The Tower: Part 2: Mabon
Post #9: In which a stranger from the sea ...
(If you are a new subscriber, you might want to start at the beginning of the Webbd Wheel Series with The Hanged Man. If you would like to start at the beginning of The Tower, go here. If you prefer to read Parts 1 and 2 in their entirety, go here. For the next serial post, go here.)
Rapunzel appeared in the door. “Ginger!” She brushed by Persephone and the bull and Ginger, emboldened by the animal’s apparent docility, took a step forward.
“I’ve come,” she said inadequately and obviously. She felt herself blush. “I mean, I’ve come to see you…both. With some gifts.”
Rapunzel gave Ginger a quick, strong hug, wordlessly welcoming, and smiled.
“How did you know I — we — were here?” asked Persephone, standing still.
Ginger had no talent for artifice. “Baubo sent me,” she said baldly. “She thought I was the right person.”
For a moment Persephone’s carefully neutral face dissolved and Ginger saw desolation. Then the mask slid back. Persephone smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Come in,” said Rapunzel briskly, taking charge. “Don’t worry about Cerus. He won’t hurt you.”
Ginger followed Rapunzel into the tower, thinking Cerus? Persephone stayed outside, murmuring inaudible endearments to Cerus.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Ginger muttered, feeling close to tears. “I told them I didn’t think I was the right person.”
“Who’s they?” asked Rapunzel ungrammatically. She helped Ginger set down her various bundles. “Oof! That’s quite a load!”
“I brought gifts from Rowan Tree, and I’ve only walked this last little bit. I’ve mostly traveled on horseback. They are Baubo, and Maria and Demeter, too.”
“Sounds like a conspiracy,” said Rapunzel.
Ginger flushed. “It’s only that everyone’s concerned for Persephone. They felt better, knowing you were here and she wasn’t alone, but they – we -- wanted to be sure she was all right after…after the baby.”
Rapunzel’s eyebrows shot up. She took Ginger by the wrist and pulled her up the winding stone steps. They emerged into the largest bedroom but Rapunzel kept climbing, spiraling up and up to a second, smaller bedroom, then through a third room, empty and clean, and then out onto the top of the tower with its empty fireplace and mirrors. Ginger caught her breath at the panorama of sky, sea and rock. Below them, Persephone and the white bull -- Cerus, Rapunzel had called him -- wandered along the cliff edge, side by side. Ginger noted the bull walked between Persephone and the steep drop-off to the foaming water. It looked oddly protective.
“The baby?” demanded Rapunzel, but quietly.
“She didn’t tell you?” asked Ginger, amazed.
“No. I heard a rumor about a child, but I didn’t ask and she hasn’t said.”
“She lost a child in September. It would have been born in January. It was a daughter.”
“I see.” Rapunzel looked stricken.
“I know,” said Ginger. “I mean, I don’t know. I can’t imagine.”
They looked glumly at one another.
“Baubo was with her,” said Ginger, “but Persephone left suddenly, and Baubo is worried about her. She left before they buried…the baby, so Persephone doesn’t know where the grave is. That’s what upsets Maria the most -- that Persephone doesn’t know where the child is buried. She said Persephone will be worrying.”
“And Hades?” asked Rapunzel.
“I don’t know. Baubo said Persephone left the Underworld and King Hades, and no one knew where she’d gone or what she planned to do. Hades and Demeter are both worried, but they want to give her the time and privacy she needs. Demeter came from Rowan Tree with me, but she turned back this morning with the horses. She said she can’t do anything for Persephone right now, except love her and let her be.”
“Baubo came to you at Rowan Tree?”
“Yes. She came to a dance and then she told Maria and me what had happened, and that you were here, too. She asked me to come—“
Ginger swallowed the rest of the sentence.
Rapunzel cocked an eyebrow at her. “Go on.”
“Well, Baubo said maybe it would help if we…danced.”
Rapunzel eyed Ginger so closely she blushed again, but she continued bravely. “And she said maybe we should…drum.”
“Ah ha!” said Rapunzel, but without much pleasure. She scowled, and without warning metamorphosed into the ugliest woman in the world.
Ginger burst into a sudden peal of laughter. She loved watching Rapunzel shift in and out of her two faces. Now it brought back the early days of Rowan Tree vividly, the excitement of building, the rush to get ready for the first winter, the stories around the fire, Cassandra and Lugh and Mary and Dar, Dar with his dark purple cloak like the night sky, and his bone flute and mobile features, telling stories, laughing, teasing Rapunzel…”
“Do you remember when Dar—“ Ginger began, but at the name Rapunzel’s ugly face closed upon itself like a fist and she turned away, looking out across the sea.
Ginger, seeing this, stopped speaking. Looking at Rapunzel’s determined and rigid back, she suddenly realized why Baubo had sent her, of all people, and her shyness and fear of being an intrusive nuisance drained away. These two women needed expression and healing, and she, Ginger, knew how to give them a place to do it.
“Rapunzel,” she said, and the new assertiveness in her tone made Rapunzel turn around, this time wearing her young, gamine face.
“What’s the third room for — the one just under us?”
“It used to be the storeroom. The old lighthouse keeper burned coal, and that’s where he stored it, along with some other odds and ends. But I use witchlight, so we cleaned out the room and left it empty.”
“That’s where we’ll dance. Are your drums here?”
“I don’t want to dance,” said Rapunzel quickly.
“Fine. Then you drum. I need to dance, and Persephone does, too. Where’s her drum?”
Rapunzel looked surprised. “I didn’t know she had one.”
“She does. Baubo said it’s practically all she brought with her. She says Persephone’s a good drummer, too.”
“Huh.”
It was Ginger’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
Rapunzel, somewhat grudgingly, broke into a smile. “You look like a strict governess when you do that.”
“Don’t forget I had charge of eleven younger sisters for most of my life.”
“Baubo’s an interfering old woman.”
“Well, she’s not as bad as Baba Yaga.”
Rapunzel laughed. “No. She’s not as bad as Baba Yaga. I suppose if we don’t do what Baubo and Demeter and Maria want, the Baba will show up on our doorstep next, on top of everything else.”
“What everything else?”
“I don’t suppose you noticed the sexy white bull guarding the door?” asked Rapunzel sarcastically.
“You called him Cerus.”
“He heaved himself out of the sea a couple of weeks ago. Climbed the cliffs. He had three claw marks on his flank. He and Persephone are inseparable. Before he came, she spent all her time alone, wandering on the cliffs day and night.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I’m not sure,” said Rapunzel.
“Isn’t Cerus a constellation?”
Rapunzel looked amazed.
“I had a letter from Radulf,” Ginger explained. “He mentioned the constellation of Cerus is missing.”
“Did he? I noticed that, too.“
“But that bull couldn’t be a constellation, could he?”
“I don’t know,” said Rapunzel, as though closing the subject. “There’s something else, too.”
“What?”
“Someone’s watching us from the sea.”
Ginger looked horrified.
“No, no, nothing to worry about,” said Rapunzel hastily. “It’s nothing like that. I have an idea about what -- or who -- it is, though. Maybe you being here will help coax them out into the open.” She scowled. “Heks made it sound like coming here would be a nice, quiet vacation. She’s another interfering old woman.”
“Heks!”
“Yes, Heks. She’s the reason I’m here. She said I was needed…to gather information.”
“What kind of information?”
Rapunzel shook her head in exasperation. “It’s not clear. Evidently there are rumors that something’s wrong with life’s fabric. Heks talked about something called Yrtym, a kind of web or threads of matterenergytime. She said the threads seem to be breaking, or unraveling, and she thought maybe I could hear or sense information from here; you know, listen to the wind and read the sky and sea and rock.”
“And are you getting information?”
“Not exactly. But I will admit things are strange. It’s not an accident Cerus is here, or you. Forces are at work.”
“Radulf is worried, too.”
Rapunzel looked on the verge of saying more, but Persephone and Cerus ambled back into view, heading to the lighthouse in what looked like perfect companionship and accord. “We’ll talk again later, but now we’d better go down and get a meal together. You’ve hardly seen the place yet.”
Ginger was relieved to find Persephone accepted her presence without evident resentment after returning from her walk with Cerus. She was neither warm nor curious, but Ginger could see her preoccupation with her own thoughts left little attention to spare for anyone else, and chose not to take her behavior personally. Her observation of both Rapunzel and Persephone made her forget her diffidence in her determination to lead a dance without delay.
At the end of a simple and mostly silent meal, Ginger pushed back her chair, carried her dishes to the sink, and surveyed Persephone and Rapunzel, still seated. Rapunzel, reading the writing on the wall, sighed, rose, and said briefly to Persephone, “We need you upstairs.”
Ginger picked up her pack and bundles and followed them up the winding stone steps.
“Get your dumbek,” Rapunzel said peremptorily when they were in Persephone’s bedroom. Persephone looked surprised, but obediently pulled a box out from under the bed, knelt to open it and rose to her feet with the dumbek. Without a word they ascended the steps into Rapunzel’s bedroom and then the storage room. Rapunzel’s drums already stood, waiting.
“What are we doing?” Persephone asked in a hard voice. She set the dumbek down and took a step back toward the stairs, as though to leave.
“I need to dance,” said Ginger firmly. “It’s important. I need drumming to dance to.”
Persephone’s face hardened, but Ginger turned away from her and said to Rapunzel, “Can you make a good light?”
Rapunzel held up her open palm, muttered a word and a clear white ball of light glowed in the cup of her hand. She blew gently on it and it sailed away like dandelion fluff, hovering up near the ceiling against the stone wall. She repeated this until five spheres of witchlight lit the room with a gentle glow, bright enough to dance safely by but dim enough for privacy.
Ginger opened her bundle and spread it carelessly on the floor against the wall. She’d brought belled bracelets, bangles, gauzy scarves and skirts and dangling earrings. Paying no attention to the other two women, she slid off her traveling clothes, selected an orange crinkled skirt embellished with gold thread and wrapped a cord of brass bells around one wrist. She loosened her knotted hair and let it flow over her shoulders and bare breasts. Barbaric brass earrings completed her preparation.
CHAPTER 4
CLARISSA
Another woman had come to the tower, a woman with hair the color of red seaweed. She and the short-haired lightkeeper had stood on the top of the tower talking for a time earlier in the day while the beautiful one and her white animal walked along the cliffs. Then they all disappeared in the tower, and Clarissa thought they must be having a meal together, as it was late afternoon and the sun was sliding down, staining the autumn sky with deep color.
She’d seen the lightkeeper at dusk, lighting the fire at the top of the tower, but she didn’t linger, as she often did, looking at the night sky and gazing across the water.
After she disappeared, a light shone from a window in the highest room, where her father had stored coal and other necessities. Like the two larger rooms below it, windows looked out in three directions, and Clarissa could clearly see one from her vantage point on a rock with skirts of foam around its roots. The light didn’t go out, and Clarissa wondered what they could be doing. She hadn’t seen a steady light from that window before.
Then she heard drumming. She knew what it was, because many of her people drummed, but she hadn’t heard anything quite like this. It compelled her with its power, yet she shied away from it, too. It made her body feel unfamiliar, at once too sensitive and too…hungry. After a few minutes she realized there were two drummers, but they didn’t seem to be playing together. One sounded barbaric, passionate and sensual. The other was hardly audible, rhythmic and comforting, like the sea’s throb.
Watching, listening, she saw the red-haired woman moving in front of the window, her hair flowing around her bare shoulders and neck, dancing? -- yes, dancing to the drumming. The other two must be the drummers, then.
Then the tower’s top began glowing with blue light.
Clarissa knew what it was, but she’d never seen it on a clear night, only in stormy weather. Sailors called it “spirit candles,” and believed it a good omen in stormy seas.
The red-haired dancer whirled into view again, her graceful arm sweeping in front of the window, trailing sparks of violet light. One of the drummers had stopped, but the other continued, an invisible heart beating in the night. Did it beat in fear? In hope? Or did it just beat with persistent life?
Without thinking about it, Clarissa found herself clambering among the rocks, her tail transformed into two legs. She climbed the cliff fearlessly, knowing if she fell, she’d take no more harm from the restless sea than a fish. It would be easier to take her usual route through the passage in the cliffs into the lighthouse cellar, but somehow she didn’t like to with strangers there.
The tower door wasn’t bolted. A looming white shape in the darkness gave a surprised snort, but she’d slid in the door before there was time for more.
It still looked the same. A fire crackled in the stove. The table, the chairs, a large twisted chunk of driftwood against the wall -- all were the same. The kitchen was tidy, just as her father had always left it.
Clarissa mounted the stairs, resolutely keeping her eyes down as she passed through the first room, where her father had slept. Then the second room appeared, obviously being used as a second bedroom.
The drumming had started again, defiant now, throbbing with emotion and life, but the second drummer was silent. The steady heartbeat had stilled. For some reason this made her feel panicked. She ran the last few steps and then crouched down, eyes wide, mouth agape.
The dancer wore an orange and gold skirt that swung and floated against her legs, but her breasts were bare. Clarissa’s mother would certainly disapprove. Earrings glinted in the low light of spheres hovering near the ceiling. A bracelet of bells wrapped her bare arm. Her face was like the face of her father when he was lost in dreams, and her dance expressed such vivid passion and joy that Clarissa felt breathless.
Nearest her was the beautiful woman with the corn-colored hair. She pressed right up against the wall, as though hoping to be overlooked, or needing shelter. She had a goblet-shaped drum under her left arm and stood, slightly slumped, in the same clothes she’d worn earlier while walking on the cliffs. Clarissa saw her hair screwed into a careless knot on the back of her head.
The short-haired woman was the dominant drummer. She stood before two drums of different diameter, and she too was bare breasted. Her hands moved in a mist of blue and violet sparks as she played. She swayed and stamped, playing with her whole body.
The drumbeat made Clarissa think of the sea. She thought of her father’s strong, scarred body, his skin wet and alive against hers. It was like the rhythmic movement on horseback. The comfort of it stung her nose and behind her eyes.
The only human women she’d ever known was her mother, and her mother’s neat, square house with its scrubbed kitchen, plain walls and floors was nothing like this tower room. Her mother wore plain colors and no jewelry. Her clothes were “decent,” with long sleeves, high collars and long skirts, and she asked Clarissa to cover herself every time she visited. She had rules for conversation; rules for sitting, standing and walking; and rules for appropriate ways to spend time. Clarissa, resentful and uninterested in what sounded to her nonsense, took no interest in either learning or adhering to such rules.
“Why must I follow your rules? They’re not mine.”
“Because there’s a right way to behave and a wrong way to behave. To stay safe, we must stay on an established path in life.
“Says who?”
“Says God, the father of us all.”
“He’s not my father. I have a father, and he doesn’t expect me to follow any rules.”
“Clarissa, your father is a gentle, unworldly man. He knows nothing about what a young lady needs to know, or how dangerous the world can be.”
“My father is wise and loving. I know how to behave. I have friends and family. I can take care of myself.”
“The world is full of wolves and shadows and ways to lose the path. Don’t you understand I want to protect you from making the same mistakes I did?”
Clarissa gave her mother a level look. “You forget I’m half merfolk. I don’t want to live among humans on land. I want to live in the sea with my own people, where we don’t follow meaningless rules or think about this God of yours, who takes the joy out of life!”
“Don’t say such things! I’m ashamed of you!”
“I know,” Clarissa had said, and left, making her way back to the sea with a heavy heart. Once out of sight of the town she shed her clothes and slid back into the sea’s glimmering wet arms.
More often than not, she left her mother feeling like a disappointment, yet she couldn’t stay long away from her. She longed for a woman to talk to, to share with, and to ask for advice. Surely if she spent enough time with her, her mother would realize Clarissa was fine as she was and stop trying to shape her into something she wasn’t.
She didn’t want to be changed or protected. She wanted to be loved the way she was.
Here, in this round tower room, with these human women, she felt warmth and beauty and passion. Here was music, color, grace and body. Next to these women, her mother seemed as cold and lifeless as a dry stick. Did these women follow God? Did they fear wolves and shadows? Would they turn her away, find her disappointing and inappropriate? Uneasily, she covered her bare breasts with one arm. Perhaps women like this had incomprehensible rules as well. Perhaps she should not have come.