The Hanged Man: Part 7: Beltane
Post #66: In which the red desert under a wing ...
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The sun slid down the sky. Maria sat with her back against the cliff and her face in warm light. The sea flowed in and out in curling-edged waves on the shingle. The sound comforted and the touch of the sun felt kind. She opened her palm and looked at what lay there.
Four white marbles of medium size, white marbles with a round brown iris and a black pupil in each one.
Maria closed her fingers, leaned her head against the crumbling face of the cliff and shut her eyes against the sun. She took a deep breath. Wave after wave of memories washed over her.
Juan’s first day. Standing inside the door, looking out with her new baby in her arms and knowing that day was the first day in an entirely different life. Her low chair by the fire, her bared breast, the fierce suck of the infant on her tender nipple and the hot pleasure of her milk letting down in jets that the baby gulped greedily. The small clenched brown fist waving. Brown eyes, dark, like melting chocolate, staring up into her face with the wide, wondering gaze of the very young. Dark, dark eyes like her own, spaced wide apart, fringed with damp lashes. As he nursed his gaze softened, became less intent, and his lids fell. His suckling grew less and less urgent and then stopped, though he still held her nipple in the soft vacuum of his mouth. The heavy damp weight of him, the baby smell of clean sun-dried diaper and breast milk, the line of thin dribbled milk from his slack mouth as he fell into deep sleep and released her nipple, wet and molded by his palate and gums.
Carlos. A laughing child. His round cheeks pushing his eyes into slits when he smiled. They were lighter brown, like coffee dashed with cream, like sunlight on dark water. Carlos, surrounded by pots, pans and spoons on the kitchen floor. Carlos laughing at a hen pecking in the yard. Carlos unwinding a hank of wool with glee, draping and tangling it all over the room. Carlos bringing her a handful of stones, a wilted flower, a cricket, a frog, smiling into her eyes, toddling around the house like a drunken sailor with his diaper half way to his fat knees.
She opened her eyes and looked again, rolling the marbles gently in her palm.
“I’m sorry,” she said to them. “I don’t ask for forgiveness. I don’t ask for understanding. You were the joy of my life and I killed you. There’s nothing I can do to take it back or make it right. I loved you so much.” Her voice broke.
Clutching the marbles tightly in one hand, she took out her bedroll and made a shallow depression in the sand against the cliff to lie in. She wasn’t hungry. She put a blanket around her shoulders and sat against the cliff watching the sun sink and the water ebb and flow. Stars came out. The dark air felt warm and soft. She slept sitting up with the marbles in her hand.
She dreamed. She sat by the fire and watched Juan at her loom. He was weaving and she marveled, because she hadn’t taught him to do this. “Listen, my mother,” he said, serious, “and I’ll tell you a story.”
“A red desert hides under a wing. It lies on the path of every journey. Into every life comes a time to wander lost in the red desert. Nephthys, Lady of Bones, lives there. You can meet her.
You’ll know her by her ancient eyes. She’s so old, she’s once again a child. The sole of her right foot is red and the sole of her left is black, for she straddles the border between fertile black earth and red desert. She’ll lead you to your bones.
Nephthys plays with the red desert, rolling in its arms and tickling it to make it reveal its treasure of bones. She takes the bones to her cave and lays them on the sandy floor, and when she has a skeleton assembled, she sits before her fire and thinks about what she’ll weave.
When she’s ready, she dances around the bones, hopping, skipping, crooning and chanting, firelight playing with her shadow on the wall.
As she sings, tissue, vessel and nerve entwine the bones, connecting them. She skips around and around and weaves flesh and fur or scales or feathers. She dances and a snake made of dots and dashes and lozenges ripples around her arm while gold earrings sway against her neck, and the creature on the cave floor breathes and opens its eyes.
Nephthys laughs, and the red desert giggles with her while a live creature leaps up and goes running, free and wild, down the canyon.”
Maria wept, tears falling from under her closed eyes as she dreamed.
“Mama,” said Carlos, “Mama.”
“Mi Madre, gather our bones from the Lamia. Follow the cave. It will take you to the navel of the desert under the wing. Go to the Lady of Bones.”
“’ady of ‘ones,” echoed Carlos.
“Make a life with our bones,” said Juan. “Mama, make a life with our bones.”
“’Ife,” said Carlos. “’Ife.”
Maria woke.
Morning sky over the sea was like a pearl.
***
The cave was dark and bitter with the smell of cold embers and rancid meat. The Lamia wasn’t there. Morning sun illuminated the crack and laid a wide finger on the cave wall. By its dim light, Maria discovered the iron kettle and jumble of bones within. She had no way to carry them.
Looking around, she spied a large rumpled piece of heavy cloth like a tarp. She spread it out and piled the bones on it, handling the pathetic, fragile white shapes with tenderness. The smell brought thick saliva into her mouth and she swallowed repeatedly. She found no skulls and didn’t know if she felt glad or sorry.
When the kettle was empty, she knotted three corners of the tarp together. She would drag it by the fourth. She put her back to the sunlit crack and the sound of sea and walked into shadows, dragging the bones along the sandy floor of the cave behind her. She half expected to come up against a cave wall but every step revealed the next. Another six or seven steps brought her into near total darkness.
She found herself in a stone corridor about six feet wide. Sand felt fine and dry under her feet. The floor was fairly level. The corridor was not absolutely straight but jogged slightly to one side and then the other. She kept her free arm extended, brushing the left-hand wall with her fingertips.
A faint white light, dim as starlight, came from somewhere. She stopped, looking for the source. She couldn’t reach the ceiling. When she looked up, she found only blackness. She looked back at the tarp.
The heap of bones knotted into the rough pocket of tarp emitted a faint, pale light. She pulled out a slender bone about four inches long. It felt unpleasantly greasy under her fingers, but the spectral light was enough to warn her of any sudden abyss in the cave’s floor. Bone in one hand like a torch’s ghost, tarp corner in the other, she walked forward.
“Show me the way,” she whispered.
Being in such darkness dislocated her sense of time and distance. For uncounted steps, she saw nothing but the stony hallway and dim light. She took another step and discovered light ahead. It wasn’t daylight or bonelight, but a flickering, warm living light like a fire. Did the Lamia wait for her in another cave ahead? The Lamia, or something worse?
The corridor narrowed. Now she smelled wood burning. The bone in her hand knocked against the ceiling. She felt claustrophobic. Would the corridor narrow down to a slot she couldn’t make her way through? Firelight grew brighter. She bent her head, stooping. The dragging tarp brushed the corridor’s walls and she pulled harder against the resistance.
She stepped out into a wide cave, saw a cheerful fire and a figure bending over something next to it. The figure stood upright, turning toward her. She saw a child on two legs, not the coils of a snake. The air smelled dry and clean, wood smoke like incense. Next to the fire, on the sandy ground, a partial skeleton lay like a disarticulated puzzle. She saw four legs and a skull with a long canine nose. Too large to be a fox, Maria thought. Perhaps a coyote. Months later she would weave a blanket out of ivory and sand, grey and brown, shot through with warm orange and red.
The child stepped forward. She wore a rag of cloth draped around her hips. Her hair was bound into a thick bundle of tight black curls. She smiled, and Maria saw glinting gold earrings.
“Oh, good! My tarp! You found it!”
Maria opened her mouth, said nothing, and closed it again.
Nephthys, for it could only be her, came forward, gently took the bone out of Maria’s hand, turned it over in her own, studying it intently, and carefully placed it with the others. She took the corner of the tarp and pulled it off to one side, against the cave wall.
“Tomorrow we’ll finish cleaning these,” she said. “They’ll be safe until then.”
She took Maria by the hand, shook out a blanket with a snap of her free hand, dropped it by the fire, divested Maria of her pack and pushed her down onto it.
“Let’s eat.”
A small iron pot hung over the fire. Nephthys stirred it, ladled the contents onto a tin plate and handed it to Maria, along with a cup of water and a spoon.
Maria tasted the food. It was meat, mild and tender, in broth with starchy roots, seasoned with something like chilis. Maria ate without pausing until the plate was empty and then drained the cup. The water tasted warm and sweet.
Nephthys squatted once more over the skeleton. She was working on one of the paws. A heavy canvas cloth, much like the one Maria had taken from the Lamia’s cave, lay next to the fire with a jumble of bones on it. From this larger pile, Nephthys sorted a smaller heap of bones and picked these up one by one, piecing together the framework of the coyote’s paw as Maria watched.
Maria set plate and cup aside. At the mouth of the cave, she looked out into a night landscape of canyon walls and stars. The air smelled of sagebrush and sunbaked stone. The night held no scent, sound or sight of water.
Maria fell down into sleep listening to the child’s murmuring chant as she clothed coyote bones with life.
The next morning, Maria followed Nephthys out of the cave, stepping down onto a broad, flat slab of rock and then making her way along a twisting, narrow path, steep and stony, after the nimble child. Nephthys’s confident grace made Maria feel old and brittle.
The path took them to the cool-shadowed floor of the canyon. As they walked along the sandy floor the walls fell away, or the floor rose, though Maria had no sense of walking uphill. The heat increased with every step, the cool shadows retreating until Maria found herself in a red landscape of desert, the sun glaring like a fiery eye.
Nephthys skipped in circles and spirals, humming to herself, arms outstretched as though she might fly at any moment. Her earrings gleamed in the harsh light. She led Maria to a large mound of gravel housing an ant colony, and they laid the children’s bones carefully onto it. The black creatures flowed eagerly over the bones. Nephthys smiled.
“We’ll come back later,” she told Maria. She turned away, folded tarp under her arm. “I’m going out to play.”
Maria returned alone up the twisting canyon and climbed to the cave. Sitting cross-legged in the cave entrance in a patch of hot sunlight, a young man carved a nubbin of bone. He set this aside as Maria climbed up to him. His dark hair flopped into his eyes, straight and glossy. He looked Indian to Maria, with olive skin and dark almond-shaped eyes. His smile was friendly. He moved over in invitation and she sat down next to him in the sun on the doorstep, resting her feet on the stone below.
“I’m Kunik.”
“I’m Maria.”
“Did you come to see Nephthys?”
“I think so,” she said uncertainly.
He laughed. “You don’t know?”
“Did you come to see her?” she asked, sidestepping the question.
“I’m here as a sort of apprentice. I don’t put together skeletons but I make things -- carve things, you see?” He put a half-carved seal in her hand. It fit conveniently into her palm, its exquisitely detailed lines vividly expressing life. She exclaimed in delight, turning it over.
“It’s a long way from home,” she said, returning it to him with a last caress.
“We both are,” he agreed.
“You don’t live here? In the desert, I mean?”
“I’m from a place of ice and snow,” he said. “I’ve never seen a desert until now.”
He picked up his knife and continued working on the seal, shaving thin flakes of bone as he shaped it. His hands were deft and broad. He was missing the tip of his middle left finger. She watched with pleasure, feeling peaceful.
“What are you learning here?” she asked after a time.
He looked up with a smile. “Funny you should ask! I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned, what I’m learning now, and what to do with it all. I thought I was coming to learn about making pipes out of bone, and I have learned things from Nephthys about that. But I’m not sure that’s the most important reason I’m here. To tell you the truth, I feel confused. My head is muddled. That’s why I’m carving. Sometimes it helps me clear my mind.”
“Is it working?”
“Not noticeably.”
They laughed together. She was intrigued. This attractive, obviously talented young man seemed a strange person to meet in a desert cave.
“Would it help to talk about it?” she asked shyly. “I’m trying to understand things, too. I’m not sure why I’m here and I don’t know where to go next. What exactly does Nephthys do?”
“She plays with bones. She gathers indestructible fragments of life. She brings them back here and puts them together and then she pours herself over them. She sings and chants and sometimes dances, and the bones reanimate into some new living creature.” His deft knife stilled. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She says everything lost can be found again, that it’s all here in the red desert.”
“The red desert hidden under a wing,” murmured Maria.
“Where did you hear that? It sounds like poetry.”
“I dreamt it,” said Maria. “In a dream, someone told me the story of Nephthys. I wanted to see if you would say the same.”
“Did I?” he asked seriously.
“Yes.”
***
Nephthys reported on the ants’ progress with Juan and Carlos’ bones every day. She spent most of her days in the desert collecting bones. Kunik and Maria stayed in the cool shade of the cave or sat in the doorway looking down into the twisting canyon below and talked.
He hadn’t been horrified by her story, either her choices or her grisly tale of the Lamia.
“I believe I’ve met that lady myself,” he said wryly. “Only she stood on legs when I saw her.” He told Maria about Ostara and his family and she listened, amazed.
When she showed him the four eyes, he took them unhesitatingly into his broad palm, rolling them gently.
“Find Nephthys and make a life with our bones,” he murmured to himself.
“Yes. That’s what they told me to do. But what does it mean?”
His dark eyes met hers. “I’ve an idea about that. Let’s wait until the bones are clean, and see what happens.”
She nodded, letting it go for the moment. “So, what have we learned, Kunik?” she asked. “How do we think about this clearly?”
They sat on a broad ledge of rock protruding from the canyon wall. They sat in shade but sunlight glared off the opposite wall, radiating heat. Overhead, a vulture floated in circles, silent and watchful.
“What can we say we know?” he mused aloud. “Have we learned who we are?”
“You mean who our families are, or who we truly are, or how we’ve been shaped by the people we’ve been with?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “All right. We know who our families are, yes. We know some things about who we truly are.” She fell silent.
“For the moment let’s try not to think about the pieces of ourselves we don’t much like,” said Kunik. “I’d prefer not to dwell on my capacity for rage and violence.”
She gave him a grateful smile. I suppose if we claim to know who we truly are it means we see our entire selves with clarity and acceptance. Otherwise, it’s just a lie, if we only look at what feels good and deny the rest.”
“True. Then we agree we know something about who we are, yes?”
“Yes. I’m not sure I’m clear about the difference between who I truly am and how I’ve been shaped by the expectations of others, though.”
He frowned. “That’s more complicated. It’s safe to say we don’t accept some of the rules we were expected to follow, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. Maybe that’s enough to know for now. We know there are rules and we reserve the right to make choices about following them.”
“So, we know some things about who we are,” summarized Kunik. “Can we say why we are? I mean, what we’re for?”
“I’m a weaver,” said Maria instantly. “I’ve had this conversation before.”
“I uncover the hidden shape of things,” said Kunik.
“That’s clear, at any rate.” Maria smiled.
“Where do we belong?” he asked. Then, as though hearing his own question, he repeated thoughtfully, “Where do we belong?”
“Not in the place where I started,” said Maria. “Not in Hades, not now, anyway. Not searching the waterways of the world. That’s over.” She looked up at the circling vulture. “You know, Kunik, I’m tired of wandering. I want to find a home. I just realized it.”
“I don’t want to go back to my village,” said Kunik. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked across the canyon, letting his gaze drift over the dry, rocky wall. “I don’t belong here. I’ve seen beauty everywhere, in the ice, in the forest, in the sea, now in the desert, but I don’t call any place home.”
“Do you want a home?”
“I think maybe I do. I’ve never given it much thought before.” He considered. “Yes. I want a home and I want…people. I want to be with people. Good people, who are kind and compassionate and want to learn. People who love without rules. People like you.”
She felt deeply touched. “Thank you, Kunik. I’d like to be with people like you, too.”
They remained silent for a time. The vulture drifted away. Maria watched sunlight move on the opposite canyon wall. The day was getting old. Nephthys would come skipping along the path with the day’s harvest of bones soon.
“Are we here to look for a home, then?” asked Maria uncertainly. “What does that have to do with Nephthys?
“Why don’t we ask her?”
(This post was published with Edition #66 of Weaving Webs and Turning Over Stones.)