The Hanged Man: Part 9: Lughnasadh, Part 10: The Hanged Man (Entire)

Dec 10, 2023

PART 9 LUGHNASADH

(LU-nuh-suh) August 1; first harvest festival; midpoint between Lithia and Mabon. Sacrifice, harvest, planning the next cycle of growth.

The Emperor

Kingship; healthy male power

ROSE RED

Rose Red sat with her back against her favorite oak tree. A large, clustered ram’s head mushroom grew at the base of the trunk. The tree made her think of Gwelda and her friend, Borobrum. The thought of Gwelda comforted her.

She and Rowan had come…home? That’s what Rowan had said when they found the spring guarded by rowan trees. She wasn’t sure what home meant, or if it meant the same thing to them both.

Rowan Tree (the place name was so obvious they didn’t even discuss it), comprised several hundred acres of mixed forest, river and meadow. As far as Rose Red could tell, it throve and needed nothing from her. She thought Rowan was far more useful than she; at least as a fox he became part of the natural balance.

He was delighted with the place. In his fox shape, he assessed rodent and rabbit population and found the scent of his own kind, as well as beaver, weasel, skunk, wild pig, bear and deer. He dug in rich soil, brushed through thickets, clawed open rotted fallen trees. He found a bee hive and a crow’s nest, occupants fledged and flown but hanging around making sarcastic comments on all that occurred below them. He fit in as naturally as the tree she leaned on.

But what did Artemis expect her to do here?

The rowan trees were fruiting. Rose Red took off a dead or diseased branch here and there, but they flourished without attention. In fact, all the woods did flourish without attention. Artemis had taught her that was the point. Rose Red’s job consisted of simply protecting and allowing the balance already present.

But what was she to do?

She’d been so caught up in her training, the initiation and its aftermath, and Rowan, she’d never thought about what would come after it all. It was ridiculous to have come so far and learned so much, only to find herself suddenly with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

They’d done some work. They mended the three stone walls around the spring. Rose Red wondered who’d built them, and when. The spring bubbled vigorously up from the ground and then dove out of sight again. The walls enclosed a space much larger than the spring, in fact. They talked about roofing the structure and moving the walls in, but in the end decided to respect the original shape of the place.

“There must be some reason the walls were built this way,” Rose Red said. “We’re new here. It doesn’t seem right to start making changes.”

Trees and grass had begun to whisper of fall’s approach. Out in the world, early harvest had begun, but Rose Red felt as though she and Rowan dwelt in a place apart.

She must prepare for winter.

She had an idea about shelter. She’d found a giant old oak at the edge of the wood. Standing under it, she had a fine view of a treeless slope and the river below. It shaded out smaller trees, so the ground remained relatively clear under its canopy. She sat under it every day, leaning against the trunk and being still or climbing into the crown among leaves and acorns.

One day she’d shown it to Rowan. “I want to build a house here, using the tree trunk as part of a wall,” she said. “Do you think it can be done?”

He padded around the trunk, looking at everything, fox like, though he wore his human shape. He stretched out his arms, measuring the oak’s girth.

“I’m certain it can be done,” he said. “It’s a good place. I like to think of you here. But how will you do it?”

Rowan, though he leapt lightly between fox and man shape, had a vulpine nature rather than a human one. He could no more master tools to fell trees, cut them up and build a house than he could fly, even if he wanted to. He didn’t want to. A fox has no need to plan for the next meal or winter shelter.

He’d called out of Rose Red a primitive passion that frightened her. She resented his power to rouse her, to make her feel and want. At the same time, she could never go back to the frozen girl she’d been. Persephone, Baubo and Artemis had been right. The ability to live sensually was power. She longed to explore that power more fully, but remained unwilling to fully explore its lineaments of rage, grief, lust and even joy.

Being with Rowan had also cracked her defensive isolation. As a lover he was immediate, insistent, flesh, fur and scent blotting out everything else, like a storm. As a companion, he was aloof. Sometimes she wouldn’t see him for days, though she knew he remained nearby. He lived in scent, sound and experience of now, fully engaged and self-contained. He had no need to talk.

She envied him his complete freedom from self-consciousness. He didn’t try. He just was.

She felt lonely.

She resented her loneliness most of all. Vasilisa, Jenny, the dwarves, Artemis, Rowan — all had conspired to shatter her self-sufficiency and independence by teaching her what friendship and love were. But had it been self-sufficiency and independence or had it simply been a fearful loneliness all along, only now truly revealed to her?

She sighed. What was the use of these feelings and insights now? She was responsible for a place in the middle of nowhere, the only human being for who knew how many miles.

Winter approached.

How would she manage?

Birds exploded out of the tops of nearby trees. A squirrel burst into a scolding chatter. Down at the river, the family of crows had been snapping up a half-eaten fish left by a weasel. They rose into the air, cawing harshly, and sped into the trees to see what was happening.

A fox streaked out of the long grass on the slope below her as she stood. It melted into the woods, heading toward the disturbance, and she followed, moving swiftly and carefully through the trees, keeping her hand near the knife in its sheath at her belt. Disturbed birds gave alarm calls in the tree tops.

She heard voices from the direction of the spring. The stand of rowan trees stood ahead. She paused among them.

A young woman of about her own age with disheveled dark hair over her shoulders looked around the clearing in disbelief. Behind her stood a man, sturdy and broad of chest, with straight black hair hanging in his eyes. His face wore a look of complete bemusement. He turned and looked over his shoulder at the newly-walled spring. Out of the gurgling shadows another figure appeared, maneuvering some kind of a complicated framework.

Rose Red stepped away from the tree.

“Kunik?” she said.

He turned at the sound of her voice. A broad smile crept across his face as she came toward him and he pushed his hair out of his eyes.

“Rosie!”

He caught her in an enormous hug. He felt warm and solid and smelled of wood smoke and…rain?

“You’re wet!” she said.

“It rained!” he said, as though reporting a miracle. “Maria brought rain to the desert!”

Rose Red disengaged herself.

The dark-haired young woman laughed. “Kunik, she has no idea what you’re talking about. Look around you! We’re not in the desert anymore.” She smiled at Rose Red. “I’m Eurydice. Sorry to drop in on you like this! This is— “

“Maria?” said Rose Red, feeling more and more bewildered. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my dear, it’s me,” answered Maria, running fingers self-consciously through cropped silver-streaked hair.

“Did anyone see what happened to the snake?” asked Eurydice.

***

They went down to the river. All three newcomers were soaked and it felt chilly in the shaded woods. There were fish in the river and everyone was hungry. There was no sign of Rowan. Rose Red wasn’t surprised.

She’d already built a fire ring on a patch of bared earth. Kunik caught several fish out of a pool formed by a beaver dam while Eurydice and Maria dried in the sun. They cooked chunks of fish on skewers over hot coals and shared Rose Red’s stash of fruit and nuts as well as what the others had in their bundles.

By the time the fish was cooked, Rose Red and the others had heard Eurydice’s story of the gateway under Yggdrasil and her journey, guided by the snake, to the Womb of the Desert.

As they ate, Maria and Kunik between them told of their meeting in the desert and subsequent events, Maria giving a brief account of her lost boys for Eurydice.

“…and then Maria cried and her tears strung the loom,” said Kunik. “Nephthys danced and chanted while clouds gathered. We could smell rain in the air. Maria’s tears made a fountain and a well opened and the roots began to drink. Rain fell and leaves uncurled on the trees. Life came back into the bones and then Eurydice was there and Nephthys raised her wings…and then we found ourselves here.” He finished awkwardly. He looked at Maria. “It sounds mad, doesn’t it?”

“It sounds comforting,” said Rose Red.

“What?” he looked amazed.

“Kunik,” she said, between tears and laughter, “Kunik, if you knew what I’ve done — what I’ve seen! I’ve so much to tell you! But first, where are you going?” she included all of them in the question. “What will you do now?”

“We’ve talked about that,” said Maria. “Kunik, and I, I mean.” She smiled at Eurydice. “We’re looking for a home.”

“I don’t know that I’m looking for anything, honestly,” said Eurydice. “I’ve been looking for myself, I think. I do know I’m a doorkeeper. I open the way. That’s what happened under Yggdrasil and at the — what did you call it?” she turned to Kunik.

“The Womb of the Desert,” said Maria.

“Yes. The Womb of the Desert. It’s a portal, you see. We opened it and came through to here.”

“It’s a spring,” said Rose Red.

“It’s a portal, too, said Eurydice. “I saw rowan trees guarding it. A powerful gateway.”

“It needs a keeper,” said Rose Red. Eurydice looked taken aback.

“Now tell us about yourself, Rosie,” said Kunik.

She began with parting from Maria and Mary, leaving out mention of Rowan and Rumpelstiltskin.

“…and I was feeling lonely and wondering how I’d manage alone, especially during winter, and then birds exploded up out of the trees and I went to see what was happening — and there you were,” finished Rose Red.

They looked at one another.

“Are…are you asking us to stay here — with you?” asked Maria.

Before Rose Red could answer, Kunik stood. “Will you show us the land?” he asked.

***

They stood under the oak tree, looking across the grassy slope and river valley.

“We need to do some building,” said Kunik.

“And planting,” said Eurydice.

“I know how to keep chickens,” offered Maria.

“We’re going to need help,” said Kunik. “I don’t know much about building.”

“All the wood we need is here,” said Rose Red. “There’s stone, too. I can help with that part, but I don’t know how to build and we’ve no tools or way to transport heavy material.”

“We need to think about food, too,” said Eurydice. “It’s too late to garden now but we can lay out and plan gardens and animal pens. Kunik can help with that.”

“This winter may be hard,” admitted Rose Red, “but there are still several weeks of good weather. We can harvest nuts and fruit from the land. There’s a market a half a day away. If we can make some shelter and buy or hunt meat, we’ll be fine.”

“Building and food, then,” said Maria. “Are those our priorities?”

Everyone nodded.

“We need someone to help with trees, then, right? Harvesting, cutting up and moving.”

“We must plant a replacement for every tree we take,” said Rose Red, “and plant well, in a good spot where it can thrive…” She trailed away as a thought occurred to her.

She glanced around them at the forest. “Rowan?”

He came out of a thicket in his fox shape, moving with feline grace. She knelt and spoke to him. “I’ve had an idea. Can you find the White Stag? Find him and bring him here. I want to send a message to Artemis.”

“The White Stag!” Maria repeated.

The fox melted away.

“Oh,” said Rose Red, standing again and seeing their amazed faces. “That’s Rowan.” Her face flushed and she avoided everyone’s eyes. “He’s a fox,” she added unnecessarily. “You know the White Stag?” she asked Maria.

“I think so,” said Maria. “I saw it the day we found the Well of Artemis, in fact.”

Eurydice cleared her throat. “My family lived among trees,” she said to Rose Red. “Tell me what your ideas are about a house here. I’d like to do something like that near the spring.”

GINGER

“Happily ever after,” Elizabeth had sneered. “It’s all very well for you! What about the rest of us, locked up here until we’re too old for anyone to want us? We know nothing, we’ve been nowhere and we’ve had no life because of you. Now you go off to live happily ever after and leave us.”

“But I was locked up, too!” Ginger had said. “Mother said I must guard, I must watch over you, I must hold the secret! I promised her!”

“You cared more about a mother who left us than your sisters!” retorted Elizabeth. “All you cared about was controlling us.”

“No. I didn’t want power. I didn’t want control. I hated it!” Ginger began to cry in harsh sobs that hurt her throat. “I had to protect you!”

“Protect us? From what? No one can stop us from dancing! No one cares, anyway. You stole our lives!” Elizabeth slammed out of the room. Sarah, the sister closest to Ginger in age, took Ginger in her arms.

“Hush. She doesn’t remember Mother the way we do. Most of them don’t. Gemma doesn’t remember her at all. They don’t understand.”

“Mother made me promise, Sarah. I had to keep the secret. Father …”

“I know. Mother thought it was the only way, and so did you.”

“All those dead men …”

“We couldn’t help it.”

“They’ll never forgive me.”

“They will. They’re shocked and scared right now, and they’re taking it out on you because you’re the closest thing they have to a mother.”

Ginger sat up, wiping her face with her sleeve.

“I’m shocked and scared too. I know we’re free now, but I can’t truly feel it, you know? I can say the words, but they don’t mean anything. I feel numb. What does ‘happily ever after’ even mean?”

Sarah laughed. “It means Elizabeth reads too many fairy tales, for one thing. I’m numb, too. Maybe we all are. It’s happening so fast, and we’re running in so many different directions, like a mob of disturbed geese, it’s no wonder we feel half crazy.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve no idea. I can’t even get to what I want to do. There was always just what we had to do, and now suddenly there are choices to make and I have no idea how to do it.”

They gazed at one another, at a loss.

“Talk to Radulf,” said Sarah. “He’s a good man, a man of the world. He’s kind and he cares about you. Maybe he can help.”

“Sarah, I don’t want to get married right now.”

“Then don’t. And don’t keep it secret, the way you feel. If we’ve learned anything, it’s how that turns out! Just tell him the truth.”

***

“Radulf, what do you think ‘happily ever after’ means?”

They were riding. Every day they went out together, ranging well beyond the castle walls that had previously bounded Ginger’s life. They roamed over the countryside, exploring, talking, exchanging stories and getting to know one another.

They were easy companions. He was like the brother Ginger had frequently longed for, solid, dependable and, best of all, older. Someone who bore some of the burden instead of becoming part of it. He was a friend. Ginger trusted him more every day.

“That’s odd,” Radulf said. “I’ve been thinking about happily ever after myself lately.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, I told you about Marella, and my family, and my wife.” He glanced at her and she nodded. She knew the full story of Marella’s life and death, as well as the events during the initiation and his subsequent journey back to his old home.

“I realized a few weeks ago what I want now is to find a place to belong. I’m tired of wandering through everyone else’s life. I want to find a life of my own. I don’t know where, or exactly how to find the right place, but that’s what I’m looking for. I heard about you and your family from my friend Dar— “

Ginger nodded again. “The peddler.”

“Right. It intrigued me, as you know, so I came to find out more about that. Maybe I thought I’d find answers here for myself. Maybe I thought the answer to my longing was here, and I’d find it and live happily ever after. You know, be content and peaceful and have exactly what I want, even the things I don’t know I want, and be free of what I don’t want.”

“That sounds like a fairy tale. My sister Elizabeth is addicted to them. She said I was going to live happily ever after. We were fighting at the time.”

“Happily ever after is a satisfying ending to a tale, but what does it mean? In real life, things go on happening. People get sick, and fight, and go on making choices. Things change. I’ve been laughing at myself, because I know by now most of the time I don’t know what I want. I know what I don’t want and I know about some things I think I want, but we can never know all that might be possible, so how can we choose what we want out of an infinite set of possibilities?” Radulf shook his head.

“I’m glad you said that.”

“What?”

“That you don’t always know what you want.”

“Most people don’t. We may think we do, but even when we get exactly what we want we soon begin to want something different. It’s human nature, I think. Reality is always different than dreams.”

She’d longed for a life of her own, a chance to explore the world and herself. Would marriage to this stranger (for he was a stranger, really), be a life of her own? Or would she be limited by responsibility and loyalty before she even started, just as she’d always been?

Every face she saw outside the castle was strange. How would she ever make friends or call any place home that wasn’t her father’s castle and the big bedroom where she and her sisters had spent every night of their lives? And that wasn’t the hardest thing. The hardest thing was also the most difficult to talk about.

What about dance?

Except the word ‘dance’ was so inadequate.

What about spirit and body and passion? What about drumbeat and freedom of nakedness? What about sacred guides? What about other women who knew how to be fierce and wild — or who wanted to learn?

She feared no relationship could substitute for dance, and without this powerful, private center she’d collapse like an abandoned building.

Yet she’d chosen to leave her old life and every day she respected and trusted Radulf more. Was it wrong, this grief and longing for something of her old life? Was it disloyal? Should she be grateful for what she had, and embrace it without looking back? After all, she’d achieved relative freedom, hadn’t she?

There was no one to ask.

***

“This is Fengate,” said Radulf, reining in his horse. “This is the part of the kingdom your father has offered to me.”

“It looks nice,” said Ginger.

“It is nice. I’ve explored a little. It’s a market town, reasonably prosperous, with several businesses. There’s not a thing wrong with it.”

Ginger glanced at his rueful expression.

“So?”

“So, it’s not what I want. I want to want it, but I don’t. When I think about living here, overseeing the town and the land around it, I feel bored.”

He sounded so annoyed with himself that she laughed.

“What about finding your place and making friends?”

“I thought that’s what I wanted, but now I wonder. Here’s a perfectly good opportunity, and I can’t even feel interested. I can’t help feeling when I find what I want I’ll recognize it. I’ll feel something beyond polite interest!” He turned in the saddle slightly, facing her. “What about you?”

She was taken aback. “What about me?”

“Do you want to get married, choose a house in this town, and settle down? Do you want children? Do you want to go back to the castle? I think you’d be freer now.”

“No.” She felt herself flush and dropped her gaze to the horse’s neck.

“No?”

“No.”

Radulf chuckled. “Would you care to elaborate?” he invited.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” she began.

“Ginger,” he interrupted.

“What?”

“Are we friends?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Good. Then tell me what you want. As friends, we don’t owe each other anything. As friends, let’s assume we want what’s best for one another, what’s happiest. You’re not ungrateful. You’re not stupid. You’re a lovely woman and your life has suddenly changed out of recognition. You can make choices for the first time. You’re free. Satisfy my curiosity. What do you want?”

“Oh, Radulf, I don’t want to get married right now!” She met his gaze as bravely as she could. He smiled, to her enormous relief. She straightened her shoulders, feeling unburdened. “I don’t want to go back to the castle. It felt like a prison. My father won’t miss me. He doesn’t need me. My sisters are going in several different directions. I want to go forward, but I don’t know who I am or how to be free. I don’t know what I want. I just know some things I don’t want, like you said.”

“As good a place to start as any,” said Radulf.

His mount shook his head irritably, setting the bridle jingling.

“Let’s ride,” suggested Radulf. They turned the horses and rode away from the town into the summer countryside.

“Ginger, you’re lovely, as I said, but the truth is I don’t want to marry again.” He glanced at her. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, either, you know.”

“Friends,” she said, smiling.

“Yes. And as your friend, I’m not going to leave you alone in the world until you have your bearings. You’ll need to find a place to live and make at least a couple of new friends. I’ll talk with your father and decline his offer of land to oversee and a wife. If it seems appropriate, I’ll move out of the castle and find someplace to stay nearby, but I won’t leave you until you feel ready to be on your own. I’m in no hurry, and maybe I’ll find some path into my own future here with you.”

“Thank you,” said Ginger with gratitude. “I don’t even know how to begin!”

“Things take time,” said Radulf. “I think we should enjoy the summer and explore. Eventually you’ll see the next step you want to take, and so will I. In the meantime, we each possess a friend and companion to talk to and discover with.”

“Right now, that sounds like ‘happily ever after’ to me,” said Ginger.

He laughed. “Good. Me, too.”

KUNIK

The grassy slope spoke to Kunik. He whittled a quantity of rough stakes and one sunny day everyone assembled on the slope. He grouped them at the bottom, their backs to the river, looking up.

“There, see the fold running along there? It makes a steep bank about five feet high. If we built a long low shed, or several smaller ones right there, we could use the bank as the back wall. That’s south,” he pointed over the river, “so the sun would shine into the shed. We could keep animals there, and make pens out of some kind of fencing, wood or stone or even a hedge if we can plant the right thing.”

“A good, strong chicken house that can’t be dug into,” said Maria.

“Right.” He smiled at her. “Chickens are so vulnerable they need to be completely enclosed. Goats would give us milk and meat.”

“Sheep would give wool,” Maria said.

“Don’t forget pigs!” said Kunik. “Bacon!”

They laughed together.

“The gardens should be near the animals,” said Eurydice. We can use their bedding and waste in the soil.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Kunik. “Now look, see where the fold tapers away into nothing and the slope flattens?” They grouped around him, following his gesturing arm. “We could easily terrace that piece into different garden beds. It’s close enough to take advantage of the animals, it gets good sun and it’ll drain well. Look, see that spot above where the sapling is growing?”

“That’s another oak,” said Rose Red.

“Well, see the thick grass there? It’s a darker green than the rest of the hill. I bet there’s water there, underground, and it’s just above the garden. It would help to make a well for the garden and the animals, wouldn’t it? We can haul water from the river, but this would be easier.”

“So, we’d keep animals and gardens in common?” Rose Red asked.

The others looked at her. “I mean,” she said quickly, “it makes sense, of course, but…I’ve never lived that way before.”

“Look.” Maria pointed up at the top of the slope, near Rose Red’s oak tree. The White Stag stood in sun-dappled shade, looking out across the valley. It seemed to Kunik he wore a crown of oak leaves and acorns, his antlers mingling with the lowest branches of the giant oak. He wondered how long the stag had been there, watching.

***

The White Stag stayed with them for three days, listening to them talk and make plans. He accompanied them when Rose Red took them for a day and taught them the names and habits of fruit and nut trees. There were chestnuts, as well as hazels, acorns and walnuts. She proved a natural teacher, and revealed to them something of the intricate system of balance in the forest.

“We can eat chestnuts, of course, but birds eat them, too, and all kinds of animals. Pigs eat them, so if we do keep pigs and let them run, they’ll help fatten our meat. I’ve only found these few trees in this part of the forest, so I think we shouldn’t use them for wood. They’re too valuable as a food source. We could try to grow more of them, of course. There’s plenty here for us to share, but we must never take more than we need.”

“Now, look at this,” she stopped next to a shrub with sharp thorns and red berries. “This is hawthorn. It makes a great hedge. I thought of it when Kunik showed us how to use the slope. There’s a lot of it in the woods, and it’s another source of food for the birds. It flowers, too. We’ll need to transplant it where we want it and get the hedge going, but after that we’d be set. We can use it as a windbreak, too. I bet snow drifts on the hill in winter.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Eurydice. “How are we going to do all this?”

“I think I can get some help,” said Rose Red.

“We found our way here,” said Maria. “Perhaps others will, too. Nephthys told us what we searched for also searched for us.”

The next morning the stag was gone.

***

“How did you find us?” Kunik asked the man called Jan as they stood watching Jan’s giantess wife embracing Rose Red and weeping with joy.

“A fox brought word to Gwelda,” said Jan. “He said Rose Red needed help with some trees and begged us to come lend a hand. I’d not met her, myself, but I’d heard about her from Gwelda. Because of Rose Red, Artemis asked us to help her serve and protect the forest.”

“You’re most welcome,” said Kunik. He’d taken an instant liking to Jan, who was approximately his own size, though not as thick-chested or strong. Under the tousled brown mop of his hair Jan’s face appeared shaped for laughter, every line and fold stamped with humor.

Gwelda bent and carefully returned Rose Red to the ground, wiping her cheeks with the hem of her lime green, tent-like dress and innocently revealing a monolithic expanse of thigh.

Eurydice came into view, toiling up the hill, lifting her thick hair off her neck with one hand so cooler air could reach her skin.

“Eurydice!” Rose Red waved. A crow circled above Gwelda, cawing excitedly. She raised an inviting arm, elbow crooked, and the crow alighted on it, as comfortable as if in a tree. Kunik saw Eurydice’s jaw drop. The crow began to stalk up the arm, still cawing, as though to examine the round face under a thatch of turquoise hair like a bird’s nest.

“Meet Gwelda!” said Rose Red breathlessly, as Eurydice reached them. The giantess bent down and offered Eurydice a thick callused finger while a chipmunk peered out of her sleeve, black eyes bright.

“Eurydice!” called Kunik. “Come and meet Jan. He and his wife came to show us how to harvest wood and build.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Eurydice, laughing.

After the flurry of reunion and introduction, they followed Rose Red into the edge of the forest. She’d marked several trees for harvest and she showed Jan a clump needing to be thinned. Jan nodded, sized up the tree and gripped his axe.

“Now, I want the tree to fall that way, see? It’ll cause the least damage. Then we’ll trim it in place and leave the trim for the forest to break down and use.” He moved around the tree trunk, using the axe to whittle away at the trunk, judging balance and tipping point. “Gwelda will help drag the tree out into the sun to dry, and when we’ve cleared and thinned this spot, she’ll help you plant replacement trees.”

Eurydice squeezed Kunik’s arm and slipped away, making a large circle so as to be out of range of falling trees. He knew axes made her uncomfortable, a not unreasonable reaction from a tree nymph. He turned his attention back to Jan.

***

With the help of Jan and Gwelda, the people of Rowan Tree collected two neat piles of logs, one of fragrant green wood, oozing sap, and the other of old, dead trees, seasoned and ready for splitting and shaping. Kunik quickly picked up the art of choosing what to use for fuel, what to set aside for furniture and other household use and what to utilize as building material for fence, shed and house. Jan seemed to know how to make everything needful out of wood and recognized in Kunik a fellow craftsman. They became good friends.

One afternoon, as he and Jan worked in a thicket of alder, they heard a shout.

“Hello!”

“Hello!” Kunik replied.

“We heard the axes! Don’t drop a tree on us!”

He laughed. “No danger! Come ahead!

Two women rode out of the forest on horses, one older than the other.

“We’re looking for the community settling here,” said the older one, smiling down at them.

“You’ve found us.” Kunik brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I’ll take you the rest of the way.” To Jan, he said, “Do you want to come or get on with it?”

“I’ll get this one down. If you don’t come back, I’ll come see what’s doing. Gwelda’s somewhere around,” he finished with a slight air of concern. “The horses…”

“I’ll be careful,” Kunik assured him.

“Who’s Gwelda?” asked the younger woman as he led them through the trees. Behind them, the axe resumed its steady ‘thunk.’

“As a matter of fact, she’s a giantess,” he said. “I’m Kunik, by the way.”

“I’m Persephone, and this is my mother, Demeter,” the young woman said.

“You’re welcome,” said Kunik. “We’re rather rough just now, but friends are welcome.”

“We’re friends,” Demeter assured him. “We brought some things you might be able to use.”

He smiled over his shoulder. “That’s kind. How’d you know about us? Oh, there’s Gwelda. Will the horses be all right?”

They’d come out of the trees onto the crest of the hill. Ahead swept the grassy slope. Stakes were neatly planted, decorated with tough lengths of vine marking out squares. Some way below them a figure with turquoise hair and a rumpled lime green dress like a canopy picked up young trees with sharpened ends like huge pencils and thrust them into the ground, building a neat, tight fence. Other figures worked on the hillside, but it was hard to look at anything but the fence builder.

Persephone laughed. “That’s Gwelda?”

“That’s Gwelda,” said Kunik. “She takes some getting used to, but she’s the kindest person you’ve ever met. That was her husband, Jan, with me in the forest.”

“Her husband?”

“They adore one another,” he assured her. “Newlyweds.”

They left the horses to graze under a towering oak tree and made their way down the slope.

“We’re planning animal pens along the fold here, and a garden there,” Kunik explained, gesturing. “Here are two friends of mine, Maria and Eurydice. Dreaming of your chicken coop, Maria?” he teased. “We’ve visitors. Meet Persephone and Demeter.”

“Aren’t you beautiful,” murmured Persephone to the two women, and took them both in her arms as Kunik watched in astonishment.

The emotional greeting attracted attention. Gwelda left her fence building and stood watching. Her face lit at the sound of whistling as her husband strolled down the hill, axe in hand.

Rose Red had been down at the river when she saw the strangers arrive and now she joined the group, face damp from the hot climb.

“Persephone!” she gasped, and ran into her embrace.

Kunik laid a hand on Eurydice’s shoulder. Neither she nor Maria seemed able to speak.

“We’ve come, my Corn Mother and I,” said Persephone, arms still around Rose Red, “to aid in your harvest.”

***

They’d formed a habit of sitting around a fire at night talking. Gwelda and Jan possessed a childlike love of stories and they shared their own with delight, interrupting one another, giggling and boisterous. Gwelda became so animated she jumped to her feet and acted out bits, to general hilarity and exclamations. “Be careful, Gwelda! You almost stepped on me!” “Watch out for the fire!”

Entering into the spirit of the thing, the others had shared small pieces of themselves, keeping their stories amusing and playful.

The appearance of Persephone and Demeter brought an element of seriousness to the picnic-like atmosphere. There was nothing ominous about Persephone but she was, after all, the Queen of the Underworld. Eurydice and Maria, the only two who’d actually been to the Underworld, treated her with respect untinged by anything like fear, which went some way to putting the others at their ease. Rose Red treated her like an old friend. They were all fascinated by Persephone’s life in the Underworld.

Kunik noticed Demeter tended to be quiet by the evening fire, watching and listening. During the days, she worked as hard as any of them, laying out gardens, helping build coop, hutch and animal pen, and making helpful suggestions. She and Rose Red spent happy hours together considering strategies for optimal health for trees, soil, animals, plants and people.

Persephone and Hades kept rabbits, and they’d brought two pairs in a basket so Rowan Tree could breed a colony for meat and fur. Under Persephone’s expert direction, Kunik and Jan built a rabbit hutch. Maria was particularly intrigued and spent hours asking questions about the needs and habits of the appealing creatures.

***

“I sat in this same spot more than three weeks ago and wondered how I’d survive the winter, let alone shape a life,” said Rose Red.

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

It was early morning; mist swathed the river below. Rose Red and Kunik sat in the long grass looking down the slope at the construction of Rowan Tree. Rabbits were installed in the completed hutch. Their first livestock. With Gwelda’s help, several animal pens were built and fenced, nestling into the shelter of the slope. Kunik could see the roof of the chicken coop, tight and strong, though empty.

They were digging a root cellar near the bottom of the hill. Gwelda did most of the work with a trowel the size of a shovel, but they’d all given the project a few minutes each day. Slabs of wood lay piled in the grass next to it; shelves to be put in once the digging was finished. Jan was making a stout door.

Demeter had been helpful about storing food, and she and Persephone and Rose Red took advantage of the horses to harvest what the land provided for miles around Rowan Tree. When the root cellar was finished, fruit, nuts and honeycomb could be safely stored, along with a variety of dried mushrooms and berries.

Jan and Kunik turned their attention to building shelters and houses. These were as varied in location and style as the community members themselves. Their goal was to assure everyone a good roof for the winter. In the spring, refinements could be made, houses enlarged, more furniture built.

Kunik smiled. “At the very moment you were thinking that, Maria, Eurydice and I were moving toward you.”

“Persephone and Demeter had heard about us and they were planning their trip here, too,” said Rose Red. “That was before I thought to send for Gwelda and Jan. Now here we are. I’d never have believed it.”

“I wonder who else will show up?” mused Kunik, leaning back on his elbows. “Look at the color of that sky! Like an abalone shell.”

CHAPTER 32

HEKS

Heks watched Gabriel.

He was a spry old man in spite of his cane, curious, friendly and occasionally acerbic. Juliana’s death had done him a lot of good. He’d been sinking into dotage, bored, lonely and just a tinge bitter, when Dar and Radulf appeared. Now life was full of interest, even adventure. He had new people to talk to, new ideas to think about, and he once again felt part of something vital.

He talked to everyone, all the time. No one escaped his questions or his bright-eyed observation. He had a disconcerting habit of seeing and speaking bald truths, having no patience for indirection.

Toward Heks he demonstrated a mixture of curiosity and restraint. They were the same age. She knew he’d possessed a family — once. She found his reticence on the subject remarkable, given his general garrulousness. She didn’t probe, having plenty of her own past she preferred to keep private.

She was aware of his interest in her. A lifetime ago she’d been young and reasonably attractive. Well…young at least. As midwife and healer, she’d known many people, many families, and she’d received her share of surreptitious pats and admiring looks and even a kiss or two… Then Joe came along and swept through her life like an ice storm in spring, glittering and brilliant for an hour, but converting bud, blossom and leaf into wet black decay that turned to slime with a touch.

Gabriel’s interest in her was friendly, no more. He led her on to talk and spent hours walking with her or perched in a cart next to her. He generally ate with her and slept near her. She could see the others gradually accepting them as a pair. He was gentle with her, pretending not to see her reflexive cringe or flinch where there was an unexpected noise or motion. She was certain he’d never hurt her physically. He was a good man.

She thought sourly, I’m certainly trying hard to persuade myself!

The truth was, she, sere, wrinkled, thin-haired and withered, wanted passion, or romance, or one of those shameful words describing what can happen between a man and a woman. A young man and woman. Touch that made fine hairs stand up, scent, texture of hair and skin. She wanted to feel her face cupped in hands just a little too hard, a little too insistent, feel her lip caught between teeth, feel her body respond. She wanted to feel a hard knee between her thighs, nudging them inexorably apart…

And then what? she mocked herself. Then scrabble for oil because I’m old and dry?

“No,” said her heart. “Then he reaches for oil and touches you, caresses you, fingers and opens you until your body remembers and believes and responds. And then you know it’s not too late. It can still happen.”

But that was fantasy, secret and pathetic. In the real world, she was an aging, used-up woman. Beauty and passion had never been for her. Friendship and companionship, now those were possible. Those were appropriate desires. Even an old woman could hope for a friend. She knew her hands retained their skill. She hadn’t forgotten how to help open the way for new life to be born. She could reasonably dream of kneeling beside the miracle of mother and emerging child again, of being a surrogate grandmother. It had to be enough.

Yet she wanted more. She could do more. Not now, maybe, not yet, but someday. Her old life was gone in a whirlwind of blood and fire. She recognized nothing as hers except, oddly, the shawl she’d taken away from Juliana’s house. Gabriel himself -- no. Nothing in her hungry heart recognized him. She wanted nothing from him except to call him friend.

She stayed with Dar and the villagers, not because of Gabriel, but because of their guide.

No one knew where they were going. They wanted a new place to build a community. It would soon be first harvest, and they needed to find a place to spend the winter. As far as Heks could tell, Dar meant to follow his nose and trust in luck. In the beginning, she wasn’t sure she wanted to cast her lot with theirs. Easier, she thought, to make her way alone, try to find the white light she was to follow.

Then, the night before they left, an unearthly White Stag had come to them, slipping out of the woods like mist at dusk. Dar greeted it with reverence, and told the villagers the stag would guide them. Dar appeared relieved, even happy. Heks wondered if the creature had acted as guide for him before. It had melted away between the trees, glowing like a pearl in starlight, as they settled to sleep.

In the morning, Heks set out with the group, taking only the shawl with her.

MARY

“Where are we going?” Mary wiped a tendril of hair off her cheek for what felt like the hundredth time. It wasn’t noon yet. Her pregnancy increased her body temperature and she always felt hot. Today she felt ungainly and cranky as well. The nubile maiden bearing seeds and letting them fall in a wild mist of blood, milk, urine and sweat who’d lain with another Seed-Bearer under the fecund May moon was gone. Her seed pouches were empty and packed carefully away in her bundle.

A seed had taken root and grew in the dark red lining of her belly, and the primordial horned piper walked beside her in dusty boots, glowing with strength and vitality.

“We’re going to meet a friend of mine.” He glanced sideways at her, his face mischievous. “He’s leading a group to a new community. There’ll be wagons and you can rest. A midwife is among them and she can keep an eye on you.”

“And what about you?” She felt nettled, hating how much she wanted to rest. She could see something amused him about his ‘friend,’ but refused to give him the satisfaction of asking. It was too hot.

“I want to see you off your feet, help my friend and find something to do. I want to begin harvest!”

As he’d said this regularly for the last month, she made no reply. She knew he spilled over with energy and could hardly wait for long days in field and orchard. He’d be a big help to a new community, and, frankly, she’d be glad to take a break from his restless vitality. Though he now began to pour out the honey and milk of his strength, she must keep something back, carefully hoard her energy. Her own harvest still lay some way ahead.

“You’re hot. Shall we stop and rest?”

His quick concern diminished her grouchiness.

“No. It’s a hot day. I feel sweaty and fat.”

“We should meet up with them this evening. What do you say to a plate of food you didn’t have to cook and a comfortable bed?”

“I say, lead me to it.” She felt she should show an interest, ask about his friend and the others with him, but she couldn’t summon the energy.

He took her sweaty hand comfortingly in his.

She thought it was like walking hand in hand with the sun.

***

Five hours later, Mary seethed with fury. The cart was stifling. She felt every bit as hot in its shade as she had in the sun, and it didn’t admit a breath of air. In one more minute she was going to sit up, crawl to the back and put her feet on the ground again. The cloak she glared at swayed mockingly on its hook as the cart rolled along the dusty track.

She’d seen that cloak before. During initiation, the enigmatic peddler Dar led the men to their fire, his cloak rippling like dark water in firelight. Now, in the stuffy light, she realized the cloak wasn’t black, but a deep purple. Lugh’s cloak was sewn with gold and copper, ivory, carnelian, tiger’s eye and garnets. This one was silver and crystal, turquoise and moonstone and bone. She could just see the glowing tip of the Firebird’s feather sewn over one shoulder, exactly in the place Lugh’s lay. Lugh said it dreamed of being a wing.

Nausea rose in her throat, curling up like a bad smell. The cloak twisted on its hook. She was slick with sweat.

She closed her eyes, trying to hang onto her fury and forget she felt like a pile of soiled laundry, shapeless and smelly.

Blessedly, the cart stopped.

She heard Dar’s voice, then Lugh’s, remonstrating. Another voice cut in, confident and firm, laying down the law. She smiled in spite of her misery, keeping her eyes shut. Heks. She was saved.

Heks banged open the back of the cart. “This can’t be comfortable, child,” she said. “Wouldn’t you rather come out into the air?”

Nausea receded with cessation of movement.

“Yes!” said Mary with relief. “I was beginning to get sick.”

Heks gave her a strong hand, hoisted her up from her damp pallet and passed her to Lugh, who stood waiting at the back of the cart to help her clamber out. He looked so worried her irritation evaporated.

“I know you want me to be out of the sun,” she said, “but it’s too hot and closed back here.”

“I’ll look after her,” said Heks. “You enjoy your brother.”

“Brother!” Mary almost shouted. Lugh looked taken aback. “Dar’s my twin brother. I wanted to surprise you.” He smiled, pleased with himself.

Heks took Mary firmly by the arm while she was still deciding between shouting and shrieking. “Come along,” she said.

Mary came. Usually strong willed, any demonstration of determination swept her helplessly along in its wake these days.

They evidently had stopped for a break. Mary saw villagers relaxing on the grass, eating, drinking and talking together. They had entered a forest and the trees cast welcome shade.

Heks led her away from the others to a stream screened behind willows. Mary bared her feet and sat on a log, soaking them blissfully. Heks stood behind her, unraveled her thick hair, tidied it with a comb from her pocket, braided it and pinned it on the back of her head, making Mary feel ten degrees cooler. She pressed a water-soaked rag to the back of Mary’s exposed neck.

“Why are men so stupid?” Mary asked.

Heks snorted with laughter. “They’re only men, that’s why. Poor things.”

Mary laughed too, but felt tears threatening.

“Why didn’t he tell me? I’ve met Dar before and he never said anything.”

“Because he doesn’t know better than to surprise a pregnant woman. You gotta teach him.”

“Teach him! I’ll teach him, the idiot!”

“You are teaching him,” said Heks. “But take it easy on him. He doesn’t know what it’s like,” she gestured at Mary’s curving belly. “And he loves you. He’s worried.”

***

Mary liked Dar. They’d hardly spoken at initiation but now there were slow miles in which to get acquainted.

At first glance, the twins weren’t the least alike, but together they formed a perfect balance. Dar was quick-tongued, impulsive and darkly passionate. Lugh was steady, primitive and blunt. Lugh acted. Dar thought. Watching them together fascinated Mary.

Gradually, she identified their similarities. They both played bone flutes, though she hadn’t heard Lugh play since the Night of Seeds. They each possessed a cloak, obviously made by the same hand. They were both natural leaders.

She admitted to herself she was glad to surrender to their leadership. There was no question about the fact that they were leading, either. Dar had somehow taken charge of part of a small village, though she’d only heard bits and pieces of that story, something about a murdered woman and an argument over conventions. It sounded complicated. At any rate, Heks, Gabriel, a couple called Liza and Brian, and a few others had decided to make a life somewhere else, and a motley assemblage of animals, carts, tools and household goods traveled along behind Dar, in his rather faded cart, like children behind an enigmatic pied piper. Dar was, in fact, following the White Stag, and no one had the slightest idea where he was taking them.

It was odd. Everything was odd, not the least her changing body and its new resident. Odd and exhausting.

She rode for a while with Gabriel, enjoying his gossip about his fellow travelers. Heks had made a pallet for her in the back of Gabriel’s open cart. After a while, she left her seat next to him and climbed into the cart to take a nap.

RAPUNZEL

Juliana’s house at the bend of the river lay many weeks and miles behind. Rapunzel was hardened with walking, lean and brown with sun-filled days.

She still followed the eye’s guidance.

She’d discovered, to her amusement, she’d retained the power to choose to be the ugliest woman in the world or herself. Several times she’d entertained herself with this new toy. It appealed to her sense of mischief to attract and then repel attention.

Harvest season lay ahead, and she began to think of winter. She’d been on the road a long time.

Still, this day was hot and fine and she need make no decisions immediately. She felt content to follow the eye, which appeared to be leading her into a town. When this happened, she took advantage of the chance to spend a night in a bed, or at least under a roof, and restock her supplies. Tonight, she could buy a hot meal.

She was making for a likely-looking inn when she passed a crowd.

“She’s a witch!” shouted a man.

“Go away, witch!” said another amid general muttering.

“Leave her alone, poor soul!” A woman’s voice, shrill but determined.

Rapunzel stopped, trying to see past the clot of people to the source of trouble. She elbowed a fat man’s back and he grunted with pained surprise and turned, glaring. When he saw her face his gaze dropped, angry flush subsiding.

“Please,” she whined, “what’s happening?”

“It’s an old woman, making a nuisance of herself,” he said gruffly. “Scaring people.”

Rapunzel pushed in front of him and made her way through the cluster of bodies, kicking and jabbing. Most people, seeing her face, automatically took a step back. She’d made her way through more than one crowd in this manner. Ugliness discouraged close contact.

At the front, she found a middle-aged woman with disheveled hair and a gaunt face backed up against a fence. Her eyes were wide, white showing all the way around them. She wrung her hands and gabbled in a low voice.

Rapunzel instantly felt infuriated. She turned in front of the woman, shielding her, and faced the crowd.

“Why are you abusing my mother?”

“Your mother?” asked a woman. “See,” she shouted to someone else in the crowd, “she’s not a witch! A witch would do something about a daughter who looked like that!”

Rapunzel allowed an expression of shame to cross her face and dropped her gaze, letting everyone get a good look at her.

“She’s not a witch,” she said, but quietly, so the crowd had to strain to hear. “She gets…confused. She can’t help it. You’re scaring her.” She’d discovered most people assumed she was witless as well as ugly and took pains to sound childish.

“You should keep a closer eye on her,” a man said reprovingly.

“I do my best,” said Rapunzel, allowing her eyes to fill with tears. “I try, but she slips away sometimes.”

With satisfaction, she noted the crowd loosen. Several people turned away. A weeping female simpleton and her deranged mother provided little entertainment. Rapunzel, knowing well how she looked when she wept, slumped her shoulders and held her mouth half open, sobbing and showing crooked, stained teeth. Her nose ran.

Behind her, the so-called witch mumbled and cowered.

After a few minutes they stood alone, though passing people cast sidelong glances of curiosity at them. Rapunzel, mindful of this, artlessly wiped her face and blew her nose on her sleeve, carelessly smearing mucus across her cheek.

“Will you come with me?” she asked the other in low tones. She put out her hand.

Somewhat to her surprise, the woman took it, and allowed Rapunzel to lead her out of town.

A hawthorn hedge bordered fields along the road. Rapunzel watched for a gap and when she found one, they pushed their way through it. Hands still linked, she led the woman to a grassy spot. The hedge shielded them from the road. Rapunzel dropped easily to the ground, and the other woman followed suit.

She’d stopped mumbling and her eyes showed less fear. Rapunzel didn’t know what on earth to do with her.

“I’m Rapunzel,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“You’re for the silver fish in the dark,” she said, “but that’s not your face.”

“It’s not my face,” said Rapunzel carefully, feeling her way. “Will it frighten you if I change into my real face?”

“No,” said the woman, and watched the transformation serenely.

“You’re not my daughter, are you?” she asked.

“No,” said Rapunzel. “I said that so they’d leave you alone.”

“Thank you. I’m Cassandra.”

“Are you alone, Cassandra?”

“No. Golden rope fell down stone wall and caught me.”

She made just enough sense to be eerie, Rapunzel thought. No wonder she’d frightened people!

“Where do you live?”

“Oh, I can’t live somewhere!” Cassandra looked away and began humming to herself. She wound a lock of grey-threaded brown hair around and around her finger.

“What am I going to do with you?” Rapunzel muttered to herself.

“Follow the blue,” said Cassandra, looking across the field. “Follow the blue and silver and gold shall meet and I…and I…” she hesitated, looking bewildered. “But silver and gold already met,” she said confusedly, “didn’t they?”

She looked at Rapunzel appealingly. Her face was strained.

“I don’t know,” said Rapunzel gently.

“Follow the blue,” said Cassandra decidedly. “Follow the blue.”

“Do you mean this?” Rapunzel held out her hand, the open blue-eyed marble in her palm.

Cassandra hardly gave it a glance. “Follow, follow, follow,” she sang to herself. “Gold rope and black robe.”

“Does someone look after you?” Rapunzel asked hopefully. “Can I take you somewhere before I go on?”

“Winged flower face, loom and gold rope.”

Rapunzel gave up. The open eye in her hand looked steadily at Cassandra.

“Let’s walk,” she said with a sigh. “I want to get away from that town.”

After that, villages and towns became a problem.

Obtaining supplies and shelter from time to time was a necessary evil, but Cassandra, normally (if that word could ever be applied to her) able to function and communicate reasonably well, immediately came undone when there were other people about. Rapunzel couldn’t judge the accuracy of her predictions. Often, she spoke so confusedly she made little sense, but Rapunzel suspected she prophesied the future. Unfortunately, she was so sensitive and empathic her own prophecies upset her at least as deeply as those with whom she shared them. It took little to turn her into gaunt, wide-eyed incoherence.

But she’d never prophesied for a whole community before.

They were in a middle-sized town, large enough, Rapunzel hoped, to remain anonymous as a rather distraught mother and pitifully ugly daughter. Her plan was to quickly resupply, mostly with food, though Cassandra badly needed a new cloak, and leave. The weather held fine and she put off actually spending the night surrounded by people for the sake of Cassandra’s anxiety.

All went well until they reached the city center, a busy place where a forge did brisk business with a great clanging, a row of horses waiting patiently for shoeing, and several stalls sold household goods and food. Rapunzel was waiting in line to buy meat pies when Cassandra, her arm tucked firmly in Rapunzel’s, tensed, looking around uneasily.

“Cassandra, it’s all right,” Rapunzel said soothingly, recognizing the signs.

“Sparks like flowers,” said Cassandra in a clear voice.

A hammer struck an anvil with a hot, clanging sound. They couldn’t quite see sparks from here, though. On the other hand, there were buckets of fresh flowers in the stall next to them.

“They’re beautiful,” Rapunzel said in a quiet voice, hoping Cassandra would lower her own in response.

She didn’t. “Fire,” she said, her hallucinated gaze traveling around the cobblestoned square.

Image by Anja #pray for ukraine# #helping hands# stop the war from Pixabay

The man in front of Rapunzel turned to look at them. He moved like a cat, Rapunzel thought distractedly, lean and graceful. She let her mouth drop open, turned her shoulder to the man and muttered, “Hush, Mother. There’s no fire.”

“Fire,” said Cassandra, more loudly. “Flowers in the dark.”

Now other people paused to look.

“Don’t stay here,” Cassandra said to a woman with a chicken under her arm. “Go! It’s not safe! It’s all going to burn!”

The woman backed away, looking scared.

Cassandra began to weep in gasps. “Smoke and flame! Smoke and flame and screams!” She pulled away from Rapunzel. “The stars will go out!”

A crowd gathered. Rapunzel seized Cassandra’s arm and began to drag her away, but people pressed in around them. Cassandra moaned and trembled, pitiable and terrified. “Please! Please believe me! Save yourselves!”

“What’s she say?”

“She says there’s a fire.”

“What? There’s no fire here.”

“Poor lady!”

“Is she cursing us with fire?”

“Nah, she’s not cursing — just saying there is one.”

“Is she mad?”

“She sounds mad.”

“Do you think she’s a witch?”

This last low voice propelled Rapunzel into decisive action.

“My mother needs air,” she said firmly, “please let us through. She’s not well.” She began ruthlessly applying her elbow to the wall of people in front of them.

Someone caught Cassandra’s other arm and Rapunzel tensed, ready to fight. The man who’d been standing in front of them said tersely, “Walk. Straight ahead. Let’s get out of this.”

Between them, they steered the weeping, distraught woman straight at the blocking crowd and it parted, almost magically, though Rapunzel heard some ugly muttering, like a big dog growling low in its throat. The man strode forward, making Rapunzel lengthen her own stride to keep up with him. He swept them through the square and onto a street, up the street to a corner, where he turned.

Rapunzel began to feel irritated. “Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “We’re fine now.”

He didn’t reply.

“We’re all right now,” she said more loudly, and then, “We’re not going this way!”

“You are now,” he said. “I’m not leaving you until you’re safe out of town.”

Rapunzel stopped, still holding tight to Cassandra’s arm, so his steady stride faltered.

“Go away,” said Rapunzel fiercely, quite forgetting the usual cringing, slightly simple manner she adopted when ugly. She glared into the man’s grey eyes. He grinned suddenly, which for some reason further infuriated her.

Cassandra, who had gradually quieted as the market fell behind, and was now strung between them like a bone grasped by two competing dogs, crooned, “black and silver, purple and black, devil prince,” looking into the stranger’s amused face.

Rapunzel felt hot, hungry, and irritated. “Devil? You’ve said black and silver and purple but you never said devil before! You can’t mean this man? I’m not going with him — and neither are you!”

“You’ve heard of me,” he said. “Do you know the old crones say the devil in the Tarot deck symbolizes authentic experience? Perhaps that’s what your mother means. I’m rather fond of what’s real. Truth and the devil are perilously close for some people, I’ll admit.”

“Shut up,” said Rapunzel. “Come on, Cass — Mother! She tugged at Cassandra’s arm, starting to turn away.

“Dar!” A young man and woman approached them, she obviously pregnant and perspiring freely. “Are you all right?” She looked anxious. She carried a heavy-looking basket. Rapunzel smelled the meat pies she’d been going to buy at the stall and her mouth watered.

“All’s well, Mary. I thought it best to get them away quick.”

“We should keep going,” suggested the man beside Mary, also laden with baskets. A thick gold hoop decorated in his left earlobe. “Better to avoid any more trouble.”

Cassandra pulled away from Rapunzel and reached out her hand to the fair man with the baskets.

“Gold and green, milk and honey, silver and gold!” she said, looking from one male face to another.

Rapunzel threw her hands up in the air in mute surrender.

“Well, if you don’t want to come…” the one called Dar said slyly to her.

“Shut up,” she said again, but with less heat.

“You must come,” said Mary firmly. “You can travel with us. We’re quite a big group. You’ll both be safe.”

“I prefer to travel alone,” said Rapunzel stiffly. “We won’t inconvenience you.”

“Oh, la-di-da!” mocked Dar.

“Dar!” said Mary reprovingly. “Don’t tease her!”

He took a step forward and kissed Rapunzel on the mouth.

She, feeling the scene fast slip out of control, changed into her real face and raised her hand to slap his cheek at the same time, so his kiss landed on lips that felt soft and firm rather than slack and spittle-flecked. He jerked his head back and the flat of her hand struck his cheek with a satisfying smack that made her palm sting.

“Do that again,” she said between her teeth, “and I’ll bite your lip off!”

“Silver fish, gold fish, silver fish, gold fish,” said Cassandra, standing in front of Mary with her palms pressed to her bulging belly.

In the end, it was the other man who took charge. He put a heavy basket into Dar’s free hand. Cassandra clung to Dar’s other arm contentedly, and the man with the earring wisely left her alone. Dar’s astonishment quickly turned to speculation and he eyed Rapunzel, opening his mouth to speak, but the other man forestalled him. “Walk,” he said sternly. “Save it for later. Take care of this…lady.” He indicated Cassandra. “I’m Lugh,” he said briefly to Rapunzel.

Dar walked. Rapunzel could almost see the insouciant flourish of an invisible cloak. Silver, black, or purple? she wondered idiotically.

Lugh took the basket from Mary and put it into Rapunzel’s hand. “Interesting trick,” he said, amused. “You don’t need to stay with us but come with us now and eat something, at least. We mean you no harm. Walk!”

She walked, following the imaginary sweep of the devil prince’s cloak.

Behind her, Mary asked, “Lugh, do you think there are two?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but we were both the Seed Bearers — once.”

“Once,” echoed Mary, rather wistfully.

***

It was a larger group than Rapunzel expected. As she looked around, counting heads, she realized it wasn’t the number of people but the wagons, carts and other conveyances that made it appear so large. They looked as though they were moving house.

Which, she soon understood, was exactly what they were doing.

Lugh sent Dar off with the baskets to distribute their heavy contents, but he kept out food for Rapunzel and Cassandra. To Rapunzel’s irritation, Cassandra refused to be parted from Dar, though he was obviously disconcerted by her attentions. For days Rapunzel had been longing for a break from watching over the odd woman, but now she was surprised to find how much she resented Cassandra’s quick trust of a stranger. Especially that particular stranger! She didn’t protest, however, as they turned away together.

Lugh settled Mary tenderly on a convenient fallen tree in shade and Rapunzel stayed with her, preferring the position of spectator rather than participant.

Mary addressed herself to her food single mindedly, and Rapunzel, eating her own meal with appreciation, took the opportunity to look over the group.

Dar stowed things in a cart, on which once bright paint had faded. There were words on the side of the cart but she couldn’t read them from where they sat. He raised and lowered flaps with ease, and she assumed the cart belonged to him. He unpacked food onto a shelf and others in the group came and helped themselves. She counted eleven people, including Mary.

A woman approached them. Scanty grey hair was twisted up off her neck. Her face was deeply lined. She might have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old.

“Are you well, my dear?”

Mary nodded, swallowed a mouthful, and said, “Yes. It was hot, though. We encountered a bit of trouble in the market — did you hear?”

“I heard a bit from Lugh.”

“Heks, that woman…”

“Her name’s Cassandra,” Rapunzel put in. “And I’m Rapunzel.”

“I’m Mary and this is Heks,” said Mary perfunctorily. As though hearing her own abruptness, she turned impulsively to Rapunzel. “I’m sorry. I’m being selfish. It’s just that she — Cassandra — made it sound like maybe there are two…” she rested a hand on her belly.

“Did she?” asked Heks, without much surprise.

“You think so too! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’m not sure and I didn’t want to worry you. After all, it makes no difference. Either way, you’re pregnant.”

Rapunzel giggled. “Being pregnant with twins does somehow seem like being more pregnant,” she said apologetically when they looked at her.

“Oh, Heks! How am I going to manage two babies?” Mary wailed.

“Quite well, I should think,” said Heks firmly. “You’ll have help, of course, exactly the kind of help you most need. Anyway, that’s still months away. No need to worry about it today.”

“Where are you going?” asked Rapunzel, curious.

“We’re following a…guide,” answered Mary. Her eyes slid away from Rapunzel’s.

“Where are you going?” Heks asked Rapunzel, “you and your mother?”

“I’m following the ey…a guide, too,” said Rapunzel.

The three of them looked at one another and began to laugh.

“Oh my,” said Mary, wiping her face and then her mouth on her sleeve. “I’ve no room to laugh like that. In fact…” She stood and retired discreetly behind a bush.

When she returned, Rapunzel said, “She’s not my mother. I found her alone in the middle of a crowd. They were talking about witches. She was terrified, making no sense, and apparently alone and homeless. I couldn’t leave her.”

“Of course not,” said Mary, looking appalled. “Poor woman.”

“Is she a witch?” asked Heks with interest.

“I’ve no idea what that word means,” said Rapunzel, somewhat irritably. “She’s a seer of some kind. She knows things. But at least half the time she makes no sense at all, so it’s hard to tell what she’s talking about. Back there,” she gestured in the direction of the town, “she said the market square would burn. She begged people to leave.”

“Oh, my,” said Heks inadequately.

“When I hear the word ‘witch’ I think of the Mother of Witches, Baba Yaga,” said Mary, who hadn’t been following the conversation.

Rapunzel saw her own surprise reflected on Heks’ face.

“You know Baba Yaga?” she asked Mary incredulously.

The vulnerable young pregnant woman suddenly appeared older, more assured. She straightened her shoulders. “No, I wouldn’t say I know her. But she’s been a teacher.”

“You never told me,” breathed Heks.

“Baba Yaga doesn’t appear in casual conversation,” said Mary dryly.

“You, too?” Rapunzel asked Heks.

“Yes,” Heks said tersely.

“Me, too,” said Rapunzel. “How interesting.”

“Your face changed,” said Mary shyly “when Dar kissed you. Are you a witch, then?”

“Dar kissed her?” Heks said in astonishment. “Dar?”

With an air of one laying her cards on the table, Rapunzel groped in her tunic and laid her hand flat, uncurling her fingers, revealing a small white sphere with an open blue eye.

“My guide,” she said resignedly. She turned to Mary, who looked down at the eye in astonishment. “Yes, I can change my face. A gift from Baba Yaga, in fact. And yes, I suppose I am a witch. I was raised by one and she taught me everything she knew.”

Heks reached down the neck of her shirt, between her breasts. She turned over her closed hand and opened her fingers. There in her palm lay two black marbles, slightly larger than Alexander’s eye, studded with points of light.

“Galaxies,” she said. “But the truth is they’re eyes. Baba Yaga…” She trailed to a stop, as though not knowing how to begin an explanation.

“Ah,” said Rapunzel with understanding, and Heks relaxed.

Mary laid a hand on Rapunzel’s wrist. “Please stay with us,” she said.

“I think we will,” said Rapunzel, and relief blossomed within her, catching her by surprise.

MARIA

Gwelda carried stones for Maria’s house.

After much thought, Maria had been surprised to find she wanted to live near the river. Somehow, living water had become a friend rather than a place of horror. On the other hand, she knew the laziest, most sluggish-looking river could rise over its banks and cause chaos. She’d found a slab of half-buried stone thirty feet above the river, right at the edge of the grassy slope. From that spot, she could look across the hill to where gardens and animal pens took shape. The edge of the forest ran along behind her, and between her and the water grew a thicket of alders and other brush.

She’d shown the spot to Kunik, who approved her choice enthusiastically and expanded her tentative ideas. Today they had begun to build.

Working with stone was challenging to the point of irritation, but when the right fit was found, marvelously satisfying. Jan, who seemed to know something about any kind of building, demonstrated with hammer and chisel how to shape stone. Kunik, with his remarkable vision of shape within shape, worked closely with him. The others fetched and carried, making a pile of stones for a chimney. Gwelda roamed up and down the riverbank, bringing back likely looking large stones they couldn’t possibly have moved by themselves.

Demeter and Persephone carried food into the newly-finished root cellar.

They were engrossed in their work and the first any knew of approaching company was a “Halloo!” from the top of the hill.

Maria and the others downed tools and began walking up the grassy swathe. Gwelda, always nervous about scaring people, dropped behind Maria with Jan. Kunik, Rose Red and Eurydice, young and strong, surged ahead. As they climbed, carts came into view, along with horses and what looked like a crowd of people, several of whom came down the slope to meet them, a lean, dark-haired man among them.

“Dar!” said Kunik disbelievingly. “Look, Rosie, it’s Dar!”

Maria watched as they met in a breathless three-way hug. The man called Dar pulled away, smiling. “I’ve brought another old friend,” he said. Maria followed the direction of his gesture. A woman with an unmistakably pregnant profile gingerly stretched her back, a handsome fair man at her elbow.

Maria took a few hesitant steps, searching the woman’s face.

“Mary?” asked Rose Red, at her elbow.

“Rosie! Maria!”

Mary hugged Maria, then Rose Red, then fell into Eurydice’s arms.

Maria, standing back and smiling, realized there weren’t so many people as she’d first thought, perhaps a dozen or so. She saw a young couple, an old couple and what looked like a mother and daughter. Her eyes were caught and held by a head of short golden hair.

“Rapunzel! Rapunzel!”

Rapunzel looked, eyes widening in recognition. She left her haggard-looking companion and met Maria. They hugged enormously.

“I can’t believe it!” Rapunzel said. “You cut your hair! You look wonderful!”

***

Evening found them grouped around the biggest fire they’d had yet. Maria looked around at the scene, feeling satisfied and proud of what they’d created. The horses grazed peacefully in a friendly clump, including Persephone and Demeter’s mounts. Carts parked here and there, blankets and sleeping rolls ready for the night.

A happy feeling of community and reunion embraced the group. Dar told a story with words and flute. Heks was a dark, neat shape beside Mary. Lugh sat in front of them, cross-legged, his cloak furled like jeweled wings around him and his earring catching the light. Rapunzel’s cropped gilt head was next to Cassandra, who looked up at Dar as he talked and played, gesticulating and pacing near the fire, bone flute and cloak glimmering.

An owl screeched, close behind Maria. It made her twitch with surprise. Dar stopped in midsentence and Lugh rose to his feet in a single motion of supple strength, head tilted alertly. He swung around, facing Maria, his back to the fire.

A pale shape, silent as a star, flew to his shoulder. In the moment of landing Lugh appeared to grow taller, his shoulders broader, the carriage of his head prouder. Maria never forgot the picture he made, a god of seed and harvest, the barbarically decorated cloak enhancing and underlining his maleness, with the white owl, blazing eyed, like a sculpture of snow on his shoulder.

Then the owl took off, silent as a blown dandelion seed.

“Good evening.”

A woman stepped out of the shadows, short-haired, lean, looking over a pair of silver-rimmed glasses.

Cassandra, with a wordless exclamation, threw herself into the stranger’s arms.

CHAPTER 33

“It’s like being taken over by a depressingly efficient maiden aunt,” Dar complained. She’s asking everyone, ‘What do you need to be self-sustaining?’ She expects good answers, too. I’m terrified of her!”

“I’m exhausted,” groaned Lugh, stretching out.

“Oh, stop bellyaching, you two,” said Mary. She sat in a chair in the shade, Lugh and Dar stretched out in the grass at her feet. Maria sat with her back against a sun-warmed boulder. “You could hardly wait to get to work, remember?” She stretched out a foot and poked Lugh in the side with her toe. He reached up and grabbed her by the ankle, swinging her foot gently.

“I couldn’t wait to harvest,” he said, but he smiled.

“This is a kind of harvest,” said Maria. “All of us with our stories, finding ourselves here at the same time and working together. It’s like a harvest of personal resource instead of land resource, is all.”

“Well, whatever,” said Lugh, releasing Mary’s ankle and sitting up. He smoothed back his hair. “Is there grass on me?” he asked Mary.

“Fop,” said Dar, with some affection.

“Sloven,” replied Lugh, grinning.

In less than two days Minerva had spent several hours with Maria, whom she appeared to take for granted was the de facto leader of the group, sized up the situation, people and immediate needs. Her energy and intelligence were formidable. Under her supervision, food and shelter for both people and animals were finalized and Maria, grateful, realized they wouldn’t have been ready for winter without her. She was determined to learn everything she could about both business and leadership from Minerva.

Maria made a master list of skills and goods. Lugh set to work directing construction of a slaughtering shed, and Dar added every day to a list of needs, including hooks, hoists, buckets and a variety of saws and knives.

The community at Rowan Tree would slaughter none of their precious stock this fall, but breed and develop small herds and flocks for the following year. Maria knew how to harvest chickens, as did some of the villagers. Persephone promised to visit the following summer and show them how to harvest rabbits. This year Rowan Tree would survive on what the hunters brought in.

Some of the villagers hunted, or wanted to learn the skill, including two women. Rapunzel was also interested. Artemis, who appeared the day after the villagers, proved to be a patient, exacting teacher, and several people developed an interest in archery. Lugh was an expert butcher and over the weeks he taught a small group how to handle meat safely and efficiently, including drying and preserving in salt. Kunik was an expert in the value of fat, traditionally the life-giving fuel of his own culture.

Rosie, with the help of Rowan, oversaw balance, judging the number of grouse, turkey and dove to cull to keep local wild populations healthy and strong, as well as deer and wild pig. They used every butchered animal in its entirety, the bones eventually going to Kunik for carving or shaping. One of the villagers knew how to tan hides, and he quickly chose a couple of apprentices.

Jan and Gwelda headed a team of builders. Kunik was in demand to help choose building sites, and Rowan Tree began to sort itself into households. The stock was housed and cared for in common, and everyone possessed at least one skill to teach to others.

In the midst of this activity, Maria decided to lead the way in revealing her full story to the group. She’d told parts of it before, but left out other parts, depending on the listener. Ever since Persephone and Demeter appeared, she’d mulled over Persephone’s statement about helping with harvest. The association between the Corn Mother and harvest was directly simple. The association between the Queen of the Underworld and harvest was obscure and tinged with unease, especially for some of the younger folk.

Now she thought she could help to foster an understanding of the life-death death-life cycle internally as well as externally. She knew each one of them kept parts of their own stories close, parts that were too tender, risky, or shameful to share. Maria knew how fearful secrets sapped power.

After a day of sun, work, learning, advice, and laughter, she sat cross-legged in the circle around the fire and wove words the way she wove rugs on the loom, color and texture, scent, and touch. In the telling she grew confident; unafraid of judgment. Her listeners were rapt, softened, moved from tears to outrage and horror and back to tears.

When she had finished, Persephone gave a long sigh. “Maria, Maria, I’m so glad. What a beautiful life to live. What a beautiful harvest you’ve made from shame and despair.”

“Not only me,” said Maria. “I’m just the first to speak. Having you here gave me courage. You were the first to teach me how to create life from death and death from life.”

“Our stories intersect,” said Kunik. “Radulf’s a friend of mine.”

“Not to mention Baba Yaga and Nephthys,” put in Rose Red. She shuddered. “I’m glad I didn’t see that version of the Baba. She was horrifying enough in human shape.”

“Maria,” said Demeter quietly, “do you carry the eyes?”

Maria reached into the neck of her tunic, fumbled between her breasts, and held out her palm. Four white marbles lay on it, open eyes dark in firelight.

“Yes,” said Demeter, her voice thick. “I see.”

***

“Maria?”

Maria woke, opened her eyes, and discovered early morning light. Someone was whispering her name.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Eurydice. I’m sorry to wake you, but something came through the Rowan Gate at dawn. I thought you should know.”

With the help of Gwelda and the others, Eurydice had constructed a small shelter. She planned to add on to it in future, perhaps even make it big enough for two, but for this winter she concentrated on making a warm, weatherproof space. She’d used one rock wall surrounding the spring and portal through which she, Maria and Kunik had come. The walls were newly repaired by Rose Red and Rowan. She incorporated two living tree trunks into the rough square of her abode. They weren’t olive trees, but it felt like coming home to be living and sleeping with her cheek against trees again. Almost literally, for the simple platform she slept on rested against the trunks.

She explained to Maria she’d been lying, drifting between dreams and waking, when she heard the sound of a huge wing, a sound of passage through air laced with trees and leaves. She could see the shape of the leaves against a golden blur of light. As she came into wakefulness, the sound became more earthbound — the rustle of quick, light feet. Opening her eyes, she’d swung her feet onto the floor while the real or imagined echo of a thread of laughter lingered in her ears.

“I went out. I half expected the blurred golden light of my dream, but the air felt cool and dawn paled the sky. Everything was quiet. The birds had started to sing. The spring gurgled away, just as it always does. But something came through. I’m sure of it. I wasn’t scared. It didn’t feel evil. It felt … wild. I thought I’d better come tell you.”

Maria rose and dressed while Eurydice talked. “You did right to wake me. Let’s go out and see.”

***

Rapunzel stood on the crest of the hill, scanning the still dawn. As Maria and Eurydice approached, she said without preamble, “Something’s coming.”

Cassandra, a light sleeper, appeared, alerted by Rapunzel’s absence from the rough shelter where they slept with Minerva. She stood quietly at Rapunzel’s shoulder, listening. Rapunzel groped for the eye. It was open.

“The witch’s handmaidens,” said Cassandra. “They come for the Red Dancer, the queen.”

Maria could make nothing of this and accepted it in silence, as did everyone else.

“Something came through the gate,” Eurydice said to Rapunzel, low voiced, aware of sleepers nearby. “It woke me.” Movement near the river caught her attention. “Oh! Who’s that?” She relaxed in recognition. “It’s only Heks.”

The four of them stood together, watching Heks toil up the slope toward them. Maria realized suddenly there was no dawn birdsong. Every tree seemed to be holding its breath. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “Why aren’t the birds singing?”

“They were,” said Eurydice. “They stopped as I came to get you.”

Heks arrived, breathless, ordinary, her face seamed, her thin hair damp, tucked behind her ears. Juliana’s cream-colored shawl was draped around her shoulders. The sight of it, as always, gave Maria a pang. “What is it?” Heks asked. “Something’s happening. I felt it as I lay in the water.”

Maria filed away the remarkable fact that Heks, dry and colorless, rose at dawn on a late summer morning to lie naked in a river, to be considered later.

“We’ve come through the open gate,” said a voice.

They turned.

The speaker was a woman with the strangest eyes Maria had ever seen, golden and round, like an owl’s eyes. Next to her stood an unremarkable young man, slim and dark.

“Doorkeeper,” said the woman, addressing Eurydice. “You’ve done well. The way is open. Connection returns.”

“I…thank you,” said Eurydice.

“I’m Morfran,” said the young man. “This is Sofiya. We’ve come, with some others of our community, to support yours.”

“The Red Dancer,” said Cassandra to no one in particular. She appeared fascinated by Morfran. She took a few dancing steps around him, arms outstretched. “I know you,” she said.

“Yes, lady,” answered Sofiya, surprising Rapunzel with her respectful tone, “the Red Dancer and the king. They approach from another direction. Many paths meet here.”

Morfran turned in a circle, watching Cassandra as she flitted around him, his look of surprise turning to dawning recognition.

“It’s not…the little sparrow?” he said slowly. “Cassandra?”

She stood still, smiling like a shy child.

“Morfran!” Dar came striding along the crest of the hill, his cloak like a curl of glittering smoke in the late summer dawn.

Morfran, with a glad exclamation, went to meet him, his gait unexpectedly awkward and lurching. Maria realized he had a malformed hip.

The two men met, pounding each other on the back with wordless affection before embracing.

“A dancer,” said Eurydice.

“Hmmm,” said Heks expressionlessly.

“Red Dancer,” said Cassandra.

“Red Dancer,” amended Eurydice, with a smile for Cassandra.

“You’re a dancer yourself, I think,” said Rapunzel, looking narrowly at Sofiya.

Sofiya dipped her head in assent, smiling.

“The guardian of this place serves Artemis. I believe there’s a birch forest somewhere around,” said Rapunzel, returning the smile. “You might like to see it. Will you come with me?”

The hill was stirring, the woods rousing. Birds began to sing again and sunlight arrowed silently through trees. Dar took Morfran back to his cart, followed by Cassandra. A small group clustered down at the fire ring, heating water for breakfast. Heks went to check on Mary, Rapunzel took Sofiya off to find Rose Red, Eurydice returned to Rowan Gate and Maria joined the others for breakfast.

GINGER

Ginger and Radulf chose a direction in which they hadn’t yet explored and set out on a crisp late summer morning. In early afternoon, they found themselves in a birch forest, the slim trees like candles burning with green and gold flames. The trees grew so thickly they circled back to the edge and left the horses grazing, fetlock deep in lush meadow, while they reentered the forest on foot.

The air under the trees was rich with color. Filtered light danced beneath the canopy of leaves. Ginger could almost taste the life of the place, like cool wine. They moved quietly. The birch trunks felt subtly pliant under her hand, as though they could bend right down to the ground if they wanted to. Frills of peeling bark decorated the black-splotched white trunks.

Ginger held up a hand. “Shh. Listen.”

They stood still, listening under the green and gold crown.

“It sounds like girls,” whispered Radulf.

Female voices, anyway, thought Ginger. But not girls, exactly. Something wilder than girls.

Suddenly excited, she made her way between the trunks, following the sound.

She thought she was nearly in sight of them when the voices stopped, not suddenly as though cut off, but dying away in lingering laughter. The silence left behind was louder than the voices. Leaves trembled, filtering the sunlight. The trees seemed to be holding their breath in anticipation. Hairs stood up on her arms, but not with fear. It was a response to a deep pulse of mystery, the way the leaves stirred in invisible currents of sun-warmed air.

She glanced at Radulf. He smiled at her, his own eyes alight with awe and curiosity.

Something was here.

Without warning, a flock of crows exploded out of the tree tops around them, cawing harshly, tearing the brocade of leaf and sun and trunk. Ginger flinched back with a startled exclamation and they both looked up at the flock, which stayed right overhead, rising, falling and circling with sarcastic sounds like laughter.

“A murder of crows,” said Radulf in a normal tone of voice, watching them. “They’re acting odd. There’s no smell of carrion to draw them. If they were startled enough to take off like that, why don’t they fly away?”

As they watched, the crows settled back into the treetops like flakes of cinder coming to rest. The wood fell silent. A crow cocked its head, watching them.

Ginger and Radulf stood still, looking up at the crows looking down at them. Everything seemed to be waiting. Ginger took Radulf’s hand.

“Is the eye open?” she asked in a whisper.

It was. It lay in his palm, so wide as to be glaring. Gingerly, he rolled it in his hand. The amber eye rolled smoothly in its white sphere, always looking in the same direction, off to their left. Radulf turned slightly, following the eye’s gaze. Trunks of birch trees stood motionless around them, looking the same in every direction. They glanced at each other. Ginger nodded.

The trees grew so close together the wood floor remained largely free of heavy undergrowth. Walking was easy, but not side by side. Radulf stepped in front of Ginger, leading the way.

She grimaced at his back. She recognized the protective intention to shield her, but something came for her, she was sure, not threat but power. She’d felt this way in the avenue of trees sometimes, and alone on the lake. She didn’t want to be shielded from it. She wanted to join it, mingle with it, be it, whatever it was.

As she followed Radulf, she scanned the forest, watching. Waiting.

Radulf walked right by the wolf. It sat out in the open between the trees, not ten feet off the path. It mingled remarkably with the green and gold of the woods, grey coat blending naturally with white, grey and black of birch bark. It sat, dog-like, ears pricked. Its gold eyes glowed.

She exclaimed softly and laid a hand on Radulf’s back as he looked down at the eye, still in his palm, and watched it close firmly.

Only then did he become aware of the wolf.

He gave a grunt of astonishment. The wolf extruded several inches of pink tongue and panted, revealing a set of sharp teeth in a derisive canine grin.

“Radulf,” it said.

He jerked with surprise and stared in astonishment at the wolf, who grinned back, tongue lolling.

“Radulf!”

“Hello,” said Ginger cautiously.

A woman in a white apron, black skirt and vest embroidered with colored threads stood between the trees.

Radulf insisted they sit down without taking another step and talk. Ginger saw he couldn’t contain his delight or his curiosity. In the flurry of initial greeting and introduction, the wolf disappeared.

“Oh, she’s with me,” said Vasilisa, when he asked about it. “You’ll see her again at Rowan Tree.”

“Rowan Tree?” asked Ginger.

“That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I mean…no we weren’t going anywhere, exactly.”

“The crows were behaving oddly,” put in Radulf. Then, realizing this explained nothing, he grinned.

Vasilisa laughed. “Never mind. The crows you saw are at Rowan Tree, too. I think that is where you’re going, you just didn’t know it yet. That’s where I’m going, too. I’ll take you when you’re ready. Now, fire away, Sea Wolf!”

Ginger watched as Vasilisa leaned against a tree, smiling at Radulf, hugging her knees. It made her look childishly gleeful.

“Sea Wolf?”

Radulf looked uncomfortable. “A nickname,” he mumbled.

“Never mind,” said Ginger, amused. “We’ll talk later, Vasilisa?”

“We will,” Vasilisa assured her, glancing at Radulf with affection.

“I want to know where you came from,” said Radulf in a loud voice.

“All right, all right!” said Vasilisa. “I’ll tell you.”

“After you left, Marceau advised me to go home for a time. He said sometimes the only way forward is back. So, I did. I…traveled with him for a while.”

Radulf, knowing what it had meant to find part of her real family at last, cocked an eyebrow at her. She nodded silently. If she’d traveled with Marceau, she’d done it in the shape of a sea creature, which she was, at least in part.

“I went back to the forest where I grew up and first met Baba Yaga. My nephew Morfran lives there with the Rusalka. You met him at initiation, remember? There’s a community. They welcomed me home. It’s a strange place, full of deep magic, and Baba Yaga’s always springing up unexpectedly, just to make sure everyone keeps on their toes. She held a harvest marble tournament. Said she wanted to give everyone a chance to “harvest” from her collection. It was so raucous and sordid her chicken legs walked away and hid for three days, refusing to come back until it was over. And, of course, the Baba was the only one who “harvested” anything. The only champion who held his own was Odin!” She laughed.

Ginger, who’d heard of Baba Yaga from her mother but never met her, listened with fascination.

“I didn’t know she played marbles,” she said in amazement.

“Incongruous, isn’t it? She’s mad for them. Cheats shamelessly, of course. Don’t ever play with her.”

Ginger shook her head wordlessly.

“Who are the Rusalka?” asked Radulf.

“The Rusalka are spirits of field and forest,” said Vasilisa. They’re associates of Baba Yaga. They especially watch over rye and poppy fields. They spend the winters as mermaids if they have access to water. Each of them can take the shape of a creature as well as a human form. In the spring, they return to the birch forest, perching in trees to wash and comb their hair. They weave beautiful linen and embroider it with red thread.

“Shapeshifters,” said Ginger, remembering a long-ago lesson and the murder of crows in the treetops. “The crows.”

“They wanted to look at you,” said Vasilisa.

“Me!” Ginger said in surprise.

“Yes. It’s all about you. We’re waiting for you. That’s part of why I’ve come.”

Ginger began to cry.

***

Vasilisa led them through the woods. They’d left the birches behind and walked among maple, beech, ash, and oak when a fox streaked by Radulf’s knee, quick as a shaft of light, bringing him to a sudden stop and making him gasp.

“What…?”

“Radulf!” Ginger saw a graceful figure with a head of curly black hair running to meet them.

“Rosie!” Radulf embraced the young woman, half lifting her off her feet. She turned in his arms, flushed and laughing, to Ginger.

“The Red Dancer!” We’ve been waiting for you! I came to show you the way. I’m Rose Red.”

***

Radulf was a likeable man, but Ginger was surprised to find how warmly he was regarded by the people at the little community they called Rowan Tree. They all appeared to know him and they all wanted to talk to him. She felt hopelessly bewildered by the crowd of strangers, unable to take in a single name as she was introduced to one person after another. She longed to find a safe, quiet place and collect herself. Her throat tightened and she felt short of breath.

“What a noisy bunch!” A hand at her elbow made Ginger start. “Let’s get out of this.”

Vasilisa steered Ginger out of the group surrounding Radulf and they walked across the sloping hill, angling up to a large oak growing on the crest. “A lot of people came together here recently,” Vasilisa said casually. “It’s chaotic right now, but it’ll settle down. I’ve a friend I want you to meet.”

Ginger saw the black curly head of Rose Red, the girl who’d come to greet them in the birch wood. Rose Red sat with her back against a huge old oak. A fox lay at her feet on a bed of leaves, licking a paw. Girl, fox and tree made such an exquisite picture that Ginger faltered, feeling near tears at their beauty.

Rose Red looked up and met Ginger’s eyes. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I wanted to talk quietly. Impossible when everyone’s trying to speak to Radulf! I asked Vasilisa to steal you away.”

The fox trotted to Ginger, sniffing interestedly. She stood still under its inspection, not afraid but respectful. The fox drew back its lips, revealing sharp teeth, in a catlike expression of response to scent. The animal glanced at Rose Red and flowed past Ginger, brushing her leg with a thick russet tail, disappearing soundlessly into the woods.

“That’s Rowan,” said Rose Red, off hand. “Do you want to see my house?” She stood, brushing leaves off her clothes.

On the other side of the tree stood a small shelter, the oak forming most of one wall.

Gratefully, Ginger splashed water from a bucket on her face and accepted food and drink. They took their picnic back out; evidently Rose Red’s favorite place to sit.

“Thank you,” said Ginger a few minutes later. She felt immensely better. “I’m stupid about meeting new people. I haven’t done it much.”

“I’m not good at it, either,” said Rose Red. “Sometimes I get overwhelmed, and then I need to spend some time quietly to recover.” They smiled at one another in understanding.

“Ginger,” said Vasilisa, “we’re glad to see Radulf, but you’re the one Rowan Tree needs.”

“How can that be?” asked Ginger. “I’ve spent my whole life in my father’s castle with my eleven sisters. I’ve never been anywhere or done anything.”

“Cassandra calls you ‘the Red Dancer,’” said Rose Red.

“Who’s Cassandra?”

“She’s the rather worn-looking older woman there. See her? She’s standing behind the rest of the group looking up at the sky. She sounds half-mad most of the time. Speaks in riddles. We think she can prophesize the future.”

Ginger looked across the grassy hill where Radulf and the others inspected the animals.

Tears rose in Ginger’s throat again. The Red Dancer without a dance, she thought. When she thought she could speak calmly, she said, “Yes. My sisters and I danced together. And my mother, before she…died.”

“It’s more than dancing, though, isn’t it?” asked Rose Red. “It’s spiritual work as well. It’s a sacred women’s circle, a practice of power.”

Ginger was so surprised she forgot her distress. “It is — was,” she said. “How did you know?”

“Baubo and Persephone taught me to dance,” said Rose Red. “I’m not very good at it. I’m afraid of it — or not afraid of it, exactly, but afraid of the way it makes feeling …come up.” She grimaced.

“The Rusalka dance, too,” said Vasilisa. “I’ve danced with them. When they dance it’s not so much a matter of feelings coming up as it is of thoughts falling away. When the Rusalka dance, they dance with everything they are.”

Ginger was open mouthed. “But Baubo danced with us, too!” she said excitedly.

“What we’re trying to say is we want this in Rowan Tree,” said Rose Red. “We need someone to hold space for dance as a spiritual practice. Many of us have danced before, but none of us feel comfortable leading such a practice. We don’t know enough about it. Maria, who is becoming a sort of community leader, thinks both women and men need private circles. I agree with her. The Rusalka will support us in starting a women’s dance group. Eurydice is a doorkeeper for a portal here. She can open a way to a dancing place, like you used with your sisters. We need a leader. Will you help us?”

RADULF

Radulf wondered if he’d feel compelled to follow every wolf he saw for the rest of his life. He was glad no one was with him.

It was early, the sky faintly tinged with dawn. He walked, soft-footed, through the woods. The previous day had been damp and grey, so the carpet of leaves was silenced.

A grey wolf materialized out of the trees like tattered fog, amber eyed. It looked right into Radulf’s face. Impossible to tell if it was the same wolf who guided him to the White Stag, or even the Rusalka whose wolf-form he’d seen in the birch wood the day he and Ginger found Rowan Tree.

When it turned away into the trees, he followed it.

Dawn crept into the sky.

The wolf led him up through the forest onto a bare hill top.

The sun was rising.

On the hill stood a figure, swathed in a worn cloak and hood, with a lit torch in her hand. As he watched, sunlight fell on the torch and it went out. The wolf sat at the figure’s feet.

“Odin?” said Radulf. The figure wore a hood rather than a hat, but possessed an air of silent power and authority that reminded him of Odin.

A hand threw back the hood and Radulf saw an old woman with iron grey straight hair cut close to her head, like a man’s.

“I’m Hecate, She of the crossroad,” she said. “You’ve come to a place of choice. You know what you don’t want to do. You’ve stood at this crossroad before.”

He had. He knew it. It was the old familiar place of tension between what he expected from himself and what his heart wanted. Now he felt torn again between his head and his heart, between mind and being.

“Sea Wolf,” said Hecate.

The sea. Marella loving the youth he’d been. His poor anxious wife, nearly faceless in his memory. The marble steps, his boyhood home, the familiar streets of the city. Irvin and the children. Were they with Marceau now? Had Irvin left the town and white-walled church? Marceau. Morfran. The wide-open sea and worlds beyond. Sea Wolf. See, Wolf!

I’m going back to the sea! he thought, and his heart lifted with joy.

GINGER

The expectant group of women huddled together at Rowan Gate. Ginger felt sick with tension. How was she going to lead this group of nervous women in dance? Could Eurydice open the way to the proper space for them?

“Open the way, doorkeeper. We’ll guide you,” said Sofiya, the Rusalka with the strange round owl’s eyes.

“I don’t have a key,” said Eurydice. Ginger realized Eurydice felt as nervous as she did.

“You are the key,” said Sofiya.

Ginger watched Eurydice. She stood with her eyes closed, her body tense, as though with inward effort.

The spring inside its shelter gurgled, shimmered, and they stepped forward. Vasilisa moved in front of Ginger, a fiery skull on a stick in her hand, and a large square of smooth wooden floor without walls or roof suddenly became illuminated as skulls on poles spaced around its perimeter lit with a whoosh. Vasilisa thrust the pole carrying her skull into the ground at a corner of the floor.

Ginger stepped onto the floor, suddenly confident. It was perfect. It was going to be all right.

Drumming like a heartbeat began, steady, sure, endless. The sound of bright small bells joined it. Persephone wore bracelets of bells around each naked ankle. They heard a ripple of piped invitation, and from the shadows beyond the dancing floor an old woman danced toward them.

She moved bare footed, thick ankled. Curls of gray hair moved as she danced, exposing pink scalp. She paused suddenly and pulled her sack-like garment over her head, turning to show lumpy, wobbling buttocks. Another flourish of the pipe at the lips of one of the Rusalka, and the old woman put a hand on her waist, cocked one massive hip coyly, and tossed the covering away. She giggled, then guffawed. More hair grew over her sex than on her head. It looked like a thick beard. Persephone laughed and began to clap her hands. The beat quickened. Persephone stepped off the floor and danced to meet the old woman. They kissed, still dancing. They laughed at one another, still dancing. They advanced to the center of the floor, the lovely young queen and the old woman, thick as a slab of rock, each dancing her own dance, yet making a third together.

Ginger, laughing with joy, allowed the music to take her. She wore a gauzy skirt the color of flames, and her hair was unbound. She whirled around the edge of the dance floor, making friends with it, finding the edges, looking into the eyes of each fiery skull, discovering the feel of the floor under her bare feet. She danced along each side, let her flaring skirt fill the corners, and then tightened her circle gradually until her spiraling dance contained Baubo’s and Persephone’s dance.

“Gwelda,” called out Baubo, the dancing stone, the dancing ancient tree, the dancing mountain topped with curls of snow and stardust. “Gwelda, my daughter, it’s your time now. Show us the way. Make yourself big!”

Gwelda laughed like a delighted child. A rustle in shadows at the edge of the floor as clothing dropped, and she came into the light, hair in spikes, eyes shining, a landscape of warm flesh, humid hollows, thickets and forests and hidden springs throbbing with life. She leapt like a falling tree onto the dance floor, making it shake. She raised her arms and small shadowed shapes flitted out from her left armpit, silent as dark ash. She drummed with her huge feet, thumped as loudly as she could, and the drummer followed her, passed her, pushed her faster, harder. Her breasts bobbed hugely. Her thighs trembled. The flesh on the back of her arms shook. She turned on the spot, thumping her feet with glee, showing huge buttocks like bare hillsides with a thick forest dividing, growing up the slopes of thighs and belly. She looked magnificent. She danced.

Relief filled Ginger. She was not the only leader. She was not the only dancer. These three, at least, needed no guidance.

“Dance with me,” Gwelda called to Rose Red. “Please, come dance with me!” Rose Red, standing at the edge of the floor, shook her head, looking miserable. Ginger flowed towards her in the arms of the music.

“I can’t,” said Rose Red, with something like panic as Ginger drew close to her. “My only dance is rage. I’m not like you. I’ve never been able to. I want to, but I can’t. I’ll just watch.”

“You danced at initiation,” Vasilisa, who stood nearby watching the others, reminded her. “You told me you danced with Artemis on the Night of Trees.”

“I don’t want to,” said Rose Red. “It makes me feel too much.”

“Are your feelings that big?” Ginger indicated Gwelda.

Rose Red smiled in spite of herself. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want to know.”

“You want to make yourself small.”

Rose Red hesitated. “Not myself,” she said, “just my feelings.”

“Dance a small dance, then,” said Ginger. “Find a place on the edge out of the light and dance so small that you don’t wake up any of your feelings. Let them sleep while you dance.”

“Can I do that?” asked Rose Red doubtfully.

“Why not? Will you try, just once? I’ll never ask you to do it again, I promise.”

“Rosie!” called Gwelda from the middle of the dancing floor.

“I’ll try, then,” said Rose Red, “just this once.”

Ginger left her, trusting the power of the dance to do the rest. She made her way along one side of the floor, looking for anyone else who needed support. Baubo, grinning widely danced face to thighs with a giggling Gwelda, each trying to out jiggle the other.

Ginger watched Vasilisa bare her feet, carefully and deliberately, as though engaging in private ritual. She chose a corner close to her fiery skull and fell into the rhythm of the music, paying no attention to anyone around her and looking down at the floor. Ginger thought she was remote and a little frightening in her solitude.

A tentative hand on her arm distracted her. “I don’t know how to do this,” said Eurydice. “Look at Gwelda!” The giantess now thumped and whirled all over the floor, side to side and corner to corner. She was like an avalanche with the power to steer. She snorted and giggled, cried out wordlessly in triumphant delight. She farted enormously, making everyone laugh.

“You’re Eurydice, the doorkeeper?” asked Ginger. She was still trying to learn everyone’s name and role.

“Yes. I’ve never danced before. I’m a tree nymph. Rosie told me she’s seen tree nymphs dancing, but I never have. Maybe olive trees can’t dance?”

“All trees dance! Think of a tree in the wind!”

“Is it a dance if you can’t move your feet?”

“It’s a dance if you can dance it,” said Ginger simply. “Everyone and everything has a dance. You only need to find yours. The music will show you the way. Will you come out with me?” She held out a hand to Eurydice, who took it shyly.

They found an open spot. Ginger took both Eurydice’s hands in hers. “Now, find the drumbeat with your feet. Let it lead you. Don’t think. Just let your feet move however they want.”

She watched Eurydice give her feet to the music and dropped her hands. “Now, think of your olive trees. Remember their bodies and their scent, the fine invisible mist of their respiration. Remember the language of their leaves, and the way they looked in the sun. Think about the feeling of being home. Dance for them. Dance their dance. Let them dance through you.”

Eurydice danced, her face wearing the inward expression Ginger had seen on other dancers. Her body relaxed, swaying and flowing. She stepped out of her clothes, flinging them off the floor, and danced, naked and unselfconscious. Her hair slid over her shoulders and she ran her hands over her heavy breasts and down her thick flanks.

“Eurydice, do you remember Hades?” Maria danced by, naked, dark hair star streaked with silver, breasts bare.

“I remember,” said Eurydice.

Ginger turned away, satisfied. The dance floor was filled with bodies, clothed and bare, whirling, stamping, clapping, swaying and playing music. The old feeling of awe touched Ginger, the feeling she’d always experienced when dancing with her sisters. We’re beautiful, she thought. Women are so beautiful.

Ginger gave herself to her own dance then, and the music wove her into the rest of them, twisting them together in weft of power and warp of movement, starlight, tear, blood and bone. She danced the sharp brittle yarrow stalks, the avenue of trees and the heavy cloth sail of her little boat on the lake. She danced the grief of her mother’s absence and her father’s disinterest. She bared her breasts and her feet and danced for each of her sisters and for her friend Radulf.

She danced the first time she stood on the crest of the grassy hill at Rowan Tree and looked across at animal pens, gardens, structures taking shape as though wood and rock bloomed in their own strange harvest. The whole place balanced on the chaotic edge of creation, garnering and gathering lives into something new. Here was tragedy and loss, rebirth and transformation. Here was cycle and season, guardianship and mystery. Here was a new dance, and here were new dancers.

She danced until she was mindless, nameless, a shaft of flame and darkness without a story.

HEKS

Heks still slept by the fire. She’d made no effort to find a spot and create a shelter for herself, as most of the others were doing. Gabriel stayed with her, on the other side of the fire pit. Near, but not inappropriately near, she thought wryly. Near enough to tell the others they were a pair, but not near enough to cause offense or give anyone cause to think…to think.

But she was offended. She didn’t want a careful, respectful approach. She wanted. Just that. She wanted. She wanted something definite, something primitive. She wanted something to fight with, something insistent and demanding. She didn’t want to be hurt with cold passionless fists, but bruises could be warm. You could see that in their dark blossoms. The taste of blood, just a drop, made a fine seasoning. The smell of desire was all the better for living rough, hard work, wood smoke and fine hairs in a film of dry sweat. Her skin hungered and longed and she fed it with dawn baths in the river, baring her flesh to sun, wind and brushing grass. It wasn’t hard to steal away for a private hour to press herself against the rough bark of a tree or a grassy mattress or leaf-lined hollow. She fed herself, too, with touch. She tried. But her breasts knew her own touch — she couldn’t fool them into excitement. Her flesh cooperated with her efforts to feel pleasure, but she never forgot it was her own fingers. She knew what to do, she was in control, and her physical release was a painful blend of desolation and futility.

She told herself bitterly it was probably already too late. Her body no longer bled. Her lovely swampy woman’s moisture had turned sere and withered. Could she…? Even with the most careful and sensitive lover? But she wanted passion, not to be treated like a vulnerable, fragile thing! She wanted! She wanted!

She would turn over, away from the dying fire, and look the other way, toward the sound of the river, or up at the stars, watching them shimmer and blur together before at last shutting her eyes.

He’ll wait a long time if he’s waiting for me to suggest we make a home together, she thought rebelliously. I’d rather sleep here all winter.

On the dancing floor with the others, Heks surrendered to the music, leaving behind age, circumstance, looks, shame and secrets. She fell into dance, a stone, a dry bone, a hank of hair wrapped around starvation. She fell and the dance caught her in taut-nippled ecstasy, caught her against seductive belly and thighs, caught her and held her, rubbing against her until…

She’d never danced before, except for a night with Baba Yaga that seemed like a dark dream. She’d danced then, blood sticky and stinking against her bare skin, brandishing Joe’s arm bone. She’d danced naked, lips smeared with barbecue sauce (what had been in that sauce? No, better not to think of that). She’d danced naked with Baba Yaga, two old crones, screeching and gibbering and gorging on human flesh. The next day she had found dried blood rimmed around and under her toenails. It had left red flecks in her sheets. She’d never washed those sheets, in fact. The fire, presumably, had burned them clean, along with everything else.

The fire couldn’t burn her memory clean, though.

But this dance! This was different. This was a sensual power unlike anything she’d ever known. It was also very close to what her body cried for so incessantly. Amazed, she felt her effortless arousal, moist, turgid, lustful. Suddenly, she wanted to smell herself. Naked bodies danced all around her. More than unclothed, she thought, looking around. Naked of shame, naked of rules, naked of expectations, naked of self-consciousness.

She dropped her clothes and kicked them off the dancing floor. Yes! She could smell her own arousal.

She was still alive.

To be a woman aroused is to be a woman aware of emptiness begging to be filled. The music shook Heks by the scruff of her neck, pushed her shoulders back, raised her breasts. It spread her legs and loosened her hips. It made flesh jiggle under slack skin. It stirred the small downy weight of thin hair against her neck. It opened her, nudging her knees, flinging out her arms. She breathed. She relaxed her shoulders and felt them broaden. She relaxed her hips and farted. She unclenched her belly and burped. She opened to the feeling of being empty between her legs, opened, invited, begged….

The sky filled with stars. Galaxies and clusters, swathes and drops of silver light. Her belly was starless, an empty battleground. She’d carried death in that belly, and death dwelt there still. Cold silence, folded and stiff. She was dying and no one noticed or cared, like that poor soul Juliana.

But the sky filled with stars, trickling and shimmering, blurring and swimming — if she could fill herself with that! If life would enter her again! If heat and moisture, beauty and passion, scent and texture would press against her, rub against her! If she could hold the galaxies that once been Joe’s eyes, tuck them into herself, fill her lonely womb with stars and planets and suns — Ah!

What was she thinking? It was the dance. Dance wasn’t thinking. Dance was…dance. Dance was an underground spring moistening a crack in the earth like a vulva, a crack edged with moist, fecund ground, plush moss and curling fern. A crack where frogs disappeared and reappeared, where a snake might wriggle, where a glossy cricket might come for a drink of water.

Galaxies and galaxies. How many could she hold?

It might be fun to learn to play marbles.

CHAPTER 34

MARY

Mary watched Vasilisa come toward her from her seat in one of Jan’s chairs. She sat in the sun near Dar’s cart. He’d parked it against a sheltering wall of evergreens fringing the sloping hill. The blocky cart became a refuge for Mary. Dar and Lugh made space in it for a comfortable bed and she liked to lie, snug and contained, surrounded by the homely odds and ends Dar sold. With back and sides open to the breeze, it remained shaded and comfortable. His cloak hung on a peg, and as she lay dozing her eyes rested in the dreaming color of it and she traced lines of silver embroidery, beads and gems.

She hadn’t realized how tired she was until they’d stopped at Rowan Tree. She felt content now to lie all afternoon, not quite sleeping but not wholly awake, feeling the babes move lazily. Around her people talked, planned and made new connections. She liked the thrum of activity, but felt no desire to be part of it. She knew, without knowing how she knew, this was a place to pause, not to stop. She and Lugh, at least, would go on into full harvest together and one day, far in the future, she’d go on from there to her own harvest of birth.

Now was time for rest.

She watched Vasilisa climb the hill toward her. Heks and Demeter had both been to see her already that morning.

Vasilisa smiled but Mary thought her face looked shadowed. She dropped onto the ground at Mary’s feet with a sigh and Mary laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder. Vasilisa reached up and took it and held it.

“I’ve been talking to Radulf, Mary. About Artyom and…Jenny.”

Mary watched tears slide down the slope of Vasilisa’s averted face as she told the tale. She cried easily herself these days, but her grief was muffled by a vivid, entirely private sense of life in her bulging belly. She listened quietly, holding Vasilisa’s hand, letting her talk it out.

“And Radulf thinks Heks’ son…?” she said to Vasilisa.

“Bruno. He doesn’t know. No one knows for sure, but Heks and Radulf both think he killed Jenny and this old friend of Dar’s, Juliana. It turns out Maria and Rapunzel knew Juliana, too, and Morfran, of all people! Isn’t it strange the way we’re woven together?”

“Strange,” agreed Mary. “Did you tell Rosie?”

“Yes. Gwelda was with us. You know how she loves stories. She seemed much more upset than Rosie, in fact, but you know Rosie. She’s private. She and Gwelda are good friends and I think Gwelda will help her be with her grief. Radulf told Kunik, too, so that’s everyone who knew them.”

“What about Rumpelstiltskin?” asked Mary. “He must be devastated.”

“I know. Radulf sent word to him through Minerva. She says Jenny made him a down blanket while apprenticing with her, but she died before she could give it to him. Minerva sent it on to Rumpelstiltskin with the news. He’s in a little town somewhere with a new protégé.”

“I hope he’s all right,” said Mary.

“Me, too. It’s such a waste,” said Vasilisa passionately. She leaned her head against Mary’s knee.

“What will you do now, ‘Lisa?” asked Mary at length. They’d all picked up the nickname from Radulf.

“In a few days, I’ll go back with Morfran, Sofiya and whoever doesn’t stay here. I’m happy there. It feels like home. Morfran and Sofiya are gathering a community I want to be part of.”

“Are some of the Rusalka staying, then?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard? Yes. They like it here, and there’s that tract of birch wood where I met Radulf and Ginger. They feel at home there. The Rusalka live in birch woods, you know. Rosie doesn’t say much, but I think she’s amazed and awed by their presence, working with her as guardians. Now that there’s a dancing floor, they’ve everything they want, and they can always go back through the portal, now it’s opened.

“Heks told me about the dance. She seemed thunderstruck.”

“Dance is an amazing practice. Dancing with the Rusalka is…well, powerful. One of the most powerful things I’ve ever done. I can’t explain it. I wish you’d been there.”

“I wish I had, too, but I think I understand. I’ve danced with power myself.” Mary laid a hand on her belly, smiling.

Vasilisa knelt. “Can I feel?”

Mary guided her hand, pressing it firmly against her. “There! Do you feel it?”

“Yes! Like a little fish.” She glanced into Mary’s face. “Was it the goat-foot piper? You found him?”

“We found each other. It was Lugh, as Seed Bearer.”

“Lugh! But I thought he was for harvest.”

“He is, in this part of the cycle.”

“But, Mary, harvest ends the cycle!”

“I know.” Mary laid her own hand over Vasilisa’s on the slope of her mound. “And here it begins again.”

MARIA

“Maria?”

She sat outside in one of Jan’s chairs, though now Kunik and a couple of others were making them as well. She was weaving, her loom in front of her.

“Is your classroom empty?” Rapunzel asked with a smile.

Maria straightened, easing her back.

“For now. It’s been a wonderful way to get to know some of the new women, and Mariana brought a lot of wool. Working together, we’ll be able to keep ourselves warm and clothed during the winter. What a gift! And have you seen the Rusalka’s work? Their linen is the highest quality I’ve ever seen. If they can teach us to do that…!”

“Amazing, how it’s come together,” said Rapunzel.

“I know. It seemed impossible at first, but now I wish I hadn’t worried.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your work. Can I sit and talk to you while you weave?”

“Of course. Pull up a patch of grass.”

Rapunzel sat cross legged, her back against a stone wall of Maria’s partially finished house.

“I’ve been talking to Dar,” she said.

Maria, in the act of picking up her shuttle, set it back down.

“What is it, my dear?”

“It’s about Juliana.”

“Oh, my,” said Maria when Rapunzel finished. She wiped her cheeks. “Oh, Rapunzel!”

“I know,” said Rapunzel soberly. “Maria, if I’d stayed…”

“No,” said Maria firmly. “No, Rapunzel. There’s no use in that. We were living our lives. Even…Bruno? Is — was that his name? Yes. Him. It’s a terrible story, but you and I aren’t to blame. Don’t forget, she felt uneasy about him. Remember how she hid it for so long?”

“I think what bothers me the most is her loneliness,” said Rapunzel. “She never complained. She was always cheerful and busy, but she wanted someone like Morfran — someone to stay with her.”

“I can’t look at him without thinking about…”

“Me, neither,” said Rapunzel. “Wow. And I really like him, in addition to the wow part! He and Sofiya seem right together. I learned about the Rusalka from Elizabeth when I was a girl, but I never imagined how…” she gestured.

“Amazing, magical, terrible, powerful?” suggested Maria.

“All of that. And to dance with them…” she trailed off, tilted up her face to the sun and closed her eyes, relaxing tension in her shoulders. Maria picked up her shuttle.

“We shouldn’t pass up chances to be happy, even if we’re scared,” said Rapunzel, eyes closed, sunlight licking her face.

Maria’s hands moved in steady rhythm.

“No, my dear. We shouldn’t.”

After a quiet moment, Rapunzel stirred and opened her eyes.

“What do you think about Heks?”

“She interests me. I haven’t had a chance to talk with her. She’s not much interested in weaving. Keeps herself to herself. Always pleasant and helpful. She’s fond of Mary, I think. Gabriel stays close to her, I notice.”

“She’s one of those people who contain much more than you’d ever guess,” said Rapunzel.

“Some of the village women think she’s cold and dry,” said Maria.

“She’s not cold. She’s starving,” said Rapunzel firmly, and then looked surprised.

“Yes,” said Maria. “I think you’re right. You know, she reminds me in some strange way of Baba Yaga.

“She does! You’re right! How odd.” Rapunzel considered this. “She knows the Baba. She didn’t go into details, but something happened between them, maybe something having to do with her husband, who died. Then her house burned down. She never talks about it.

“I saw her during the dance,” said Maria. “It was like watching one of the Rusalka dance.”

“Power,” said Rapunzel. “You know what else? She has marbles, but they’re not eyes, like ours. They’re beautiful mini galaxies. She said the Baba gave them to her.”

“Really,” said Maria, not making it a question.

“Maria, what are you doing with your eyes?”

“Nothing. I keep them on a ledge of rock inside. There’s a perfect natural stone shelf next to the window, about eye level. I lined them up there so they…could see.”

“Are they open?”

“No. They sleep.”

“Mine, too. I haven’t seen it open since the day Cassandra and I met Dar.”

They fell silent again. The river flowed by.

“Maria?”

“Yes?”

“I think maybe I don’t need the eye anymore.”

“No?”

“I used them all the time when I traveled alone on the road. I was always holding them or playing with them. I followed their gaze. Then the Baba took one and I was so furious! But I still followed the other one. Cassandra knew about it when we first met — did I tell you? She talked about ‘following the blue’ before she ever saw it and when I showed it to her, she wasn’t the least bit afraid. But now everything’s different. There are people to talk to, like we’re talking now. When I’m confused or unsure a conversation comes along to show me the way, or a story, or someone teaches me to dance!”

“I know what you mean,” said Maria. “It’s like that for me, too. The children’s eyes used to be so terribly painful for me. I couldn’t leave them alone, but having them near me was agonizing as well. They awakened feelings I thought would tear me apart. Yet they guided me as well. I couldn’t bear to carry them with me and I couldn’t bear to be without them. Now days go by and I never glance at them, there on their ledge. There’s peace between us instead of anguish. Still, I couldn’t just throw them away.”

“No. Of course not. I couldn’t throw mine away, either. But I wonder about passing it to a new keeper.”

“You mean tossing it to Baba Yaga if she comes to tea one day?” asked Maria, laughing.

“Bite your tongue,” said Rapunzel, giggling at the picture. “But what about Heks? She already has two of her own, but there’s something about her… Maybe she should hold them for now.”

“Huh,” said Maria. “I’ll think about that. Would she be appalled?”

“I’ve no idea. She’s so quiet and expressionless I can’t tell what’s going on in her mind most of the time.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

Rapunzel stretched out full length in the sun like a cat. Her hand moved over the grass, feeling texture of stem, leaf and head.

“I have this uncomfortable feeling of outgrowing my life,” she said, with some irritation.

“The thing about life is that we can set things down and pick things up,” said Maria serenely, eyes on the loom. If something limits you, set it down. Walk away.”

“And what if it comes crawling and whining after you?”

“Bless it and release it. You don’t have to let it crawl up your hair into your tower!”

“Damn,” said Rapunzel.

Maria laughed.

Maria was petting the rabbits.

She’d never kept rabbits before, but she loved their gentle company. They were housed near the chickens, and she made a habit of visiting the hutch with a handful of late flowers or grass every morning after gathering eggs.

As she stood at the hutch, watching the rabbits munch and enjoying their soft coats, something bumped against her ankle. She looked down and saw one of the cats, who had come with the villagers.

“For heaven’s sake! Where on earth did you come from?”

She squatted to pet him. Leaf green eyes regarded her and he arched his back under her fingers. His bib and mustache were white and clean.

“Cat!”

Maria scooped the cat into her arms. He at once began to purr loudly, rubbing his cheek against her chin.

Heks had been cleaning out the goats and dumped a bucket of waste and soiled bedding into a large square compost bin made with wood and cord.

“Cat!” she called again. “Where did you get to?”

“He’s here,” said Maria.

“Oh, good. I was afraid he was getting ideas about the chickens and rabbits.”

“He was more interested in getting attention from me,” said Maria, setting the cat down gently. A grasshopper jumped and he pounced, eyes intent and tail waving.

“Juliana had a cat,” said Maria. “I wonder what happened to him. She called him Ranger.”

“The young couple who moved into her house are taking care of him.”

“I’m glad. It’s hard to think of her life scattered and disassembled.”

“It’s not,” said Heks. “Everything is still there. Her loom, her furniture, her bed and kitchen. We cleaned up her garden, but that’s all we needed to do. I took a shawl I found draped over her chair in front of her fireplace. Somehow, it spoke to me and I brought it with me.”

Maria felt a pang of grief. “May I see it?” she asked.

Heks looked surprised. “Of course.”

Heks had not yet made any plans for winter shelter. Maria knew she still slept by the fire. They made their way toward Gabriel’s wagon, which was covered against the weather and sheltering under the trees. Gabriel had begun building a wooden house for himself.

He came to meet them, inquisitive as a child. Heks rummaged in the cart while Maria and Gabriel talked. Heks put the folded shawl in Maria’s hands and she shook it out gently. There it was, cream banded with pink, brown, green and a hint of blue. Gold and silver hairs gave it a subtle shimmer, and the two shades of purple wandered through the pattern.

Maria remembered Juliana draping it around her shoulders, proud as a queen, and tears fell down her cheeks.

“I made this for her,” she said.

***

“Gold rope tell,” said Cassandra firmly to Rapunzel.

They sat around the evening fire. It was quite a crowd, Maria thought. It was the one time in the day they all gathered in the same place. She knew Rapunzel had no desire to be the center of attention and was amused at her expression. She plainly wished Cassandra would shut up.

Rapunzel glanced around, as though trying to find a distraction.

“I agree,” said Dar loudly. “What about you, Gold Rope?” He grinned mockingly at her.

Rapunzel scowled at Dar. Maria knew he was determined to hear about her ugly face. She’d held him off, not because she cared if he knew, but for the satisfaction of refusing to satisfy his curiosity. “He gets his way more often than is good for him,” she’d told Maria. However, now Rapunzel appeared to resign herself and began to speak.

Maria was the only one who knew about Alexander and the stone tower, so there was rapt attention. Once begun, Rapunzel appeared to enjoy telling the tale, though Maria noticed she left out the part about collecting Alexander’s eyes. As she paused, Demeter said, “I know your mother.”

“You do?” Rapunzel looked amazed.

“I do. She’s looking for you.”

“She found me. I’ll tell you. But…can we talk sometime?”

“Of course.”

Rapunzel recounted the marble game between Baba Yaga and Odin and her subsequent discovery of her changed looks.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Persephone.

Rapunzel stopped. “What?”

“I know this story. Baubo told it to me ages ago, when I first arrived in Hades.”

“But it only happened this spring!”

“’Once upon a time not yet come and long ago,’” quoted Persephone, laughing.

Rapunzel snorted and took up the story, stopping at the point where she and Cassandra fell in with Dar, Lugh and Mary.

“I’ve wondered about that ever since the day we met you!” said Mary from her chair.

“A handy trick,” said Dar.

Heks spoke up, surprising them all. She rarely said anything around the fire, though she was always there.

“Is that true?” she asked seriously. “What a woman wants is to stand in her own power?”

“Is it true for you?” inquired Dar.

Heks thought, expressionless, neat, self-contained.

“Yes,” she said at last, cautious.

Ginger spoke up from her place next to Radulf.

“It’s true for me. That says it exactly.”

“It’s not just true for women,” said Radulf. “I think men want it, too. I do.”

There were male murmurs of assent and nods.

“When Baubo gave me this story,” said Persephone, “she was talking to me about choosing my own power, being clear about what I want and what I can do to achieve it.”

“People tell us what we can choose — how it has to be. The Baba told me I could choose one thing or another. She didn’t say I couldn’t make the choice for both, but she didn’t say I could, either. I had to choose for myself, without accepting implied or imposed limitations,” said Rapunzel.

“It’s hard to want,” said Rosie. “Sometimes I feel like it’s wrong to want something, and too hard to ask. What if what you want is wrong…or bad? Or what if you can’t have it? Sometimes it seems easier and safer to just stay in confusion about what you do want.”

“But then you never get to live the life you truly want,” said Ginger.

“That doesn’t work,” said Radulf firmly. “It’s better to know who you are and what you want, even if you can’t get it. Otherwise, you hurt yourself and people around you.”

“You miss wonder and joy if you don’t let yourself want,” said Rose Red softly. “But it can be hard. You’re braver than I am, Rapunzel.”

Rapunzel snorted. “More stubborn, maybe,” she said, “but sometimes I don’t want to want, either. I know what you mean.”

“Who’s next?” asked Dar. “This wench’s tale is told!”

Rapunzel gave him a playful slap.

***

“Maria?”

She squatted in the chicken coop, feeling under a hen for eggs. The hen squawked, sounding insulted, and pecked.

“Yes?” answered Maria, and then, to the hen, “All right, all right. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” said Ginger.

“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s the grouchiest hen I’ve ever known. She’s not laying well, either, but I suppose between the time of year and her recent change of household, I can’t blame her.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes. Only six today. Let’s put these in the root cellar.”

After depositing the eggs, the two women walked down to Maria’s stone house. It was a cloudy, cool day, and they sat inside in front of the fire.

“I want to ask you if I could stay here at Rowan Tree — please?” said Ginger in a rush.

Maria laughed. “I’m relieved. I was prepared to beg you!”

“Beg me?”

“Certainly. We need you, Ginger. We need you to lead us in dance. There’s no one else here who can give us that. I’m determined that both men and women at Rowan Tree enjoy a place to gather, learn and practice ritual privately. Now I’ve experienced the power of dance, I never want to lose it. We need it and we need you to lead us and teach us.”

Ginger couldn’t speak.

“There are several houses nearly finished,” said Maria briskly. “I’m sure someone can let you have a room. It won’t be like a castle, you know.”

“Thank goodness. I don’t want a castle. I just want a small space to call my own. And I want to work — learn to cook or take care of animals, or something useful.”

“I don’t suppose you’d consider staying here — with me?” Maria gazed into the fire.

“Here? But…do you have room?” Ginger looked around at the space. She sat in one of two chairs in front of the fire. A loom stood under a wide south window. There was a table. That was all. Through a doorway was a room just big enough to accommodate a bed with a shelf next to it.

“I intend to enlarge this place and do more next year. This was just to get me through the winter. With Gwelda helping, we could add another bedroom before snow flies.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Ginger.

“I’ve been alone a long time,” said Maria. “I haven’t had a close woman friend. I know you’re used to living with your sisters, and perhaps you’d find it too quiet down here by the river. Maybe you’d like to be up in the thick of things, closer to the others?”

“No.” Ginger shook her head. “No, Maria. I want peace — and time. I’d love to stay with you. Thank you.”

“Good. As soon as you’re settled, I’ll teach you about chickens and we’ll learn together how to keep rabbits, all right?”

“It seems too good to be true.”

“Someone told me once everything we’re seeking is also seeking us. I’m glad we found one another.”

MIRMIR

“Rowan Tree,” murmured the Hanged Man. “It seems so long ago, so far away.”

“Not sso long,” hissed Mirmir.

“I remember one night when Dar played his flute and Cassandra came … She understood the burden of the wheel. I wept with her …”

“Yess,” said Mirmir. “Lissten …”

“Dar played his flute in the autumn night. Eurydice and Kunik heard in Eurydice’s shelter at Rowan Gate. Rose Red heard as she lay with Rowan on a bed of oak leaves. Morfran and Sofiya heard as they floated in owl form above Rowan Tree. Maria heard in her sleep, and thought the river sang in two childish voices. The horses, in a loose companionable cluster, pricked their ears, listening, as they dozed and grazed. Demeter heard the sweep of increase and the receding footsteps of decrease. Persephone heard and moved a caressing hand over breast, belly, hip and coarse curling hair. Soon…soon she would meet Hades at the Underworld’s gate. Heks heard and wondered at the waste of aging body and heart, the futility of desire.

Lugh sat with his back against a tree, clasping his knees. He watched Dar, pacing and playing, his cloak looking like a flowing shadow as he moved. Lugh looked across the grouped horses, over the bend of dim river. He could see dark crisscrossed lines of fences and sheds against the grassy hill. It was a good place here. They’d do well. He’d helped them lay the foundation of future harvest, but that was another cycle, yet to come. Now was his time. Now was his place. Mary was rested and blooming. He ached for the feel of a scythe in his hand. It was time for blade, sweat, basket, hook. It was time for earth, for dust, for stubble that pierced the skin. It was time for wasp, for bird-stabbed fruit, for aching shoulders and back. It was time for dust and chaff, cool water in a stone bottle, a bead of blood released from a slipped knife. The final sacrifice approached.

Dar stopped playing. He leaned against a nearby tree, nearly invisible in the dark. He was watching something on the hill. Lugh saw it too, a moving shadow in the night. Someone approached.

She was so quiet. She moved like a humble night wind that stirs, no more than a breath, among the thick heads of grass. She came to rest next to Lugh, while Dar stood above them, tree shadow and cloak mingling, watchful.

“Green and gold,” she crooned, laying her head on Lugh’s arm. “Green and gold, honey and milk, blood and bone.” She ran a caressing hand over the wool cloak, feeling rasp and round of charm, bead, golden thread.

“Always you hang between life and death,” she whispered. “Always the tide takes you, whether you would go or not. Always the wheel turns in your wake, and your life greases the turn. Gold fish, goat-foot piper, Seed Bearer, green and gold man. All men and none. Holy Shadow and flesh and blood and seed. Harvest calls your name. Blade waits. Earth demands renewal. Snake collects stories. Your seed cries out from dark sea, waiting for salty red tide. The great tree diminishes, thread by thread, and Webbd unravels in the wind of change.”

Lugh came into her arms and she felt his chest heave. In starlight her face was mother, lover, prophet and crone. He wept against her breast and she smoothed his bright hair, swaying, his heavy body clasped firmly, and crooned, ‘There, there. There, there. There, there,’ until his weeping ended and the three of them were quiet in the slowly turning night.”

***

RAPUNZEL

“I’ve been thinking,” said Rapunzel to Dar.

“Me, too.”

“I’d like to travel with you when you leave — just a short way.”

Dar shot her a look.

“Don’t worry. I’ve no intention of attaching myself to you or anyone else, idiot. I only want to go to the nearest town.”

“No.”

“No?” her face flushed.

“No. This fall we’re both staying here. We’ll help them. There’s a lot to do before snow flies. We’ll stay here for the winter and then in spring we’ll gather whatever might be sold, compile an enormous shopping list and go out and peddle.”

“That’s not what I want to do,” she said in automatic rebellion.

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Then what do you want to do, oh Ugly One?” He grinned at her.

“I want to choose for myself!” she said fiercely.

“So, choose.” He raised his eyebrow and waited.

“I will,” she said tersely.

They walked through trees. Afternoon waned and cooled. Dar wore his cloak and Rapunzel had pulled a man’s navy blue knit sweater over her head from Dar’s stores. She felt like a child playing dress up; the hem hung halfway down to her knees. It kept her warm, though.

He looked at her critically. “Don’t snag that. It’s inventory.”

“I like it. You wouldn’t want to give it to me as a parting gift, would you?”

He snorted, but she saw him smile.

“Are you really staying here all winter?”

“I’ll be taking Mary and my brother on before the snow flies,” said Dar, “but I plan to come back.”

“What will you do next summer, then, after this enormous shop of yours?” she asked curiously, dropping her teasing tone. “Will you stay here?”

“If I wanted to stay anywhere it would be here,” he said, “but I belong on the road. It’s what I love — seeing new places, meeting people, collecting stories.”

“Are you never lonely?”

“I love my freedom.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” she snapped, irritated by his evasion.

“Are you ever lonely?” he returned, an edge in his voice.

“I meet all kinds of people out in the world. I can see the sky. I don’t need to follow any rules.” Hastily, to intercept the “Ha!” she saw on his face, “What about your brother?”

“What about Cassandra?” he countered.

“Oh, didn’t you know? She’s coming with you!”

He stopped. She laughed.

“Oh, ha ha,” he said, walking on. “Why are you so difficult?”

Catching his eye, she changed into her ugly face and scowled.

He turned on his heel, grabbed her by the arms and kissed her soundly.

She shoved him hard in the chest with both hands, but not before she’d returned the kiss.

“Every time you put on that face, I feel an irresistible urge to kiss you,” he said cheerfully. “Let’s stand on one of the shed roofs and …”

“Oh, stop it,” she said, without heat.

They walked on down the slope. The first stars glimmered. Dar’s cloak furled in the breeze and a spray of sparks rose and fell as wood popped in the fire.

People were grouped around the flames. Mary’s bulky figure sat in a chair. Cassandra was talking.

“…and so he walks through the world, trailing planets and sunflowers behind him…he flies and sparks cascade from his golden wings… he soars on crimson feathers embroidered with topaz…he dances, singing bone and hairy flank and milky seed. He passes, Holy Shadow, Unholy One, and he never looks back. He never looks back. He passes on…and on…and on, and his shadow is life, but he never looks back.”

It was Cassandra’s favorite story, and she never told it twice the same way. They’d fallen into the habit of inviting her to retell it every night, and her dreamlike images and language opened the way for other stories, other tellers.

A sudden painful affection for them made Rapunzel’s eyes water. Cassandra, helpless, injured, unpredictable and infuriating, was given a place of respect, a place of safety among them. They cared for her and protected her, their reward her strange mixture of knowing and crippling empathy. Cassandra was impossible to deal with logically and rationally. You had to use heart and imagination. You had honor the impossible to understand.

As she took her place in the circle, Cassandra on one side and Dar on the other, she realized Dar had coolly assumed she’d accompany him in the spring to find goods for Rowan Tree long before she asked to accompany him.

It was hard to say whether gratification or irritation was strongest.

Much later, wind combed forest and hill, rippling and ruffling earth’s fading garments. Tonight, fall was in the air, nervous and restless. It suited Rapunzel’s mood. Her body throbbed painfully in response to the night wind. Alexander’s eye nestled in her closed hand. In her restlessness, she’d turned to it again, her old guide, but it remained a white marble. No lash, no outline, no wrinkle of an eyelid could be seen.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to do. She knew. It was finding the courage to do it, and it was such a ridiculously simple thing. Go or don’t go. Why make such a big deal out of it? It wasn’t forever. It wasn’t a commitment. It wasn’t anything but taking a short trip with a friend.

The dance had unsettled her, she thought resentfully. She’d been irritable ever since that night. She remembered Ginger whirling in front of her, hair like dark flame, skirt flaring, feet and breasts bare. She had looked like a wild thing, like Rosie’s Rowan or one of the Rusalka. Her dance was barbaric, savage, infinitely lovely. Her dance had mingled with Maria’s like black and silver, frost and ember, Ginger flickering like a red star.

Then suddenly the drumbeat had impaled Rapunzel, stretching her wide. Never before had she experienced such complete subjugation. Everything primitive and wild in her nature flung itself ecstatically into its demand. Her dance responded, met thrusting beat and rode it with passion, spurring it on to go deeper, faster, MORE!

The drummer was the owl-eyed Rusalka, Sofiya. Her hands were quick and hard, using Rapunzel’s body fiercely. Rapunzel threw herself into the golden eyes and the drum spoke, brass, copper and bronze. Rapture tore at her with bloody beak and talon.

Then Sofiya danced with her, wing tip and shoulder, downy breast and buff feathered hair. Rapunzel let out a wordless cry of triumph. Her body flickered from grotesque to lovely, as though two women danced in one skin.

She’d never imagined such intoxicating power.

Now she wandered through the woods, gilt hair stirring in errant eddies of wind between trees. Noola was only a few days past full. Dappled silver shadows shifted under the trees. She stood in a patch of trembling, leaf-flecked light and examined the marble for what felt like the dozenth time.

“Open, damn you!” she said aloud. “Help me out, here!”

It lay in her palm, inert and cold.

She stooped and flung it from her hand. It rolled across the ground, coming to rest at the feet of a hooded figure. A large dog sat there. It bent and sniffed at the pale sphere, lifting a lip to show gleaming teeth.

Rapunzel bowed her head submissively, recognizing the figure by the wolf and the flaming torch.

“Mother Hecate.”

“Choose, daughter. Choose, and then choose again. There’s no right or wrong. There’s only choice, and what follows. You can’t escape your own power to choose. This,” she nudged the marble with a toe, “is of no use to you. You’ve moved beyond its ability to guide you.”

Wind pushed at branches and boughs. Somewhere wood rubbed against wood, giving a tree a voice of anguish. Rapunzel stood alone. She picked the marble up carefully and slipped away, back toward Rowan Tree and its sleeping inhabitants.

EURYDICE

“Mother. I never dreamed I’d meet you.”

“Don’t bow to me, child,” said Minerva. “We’re family. Kiss me, and let’s talk together. You’ve wandered far from the trees where you started.”

With the help of Jan, Kunik had built Eurydice a bench, wide and comfortable with a slanting back. It stood at the edge of the rowan trees in the sun. From it, they could see Eurydice’s stone shelter and the spring. Cassandra wandered here and there, exploring.

The night Blodeuwedd and Minerva appeared, Eurydice kept back, though her heart leapt when she realized who Minerva was. Olive trees were Minerva’s own sacred symbol, and Eurydice had learned about Minerva as a child. It was hard to believe this ordinary-looking older woman, with her glasses and efficient air, was the patroness of commerce, ingenuity and weaving, among the wisest and greatest of guides.

Cassandra approached and took both Eurydice’s hands in hers, looking into her eyes. Her own eyes were remote, as though seeing something far away.

“The snake twines about you,” she said. “It whispered to me while it swallowed its tail and rolled…and rolled…” She trailed off, looking confused.

“Did he hold you in his coils?” asked Eurydice gently, thinking of Mirmir.

“Yes,” said Cassandra, relaxing. “The snake is a wheel around the center tree.”

“I know,” said Eurydice, squeezing the other woman’s hands. “I’ve seen it too.”

Seeming satisfied, Cassandra dropped her hands and wandered toward the spring. Minerva looked after her, shaking her head.

“You’re kind. She doesn’t frighten you?”

“No. I haven’t talked to her before now, but she’s not frightening, just…odd. She doesn’t mean any harm. She makes me want to protect her.”

“I know. Me, too. But honestly, sometimes trying to watch over her is like herding cats!”

Eurydice laughed. They sat down together.

“Eurydice, we need your help, Cassandra and I, in opening the way for one of the people here. I’ve come to speak to you as Doorkeeper. But I also come to you because you’re one of my own, one of my daughters. There’s another here who is one of mine, though neither of us knew it.”

“Maria,” said Eurydice at once. “Oh, Minerva, I’m glad. She…Maria’s special. Her weaving is beautiful, but she does more than that. She has power.”

“You love her.”

“Yes. She’s known tragedy but she’s brave. She’s wise. She’s become our leader here, without ever wanting to. People respect her.”

“She and I will talk. Eurydice, there’s yet another I’m interested in. His father was a great artist. He’s gone now, but you’ve seen his work in the hands and at the lips of the peddler Dar. His son inherited his father’s talent and increased it with his own experience. He’s a great maker, one of those who helps turn the wheel of life and death. You’re rooted in this man.”

“Kunik.”

“Kunik. In his hands, bones sing before their singing voice is created. He doesn’t yet know his father is here with him in Dar’s hands, but he’s already been to Nephthys to learn about bones so that he can take his place at the wheel as maker.”

Eurydice thought of Kunik’s listening, exploring hands, his quiet sense of humor, his odd fey streak, his steadiness. By now they’d shared their stories after their time at Janus House with one another. She thought of the ice bear man, living in starry snow under a night sky rippling with color with his human lover, opening the throats of bones for song, and the child crawling around his feet, magic and skill waiting for the right time in his chubby palms.

Minerva watched her. “This feels right to you?”

“Oh, yes!”

“A doorkeeper and shape seer are a fine combination, daughter. You can keep his way open, and he’ll never ask you to be less — or different — than you are. He’ll always see your true shape, even when you can’t.”

Cassandra, having explored the inside of Eurydice’s house and the spring, came across the grass and subsided at their feet. She was like a child, Eurydice thought, until you noticed the strained face and disordered hair, threaded with grey. There was no tension in her now, though. She picked a twig of rowan berries and turned it between her hands.

“Red galaxies,” she murmured. “Moons and stars and red-clawed bear.”

“Ah, yes,” Minerva said briskly. “Let’s get down to our first order of business. I understand you’ll be opening the way for Morfran, Sofiya and some of their people to return home?”

“Yes. They came to help us find Ginger and Radulf and establish dance. Some of the Rusalka want to stay and help Rosie take care of a birch forest near here. When the others go, Rapunzel and Heks want to go with them. Rapunzel wants to learn sacred drumming.”

“And this woman Heks?”

Eurydice frowned. “I’m not sure exactly what her intention is. She doesn’t say much. She’s very self-contained. I’m not sure what to make of her. She doesn’t fit in well. She seems so ordinary, but I’ve seen her dance, and she was full of power then. She scared me a little.”

“You’re right. She is full of power, and she’s ready to meet a teacher, but he’s not where the others are going. You must open a different way for Heks. I’ll tell you privately she thinks she’s going to Baba Yaga to learn, but her true way is in another direction.”

“Tell me what you need me to do.”

RAPUNZEL

“I’ve always wanted a sister,” said Rapunzel. Saying the words made her want to lie down under a cover of mown grass and fallen leaves, change into her ugly woman face and weep until she was emptied out. The depth of her own passionate grief surprised her.

Ginger looked away, watching Maria feed the hens. Five chickens clustered around her as she spread handfuls of feed.

“I have sisters,” she said, returning her attention to Rapunzel, “but I’ve always wanted a friend.”

They smiled at each other.

“I’m glad you came,” said Rapunzel. “We needed you. We needed dance. But…for me it’s more than the dance.”

“The drums. I saw. I watched you.”

“I want to do that! I want to be that — with the drums. How can I learn?”

“Well, there are teachers. Baubo teaches drumming and dance. Baba Yaga, they say, is a fine drummer.”

Rapunzel winced.

“I can’t say I blame you there,” said Ginger. “I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting the lady, but I’ve heard about her.”

“You can’t possibly imagine,” said Rapunzel darkly.

“Drumming is like dance,” said Ginger reflectively. “Everyone can do it, but some can do it on a level different from most. I could teach you a little myself, but I think you need much more than I can teach.”

“I want to play like Sofiya.”

“The Rusalka are strange creatures. They guard their privacy and knowledge. They do take others in, though. Morfran, for example, and Vasilisa. No one knows more about ecstatic sacred dance and music than the Rusalka do.”

“Do you think they’d teach me?”

“You can only ask.”

***

Leaves drifted in the air on a morning of gust and racing clouds. Eurydice stood in front of a group of people at Rowan Gate. They’d said their goodbyes over breakfast. Morfran and Sofiya stood with the Rusalka. Vasilisa and Rapunzel waited side by side. Heks’ face was unreadable, her body tense. She fisted her hand in her pocket.

Eurydice stood against a stone wall of the spring’s enclosure, sunlight flowing over her head, bringing a purplish sheen to her hair. She closed her eyes and raised her arms, and for a moment Rapunzel could mistake her for a tree, broad-trunked, knotted and twisted in a sun-drenched landscape.

“Your way is open,” breathed Eurydice. The Rusalka stepped forward and disappeared in the shadowed enclosure, followed by Morfran and Sofiya. Eurydice gave Rapunzel and Vasilisa each a swift kiss and a smile and said good-bye to Heks as she followed them, leaving Rowan Tree behind them.

CHAPTER 35

HEKS

It was Rapunzel who had told Heks the story of Blodeuwedd. She’d learned of her as a child, from Elizabeth. It was one of Rapunzel’s favorite tales, the woman created from sacred plant and blossom who possessed far more power than the magicians who created her. Blodeuwedd contained primordial female energy, the perfectly balanced ferocity of life and death.

As Rapunzel described the magician’s curse and the blow of his staff, Heks’ own heart leapt and soared as Blodeuwedd flew up in rapturous freedom as an owl, and Heks felt an almost sexual wave of power. To be free altogether of men and women and sex! To be beyond anyone’s control! To learn the mystery of night and darkness and bathe in moonlight!

The story became part of her longing. She couldn’t name her hunger. Her body hungered, yes, but for something more, something deeper than longing for physical pleasure. She hungered for something as big as the wild night sky.

And the marbles. A wicked amoral child within her gloated over the marbles.

She possessed eight now. First Rapunzel gave her the blue-eyed marble, telling a fascinated Heks the whole story of Alexander’s eyes. When she’d laid the milky white sphere in Heks’ palm, the blue eye opened, making Heks shudder with a kind of horrified excitement.

“That’s the first time it’s opened since the day I met you,” said Rapunzel.

“What does it mean?” asked Heks.

“I think it means it recognizes you,” said Rapunzel. “It doesn’t guide me anymore. I don’t need it. Will you keep it for me? Keep it safe with yours.”

Then Maria sought her out. Heks had heard Maria’s story, but the four brown eyes still gave her the same sick, excited feeling she’d experienced when holding the blue eye. As Maria took them down from their rock ledge, all four eyes opened suddenly, making Maria exclaim in surprise.

“These haven’t been opened since I arrived!”

Heks felt a small spurt of satisfaction. Perhaps all the eyes recognized her.

Most surprising of all had been the approach of Radulf.

Heks had been caring for the goats. Two nannies and a billy had arrived with the villagers, and Heks was fond of them. She was cleaning the pen, having let the goats go out and nibble in the autumn sun, when Radulf appeared.

He’d picked up a fork and helped her. Heks found herself once again caught up in another’s story as he talked of mermaids and sea wolves and fiery skulls.

When they’d spread fresh dried grass for bedding and filled the water buckets, they sat in the sun on the grassy slope and he took the wolf’s eye from his pocket and handed it to her.

“I’ve been traveling for a long time,” he said. “I’ve had many guides. Too many, sometimes!” He smiled wryly. “I thought I was finished traveling when I met Ginger, but I’ve lately realized there’s at least one more journey to take. I’m going home to the sea. Minerva, Cassandra and I will travel together to Griffin Town, where Minerva’s business and school are. She’s asked me to help her set up a shipping business, which is what my own father did. I’ll be able to distribute Minerva’s products more widely, as well as what Rowan Tree produces. Ginger wants to stay here at Rowan Tree.”

Radulf nodded at the eye. “This has been both guide and messenger. It guided me to Dar, and then to you and the others. It’s taken me a while to understand its message, but I think I finally know part of it. The sea is calling me home. It holds my future. Maria told me she gave you her eyes to take care of, and I wondered if you’d take mine, too.”

The golden eye looked up at her, aloof and unknowable. I’m a creature beyond your power, its gaze said. She closed her fingers over it.

Now all the marbles, along with her own galaxies, were clenched in her hand as she turned on the spot, taking in her surroundings.

There was no sign of Rusalka, birch forest, Morfran, Sofiya, Vasilisa or Rapunzel. She was quite alone.

Somehow, she was unsurprised by this.

She stood in a steep river valley. A path lay at her feet, climbing and disappearing among unfamiliar trees whose leaves were starting to fall. Above her loomed a mountain with a bare rocky summit.

Heks began to walk, following the path.

She climbed through patches of trees and slopes covered with boulders. The trees touched her as she passed among them, their trailing branches like a caress. The path twisted awkwardly between rocks, bruising and treacherous.

For two days, she climbed through stones and trees, and then she reached a plateau. Here grew a pine forest. Jays and squirrels scolded angrily at her as she passed and the trees seemed aloof, the soft prickly brush of their boughs indifferent.

Then she began to climb again. Now the slope grew steeper. The plants looked scrubby and tough. Stones slid and shifted unexpectedly under her feet as she clambered.

She’d begun to wonder what she was doing. She was alone, in a strange place, without guide or friend, following a path with no known beginning or end. She carried a pocketful of marbles that might once have been eyes. It occurred to her to check the eyes, but they were all open and inscrutable. They gave her no guidance.

That night she saw a white owl floating over her camp as she lay wrapped in blankets next to a fire. She watched it, hands under her head, as it rose and fell like a flake of snow, and felt better. There’s more than one white owl in the world, she told herself. It could be any owl. But if it was Blodeuwedd, she wasn’t alone. The path must go somewhere. She could always turn around and go back down it.

She closed her eyes and slept.

The next day a storm enveloped her. Snow blinded her, and wind blew in her ears. She wasn’t shod or clothed for the weather, and her bruised feet grew colder and colder as she slipped and slid up the mountain. She lost track of time. The muffled daylight seemed endless. She felt she’d been struggling on the mountain’s body for weeks. She kept her watering eyes on her feet and let her awareness dwindle to nothing except the next step.

Light had faded and the storm had died when she came to a narrow cave. It faced away from the wind and was dry. She took off her pack and pushed it in, wedging herself after it. She felt too tired to eat or think of a fire, and possessed no dry fuel in any case. She slept, half buried in dry leaves.

The next morning sunlight glared off white snow fields. The sky was clear and the snow already beginning to melt. She couldn’t see the path under the snow, but she found scuff marks a few yards away; her own tracks from the night before.

Except they weren’t her tracks. They were prints three times the size of her hand with five distinct oval toes, each topped with the deep indentation of a claw. A large white feather lay in one of the footprints.

Heks stood for a long moment. Go on, or go back? Go back down the mountain, find a way through the portal, back to Rowan Tree with her handful of marbles. Back to dance, companionship, the goats. Back to Gabriel’s kindness and a place around the fire.

Or go on and see what happened.

She pulled her pack out of the cave. It felt damp, but would dry in the sun. She shrugged into it and began to follow the footprints.

The prints led her here and there over snow fields. She found an overturned boulder and a spray of dirt fanned over the snow where the ground had been gouged. The tracks wandered into a copse of scrubby trees and she found claw marks and rotted wood debris. Near the end of the afternoon, she saw a dark shape in the distance, shambling over melting snow.

She kept it in sight, but only just. She’d heard somewhere bears had good noses but poor eyesight. She’d no desire to test either one. The bear made for a steep bank and disappeared into a cave.

Heks, seeing this, edged into a fold of bare mountainside for cover. Years of rocks moved by wind and weather created a variety of niches and holes, and Heks found one giving some shelter from the weather.

She had food. In fact, she’d been unwilling to take as much as Maria pressed on her. She had several strips of dried meat, dried fruit, chestnuts and one of the first cheeses they’d tried to make from goat’s milk, wrapped in leaves. It was sticky and runny, smelling strongly of goat and a handful of chopped herbs.

What was she doing here?

That night she woke suddenly to the sound of fumbling movement outside her shelter. She froze, holding her breath. Something large moved outside in the dark, circling. She heard a “whuff” of exhaled breath and the sounds moved off. She rolled over and inched her head out of the cave.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectorsa from Pixabay

Nothing. The night sky was filled with stars. Cion loomed, protective, and Noola, a slim crescent, lay on her back. Patches of snow reflected silver light. Cautiously, she pulled on her cloak and shoes. Standing under the vast darkness gave her a momentary sense of vertigo. The night seemed to wheel over her — or perhaps Webbd moved under her. Then her sense of balance came back and the feeling vanished. The bear crouched on a flat slab of rock, halfway between Heks and its cave. As she watched, it stood on its back legs, heavy paws dangling, and roared at the sky.

It looked as tall as a tree, as tall as a mountain, tall enough to be sprinkled with stardust. It reached up with one massive paw and clawed at the star-spangled night. Its paw fell, and Heks watched a glittering handful of stars fall with it. No, not stars, for they glowed red like rubies, like drops of blood, falling with a soft pattering around the bear’s hind feet on the stone.

Again, it roared. Heks could see the wet red mouth, the strong white teeth. As it raised its snout, she saw the shape of a sickle moon on its chest. It gathered and reflected the light like the snow did, pale as bone.

The paw rose and fell in a shower of diamond light that fell clicking solidly on the stone like…

Like marbles.

Heks took a step forward.

The bear roared triumphantly and brought its front feet heavily down to the rock, making the mountainside shake. It nosed at the shining sparks at its feet, drew its claws over the stone with a scraping sound that chilled Heks’ blood, and the rock slab glowed with white and red embers…sparks…stars…crystals of frost and snow…jeweled blood…galaxies of blood and bone and diamond dust.

Heks took another step. She reached into her pocket and the marbles leapt into her hand.

She came across the snow, an old woman, scanty-haired, dry as bone, lean as worn rawhide. She came to the feet of the Sickle Moon Bear and flung her handful of marbles among his.

Above them, a white owl drifted like a dream under the slender moon.

RAPUNZEL

Rapunzel hadn’t expected to begin learning to play drums in a bathhouse.

After stepping out of Rowan Tree, she’d fallen through air into water, and then found herself swimming, Vasilisa still beside her, rising to a new surface in another place. Above her, Rusalka pulled themselves out of the water, along with Morfran and Sofiya. Then she and Vasilisa broke the surface and scrambled out of the pool.

Morfran and Sofiya settled her in a rude log cabin. Morfran showed her how to use the iron stove, pointed out a pile of firewood and a heap of skins and blankets, and left her, saying Sofiya would meet her in the morning.

The next morning Sofiya did appear, but took her back to the bathhouse. There wasn’t a drum in sight, but the other Rusalka lay naked in heat and steam in between frequent visits to the plunge pool.

Rapunzel, lying among beings of skin, feather, scale and fur, closed her eyes and opened herself to the ritual.

That night they took her to the drums.

It was another dancing floor, this time in a naked birch wood. Winter was closer here than it had been at Rowan Tree. Oddly, the floor itself felt comfortably warm, as though heated from below.

Vasilisa had taken an affectionate leave of Rapunzel, assuring her she was in good hands. Morfran was absent, and so was Baba Yaga, to Rapunzel’s secret relief.

The Rusalka introduced her to the stringed instrument and pipe first. The strings were pulled tight on a wooden frame and plucked. The pipe proved to be a simple shaft of hollow bone, pierced. One end looked as though it had once been fractured, but the maker made no attempt to disguise the break, merely polishing the jagged ends smooth.

Rapunzel handled both, tentatively strumming and blowing.

A pair of drums stood alone, shaped like elongated small barrels. They were elevated to play standing, but Rapunzel saw they might also be played from a sitting position. The drum heads were taut and smooth with use.

“These were mine,” said Sofiya, brushing a hand across one of the heads. “My teacher gave them to me. Now I pass them to you. They won’t play for you now, though.”

“They won’t?”

“You must make them yours. Now they contain my pulse, my tides. They know the shape of my hand. They’ve rolled in my scent. They know me more intimately than a lover. We’re bound by shared feeling and experience.”

“How do I make them mine?”

“Be with them. Remember how you felt during the dance at Rowan Tree?”

“Oh, yes!”

“That was a place of being, a place of complete union with body. Words are important, and so is mind. But music and dance don’t arise out of words or mind. The only thing strong enough to support full life is being, body. Many people learn to play music through practice, instruction, a set of static repetitions meant to teach competency and mastery. Competency and mastery are not being. They’re constructions of our mind and thus limited, intangible. Technical power is false power.”

“If I can dance like I did before, I can play?”

“Yes. As you danced, did you feel in control? Did you feel a master?”

“No. I felt…swept up in power. We were all part of it, and the music, too. It wasn’t mastery. It was like,” she remembered diving off a sunny weathered pier into a lake, “diving…or jumping…or flying.”

“Surrender?”

“Yes! Surrender to myself and the other dancers, surrender to the drumbeat.”

“True music is not a thing to be mastered. True music requires real presence, real being. True music is like the White Lady. It can’t be controlled or commanded. If you give yourself to it, it will give itself to you.”

Sofiya began to play, rolling her hands from palm to edge, stroking the drums. The rhythm was slow, explorative. The skin on her hands and the drum head lingered near one another. She increased the beat and used her fingers, making a sharper, more defined sound. Her hands looked graceful, flowing, reminding Rapunzel of Maria’s hands at the loom. Sofiya’s hands released the drum beat rather than created it.

The strings rippled, joined by the pipe.

“Let us dance the day down into darkness, sisters,” said Sofiya, raising her voice.

The day was pewter. Color had faded and lay in damp mats around the trees’ ankles. The forest snarled, row upon row of naked white trunks like teeth. Sky, tree, earth, were a study in monochrome.

The Rusalka danced. This was not a dance of passionate sensuality, but a dance of decrease, a dance of bare bone and stark wood, a dance of death in its final cold hour. Gilt was rubbed away. Silver was tarnished. This was stone, lichen, root, owl screech, hoof print and musk.

Rapunzel gave herself to being, to breath, pulse, hair, skin. She set her mind aside and allowed. She didn’t know which of her bodies she danced in — and didn’t care. Around her moved ivory tusk, grey pelt, russet bristles, feathers like smoke. A snake twined around their feet, color of old leaf and wood. She danced with her hair, shoulders, elbows, knees, breasts and feet. She shed her clothes, wanting no hindrance to being. She was. She danced. She took her place in a net of being, tree, woman, root, drum, sleeping plant, plucked string, bird, flute, wolf. She became their power and they became hers.

The drums stood solitary, waiting. Sofiya danced, golden eye, wing, thigh, hair like feathers. Another drummer played on other drums. Rapunzel moved toward the waiting drums, dancing. She circled, front, back, offering her body between her own cupped hands. She rubbed against the drums’ sides with thigh and knee. She let them feel the flesh of her buttocks, coarse caress of her pubic hair. She leaned over them and felt her nipples harden against their heads as her body swayed to the music. She rubbed the round edges with her armpits, licked the palm of her hands and polished the heads. She reached between her legs and painted her wet scent on the drums with her fingers. She laid her cheek on the heads and smelled herself.

Closing her eyes, she gave her skin the shape of the drums through hands, arms and thighs. She ran her fingernails lightly over the drum heads as though over the skin of a lover’s back. Without intention or plan, her fingers tapped around the edges of the heads, circling inward in a slow spiral. The drum heads talked to her hands in a private conversation her ears didn’t hear.

Suddenly bold, she hit one of the heads lightly with both hands, “BOOM, boom!”

At once, she felt embarrassed. She wasn’t in rhythm with the music the others played. They would hear, and know her for unskilled, remember she wasn’t one of them.

The music stopped. The dancers stopped.

“Rapunzel.”

It was Sofiya, winged but otherwise a woman.

Rapunzel, feeling like a shamed child, near tears, met her eyes.

“Your mind will tear you away from being. It will interrupt you, amputate you from your body. It will do the same to those around you, because their being is a threat as much as yours. You must share and exchange power with music and dance. Your mind is what requires mastery. Let it serve you, but don’t give it more power than it can handle. Your body holds the power, your being.”

Rapunzel laid a hand on a drum head like a woman laying a protective hand over her unborn child.

The Rusalka’s music began again, flute, then strings, then drums, steady, grounding, reassuring as a heartbeat.

The dance, the music flowed together again, as though no interruption had occurred. Rapunzel stepped away from the drums and danced, circling, whirling, spiraling, the drums always at the center. When she’d found herself again, steadied herself in the arms of the dance, she approached the drums once more, hands open to receive, to set free.

The drums’ voice was like a toy. She rolled it between her hands to see what it could do. She made it shout and murmur, ripple and throb. She used elbows, forearms, fingers, nails, palms. She stroked and brushed, beat and tapped. She stopped dancing without realizing it, engrossed as a child. She and the drums imitated the strings, the bone flute, and then joined hands with the other drumbeat. She and the drums overran, faltered, lost rhythm and found it again. They lagged behind and raced ahead. They danced.

MARY

The other side of harvest, Mary thought, was a shorn landscape of bony trees and bleached stubble on November’s cheek. A flock of crows like brittle cinders jostled in the air.

In the cart behind Dar, Mary and Lugh lay together. Rowan Tree lay behind them, weeks behind. They’d left when the trees still wore bright colors. Heks, Vasilisa, Morfran, Sofiya and several Rusalka had gone through Rowan Gate. Mary wondered where they were and what they were doing. Later that same day, Persephone and Demeter had gone, and Mary knew it was time for her to go forward as well.

Over the last weeks Mary and Lugh had been a perfect balance of increase and decrease. Drop by drop, he gave of his vitality, garnering the cycle’s harvest. Day by day, he lessened, skin a little looser, hair a little more colorless, back a little more bent. With blade, shear, knife and shovel, he gathered season’s abundance, paying with his flesh, his blood, his bone.

Mary stayed by his side, picking fruit, bringing food and drink to the reapers, helping sort and store vegetables, and gathering seed for the next cycle. Nausea and fatigue passed and she supported Lugh with her own healthy vitality, rich in tenderness and love. The two within, the man beside her and harvest’s labor and delivery became her sole occupations.

Yet even as he saw the harvest through, he doubted himself.

“If something happens to me, you’ll take care of them?” he asked Dar, over and over.

“Yes,” said Dar patiently. “You know I will. I’ll see her safe. I promise.”

“I’m afraid I’ll run out of the strength to take care of everything properly,” he said to Mary in the midst of scything field after field of barley, oats and wheat. He was sharpening his blade, hands callused and brown, sweat staining his shirt. “There’s still so much to do, and we need to find a place for you to spend the winter.”

“Lugh,” she said patiently. “Look around you. Think what you’ve done the past weeks. You’ve gotten them started at Rowan Tree. They have plenty for the winter now. You’ve been the first to rise and the last to sleep every place we’ve been. I’m healthy and well and your children are thriving. Men follow you, learning and working together. Women adore you. Everywhere you go, people are assured of a safe winter. We’ve done well, you and I. The seed we blessed means life for these people through the winter and new life during the deepest dark. The seed we’ve shared has made two new lives!”

MIRMIR

“I didn’t believe her, because I didn’t think she knew how exhausted I really was,” said the Hanged Man. A passing shower from a bruised cloud spattered the bare tree and Mirmir’s body with icy drops.

“Foolish,” said Mirmir, twisting himself into a contorted knot and then relaxing, as though stretching. “She knew. She believed in you.”

“She was stronger than me.”

“Yess,” agreed Mirmir slyly, “and better looking, too.”

“For a girl. But all the girls looked at me, once,” the Hanged Man sighed. “Go on. Tell it all the way to the end, Mirmir.”

MARY

They lay together in the creaking cart and Mary, half asleep, lulled by the familiar motion, held Lugh tenderly against her shoulder. He slept, curled beside her, while the babes, who invariably woke and began to move as soon as she tried to rest, bulged and rippled under her taut flesh.

Increase and decrease. Increase and decrease. The man, the children, the wheels, the cycle. She remembered her mother-friend, another Mary, saying, “Whatever comes, Molly, dance with it and surrender.” She remembered the old man in his tattered crimson cloak making his way through the dark forest, the trees like pleading distorted hands in the dark. The cart wheels beneath her murmured in Hel’s voice, “Rest now. Rest now. Rest now.” The golden child swung from the Firebird’s feet, disappearing in a blur of glowing feathery light from the rising sun. Sun or son? Green and gold. Milk and honey. Who’d said that? Oh yes, Cassandra had, that day they’d met Rapunzel and her in the market.

She dozed.

***

Later, she sat with Dar on the seat, leaving Lugh to sleep.

It was the sort of naked day when you could see a long way ahead. There was nothing to stop the searching wind that heralded a change in the weather. The road meandered in front of them, dipping and climbing. Someone was walking on the road ahead. Perhaps they’d welcome a ride. It would be good to find someone else to talk to.

Dar drew Gideon up alongside the walking woman. She looked up at him with a smile and Mary felt Dar stiffen into immobility beside here. The woman and Dar looked at each other with wide eyes.

She recovered first. “This is the first time I’ve had the upper hand with you,” she said with amusement, “and likely the last! How are you, peddler?”

“Get up here, Briar Rose.” he said peremptorily, gesturing to the seat next to him. He clambered down over the wheel as he spoke.

“Charming as ever, I see,” she said. “You already have a passenger.” She smiled at Mary. “Hello. My name is Briar Rose.” Her look sharpened.

“Surely it’s Mary!” she exclaimed.

Mary smiled. “I’m Mary, but I don’t think I know you.”

“We met at Janus House, didn’t we, after the twins…”

Mary put a hand to her bulge. “How did you know? It is twins. But I’ve never heard of Janus House. I had a kind of foster mother called Mary. She had twins before I knew her.”

“It must be that Mary I remember. Of course, you’re too young to be her. I realize that now.”

Dar was standing next to Briar Rose, his face set in a stubborn expression Mary recognized. “I’ll just get into the back,” she said, and slid to the end of the seat.

“You will not! You stay right there!” Briar Rose protested.

“There’s plenty of room for both of you on the bench,” snapped Dar. “Get in.” He gave Briar Rose a forbidding look.

Obligingly, Mary slid to the middle of the seat, making room.

“All right! No, I don’t need help, thank you!” Briar Rose pushed Dar’s arm away and climbed nimbly up to the seat. She held a wrapped bundle in her lap. Dar resumed his seat, took up the reins, and Gideon ambled on, munching a snatched mouthful of grass.

Briar Rose had braided a section of reddish-brown hair, Mary saw, with a rawhide thong. A cream and brown feather waved jauntily from the wrapped end of the braid. Dangling earrings that looked like brass swayed in the woman’s ears.

“What on earth are you doing, out here in the middle of nowhere and alone?” Dar asked, sounding unreasonably irritable, as though the woman had no right to be walking along a road in the middle of a fall day without an escort.

“I might ask you the same.”

“I’m not alone. My brother is in the cart and this is his wife.” He jerked his head towards Mary as he talked across her.

“Don’t mind me,” Mary said to him.

“He was always rude,” Briar Rose said to Mary.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been with friends for harvest,” she explained to Dar. “I was ready for some time alone after all the activity. I love this time of year, when you can see the true shape of things, the raw texture. I’m heading home.”

“Where is home?”

“Birch Valley. Do you know it?”

“They’ve a good market. I’ve been there.”

“That’s why I’m there, too — the market.”

“Still working, then?”

“Of course,” she said serenely. “You didn’t expect to find me playing the sleeping princess again, did you?”

“Queen, these days,” he said, with a sidelong mischievous smile.

“You’re looking a little worn yourself, peddler,” she returned. “Is that silver I see in your hair? The crow is getting frosty, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he said ruefully.

“Where are you headed?”

“I’m taking my brother and Mary to… an appointment.”

She glanced sideways at him and smiled at Mary. “Very well, keep your secrets.”

“It’s time for a meal. Will you eat with us? I’d like my brother to meet you. You’ll like him.”

“Of course. See that hill ahead? On the top, there’s a good spot to stop. Some big flattish boulders lie off the road in a clump of oak.”

For a few moments the three remained silent, while Gideon plodded patiently along.

“I never meant to hurt you,” Dar said tentatively.

“Why is it men think that’s a helpful thing to say?” Briar Rose asked. “You might not have meant too, but you didn’t care much if you did.”

“I was young,” he protested.

“Not that young,” she snapped.

He looked chagrined and Mary and Briar Rose both laughed.

“Oh, never mind,” said Briar Rose. “You broke my heart, but I expect it was good for me. You showed me the way out. It was worth getting my heart broken to find a new life. In fact, I’ve felt for a long time I owed you thanks. So, thanks. There — you can pull off there.”

Briar Rose jumped down, gave Mary a strong arm as she climbed awkwardly to the ground, and helped Dar free Gideon to graze. Mary opened the back of the cart and Lugh crawled out, looking sleepy and disheveled.

Dar introduced Lugh and Briar Rose. Mary leaned against a convenient rock face to ease her back and watched Briar Rose and Dar take a blanket and food out of the cart. Briar Rose seemed as familiar with the cart as Mary was herself. She reached in and took Dar’s cloak off the hook, laying it over her arm and examining it in the daylight.

As Lugh and Dar spread the blanket, Mary went to stand with Briar Rose, who was fanning the folds of the cloak with one hand, revealing a swirling pattern of water, fish and birds. She touched the golden feather sewn to the back.

“I’ve seen this before,” she said to Mary. “The first time was years ago, when I was married to a king and first began weaving and a peddler played a bone flute and taught me to dance under a summer moon. The second was when I arrived at Janus House with gifts for newborn twin boys, in the heart of winter, and helped make the same cloak I’d seen in my youth. And here are you, Mary, but not exactly the Mary I met the winter I made the cloak. The Mary I knew had newborn twins, Dar and Lugh …”

“We turn the wheel,” said Mary simply. “Dar and Lugh and I. We keep the deep cycles. We’re increase and decrease.”

“I suppose your Lugh has a crimson cloak,” said Briar Rose.

“Yes.”

Briar Rose smoothed the cloak with her hand.

“It reminds me of my weaving. Animal hair, brass charms and a handful of mouse bones on a background of November-colored sky. This is a strange meeting.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Everything is strange and waning now. I’m glad we met. You remind me the wheel continues to turn.”

***

Mary lay with her head in Lugh’s lap. He still chewed on a strip of dried meat. Mary noted the thin skin at his temples. He’d eaten more than anyone, but he looked gaunt. His clothes hung loose, as though he’d recently lost weight. He smoothed Mary’s rich hair tenderly.

“You said you weave,” Mary said to Briar Rose. “What do you make?”

“I’m trying to come up with a new word for what I do. It doesn’t fit into any category easily. I make textiles. Weaving is the closest descriptor.”

“You carry some with you, don’t you?” Dar inquired. “On the wagon seat?”

Without waiting for a reply, he stood and fetched her package. Calmly, he unwrapped it. Briar Rose looked annoyed.

“Dar!” said Mary.

“Oh, never mind,” said Briar Rose, resigned. “I know what he’s like. Nosy, bossy, tactless and rude!”

Dar snorted. “I want them to see.”

Briar Rose reached over and pulled the package into her own lap.

She unfolded a length of cloth. The wool was loose woven, heavy, a little oily. The fibers felt coarse. The wool was a neutral, natural color, part sand, part rock, part soil. Swatches of some kind of animal pelt, brown with cinnamon highlights, were woven into it. A small ripple of pierced animal bones wove into the design. A sunburst of long thorns, sharp as needles, made a red brown sun, or a flower, or a spiked wheel. Narrow hollow stems like wood perforated with oval holes finished the edges and made an abstract kind of frame.

“Those are from Cholla cactus,” said Briar Rose as Lugh ran a finger over one of these. “They grow in the desert.”

“It’s amazing,” said Mary, in wonder. She touched a fan of buff feathers with one bright blue one among them.

“Hawk,” I think, said Briar Rose. “And pinon jay.”

“It’s the desert, isn’t it?” asked Lugh.

“Yes,” said Briar Rose. “A long time ago I lived in high desert, and then I spent some time in another desert.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Dar.

“You don’t know everything about me,” she snapped. “Besides, you were too busy being enigmatic and attractive and causing trouble to be much interested in my past!”

Lugh laughed. Dar glared at him. Lugh grinned back.

“Will you tell us about it?” asked Mary, ignoring the men.

“It’s a bit of a story,” warned Briar Rose.

“Perfect. Our favorite thing,” said Mary.

“I want to hear about him,” said Lugh, gesturing with his chin at Dar.

“Shut up,” said Mary to both of them, without much heat.

“When I was a girl I lived in the high desert with my people,” Briar Rose began. Lugh’s caressing hand stilled and Mary lay, curled around her belly, head pillowed on his thigh, lulled already by the approach of a story.

“One fall day I left my village, alone, to glean the last pinon nuts, acorns and berries. We felt winter’s approach, but I felt a different kind of change coming. It made me restless and short-tempered. I was the oldest of five brothers and sisters and it seemed to me a child constantly tugged at my leggings. On this day, I was determined to get away from everyone, be out in the desert alone. My people used a hot spring some miles away, and I wanted to visit it before winter. Searching for food to add to our stores made a good excuse.

I took a path up out of the village and over a sheltering hill, and soon walked on a rolling plateau. I wandered from pinon to scrub oak to berry thicket, filling my baskets. The sun felt warm and the air had a clean edge. Vultures wheeled in the sky in soaring circles. Lizards basked, darting away from my step, invisible until they moved. The harsh call of jays dominated the softer talk of other birds.

I came upon a large, soft pile of bear scat, filled with pinon nuts. The ground was too stony for footprints but I followed scuff marks where the creature had passed. I found a tuft of coarse hair the same color as the hair on my body on a tough branch of scrub oak. I rubbed it between my fingers and sniffed it. In a sandy place in the shade of a rock I found a good print. A rotten tree trunk plainly showed marks of heavy claws. I picked up a piece. It was soft and light, smelling of bear musk and sweet old wood.

I followed the bear toward the spring. I walked quietly, wanting to glimpse it, relishing my freedom. I felt…excited.”

Briar Rose ran her hand over the landscape of her weaving, her face soft with remembering. It wasn’t hard to see the girl she’d been.

Mary, listening, felt her body stir at the unexpected sensuality of the bear, the smell of high desert, the torn-apart tree. Lugh’s thigh felt warm and solid under her cheek.

“Near the spring, the ground fell away into an old river bottom. Cottonwoods like golden smoke grew at the base of the bluffs guarding the spring. Far above the bluffs, vultures floated like black flakes of ash above the warm color of the trees. I still didn’t see the bear, but I knew I wasn’t far behind him.

The bluffs over the spring were pockmarked and carved into strange shapes. In spring and summer thousands of birds nested in them, but in this season, many had gone to their winter quarters. I was close enough to smell the mineral tang of the water. As I walked under the cottonwoods, the pressure of my feet released scent from their fallen leaves.

It’s actually not one spring, but many in that place. There’s a string of pools at the base of the bluff, the water in each different to taste and smell, and also different in temperature.

I set my bundle down in the shade and undressed. For my people, the spring was sacred, and I observed the proper ritual before bathing. I think that’s the most alive I’ve ever felt, naked in the fall sun, the smell of cottonwood leaves and mineral water in my nose. The feeling was beyond any word I can use. I was alive, that’s all. Alive!”

Mary opened her eyes. Dar held his bone flute in his lap, fingering its pierced holes as though practicing a new melody. Briar Rose smiled, deep in memory. In the sunlight, her hair shone with a hint of cinnamon among silver and brown.

“Smooth stones covered the bottom of my favorite pool. The water bubbled up between them. It was hot and I entered gradually, getting used to the temperature. There was a rock ledge along one side. When you sat there, you were up to your neck in water. I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky. It was the color of a clear desert day in fall — a blue like no other blue. A fallen leaf floated on the water. It felt like fingers brushing against my collar bone.

As I lay there relaxing, I felt it again — change. Something exciting. Something different. It felt… I don’t know. Inexorable? And…big. A change that would change everything forever. I wanted it to come closer, but I felt afraid of it, too.

I was drifting with my eyes closed when I smelled him. It made me shudder, that smell. It wasn’t good or bad, but strong, primitive. Other. Male.”

Mary met Briar Rose’s eyes and they smiled at one another in perfect female understanding.

“He was across the pool from me, just sitting, watching me. He was brown and red, the same color as my hair. His front legs were thick, his pelt dusty, and I could see long curved claws. I wasn’t afraid. I wanted, more than anything, to sink my fingers into that coat of coarse, thick hair, to rub my face against it and be surrounded with his smell. I could imagine the texture perfectly, like the hair on my own body. I wanted to show myself to him. I stood up on the ledge, water running down my body, so he could see we were the same color.

He made a soft sound, ‘Whuff,’ and came slowly around the edge of the pool toward me. I knew it was foolish to let him get so close, but I couldn’t help myself. He wasn’t the slightest bit threatening. He seemed as fascinated with me as I was with him.

He came all the way around, slowly, as though not to frighten me. I stepped down into the pool, feeling too exposed, but I moved slowly, too. I didn’t want to frighten him, either. He moved behind me and then I felt fear — or maybe just arousal. My heart began to pound and I trembled. The hair stood up on my arms and the back of my neck. I was afraid to move and terrified not to. I closed my eyes in order to control myself and at once his smell overcame me. I could sense his muzzle, feel his breath a fraction away from the skin of my back and shoulder. I tried not to think of what a powerful bite would do to me. I thought I would fall down if I didn’t sit down, so I sank back onto the ledge. He tasted the scent behind my ear. I felt a tug at my braid and the thong holding it slid away. My hair spread out around me like a cloak, smelling of sweet grass. I wanted him to touch me.

Before I knew what was happening, he shambled into the pool. I felt his pelt brush against me as he slid by. He moved to the other side, dipping his whole head in the water and then lifting it out with a snort, blowing water from his nose.

So, we settled down to share the pool, watching one another, but not watching, too. I even dozed, drifting in the warm water. It was like sharing the sacred spring with a stranger from another tribe, peaceful and friendly. Which, I suppose, is what was happening, now I think of it.

That afternoon is timeless in my memory. We moved from pool to pool, the red bear and I, but eventually the sun weakened and slid down the sky. When I realized the day was ending, I knew I must go back to my village, and my life. It seemed impossible, a remote story about someone else’s life. It felt like clothing long outgrown, too small and restrictive, rubbing in all the wrong places, that life. I didn’t want it. I wanted the change I could feel coming. I felt afraid of it, but I wanted it more than I feared it. It was mine, you understand? It was for me, of me.”

“You wanted what you’re made of,” said Mary. “You didn’t know what you’d do with it, but you needed to discover it.” For a moment, she was a girl on rough shingle along an inlet of frozen sea, listening to Kunik tell a selchie story.

“That’s right,” said Briar Rose.

“The bear clambered out of the last pool and shook himself like a dog. He looked at me, as though inquiring, and I stepped out too, gathering my hair in handfuls and wringing it out. I combed it with my fingers, braided it and found the thong he’d pulled away at the first pool. I dressed and gathered up my belongings while he sat patiently and watched. When I was ready, he turned and made his way parallel to the bluff. I felt drugged with heat and sun, passive and relaxed. Everything became simple. I didn’t think about where we were going. I followed him.

The sun was setting when we came to a scatter of boulders at the base of the bluff. The bear climbed, twisting among rocks, and then disappeared in a crevice. The narrow entrance widened out immediately, and once inside I could move comfortably. The back was a great boulder from roof to floor, and behind that a sleeping chamber. I set my baskets down. An old fire ring of stones lay against the wall near the entrance, and I ducked out of the cave to gather wood.

It was dark when I returned. I laid the fire and lit it. The bear and I ate from what I’d gathered that morning. As I sat feeding the fire, he lay down next to me and I did what I’d wanted to do from the first. I sank my fingers into his pelt, feeling its texture and warmth. I explored the lineaments of his body beneath his skin, tracing contour of bone and muscle in his shoulders and powerful neck, his chest and his flank. I played with his claws, testing their sharpness, rubbing against their length.

He let me do whatever I wanted, but he wasn’t relaxed. I could feel his tension. When I pressed between the tough pads of his feet he groaned.

I wanted to be as vulnerable as he was. As I undressed, I felt the day’s sun on my skin. The fire’s heat touched me and I turned in front of it, letting it warm the front of my thighs and then the back. That alive feeling came to me again, as though my body became more sensitive and responsive than ever before. Everything — the cave floor under my bare feet, the fire’s warmth, the smell of wood smoke and bear, even the touch of my own hair on my shoulders and back, felt exquisite to the point of pain. I was a maiden, but my body knew exactly what to do, and I knew what I wanted.

As I faced the fire, the bear moved behind me and I felt the touch of his muzzle behind each knee, and then moving up the inside of my legs. His nose brushed the small of my back and the cleft of my buttocks. I could hear him breathing in and out in exaggerated sniffs, and my own breath came fast.

He stood up behind me, massive, looming, and I tensed for attack, knowing it was too late to save myself if he meant to hurt me. I felt his pelt against me from shoulder to leg. I felt his heat. I smelled him. I felt him brush against me, bone and muscle and human flesh. He pushed back my hair and his breath roved over my neck. I felt tongue, lips and teeth behind my ear. Our bodies sang together with scent. His arms came around me, hard, and he held me against him so I could feel what he was made of, what he wanted. He bruised me and I gasped, but it still wasn’t close enough.

He released me and came around to look at my face. His eyes shone black in firelight. He held out his hand to me and I recognized a crossroad, a point of choice that might define the rest of my life. He wouldn’t hold me or force me. I had to choose.

I stepped forward and stood against him, thigh to thigh, belly to belly. I rubbed my cheek against his jaw and felt stubble and bone and skin, smelling of change, smelling of desire, smelling of my life. I could feel him smile. He took me by the hand and led me around the great boulder into the sleeping chamber.”

Her voice stilled and Mary sighed. Lugh lay motionless, silent. She was surprised to see a sheen of tears in Briar Rose’s eyes. Dar watched Briar Rose curiously.

“There’s more,” said Lugh expressionlessly.

“If you don’t want to…” Mary began, disturbed by the look in Briar Rose’s eyes.

Briar Rose ignored Mary. Steadily, she took up the story, looking at no one, eyes fixed on her weaving, unfolded on a mat of dry, tired grass. She might have been alone.

“Of course, my family noticed I didn’t come home that night. My father called the men together. It was the time of year when bears might look for maidens to enchant for the time of hibernation, and he was suspicious of my restlessness and fondness for going off by myself. They tracked me easily, as I wasn’t trying to escape notice the morning I left. It was probably obvious I was tracking a bear.

Everyone knew of my fondness for the sacred spring and I’m sure they followed me that far easily. I’m not sure why, but there they lost the trail. The sentinel cottonwoods didn’t give us away, nor the shadows under the bluff. The vultures gave them no sign. Eventually, they stopped searching. Winter came, iron-toothed wind and hard grainy snow. The village turned inward until spring.

I bore a son.”

Mary looked up sharply, but Lugh didn’t even twitch, as though he’d known already. She put a protective hand to her belly in an automatic gesture of motherhood.

“I bore a son,” Briar Rose repeated, wonder and anguish mingled on her face.

“We had a son, the Bear Man and I. When the long sleep ended, we took him out into the world and he romped and played, grew and throve like any other child. The three of us made a whole, perfect and entire. I’d never known such peace and happiness. The desert cradled us. The cave sheltered us. We ate and played, explored, slept and woke. We often took him to the spring, where we soaked and lazed in sun and water or played among the cottonwoods.

But my father didn’t forget. He was determined to find the bear that had taken his daughter. He bided his time, and when fall came again he was ready.

He set out with a party of the best hunters. They came back to the sacred spring and searched every inch of ground.

Perhaps we were protected for a time for the sake of our joy. I don’t know. But this time the trees and the bluff gave up their secrets. Or perhaps a circling vulture told the Shaman. I never knew.

One evening they found the cave and surrounded the opening, and my father called out the bear who had taken his daughter.

I begged him not to go but he put me away from him. He said he must go to honor an old agreement between our people. He said he must show our son to his grandfather. He kissed me, took the child, and stepped out into the circle of men.”

Briar Rose’s tone became wooden, emotionless, but Mary wept. Neither of the men moved.

“I retreated back into the depths of the sleeping chamber and curled up, resolving to fight until I died if anyone came to get me, including my father. I told myself all would be well, my lover and father would talk together, come to an understanding for my sake. For the sake of the child. But I could hear the sounds of slaughter.

A long time later it was silent.

I went outside in early dawn and began to search for their bodies, but there were no bodies. I searched for meat, but there was no meat. I searched for fat and fur, but there was no fat and there was no fur. My people took everything.

I didn’t go back to the cave. I started to walk. I didn’t think or feel. When I was tired, I lay down and slept, wherever I was. I drank when there was water. I ate when I found food. I left the high desert. I walked through shifting dunes of sand and dirt, flat and endless, where nothing moved but vultures high in the sky. My only plan was to walk until I could walk no more and then lie down, somewhere out of reach of life.

When I ran out of strength to put one foot in the front of the other, I was in front of a ruined stone cistern. It was old — old. Part of it was buried in sand.

I sat down in it. That’s all. I couldn’t be bothered to get up again — for anything. I had no past, no future, no name, no language. I was not. I existed, nothing more. I only breathed because it was too much effort not to.

One day a child walked out of the desert. She was nearly naked, dusted with sand. A tattoo of dots and dashes and lozenges curled around her left arm It looked like a snake. She wore gold earrings and her eyes were ancient.”

“Nephthys,” breathed Mary.

“You know her?” asked Briar Rose.

“We know her,” said Dar.

“She…gathered me,” said Briar Rose. “I collected bones with her — my bones — and I began to remember who I’d been. I stayed with her. She…healed me. One day I had found all my bones and I… became again. A new life. I left the desert and returned into the world…”

“A cursed Princess,” Dar put in, “a bored Queen, and an artist — because of me.”

“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” scoffed Briar Rose. “You eased my boredom for a few nights, but you didn’t make me an artist, my fine fellow. I did that by myself. And don’t forget Minerva. But that story is for another day.”

Dar picked up his flute and began to play a rippling melody like a child skipping. Briar Rose smiled at him and Mary understood their bickering was nothing but a thin skin over deep affection and friendship.

Without pause, Dar left the lovely melody and transitioned into something more complex, less childlike. Briar Rose knelt and folded her weaving, putting it carefully back into the bundle and tying it securely.

Dar played, and Mary saw again the high desert, the sacred spring where the string of pools lay under the bluff, guarded over by a grove of cottonwoods with leaves like golden smoke. She saw the bear, his nose at the nape of the girl’s neck. She stood in the cave by the fire, nestled in the hollow of the sleeping chamber, lined with leaves, fur and long cinnamon brown hairs. She heard the sound of lover and child being slaughtered, searched for their bodies, and walked into the desert with nothing but grief and rage.

Something stirred in her hair and she reached up to brush away an insect.

Lugh was weeping silently, his tears falling into her hair.

The bone flute wept with him for loss, for sacrifice, for decrease, for exile and going into darkness alone.

Mary sat up and pressed Lugh’s head against her breast. One of his hands dropped to her bulge and she put hers over it and held it there. One of the babies squirmed and kicked, adjusting as she changed position.

The flute sorrowed. Mary rocked, stroking Lugh’s hair, remembering the rich brown-haired flanks of the primordial Seed Bearer, the hard bumps of horns, the split feet. As the cycle turned, he’d turned with it, still green-eyed but golden now, formed like any other man, firm-fleshed and strong, hair thick and shining under summer sun or filling her hands as she strove beneath him under the night sky. His tears wet the cloth over her breasts, making it warm and clinging.

Briar Rose packed away their picnic, saying nothing, hardly appearing to notice Lugh’s grief. Her face looked peaceful and Mary, watching her, wondered how she could look so serene after such tragedy. What did a woman need to survive something like that? Not only survive, but accept, and go on, go forward, find a new life and purpose?

The flute dwindled into silence. Lugh took a shuddering breath, and Mary dropped a kiss onto his faded hair. It felt faintly brittle against her lips. He dropped his head and kissed the curve of her hard belly.

Briar Rose stayed with them for the rest of the day, but as evening approached their ways divided. Dar swung off the seat and took her in his arms. They clung together in what Mary thought was friendship rather than passion. He kissed her on the mouth, leaned back to meet her eyes.

“Well met. We needed you, Red Bear Woman. It’s hard to remember inevitability of increase during time of decrease. You’ve reminded us to surrender to balance.”

“If she who you call Red Bear Woman can serve the balance, she is glad,” said Briar Rose. “I’m happy to see you again, my friend. Go well in the world, and fear not your own decrease. I’ve seen further than you, and all shall be well in ends and beginnings.”

They embraced again, and she turned away in another direction, walking steadily. She soon moved out of sight in the darkening night. Mary clambered out of the back of the cart and Dar helped her climb up to sit next to him.

“I liked her. I wish we could go on together.”

“Perhaps you’ll meet again.”

“I hope so. What an amazing woman! So strong.”

“She is. It took her a while to find her strength, though.”

Gideon walked on through the gloaming.

“It’s our last night,” said Dar at last.

“I thought we were getting close.”

“Tomorrow. There’s a town ahead. I thought we’d sleep under a roof tonight, buy a good meal.” This, she knew, was not for her sake, as she had no room to digest more than a few mouthfuls at a time and he ate sparingly himself. Lugh was the one needing a good meal.

“All right,” she said, sounding more desolate than she meant to.

He took her hand, surprising her. “I’ll see you safe,” he said. “Lugh asked me to, a long time ago, and I will—whatever happens.”

“Whatever happens,” she agreed, low voiced.

***

In the end, parting was simple and quick, over nearly before it began. A snake lay coiled in the middle of the road, a huge creature of dusty green. It raised its head as the cart rolled near. Its neck was thicker than Mary’s thigh. Gideon snorted and stopped smartly.

Lugh stepped down, his bundle under his arm. The coils of snake blocked the whole road. Dar jumped down, took him by the elbows, and kissed him on the mouth. Mary embraced him a last time, the babies bulging between them. She laughed at the awkwardness, but tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Rest now,” she said tenderly to him. “You’ve seen it through perfectly. You’ve succeeded. Rest.”

The snake began to uncoil. Lugh walked beside it and they slipped into the wood through which the road wound. Lugh had moved out of sight between the trees before the snake’s tail finally slid off the road. Dar held Mary’s hand. They stood together, watching, until man and snake were quite gone. Gideon waited patiently, ears pricked, watching the receding figures.

A few minutes later, Mary heard Dar chirrup to the horse and the cart jolted into motion. She lay on the pallet and let the turning wheels send her to sleep, watching Lugh walk away on the dark screen of her closed eyelids.

MARIA

“Somebody tell a story,” said Liza. She sat close to Brian, a blanket thrown around their shoulders for warmth. It was the coldest night of the season so far. The fire’s heat and light comforted Maria’s face, but her back felt the bony breath of winter.

Jan and Gwelda, with promises to visit often and soon, had returned to their own hearth and giant downy bed. Ginger had moved into Maria’s house and her own hastily erected bedroom.

Dar, Lugh and Mary were also gone, to general sorrow. Dar and Lugh had been so involved in creating Rowan Tree that Maria felt bereft and uncertain without them. Their natural leadership and presence lingered everywhere, but nowhere more than at the fireside.

With their departure, Rowan Tree began to settle down for their first winter together.

“Yes, someone do,” agreed Gabriel, hunching his shoulders against the cold night.

Unexpectedly, Cassandra responded. She stood, as Dar had so often done, close to the fire. Maria caught glimpses of her face, lined and haunted, in the dancing light. She wore a new cloak, a thick charcoal grey wool with a thin crimson stripe Maria had woven for her. It fell away from her arms as she gestured.

“Now comes the Harvest Hag with her stone moon blade, sharpened with deathly charms. She dances through husk and chaff and over stubbled fields on her iron-tipped bare feet, sticky blood between her toes. She’s searching for a consort, a partner for Harvest’s death dance.

But he must be worthy, yes, worthy, with broad bones and sandpaper cheek. His hair must taste like salt and sun. He must hang low between his legs like a ripe cluster of grapes, bursting red and purple. Most of all, he must swing the sharp sickle, swing it with arrogance and skill.

They come to each other in rolling fields of oats and barley, wheat and rye. His pride and strength are ebbing, but he’s longing for her, too. They face one another, the Harvest Hag and the green and gold man, and autumn wind ripples the grain like fur.

She sneers a challenge, twirling her blade. He bows courteously, and grins like a boy.

They bend their backs under the tired sun, swinging their arms, creeping row by row through the fields, leaving heaps of fallen grain behind them. Now the man, sun-dusted, gold earring glinting, leads, and now the Harvest Hag, dusty and spiky as a grasshopper, tireless, inexorable, crawls ahead. As the sun slides down, they’re coated with sweat and dust and flies.

They reap what has been sown, bend and swing, bend and swing, beating harvest heartbeat, and the stars look down with cool eyes. Noola rises, waxing gibbous.

On they go, timeless, inevitable, waltzing over shorn fields, swaying, revolving, each determined to beat the other, flinging themselves headlong toward the last severing.

Triumphant, he crows as his swift blade parts the last sheaf from the earth. He stands in moonlight, laughing, arms full of a bouquet of death. She comes to him on her clawed feet, cackling, thighs wet, the taste of him already in her mouth, and the sickle moon thrusts into her, enters her, fills her, rips the rotten fabric of her body.

She falls into the night’s cauldron, stone, bone, earth, and a splash of scarlet poppies at the corner of the last barley field, taking with her the last of his strength, for death must come before renewal.”

MIRMIR

“The firelight fingered the ssircle of lisstening fasses, finding jawline, cheekbone and eye ssocket. In its uncertain light memories moved through eyes, across lips. Hands clasped around knees, in laps or in the hands of a lover remembered work’s texture and tattoo. A hard grin of triumph flashed across the men’s faces as he, the green and gold one, cut the last sheaf for them all. The women stirred, subtly widening their legs, breasts awakening, roused to lust by the presence of death.”

“In cold darkness beyond the reach of light and heat stood another circle of pearl antler, half-moon bow, jeweled wings trailing sparks, the White Lady’s flower face, an old one-eyed man, wolves with eyes of amber and jade, seeing nipples and hairy lips, torchbearer, and a child creased with sand holding an armful of bones like ivory flowers.”

“And beyond that circle an old hag peered from the shadows, whiskers and nose hairs tied in a knot, caressing marbles with her tongue and scratching her ass with a bloody blade.”

“Circles within circles, each turning in their own dance, and held within the circle of Webbd, held within the circle of the sky, held within a circle of stars…”

PART 10 The Hanged Man

Life in suspension

MIRMIR

“Across ssleeping hillss and fieldss the lasst dolly hass been plaited and cut, the lasst sheaf carried to the barn. Mice and rats nibble at grain on the threshing floor. Corn is gathered in heaps. There will be enough food for the winter — or there won’t be. Herds are culled, trees relieved of their burdens. The land lies, exhausted and spent, under winter’s iron blanket.

He, man of light, sun man of green and gold in his crimson cloak, makes his way across the earth into which he spilled his seed. He’s called the land into life, fed it with his vitality. He’s danced upon it and rutted upon it, whispered to it and commanded it. He’s called ripening fruit and grain, each by its secret name, and felt himself diminish, bit by bit, as each seed swelled into maturity. His reflection is in the dying animal’s eye, his hand released its blood and severed its bone. He’s fed the cycle and now he’s tired husk and dry chaff, empty of seed, empty of beauty, empty of sustenance. His own blood is let, his bones soft. Now he’s weary.

He makes his way to rest, to a place of being and not doing. He makes his way to a suspended interval during which nothing is needed from him — not mastery, not virility, not seed. He no longer holds the shield of himself between his loved ones and the world.

He goes to hear stories of what might be and what might not be, what has been and has not been, time past and coming again soon. He goes to be cradled in the ancient arms of Yggdrasil and hear his own story, his mate’s, his brother’s and sons’ stories. He goes to rest before his final journey, which ends in the beginning.”

Mirmir’s words trailed off, his golden eyes softening with tenderness as he watched the Hanged Man sleep. An autumn breeze blew through the network of branches, rocking him gently, and he smiled in his sleep as he hung, anchored to the Tree of Life, the pivot around which the wheel spins, his dry bones whispering of change and renewal in the desiccating rind of his flesh.

“It endss with the Hanged Man,” whispered Mirmir.

THE END (AND THE BEGINNING)

Thank you for reading the first book in my Webbd Wheel series, The Hanged Man! The second book is titled The Tower, and you’ll find it in the top navigation bar as a section in my newsletter. I’ll publish a Directory for The Tower by the end of 2023 and begin serial posts of The Tower in January 2024.

A Stone, a Web, a Story

Discussion about this post