The Tower: Part 4: Yule
Post #36: In which a dance of fire and ice ...
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As Vasilisa pushed open the bathhouse door, the snow turned to rain, changing the lovely, feathery coating to sodden slush. Clarissa and Vasilisa shed their clothes in the anteroom, wrapped themselves in linen towels, and opened the door to the sauna. Sofiya and Valeria were the only ones there, and the nervous knot in Clarissa’s stomach loosened. Vasilisa lay down on one end of the wooden shelf Valeria stretched out on, and Clarissa tentatively settled down on the same shelf as Sofiya, making herself as inconspicuous as possible. Nudity didn’t bother her, either her own or the other women’s, but the Rusalka intimidated her, as did her maiden status. She was the youngest and least experienced, and felt like an ignorant child tolerated by a group of adults. She longed for their confident sensuality and wisdom.
The little room was heavy with steamy heat, scented soothingly with something light and flowery. Gradually, the heat relaxed her tension and she closed her eyes and breathed, aware of the silky steam on her skin and the hard wooden boards beneath her. Someone moved, but she felt too languorous to open her eyes. She heard water being scooped from a bucket and then sizzling and spitting as it trickled onto the hot rocks on the stove. Then someone drew near and she opened her eyes.
Sofiya smiled, her round golden eyes glowing in the dim little room. She held a stoppered bottle in her hand.
“We use lavender to honor the Sacred Maiden.” She spoke quietly. “We’ve scented the steam with it and mixed it with oil. Morfran’s hip troubles him sometimes and I massage it for him. Would you like me to rub you with it?” She unstoppered the bottle and held to Clarissa’s nose.
“Mmm,” said Clarissa. “I like that! I don’t know anything about perfumes.”
“Of course not, living in the sea,” Sofiya said. “This is better than perfume. It’s the essential oil of the lavender plant, both healing and relaxing. I use birch oil on Morfran, because that’s good for aches and pains. Will you lie on your stomach?”
Clarissa complied, and felt Sofiya run her hands down her back from neck to buttocks, as though introducing her touch. The hands went away briefly and then returned, slippery with oil.
“I’ve used birch oil before on a … friend.”
“Yes?” The scent of lavender wrapped Clarissa in steamy arms and the intimate touch released grief she didn’t know she carried.
Among the merfolk, touch provided constant connection and affection, and Clarissa had been hugged and held all her life by her own people, but humans were less free with touch and during her time at the lighthouse she’d grown hungrier and hungrier for it. Seren had fully ignited her sexuality, and his physical withdrawal and withholding made her wonder, for the first time, if something was wrong with her. Perhaps she was unattractive, at least by human standards. Perhaps her mother was right, and Seren would like her better if she followed at least some human rules. Perhaps – the thought made her wince – he would like her better if she acted more like her mother.
Sofiya’s touch, sure, confident and skilled, brought tears that eased away some of her heartache. She’d longed for the nurturing touch of a woman without knowing it.
Sofiya took no notice of her tears and Clarissa let them roll down her cheek and wet the boards. She drifted, comforted and relaxed, while Sofiya worked on her neck, back, buttocks and the back of her legs, turning sleepily onto her back when requested and surrendering her arms, hands and fingers. As Sofiya worked down to her legs, Clarissa realized they were alone. Valeria and Vasilisa must have gone to the plunge pool.
“Sofiya?”
“Yes?”
“What am I supposed to do tonight?”
“Nothing but be yourself and share your dance.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. You’re the strongest maiden among us. Each of us carry a maiden, a mother and a crone, including you, but your maiden strength is at its apex and shines bright with young female energy. The Maiden contains enormous primitive power, unchanneled and undisciplined, yet to be discovered and harnessed. It’s the essence of fertility, that unfettered, chaotic passion. We Rusalka are deeply troubled about Imbolc and our roles in the next cycle’s fertility.”
“The Sacred Consort is dead.”
“Yes, and not only that. We feel the breakdown and disconnection around us in the death of the forest and the blocked portal. You give us hope again. You came through the portal, which gives us assurance repair is possible, and you arrived just in time to fill the most important role in the Imbolc ritual, one none of us here could fill. You are both blessing and gift, and we’re grateful.”
Sofiya had been working on the sole of Clarissa’s right foot. She wiped it with the corner of a linen towel before moving to the left.
“I’m nearly finished. Then you must drink. It’s not good to lie in the heat too long without replenishing.”
“I want to swim anyway. Suddenly I feel smothered.”
I set out a bottle of lavender shampoo for your hair, in case you want to wash it. There’s plenty of time. Swim for a while and cool off. Sleep the next time you’re in here.”
“I don’t have any clothes to dance in.”
“Don’t worry. We Rusalka are famous for our linen and embroidery. We’ll provide you with a robe.”
“Will it be warm enough?”
“It will. Mother Yaga will take care of that.”
ASH
The last thing Ash expected when he and Beatrice arrived in the Rusalka’s birch wood in the hour before dawn was to become part of a fertility ritual.
They could not enter the bathhouse, so he hung upside down near the door and waited for someone to enter or leave, notice him, and hopefully summon Izolda.
It was cold. Beatrice huddled against Ash’s chest and he covered her protectively with a wing. The wooden wall of the bathhouse radiated a faint heat, and Ash pressed himself against it as they waited, absorbing what warmth he could.
It wasn’t a long wait. An owl flew silently down to perch on a tree near the bathhouse, golden-eyed and dressed in cream, brown and grey feathers. She preened for a moment, straightening her feathers, then drifted soundlessly to the ground and became a woman, naked and retaining her round amber eyes. As she opened the bathhouse door, letting out a draft of warm air, Ash squeaked and stretched out a wing to catch her attention. She looked up, her round pupils enlarging, and entered the building, shutting the door behind her.
Ash and Beatrice waited. After a few minutes, a figure in white linen robes emerged, turning to look up into the dim shadows below the roof with eyes as dark as Ash’s own. Ash saw a small woman with dense brown hair.
“Are you Izolda?”
“I am.”
“I’m Ash, and I brought a friend with me, Beatrice.” Beatrice cautiously parted Ash’s fur and poked out her black head, waving her antennae. “We’ve come from Heks, and from the Norns and Mirmir, too, I suppose. And from Rapunzel. I think you know her.”
“You’re cold. Will you come into the bathhouse? We can talk there.”
Ash flew down, gripping Izolda’s robe collar with his feet. Inside the door was a small room with a wooden bench under pegs along one wall. A black iron stove jutted out from an inside wall, radiating heat. Izolda shed her robe, cupped Ash in her hand and opened another door, revealing a room lined with tiers of wooden shelves. The atmosphere was hot and steamy and smelled of lavender, though the room was empty. Opening a third door, Izolda entered a large room containing a plunge pool, in which several sleek heads bobbed. Here the roof loomed higher than that of the rest of the building. Dawn light came through two high windows and a lit lantern sat in a corner on a bench next to a neat pile of folded linen towels.
Ash heard male and female voices as those in the plunge pool talked together. No one took any notice of Izolda or her companions.
She nudged Ash onto a wooden peg in the wall above the bench, from which he hung upside down, and made herself comfortable on the bench.
“Now, tell me why you have come,” she said.
Ash, with help from Beatrice, told the Rusalka about Rowan Tree, Rapunzel’s lighthouse and recent events at Yggdrasil. Izolda listened attentively, asking no questions and making no comments until Ash wound down.
“Clarissa is here,” she said. “She arrived just in time to join us in our Imbolc ritual as the Maiden. Tonight we dance, raising power for the strengthening light and the Maiden’s return.”
“Your portal is repaired, then?” asked Beatrice.
“We don’t know to what degree it’s repaired,” said Izolda. “It allowed Vasilisa, one of our friends, to go through into the sea and return with Clarissa, Lord Poseidon and another sea king, kin to Vasilisa and Morfran and friend and guardian of Clarissa. As they discovered at Rowan Tree and Yggdrasil, the portals appear to function when powered by the connection of those using them. When we restricted this portal to Rusalka only, it remained closed. Opening the bathhouse to the half-humans Morfran and Vasilisa, and perhaps to the Dwarve, Rumpelstiltskin, may have opened the portal.”
“So, Clarissa will now try to go through this portal and access Rowan Gate,” said Ash.
“That is her intention.”
Ash yawned widely.
“You can sleep here,” said Izolda. You’ll be quite safe and sheltered, and it’s warmer in here than outside.”
“I’m hungry,” said Beatrice. “Could you direct me to a dead or dying tree? I could spend the day eating and rejoin Ash tonight.”
“Certainly,” said Izolda. “How do you eat in the wintertime?” she asked Ash.
“I eat Beatrice,” said Ash, straight-faced.
Beatrice giggled at Izolda’s surprised expression. “Rapunzel enchanted me,” she explained. “Ash can eat me as many times as he wants without taking my life. That’s how it’s possible for us to collect and carry news from place to place during the winter.”
“Remarkable,” said Izolda. She paused for a moment, observing the inhabitants of the plunge pool as they talked. Ash, watching her, admired her jaw’s delicate modeling and the curve of her dark brow.
As though coming to a decision, she turned back to him. “We Rusalka are fertility spirits,” she said. “The birch woods and rye and poppy fields are under our particular care. Imbolc begins a new cycle of growth, and with the sacrifice of Cerunmos at Samhain we fear this year there will be no Sacred Consort. We’re determined to carry on with our Imbolc ritual as best we can, but we fear our ability to ensure the next cycle’s health. The birch forest sickens, we feel disconnection everywhere, and the Horned King is dead. Then Clarissa arrived through a portal we thought closed, a true maiden. Her appearance at this time gives us new hope. Tonight, she’ll add her power to ours in dance.”
“I’d like to see that,” said Beatrice.
“So you shall. Few have seen the Rusalka dance, as it is a sacred practice. But if we have learned anything, it’s that connection works better than disconnection.”
“Thank you,” said Beatrice.
“During this time, we Rusalka participate in union with Cerunmos in his human aspect, but we also seek mates among the creatures whose forms we take.”
Ash, beginning to suspect where she was going with this, felt his face grow hot.
“It is not my time now, in midwinter, to seek a mate among the winged shadows,” said Izolda, and she stretched out her arms, pale-skinned in the dim dawn light. As Ash watched, the arms became membranous wings stretched on a delicate boney scaffold. “But would you consider returning to me in the summer as my mate, so we might perpetuate the life of our kind?”
Ash, feeling elated and humbled at the same time, said, “I’d be honored.”
“Good. Thank you. I’ll leave you to sleep now, and I’ll take Beatrice to a place where she can shelter, rest and eat during the day. We’ll talk again, but now you’re tired and my sisters and I must prepare for Imbolc.”
As Beatrice crawled onto Izolda’s hand, the beetle said, “I don’t suppose there are any male Rusalka who take the form of bark beetles?”
“No,” said Izolda. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Beatrice wistfully.
As they left the plunge pool, Ash flitted up and found a convenient rafter in the shadows from which to roost.
CHATTAN
Chattan parted from Artemis in an icy pink dawn. She would return to Rowan Tree and he set out for Baba Yaga’s birch forest and the Rusalka. He traveled swiftly, pausing only to eat a snowshoe hare that crossed his path and sleep for an hour or two. As he moved north, the mixed hardwood forest changed gradually to birch. It began to snow thickly in wet, sticky flakes, soaking his outer coat. He gloried in it, moving soundlessly and invisibly through the muffled winter landscape. At midday the snow turned to rain, and the fairytale woods became drenched and sodden. Gradually, the heavy sky lightened and the rain stopped. The humid air, smelling vaguely of the sea, freshened and the temperature dropped. Slush froze into lumps under his feet. A thin wind nipped with sharp teeth, rattling ice-coated branches overhead.
As the weary sun fell below the horizon, leaving a clear sky aching with cold, Chattan sat under a spruce’s ice-laden drooping branches and surveyed a clearing guarded by a hut on a pair of towering chicken legs. Smoke came from the chimney and the windows, with arched tops on either side of the door, glared with orange light like malevolent eyes. Long wooly scarves in an eye-watering turquoise and purple pattern wrapped the chicken legs.
In the clearing a stone ring surrounded a shallow dimple, several feet wide, in which a bonfire burned. The wood cracked and popped in the furious flames as though desert-dry, and it appeared the fire had burned for hours. The ground in the clearing was free of snow, slush and ice, carpeted roughly in winter-sere grasses.
Chattan’s sensitive ears filled with the subtle sounds of the woods, the wind’s susurration and the chiming icy twigs, the fire’s crackle, the skritch of a small animal moving in the forest. He also heard voices, female voices, coming closer, and the cold air brought him the scent of women, women who smelled of saltwater and flesh, something fresh and flowery and also of animals. He caught the rich smell of pig; a fleeting impression of raptor; a dry, sunbaked reptile odor and the musk of fox, bear and cat.
The Rusalka approached.
They came out of the woods on the other side of the chicken legs, wearing long white robes with hoods over their heads. Some were burdened with instruments: drums, a stringed harp or lyre, and a couple of flutes.
They laid their instruments near the fire and took off supple fur-lined boots, showing no discomfort at being barefoot on the ground.
Light left the sky. The first stars shone and the trees echoed them, the firelight picking out gleam and sparkle of ice coating every surface. The clearing seemed surrounded by a wall of diamond trees. The women grouped together facing north, looking up at the sky and holding out their arms as though in worship or welcome.
“The Wild Maiden returns,” said one.
“Welcome, Brigid,” said another.
“The light quickens.”
They repeated gesture and words at the four points of the compass.
Others approached, and now became visible as they entered the clearing. Chattan saw two young women, one with a fiery skull on a pole in her hand. They smelled of human flesh, bone and blood, mingled with saltwater and flower scents. There was nothing of the animal in them. A man accompanied them, slim and lithe, moving with a limp. Two other men followed, older than the rest, smelling strongly of raw fish, the sea and the wolfskin cloaks they wore. One of these men held a trident in his hand.
A loud slam made everyone jump. Baba Yaga stood on her doorstep, hands on bony hips, surveying the clearing. Chattan smelled old fish, congealed blood and unwashed clothes. The chicken legs slowly bent at the knees, lowering the house. Scowling, Baba Yaga sprang onto the ground, quick and agile as grease spattering. She glared from one figure to another. Her gaze fastened on the face of one of the young women, who looked fearfully back.
Baba Yaga advanced on her, stiff-legged and menacing. She stalked around her, looking her up and down, while the girl cowered in her white linen robes.
“The Maiden, as I live and breathe! Aren’t you just too precious? A maiden still because he didn’t want you, did he? He didn’t dare, not him!” She sneered magnificently and spat. “Pretty words, weak words that twist and bend and lie, that’s what he has. That’s all he has! You hang on every one, don’t you? You dangle like a ripe fruit, plump and moist and willing. I can smell you from here!” She bent and sniffed loudly at the girl’s crotch.
The girl threw back her white hood, releasing a sweep of hair, and stiffened her spine. “You’re wrong,” she said. “He’s not weak. He’s powerful and…beautiful.”
Baba Yaga screeched with laughter. “Oh, yes, he’s pretty! He’s a pretty one, all right, but your balls are bigger than his, poppet! You’ll see! He’s not equipped to deal with the likes of you! Have it your way, though. May his pretty face bring you satisfaction! May he fill your cunt and make you scream with pleasure! Hah!”
She turned away, contempt in every line of her body, and stumped to where the man with the trident stood watching with a sardonic smile on his handsome face. “Why are you here, fish breath?” she demanded. “Fancy a different flavor, do you?”
“Perhaps,” he said with a crooked smile. “Perhaps I just felt like a game of marbles!” he dangled a bulging bag in front of her nose enticingly. “I’ve added some new ones to my collection recently.”
“You mean you’ve added them to my collection,” she snapped. “I’ll deal with you later.”
She whirled on her heel. “Put yon grinning fellow over there,” she ordered the woman with the fiery skull, indicating the edge of the oval. “And you,” she commanded the man with the trident, “make yourself useful! Put that there!” She pointed an iron-tipped finger.
He strode to the place she indicated and thrust the trident’s handle into the bare ground. A white-robed and hooded figure set out fat white candles and lit them. She pressed a candle base onto each tine of the trident.
“What are you waiting for, poppets?” Baba Yaga shrieked. “Do I have to do everything myself? Where’s the music? Finish setting out those candles! Dance, cripple! Dance, old men! Do you want a maiden of insipid rainbows and moonbeams or do you want one of fire and ice, claw and wing, tusk and tooth? Dance, damn you! Caper for the Horned King! Dance for the next cycle, whores, bitches, sluts! Now!” She held out her arms, opened her mouth and screamed at the star-glittered sky, making the iced trees tremble and chime.