Sister Emily's Lightship (8 page)

Her mother was sleeping on Selna's bed, her cheeks still wet with tears. Selna got in beside her and put her head against her mother's back. “I am a woman now,” she whispered, loud enough to be heard, quiet enough not to waken anyone.

Her mother stirred, turned in her sleep. A stray strand of white-gold hair fell across her mouth. Selna carefully picked it off and smoothed it back. “But that doesn't mean I have to forget, does it?”

Her mother woke briefly. “Forget what, dear?” she mumbled.

“I will
never
forget her,” Selna whispered. She stood and took the guttered candle from the bedside, walked out to the hearth to light it. As she bent over the fire, a voice whispered in her ear.

“I will never forget her, either.”

Selna turned. And looking into her other, darker eyes, at last she smiled.

Then Great Alta drew aside the curtain of her hair and showed them her other face, her hidden face. It was dark where she was light. She was two and she was one. “And so ye shall be,” quoth the two Atlas. “So shall all my daughters be. Forever.”

T
RANSLATION FROM THE ALTAR
stone at the great temple at Chichén Itzá, excavated May 14, 2030

Let me tell you a story my children. When the young prince Ho ch'ok lay dying on his small bed, he had around him the four that he loved best. Kneeling by his head was his lady mother, the queen, who had pulled out all the pins from her hair in mourning and likewise the pin from her lip.

His brother, the king-that-was-to-be, Qich Mam, sat by his feet; tears kept in check by the slow breathing he had been taught since a child.

His sister, who was to have been the young prince's bride, sat closer to his heart, by the left side, the tears like rivers running down her unpainted cheeks.

And standing at the bedfoot was his old nurse, weeping loudly and beating upon her bosom with a closed fist.

The young prince Ho ch'ok opened his mouth to speak and all four about him fell silent, for his voice was but a whisper. He reached out his hand and his sister took it loosely in hers.

“I am afraid,” Ho ch'ok said, for though he was a prince he was, still, a small boy. “I am afraid of the journey. I am afraid of the dark.”

“Then,” his mother said softly, “I shall give you something to light the way.” She plucked her heart from her breast and held it out to him. And when he took it, it shone with a light that was even and white.

“And I will give you that which can tell dark from light,” said his sister, plucking out her third eye and putting it on his forehead. “It can tell the hard places from the soft.”

“And I will give you a weapon that you shall not be afraid,” said his brother, breaking off a little finger, the last one on the left. He placed it on his brother's chest.

“But still I am cold,” said Ho ch'ok. “So cold.”

At that the nurse took a great leather wallet which was hanging from a thong on her belt. She opened it and there was the young prince's foreskin. Since he had not yet wed his sister, the foreskin was as soft and supple as the day it had been cut from him. The old nurse took it from the wallet and shook it out, and it became as great and as wide and as warm as a cloak, and she wrapped him in it.

And the young prince smiled, closed his eyes, and rose up out of his body for his journey, leaving but a roughened hulk behind.

The first step he took went to the East where the sun hit him full in the face, leaving a bright red scar on his cheek. The next step he took went to the South where a branch of the world tree slapped him across the chest, and a sliver of wood slipped in under his nipple into the meat of his breast. The third step took him to the West where the wind whirled his cape up over his head and burnished his buttocks with hot sand.

But the fourth step took him to the North and the Cavern of Night, where all those who die have to go.

The way into the cavern was dark and winding, like the stomach of a serpent. Ho ch'ok held aloft his mother's heart. The light it cast crept into all the pockets of the dark and sent the shadows screaming silently from its rays. At that Ho ch'ok smiled.

But as he went deeper into the cavern, even his mother's heart light grew dim.

“Oh, my mother,” cried the young prince, “what am I to do?” And receiving no answer, he reached into his own breast through the opening made by the sliver of the world tree. But his heart would not leave his body, for he was not a woman. Still, there was just enough light from the opening of his chest with which to see, and so he went on.

After a while, he came to a cavern flooded with water that seemed to be both red and black. Ho ch'ok stopped, and bent close to the water but he could not tell if it was possible to cross.

He opened his sister's third eye and saw that that which was black was, indeed, water; but that which was red was a bridge of smooth stones. So being careful to step only on the stones, he started to the other side.

He was halfway across when his sister's eye, being tired, closed. And as he was a man he had no third eye of his own.

“Oh, my sister,” cried Ho ch'ok, “what am I to do?”

He would have thrown himself down and wept except that a man does not do such a thing, except that he did not know how to tell the wet places from the dry. But as the first tear touched his cheek, it touched also the red scar. And where it touched the scar, the tear turned aside.

The young prince felt the turning of the tear, and so he bent down and, gathering up a handful of black water in his hand, he splashed it against his face. Where it touched the scar, the water turned roughly aside. So then Ho ch'ok did throw himself down, but not to weep. And when his face touched the water, the water rushed away from his sun scar and in this way he was able to walk upon dry land.

Soon he came to the farthest side and there he stopped, for ahead, in the feeble light, he could see three diverging paths. Guarding the paths was a giant vulture, the curved knife of its beak snapping at the shadows. At its feet were the bones of false princes who had gone before.

“Oh, my brother, Qich Mam,” said the young prince, “may I use the weapon you have given me well.” He took out the finger which had been kept in a pouch around his neck and held it in his right hand. There it grew and grew until it was a great spear as strong as muscle, as sharp as bone.

When the vulture saw the spear, it laughed, a sound like death itself, and the bones at its feet rose up and assembled themselves into a cage whose door gaped wide. Then the vulture sucked in a great breath which pulled Ho ch'ok forward until he was all but in the cage.

But the young prince took his spear and flung it at the vulture. It pierced the great bird's breast, but not very deep. With a snap of its curved knife of a beak, the vulture snapped the spear in two.

“Oh, my brother,” Ho ch'ok cried, “what am I to do?”

The vulture leaned down and picked up the young prince by the back of his cape and shook him from side to side. But Ho ch'ok, like his brother, knew the trick of the little finger. Still, he did not break that one off, but instead broke the second finger, the one with which a man points to his eye to show that he understands. The finger grew into a spear even greater and sharper than the one Ho ch'ok had had before. With one mighty thrust, he pierced the vulture's breast exactly where the first had gone, thus sending the piece of Qich Mam's spear straight into the monster's heart.

Then Ho ch'ok gathered up the vulture's bones and locked tight the bone cage. Next he looked at the three paths, hoping to find a sign pointing the way.

The left path was rocky and narrow and there was barely room for a man to pass. The right path was smooth and wide, and an army could walk between. But the path in the middle was as dark and hidden as a secret.

Wrapping his cloak tightly around him, and trusting to the light of his heart, the young prince Ho ch'ok chose the secret path because the unknown way always holds the deepest rewards. And it was this path that led him safely to the garden of delights where all true princes live forever.

And if you, my children, can unriddle this tale, at the end of your days you may live in that garden as well.

“Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.”

—C
HESTERTON

I
T HAD BEEN A
long winter. Arrhiza had counted every line and blister on the inside of the bark. Even the terrible binding power of the heartwood rings could not contain her longings.

She desperately wanted spring to come so she could dance free, once again, of her tree. At night she looked up and through the spiky winter branches counted the shadows of early birds crossing the moon. She listened to the mewling of buds making their slow, painful passage to the light. She felt the sap veins pulse sluggishly around her. All the signs were there, spring was coming, spring was near, yet still there was no spring.

She knew that one morning, without warning, the rings would loosen and she would burst through the bark into her glade. It had happened every year of her life. But the painful wait, as winter slouched towards its dismal close, was becoming harder and harder to bear.

When Arrhiza had been younger, she had always slept the peaceful, uncaring sleep of trees. She would tumble, half-awake, through the bark and onto the soft, fuzzy green earth with the other young dryads, their arms and legs tangling in that first sleepy release. She had wondered then that the older trees released their burdens with such stately grace, the dryads and the meliade sending slow green praises into the air before the real Dance began. But she wondered no longer. Younglings simply slept the whole winter dreaming of what they knew best: roots and bark and the untroubling dark. But aging conferred knowledge, dreams change. Arrhiza now slept little and her waking, as her sleep, was filled with sky.

She even found herself dreaming of birds. Knowing trees were the honored daughters of the All Mother, allowed to root themselves deep into her flesh, knowing trees were the treasured sisters of the Huntress, allowed to unburden themselves into her sacred groves, Arrhiza envied birds. She wondered what it would be like to live apart from the land, to travel at will beyond the confines of the glade. Silly creatures though birds were, going from egg to earth without a thought, singing the same messages to one another throughout their short lives, Arrhiza longed to fly with one, passengered within its breast. A bird lived but a moment, but what a moment that must be.

Suddenly realizing her heresy, Arrhiza closed down her mind lest she share thoughts with her tree. She concentrated on the blessings to the All Mother and Huntress, turning her mind from sky to soil, from flight to the solidity of roots.

And in the middle of her prayer, Arrhiza fell out into spring, as surprised as if she were still young. She tumbled against one of the birch, her nearest neighbor, Phyla of the white face. Their legs touched, their hands brushing one another's thighs.

Arrhiza turned toward Phyla. “Spring comes late,” she sighed, her breath caressing Phyla's budlike ear.

Phyla rolled away from her, pouting. “You make Spring Greeting sound like a complaint. It is the same every year.” She sat up with her back to Arrhiza and stretched her arms. Her hands were outlined against the evening sky, the second and third fingers slotted together like a leaf. Then she turned slowly towards Arrhiza, her woodsgreen eyes unfocused. In the soft, filtered light her body gleamed whitely and the darker patches were mottled beauty marks on her breasts and sides. She was up to her feet in a single fluid movement and into the Dance.

Arrhiza watched, still full length on the ground, as one after another the dryads and meliades rose and stepped into position, circling, touching, embracing, moving apart. The cleft of their legs flashed pale signals around the glade.

Rooted to their trees, the hamadryads could only lean out into the Dance. They swayed to the lascivious pipings of spring. Their silver-green hair, thick as vines, eddied around their bodies like water.

Arrhiza watched it all but still did not move. How long she had waited for this moment, the whole of the deep winter, and yet she did not move. What she wanted was more than this, this entering into the Dance on command. She wanted to touch, to walk, to run, even to dance when she alone desired it. But then her blood was singing, her body pulsating; her limbs stretched upward answering the call. She was drawn towards the others and, even without willing it, Arrhiza was into the Dance.

Silver and green, green and gold, the grove was a smear of color and wind as she whirled around and around with her sisters. Who was touched and who the toucher; whose arm, whose thigh was pressed in the Dance, it did not matter. The Dance was all. Drops of perspiration, sticky as sap, bedewed their backs and ran slow rivulets to the ground. The Dance
was
the glade,
was
the grove. There was no stopping, no starting, for a circle has no beginning or end.

Then suddenly a hunter's horn knifed across the meadow. It was both discordant and sweet, sharp and caressing at once. The Dance did not stop but it dissolved. The Huntress was coming, the Huntress was here.

And then She was in the middle of them all, straddling a moon-beam, the red hem of Her saffron hunting tunic pulled up to expose muscled thighs. Seven hounds lay growling at Her feet. She reached up to Her hair and in one swift, savage movement, pulled at the golden cords that bound it up. Her hair cascaded like silver and gold leaves onto Her shoulders and crept in tendrils across Her small, perfect breasts. Her heart-shaped face, with its crescent smile, was both innocent and corrupt; Her eyes as dark blue as a storm-coming sky. She dismounted the moon shaft and turned around slowly, as if displaying Herself to them all, but She was the Huntress, and She was doing the hunting. She looked into their faces one at a time, and the younger ones looked back, both eager and afraid.