The Hanged Man: Part 9: Lughnasadh
Post #92: In which loss, public and private ...
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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.