The Hanged Man: Part 7: Beltane
Post #59: In which new beginnings ...
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The fountain was a stone-lined pool about ten feet in diameter. Water bubbled from between the stones. Eurydice had always heard pure white swans swam in the Well of Urd, but they were not in evidence. Eurydice asked how deep the well was, but all Verdani would say was, “Deep enough for Yggdrasil’s roots to drink,” which was no answer at all, really.
Mirmir came and went. Eurydice knew he spent some time up in Yggdrasil, out of sight. A hole lay in the ground between the trunks of Yggdrasil, concealed by a thick web of roots and leaf litter.
The Norns treated Mirmir like a large clumsy dog that frequently left home but always came back. Eurydice wasn’t afraid of him. She’d never been afraid of snakes. The shock of her death had been in the dying, not in the snake itself. Generally, Mirmir was nothing more than muscular coils draped on the ground or in lower branches of Yggdrasil. His body felt cool and dry, a uniform dull bottle green color.
One sunny morning she went out to sit with Verdani while she spun and found Mirmir hanging head down out of the tree. His head rested on a bulge of protruding root while Verdani kept up a running commentary on current events and flax flowed through her fingers.
Cautiously, Eurydice approached the snake. Verdani fell silent and the only sound was the whirring wheel. An eye regarded Eurydice. The pupil was a vertical black elongated oval in an extraordinary blend of gold, orange, green and black flecks. She wondered suddenly about the eyes of the snake that had killed her. Had they been so full of wild, golden life?
Eurydice sat down carefully in her usual place with her back against Yggdrasil. Mirmir’s gaze returned to Verdani, the heavy coils of his body motionless.
“He came down to give me the latest news,” said Verdani.
“News?” asked Eurydice, startled.
“Oh, Mirmir’s a terrible old gossip,” said Verdani. “Spends half his time in the top of Yggdrasil talking to crows.”
“Crows?”
“Yes, child, crows. Surely you know how they talk? Sarcastic, nosey, raucous creatures, crows. Into everything. Never miss anything. Never stop talking at the top of their voices about it all. The ravens aren’t quite as bad, mostly because they’re more solitary, but they croak and carry on too.” She paused and her mouth quirked. “Rather like Skuld.”
“Here’s the last of the flax,” said Urd, appearing at the door with her arms full. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, wrap it on,” said Verdani. “There’s room for it now. I was telling Eurydice about Mirmir and his crow cronies.”
“Who was it this time?” asked Urd, stepping over a length of Mirmir as she began to wrap flax around a trunk of Yggdrasil. “We haven’t heard from Odin in some time.”
“Odin?” asked Eurydice, feeling dazed.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Verdani. You act as though everything we say knocks you over.”
Eurydice, indignant, said, “But…”
Urd interrupted, laughing. “Well, explain to her, goose,” she said to Verdani. “Honestly, Verdani, you’re always talking but you don’t explain yourself. It’s enough to confuse anyone. I’ll be right back,” she added to Eurydice, and stepped out of sight around the trunk, wrapping flax.
In a few moments, she reappeared on the other side of Yggdrasil. “Mirmir,” she informed Eurydice, “absolutely loves stories and gossip. He’s great friends with several birds. Mirmir hears current events from Verdani, what has happened from me, and endings — and beginnings,” she smiled at Eurydice, “from Skuld. Crows and ravens are associated with all kinds of important people, so Mirmir and his friends exchange stories.”
“As I was saying,” said Verdani, crossly, “Odin is associated with crows.”
“And Mother Baba Yaga,” said Urd.
“And then there are shapeshifters who take the form of crows or ravens,” continued Verdani happily.
“Not to mention the owls,” continued Urd.
“Wait!” said Eurydice.
They looked at her, surprised.
“Don’t tell me anymore,” said Eurydice. “It’s too much to take in at once. I can’t keep it straight.”
Urd disappeared behind Yggdrasil again, wrapping the flax.
When she reappeared, Eurydice asked, “What about the eagle and swans?”
They looked at her blankly.
“What eagle and swans?” asked Verdani.
“The eagle everyone says lives at the top of Yggdrasil.”
“Oh, that eagle,” said Urd. She sighed. “People will insist on making things more important than they are. There’s no eagle. There never was an eagle. It’s just that an eagle sounds impressive. The Tree of Life should have the most impressive bird living in its top. It wouldn’t do to say a murder of crows flies back and forth, picking the bones of gossip with the great demon Mirmir. Nobody wants to hear that. Now and then swans stop in when they’re migrating, though. We’re glad when they go. They scare Mirmir.”
“Oh.” It was Eurydice’s turn to look blank. Her gaze fell on Mirmir, who regarded her once again out of a glowing eye. Verdani giggled.
“Are you terribly crushed, my dear?”
Eurydice laughed too. “No, of course not. But it does make a fine story. A demon, an eagle, a tree of infinite height and infinite roots. A magic fountain so pure white swans live in it. The three terrible Norns, wrapping and spinning and cutting. All that power and majesty!”
“Exhausting,” said Urd promptly. “No, thank you. I’d rather be a stringy athletic woman of middle age who gets a proper amount of exercise and takes adequate care of responsibility.”
“Don’t forget the mermaid part,” reminded Verdani, snickering. “You’re also a stringy mermaid — sometimes!”
“Huh,” said Urd. “Stringy athletic mermaid.”
They were laughing when Skuld appeared. “Are you having fun without me?” she asked, but she smiled in sympathy with their mirth. “I came to see if you‘re ready for me.” She knelt by the basket at Verdani’s side, nearly filled with heaps of spun flax.
Eurydice watched Mirmir. His body undulated, rubbing against Yggdrasil’s rough bark and the ground. He wasn’t moving to another place but his body rippled and writhed.
“Ah,” said Urd. “It’s time for another shedding.”
“Oh,” said Eurydice, understanding. “How often does he shed?”
“Every few months,” said Verdani. “It always starts like that. As though he’s one big itch, poor thing. We’re glad when it’s over. The new skin is a lovely grass green, as though he gets freshly painted.”
“We spin the old skin,” said Urd, patting Mirmir’s head.
“Into what?” asked Eurydice, fascinated.
“Into skins, of course,” said Verdani. “Excellent timing it is, too. Ever since you told us your selchie stories I’ve been thinking about skins. I haven’t remembered for a long time all the selves we each are and might be.”
Eurydice developed a daily habit of spending time nestled amongst the roots and trunks of Yggdrasil. The ash tree enclosed her in its embrace. She gave herself up to it, surrendering body and mind utterly to the tree’s strength. She lay under its endless canopy of leaves, sunlight and shadows, studying the jeweled key, turning it over in her fingers.
In her mind, she wove a rough net of lyre music, doors, stories, keys, snake’s eyes, selchies, the sound of sea, and the hot green smell of dusty leaves, slightly bitter. She wrapped the net around herself, Yggdrasil and the key, letting her gaze rest on one thing and then another, thoughts and images brushing through her head, striving for nothing and making no plans.
***
“The door is opened,” Verdani said one morning, coming in with a full pitcher of water. She set it on the table around which they sat for breakfast.
Urd looked up for a moment and then returned to her plate of eggs.
Skuld murmured, “Oh dear.”
Eurydice looked from one to another. “What door?”
“Yggdrasil guards a door. Perhaps more than one. Who knows? The door I mean opens up among the roots from time to time.” Verdani spoke in a businesslike manner while dishing potatoes onto her plate.
“A door to where?” asked Eurydice.
“No idea,” said Urd airily, gesticulating with her fork. “Might be anywhere, and different every time. Not our business.”
“Yggdrasil lives a life we don’t know about,” said Verdani. All we know is the part of the tree available to us. What happens above, or on the other sides, or in the roots, is not our concern.”
Eurydice set down her cup and went to see.
It looked like the den of an animal, like a fox. It led down and out of sight at a steep angle, roots lacing the sides. The rounded edges didn’t look fresh or raw. A layer of leaf litter, twigs and such plants as could grow in Yggdrasil’s shade softened the ground.
Eurydice went back in, thinking. She wondered if the opening would enlarge.
It did. Mirmir appeared and inspected, disappearing head first, but no more than ten feet of his body had slithered out of sight before his head returned.
“What’s in there?” asked Eurydice. Mirmir never spoke to her and didn’t now, merely looked at her out of his beautiful gold-flecked eyes.
By midafternoon the tunnel had grown large enough to accommodate her.
The Norns helped her gather her belongings. Urd packed food and water. Skuld moped, getting in the way, sighing lugubriously and fiddling with her scissors.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said, hovering over Eurydice as she tied up a bundle.
“Skuld, you know I must.”
“Everything will change again when you leave.”
“You’ll be fine. You’ll go on learning to smile sometimes, and feel happy. You’ll make lots of beginnings.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
Eurydice pushed hair out of her eyes with an impatient gesture. Sometimes she missed the confines of a head scarf. “I want to go. I’m supposed to go, and you’re going to help me!”
Skuld looked mutinous.
“You’re going to cut, because this time is over and the next thing is here. You’re going to end my time with you so I can begin something else.” She softened her tone. “You’re going to give me a great gift. And you can’t pretend you don’t know what’s happening. Not with Miss Current Events out there!” She jerked her head at the doorway. Verdani sat at her spinning wheel.
Skuld pulled her into an embrace and they rocked together for a moment. Eurydice picked up her possessions and went out, Skuld behind her with her scissors in her hand. A hard, quick squeeze from Urd and a feather bolster hug from Verdani and Eurydice was ready. She looked around one more time, at Yggdrasil, the spinning wheel, the house and fountain, and a few coils of Mirmir on the ground. The front half of his body was invisible in the tree canopy. “Do you have the key?” inquired Verdani.
Eurydice laid her hand on the outside of her pocket, feeling the key’s contours, and smiled. She walked forward between the ash trunks and stepped across the threshold into the tunnel.
She found exactly what she expected. A door.
It was only a heavy black outline against a wall made of horizontal layers of roots, rock, soil and leaves. She discovered no handle but there was a keyhole. She put the jeweled key into it and turned. The door swung open and Eurydice stepped through.
She stood in a desert. The setting sun just balanced on the horizon. She could smell rain. Examining the sky around her, she saw an approaching storm, a dark smudge under towering white clouds. The rest of the sky stretched clear and empty, except for a vulture turning in lazy circles far overhead.
The door she’d come through was gone. Desert stretched in every direction. She’d left the key in the door. This didn’t distress her. That first door was for me, she thought. It was special. The key helped me find it. Now I’m a doorkeeper and I don’t need the key. I am the key. She felt as happy as a child. She wanted to skip, stretch her arms out and turn in circles until she was so dizzy she fell down. The way opened before her.
She saw movement at her feet and looked down at a coiling snake. After Mirmir it looked tiny and rather appealing. She stood still, respectful but not terrified. The snake lifted its head and looked up at her face. Its eyes looked flat and dark. It lowered its head onto the sand and slithered slowly away. She watched it go, relieved. She hadn’t wanted to be bitten. The snake stopped and looked back, over its shoulder if it possessed a shoulder, expressionless and silent but seeming to wait for her. She took a step toward it, testing. The snake lowered its head, but continued to gaze at her face. She took another step.
The snake led her straight toward the storm. Damp air made tendrils of unconfined hair spring out around her face. Light faded out of the sky. Cool air and soft misting rain surrounded her. The whole world became a moist blur of shadow and she was beginning to have trouble seeing the snake on the ground in front of her when she heard a drum beat. At first, she mistook it for thunder, but the beat was steady, not a rolling crescendo. She hadn’t heard a drum in a long time. It sounded utterly familiar and she wondered if she would walk out of the mist onto a frozen shingle in the middle of a long winter, and see friends around a fire.
The drumbeat guided her, along with the snake, and she smelled campfire smoke, acrid in the heavy air. The misting rain turned into something harder. The fire struggled, burning hot in the middle and smoking at the edges. A figure stood near the fire, shrouded in wet gloom.
The snake slid between two people standing looking down at something. It disappeared over some kind of an edge. One of the figures played the drum, solid and broad in shape with short dark hair. Next to it stood a taller figure and next to it, right next to the opening, some kind of a large frame.
The drum stilled. The drummer’s face was blank with surprise. Rain slicked down his black hair, running down his face like tears.
She called his name. She felt his arms go around her.
CHAPTER 23
JENNY
Jenny watched the sturdy figure of Rumpelstiltskin walk down the crowded street. She had a good view from the second story window. Now and then the dwarve stepped aside for a horse, a heavily laden laborer or a cart. More often, though, others made way for him. He nodded to people, but he didn’t stop to speak to anyone. He looked small and alone. The busy street scene blurred into a jumble of colors. She felt an impulse to lean out the window, call him, beg him to take her with him. She stood still and watched until he moved out of sight. Her tears felt warm on her cheeks.
Behind her, the large, high-ceilinged room was filled with light and activity. The pungent, bitter smell of dye mingled with the oily scent of wool. The sound of looms at work punctuated a murmur of female voices.
Jenny wiped her eyes with her sleeve and turned from the window. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through a series of large west windows. Looms of every size and description stood in rough rows. Women bent over them, baskets of yarn at their feet, sliding shuttles back and forth.
Minerva leaned over Amanda’s loom, pointing at the design, talking, gesturing with her clever hands. Her cap of short hair shone palely in the sun. Half spectacles sat on the end of her nose. She finished the conversation with a brief touch on Amanda’s shoulder and a nod, straightened her back and caught Jenny’s eye. Her eyebrow quirked up in inquiry and Jenny managed a smile in return.
After the initiation of Ostara, Rumpelstiltskin and Jenny had set out on their last journey together. Jenny accepted the invitation to become apprentice and student to Minerva, one of the greatest weavers and dyers in the world. Her business and workshop were located in Griffin Town, a bustling small city clustered around a seaport. Here Rumpelstiltskin parted from her. He’d received word of another young woman in need of guidance and Jenny understood he released her, with love and confidence, into her own life. Nevertheless, she felt desolate. For so long he’d been her only friend and support.
Before Ostara, she assumed Rumpelstiltskin would always be there when she wanted him. She knew he’d mentored other young women, but she didn’t envision him actually leaving her. She imagined she and her friends, Vasilisa and Rose Red, would go through initiation together, passing over a threshold from one cycle to the next, like stepping through a doorway. After initiation, she’d know where to go, what to do and be taken care of. Past hurts would heal. She’d be at peace with her memories of her parents and her brief marriage. She’d be safe.
Instead, she had shared a dance of joyous passion with the Firebird and watched it murdered in a net of her own creation, a net in which she also imprisoned herself. It was an ugly, brutal lesson and Baba Yaga did not spare Jenny. “Who are you?” the crone had challenged. “What are you?” All Jenny could come up with was, “I’m a woman. I’m a spinner.” Little enough. And now, because of the deadly net, she was afraid of her spinning.
The Firebird, miraculously and unexpectedly, had been reborn from Baba Yaga’s cauldron the morning after initiation, but Jenny would not soon forget watching it slowly and inexorably strangled by Death. The Firebird might be reborn, but she doubted she had the same power. She must find another way to disentangle herself.
Her mother had died, and her father had tried to sell her. The king had desired her because he thought she would make him rich. Hans had wanted her only because he thought she made him look more important and powerful. Rumpelstiltskin alone loved her for herself, and he alone stayed by her, as he had her mother before her. He was the only family she possessed, the only one she trusted to take care of her. How would she survive without him?
Initiation. The owl feather. The final journey with Rumpelstiltskin. Now she was in a strange place with strangers around her and she felt terrified. Yet she clung stubbornly to her identity as a spinner. In some confident depth, she knew it was what she was for — to spin. Perhaps Minerva could show her the way to free herself from the golden net of her own making so her gift was not bloodstained.
Jenny walked down the center of the long room. Minerva came to meet her.
“You’ve said good-bye.” Minerva smiled at her and Jenny felt better. “Today I want you to wander around, look at everything, make some friends. Go down and investigate the dyeing room. Go up and say hello to the owls. Unpack your belongings in the dormitory. Tomorrow you and I will sit together and start to know one another.”
Jenny looked into the clear, grey eyes. “I…I’m not sure I belong here.”
Minerva’s gaze was steady. “Why not?”
“I created something bad, something hurtful and hateful. I’m afraid I’ll do it again.”
“Most spinners use fiber or animal hair in their spinning. You spin out of life, which is to say you spin out of death. Never have I had such an apprentice. If you don’t belong here, it’s because I’m not an adequate teacher for you. Perhaps we should both suspend our fears and see what we can do together. Are you willing to do that?”
“Yes.” Jenny lowered her gaze to the floor. “I want to learn,” she told it. “I want to get out of the net.”
“The pattern is on the loom,” said Minerva. She turned away and Jenny went down to find the kitchen and something to eat.
(This was published with Edition #59 of Weaving Webs and Turning Over Stones.)