The Tower: Part 4: Yule
Post #27: In which true love and unlikely allies ...
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Clarissa gleaned from Rapunzel every bit of information she possessed about the Tree of Life. Rapunzel had not seen it herself, but friends of hers had, and she’d learned about the Well of Urd; Mirmir, who guarded the well and tree; and the three Norns from Elizabeth, her foster mother. She didn’t know exactly what was wrong with Yggdrasil, but she told Clarissa she’d lately heard one of the Norns was ill, and their work with Yggdrasil interrupted.
“He also said Yggdrasil is dropping twigs and branches from its top. You remember I told you no one has ever seen the top of the Tree of Life?”
Clarissa nodded. “How do they know the twigs and branches are coming from the top, then? And who is ‘he’, the one who told you? Did someone come while I was gone?”
“I’m told the twigs and branches are crusted with stardust,” said Rapunzel matter-of-factly. “That’s how they know they’re from the very top, where the upper crown entwines with the night sky. ‘He’ is an old friend of mine. You remember I told you about the tower I lived in when I was your age, and how I cut off my hair and climbed out?”
Clarissa nodded again.
“While I lived there, I made friends with a colony of bats roosting in the tower above my bedroom.”
“A bat told you about Yggdrasil?” Clarissa was astounded.
“A little brown bat, to be precise. His name is Ash. He hunted around the lighthouse and one night I spoke to him in his own language, and he recognized me.”
“Aren’t bats dangerous?”
“No. Bats are highly intelligent creatures, and most of them eat insects or fruit. They can bite, but generally only will in self-defense. They eat millions of insects, bats. Without them, we’d be overrun with flying insects. Ash is quite charming. He’s a mimic -- can impersonate anyone. He should be hibernating by now, but I made him a proposition and sent him on an errand. I’m waiting for him to reappear. If he doesn’t, I’ll know he decided to find his colony and hibernate, but I’m hoping he’ll help me this winter.”
“How can a bat help you?”
“He can gather news for me. He’s great friends with Mirmir. That’s how I heard about Yggdrasil. Bats can be in buildings, in caves and caverns underground, and in hollow trees. They’re noiseless on the wing and people rarely see them, as they only move around in the dark. Their hearing and eyesight are excellent. Ash would make a first-rate spy, and he could bring news from places I can’t reach.”
“What’s the errand you sent him on?”
“I sent him to find a volunteer insect to help him stay alive this winter. I could charm it so it never loses its life and Ash can eat it as many times as he needs to. An insect would be lightweight and easy for him to carry with him. He only eats insects; that’s why bats hibernate, because there are no flying insects for them to eat during the winter.”
“But nobody would volunteer to be eaten again and again, surely!” exclaimed Clarissa.
“Maybe not. We’ll see.”
“If he comes back, can I meet him? Will he mind?”
“He won’t mind,” Rapunzel had said, smiling. “I’ll let you know if he comes back.”
“Clarissa, you’re a million miles away,” said Seren, frowning.
Abruptly, Clarissa recalled herself to the present moment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Your story made me forget, but now I remember again how frightening everything is.”
“You mustn’t be frightened. I’ll take care of you.” Seren set the lyre down and cupped her cheek with his hand. His touch made her belly blossom with warmth. She lost herself in his eyes, longing for more.
“You’re beautiful, little sea maiden. Your eyes are almost as lovely as mine. I’ve never met a girl like you.”
“But you must know all kinds of women; beautiful, rich and powerful women who’d be proud to be by your side and support your talent.”
“Yes,” said Seren. “I like women, and they’re attracted to me, but you’re not like them. When you’re listening to me, I feel like a god. You inspire me. I’d like you to always sit at my feet, just as you are now.”
Clarissa turned her head against his hand, allowing her teeth to graze the fleshy mound below his thumb, and kissed his palm, letting him feel her breath and her moist mouth.
“I’ll sit at your feet as long as you want me to,” she said. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my life than to support who you are in the world.” She closed his fingers over her kiss and returned his hand to him.
“What a shame you’re not human,” said Seren. His pupils dilated and she knew her kiss had excited him.
“I’m half human,” she said quickly.
“Are you? Is that enough?”
“Enough for what?” she asked, puzzled.
He looked away, as though embarrassed. “Never mind. I shouldn’t talk to you about such things. You’re not warm-blooded like humans. We have certain ways of interacting … physically, I mean. I have yet to find a worthy partner, someone who properly appreciates my sensitivity and passion. You wouldn’t think it, but the kind of skill and talent I possess come at a heavy price.” He sighed. “So many times, I’ve thought I’ve found the right one, but in the end she always disappointed.”
He talks like a man twice his age, Clarissa thought with tender amusement. He was only three years older than she.
“Seren,” she said, “if you’re talking about sex, I know what that is. How did you think merfolk children are made?”
“I haven’t thought about it,” he said. “I’ve heard the merfolk are cold and passionless, neither male nor female.”
“Don’t I look like a girl to you?”
“Yes, like a beautiful girl, but when you’re in the sea and have a tail, you don’t have a girl’s body. Perhaps you can look like a boy on land too, and choose not to.”
Clarissa had already learned how easily Seren was hurt, so she chose her words with care. “It’s true people make up stories about us because they don’t know any better. Most aren’t like you, so generous and interested in what’s true. The merfolk believe all life depends on a balance of male and female power. It’s the holy binary. We are like humans, in that we have either male or female bodies and reproductive abilities. We pay less attention to our presentation than humans do. Male and female merfolk decorate their bodies and their hair however they please and possess equal power in private and public matters. We rejoice in our physical forms. Merfolk are passionate and sensual, and we honor our bodies and those of others. I’m female. I could choose to look like a human male if I wanted to. No one would care. But I couldn’t be male, because I’m female. I look the way I want to look and I live in my body with joy and gratitude.”
“I see. Then how do your people …?”
“How do we have sex? The same way humans do, but our bodies are evolved in such a way that sexual violation isn’t possible. If we do not consent, our bodies cannot engage sexually. For us, sex is a sacred act of intimacy as well as procreation, and may take place between any combination of men and women. Sexual expression must be freely given and received in order for our bodies to allow it to take place, but we have no other rules controlling sexuality. Females also choose when to conceive. We cannot become accidentally pregnant.”
“I see,” said Seren thoughtfully. He slouched in his chair, Clarissa cross-legged on the floor at his feet, facing him. At some point she’d rested a hand on his knee and he’d taken it in his own and played idly with her fingers as she spoke.
“I’m hungry,” Rapunzel announced, coming down the stairs winding along the curved wall. She’d been on top of the lighthouse and wore a heavy cloak. She threw back the hood and hung the cloak on a hook beside the door. “It’s getting cold out. Shall we heat up the chowder?”
Clarissa gave Seren’s hand a squeeze and disengaged herself, joining Rapunzel in the kitchen. Seren announced he was going out for a breath of air and left after carefully wrapping his lyre and setting it aside.
Ever since Seren’s reappearance at the lighthouse, Clarissa had felt tension between herself and Rapunzel. Their growing companionship was disrupted, though Seren was reasonably quiet and always agreeable. Obviously, Rapunzel didn’t much like the musician, which Clarissa thought was mean of her. How could she dislike the greatest musician who ever lived? And he was so gentle, so sensitive and kind!
It was a bleak and bitter Yule at the lighthouse. The wind drove hard particles of snow against the tower and cliffs and salty ice crusted the exposed sea floor. Clarissa hadn’t spent so much time out of the sea before, though she’d frequently visited the lighthouse for a day or two when Irvin was alive.
Now it felt to her like a haven of warmth and comfort. The stove burned night and day and the light at the tower’s top sent its warning message into the long dark hours, even though no ship could come near the fanged rocks because of the sea’s withdrawal from the land. Still, Rapunzel tended the light in hopes one day or one night the sea would return to its accustomed place. For Clarissa, life centered around Seren, the sound of his voice, the shape of his hands, his slim male body and his eyes, so changeable and expressive.
She knew he might have spent Yule anywhere, been warmly welcomed wherever he wished to go, and felt grateful beyond words he chose to be with her, for certainly Rapunzel was barely civil and took delight in teasing him. Clarissa had discovered Seren didn’t like to be teased. It made him cross, but she knew the crossness hid a deep hurt, and she did her best to become a buffer between Rapunzel’s sharp tongue and Seren’s vulnerability.
It was a strain. Worth it, because Rapunzel was like … not a mother, perhaps, but the best kind of older sister, wise and full of information Clarissa wanted to know, and Seren was … well, he was everything. If she’d looked for a hundred years, she couldn’t have found such a perfect mate.
Not that they were mates yet, exactly. In fact, that was part of the strain. Rapunzel didn’t leave the tower, except to take a walk. Clarissa and Seren had no place in which to be private. Clearly, he couldn’t accompany her into the sea. He probably owned a fine home in a far-away city. Perhaps next year they would go there, so she could meet his friends.
She hoped it was near the sea, because she didn’t like to leave it for long.
She longed to be alone with him during the short, cold days and long nights. She imagined decorating the largest tower room where he slept, Persephone’s old room, with candles, imagined the deep soft bed freshly made with heavy linen sheets. She dreamt of being alone with him in front of the stove, the floor laid with thick sheepskin and strewn with pillows. She imagined being able to lock the lighthouse door and having all night to explore the texture of his kiss, discover every nerve ending and fold of skin. She imagined the heavy languor of her tail against his legs, then wrapping her own legs about him to pull him down against her, into her. He would run his fingers through her hair, cradle her face in his hands, and teach her what love could be between male and female. He would initiate her into the arts of pleasure, and she would learn how to please him. She would be the one he’d always searched for.
She would never disappoint him.
But the lighthouse wasn’t hers and Rapunzel lived there. During the days, Rapunzel stayed busy and, if anything, avoided Clarissa and Seren. They spent their days by the stove, talking. Clarissa worked in the kitchen and fed the fire. Every day Seren unwrapped his lyre and performed, and from him Clarissa collected a treasure trove of lyric, poetry, story and melody, much of which she wrote down so as not to forget, though he made it clear she was not to re-tell his material.
In the evenings, the three settled by the wood stove after dinner. Clarissa knew Seren much preferred the time she and he spent alone together, because Rapunzel insisted on taking turns telling stories in the evenings. Naturally, it was painful for someone as accomplished and talented as Seren to listen to stories poorly told, and Clarissa writhed internally when her turn came, knowing the inferiority of her language and presentation. She couldn’t even play an instrument. She watched Seren carefully, and as his face became aloof and distant, she pruned and truncated whatever she was telling so as to finish quickly and put him out of his misery.
Rapunzel, on the other hand, took a perverse pleasure in annoying Seren. She deliberately chose long tales and appeared to take no notice whatsoever of Seren’s pained expression or inattention. She told as though Clarissa was her only audience, and at times Clarissa became so compelled by Rapunzel’s story she selfishly forgot Seren’s discomfort.
During his turn, Seren came alive. He liked to stand with his lyre, sometimes moving gracefully around the room as he played and sang and other times telling stories with music weaving through the words like a gold thread, his grey eyes compelling, reading every nuance of his audience’s expression and reaction.
***
One day, just at dusk, as Clarissa set the table for their evening meal, Rapunzel came down from the tower’s top where she’d been lighting the beacon and said Ash had returned.
Clarissa wiped her hands. They went back up the stairs together. In Rapunzel’s room, upside down in the corner between the curved stone wall and the underside of the wooden floor above, hung a small creature with dark brown fur, about the size of Rapunzel’s hand. As they approached him, he spread his wings, and Clarissa saw thin, hairless membrane over a delicate scaffold of bones.
“This is Ash,” Rapunzel said. “Ash, this is my friend Clarissa.”
The bat swooped down, soundless and quick as a shadow, and attached himself to Clarissa’s heavy sweater. He examined her face with shining black eyes, his own shrunken visage so comical and wrinkled she smiled. He returned the smile, revealing sharp teeth.
“And I’m Beatrice,” came a tiny, shrill voice. A black beetle crawled out of Ash’s fur in the vicinity of his chest and waved her antennae. She was the same shining black as the bat’s eyes.
“Ah,” said Rapunzel with satisfaction. “You found a volunteer!” She leaned close to Clarissa and extended a finger to the beetle.
Beatrice strolled casually onto the offered finger and Rapunzel lifted her close so she could both see and hear the little creature.
“I’m Rapunzel, Beatrice. Ash has explained to you what we’re trying to do?”
“He has. You need information about the Tym, which is breaking down. My people are at risk, as well as Ash’s people and yours. The trees are dying. If he is to gather information for you through the winter, instead of hibernating as usual, he will need insects to eat.”
“That’s right. I can charm you so you won’t die, no matter how often Ash eats you. If you agree, you can sustain and companion him and he can keep you warm and ensure you’re fed as you travel.”
“We spent the day in a hollow tree and I am well satisfied for the time being,” said Beatrice. “But Ash is hungry. The flying insects are gone and most of the insects in the tree we roosted in hid under its bark. Please enchant me quickly so he can eat.”
As Rapunzel worked her spell, Beatrice, Ash and Clarissa watching, Clarissa thought the friendship between bat and beetle the strangest she’d ever seen.
“There,” Rapunzel said, and offered the beetle, still on her finger, to Ash. He regarded Rapunzel’s finger without moving, his face screwed up in dismay.
“Are you sure?” he asked, but Clarissa didn’t know if he spoke to Rapunzel or Beatrice.
“Yes,” said Rapunzel at the same time Beatrice said firmly, “Quite sure.”
“I trusted you,” said Beatrice. “You said you wouldn’t eat me and you didn’t. Now I trust her.” She nodded her tiny black head at Rapunzel. “You must eat, or you’ll starve and then neither one of us can help fix whatever is going wrong.”
Ash squinched his eyes shut, his tongue darted out and Beatrice disappeared. Ash munched once and swallowed, wincing. A moment later a shining black head parted the fur on his chest and Beatrice appeared again. “Here I am! Nothing to it!” Clarissa felt like cheering.
“It’s time for us to eat, too,” said Rapunzel. “We’ll leave you. The window’s ajar, if you’d like to go out, or you can spend the night in here, where it’s warmer. I’ll bring up some water. Later, we’ll talk and make plans.”