cassandra crooned to herself. “Gold, silver. Me, not me. Not me, silver…” She was sorting everything on the table into two piles.
“That’s right,” said Minerva. “Now it’s time to cut out the cloaks and make them. How shall we embellish purple and crimson?”
It wasn’t always easy to choose. Everyone but Cassandra wavered occasionally. In the end, they deferred to her judgment.
The next day they began, passing the cloaks back and forth as inspiration waxed and waned.
Days came and went, but Mary had no sense of time passing. She often left the house, stepping into winter’s silent embrace. Since the birth she’d felt slow and muffled in head as well as body.
She remembered the babies’ father, Lugh, sun dusted, laughing, gold earring glinting, his crimson cloak falling around strong thighs, rippling with agates, amber, gold thread and copper charms. She remembered how they’d lain together, wild, passionate, held in a net of flute and musky seed on the Night of Seeds. He was gone now, her lover, diminished, his blood and flesh gathered in with harvest in another turn of the wheel. As he poured himself out, her belly had swelled until she felt sure her skin would split. The loss and gain of it felt painfully satisfying.
As she wandered through winter landscape, Hecate’s wolf followed her. She wasn’t afraid of him. He never came near, but she glimpsed him across a snowy field or trotting between trees. He comforted her — there, but undemanding, needing nothing, a distant companion.
It seemed odd to make a new crimson cloak like Lugh’s for his son. More than odd, it was uncanny if she really thought about it. Lugh the lover, the father, was gone. He’d been swept away from her, lost somewhere behind, harvested, dried and threshed. Now his son began a new cycle.
Thinking, remembering, made her head ache. Dreams, past and future tangled hopelessly and she felt too apathetic to unravel them. It didn’t matter, in any case. Whatever had come before or would come after, now they were at Yule House making cloaks. It seemed enough to know.
One evening Cassandra, arms full of purple wool, ceased the low-voiced singsong nonsense chant she fell into when she felt peaceful.
“Poor silver fish! Sleeping silver fish!” She looked appealingly into one face after another, grouped around the work table where they sewed. The crimson cloak draped over the table between Baubo and Briar Rose, each of them at work on a different part.
Mary’s torpor was pierced. They’d all learned to keep calm and quiet, no matter what Cassandra said. Any display of distress exacerbated hers, but nothing upset her as much as ignoring her. Clinging, frantic, beseeching, she wept and babbled, increasingly incoherent, until assured the others heard and believed.
Cassandra had spoken of silver and gold fish ever since she’d come to Yule House. For some reason, this evening Cassandra’s distress was contagious and Mary felt sudden fear for Dar, solemn, sweet Dar with his considering gaze and hesitant smile.
She put down the pattern of leaves and flowers she was tracing for Lugh’s cloak.
“What do you mean?” she asked, more sharply than she intended. “What’s wrong with the silver fish? Why does he sleep?”
Cassandra began to tremble. The needle she held fell into the folds of wool in her lap.
“Little fish swims, and sleeps, and flies! He flies on silver wings, flies away, flies and dies, dies and flies!”
Mary looked at her, appalled, her face unguarded. Cassandra began to moan and rock. “Believe me!” she said. “Believe me!”
“Cassandra,” said Minerva, reaching out and capturing her wringing hands. “We believe you. You told us and we believe you. Remember, you don’t need to try to make things good. Remember the Holy Shadow? He made things good without trying.”
Hecate covered one of Mary’s stilled hands in her own. She rarely made gestures of physical affection and the surprise of it distracted Mary from her own distress. “Steady, Daughter,” she said in a low voice. “All is well.” Then, holding Cassandra’s anguished gaze with her own but speaking to the table at large, “I know that story, Cassandra. That’s an old story of past and future. Calm yourself, and I’ll tell it.”
Between Minerva’s touch and mention of the Holy Shadow, an oft-repeated tale Cassandra never tired of, she calmed. Mary took a deep breath and returned to her pattern. Baubo showed them a lion embroidered with gold thread and a mane of amber beads she was finishing on Lugh’s cloak. Minerva continued sorting crystals and pearls for a design of water, fish and stars around the hem of Dar’s cloak. Gradually, Cassandra relaxed.
“This tale is called ‘The Devil’s Cloak,’” Hecate began.
“Two babies, one silver, one gold, turn and stretch in the dark, rocked together in warm salty waves. Behind sealed eyelids, the silver infant dreams. Once upon a time and coming again soon is a moon dream of a silver fish swimming with stars. Once upon a time and coming again soon…
An old man sleeps in a cart in the desert. All his sunny days are etched around his eyes. All his miles are written on his soles. Each note he’s played on his flute gathers in seams around his mouth. He sleeps wrapped in the wings of his cloak.
In beginning and end, which were on the same day, imagine a flock of sheep, a season of shearing and carding, a journey to a great tree with three trunks. Imagine distaff, wheel and scissors in Fate’s hands, ageless and serpent wise.
At the end of another journey (and the beginning of the next), see wool woven on a loom strung of story, firelight, woman scent, turgid breast, pliant bone, salt and iron. The wool, now in two lengths, goes from loom to mephitic cauldron.
Now dyed, the wool is cut and shaped, stitched and embellished. The silver baby, birthed out of sunless womb’s ocean with his golden twin, now with fuzz of dark hair over his pearly head, receives a kingly purple cloak, a swirl of deep color, silver thread, feather and jewel, bone and charm.
The silver infant grows into a child. The child grows into a boy. The boy grows into a man who plays the road’s song on his bone flute while the cloak stirs in anticipation. Life’s circle hears the song and the rustle of the restless cloak. The circle cries out for them to take their place, man, flute, cloak.
They answer the call, man, flute, cloak. They leap into the circle. Life sweeps them into green and gold dance, dreams of silver and soot. A golden feather sewn on the cloak over the man’s shoulder blade dreams of being a wing. The feather’s dreams are copper, orange and crimson with hearts of green fire.
He mines for truth, the silver man. He drifts and whirls, cloak rippling in the flute’s song, like a star-struck spark that fears fire’s embrace. Sometimes he dreams old dreams of bare feet striding through desert sand under a froth of black hem, but he doesn’t remember those when he wakes. He’s a wanderer, chary of restraint. He can love but he won’t stay. Faintly on the wind, he hears his twin’s piping.
He discovers what he’s for.
The circle turns. Time wheels like a star along the vault of heaven. Man and cloak reflect life’s embrace. Lines settle in place where flesh was smooth. Embroidered threads weaken. Frost kisses dark hair. A charm loosens. Tongue and eye grow keen together and then gradually soften. A bead is lost. Youth dims. Hems thin. Injury and tear leave thickened scars on skin, heart and wool.
Spirit candles at sea. A queen who awakes. A woman with silvery golden hair. A young man with a twisted hip in search of himself. Outcasts and kings. Dancing Death and goat-foot Seed Bearer. Dwarve and maiden, hag and stag crowned with glowing bone. A Blue Witch in a light-struck tower. They all whirl in the circle with him, clasped to one another by story.
One day he discovers what lies beyond independence and ties himself gratefully with a golden rope that isn’t there. Brother unites with brother as harvest approaches. Feather on his shoulder still dreams of flying, but the bottom of the cloak is fringed with broken threads, hem unraveling and thin as cheesecloth.
The wheel turns and connection and community sustain him more than freedom ever did, but the road is still his oldest lover. Embroidery fades, crystal, bone and pearl drop like stardust in his wake. He shortens and shortens the cloak with his knife, trying to stay ahead of damage and wear.
During harvest of miles, days and stories, a day comes when the man is an old man in a ragged cloak with a shining golden feather on the shoulder. The feather dreams of becoming a wing.
Now, in end and beginning, an old man sleeps in a cart in the desert. A child with hair and eyes as dark as life-giving earth in a fertile flood plain opens the cart. The old man’s last dreaming breath comes to her, scented with exotic spice, early morning on a far-away city street, beckoning road after a rain at dawn, and she smiles, memories in her ageless eyes. The small weights of her earrings nestle against her neck. Easily, she lifts the old man in her arms, one of which is tattooed with dots, dashes and lozenges like a snake.
Tenderly, she lays the old man’s body down on the silk-rippled bed of the desert and stretches slender arms over him. Her arms become the pointed wings of a falcon and hide him from the stars. She sings a fierce song of hooked beak and bone, death cry and lament of lost things. The threads of the cloak sink into the sand, beads and charms and bells like drops of water. Only the glowing feather remains, a candle in the sand. The pointed wings raise gracefully and the sight of the old man’s naked body is greeted by the night sky with a silver spray of starry laughter. A shooting star, copper and orange with a heart of green fire, speeds across the sky, arrowing lower and lower over the desert. It flies under the pointed wings and takes up the frail body, unraveled and ragged, in its talons without pausing. The cloak’s feather drifts across the sand. The old man’s body is borne away into black sky over red desert, like a dream of flying.
As the child folds her wings and skips away into the desert night, the cart settles into the sand with a sound like a sigh.”
Mary wept.
MIRMIR
The Hanged Man rocked in Mirmir’s sinuous grasp while a grieving wind wound among Yggdrasil’s branches. “Dar! You tell of our birth and his death in the same story?”
“Birth and death are the ssame sstory,” said Mirmir, his golden eyes gleaming.
“When did it happen?” demanded the Hanged Man. “When I left him, Dar was not old and worn out. We’re not old! It’s not time for us to die! My children are still infants!” He glared at Mirmir.
The snake coiled his muscular body into a spiral and swayed next to the Hanged Man for answer.
“Damn the circle!” said the Hanged Man. He kicked furiously at Mirmir with his free foot. “Damn the cycle and the wheel, and damn the spiral! I’m tired of turning your stupid wheel! Why me? Why Dar?”
Mirmir uncoiled, paying no attention to the Hanged Man’s ineffectual kicks or anger. “Increasse and Decreasse. The cycle does not stop. Birth and death allow each other. Your mother accepted this.”
“It’s cruel.” The Hanged Man sulked. “I suppose you’ll tell about my death, too, as long as you’re ruining our birthday story. Go ahead. Get it over with. Tell me what I have to look forward to. It’s a good thing you haven’t anything to do with children. You’d give them the horrors with your stories. You’d make a rotten babysitter, Mirmir!”
The snake wheezed with laughter. “Every sstory in itss place. Your rebirth is yet to come, unless you want me to stop?”
The Hanged Man snorted and closed his eyes.
MARY
Days passed. From time to time Baubo and Hecate were absent, gone into the world on their own business, but Minerva, Cassandra and Briar Rose stayed with Mary. The children grew and throve. Winter passed into spring and then, imperceptibly, into summer. Bent over the cloaks, now sewing beads and gems into a swirl of water along a hem of the dark cloak and now embroidering sheaves of grain and poppies on the red one, Mary felt each stitch bring her closer to an ending.
The babies ceased to nurse and her breasts regained their shape, though not their firmness. The skin on her belly and hips tightened, but silver lines stretched from pubis to navel. The children crawled and then toddled about, playing, exploring, fighting, laughing, a constant source of amusement and anxiety. The women talked and laughed, minding the children, fashioning the cloaks, working together. Mary felt silent and faded beside their vitality. Hecate often sat with her, reassuring in her acceptance.
Mary felt a growing detachment. Her whole experience consisted of nurture, shaping herself around life so it could be born and grow. She’d gathered, sown and received seed. She’d prayed and danced and poured herself out in an abundance of passion and love so life might continue. She’d lain on rich earth and opened her body to a lover, a vessel for the cycle to which she’d surrendered herself. Yet increase always moved hand-in-hand with decrease. Seed didn’t grow unless the mature plant fruited and dropped it, dying. Were these children, her beautiful little silver and golden fish, her ultimate and final gift to the world?
Long ago she’d been given a seed pouch. Now and then she took it out and fingered the worn cloth. It wasn’t quite empty. A few seeds remained, yet planting seasons passed and she didn’t scatter them. She let other hands plant the garden. Her spirit felt worn and thin, without the vitality to nurture even a single seed. She’d known joy but it wasn’t with her now. Memories drifted around her like leaves falling from trees in autumn. What would happen to these seeds? She must find a safe place for the seeds.
They were not for the twins. They had no need of seed pouches. These seeds were her responsibility and she must find a way to send them forward with a new Seed-Bearer.
She sat with the others and stitched the cloaks, feeling like an empty room. With every stitch and passage of thread through wool, what had been was leaving. With every bead sewn in place something new approached. She’d given nearly everything she could give, stitching the last of herself into the cloaks. When they were complete, there’d be rest and silence. She longed for no one to need anything from her.
One evening Briar Rose set a last linen-wrapped package on the table. Minerva opened it carefully. As thin layers of linen were removed, they could see a glow. The last folds revealed two large golden feathers.
“The Firebird,” said Mary. She turned one in the light, now orange, now gold, now red, with flashes of blue and green like a dragonfly’s wing. The purple cloak looked like a flowing shadow in Briar Rose’s lap. She’d been embroidering the hem with a pattern of fish picked out with silver and crystal beads. She spread it across her knees, exposing the shoulders of the garment.
“Here,” she said, laying the feather across the back of the left shoulder, ‘as though it dreams of being a wing,’ like the story.”
Minerva, at work on the crimson cloak with tiger’s eye beads and charms, draped it so as to expose the same spot. It too showed no adornment. Hecate nodded in silent satisfaction. Mary handed the feather to Minerva, and she laid it against the crimson wool.
“That’s right,” said Mary. “That’s where their father’s feather lay on his cloak.”
Baubo smiled at Briar Rose. “The final touch. Thank you, my dear.”
CHAPTER 13
One day in late autumn the finished cloaks lay side by side. They seemed to gather light into themselves, one the warm light of sun and the other the cool light of moons and stars.
Hecate came that night into Mary’s chamber and quietly packed a few of her belongings. Mary didn’t ask what would happen to her now, but knew the end she’d felt approaching was upon her, and beyond that a door would open. She hoped wherever her journey took her it would be to rest and, filled with that longing, she slept.
In the morning, she bade farewell to her sons. She didn’t weep. They each gave her an affectionate hug and scrambled down out of her lap, eager to be away on their own business. Hecate took up Mary’s bag on a strong arm and they set out into a day of cloud and sun and silver wind. They traveled silently, Mary glad to be moving quietly through landscape that asked nothing of her but to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
They came at last to a weathered house with many chimneys above an ice-bound sea. Dusk drew near and lights shone warmly in windows. A forest flanked the house. Mary felt cold and weary and wanted nothing so much as a hot drink and a warm bed. Hecate rapped on the door, which immediately opened and revealed a tall, vigorous woman with a strong face who might have been any age past fifty. She stood aside and they entered on a gust of icy wind off the sea. Hecate set Mary’s bag down on a floor of red tile. Mary saw a staircase with carved banisters ascending into shadows. The house sounded quiet. She smelled newly-baked bread, lavender polish, fresh linen and burning wood.
Hecate helped her off with her cloak and hood, and as warmth and quiet engulfed her Mary felt such a wave of fatigue it was like losing consciousness. Hecate murmured words of farewell and left before Mary became aware they were parting. The strange woman took her arm firmly and guided her up the stairs.
The woman took Mary down to the end of a long hallway lined with doors. The room struck warm with velvet drapes drawn across windows, but all Mary was really conscious of was the bed, looking soft and deep and smelling of cold sun and pine sap. The woman sat her on a chair like a child and divested her of boots and socks and clothing. She pulled a soft cotton nightdress over Mary’s head, flung back the bedcovers and Mary crept in, feeling the covers laid across her shoulders and a hot water bottle at her feet, and was asleep.
For three days, she hardly left the bed. The woman, who introduced herself as Hel, brought her meals on a tray, made up the fire and tidied the bed if Mary wasn’t in it. She moved quietly and efficiently and didn’t bother Mary with chatter or questions. Now and then Mary heard sounds in the hall, but no one disturbed her. She slept for long stretches in the comfortable, deep bed. No one knew where she was. She didn’t know where she was. No one could find her. No one wanted her. No one needed her. She had no responsibility. On shelves near the windows she found books of the kind she most liked to read. One or two were familiar old friends but many were new to her. As her desire for sleep became satisfied, she lit her bedside lamp, pushed pillows behind her and read for hours at a time, dozing off and on and letting the book slide out of her hands. A comfortable wide chair next to the fire with a hassock for her feet proved a good place to sit and eat or drink a cup of tea. She sat with a cooling cup in her hand, looking into the fire, thinking of nothing, making no plans. Time had stopped altogether. There was no clock in the room. She didn’t know what day it was. Nights were long, dawns frost and silver, the sun low in the sky. Snow fell outside her window.
When she pulled aside the heavy wine-colored velvet curtains, she discovered a landscape of gently undulating white, and in the distance mountains, also blanketed with white. Even when the sun shone the view showed white and pale grey, shadows like smudges. Some way beyond the house stood thick forest, trees standing tall. The snow lay smooth and undisturbed. Gratefully, she surrendered to quiet.
One morning she woke abruptly. It was dark; the fire burned to ash and the room chilly. Her body, warm and cushioned, felt heavy and soft. As she lay, drowsy and quiescent, she felt the first stirring of curiosity about where she was. This comfortable, warm shelter in the winter landscape — where was it? Why was she here? What lay outside her room?
She threw back the cover and put her feet on the cold floor. She lit a lamp and draped a red wool throw around her shoulders. Her hair felt tangled and heavy against the back of her neck. How long had it been since she’d washed with more than a cloth and a bit of warm water? She knelt in front of the fire and rekindled it, making sure small pieces burned well before putting on a larger log. She drew the curtains and cold air pressed in against her. The sky began to lighten into dawn but it was still too dark to tell if the day would be clear or cloudy. Only the first pallid light tinged the horizon.
She stood with her back to the fire, which began to send warmth into the cold room, curling her frozen toes into a deep sheepskin on the floor, and let her gaze wander. To the right of the door stood the bed with a table next to it. On the table lay a couple of books and a lamp. The bed was tumbled and disordered, pillows flattened and the impress of her body a hollow in the feather mattress. At the foot of the bed, against the wall, stood a wardrobe, solid and imposing. She opened it and found the clothes she’d worn — it seemed so long ago — on the journey to this place. They were clean and folded. She put on heavy socks and thought about dressing herself but decided she wanted to wash first. Her comb and brush were there on a shelf but her hair was such a tangle she couldn’t be bothered and left them there. Fastened inside the door of the wardrobe she found a piece of paper that read:
Janus House
Dark December…
Inscrutable Janus stands in fallow Between,
Hearing distant ebb of Fall’s bright breath
And far-off rumors of gathering Spring.
He looks back…
When Earth exhaled into sensitive folds of Sky,
When trees, trembling and hesitant, released concealment,
Uncovered stood, afraid,
Stood knee deep,
Knee deep in yesterday,
But whispered dreams of the future among bare branches.
He looks ahead…
Over what thresholds…?
Into what seeds, brooding at Winter’s breast…?
Oh Janus, God of memory and hope,
God of door, gate, suspended interval,
Key-Keeper,
Only grant me courage to open each door.
Only grant me courage to accept each outcome…
Courage for the next waxing…
And waning.
TIME IS NOT HERE
The poem struck a deep chord in Mary and tears came to her eyes. She’d seen a carving of Janus once over a gate, one face looking left and the other right. She’d forgotten until now. So, she’d come to Janus House in this time between one thing and the next, and Hel ran the house. But where would she go from here? Was her waxing finished and now only waning left? I’m in the suspended interval, she thought with some sadness. She remembered her impression of an enormous house on the night of her arrival with Hecate. Were there others in other rooms like this who were in their own suspended intervals?
“Time is not here,” she read aloud, puzzling. What did it mean, time wasn’t here?
She shut the wardrobe door and sat in the chair by the fire, tucking her feet underneath her and gazing into the flames. Behind her, dawn slowly crept into the room. It was a clear morning.
The risen sun was throwing long shadows across the snow when Hel knocked and came in with a laden tray. She showed no surprise to see Mary up and the fire burning. She set the tray down and Mary saw a golden stack of thin pancakes, butter melting on top. A dish held some dark purple berry in its own runny syrup to spoon onto the cakes.
“Thank you,” said Mary. Hel knelt and added wood to the fire.
“You’re welcome. You begin to feel rested now.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. And I found my clothes — you washed them for me. Thank you for that, as well. Is there somewhere I can bathe and wash my hair? I’m sorry, I don’t know exactly where I am or who you are and you’ve given me what I most needed …”
Hel stood quietly in front of the fire, smiling faintly. She wasn’t unfriendly, Mary thought, but somehow grim. It seemed a strange attitude for the keeper of a guest house.
“This is Janus House. It’s a place where people come to rest. Time is of no consequence. Those who are ready find us. Whatever they need to heal and rest and renew is given for as long as they need it.”
“It says on the wardrobe door, ‘Time is not here.’”
Hel stooped and reached into a basket of pinecones on the hearth. She lay them in a straight line across the floor. “We think of time as a straight line, like this. It’s a rule, no? Events happen one after another, in their turn. But here,” she swept up the pinecones and dropped them on the floor in a bunch. They bounced and rolled and came to rest where they would. “Time is like this. There’s no line, but circles and patterns overlapping. Janus looks two ways. He sees what has been and what might yet be. He closes the circle but it’s flexible, not rigid. Points on the circle might move together and meet, or intersect with other circles. Time, in the limited sense of a rigid line, isn’t here. Do you see?”
“Yes,” said Mary slowly. “I see.”
“Here at Janus House there’s only now. Your history is a place in your circle that might not yet have happened, or might have happened unimaginable ages ago. Your future may already be here waiting for you, or it may arrive behind you. Here there are no rules and no limits. You’ll eat, sleep, play, laugh, weep and heal as the moment for each thing arrives. There’s only what’s now.
“Are there are other guests?”
“Oh yes. There are always guests.”
“I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’ve no place to go. I’m alone now.” Mary looked away from the tall, remote figure, ashamed of welling tears. She felt used up.
“You’ll stay until you’re ready for what’s next.”
She wasn’t unkind, but Mary felt humiliated. What a pitiful contrast she made to Hel’s calm, clear presence, her chilling competence! She felt disheveled and unwashed. She’d lost her mate and left her children, and hardly felt capable of leaving her room, let alone considering the future.
“There’s a room downstairs next to the kitchen for bathing. You’ll find it well equipped.” Again, the slight smile. She gave Mary directions to the room and invited her to join other guests at meals downstairs or use the common rooms if she felt inclined. “You may like to go out, as well. It’s cold here but we’ve plenty of warm clothes for you to use.” She glanced out the window. “Don’t go far today. This afternoon there’ll be snow.”
Mary ate her breakfast with appetite, dressed and cautiously opened her door, looking down the quiet, empty hall. Her room lay at the end of the corridor. A window looked out at the same view she enjoyed from her room. A few steps along the hall, on the opposite side from her own, she found another door, and then another and another. She lost count as she followed Hel’s directions, found the huge staircase she remembered from the first night, and descended. The kitchen proved easy to find because of cooking smells and the chatter of women working there.
Mary returned her tray and thanked them, praising the food. One of them took her out of the kitchen and into a hall, opening a door and revealing a large room, as large as her bedroom, with a brightly burning fire, a narrow high table with a padded top, a shelf of thick towels with robes hanging on hooks beneath it, a round table with bottles and jars on it and, most welcome of all, a deep bath filled with steaming water.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary in delighted surprise. “How beautiful! Thank you!”
The woman smiled and left her and Mary shut the door, shed her clothes, letting them lie where they fell, and moved to the table. There she found what she needed for her hair, smelling of rosemary. She set the shampoo, a cake of soap and a pitcher on a low stool next to the tub and climbed in.
It felt blissful. She rested her head on the tub’s rim and slid down, her hair floating around her. For some reason the touch of the warm water, the embrace of it, made her want to weep. Her body felt lonely. She thought, am I lonely?
I can’t take care of anyone else, she answered herself immediately. But am I lonely for someone to take care of me? She didn’t want to entertain the question. She sank below the surface of the water, wetting her hair.
She heard a knock on the door. Thinking someone brought more hot water, she called out “Come in!”
The door opened but it wasn’t a kitchen woman carrying water. An old woman she’d never seen before stood there, yet she seemed somehow familiar. She had warm hazel eyes, a generous bosom and hips, hair a faded dun color but still quite thick and pinned in a knot. She smiled at Mary with such warmth and affection that again tears were in her throat.
She shut the door behind her, took the things off the stool and sat down with the pitcher on the floor at her feet. She filled her palm with shampoo and began working it into Mary’s honey-colored wet tangle. “I thought you might like some help,” she said in matter-of-fact tones. “My name’s Mary, too, but that’ll be confusing, won’t it? Here at Janus House they mostly call me Mother, anyway.”
Mary could see why. Mother’s hands were strong, gentle and soothing against her scalp. The smell of rosemary, comforting and clean, filled the air. She closed her eyes against the suds sliding down her face.
“Thank you,” she said. “I did want… I did want…”
“Yes. It’s hard to wash one’s own hair when sitting in the bath. I usually slop water all over the floor when I try it!” The older woman laughed. “And your hair is beautiful, my dear. Mine used to be this color when I was younger.”
She was so warm and easy to talk to that Mary dropped her guard at once, not realizing until she did so how isolated and disconnected she’d felt for…how long? The older woman rinsed her hair, worked in a moisturizing crème, and rinsed again. Seeing the signs of childbirth, she asked about the child and Mary told her about the twins and the deep winter night of their birth.
“I left them to come here,” she said and felt a terrible unacknowledged shame rise up within her. “I needed to leave. I felt so tired. I feel as though I’ve nothing left to give anyone, so I left my boys. What a terrible mother I am.” Her voice broke.
“Now, my daughter,” said Mother, passing her a clean cloth to wipe her face and blow her nose. “They’re well cared for. Baubo herself is with them, she who laughs from the belly, looks out of her nipples, and loves children above all others, isn’t that true? And others besides her, yes? And you know those two children of yours have their own place in the world, as do you. Do you forget the turning wheel of increase and decrease? You’re bound to it still, you and your man.”
Mary couldn’t bear to talk of Lugh. “How did you know Baubo was there?” she asked hastily, “I didn’t say so.”
“No. You didn’t. But I’ve heard things. It’s not important. What is important now is you, yourself. You’ve done well, but for the time being you’ve given everything you can. We who nurture life must learn we can’t do so indefinitely. At some point, we run out of love and if we don’t step away, run away, even crawl away and find some path to replenishment and renewal, we die. That too is part of the cycle, but a difficult part, for it means coming to terms with our own needs, and we’d rather be meeting the needs of others!”
Mary, having mopped her face and then rinsed it in the sweet-smelling water, leaned back again. “Yes. I was thinking that when you knocked. That I want someone to take care of me now, I mean. But people did take care of me, during my pregnancy and after. I’m ashamed to want more. It’s ungrateful, isn’t it?”
“No. We all need someone to love and care for us. Come out now. The water’s cooling.”
Mary stood and Mother enfolded her in a capacious bath sheet. Mary sat on a stool in front of the fire, wrapped in the towel, and the old woman stood behind her and patiently combed out her tangled hair.
“Hel said everything I needed was here. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know how to help myself. Yet I know I need help.”
“Yes. Everything you need is right here, right now. Janus House is a place where all is allowed. Whatever you do here will be the right thing. Whatever engages you will be the thing you most need. You don’t need to make a plan or work at anything. Just be. Allow your experience to be. Don’t try at anything.”
“Surrender.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. Surrender.” As she talked, she lay a sheet that had been warming in front of the fire on the narrow, padded table. “Come here, now.
Mary lay down on her belly, putting her face into a cushioned frame so she looked down at the tiled floor. The old woman gently brushed her hair away from her neck, letting it hang in a scented curtain. Mary smelled lavender and felt strong hands against her back. She closed her eyes. She was touched. She was touched and the touch asked for nothing in return. It seemed to her every pain and strain and overworked muscle in her body was summoned, revealed and comforted. The life her body had been living was uncovered, and as Mother’s fingers worked in her tissue, she remembered stooping to plant seeds under the sun’s warmth, kneeling, bending, saying a blessing over each new beginning. She remembered hauling water, raking, hoeing, weeding, pruning, staking, the feel of earth against bare feet. She remembered the wild, vibrant dance of mating, musk, stretch, passionate pleasure. She remembered sun, starlit nights, rain, and then more sun, sweat between her breasts. She remembered ladder, baskets, shapely weight of fruit in her palm. The old woman’s fingers found the ache between her shoulders that was the memory of the sharp curving scythe and rhythm of bend and swing, bend and swing. Muscles, ligaments and tendons in her hips and pelvic girdle remembered the long weight of the twins and then labor. Her body gave up its story to Mother’s listening hands.
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.
Figures circled the fire, which roared and spat sparks, burning so brightly it threw the surrounding trees and forest into total darkness. Mary could see nothing clearly but the fire itself.
A tall powerful form came forward to meet them, knelt and gathered the old man into her arms. Mary recognized Hel. Firelight fell onto her face, proud and remote, aged and ageless. She gestured the two women and the child into the circle around the bonfire. An owl called again, nearly overhead, and a pale shadow floated into a tall pine tree overlooking the clearing.
Molly watched it with delight, then clutched at Mary’s arm.
“Look!”
From behind the tree in which the owl perched stepped a stag, glowing with white light. His antlers were curved and knotted like an elaborate crown, garlanded with green and ablaze with red candles.
It seemed to Mary all the world was in darkness except for this clearing, where star shine and flame united, wreathed in gnarled black trees.
Hel stood facing the fire, cradling the old man, his cloak hanging in tattered folds around him. He seemed like a child in her arms. Had he diminished — or was Hel taller and statelier than ever before? Even as the word “stately” passed through Mary’s mind, Hel began to sway, rocking from side to side in the ancient instinctive rhythm of one soothing a baby. She pressed the old man to her like a mother, and Mary heard her speak in a low, comforting chant.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
Other voices around the circle took it up, slow, lingering on the “sss” until the two words sounded like the ebb and flow of the sea, or wind in tree boughs, or the hiss of snow.
Mary joined in, swaying, though her arms were empty. It was a like a dance made of leaping flame, stars, winter wood, and beings elemental, primordial, keepers of an endless circle around an endless fire.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
Hel turned to her left and passed the old man’s body into the arms of a man whose face was shadowed under his hat brim. On one shoulder perched a large black bird Mary thought must be a raven.
The man held aloft a knife, blade gleaming in firelight, then used the tip of it to rip the cloak. Mary heard the tearing sound of the wool, but only in imagination, as the roar of the fire blotted out other small sounds.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
The knife disappeared and the man held the old one against his shoulder like a father, like a chieftain, like a king. The male tenderness of it made Mary’s eyes burn with tears.
Fire burned. Night wheeled over them.
The man gave his burden to a short woman next to him, nearly as wide as she was tall, whose outline Mary recognized instantly. It was Baubo.
Baubo swayed, clasping the old man, and Mary remembered how the old woman held Lugh the day she arrived at Yule House, the feel of her breast squirting milk as they laughed. Watching her cradling the old man made her breasts tingle as though they were once again overflowing with milk.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
The fire breathed, the figures around it adding their breath until Mary felt she swayed in the sea, or was carried in the bosom of some great-winged creature, flying between forest and stars. It was like a song, that cosmic breath. Like a heartbeat.
Next to Baubo stood a child about Molly’s age with a head of kinky dark hair falling to her shoulders. She seemed to be nearly naked but gold earrings flashed in the firelight, swaying, as she accepted the old man’s body. She held him easily, as though he weighed no more than a desiccated stick of wood. Rolling the old man forward to lean against her chest, the child pulled the feather off the back of the cloak and thrust it into her thick hair.
Mary let out a cry of protest, soundless above the burning fire.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
The child rocked the old man. As Mary watched she seemed not a child, but the embodiment of maternal nurture, boundless, endless. The tenderness in line of neck, cheek and lip as she looked down was ancient, eternal.
Fire burned. Night wheeled over them.
The child handed the old man, more and more like a bundle wrapped in a rag, to a tall figure swathed entirely in a cloak. At her feet a large dog sat, yellow-eyed like a wolf. Mary knew them both. Hecate and her wolf familiar.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
Hecate, like Hel, had never struck Mary as maternal, but she held the swaddled bundle against her bosom, rocking, swaying, seeming to speak to the night, the season, and the cycle, as well as the tired old man in her arms.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
Next in the circle stood Mother, who took the old man against her generous bosom, looking into his face.
Molly stood between Mary and Mother, and Mary was concerned the old man would be too heavy for her to hold, but Molly readily took him, showing no strain, and bent her head over him. Her thick hair fell, hiding her face and brushing the old man’s neck. She rocked as though she’d been soothing babies against her shoulder all her short life.
Fire burned. Night wheeled over them.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
When Mary received him, wrapped in what had once been a cloak of rich, warm crimson, now hanging in shredded strips around the old man’s bony framework, she searched his face. She saw sunken, shadowed eye sockets, folded lips around what were surely toothless gums, a thin blade of a nose, a gaunt cheek frosted with stubble. A thick gold ring pierced his left earlobe. Firelight glinted on remnants of rich embroidery — poppies and sheaves of golden wheat, birds and trees, a lion with amber eyes and mane, dragonflies and butterflies with jeweled wings, beads and charms and gems. He weighed no more than a newborn child.
“Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.”
Could it be? In Yule House, hadn’t she heard the story of Dar’s cloak — at the end of his life? Surely the story of Dar, too, but she couldn’t think of that. She could only think of the end of the cloak. After all, Dar had lain safely in the cradle with his brother even as Hecate told the story. This minute Lugh slept in his bed, round limbed and, no doubt, grubby. He couldn’t be here — at the end of his life. Could he?
‘Time is not here.’
Was it possible this old man had once been her child — or her lover? For he, too, had possessed such a cloak.
Stars spun slowly across the vast night. Trees, snow crystals, frost and ice, restless sea and all spirits abroad whispered and hummed in music and words beyond human ears. Mary knew nothing of it. She swayed, seeing only firelight shining on the ragged crimson cloak.
Fire burned. Night wheeled over them.
There came a moment when Mary knew morning approached. It was still far off, but it approached.
Fire burned. Mary rocked.
A long time later, “Morning is coming,” whispered Molly. It was the first she’d spoken since seeing the owl’s pale glimmer alight in the tree. How many hours ago? thought Mary. How many nights ago?
Fire burned, but less brightly now.
No, Mary thought, the fire isn’t less bright. Dawn comes.
The faceless man flung his hand up into the air, releasing a handful of garnets and rubies — from the cloak, of course, Mary thought — but as they fell into the fire they hissed wetly, like blood.
Baubo tossed a lock of bright hair, the color of corn, into the heart of the flames.
The little girl with dark hair threw a bone. It flew up into the air, end over end, white as ivory, white as antler, rounded ends and graceful shaft, and fell into the flames.
The White Stag left his place under the owl’s perch and stood near Hecate, head lowered, candles guttering. She lifted the garland of greenery off his antlers and gave it to the fire, along with the melted remains of the candles, each one making the fire burn hot while it was consumed.
Mother held a bag in her hand. With amazement, Mary watched her tip grains from the bag into her hand. Seeds! She hadn’t known Mother carried a seed pouch.
The old woman flung the seeds into the fire, each one glinting and catching the firelight like a handful of sparks or stars.
In a swift movement, Hel scooped the old man’s body out of Mary’s arms and threw him up in the air. He seemed to float for a moment, pale and ragged as an old leaf, and then he drifted down into the center of the fire, which had burned down to a soft fringe of flame over a bed of ash and ember. He lay, a small mound under a crimson rag, ringed with low flames.
Warm air fluttered against Mary’s cheek. A flame of gold flew past her, trailing soft feathers, jeweled wings ablaze. It flew low over the dying fire. Round childish arms reached up from the ragged cloak and the Firebird’s taloned toes clamped around them. The huge bird flashed through the silent winter trees, golden, ablaze, the child’s head glowing like a candle as it swung between the Firebird’s legs … and the sun rose, sending dazzling light straight into their eyes, so they were forced to look away. The clearing rang with laughter, childish, joyous, trailing away in the new morning.
Mary found herself on her knees, she and Molly weeping together and locked in a tight embrace.
“The golden man,” Molly sobbed, “The golden man! The sun man! The golden bird!”
And Mary thought, My lover! My son! She didn’t know if she wept for grief or joy.
Gradually, they quieted. Light around them grew brighter. They began to hear the soft sounds of birds in the trees. Mary felt stiff and cold and concerned for the child. They needed to get back to Janus House. Mother, too, must be tired after such a night. She released her hold on Molly, wiped her cheeks and caressed her bright hair.
“It’s all right,” she said gently. “It’s all right now. Molly, we must go back to Janus House.” She rose heavily to her feet and took Molly’s hand again in her own.
“Mother?” The old woman wasn’t there. They called and searched, but she wasn’t there. Neither was anyone else. Hel, Baubo, Hecate, the strange dark child, the man with the shadowed face — all were gone. The tree where the owl had perched was empty, the White Stag vanished. The fire was out, smelling of bitter cinders.
“Do you think she went back with Hel?” asked Molly.
“I don’t know,” said Mary. She didn’t think so. She thought Mother was gone. And yet…not gone. She seemed in some way close, closer than another person could ever be. “I think she’s still here with us, though we can’t see her. Can you feel her, Molly?”
The child shut her eyes. She looked pale and exhausted, standing there in her red coat with her tearstained face. Still, she smiled, opening her eyes. “Yes, I feel her too. She says we should go home and get warm and… and… drink a cup of tea!”
Mary laughed and the two of them set out through the woods, soon finding Molly’s path beneath their feet. In a few minutes, they reached Janus House, where the back door stood open, Hel waiting for them on the threshold. Mary walked straight into her arms.
MIRMIR
“Was the party for my birth or my death?” growled the Hanged Man. “A long, cold walk in a dark forest alone and then immolation!”
“Dar didn’t have a party,” said Mirmir.
“Dar hated parties,” snapped the Hanged Man, “as you well know! Stop baiting me and get on with it, now you’ve spoiled our birthday story.”
CHAPTER 14
MARY
They didn’t see Mother again but they developed a habit of speaking of her and to her as though she was present. Mary found if she asked Mother a question in her thoughts and held herself quiet and open, an answer always came in Mother’s very voice and intonation, and with her earthy humor. She missed the old woman’s touch, the affectionate strength of her embrace and the lines in her face when she smiled, but her spirit remained with Mary and she leaned on it with confidence.
Mary didn’t speak about what she’d seen. Did they witness past, present or future during that long night? In this place, there was no telling. But what she’d seen gave her peace. Wherever her boys and their father were in the world — or out of it — they were not alone and uncared for. They were part of a larger pattern, and so was she. They were receiving what they needed. In the now of that night their circles briefly touched. In another circle, Dar slept in the desert. Somewhere in their circles they were young children guarded by faithful Baubo as well.
Molly had been deeply moved by the “golden man,” as she always referred to him. Mary wasn’t sure how the child understood what she’d seen and didn’t question her closely. Molly spoke of him with longing and a kind of reverence, as though she’d seen a thing beyond words, a thing beyond reason and belief or even hope.
The Firebird — for Mary felt certain it was the Firebird -- they did speak of. Mary told Molly what she’d heard about the golden bird. Molly listened, fascinated.
One morning after breakfast they layered on coats, scarves and mittens and went out together. The path beneath their feet wasn’t familiar. It didn’t twist and meander over snow-blanketed landscape to the forest the way Mary’s did, and neither did it make for the Owl Tree, as Molly’s did. In fact, it skirted the forest altogether and they soon realized it was leading them down to sea.
They’d both wanted to explore this place and now it seemed the time had arrived. The path led them carefully down a stony slope, cutting back and forth with steep turns so they descended gradually. Slabs of rock lay propped at angles. In the shallows, slabs of ice, broken into huge jagged blocks by rising and falling tide and temperature, creaked and groaned as they rubbed together.
It was a wild, desolate scene and Mary cautioned the child to stay off the unstable ice. It was a still morning and the sun struck warm on rock faces. The path, having taken them safely to shore, disappeared, and they walked along, exploring and picking up rocks and an occasional shell or treasure washed up by the sea. They came around a great boulder and stopped short. Leaning against it with her face in the sun and her legs folded beneath her sat a young woman.
She wore a wool hat over a rich cascade of dark curling hair. Her skin was a warm olive and her eyes, which she opened at their abrupt appearance, were dark. She showed no surprise on seeing them but smiled and held out a hand to Molly, who went to her at once. Mary thought they knew each other, but the stranger said, looking up at Molly and swinging her hand, “Hello. My name’s Eurydice.”
“I’m Molly. And this is Mary.”
“Will you sit with me?”
They dropped down beside her on the stony shingle. The sun felt warm. Mary loosened her scarf and the neck of her coat and took off her hat. She leaned against the rock next to Eurydice, luxuriating in the sun.
“This is the closest I can come to my home,” said Eurydice quietly. “When I close my eyes in the sun with the sea nearby, I remember it so clearly.”
“Where did you live?” asked Molly.
Eurydice smiled rather sadly. “I lived on an island in a blue sea. It was hot there, and dry, but there were olive trees and flowers and the sea was always nearby.”
“Are you staying at Janus House?” asked Mary.
“Yes. I think you’re both guests as well?”
“Yes, we are. We had another friend, but she left.”
“I’ve heard one leaves when the right moment comes, but I don’t know how the moment comes or how one recognizes it.”
“’Time is not here,’” murmured Mary.
“Exactly! It’s a little confusing, isn’t it?”
“It’s entirely confusing,” said Mary and they laughed together, making friends.
“Well,” said Eurydice, “I don’t leave today.”
“No,” Mary agreed. “I — we — don’t leave today, either.”
“You’re beautiful,” said Molly suddenly, looking into Eurydice’s face.
Warm color rose in her cheeks. “So are you,” she said. Mary saw the shine of tears in her eyes.
“Are you sad?” inquired the child.
“Yes. Well, no, not sad exactly. I’m… I’m lost. I mean, I know I’m at Janus House. And my path brings me here.” She indicated the rocky shingle. “The path seems to know me.”
“Maybe you don’t feel you know yourself?” suggested Mary. She realized how young Eurydice was, much closer in age to Molly than to herself.
“No. That’s it. I don’t know who I am or what I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. I have this feeling I’m hidden from myself and I can’t find…me. Before I came here, I thought I was getting close to knowing, to discovering, but then I was interrupted.” She stayed silent for a few minutes and Mary didn’t press her. “Then I came here.”
“I want to explore,” said Molly. She sprang to her feet from her cross-legged position on the shingle.
“Don’t go on the ice,” said Mary.
“I know. You said already!”
She wandered away, bending now and then to pick something up. Mary reached over and shook out the child’s discarded scarf and hat, folding them together neatly and putting them with her own. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked Eurydice.
“Yes, I think I do.”
“I was born a tree nymph on an island. My family lived with olive trees. I felt restless. I wanted more than roots and leaves. I wanted something unexpected to happen. I wandered away from my tree so often it grew sick and didn’t bear well. My parents were frustrated with me and tried to get me to settle down, but I couldn’t.
There was a musician, a young man called Orpheus, who played the lyre. People said his gift of music came from the Gods. When Orpheus played on his golden lyre, flowing water stood still to listen. Rocks and trees uprooted themselves to follow him. Nothing could resist the enchantment of his playing.
We met one day. He came to the village near our home and I snuck away to hear him play. I’ll never forget the passion and magic of his music. He was young and powerful, the handsomest man I’d ever seen. He was nothing like the dusty, hard-working boys I saw every day. He touched my hand and we looked into each other’s eyes. I would have done anything for him — anything. He might have used me however he pleased. He was honorable, though, and wanted to marry me.
It was like a dream. Nothing mattered to me then but him, his touch, his face, his presence, and most of all his music. We were married. I didn’t say goodbye properly to my family. I only cared about Orpheus and the music. He said I was his joy and he couldn’t play if I wasn’t near.
Then, just a few weeks after the wedding, I walked with my attendants in a meadow while Orpheus played. Something moved at my feet and I felt a sharp, stinging pain in my ankle. A snake glided away into the grass and I fell, the scent of bruised grass in my nose and the sound of my attendants screaming for help fainter and fainter in my ears. Then music and meadow and world were gone. All gone.”
She sounded absolutely desolate. Mary felt as shaken and griefstricken as though she’d witnessed the whole thing. She reached out and took Eurydice’s plump hand.
“What came before is a dream,” Eurydice resumed. “A dream of light and color and him…always him…his touch and his music. Then a sudden dark slash of pain and the dream was gone…
I was in a different time and place, quiet and shadowed. I possessed no body. Nothing I knew before was there. I found a door in a stone wall and it… called to me. I wanted to sit in front of it for a long time and think. I wanted to listen, to be absolutely still and see what would come. I felt peaceful and patient. I settled into being with the door like settling a tired body onto a soft bed at the end of the day. I didn’t think. I just was.
I didn’t think of Orpheus, back in the Green World. I didn’t think about what happened to him after I died.
He went mad with grief. He refused to leave my tomb. He refused to eat or drink or speak. He played upon his lyre, though. He played, hour after hour, day and night. His lament stole between trees and blades of grass, wound over mountains and sea. He played his grief and loss and everything that heard him grieved with him for every blossom, every tree, valley, hill and life lost since the beginning of time. The stones wept tears of crystal. The moons veiled themselves low on the horizon and the stars shone wearily, remembering infinite worlds of loss. And still Orpheus wouldn’t be comforted, though everyone begged him to cease his river of grief.
He followed me. He ventured where no living man had yet ventured. He came at last to the throne of Hades. He knelt with his lyre upon his arm and played and the Underworld stilled.
Hades told Orpheus he might take me out of the Underworld because of his courage and his music. I was to follow Orpheus out, but he wasn’t to look back until we were out of the tomb’s shadow and back in the Green World.
I followed him all the way up to the tomb. He stepped into sunlight and looked back at me with such joy and triumph on his face… But I still walked in shadow. I turned away from him then. I left the sound of his anguish and the Green World. I couldn’t go back. I didn’t want to go back.
That was all. The tomb closed. The way was kept against Orpheus. It was over.”
Eurydice sighed. She wiped tears from her cheeks. “I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to stop loving him. I know what I once felt was real. I just…needed to leave and I couldn’t go back. I could only go forward.”
“I understand,” said Mary quietly. “I understand. You did nothing wrong, Eurydice. You couldn’t help it. What happened to him, do you know?”
“Oh yes. He drifted for a time with his grief. He refused comfort or companionship. He wandered the barren, lonely places and played only desolation. He withheld music that healed and loved. He withheld joy. And he died.”
Mary shook her head. “He couldn’t accept.”
“No. He’d never been thwarted before, you see. The power of his music overcame every obstacle. When it failed him, I suppose he gave up.”
“So, you came here?”
“Yes. I came to Janus house. Hel said whatever I needed was here and I need not strive or seek or try but just be with whatever comes. But I feel…lost. I can’t get back to that peaceful place I found when I sat before the door, no matter how quiet I am. I wish I could meet myself here — myself from some future time -- a wiser self who would comfort me and show me the way.”
Mary felt as though she’d been doused with a bucket of cold water. She gasped and let go of Eurydice’s hand, putting her own hand to her chest.
“What?” asked Eurydice in alarm. “What is it?”
“I’ve…just realized something,” said Mary slowly.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
From some way off Molly’s laugh rose, clear and infectious, delighted. Both women smiled in response. Mary laughed too. “How amazing,” she said simply, but didn’t try to explain.
“So, Eurydice,” she said, turning back to the young woman, “you’re searching for yourself here?”
“Sometimes I think maybe there’s nothing to find.” Eurydice lowered her eyes and sifted through the stones on the beach with her hand. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m not anything but the reflection in someone else’s eyes.” Her voice broke.
Mary took her in her arms and let her weep, caressing the dark fall of hair, rocking, feeling Eurydice’s tears wet her sweater. The young woman smelled of sun-soaked dusty leaves, a little bitter. Gradually, her crying wore out and she pulled away, wiping her face and sniffling. Mary handed her the end of her scarf. “Use this.”
“But my nose!”
“Blow!” commanded Mary. “The stupid thing will wash!”
Eurydice laughed shakily and blew her nose.
“We all begin as the reflection in someone’s eyes, Eurydice. It takes time to make friends with yourself.”
She rose and zipped up the collar of her coat. “Now, where’s that pesky child? I want a snack and a hot drink. Will you come back with us?”
Eurydice stood too, tucking her hair into the collar of her coat and settling her hat more firmly on her head. She stood shorter than Mary, and was generously built. “The child, is she yours?”
Mary considered for a moment. She smiled. “Yes,” she said, “she’s mine.”
The two women set out in the direction Molly had gone, following the sound of her laughter. They came out of a tumble of large rocks where stony beach sloped down to water. Slabs of ice lay piled together.
A kayak was pulled up on the shingle and Molly crouched next to an adolescent boy with a wing of black hair falling over his eyes. As they approached, he stood. He looked thickset and strong, but his face retained some childish roundness. He brushed hair out of his eyes, smiling at them.
Molly ran to Mary with a handful of carvings. She held out a fox made out of greenish grey stone and two white geese of ivory or bone.
“Look!”
Mary admired them.
“This is Kunik. He carved those, and he told me a story about them. He came in his kayak.”
“Kunik,” repeated Mary, in greeting. “I’m Mary, and this is Eurydice. Are you alone?”
“Yes,” he said briefly, and Mary sensed a polite but firm withdrawal from that particular subject.
“We’re staying in a guest house here,” said Eurydice. She gestured up the bluff toward Janus House. She held the carvings in her broad palm, examining them with delight. “These are wonderful. Did you bring more?”
“Yes. I’m always making them. Sometimes I see…shapes inside material.”
“What else do you do?” asked Molly curiously.
“I can drum — a little. And I like stories.”
“Oh, we do, too! I know some good stories. If we tell you one, will you tell us one?” She pushed her honey-colored riot of curls out of her face impatiently. Kunik eyed her with something like amazement, and Mary wondered how long he’d lived alone.
Molly grinned at him. “Please?” she coaxed. We can go up in the rocks and sit out of the breeze.”
She was irresistible. He smiled, capitulating.
***
Somewhat to Mary’s surprise, Molly told Kunik about the night of transformation at the bonfire. It made a good story, and Molly had noticed more detail than Mary realized. Both Eurydice and Kunik were caught by the strange tale. He’d brought a drum out from the interior of the kayak, as though intending to play, but it sat idle in front of him as he listened, too caught up to think of anything else.
When Molly finished, they sat quietly for a few minutes. Mary, listening to the wash of the tide, heard again the chorus of voices murmuring “Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.” That was the place for the drum, she thought, an unobtrusive but integral heartbeat.
“Now you,” said Molly to Kunik.
Kunik inclined his head gravely. “There are stories in the world like pebbles on a shore,” he said. “Some are so old they belong to all people, but some are born out of one person’s life. These are sacred gifts, pieces of personal magic. You’ve given me such a gift. May I tell it to others?”
Molly glanced at Mary, who smiled back at her.
“I guess,” said Molly uncertainly. “If you think anyone would like it.”
“I think everyone will like it,” he said seriously. “In return for this gift, I’ll give you a new story, born out of my life. I’ve never told it before.”
“In a land where snow drifts like fallen stars and night sky ripples with color, a baby was left on the ice. Spirits of the baby’s ancestors looked down from the night sky, holding torches of green, orange, red, pink and violet. They caused the ice to break and the baby floated, guided by the spirits, to another place.
People found the baby and preserved his life, but they mistrusted him, so he slept with the dogs and shared their food of bones and walrus hide.
When the baby become a boy, there came a time when the hunting and fishing were poor, and the people blamed the boy for bringing them bad luck. They sent him out at night as food for the polar bears, hoping the sacrifice would restore the balance necessary for life.
The boy crouched on the ice, waiting for death. Three bears paced around him, sniffing and growling, their long claws digging into the ice. After circling for a time, the bears left, though the boy was helpless and made no effort to fight them.
The boy knew he couldn’t go back to the village. He stole a kayak and paddled away, out into the world, leaving behind the land where snow drifts like fallen stars and night sky ripples with color.”
Kunik began to beat the drum in a gentle, slow rhythm and the listeners imagined the boy, paddling away from the ice into the dark sea alone. He moved farther and farther away, drumbeat of oar slower and quieter, until he floated out of sight.
Molly sighed. Her cheeks were wet and she took off her mitten and wiped them with her hand. Kunik watched her.
“That was a good story,” she said to him. “I wonder why the bears didn’t eat the boy?”
He smiled, and it warmed his whole face.
***
They walked down to the inlet nearly every day to see Kunik. He fished, explored in his kayak, and seemed perfectly self-sufficient and happy, but Mary thought he looked forward to seeing them, talking, sharing food and stories.
Mary, Eurydice and even Molly refrained from questioning Kunik about his history after the first story he’d told them. There was an unspoken agreement to leave such a painful past in peace, but Mary’s generous nature grieved for him and she wanted to know more of the story. What happened to his parents? Why had the people acted so cruelly? Why didn’t the polar bears eat him? Had he been adrift in the world in his kayak since then? He wasn’t very old.
Eurydice confessed to Mary the picture of a baby, wrapped in a sealskin, floating alone on a raft of ice between cold black sea and shimmering sky haunted her. Kunik told them about the northern lights, waves and sheets of color rippling in the long nights, whispering. Mary could see Eurydice was fascinated by the young man, and Molly treated him like a brother.
“Tell another selchie story,” said Molly one cold afternoon.
They were sitting around a small fire, transparent in daylight but radiating welcome warmth in a sheltered spot between rocks.
Kunik laughed at Molly. “Aren’t you bored with the selchie yet?” He had told them several tales of the legendary selchie, creatures who were human upon the land and seals in the sea. Molly was never tired of hearing about them.
“No,” she said seriously. “Tell about the man who stole the selchie’s skin and begged her to marry him because he was so lonely. And then years and years later the selchie starts to die because she can’t go back to the sea without her skin. And then one of her children finds it and she swims away and doesn’t die, after all, but she has to leave her children.”
“Do you think she was wrong to do that, Molly?” Mary asked curiously.
“I don’t,” said Eurydice. “She couldn’t give up what she was. She didn’t ask him to do that.”
“He broke his promise to return her skin after seven years,” said Molly. “That was wrong.”
“He feared she’d leave him if she found it — and she did,” pointed out Kunik.
“But if he’d given it back to her freely, she might have stayed with him part of the time,” said Eurydice, “if she could trust him.”
“If she’d gone back after finding her skin, do you think he would have stolen it again?” asked Kunik. “I’ve always wondered.”
“It’s not fair to be forced to choose between your own life and your children,” said Mary heatedly. “No one should have to do that. He was cruel.”
“Yes. But she understood from his point of view she was the cruel one,” said Kunik.
“You knew her?” asked Eurydice in surprise.
“I met her. Her name was Selena. She was lovely. Her son is a man now, a shaman, because he can go under the sea and live with the seals as well as live on land.”
“Did she ever go back to the fisherman?” asked Mary.
“No. She couldn’t trust him. She always felt bad about it, though. She didn’t want him to be lonely and she didn’t want to hurt him. But she needed to be who she was. She said real love, true love, requires that we allow.”
“Allow what?” asked Eurydice.
“Allow those we love to be.”
“To be what?”
“To be everything they are.”
Eurydice released her knees and straightened her back, folding her legs to sit cross legged. She wriggled on the hard rocks, trying to find a more comfortable position. She picked up a stone and laid it on a larger one embedded in the shingle. “A selchie.” She picked up another and laid it alongside the first. “A wife.” She set a third stone beside the first two. “A mother.”
“But there might be so much more,” said Mary. “Maybe we’re more than we can ever discover in one lifetime. Maybe all the pebbles on this beach lined up are still not enough for all the selves you and I and everyone might be.”
“And real love allows all that?”
“Real love doesn’t just allow it,” said Kunik. “Selena said real love invites growth and change, seeking and finding. She said most people speak of love but practice limitation.”
Eurydice considered this. She stacked the three pebbles, added others to build a miniature wall, laid out stone spirals and designs.
“I think eventually we must discover what we’re made of — or we die,” said Kunik.
“Maybe sometimes that means making terrible choices,” said Mary.
“I met someone who gave up everything for a man,” said Eurydice. “In the end, she killed herself because he intended to take the only things she had left — their children. Love is confusing, isn’t it? I thought it meant giving everything I am, caring more about another than myself. Isn’t that what everyone says?” She looked up at Kunik. “But you’re talking about something different. You make love sound brave and enduring, like a mountain, instead of soft and romantic, like an overripe fig.”
She laughed at Kunik’s expression. “Figs are fruit that grows on trees. They’re soft and sticky, about the size of this stone.” She held up a small rock.
“Ah,” he said, his puzzled expression clearing.
“Is giving up everything you are to love someone else romantic?” asked Molly. “I thought romance meant being loved for who you are. If you give up who you are, how can you truly be loved?”
“Exactly,” said Kunik. “That’s why Selena said real love allows.”
EURYDICE
That night, after a long soaking bath and her evening meal, Eurydice dreamt.
She sat in front of the door in Hades. The door stood absolutely flat and featureless, just as she remembered, except a gold key with jeweled scrollwork was inserted into an invisible keyhole. She felt happy and peaceful. She was absolutely certain she could sit for as long as she wanted. There would be no interruption. There was nothing else she needed to do. As she relaxed into the certainty of infinite time to do what she most wanted, the door began to open. Slowly, it swung away from her and light shone over the threshold into the dim grey shadows of Hades. The light strengthened and Eurydice could smell green and growing things. She heard no sound. The door swung wider and wider and a whole crowd of people stood there. She looked into the crowd. She saw Mary and Molly, hand in hand. She thought she glimpsed Hel, way in the back, but then lost sight of her. She saw strange faces and half remembered faces. Then she saw her own face, smiling back at her. Next to that woman stood another with the same face. Suddenly, everywhere she looked her own face mingled with the others. Each version of herself dressed differently and some faces looked older and some younger, but they smiled at her with love and tenderness. Some versions of herself were holding snakes twining around their arms. Some were holding children, always boys with thick, dark hair and olive skin who smiled at her with shining dark eyes. In complete silence, every face turned towards her, smiling with such warmth and love tears came to her eyes. She thought they were happy the door was opened, and she tried to say, “But I didn’t open it! I didn’t do it! It opened by itself!” but no sound came out of her mouth and into her mind another voice spoke, a voice she didn’t hear with her ears but in the great silence of the dream that was like the silence of her own mind, “Choose, Doorkeeper…”
A woman stood in front of her, hooded and cloaked, holding a torch in one hand. At her feet sat a wolf. It looked her full in the face with topaz eyes. Behind the shrouded figure Eurydice saw darkness, spangled with silver galaxies. The hooded woman reached forward and put an object in Eurydice’s hand. The torch and the wolf’s eyes were the same color, blurring and shimmering against blackness out of which silver rain wheeled. Silver and gold mingled, dazzling, fading into gleaming metallic puddles, draining away…
The dream began to fade. Eurydice willed herself to stay asleep. She wanted to ask a question, an important question. She must ask! But the dream faded in a swirl of color and light. She felt blankets and sheets against her skin, the pillow under her cheek, the weight of one leg folded over the other, warmth in the hollow of the feather bed she lay in, a strand of hair over her shoulder, and she awoke.
“What…?” she thought drowsily. “What…?” But the question faded with the dream and she no longer knew what it was.
She turned over and slid back into sleep, the fingers of one hand folded over a gold key with scrollwork at the top, set with gems like drops of blood.
Molly and Eurydice spent time with Kunik nearly every day. They built fires on the shingle and ate picnics. They explored up and down the limb of the sea. Eurydice dredged out of her memory every folk song and story she could, even showing them some of the folk dances she’d known in her old life, while Kunik played his drum. The voice of the drum underneath his hands seemed to draw music out of Eurydice’s memory.
Kunik proved a quiet young man. He was frequently turning a bit of driftwood or bone over in his hands. Eurydice loved to watch him. Broad and strong looking, his hands were incredibly sensitive and discovered every pit, seam and fissure of the material he explored. Sometimes he rubbed whatever he examined over the thin skin on the underside of his wrist, or across his cheek.
“Why do you do that?” she asked him one day. They were squatting together over the thin line of debris left by the high tide. Kunik had picked up a curving piece of bone, a rib, Eurydice thought. He ran it thoughtfully along the curve of his jaw.
“I’m searching for the shape inside it,” he said.
She looked at him. He smiled but he didn’t meet her eyes.
“Are you teasing me?”
“No. It’s just hard to explain. My carvings start as a piece of wood or bone or stone. But inside them another shape is locked, another possibility, another form and function. I can feel that hidden shape. When it’s clear in my mind I uncover it.”
“Like taking off a skin?” asked Eurydice. Kunik smiled widely. It made his round cheeks push his eyes into slits.
“Exactly like. This bone was once part of a living creature. Now it’s a remnant of that life but it’s still something by itself — a bone. It’s transformed. I can transform it yet again into another new shape. I think this is a polar bear. I make a lot of them, but each is different because each is made out of something different. Let’s see what else there is.”
Their four hands quested in the line of debris and Eurydice thought vaguely how easy it would be to confuse his hands with hers. They possessed the same olive skin and broad shape.
MARY
Mary began to feel restless. She couldn’t guess how long she’d lived at Janus House but it seemed months -- perhaps even more than a year. And yet winter never changed. Her exhaustion had long since been assuaged and her twin sons seemed like a memory from another life. She often thought about Mother and the strange night in the forest during which the old man grew young again in the fire. Where did Mother go? Her heart told her all was well and the old woman left willingly and gladly moved on, but to where? And how had it happened? Did Mother know she was leaving?
She could hardly remember the drained woman she’d been the night Hecate brought her here. She felt immeasurably older and wiser, more patient and peaceful than ever before. Yet she felt impatient with the endless winter and sameness of Janus House. What once seemed a refuge now became tedious and dull. What next? What was happening in the world? Where were her sons? Was there any place, anyone, that needed her now? Before the birth of the twins, she had gathered seeds, planted, nurtured the green earth. Was seed awaiting her hand? Was Spring waiting for her somewhere? But Mary felt in her heart the path forward was not like anything that had come before. Was there someone to love, and someone who waited to love her? She walked in winter woods, sat quietly by the evening fire with Eurydice, listened to Molly’s talk, took her meals, and spent time in her room alone working on a gift for the child.
EURYDICE
Eurydice spent hours examining the key. It was as long as her finger, the bit decorated with a complicated pattern of wards. The bow of the golden key carried a pattern of scrollwork. Small red gems like rubies were scattered on the bow, shoulders and shaft, as though the key was decorated with a spray of sparks. She’d never seen anything like it before. For some reason, she hadn’t told anyone about it, but she carried it with her and frequently during the day her fingers groped for it, running over the shapes of the jewels on the slim shaft, feeling the delicate scrollwork with a fingernail. What kind of a door did this key open? Was she to search for it? Why else would the key come to her? How exactly did the key come to her? The questions were a kind of mental grit, uncomfortable, irritating.
One evening, as Eurydice and Mary sat together, Eurydice said, “I think I’ve found out something about myself.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I want to.”
“I’m listening, my dear.”
“I’ve been thinking about Kunik’s selchie stories and all the skins we might wear — the selves we might be. Remember the door I found in Hades? I dreamt it opened and there was a great crowd of people on the other side. I saw myself in the crowd, over and over, a crowd of Eurydices!”
Mary laughed.
“You were there, too, and…everyone. You were all so happy. I thought it was because the door opened and you thought I did it, but I didn’t. There was a key in the door and that’s what made it open, but I didn’t put it there or touch the door at all. Then a voice in my mind said, ‘Doorkeeper.’
“Did it mean you?”
“I thought so. But maybe it meant someone else. If I was the doorkeeper, I never touched the door at all. It just opened in front of me. The key was there, as though it unlocked the door, but I didn’t do it. I was just…there.”
“Maybe all you need is to be and one of things you are is a doorkeeper.”
“Maybe.” Eurydice looked away. “I’ve been thinking… maybe… maybe I can love enough to allow people to find out what they can be. Maybe love like that is what opens doors. The key is only a symbol.”
“Maybe,” said Mary quietly. She reached out and took Eurydice’s hand in her own. “What a beautiful blessing to bring into the world!”
“Oh!” Eurydice bit her lip. “That sounds like so much to live up to, Mary! I wasn’t thinking of anything that big. I just thought maybe I might help a few people open the way.
“I myself am in need of that. As you’ve confided in me, I’ll tell you I’m restless. I think I’m ready to leave Janus House but I don’t know how — or where. I just know I’m no longer peaceful here. Something calls me, but I can’t quite hear it yet. I don’t want to leave you and Molly, but I think the time is coming when I must.”
“Perhaps it’s something like the selchie feel when they’ve been too long out of their skins. They long for what they’re made of, though it means leaving those they love.”
“You’re wise. That’s comforting. Yes, I think it’s exactly like that. I’ll tell you something else. I think the time approaches when Molly will also choose to leave. I don’t think she herself is aware of it yet, but I foresee it. Have you noticed lately how she’s grown up? She’s happy now, playing with Kunik, but that young man has opened her eyes to life in a new way. I think Molly will soon begin to feel restless too, and wonder what comes next. I’ve been working on a gift, something she might need.”
Mary and Eurydice sat long by the fire that evening, allowing it to burn down to glowing embers. Eurydice went to bed with sadness. She would miss Mary and Molly. She’d noted Molly’s new growth and maturity, as well as Mary’s gradual withdrawal. She too felt change coming to Janus House.
MARY
One day Mary and Molly set out together from Janus House. To Mary’s surprise, the path took them into the woods instead of down to the sea. It was a quiet, steely day. Nothing stirred. Snow like sheets stiff with dirt draggled on the ground and in the hollows. Trees seemed to watch and listen, hostile. The very air felt tense, on edge. Mary felt like an intruder. She sighed. Would winter ever break into spring? A subdued Molly slipped her mittened hand into Mary’s, a thing she did less and less, Mary had noticed. For once her cheerful exuberance was muted.
“Do you want to go back? It’s not a nice day.”
“No,” replied Molly with something like defiance. “There’s nothing there but the fire and a snack and tea, and then dinner, and then nighttime. It’s always the same! And the cold pressing in against the windows!”
Mary stopped in surprise. “I never heard you talk like this before! I thought you loved it here!”
“I do! I did! But it doesn’t change! I’m afraid Kunik will leave soon. Then what will there be to do? How much longer am I going to be here? Is this all there is?” She looked up into Mary’s face, mutinous, on the edge of tears.
“Molly…” Mary began, but forgot what she was saying. Something disturbed the heavy cold and silence of the watchful wood. A thread of sound wound slyly through the sentinel trees. Woman and girl looked into one another’s eyes, listening. The melody mocked, beginning clear and silver and then drifting vaguely away, as though fading, and then present again, closer, though from a different direction. They heard three clear notes, repeated over and over, like a call. The sound stopped. Mary closed her eyes, the better to listen. A sudden scent of damp earth came to her nose. She opened her eyes in surprise and found only the weary winter forest around her. She turned her head, trying to catch the scent again. Cold air scoured the inside of her nose. Again came three notes, demanding, compelling. With a sudden screech and sweep of wings that made them both duck, a white owl took off from a branch over their heads, a single silver feather drifting down into Molly’s hand.
A white owl in the daytime! Mary thought. It can’t be…
Oh, the piping! Let it come again!
Now Mary felt at one with the woods, no longer an intruder but listening… tense and straining. Cold pressed down around her. Molly edged closer to her and they stood, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. Something approached.
Three notes and then a single note, a pause, the note again. It sounded, Mary thought, like water dripping. She thought suddenly of the slabs of sea ice down at the inlet. Sea ice was melting, drop by drop, onto the stony shingle. But no, she thought dazedly. Nothing could melt in this cold, and besides, she couldn’t possibly hear such a small sound standing here in the woods! What was she thinking? The dripping sound filled her mind, mesmerizing. Note after note, relentless, dropped away. How many notes would it take to melt away winter? How long would it take to hear each drip?
Suddenly she realized the notes were changing. Drip joined drop and now there were several. One fell into water — she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye, hear the splash it made. One fell onto stones — surely it was sea ice melting? Another fell onto earth, not frozen but soft and muddy, looking like chocolate cake, smelling like a garden in the rain. Faster they dripped, more and more drops joining in until they made a trickle, a rill seeking hollows and making tiny ponds before spilling over and hurrying on. Then, clear and distinct above the sounds of melting and water on the move, came the trill of a bird, liquid and beautiful. Tears fell down Mary’s cheeks. She was pierced with joy so keen it felt like pain. She put her hand protectively to her chest.
The music stopped. Mary opened her eyes and saw ranks of cold tree trunks, tired grey swathes of snow on the ground. It was utterly quiet. The only sound was her own rapid breathing. Her cheeks were wet. Her feet and hands were so cold they were numb. She felt as though she’d stood in a dream for a long, long time. Her breathing slowed. The effort of moving, of speaking, seemed too great to undertake. Janus House was too far to find again. The cold bit too deeply to be thawed in front of a fire. She felt a hundred years old and weary to her bones.
“Mary!”
She turned her head unwillingly towards the girl next to her. Molly laid a hand on her arm. “Are you all right? You look strange.”
“Cold,” said Mary through stiff lips.
“Yes, but you heard the piper—thaw is coming! Spring is coming, Mary!” Her face shone radiant, her hazel eyes soft and shining. “Come, let’s go back and get you warm.”
She tucked her arm through Mary’s and they turned to retrace their steps.
***
That night the sound of dripping water disturbed Mary’s sleep. It started slowly, one drop at a time, and then, like an advancing rain, pittered and pattered over trees, rocks, water down in the cove, on the ground and roof of Janus House. Mary turned over uneasily, frowning in her sleep. Through the gentle sound of dripping water came piping, a thin melody, enchanting, wickedly joyous. Mary found herself outside. Steam rose from the ground and the earth felt wet and damp under her feet. She saw with surprise her feet were bare and realized with greater surprise she wasn’t cold. When she stepped in a depression, mud squirted up between her toes. There was no snow. She walked through thin fog. She followed the sound of piping, feeling young and strong, relishing being barefoot on the ground. Piping and path wound between rocky outcroppings and trees, up and down gentle hills and valleys. On and on she walked, and then she climbed a low rise and broke out of mist into sunlight, a muted, early morning kind of sunlight, but not the low winter sun she’d seen for so long. This sun promised to rise high and warm the earth beneath it. For the first time, she could see some way ahead. Just entering a stand of trees in the valley were two figures. One was slim and wiry, bare chested with brown legs and tawny hair, holding a pipe to his lips. A crimson cloak draped his shoulders. He danced, turning and stepping, bending and sweeping from side to side, piping all the while. He possessed the legs of an animal with hooves. The other figure was female and she too danced, danced like a light-footed girl. Mary could clearly hear the sound of her laughter over the piping. But her head was a faded dun color and her figure was not willowy and slim but matronly, with comfortable hips and ample bosom. It was Mother.
Mary, in her dream, tried to call out but could make no sound. She raised her hand and waved, trying to get Mother’s attention. The piper was already among the trees at the edge of the woods. Mother didn’t see her, so intent was she on her dance, and in a moment, she too was swallowed up among trees.
“Wake!”
Mary woke. Who spoke? She was alone in her room, in her comfortable bed. The heavy curtains were drawn. It felt like early morning. The room was cool with morning chill. Had she herself spoken? The word had sounded like a ringing command.
Mother. Mother with him…the piper. Lugh. She lay still, remembering, half smiling, half weeping. Lugh. Musk and seed. Green fire in the mouth of winter. Feel of damp earth under her feet, sweat slick between her breasts, desire, salty and thick on the back of her tongue. The piper was abroad, calling…
At breakfast Molly was quiet and heavy-eyed. When Mary inquired if she felt well, she said curtly she’d had bad dreams, making it clear she didn’t intend to discuss the matter. After breakfast, she put on her outdoor clothing to go and meet Kunik. Mary cautiously asked if she might come too, and Molly assented.
They set out together, Molly walking ahead with her hands thrust firmly into her pockets. Mary smiled to herself. Evidently it wasn’t a handholding sort of day. The path took them down to the sea and Kunik was there, searching the tide line for treasures, while Eurydice sat on a stone and looked out across the inlet.
Molly went straight to Kunik, squatted down and began to talk in low tones. Mary joined Eurydice, who greeted her with a raised eyebrow and a nod at Molly.
“Bad dreams,” said Mary in explanation.
“Ah. Kunik will help.”
They sat companionably, looking away from the two young people. Kunik began to drum in an intermittent, hesitant fashion, as though learning a new rhythm. The women clambered off the rock and sat behind Molly, near enough to hear but not disturbing the intimacy between boy and girl.
“Once there was and once there was not,” Kunik said in his storytelling voice, “a young rabbit who lived alone in snow and ice. He was white to help him hide because everyone wanted to eat him. Winter was cold and lonely. He was hungry all the time. His whiskers never stopped quivering and his ears never stopped twitching and listening and he never stopped looking for food unless he was asleep, curled up lonely in his burrow.”
As he spoke his fingers beat the hop, hop, hop of a wandering rabbit at ease, and then a sudden powerful jump and dodging run, and then slowing once more to a hop, hop, hop.
“This rabbit was too young to know change always comes. He thought winter would go on and on forever. He thought he would always be alone. He thought his belly would never be full and he’d never be quite warm enough. Sometimes he thought to himself, is this all there is? It didn’t seem like much of a life.
Well, one day the rabbit came across a burrow he’d never seen before. It was just a hole, rather like his own hole, but when he poked his head inside to see if it contained another rabbit who might be friendly, he smelled the most delicious smell you can imagine. A smell of grass and plants growing up out of damp earth and maybe even a shy floating wisp of a flower smell. And the air he smelled felt warm! Warm! Think of that!
Of course, he wanted to jump right into that burrow and into that lovely-smelling place. Who wouldn’t? But he found he couldn’t do it. He could poke his head in a little way and sniff all he wanted, but he couldn’t actually push his way into the burrow, no matter how hard he tried. He pushed and pushed and grew more and more frustrated. Then he became angry and he started to dig. Rabbits are good diggers, you know, with strong claws. He dug and he dug, growling rabbit growls and simply blazing with rage, but the burrow continued down in front of him no matter how hard or deeply he dug. He wore himself out trying, though.
Finally, he was forced to stop. He felt too tired to go on. His anger left him and he wanted to weep. He was cold. He was hungry. He was afraid of being eaten and now he was exhausted as well. And there in that burrow, he smelled a place better than anything he’d ever imagined and he wanted to go there more than anything he’d ever wanted. But he couldn’t. Earth clotted in his claws and he’d made a cold dirty mess under his feet and bottom. Snow lay everywhere. Nothing green, or soft or sweet scented, just cold white and grey snow and ice and, as a final piece of misery, snow began falling out of the sky. Again.”
Kunik stopped speaking but his fingers fluttered on the drum and Mary could see in her mind’s eye flakes falling on the poor little rabbit, scattered snow and earth from his efforts at digging, and the magical burrow, a hole in the ground that went down and away — somewhere else.
Molly listened intently with a look of pain on her face Mary didn’t like to see. Eurydice’s eyes were on Kunik’s face but Mary didn’t think she was really seeing him.
Kunik resumed, “Well, the falling snow was the final misery, as I said, and that little rabbit began to cry. He knew it was dangerous, because who can sniff for danger with a stuffed-up nose? But he couldn’t help himself. He cried and cried and his tears ran down his face and his snowy chest and onto the ground. His tears were warm, of course, and they melted the snow they touched. Pretty soon he’d made a slushy place on the ground in front of him. He pushed the slush around with his paws and wished he could melt the whole winter. But there weren’t enough tears in the world to melt winter. Still, if he could melt winter, he felt certain the burrow would be unblocked and he’d be able to go into it.”
“Open the way,” said Eurydice suddenly.
Kunik gave her a slanting look of amusement. “Open the way,” he agreed gravely.
“That little rabbit needed to find a way to open the burrow. His heart broke with his wanting and his longing. He needed help but had no one he could ask for help. So, finally, he returned to his own burrow and crept into it, empty stomach and all, and curled up and cried himself to sleep, wishing with all his heart for somebody to help him open the way.” Kunik spoke the last words to Eurydice.
Well, that night a strange thing happened. The little white rabbit dreamt a gentle wind began to blow. Not the harsh, cutting, icy gale that usually came to that place, but a coaxing, warmer sort of wind that caressed instead of bit. It ruffled his thick white fur and whispered in his long ears. It seemed to play around him as though it knew him and loved him. As though it was a friend. When the little rabbit woke, he felt comforted.
He was also hungry. He emerged into the world and found a soft blanket of new snow sparkling in the sunlight. He hopped slowly from place to place, digging under the snow to get to edible plants and enjoying the sun’s warmth. He nibbled and browsed and felt better. He made a wide circle around the strange burrow he’d tried so desperately to get into, knowing it was there but not going too near it. After a while he came upon his own tracks, plain and clear in the snow. It was like having a friend nearby. Some of what he found to eat was tough and dry and tasteless but occasionally he nibbled on a shoot or branch that surprised him with a fresh green taste.
As the sun went down, he drew near to the strange burrow, whiskers quivering and nose twitching. The delicious smell remained, but he’d found no way of getting down it. He felt tired. He turned away and found his own hole. He curled up and went to sleep with a full belly and the memory of sun on his white fur.
Every day the little rabbit woke up and did what he could do. He searched for food and enjoyed the sun when it shone, and fluffed out his thick coat and sought shelter when the wind blew cold. He thought all the time about the burrow he’d found and every day he checked and sniffed and saw it was still there — and still blocked. He didn’t cry or rage any more. He watched the sun travel across the sky and sometimes he watched the moons rise or set and looked at stars studding the huge night. He kept himself safe from predators, groomed his fur, slept and watched snowflakes fall and drift on the wind. And without his noticing how or when it happened, the world began to change.
Snow was soft instead of grainy. It wasn’t as cold and the air seemed full of murmurings and rustlings he could almost hear, but not quite. He was amazed. He didn’t know what to make of it. Of course, we know. Gradually, slowly, the land of snow and ice woke… and change came at last.”
Mary thought, The land of snow and ice woke. It woke… Wake! The piper called. Molly was ready to leave Janus House. She herself knew it was time to go…where? Molly, she knew, must midwife the spring. Would the piper’s music be enough to wake Winter? Was that her task? To help wake Winter?
“…and so, that white rabbit became a brown rabbit and when at last the burrow he’d found was unblocked he went through and found himself back at home, in the place where he’d started but had forgotten, now a lovely-scented place with green grass, shy flowers and damp earth, and, best of all, other little brown rabbits.”
Mary came out of her thoughts abruptly and joined in the gentle applause. Kunik smiled into her eyes. Molly smiled too, strain gone from her face, though she looked tired.
As though the impromptu story had been the whole reason for the gathering, the party broke up soon afterwards. Eurydice was anxious to go back to Janus House and left first. Mary wanted to sit alone and think. Even Molly didn’t want to stay and play.
That night, Molly, Mary and Eurydice sat by the fire after the evening meal and talked about Kunik’s story.
Molly was flushed and irritable. Mary had recognized both tears and temper close under the surface during the meal and casually proposed hot chocolate before bed. She felt relieved when Molly agreed. Eurydice settled herself on a sheepskin near the hearth, leaning against a wide-lapped chair, her thick hair covered with the head scarf she always wore. Mary sank into her favorite corner of the long, deep couch. Molly left her steaming cup on a table and stayed on her feet, standing with her back to the fire.
“So how do you open the way?” she demanded, looking from Eurydice to Mary. “Just do nothing? What kind of an answer is that?”
“Well,” Mary said carefully, “how does the way forward open when we feel stuck?”
“The rabbit thought tears wouldn’t work,” put in Eurydice, looking into the fire.
“Do you think that’s right? Would tears — grief — have worked?” Mary addressed her question to the air somewhere between Eurydice and Molly. “Could tears melt winter?”
“No,” Molly said emphatically. She stooped and picked up her cup, sipped, and wrapped her hands around its warmth.
“No,” agreed Mary quietly.
Eurydice gave the fire a small, fleeting smile. “How about anger?” she asked conversationally. “Would anger open the way? What about a lot of anger? What about rage? That’s hot enough!”
“That doesn’t seem right,” said Molly slowly. “Rage makes me think of destruction. We’re talking about opening a way, not making a crater!” She sipped again, and snorted with unwilling laughter. “How much rage can a little white rabbit feel?”
Eurydice and Mary laughed, too. The taste of hot chocolate was smooth and rich in Mary’s mouth. “I think we could go out and rage all we wanted at the winter and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
“Not rage, then,” agreed Eurydice. “I think we can’t force a way to open.” She looked at Molly. “I dreamt about this,” she said, and told the girl about the door, the key and the crowd on the other side.
“But what did you do to make it open?” asked Molly, puzzled.
“That’s just it. I didn’t do anything. I…allowed.”
Molly wore an arrested look. “Allowed. But that’s what the selchie stories are about. Real love allows.”
“Yes,” said Mary, filled with peace and certainty, everything becoming clear.
“So, the rabbit…” said Molly hesitatingly, groping towards understanding, “the rabbit allowed…?”
“Yes,” said Mary, looking at Molly with enormous affection. “The rabbit acknowledged his desire and longing and the pain in his heart and he accepted he couldn’t go through the burrow. He allowed things to be the way they were and did what he could do to take care of himself and live his life. He accepted he couldn’t control the outcome of his desire. He could only feel it and go on. That’s what started opening the way for him. Eurydice wanted more than anything for that door to open. She was quite willing to sit there for as long as it took, without having any actual power to make it happen. She wanted it with her whole heart, she gave herself to the wanting, and then she did what she could do and sat, releasing the outcome. In some way that allowed it to open...”
Molly frowned down at her cup, swirling. “I think I see,” she said tentatively.
“What we’re talking about is surrender. Think of seeds,” said Eurydice, smiling up at her. “Think of scattering a handful of seeds. You give them to the ground, the sun, the rain, yes?”
“Yes. You mean I surrender them to chance? I scatter them with love into the world and allow — whatever will happen to happen?”
“That’s it exactly!” said Eurydice.
“Yes, all right,” said Molly impatiently. “But I still don’t know what to do when I’m stuck!”
“I think that’s what Janus House it,” said Mary. “It’s a stuck place. It’s a place where you give your whole heart to being stuck!” she giggled, sounding Molly’s age. “It’s the place between one thing and another, the turning point. We come here and things happen and we meet people and hear stories and… and… use everything we possess right here, right now. Then…”
“The way starts to open,” murmured Eurydice. “Molly, how long have you felt stuck?”
“Oh… not long,” she replied with some surprise. “For a long time, I felt happy here and I didn’t think of leaving at all.”
“Well then,” said Eurydice gently, “the way is already opening and you’re seeing the light on the other side of the door. The turning point is now.”
“I want it to open faster!”
They laughed together. Molly sat cross-legged in front of the fire. Her cup was empty. Mary stretched out her hand and Molly handed it to her. Molly yawned. “I’m sorry if I was grumpy.”
“I had disturbing dreams last night, too,” said Mary. “Sometimes a night like that makes for an uneasy day.”
“Kunik has a gift,” remarked Eurydice. “Did he make up that story as he told it?”
“I think so,” said Molly. “Sometimes today I thought it was just a simple kids’ story. But as he told it and now as we talk about it, it seems like more than that. How did he make up a story that seems like it was especially for each one of us?”
“A gift,” repeated Eurydice.
“And the drumming!” said Mary, remembering with wonder.
“I’m going to name that rabbit Surrender,” said Molly.
They said no more. After a half hour of companionable silence, Eurydice and Molly went to bed and Mary took the cups to the kitchen and sought her own room.
***
Mary pulled aside heavy velvet drapes, letting in dawn light. She had carefully pieced together a pouch made of a piece of sealskin. It fit inside the birch bark pouch Hel had helped her and Molly make. She spread seeds on the table, each kind twisted into cloth or paper and labeled. She stirred the twists with her finger, mind relaxing into memory. Every label brought back a day, an hour, a place where she’d gathered seed. She vividly remembered the feel of soft earth under her knees, the fresh smell of rain, the tender fullness of her skin after being in sun all day, the ache in her back and legs from bending over the seed. She remembered the scent of herbs, the vulnerability of open blossom. She remembered the twins’ father, milk and honey, green and gold, pouring his vitality into seed and harvest, and watching him walk away the last time, empty and sere, exhaustion in every line in his body, making his way back to the tree at life’s center. She sat for a long time, fingering seeds, moving packages from hand to hand, eyes filled with dreams, body remembering the work it was created for.
***
Mary handed the birch bark pouch to Molly. “I made a present for you!” Molly recognized the pouch they’d made earlier and was delighted with the sealskin lining. Carefully, she emptied out the twists of seed, reading tiny labels. Mary had decorated the pouch with little shells and thin holey stones and Molly turned it over in her hands with pleasure, showing Eurydice. She kissed Mary and tied the pouch around her waist with a thong of leather laced through its drawstring top.
“I want to tell you both, I’m leaving Janus House,” said Mary.
Molly looked down, letting her hair tumble down and hide her face.
“I’m leaving Janus House, but I’m not leaving you, so I won’t say good-bye.”
Molly looked up, surprised. “Am I coming with you, then?” she asked.
“Not exactly. We’re not leaving together but we’re both leaving. I can’t explain right now, but you’ll understand later.”
“I think it’s time for me to leave, too, but I still don’t know how…or when…or where to go.”
“I can help with that. Remember the piping we heard in the woods?”
“Oh, yes! How could I forget that? But I’ve never heard it again.”
“I’ve heard it again. You’ll hear it, too. Follow the piping, Molly. Find the piper. When it’s time, plant seeds. You’ll know when.”
“Follow the piping?”
“Yes. Follow that lovely, lovely sound. It’s calling you. Answer it.”
Molly looked into her face. “You’re happy!” she said, half accusing.
Mary laughed, a clear ringing sound that belied her years. “I am!” she agreed. “I’m happy because my way has opened. And so should you be, my dear, for great joy is ahead of you.”
“It’ll be all right?” Molly asked.
“Oh, it’ll be so much better than that!”
Molly looked at Eurydice, who had remained silent. “It’s scary when the door opens,” said Eurydice with understanding. “You don’t need to go anywhere or do anything until you’re ready. You can stay here as long as you want to.”
“No,” said Molly slowly. “I want to go on. Kunik’s leaving, too. I’m just scared. But I want to go…” she gestured vaguely with her hand towards the window.
“Whatever comes, Molly, dance within it, and surrender. And now, I’m starving,” said Mary, and they laughed and went to dinner.
***
Mary slipped quietly out of Janus House under a pale dawn sky. She felt ridiculously happy, and young, and free. She carried nothing with her. Outside the door she raised her face to where a few bright stars still glimmered coldly. She drew in a deep breath of chill air and felt exhilarated. She looked down at the path leading from the house. “Show me the way,” she murmured to it, and, smiling, began to walk.
She wound between rocky outcroppings and trees, up and down hills and valleys. On and on she walked through the dreaming morning. While she climbed a gentle rise the young sun’s first rays stained the snow with color, allowing her to see some way ahead. Trees stood in a shallow valley and the hill’s descending slope was blind with snow except for a single eyelash tree curving with graceful branches. Light bathed the top of the hill, but the rest was a study in ink and shadow. As she drew closer, Mary heard the soft morning talk of birds. A beardlike swathe of frozen grass rose above the snow and they were busy among the seed heads.
She left the path and struck across the slope, making for the tree. Sunlight no longer struck her but morning glowed like a pearl around her. She came to a fold of snowy blanket and saw the delicate tracery of bird tracks like fine stitching on a hem.
She took off her hat, her gloves. She unwrapped her scarf. She shrugged off her coat and toed off her boots, pulled her sweater over her head. Bit by bit, her clothes fell away until she stood, pink and white, blood coursing under her skin, hair loose and waving over her shoulders, more frost than honey. She ran her hands down the familiar landscape of her body, standing straight backed and strong, exultant.
She knelt and lifted the edge of the snow blanket. Winter lay on his side, bottom leg extended and the top bent at the knee. She fitted herself against his back, her knees behind his, her breasts pressed against him. His flesh felt cool and fresh, like a creek in summer. He smelled damp. He breathed slowly in the remoteness of his long sleep. She quieted herself, feeling warmth gradually build up between them. She laid a light hand on the curve of his hip, her cheek nestling against his shoulder blade. She slowed her breathing to match his and began to feel his pulse, slow and deep and heavy. Together, they breathed. She let her mind drift, her body relax. She thought of rich earth, cold and heavy but holding within it countless waiting seeds. She heard in memory the sound of the piper calling the thaw to begin. She thought of pale green flame strengthening into an emerald blaze, blossoming with color. In her mind’s eye, she saw a young woman with strong thighs and proud breasts sowing seed. She heard the sound of piping, saw the young woman look up, and Lugh was there. Lugh, with his brown hair and curved horns and green eyes. Lugh, with his pipes and musky hooves. Lugh, with the crimson swirl of his cloak around his supple shoulders. Lugh, with his own seed heavy in its soft hairy bag.
Now the green fire entered her. It pulsed through her, spreading sweet and warm. She opened herself to it, unfolded like a flower blooming, petal by petal, nectar and pollen, color and scent and texture and life, the triumphant cycle… She realized the sound of piping was no longer in her mind, but in her ears.
Winter stirred. His breathing and pulse quickened. The skin under her hand on his hip became aware. She turned her head and licked him with a long slow stroke between his shoulder blades. She felt him smile under his white beard.
“Wake,” she said.
MOLLY
Molly was not as desolate as she expected to be. The morning she woke up and knew Mary had left, she went out to walk, the seed pouch tied around her waist under her clothing, a small, pleasant weight against her hip. The path took her into the forest where she used to go to be with the owls. As she walked, she watched a pair of magpies, fat and glossy in black and blue and white feathers. They ignored her, intent on collecting sticks and twigs. With a lift of her heart, she realized they were a nesting pair. All day she held the memory of them to her like a sign of hope.
She opened her wardrobe and began to go through her possessions. Most of her clothes were too small. In some consternation, she sought Hel for advice and was given an armful of new garments, although none seemed warm.
“There are lots of coats and outdoor clothes downstairs,” said Hel. “Boots, too. Use whatever you like while you’re here. These,” she indicated the neatly folded pile, “are for you to take with you and keep when you’re ready to leave.”
Molly thanked her and left her outgrown clothes in the wardrobe. Hel gave her a bag to use and she packed the lighter clothing into it carefully. There was nothing else. Everything she’d wanted or needed had been at Janus House. The seed pouch she kept tied around her waist, not liking to be without it.
Her appetite increased. Noticing this, Hel provided her with a supply of scones and fruit in her room. Molly slept deeply and for long stretches, no longer troubled by dreams. During the days, she was filled with energy and spent most of her time outside, roaming happily. She returned to the inlet and found slabs of ice melting, drop by drop, scattering pebbles and bits of sea wrack that had been frozen in them as they diminished. Kunik had said goodbye before Mary left, and she missed him.
Molly didn’t hear the piper but she heard the sound of water everywhere she went. Winter began to thaw. Sometimes there was a mist, smelling of sea and damp earth. Snow gradually melted and her boots were muddy. Birds were much more in evidence, vocal and busy. The sun grew stronger and climbed higher.
One day, as they walked through singing trees watching nest building, Eurydice asked, “Is Molly a nickname for Mary?”
“Yes. I’ve never been called Mary, though. It would’ve been confusing while Mary was here. She told me Mother’s name was really Mary too!”
“What a strange coincidence,” said Eurydice. “Do you like the name Mary? Would you mind if people called you that?”
“I like it. I don’t think I’d mind.” She looked curiously into Eurydice’s brown eyes, wondering what the point was. They were the same height now.
Eurydice smiled at her. “I just wondered,” she said simply.
***
It was a morning of blustery wind that stirred the tops of the waves into foam and licked the rotten yellow sea ice into slush. It was a morning of black and white and blue flash of magpies, busy in the forest. It was a morning of mud covered with a thin skin of ice, of frost that was really cold dew and dew born as wind kissed frost with careless gusts. It was a morning of thin piping that woke trees from their winter sleep, calling sap to rise, swell and throb, warming cold trunks and stretching branches and twigs. It was a wild, undisciplined, sloppy morning, moody and disorganized, neither winter nor spring but some unfocused point in between. It woke Mary roughly. Her feet were on the floor before she heard the piping. She drew aside the heavy curtains with a rattle of rings. She opened the window and air flowed in, sharp toothed and cold, beaded with mud, smelling of movement and change, bringing the sound of the pipes. Chill air went right through her cotton nightdress and stole warmth from her belly and legs. Her nipples hardened. The piping was like a thread of green fire drawing itself through her veins. She dressed, carefully tying her seed pouch around her waist. Baskets on the table were filled with fruit and scones and she put them in her bag.
She left the room without looking back, wardrobe door ajar, bed unmade, fire out and window wide.
(To read Part 5 in its entirety, go here.)