The Hanged Man: Part 8: Lithia
Post #76: In which family ties ...
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MIRMIR
The Hanged Man smiled without speaking. A searching wind rattled dried leaves around them as though Yggdrasil sighed.
“The White Lady used to come with me when I roamed at night,” he said dreamily. “I remember that. We were strange companions, but I liked to be with her. We understood one another, somehow. I wonder why?”
“She iss as you were then,” said Mirmir, “primordial and unknowable.”
“Her wings left feathery marks on the snow around drops of blood when she hunted,” said the Hanged Man.
“She wass a crown of platinum, ssmoke and crysstal on the ssoftening brow of winter, and you were ssticky and odorouss with death, yet turgid with life. Together, you readied for spring,” Mirmir said, sibilant as the wind in the leaves.
VASILISA
Vasilisa caught up with the old man on a cliff overlooking the sea at sunset on a June evening.
She’d left the place of initiation feeling changed. The too-sweet maiden Baba Yaga had so despised was shed and cast away, left in the old hag’s cauldron in company with other remnants that lined the Firebird’s womb.
The dream of a life with Artyom was over.
She’d been naked. She’d seen and been seen. The shape of her maimed foot was her private shame no more. Yet even her nakedness contained a world of hidden things. The stranger Morfran, with a few words, took the self she recognized and gave her a new outline she’d no idea how to fill in.
“My name is Morfran, lady. And you’re my aunt. I bring greetings from my grandfather and your father, Marceau, one of the sea kings.”
She was determined to look into her true father’s face and find out where she came from. Then she might know who she was. But she began to wonder if self-knowledge was ever complete.
She traveled with the fiery skull on its stick and the doll her mother made her in her apron pocket. To the doll, she said, “We go to find my father.” To the fiery skull, she said, “Take me to Odin. He’s wind and storm, and the sea answers his call.”
The sun sank among islands of pink and orange clouds, rimmed in golden light. Outlined against the sky at the top of the cliff she saw the figure of a man. A breeze off the waves stirred his long, grizzled hair, revealing the profile of a jutting nose. The fiery skull leapt into flame and the doll in her pocket stirred against her thigh.
Vasilisa climbed the last few yards to the end of her search. The sea moved with a shushing sound against land, stroking and retreating, stroking and retreating. She’d never heard it before, yet its rhythm sounded familiar. The sound companioned her like a friend holding her hand.
The old man stood looking at the sky over the water. She stood beside him, catching her breath, and watched the sun go down and the colors fade. She felt in no hurry.
When the last sliver of sun sank beneath the horizon, he turned to look at her and she saw an empty eye socket.
“Vasilisa the Wise,” he said.
“I’ve never been called that,” she responded, surprised.
“It’s never been your name before,” he said. “Why do you think I can help you find Marceau, a King of the Sea?”
“Because you fill the green sky with stormy wings and call the wild white horses from the violet waves,” she responded.
Odin laid a gnarled hand on her shoulder and turned her. “See there, that beach with the handful of rocks?”
In fading light, she examined the place he indicated. The land rose in a low sloping hill, the cliff having crumbled and sunk into nothing. A large rock with a flat top stood with its feet in the surf and farther up on the shingle a group of rocks made a kind of rough circle.
“I see it.”
“That’s a place of beginning and end. It’s a special place for Marceau and he often visits it during the summer. Beginnings and endings demand recognition, you know.” He looked into her face, his one eye dark and gleaming in its deep socket. “There’s no escape from them. They pursue you beyond death unless you make a place for them to rest.”
Vasilisa’s chest tightened. She swallowed past a constriction in her throat and said steadily. “I’ll remember.”
“Let me see the doll.”
She reached in her pocket and put the doll into his hand. Her mother’s voice whispered in her ears, “Show her to no one,” but she knew the doll was safe with Odin.
He turned it carefully over in his hands. It was nearly full dark but he made no move to examine it by the light of the fiery skull. He explored the doll by touch, handed it back to Vasilisa. She carefully returned it to her pocket.
“Marceau will come to the light of the fiery skull,” said Odin. “Wait for him. Watch for the Sea Wolf.” He turned away from Vasilisa and pulled the fiery skull’s stick out of the ground with a jerk. He passed his other hand in front of the grinning skull in an odd movement like a caress that never touched the bone. He put the stick into Vasilisa’s hand.
“The Sea Wolf?”
“You’ll know him. Don’t fear.”
Vasilisa inclined her head.
“Thank you, Grandfather,” she said, giving him a title of respect rather than fact.
“You’re welcome, Granddaughter.”
RADULF
Radulf dreamt of a wolf with golden eyes. It was dark but he could see the lean gray shape of the animal, its eyes glowing around dark round pupils. It padded closer and closer to him until they were face to face. The wolf opened its muzzle and panted and Radulf could smell meat and blood, crushed green things on the forest floor and a hint of the sea. The smell of the sea grew stronger and the eyes blazed, glowing like flame, like the sun. He looked deeper and saw sunflowers, huge dark heads heavy with seeds, petals gold, orange and dark red. The eyes rippled with amber light and looking into them was like lying with his face in the sun.
Suddenly one of the wolf’s eyes popped out, as though poked from within the skull. It jumped out all of a piece, like a marble, and hit the ground and rolled, soundless. Radulf cried out in dismay and the wolf drew back its lips in a kind of canine grin, tongue lolling, as though laughing at a joke. Radulf groped on the ground for the eye, thinking maybe he could push it back in, but it eluded him.
As he moved his hands over the ground, he felt wetness. The ground was saturated. His hands splashed. Water rose and sloshed around the wolf’s legs. The smell of sea grew stronger and he brought his wet finger to his lips and tasted salt. The wolf stood up to its belly in water, and began to swim. Radulf stretched his legs out behind him and swam too.
“Sea wolf,” he thought. “It’s a sea wolf…”
He looked down. He could see one of his own front legs and a canine paw with webbed toes paddling under the water. The other leg ended in a jagged white splinter of bone and torn flesh.
***
Summer was a series of peaceful days steeped in sea sound and warm horseflesh. The mare was called Bonnie. Nearly every day Radulf took her out to wander for miles up and down the coast. In the days before his younger self fled, the sound of the sea became a haunt, an endless menace that whispered relentlessly, telling him things he couldn’t quite hear. Yet he’d loved the sea all his life and the transformation from comfort and beauty to horror was a terrible and painful loss at a time when he badly needed some refuge, some center place to shelter in. In these days, the sea’s breathing once again soothed and comforted. The menace of things unseen and imperfectly understood receded.
He dreamt of an amber-eyed wolf and sometimes of the wolf he’d seen in Baba Yaga’s cauldron during initiation many weeks ago, easily recognized by the maimed leg. At times, they seemed to be the same animal. He woke from these with a vague sense of searching, of seeking for something of terrible beauty and power, and also of something coming toward him, inevitable but taking its own mysterious time.
He met Irvin and the children often. Several times he took Clarissa in his arms and gave her a ride. After a week or two Chris allowed himself to be lifted onto Bonnie’s back as well. He was quieter than Clarissa but his look of joyous wonder as he observed the world from the horse’s broad back was a gift Radulf never forgot.
Bonnie made friends with both children and ambled gently, paying no attention to excited wriggles and shrieks of delight.
In exchange, Irvin and the children took Radulf swimming. He was a strong swimmer and loved the water, but with them he ventured farther into the arms of the sea than ever before, played with seals, floated on his back and watched stars until it seemed he floated in the sky and looked down into candle-lit black water.
Irvin was thinking about leaving the harbor and his Margaret. Radulf made no plans. He felt something approach and waited to meet it. He was comfortable at the inn. The guilty restlessness that had dogged him for so many years dwindled. He’d come back, explained, made what amends he could. He’d faced his dread, shouldered responsibility and discovered it weightless. Guilt and shame had been the heavier burdens. When it was time to leave, he’d know. He wasn’t in a hurry. For now, it seemed enough to eat and rest, ride, allow himself to be cupped in sun and sea.
One afternoon he lingered long, wandering farther than usual. He’d spent the morning with Irvin and the children, sharing a picnic and swimming. When he left them, he didn’t return to town and stable but went on. He rode through the long afternoon, sun-soaked and peaceful, a thin film of salt on his skin and hair. They climbed the low hill of a cliff that fell away into the sea. From the height, he looked down onto a curve of beach and shingle. A flat rock sat in the surf, big enough to lie on, the outgoing tide lapping peacefully around it. He saw a ring of rocks. Someone had made a camp. A neat pile of blankets lay on a ground cloth within the ring of rocks and there was a fire ring. Beyond the shingle, green stems, tall and thick, stood in the wiry beach grass, supporting heavy, tightly-closed flower heads.
Radulf nudged Bonnie forward and they came down the slope toward the crescent of shingle and sand. The cliff crumbled away on their right as they descended. A figure appeared, walking along the shoreline with skirts tucked up and an armful of wood. Radulf dismounted. The woman walked barefoot with a black skirt, a white apron and a vest embroidered with colored…
“Vasilisa!” He gave a shout of surprised delight.
She paused, looking uncertain. The sea exhaled and she stood ankle deep in water. He remembered with a pang her misshapen foot.
“Radulf?”
He took three gigantic strides and threw his arms around her. She dropped the wood with a muted clatter and warmly returned his embrace.
He felt inordinately glad to see her. He took her face between his hands and looked at her. She was just the same, the fleck of a mole under her left eye. He gave her a brotherly kiss and another hug.
“I can’t believe it!” she said, smiling. “I want to ask a million questions!”
“Me, too. Let’s sit awhile. Let me help with this.”
They collected the wood, some of which was now wet, and splashed through the receding tide to sit together on the flat rock. They faced the lowering sun and sea. The rock felt warm beneath them.
“You go first,” said Radulf. “Tell me everything.”
She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, looked at the low curling waves in the bay and began to talk.
“…So, I’ve been here ever since. I’m sort of waiting but I’m also thinking of what Odin said about making a place for beginnings and endings. Now that I’m not searching for Odin and Marceau and there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go, the inside of my head is quiet. I feel strange. As though I’ve lost myself. Except the self I’ve lost wasn’t really me at all — just the person I thought I was. Does that make any sense?”
“There’s a good word for a memorial for beginnings and endings. I just learned it myself. Descanso.”
“Descanso,” she repeated.
“It means resting place in Spanish.”
“I like that.”
“Me, too. And yes, it makes sense to me. You had a family, a name, a sense of your place in the world through the people you came from. You thought you’d be married and start a life with your husband. You thought you were a nice girl!”
She made a rueful face. “Be careful! I am a nice girl. I’m just not a too-nice girl anymore!”
“That’s a good thing.”
“Yes,” said Vasilisa. “It’s a good thing. None of it’s bad, just so unexpected. Now I feel half erased and I don’t know how to fill myself back in. Who am I really?”
“Vasilisa the Wise?”
She shook her head without answering and looked out over the waves.
“Think of what we learned from Nephthys,” he said gently. “Start with what you know is truly yours. The doll in your pocket. The fiery skull. Your mother and her love for you. Your friends. It’s enough to build on. Even your foot. It’s real and true. It’s a love note from life.”
“Radulf,” she protested, “it’s…ugly.”
He took the hurt foot in both his hands. “It’s not ugly. It’s part of you and your life. Perhaps it’s the beginning of wisdom.”
“It seems to me wisdom is inordinately expensive. No one ever told me that.”
“I was just saying something like that to a new friend of mine. Here’s what I’ve been up to…”
Vasilisa listened sympathetically, looking into his face, nodding, smiling and making small sounds of distress over his reunion with his mother. “Oh, Radulf! She sounds… well, she sounds rather horrible, to tell the truth.”
“I know. I think she’s just not happy. My father’s gone. I defied her and abandoned her. Mother has always been serenely convinced it’s her duty and right to manipulate everyone around her into doing what she thinks best. She’s never tolerated noncompliance from anyone. I’m sad about it but not really surprised. What matters is I came back, told her the truth, gave her a chance to create a relationship with her adult son.”
“I see that. I’m glad for you. I know it took courage to come back and face it all. And you never had a chance to speak to your wife!”
“No. I’m more grieved about that than I am about Mother. I wanted to apologize and explain. It wasn’t to be.”
“Do you think my father will be glad to see me?”
“He’s a fool if he’s not. Let me tell you the rest, though.”
He told of Irvin and the children and the long summer days rambling on Bonnie’s back. He went back and told her what he’d seen in Baba Yaga’s cauldron during initiation and described his recent dreams.
“Oh, Radulf! Odin told me to wait for the Sea Wolf! He said I’d know him when I saw him and not to fear.”
They looked at one another for a moment.
“This is strange,” said Radulf, “and at the same time it’s not strange. I’ve had a feeling of waiting for something. Vasilisa, do you remember that Marceau — your father — is also Marella’s father? And you are her half-sister! Do you think — should I meet him, too? Try to explain how it was with her in my world? And apologize? Would that be a good thing to do or is it a bad idea?”
The sun was sinking. It lit Vasilisa’s face as she mused.
“I’m not sure,” she said at last. “Poor man. I mean, poor merman! I don’t know how he found out about me. Morfran didn’t say. And now we come and give him news of another lost daughter. Ugh!” She shivered. “What will we say to each other?”
“Perhaps you’d rather speak to him alone, with no one else there?”
“No.” She met his eyes. “No, I’m glad you’re with me. Maybe we can help each other — and him. I think you should at least offer to tell him what you know. It might comfort him.”
“It might not,” said Radulf grimly.
“It should be his choice.” Vasilisa, having made up her mind, was firm. “Radulf, Marella made her own choices. It’s not your fault she died.”
“I know,” he said.
They built a fire together. Radulf wanted to get Bonnie back to her stable for the night but they agreed he’d return the next day with provisions and his gear and camp with her until Marceau came.
So Radulf left the harbor town the next morning, after settling his bill at the stable and inn. He hardly noticed what might have been a bittersweet and painful leavetaking. His mind was full of Marceau and the coming meeting.
He stopped and spoke to Irvin near the white-walled town. Irvin promised he and the children would meet Radulf and Vasilisa near the crescent of shingle and its flat-topped rock.
Evening found Radulf on top of the cliff, looking down onto Vasilisa’s camp. The fiery skull faced the sea, glowing in the dark air. His pack hung heavy and he anticipated the pleasure of taking it off and letting the breeze dry his shirt where it clung between his shoulder blades. He adjusted the straps and strode down the hill to meet Vasilisa, who stood waving and smiling by the fire.