Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (12 page)

"Less one,” said Thea, bending to her wreath.

Whin said, “Did yer not guess what she twined?"

"No,” said Kit. “I was a fool."

Why d'ye pull that bitter little herb, that herb that grows so grey...?
Ah, she'd pulled those leaves alone. “A man."

A silence. Somewhere in the wood, a bird poured silver from a narrow neck. Thea stirred. “Kit?"

"Hmm?"

"Does it end so?"

"Which?"

"The tale. With Annis turned to stone."

"At sunrise? Aye, and it begins."

"There was another tale,” she said. “About the moon in a thorn bush."

"Malykorne."

"What's she?"

"The Cloud witch. Annis’ sister, some do say. Her bed's where the sun is waked. He sleeps the winter there."

"And now?"

"Wakes wood."

"Ah."

Darkness and the moonspill of the may. Green is nowhere, it unselves the wood. As lovers are unselved: not tree embracing tree, but one. But wood. A riddle, he thought drowsily.
Within a wood, another wood, a grove where grows no green; within a moon, another moon, and nowhere to be seen.
A bird in the dark leaves answered, but he never heard.
Two, two eyes,
the owl cried out.
Of tree, of tree, of tree.
Kit slept.

I will tell this in the dark. That crown I wove for thee. And on May Eve, of all unseely nights: that nadir of the wake of Souls, and darkness’ dark of moon. Unhallows.

Ah, love, I had despaired of thee.

I was unwitched. Thou knitting reeled up all my powers, left us naked to my lady's malice. Soul and body, I went heavy with thy death. My great kite belly would undo us all. And so I did, undid. I would not have thee bloodfast, earthbound, for my dam to take. Nor turn thee Annis, stone within my stone.

Toward midnight, turning, Kit awoke and saw a fireflash amid the low woods, heard a brash of leaves: and there in the glade he saw a kitlin fox, a vixen dancing like a flake of fire in the wind.

He turned to Thea, shook her softly. “Hush, love. Look."

She woke and saw. He felt her at his side turned cold as hailstones. “Kill it,” Thea said.

A stillness. “What?"

"I am heavy, I can do no spell. Now. Quick."

And still he watched. The patter of the paws was quick, like rain on leaves. A clickety vixen. April in its veins. It danced like a burning leaf, the aftercolor of the greenblue sky.

"What harm in it?” he said. “The pretty kitlin."

"Eyes,” she said.

They turned and flashed, a deepsunk dazzling green. The fire was green.

She said, “It wears the fox's fell."

He'd heard no bark. No fox was ever so still, so fiery. None scented of green thorn. He rose, unsure. A stone?

But it was gone.

He turned back and saw Thea, huddled naked on the ground. He bent and wrapped her in her scattered clothes, for fear of eyes, of lairing eyes. Cold in his arms, she cried, “No witch. I am no witch. I cannot meet her in the air."

Kit said, “Who'd harm thee? I would keep thee. I would try.” A hopeless tenderness consumed him, like a candle swaling in his bones. “It's what I'm for."

She twisted from him. To the child in her, she cried, “My blood is thy undoing."

"'Tis my blood as well,” said Kit. “I do not use thee."

Thea said, “But I use thee. Poor fool, have you not seen? Thou wert my cock-horse, that I rid away."

No ship, no ship beneath him, and the cold wave's shock. Salt-blind, he flailed at her. “Then find thyself a jade to bear thee, and another when he's flagged. Any stick will do to ride on."

Silence. Her cheek went paler still. His hands unclenched. At last, softly, she said, “And to burn, at need. The slower, being green. I would not watch thee burn.” She turned her face from him; he saw the white neck, the tumbled quenchless hair. “I am thy death."

And rising, naked in her smock, she ran. He followed blindly, pushing on at hazard through bushes and briars. Heedless of their lash, he scrambled onward, deeper in the wood. The wood was endless. Thea? Further on, he saw her glimmering; then white in whiteness, she was gone.

His heart turned snow.

When I got thee, I had not yet bled. Nor will now, being air. That bower and that bed of state, my lady dressed for Annis, all in hangings of deep crimson velvet, rich as for the progress of a queen, though in her exile. Not that blue and meagre hag, that bugbear Annis, that doth stalk the fells of Cloud; not she, that winter's tale, that dwindled bloodfast crone: but Annis, air and dark made crystalline, before her fall.

I was born thirteen, as thou art now; I saw the Nine rise and the Gallows wheel and set an hundred enneads of times; and at thirteen, I lived a year, and died.

My lady did conceive, create me green and virgin for her sorcery; but kept me for herself. Her study and her moving jewel, her toy, her book. The pupil of her eye, that she did dote upon, so year by year put off the consummation of her art, for lessoning.

For play.

In her conjurations—often in her storms—my lady witch would gaze in me, the glass that Morag held: bare April, but for winter's chain. Herself was January, all in black and branching velvet, flakes of frost at neck and wrist.
Come, Madam,
she would say.
Undo.
And then undo my coil of hair, unbraid it through and through her hands.
Lie there, my art.
And still would gaze, devouring my stillness, as the eye drinks light. I shivered in her admiration. Then, only then, her wintry hand would touch, her cold mouth kiss; and quickening, the witch would toy and pinch and fondle, aye, and tongue her silent glass, till she, not I, cried out and shuddered. Cracked.

Cried out: her jewel, her epiphany, her nonpareil; her book of gramarye, her limbeck and her light. Her A and O.

And yet not hers.

Know you that the stone my lady wears is Annis, shattered in her fall and vanished, all but that cold shard of night. Her self that was.

That moment of her breaking, time began. Light wakened from its grave in her. Unbound, the moon did bind her to that sickled and disdained hag thou see'st, that ashes of herself: the witch. Time chained her to this rock. And for a thousand thousand changes of the moon did Annis brood on her disparagement, the lightwrack of her Law. She sought to gather up her flaws of night, anneal them in her glass: that glass from which she drew me, naked and unsouled. Her self.

With me, my lady did enact her fall: the cry and shattering. And with each reiterated crack, her glass would round itself, quicksilver to its wound. But not her soul. My brooch of nakedness did pierce her, bind her bloodfast to her baser self: that hag who eats children.

That was not what she designed.

She had made me for the stone. The seed of Law. And on the morrow of the night I fled her would have wound the stair, unlocked the bloodred chamber, set the stone within my womb. Bred crystal of my blood. That stone would turn me stone from inward, Gorgon to itself, until—

And then he saw her. Moonlight. ‘Twas the moon had dazzled him. No more. Light fell, leaves shifted. Thea stood agaze. Stone still and breathing silence.
Hush. Look, there.

He turned. A clearing, silver as a coin with dew, and tarnished as the moon's broad face. And in that O of light, like Mally-in-the-moon, a-bristle with her bush of thorn, he saw an elfish figure, to and fro. A child? (A tree afoot?) Not ancient, though as small and sickle as the old moon's bones: a barelegged child. A branching girl. They do get flowers of a hallows eve. Alone?

A lash of thorn whipped back and welted him. He sleeved the salt blood from his eyes. He blinked and saw her, not in leaves but rags: the ruins of a stolen coat, perhaps, a soldier's or a scarecrow's, or a lover's run a-wood. Mad Maudlin's, that was Tom's old coat. It fell from her in shards, as stiff as any bark with years. There were twigs of thorn in wilting flower in her hair, down, eggshells, feathers. Cross and cross the O she went, not getting branches: walking patterns to herself, as furious fantastic as a poet in her bower, her labyrinth her language. Then a start, and back she skitted, ticklish as a spider on her web, to tweak some nebulous chiasmus. A hussif of trees.

Daft as a besom, he thought. Poor lass.

But Thea said to her, “Is't hallows?"

"While it is. Thy time's to come.” The green girl scrabbled in her rags, howked out a pair of crooked spectacles and rubbed them in the tatters of a leaf-red cap. She perched them on her nose. A grubby girl, with greenstained knees, scabbed knees and elbows. As she turned, Kit saw her crescent body shining through the rags. A downy girl. He stirred and her seeing mocked him: a fierce howlet's face. All beak and eyes. “Shift,” she said. “I's thrang."

But Thea said, “I am what you do."

"Ah,” said the girl. “What's that?"

"Undo."

The girl glanced at Kit. “I see thou's done already what thou can't undo.” He felt her elfshot eyes. Her breasts were April, but the eyes were January, haily, and the tongue a cold and clashy March. Scathed, he felt himself, dishevelled in his raffish coat, with moss and toadstools in his hair. Leaves everywhere. And ramping after Thea, like a woodwose in a mumming. Mad for love.

There was nothing for it but to play the part. Her glazy eyes decreed. “Poor leavy Tom,” he said. “Remember Tom his cup. He sees the craws at bones; they rouse the kittle wren, cock robin, and the tumbling owl."

Then he cared not for the hoyden; Thea touched his lips. “Softly. ‘Tis her wood."

Kit looked about. There was no moon. The light was may. He saw the whiteness, heaped and hung about the branches, like all the petticoats of some untidy dreaming girl, a tangly lass who kept her bower. What she knew and drew had thorns.

"Come in,” said the green girl, loftily. “Mind souls, I's flitting."

In was out. He saw the whitethorn petals fall and flitter as he passed: no wall or window else. Within was dark and waste. Thea, bending, took up a clumsy garland lying half-made on the ground. Kit saw the ashes of a fire, cold out; a crackpot, tipsy on its one leg, canted over. It was full of dry leaves.

Beyond her hedge—scant sticks, blown papers—lay the cold bare hills. The wind was smoke-edged.

"Fires on the hills,” said Thea, shivering.

Sticks to burn vixens.
Kit saw the whirling bodies, higher, leaping higher. Heard the cries. They would dance on every hill by dawning, round from Law to Law again, to close round Annis in her stone. The kindling was the hey.

The girl snecked air behind them. “Aye, they wake, and then I wake."

Thea said, “Are you their mistress, then?"

"They's no one's minions,” said the girl. “Here's spring.” It welled up through the leaves, a little constant twirl of silver, spilling secretly away. She cleared it with her heel, and crouched and filled her gnarly hands. “Thou's dry,” she said to Kit. He drank of them, her hands within his hands. He tasted earth. “Cloud ale,” she said. “Dost like of it?” He nodded, mute. She took him by the shoulders, light, as if she shook him out, her cloak of leaves. “Lie there. Wake wood."

And he was leaves. Brown leaves of oak, the lightfall of a thousand hallows. He was galls and tassels, traceries of veining; he was shards of acorns, shales of light. His lady's cups. He was turning earth, and through him sprang the starry flowers of the Nine. His earth had made them green.
No tongue, all eyes!
the witch commanded, and the eyes were myriad, were stars of earth.

As giddy as a god, he laughed.

"S'all we do?” said the witch to Thea.

"As you will."

They worked together, plaiting thorn and blackthorn in a garland. Round they turned and bound it, plashing branches in and inwards, as an O, a lightlashed eye. It made a crown too sharp to wear. For which? There was a glory in their laps, of quince and almonds, nettles, violets and goat-haunched catkins, all a-didder and a-dance.

"It turns,” said the witch. “Turns O."

"O's naught,” said Thea, with the garland in her lap.

"Or ay and anywhere, as swift as moon; or what thou will. O's tenfold."

Thea bent to her braiding. “If it were?"

"It quickens,” said the witch. “Comes round. What's past is nowt til it, and all's to come."

Odd and even went the witch's fingers, in and out. Wood anemone and rue. She wove them in the nodding garland: eyebright and nightshade, cranesbill, crowsbane, and the honeyed primrose, ladysmocks, long purples. Turning, it was turning autumn: now the leaves they wove were red and yellow, fruited: haws and hazelnuts and trailing brambles, rowans, hips, and hazy sloes.

"That untwines,” said Thea, of a mouse-eared herb. “I plucked it."

"Aye,” said the witch, weaving in. “Wilta taste of it?"

"And wane?"

"And bear thysel, burd alone. Walk or wake, as thou wist."

Thea bent. “I am bound to them. My lady and this child. If I do bear it, I am hers; if I do not, I am herself."

"Allt same. Thou's moonfast."

Thea said, “I am uncastled. Will you keep me?"

"Where? I's nowhere."

"Here."

"Is nowhere. Hey is down, and there's no hallows i't green world. I't morning, I mun walk and Annis wake."

"Then I am lost,” said Thea. “For my art is lost."

"Thou's bound as she is, rounding winter in thy lap. It will be born, I tell thee, and i't sickle o't moon.” The witch tossed the tussymussy in her lap. “So mowt it be."

Kit watched them whispering secrets, close as moon and dark of moon, in one another's arms. They wove one burr of light. He saw the clew of stars in Thea's lap. He saw the witch's spectacles were frost; they faded as he looked, they trickled down and down her cheeks. He heard an owl's cry echoing, her windy laugh. He saw the green hills leap with vixens, blown like flames from hill to hill.
When the wheel comes round, ‘tis sun,
he thought. He saw the blackened moon, the cavey moon, as slender as a share of bannock. Riddle cake. He thought the green witch bade him eat. It tasted sweet and bitter, of his dreams. His share was burnt. He saw a stone and a thorn tree, deep in green embrace. The moon was tangled in the leavy thorn, its roots its rimy crown. The stone was straked with lichens, of a bloodrust red; a crazy garland at its crown, aslant.