Lemurian Grand Tour Journal

These are stories from prompts at the Soul Food Cafe’s Lemurian Grand Tour/ Adventure Calendar. All the material contained here is copyright 2007 by She Wolf (Jane Wolfinbarger.)

Going Deeper In

Well, the Enchanteur has allowed me to join the journey around Lemuria. I am quite glad, because those who have lived here longer keep referring to things that are mysteries to me. I am quite excited! I pull out the backpack that I put away when I first arrived here, hot and dusty and thirsty for the sort of refreshment of the soul that one finds at Riversleigh, and start tossing in odds and ends. I don’t want to make it too heavy, but there are just some things I can’t leave without.

My journal goes in first, along with my favorite pens. I decide to toss in a backup journal, too. You just can’t have too much paper. Then there is a small blank-book without lines and my colored pencils. I keep telling my self that I will begin to draw again, and this may be a good time to do it. My wooden flute, a small package with my sock needles and some lovely shaded blue wool, and some spare woolly socks go in next. A change of clothing and a few toiletries follow; oh, these necessities for day to day living- I wish they didn’t take up quite so much space. And then, just because sometimes you need technology, a digital camera and a spare memory card. My bag is starting to look a little stuffed now, but I add small sachet of lavender because it smell so good, and a little worry stone for my pocket. I dig into my wardrobe and come up with a decent hat to wear. I will not take anything to read- this is hard for me, but I think I will be writing enough that I will not need take a book.

There! Now I am ready to go! I lean out the window and say goodbye to the butterfly man should he be listening, and shut the window behind me. I will be back soon, full of adventures and fresh tales for telling.

But what now? I mean, I am already at Riversleigh, already in Lemuria. How do I go on from here? I shrug, and remember the proverb that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I suppose that I should begin my journey by opening the door to my room and stepping through it. Then I will start to walk. I know the Enchanteur will find me soon enough and make sure I go where I need to be.

I open the door to my room- that infamous portal that goes to all sorts of places, and find that Enchanteur has used my own device against me. There is a mirror there, filling the entire door way. I see myself reflected in it, but not the room behind me. Instead, there is a grayish mist. I don’t look quite right, either. I look kind of- lopsided. I take stock of the reflection carefully, and find that what the mirror had done is exaggerate my, well, I won’t call them flaws, but my sticking points. Things that, if I work on them, will change me more into the person I want to be. I will need to accept these things if I want to journey deeper into Lemuria. I will find out more about myself as well as this wonderful land.

 These sticking points are not things I am happy to look at, much less deal with. I take a deep breath and poke at the image with my finger. My finger sinks into the surface of the mirror, and little ripples go out into the rest of the image. I realize that I am stalling. There is no help for it. If I want to go on this tour, and I do, I will have to take a close and careful look at this reflection of myself, and step through it.  In going deeper into Lemuria, I will also go deeper into myself. I open my eyes wide, and with one more deep breath, I step into the mirror image of myself.

I have a sensation like swimming, and an icy cold sweeps through me. I quickly surface, and find myself out in Lemuria, away from my beloved room at Riversleigh. The mirror is gone, but I feel something new in my pocket. I reach in, and alongside the worry stone is a small metal disc. It bears the image I saw in the mirror, but  a little changed. Apparently, I have changed just by stepping through that portal. It will be interesting to see how it changes as I travel along.

I trip over a small bag on the ground at my feet. It has all sorts of things inside it, and I poke around, examining each item. What will I need the spectacles for? Dream seeds? That sounds intriguing. Candlestick, unicorn medallion, an anchor, wings? Strange and interesting things.

I tuck the bag in my back pack and take stock of my surrounding. It seems to be a cool autumn day, with the sun getting low on the horizon. I am in a lush meadow on a hill side, with wooded hills rolling away in the distance and a river flowing through the valley below me. There is a track going into the distance, and I step onto it willingly, walking along with a happy stride.

Me and My Donkey

I walked down the track, and through the meadow. The flowers were full of butterflies and I thought again about the garden spirit, the butterfly man. I wondered if he or his cousins came to dance in fields of flowers like this one. A honeybee buzzed past, and birds flew overhead. I stepped into the shade of the trees at the edge of the meadow and into the woods. The track here was covered with pine needles and smelled nice and spicy when I walked on it. It was quiet in here, and cool. I could hear the birds singing and little creatures scampering in the leafy canopy above me. When I looked up I could see patches of blue sky. I could feel myself slowing down, enjoying the walk and the place. I tried to do a Zen thing and just be in the moment. It is hard for me, because my mind is always thundering along at a million miles an hour, but I thought about each breath of spicy air, and the texture of the tree bark, and the sound of the breeze and the birds.

 

By the time I came out the other side of the wooded patch, I was feeling centered and relaxed.

However, it was getting later and the track was showing no signs of leading anywhere but “over the hills and far away”, or like Tolkien’s road, going ever on and on. Unfortunately, while a wonderful adventure, this did not address the fact that in my happy hurry to get going, I had not brought matches, or food, or water, or a bed roll, or any of those practical things that I now seemed to need.

 

“Oh, BOTHER!” I grumped, my centered and relaxed feeling evaporating like dew on a hot morning.

 

“What is your problem?” I heard a grumpy voice from the edge of the trees behind me.

 

I turned around. All I saw was a little brown donkey.

 

“Don’t you have any manners? I asked what your problem was,” came the voice again. There was no one there but the donkey.

 

“Excuse me?” I said politely.

 

“Oh, are you hard of hearing? I didn’t know,” said the voice again.

 

“No, I can hear just fine. I’m just trying to figure out where you are,” I replied.

 

The voice chuckled. “I’m standing right here in front of you. You’re staring right at me. You know, for someone who talks to butterfly men, you sure are set in your ways of thinking. Just because I’m a donkey, you decide I can’t possibly be the one talking to you. I can see you’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Oh…” was all I could say.

 

“Now come on over here and put your bag on my back. It’s getting late and we have a lot to do before it gets dark By the way, my name is George.”

 

“I’m She Wolf. Only, really, since the Wolf who runs here is far beyond anything I could be, I’m just an apprentice She Wolf.” I slung my bag on his back and tied it down with the straps there, and we set off down the track. “So, George, where are we going?” I asked.

 

“Well, in a little bit, on the other side of the river, we will join up with the road to Owl Creek. We’ll get there sometime tomorrow, I hope. There are some camping things up ahead, along with some other things you’ll need once we get to the mine.”

 

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard there was a mine to visit.”

 

“Yes, and you’ll need to know about it. There’s some information in that little leather case on the other side of my harness.”

 

I reached over and untied the straps holding the case on. As we walked, I read about the Alluvial Mines and mining. “Boy, there’s an awful lot of information here,” I said.

 

“Just take your time. Don’t try to absorb it all at once. Read it over again later, and try a few of the exercises later. That’s what everyone else does,” said my new four-footed mentor.

 

So I read it and thought about it and looked all around me for the rest of the way down the side of the very large hill.

 

At the bottom was the river. Right here it was fast and strong, not a good place to ford it at all. I said so to the donkey. “Maybe we should walk up and down a little ways, and find a better place to cross,” I said.

 

“Nope. You need to cross it here. Do you see that island?”

 

“Yes…” The island was in the middle of the river a little way downstream. It looked pleasant, with trees on it, and a sandy beach. The river around it looked a bit wild, though.

 

“Well, you need to get to that island. That is where the camping things and the other things you’ll need are cached.”

 

Oh. Well. I finally squeaked, “Over there?”

 

“Over there.” He confirmed.

 

“How am I supposed to get over there?” I asked.

 

“Well, the best way is just to get in the water and swim,” said the donkey. “It’s cold, but not that cold. Besides, after the walk you’ve had today, you could use a little bath.” He snickered.

 

“Smart ass,” I said, before I thought.

 

“Why thank you!” he preened, and snickered again.

 

When he saw that I was hesitating, he said, “Look, sometimes, you need to just have faith, jump in, and do something. I am telling you this is safe- well, sort of- and you just need to take that leap. I’ll follow along with your bag.”

 

I took my shoes and socks off, and my hat, and put them in my backpack on top of the mule, and waded into the water. It dropped off almost immediately, and I found myself up to my neck in ice-cold water, being swirled around wildly. At least there were no rocks here. I remembered my goal of the island, and tried to steer myself in that direction. Fortunately, the current seemed to go that way anyway, because I was having no luck trying to control my ride in the river. With the help of the current, I was soon deposited on the sandy little beach, sodden and coughing a little, but exhilarated.

 

The donkey walked out of the water beside me, and asked, “So, how did you like your little swim?”

 

“Strangely, I enjoyed it. It was a wild, exciting ride!” I said.

 

“Good. You’ll get plenty of chances to go again; there are branches of this particular river all over the place. It takes a little practice, but you do learn to steer through the currents and make it take you where you want to go.” He looked smug. “Yup, theRiver of
Creativity can be very powerful, and tons of fun, but it can also be frightening. Some people never get over their fear enough to even try it, let alone get used to guiding themselves through it. I thought you’d be the sort to enjoy it. Now, go look in those trees over there, and you’ll find the things we need for the night.”

 

I found a little tarp covered cache of camping things, along with some food for me and a nosebag of oats for my four-legged friend. The Enchanteur had remembered to include all those things I had bounced off and forgotten, like matches, a pocket knife and a canteen- I was very, very grateful.

 

There was a camping spot there already, so I made a fire in the fire ring and boiled some water for a cup of tea- the Enchanteur had been kind enough to leave me a tin mug and some of my favorite Earl Grey tea. I dried off by the fire while we ate our dinners. The donkey and I talked for a while, and I wrote in my journal about the events of the day.

 

Then I remembered the little metal mirror I carried in my pocket, and taking it out, had another look at it. The image had changed, just a little tiny bit. I couldn’t even pinpoint exactly what had changed, only that it had. I put it back in my pocket. Then I lay back on the bedroll and watched the stars that dazzle the clear Lemurian sky wheel overhead until I fell asleep with the sound of the River like a lullaby

 

Mixing Metaphors – Er, Tales

 

It was still early when I woke up, but it’s hard to sleep with a donkey braying in your ear. George said it was time to get up, and believe me, I didn’t have it in me to argue with him. After a quick breakfast, I packed all the gear on George’s back. Then he nodded to some bushes on the other side of the clearing. “You’ll want the mining stuff over there, too.”’

 

I rummaged out the package of mining gear and attached that to his back, as well. Finally, I poured water in the fire pit and started towards the beach.

 

 “Where are you going?” asked the donkey.

 

“I’m going back over to the river, so we can get over to the trail and head for Owl Creek,” I answered. “Why?”

 

He snorted. “Well, unless you really want to go for a swim, and it’s a little chilly for that this morning, I suggest you follow me.” He started to walk to the other end of the little island.

 

I shrugged and followed him. At the far end of the island, there was a wide, shallow ford going over to the far shore. It took only a few minutes to wade across here. “That was much easier,” I said.

 

“Yup. Not everything’s got to be hard. Just some things.” And he walked off down the trail, leaving me to my socks and hiking boots.

 

It didn’t take long for our little trail to wander back up hill. “We should meet the main road in about an hour,” George told me, as we puffed up a steep section of the trail. “There should be other people on the road, and it won’t be quite so lonely for you.”

 

“I don’t mind,” I told him. “You’re good company, too.” Then I reached over into my pack and pulled out my little wooden flute. I amused myself for the next quarter hour by trying to work out a tune the minstrel had played over at the Taverna di Muse a few nights ago. The donkey kindly kept his thoughts on that to himself. I thought that was fair, after the way he woke me up.

 

I was wrapped up in trying to work out a fingering when I heard George groan, “Oh, no.”

 

I looked up to see a huge dirt slide going across the path. It seemed to go on for quite a ways, but it didn’t look impassible; a little difficult, maybe, but not impossible to get across.

I put away my flute and prepared to step onto the slide. “Don’t.” said George.

 

“It doesn’t look that bad,” I said. “I think we can get across.”

 

“Trust me. Don’t.” he repeated.

 

Well, I didn’t listen. I stepped onto the scree, and all of a sudden, I was on a ride downhill. It was like slipping down hill on ice. The stuff just flowed and I went with it. I managed to stay on my feet for a little bit, but soon I landed on my posterior in the dirt avalanche.

 I finally stopped about 50 feet downhill, and looked up. I saw George peering over the side of the road at me. “You okay?” he called down.

 

“Just ducky!” I growled as I picked gravel out of my socks. “Just peachy!”

 

“I don’t like to say I told you so…” began my sarcastic guide.

 

 “Then don’t.” I replied, climbing to my feet and hiking back up the steep hillside. By the time I made it to the top, I was covered with briar scratches in addition to the dust and dirt that I had acquired on my impromptu ride down the hill.

 

Puffing, I reached for the canteen, and then said, “So what do we do now?”

 

“Simple,” the donkey said, “We go back and take the long way around.”

 

“Go back?!” I cried, “But we’re so close!”

 

“Yes, but we can’t get there this way. Sometimes you have to back up and regroup, find a new way to do things.” George replied placidly. “I’m a donkey. They only thing I’ m ever in a hurry for is my dinner. We’ll get there, a little later rather than sooner, but that happens sometimes. At least we have another route we can take.” While he was talking, he turned around and was walking back down the way we had just come. I hurried behind him.

 

He continued, “It won’t add too much onto the trip. We’ll just get there tomorrow instead of today. You can spend the extra time getting ready for the mine. It’s not a bad idea, anyway, you know. That mining can be a little bit strenuous.”

 

He was quite for a little bit. I was still quietly sulking. He spoke again. “You tend to be a little bit impatient, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, and?”

 

“Well, being a little more patient is usually a good thing. Means you take that one last look at something, make sure it’s right. You don’t go off in a rush and leave things behind that you might need,” here he glanced over at me, “or leave out some detail in a story that you really need to make it work. That little extra time can mean a big difference sometimes.”

 

I had to admit he was right. I did need to be more patient. Sometimes, though, waiting was terribly difficult. We walked along in silence for about half an hour, and came to a branch off the path that I had missed seeing earlier.

 

“This will take us to the road, too, just farther away from Owl Creek. We’ll end up spending more time on the road, that’s all.”

 

By the time we had gone on for another hour, I had completely recovered my good humor. I was reading more about the Mines, and trying to do some more preparatory work before actually getting to them.

George told me that we were finally getting near the main road, when we both heard rustling in the bushes by the road.

 

“Is someone there?”  I called.

 

“I should hope so!” came a voice way down low in the bushes. “I am definitely Someone!” A small tabby cat came waltzing out onto the path. “I am Someone, and I am going to Owl Creek to seek my fortune!”

 

“Are you, then?” said the donkey.

 

“Yes! I think they must be in need of good mousers there, and I am the best. My littermates and I cleaned out the barn where we were born and had to leave home to make our own ways in the world.” He sat and washed his shirt front. “So, I am on the way to Owl Creek. Are you perchance going that direction? And would you care for another traveling companion?” He stood up, wound his way through my legs and bumped his head against me.

 

The donkey answered first. “Of course. The more the merrier. Jump on.” And of course the cat did. He curled up on top of the packs and started purring right away.

 

A few more turns down the path, there was a dog, lying in the middle of  the way, looking dejected.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” asked George the donkey.

 

“I have no home,” he replied. “There were too many puppies in my litter for the farmer to feed, so I left home. But I’m a dog, and I like having a home and hearth to come back to each day. I was thinking I would go the Owl Creek, because  there are more people there, but I’m not sure which way to go.” He sighted sadly.

 

“Well,” I said, “If my companions agree, you can join us. We’re going that way.”

 

The cat said, “As long as you don’t chase cats, I don’t mind.”

 

The donkey said, “As long as you don’t nip at my heels, I don’t mind.”

 

So the dog joined us.

 

This was beginning to feel a little familiar. All we needed now was a rooster.

 

Sure enough, he was around the next bend.

 

We saw the jaunty young rooster scratching at the dirt of the path, looking for bugs. He heard us behind him and looked up. “Oh! Hello! Am I in the way? So sorry. I was looking for bugs. A bit hungry, you know. Too many young roosters on my farm, not enough grain.”

 

“And I suppose you have set out to find a new home, possibly in Owl Creek, where there aren’t as many other roosters and you will have plenty to eat?” I asked.

 

“Why, yes! How did you know?” he replied.

 

“Just a lucky guess.” I said. “At least the name of the town isn’t
Bremen.”

 

That earned me some funny looks from all of them.

 

“Anyway, we are going that way if you wish to join us. By the way, none of you have any musical tendencies, do you?” Again they looked at me very strangely, but they all said no. The rooster jumped up on the pack behind the cat, and off we went.

 

Soon we came to the main road, and while there were a few more travelers, there weren’t a lot of them. Twice as many of them were coming towards too, either, which seemed a little odd., The donkey was the first to notice this. “Unless I miss my guess, there is something going on here,” he said.

 

We weren’t much farther on when we found out what.

 

There was a little bridge across a small stream- not Owl Creek, but a tributary. People were stopping at the bridge and talking to a very ugly old man. They sounded very unhappy- angry, in fact- but after a few minutes, they crossed the bridge. There were a large number of people camped on the far side, too. The old man, however, looked positively gleeful.

 

When we came up to the bridge, he hurried over to us, crying, “Pay the toll! Pay the toll!” The old man was not only very ugly, he had enormous sharp teeth and very long, sharp, dirty fingernails. His arm muscles bulged beneath his shirt.

 

George the donkey was quite offended. “This is not now and never has been a toll road!” he exclaimed. “Le Enchanteur would not have something like this on the road to Owl Creek!”

“What she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt me!” the man sneered. “Two gold pieces each for you and the person. The livestock I’ll let pass- this time.”

 

“Well, we don’t have the gold pieces,” I retorted.

 

“Then you can’t pass,” he stated with finality.

 

We backed up, out of hearing distance. “Why don’t we just go around?” I asked. “The stream isn’t that wide.”

 

“It would be better to get this fellow away from the bridge once and for all,” said the donkey. “I have a plan.”

 

We settled down like we were going to camp, and waited for darkness.

 

When night time came the ugly old man curled up with blankets in the middle of the bridge so that no one could get by without paying his toll, even at night. When he seemed to be asleep, we put our plan into action.

 

First the rooster walked across the bridge. Tick, tick, tick went his claws on the wood.

 

“Who’s crossing my bridge?” said the man.

 

The rooster clucked under his breath.

 

“Oh, just the rooster,” said the old man, and he went back to sleep.

 

Next, the cat walked across. Pad, pad, pad, went his paws on the wood.

 

“Who’s crossing my bridge?” said the man.

 

The cat meowed.

 

“Oh, just the cat,” said the old man, and he went back to sleep.

 

Then the dog walked across the bridge. Ticker-tacker, ticker-tacker, ticker-tacker went his claws on the bridge.

 

“Who’s walking on my bridge?” said the man.

 

The dog woofed.

 

“Oh, just the dog,” said the old man, and he went back to sleep.

 

Now that our companions were on the other side, the donkey and I got ready for our part.

 

We walked onto the bridge, one of us on each side. Clop, clop, clop went the donkey’s hooves on the bridge. Thump, thump, thump went my boots on the bridge. One of us was on one side, one on the other, blocking the bridge.

 

The old man sprang up immediately. “I told you,” he roared, “That you must pay a toll to CROSS MY BRIDGE!”

 

He was being so loud that he didn’t hear the dog, the rooster, and the cat run up behind him. The dog ran into the backs of his legs knocking him off balance, the cat ran through his legs, and I gave him a push, knocking him down. The rooster jumped on top of him, spurring him with his claws as he went. The man screamed with rage and leapt up again and turned, ready to run after the animals. When he turned around, the donkey whirled and gave a mighty kick with his back legs. The wicked old man flew through the air and landed with a splash in the stream down below.

 

All the people who had been camping and waiting for a chance to cross the bridge had been awakened by the noise, and came out see what was going on. When they saw the man fly through the air and splash into the creek, they cheered. Then they ran down to the water with ropes and tied him up before he could get away from them. His big sharp teeth and long sharp fingernails and bulging muscles weren’t so frightening when he was stunned and soaking wet.

 

We broke our camp and went a little farther down the road for the night, with our new traveling companions. Tomorrow we would see Owl Creek. I pulled out my mirror. Sure enough, it had changed again.

4 Responses to “Mixing Metaphors- er, Tales”

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Alluvial Appeasements

My body is granite, deep and strong

My veins are slick quartz

Running deep within me

And my blood, it runs golden.

I flex in the rain and the wind

I flex in the heat and the cold

And as I flex, little pieces of me

Slough off and fall loose

Little bits of my quartz veins

Flecks of my golden blood

Slough off and fall loose

For miners to wash loose

And scrape up

And gain my gold, my golden blood.

Those who know me

Know my ways

Learn to seek down inside me

Find the source

Of all the bits

Of all the flecks

That slough off and fall loose

They learn to sink right down inside me

And bring up deep buckets

Of my golden blood

My priceless golden blood

To refresh their souls.

What is their sacrifice?

Their pain and suffering

Their joy and pleasure

Their time and dedication

Themselves.

3 Responses to “Alluvial Appeasements”

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Lissa and Theo – Magic From the Mines

After I placed my appeasement in the box, the Keeper of the Mines took me to meet my home host. Lissa was a shy young girl, who smiled and said nothing when we were introduced.

“Don’t let her fool you. She may be young, and she may be shy, but Lissa here knows as much about the mines as anybody around here. She was following her daddy down those shafts as soon as she could toddle. Last year when she moved out on her own, she decided to be a home host. And she’s a good one!” The Keeper of the Mine beamed at Lissa, who still didn’t say anything, but smiled back.

“Got your stuff? Good. You just follow Lissa now and she’ll take care of you. Lissa floated out the door, as if she had wings instead of feet, and I clumped along behind her. We walked for a short way to the edge of town, and a neat little cottage with a picket fence and flowers growing everywhere. I could see vegetables growing in amongst the flowers and spied more growing around the sides of the house. The windows were open, and I could hear a canary singing his heart out inside.

“Come on in.” Lissa had a sweet, quiet voice. She opened the front door to a busy front room full of quilts and embroidered pieces. Watercolors of botanicals hung on the walls, and there were skeins of yarn in brilliant hues hanging near the fireplace, where a spinning wheel sat like a cat on the hearth rug. We walked through to the kitchen, where more yarn hung and a dye pot simmered on the stove. The table was painted in bright colors and traditional stencil patterns, with hand-woven place mats and napkins on each side. There was a clear vase with flowers in the middle of the table.

“I’ll get us some tea and scones, if you like. Dinner will be later.” She spoke so softly that I had to listen carefully.

“Sure. Tea and scones would be fine,” I replied, and looked around the room some more.

The floor was slate with braided rugs scattered across it, and copper saucepans hug from the beams near the stove.  The kettle that Lissa put on was shiny copper, too. The canary who was singing so industriously was in the window looking out over the back garden (again full of flowers and veggies as far as I could see) and to my surprise, I saw Someone, the cat, walking into the room.  She walked over to me and wound around my ankles. “Well, I see you landed on your feet, too,” she said. “Lissa is wonderful. As long as I leave her little canary bird alone we will be fine. And the other birds, too,” she added, with a glance at Lissa, who nodded at her. She padded out of the kitchen and into the living room.

When the tea and scones and several sorts of cookies were in front of us, she sat down.

I was curious. “I understand the mines can be quite dangerous. That’s why we do so much preparation before we go down. How is it that you went down when you were so small?” I asked.

“My dad always took care that I was safe. I didn’t do any actual mining until I was old enough to understand what I was doing, but you know, to little ones, it’s instinctive, it’s play. They just know how to do these things. It’s only as we get older that we loose the ability to mine the alluvial mine. Dad just made sure that I never lost my ability from childhood to adulthood.” She shrugged and smiled.

“I think I see,” I answered.

“It’s not something that a lot of parents are willing to do, but as I said, Dad always kept me safe. And he’s pleased and proud of the miner I’ve become. When we’re done, I’ll show you some of the things I do.”

I found out that most of the plants in Lissa’s garden were good to use as dye stuffs, and she had a small flock of sheep on the edge of town, which was where she got her wool.

“I sell the wool I spin and dye, and the quilts I make. I also weave a little bit, and sell some of that, too.”  She became bolder when talking about the things she loved to create.

The botanical sketches on the wall were hers, too, and there were several large, hand bound volumes with her records for dye mixes and results.

She showed me around the rest of the house. The other two rooms on the first floor were her bedroom, in the front, and her workroom in the back, which had French doors opening onto the garden and the same slate floors as the kitchen. It was full of fabrics and yarns and a huge loom,  another spinning wheel, and plants hanging from the ceiling beams in bunches, drying.  There was a cabinet full of embroidery fibers. There were two sewing machines, and a wall full of cloth in all sorts of colors. A table held more fabric and patterns. Near the doors at the back of the room were an easel and paints. I ooh and ahhed over all of it, and she blushed with pleasure.

 When we went back out, I saw a fiddle on a table in the front room. “And is this yours, too?”

“No, much as I love it, music isn’t one of my abilities. I play a little on a recorder, but not too often. That belongs to my young man, Theo. He has just learned the mines, and is up there today. He should be back soon, and will join us for dinner.”

It was getting late, near sunset, and Lissa went back  into the kitchen to finish up dinner. I sat in the pleasant front room and took out my knitting. It seemed right here.

A few minutes later, a tired looking young man came in the front door. He smiled, and said, “You must be She Wolf. The Keeper of the Mine told me you would be here. I’m Theo. It’s nice to meet you.” He smiled and shook my hand and reached for the fiddle. Tuning it quickly, he was soon lost in his music, and I was too. I was surprised when Lissa called us for dinner. Time had gone somewhere else, with the music.

Dinner was tasty and filling- a beef stew that had simmered all day on the back of the stove, bread fresh that morning, and a salad fresh from the garden. Beer brewed locally went with it, and there was apple pie for dessert. While we talked, Theo told us about his day at the mine. “It’s getting easier; I’ve found a good rich vein,” he said. He turned to me. “Tomorrow I will go up with you, to the mine. It’s exhilarating- you’ll see.”

I offered to help with the dishes, but Theo shooed me away, saying this was his job.

We retired to the front room where Lissa lit a fire, and sat down to spin. I picked my knitting back up, and Theo soon joined us again. He picked up his fiddle  and created his magic once more. Later we talked, with Someone the cat purring in one lap after another, and Lissa pressed some of her exquisite yarn on me- I offered to pay her for it, but she refused. “There’s not much; it was an experiment. But I know you like the colors, and it will make a nice pair of socks. If you keep knitting at this rate, you’ll finish that pair and have nothing to knit for the rest of your journey.”

I looked at the sock in my hands- it was half done, in the course of this one evening. “It must be the magic effect of your fiddle!” I teased.

Theo looked serious. “That’s what I hope for,” he replied.

Lissa showed me my room soon after. It was up a tiny winding set of stairs in the kitchen. “When I decided to be a home host, I converted part of my attic to a little set of rooms for my guests,” she said. “There is a bedroom and a bathroom just for you to use.”

True to her word, there was a cheerful bedroom under the eaves, with a window seat over looking the back garden, and a small bathroom with an enormous tub. The other half of the attic was left for storage, she explained.

Handing me towels smelling of fresh air and lavender, and telling me to let her know if I need anything, Lissa left me to myself. I took a long, soaky bath in the huge tub, and then curled up under the bright quilt on the bed. Theo was playing his music again, and I fell asleep to dreams of sheep with thick warm fleeces chasing after brightly colored musical notes dancing beside a river.

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What Shall I Slough

What shall I slough? What useless old skin shall I squeeze out of and toss away?

 

Impatience- that one might be good. Or how about self-doubt? That’s a nasty one. But it is very deep in the layers of myself, and won’t come loose readily. I’ll have to work on that one.

 

Hmmm, sloughing. I need to learn to take the time to finish my work properly. That includes my knitting and embroidery. A big box full of completed projects that I never bothered to mat and frame, bags with pieces for a child’s sweater never blocked and sewn together, stories and poems written and tucked away without smoothing and editing, or rushed out to put on my blog before I read it that one last time, so I have to go back and edit it when I see an error later- all cured by a little more patience.

 

I’m not impatient with the process of creating, just with the polishing and finishing, the going back over things. Perhaps this is what I shall slough, and make an effort to polish the bits and bobs I create so that they are not hidden away in a box somewhere, or put out with incompletions and  errors for all the world to see.

 

Procrastination, perhaps. That’s another one I could slough. There has been some discussion about that, and avoidance and distractions. I suppose it goes hand in hand with its brother impatience above, leaving those same boxfuls of completed work shoved away in a closet. Hmmm…

 

Choices for the moldy old skin I shall rid myself of – this is hard. I know some of the things that should go, but which one?

Finally, I think I have chosen; I’ll try the impatience today, I think, and the sloughing begins. I pull and scrape. It feels good, this letting go of things, but a little bit scary. I feel a bit naked. What if I need this later?

 

No, no, it has to go. It peels off in a cloudy bits, making a small heap on the floor. Finally, I finish and sweep it up, putting it in a pile with all the other sloughed pieces people have left here.

 

The Keeper of the Mine smiles warmly at me, and then says, “Good job. I know this isn’t easy. And it may try to grow back; in fact it almost certainly will, but you know now to be on guard for it, to slough it away each time you feel it growing back and accumulating again. Now, you are ready. Come with me, and put your hand in the handprint on the door.”

 

Depths of the Mine

 

When I stepped through the door, I found myself in a white swirling mist, seemingly lit from within. Barely seen muted wisps of colors slid by me in this mist and I grasped at them as they went by, only to find that they were insubstantial and slipped through my fingers. I went deeper into the cavern and the mist lightened a little bit. Now I could see flashes as of gold along the wall, dimmed by the thinning mist. I ran over to them, but they were not really there, either. They were just illusions, fed by desire, born from idle wishes for quick results, no more than fairy lights.

So I went deeper into the caverns, following a trail that I felt, rather than saw. The mist grew thinner and the cavern grew darker. I followed the cavern deep into the heart of the mountain. Finally, it grew so dark that I had to light my candle. (Funny, that- I had been in caves before, and usually when you pass the second bend, all, and I do mean all, the light is gone. Here, it went away slowly and gradually, along with the obscuring mist.)

By candle light, I slowly worked my way deeper and deeper into the mine, checking the walls as I went for signs of gold. The way grew narrow and the walls grew rougher. I was seeing bands of quartz in them, though, which was a good sign.

Finally, with my candle half gone, I squeezed through an opening into a small room that seemed to be a dead end. The milky quartz that formed it gleamed in the light from my candle, throwing reflections everywhere. It was fairly dry in here, and warmer than I had expected. There was a sandy spot in the middle of the floor with a smooth rock behind it, and I went over and sat down, leaning against the rock. For a few minutes, I watched the light from my candle skitter around the walls and then quite suddenly, my candle went out.

I was startled, but didn’t panic. I could relight it when I was ready. Instead, I sat in the complete darkness. I listened to my own breathing, felt my heart beating. I began to breath slowly and felt myself relax and slow down. I closed my eyes and then laughed at myself. It was so dark that having my eyes open or shut would make no difference, so I opened them again.

Breathe in, breathe out. Relax. Let your mind flow.

Then I saw it. A flash of gold. And then another. Flash after flash of gold came from around the room.

I got up, slowly, carefully, and went over to one of the golden gleams. I touched it, and it was real. I pried the nugget loose from the wall, and then went on to another. Nugget after nugget was added to my load.

Finally, with my hands and pack weighed down with the precious resource, I sat down again, in the deep darkness, feeling my way back to where I thought I remembered the sandy spot and rock being. Leaning back against the stone, I breathed slowly and deeply once more, and calmed myself from the excitement of finding so much hidden gold.

Then, feeling like I had done enough for one day, I lit my candle again. Once more the room glistened with the light dancing on the quartz vein. There was no gold to be seen, although I knew it was there. I had the proof in my pack and in my hands. Heavy, rich gold- I looked at it in the dim candlelight and marveled.

Slowly, I made my way back to the surface of the mine, following long passages that grew progressively lighter and brighter, easy passages filled with the false promise of quick riches, away from the true source of wealth hidden deep in the darkness of the mine.

When I reached the surface, the sun was setting in a crimson blaze and the air was crisp and fresh. I showed the keeper my gold, and she smiled at me, and nodded. I was exhausted, and slowly made my way back to town, to my host home.

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The Gleam Within

Theo met me as I was walking back down the mountain to Owl Creek. He was empty handed, but looked very happy, as it he had been successful. He smiled at me. “Well, by the smile on your face, you look like you must have found gold,” he said.

 

“I did,” I answered him, and showed him the contents of my pack.

 

He whistled. “Good job!  I’m glad you found some. Why are you carrying it like that though?”

 

“What do you mean?” I was confused.

 

“Let’s get back down to the house, and I’ll show you what I mean,” he said, and set a pace my tired legs could barely keep up with.

 

When we got to the house, Theo called for Lissa to join us, and we all sat down in the front room. “Show Lissa your find,” he told me.

 

I did this, and she smiled and asked, “But why are you carrying it that way?”

 

I was completely puzzled. “Theo asked the same thing. But I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.

 

“Pick up a nugget,” Lissa told me.

 

I did, holding it in the palm of my hand.

 

“Now, relax, close your hand around it. Do you feel what’s inside it?”

 

I could feel something, yes. It was like the feeling I had when I first found the nugget- a germ of an idea, a flash of inspiration gleamed at me like the nugget had in the dark mine.

 

“Oh!” I said.

 

“That’s it. You’re getting it! Now just keep doing that. Do you feel it becoming a part of you? Reaching down inside you and growing?

 

I did.

 

“Good. Now you see what the gold can do. Reach for it, feel it, let it grow within you. When you are creating, let the gleam from this gold flow into what you are making, let it help you create. You’ll be surprised at what you can do with it when you have some practice.”

 

I smiled at them. “Thank you so much. You’ve truly helped.”

 

“Let me get you a bag for the rest of your nuggets,” said Lissa, getting up.

 

I turned to Theo, “How do you carry your gold?” I asked.

 

“Look!” He opened his hand, and I saw a gleam of gold in the palm, but it was like it part of his body.

 

“With practice, you will be able to do this too. Don’t be alarmed if the alluvial gold becomes one with you. It just means you have learned to tap it at will. Lissa doesn’t even need to be physically at the mine anymore to find the gold. Keep trying. You’ll get there too.”

 

Lissa came back with a little embroidered bag- despite the fact that the gold was weighing me down, I was surprised to see that there wasn’t a lot of it physically. It was just very heavy, very rich. “I keep these around for the people I host,” she smiled. “I’m so glad you were able to find gold!” She helped me transfer the nuggets into the bag- except for the one in my hand, which I was surprised to see was like Theo’s now – part of me.

 

“Good!” said Lissa. “You’re catching on fast.

 

The gleam from the nugget was begging me to go and write for a while. “I can see what you want to do!” Lissa laughed. “You’ll find pens and paper at the desk in your room. Dinner won’t be ready for a while. Go and write. I know that Theo always has to play when he gets home.” Laughing, she left for the kitchen. Theo and I looked at each other and smiled, and he reached for his fiddle as I headed for the stairs.

 

I had found the secret of my own spark of creativity- buried deep inside, in the dark, where the gleams from the gold shone brightly. I thought that may have been the easy part- finding that it was there. Now came the work- finding it again when I needed it, and leaning to use it.

 

Dream Seed Packet

 

 

My seed packet seemed to have changed…

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Dream Seeds

I got back to Riversleigh today- it is nice to stay a few nights in my own bed before I go off again. I really enjoyed my stay with Lissa and Theo; I learned a lot from those two remarkable people. In fact, after seeing what Lissa has been doing, I may spend more of my time on my fiber arts. With the exception of my knitting, I have neglected them lately. And after Theo- well, I think I’ll expand my CD collection. My wooden flute I’ll save for myself in private, at least for now. It’s better that way.

After I plunked my bag in my room and checked to make sure the Door was behaving itself, I pulled out the little bag from the Enchanteur and headed for the greenhouse. I hadn’t been out there before, so I spent a little time just looking around. There were all sorts of beautiful and exotic blooms and some very strange plants as well. I could tell that some of them were dream seeds planted by others that were coming to fruition. I hoped mine would do well, too.

Finally, I opened the little bag of assorted items and fished out the package of dream seeds. Now, I hadn’t looked at it too hard when I first got the bag, and I had been too busy since, but I didn’t think the package had looked quite the same when I first got it.

It was a lovely package, with butterflies on the front, and the words Butterfly Brand Dream Seeds.

I felt something tickling my ear. I looked up and saw a butterfly flitting around a blossom nearby. A slight breeze (in the greenhouse?) brushed past me, and I thought I heard a giggle.

“Butterfly man, is that you? Are you responsible for these dream seeds?” I asked.

There was no answer. The butterfly on the flower was gone and the breeze didn’t come back. “All right, then,” I said, “Have it your way.” I went back to reading the seed packet.

On the back it said:

Butterfly Brand Dream Seeds

To plant: Plant in a colorfully decorated pot with rich soil

               Water carefully with stream water

                Feed with one teaspoon honey diluted with ¼ water

                Place in a sunny window or outdoors in sunshine

When plants reach 2” place a stake or small trellis for vines to climb

Continue to keep plant moist, but not wet, and feed with honey mixture twice weekly

To use: Scent from flowers may be used as aromatherapy for creativity

             Tea may be made from dried leaves and blooms

                 Steep one tablespoon per cup of boiling water; may also be served iced

Promotes flights of fancy, colorful use of language and art, and generally following your muse.

These seeds did sound intriguing. I looked around to see if I could find a brightly painted pot. Sure enough, someone who liked to throw pots and paint and glaze them in bright colors had left a rather tipsy stack of their finished projects out here for us to use. I sorted through them until I found one that I really liked- It was glazed in a lovely bright blue and had green vines with yellow and pink flowers going around the outside. It was cheerful and certainly seemed bright enough for the butterfly dream seeds.

I filled the pot with some of the nice rich compost-filled soil kept in the greenhouse and shook the seeds out of the packet. There were four of them, and I decided to plant them all, one for each direction. They were odd looking seeds; each was about the size of a pea, and each one of them was a different color – blue, purple, yellow and pink. I poked little holes in the soil and dropped a seed in each one, patting the soil gently back over the top. Then I took a watering can outside and looked around until I found a little stream to fill the can. On my way back to the greenhouse, I stopped in the kitchen and begged some honey off of the cook. She was very nice about it and sent me on my way with a little crock full of it, so I could feed my plant regularly. I watered the seeds, and fed them the honey mixture, and then decided I would like to keep the plant in my room. The pot full of soil was heavy, and I staggered back to my room under the weight of it. Finally, it was safe on a table by one of my windows, and I put the empty packet in a drawer to keep.

The window was open, and a butterfly drifted in briefly, hovered over the pot, and floated back out again.

I leaned out the window, but no one was in sight. Still, I spoke aloud, “Okay, Butterfly Man, I don’t know if you are in cahoots with the Enchanteur over this or not, but the dream seeds are planted. If you want to help them grow, that’s fine with me!” 

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the things from my trip so I could be ready to go again in a few days, and then took a very long, scented bath before I went to bed.

This time my dreams were of butterflies dancing over gleaming gold nuggets.

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George the Donkey – The Lost Episodes

 I needed to bridge a few gaps in my journey-journal, especially regarding George the donkey! So- here are the lost episodes of George the donkey.

 

When I went out of Lissa’s house to go up to the mines, George was already out front waiting for me. In fact, he had made himself quite at home and was helping himself to some of Lissa’s garden. “George! What do you think you’re doing?” I shouted. “This is Lissa’s garden!”

“I’m having breakfast,” he replied calmly, taking another bite of the garden. He brushed past a large sunflower as he lifted his head up, getting a nose full of pollen. He snorted loudly, spraying me liberally with chewed-up green bits.

“George!” I yelled, “Watch what you’re doing!”

I heard a giggle behind me. Lissa was watching, her eyes sparkling and her hands pressed over her mouth. When she saw me turn around, she gave up and burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry, but it’s so funny!” she gasped. I tried to brush some of the green bits off of my clothes and then gave up and started laughing too. When she could speak again, Lissa said, “I always lose some of the front garden to the donkeys when I have a guest. They just can’t resist the nice fresh greenery. I gave up a long time ago, and just started planting things I knew they like to eat. It was easier than fighting it!” She smiled and told George, “Be careful, or I’ll plant nothing but thistles!”

“Hah. You know that I’ll eat them if I have too, but I much prefer this other stuff. If you plant those, I’ll just move to the back garden and see what I can find there.”  He brayed a laugh.

“Oh, you.” Lissa shook her head. “Go on and take She Wolf up to the mines. She’s had her breakfast too and she’s ready to go.”

So off we went, up into the mountains and to the mine. At the entrance, George reminded me that I would need to slough something. Then he said, “You need to slough those pieces of chew-up plant, too, because they’re still clinging all over your front!” And with that he brayed another laugh and trotted off to a green patch nearby.

As I went into the mine, I realized that I had forgotten to be nervous, thanks to George’s distractions. Once again, he had done his job.

That evening, as Theo and I were walking back and talking, George hung back and let us talk. As we approached the gate to Lissa’s house, I turned to George and said, “You’re awfully quiet this evening.”

“I don’t think I really need to say anything right now,” he replied. “You’ve done well, though, and I’m really proud of you.”

I never knew that a compliment from a donkey could feel so good.

When it was time for me to head back to Riversleigh for a few days, George showed up, packed and ready for the trip. “You’re coming with me?” I asked.

“Sure. Knowing you, you’d just manage to get lost between here and there. I know the way. Besides, don’t you want the company?”

“Of course I do. It wouldn’t be the same without you,” I told him. So I had a traveling companion for my trip back to Riversleigh.

We walked a long way in silence. Then, quite suddenly, I felt tired. I saw a shady spot beside the road, and sat down. George stopped, too, and asked, “What’s the matter, She Wolf?”

“I don’t know. I just got tired. I sat down. Now I don’t want to get up for a while.”

“Oh. Okay.” George wandered off into the plants alongside the road and began to graze.

I fell asleep in the warm shade. I finally woke myself up with a start, snoring. George was gazing at me interestedly. “You know,” he said, “ That was almost as impressive a noise as my braying!” He ducked when I swatted at him. “Let’s go find a place to camp. I don’t think we’re going to get much more traveling done today.”

I started to protest, but he stopped me. “No, you’re obviously tired. Look. You came to Riversleigh and had no more gotten settled in there when you took off again to do the Lemurian Tour. Then you went mining, which is hard work. You’ve done a lot in a little bit of time. Take some down time, write in your journal, refresh yourself. It’s okay to be tired sometimes. Just don’t let it become a way of life.” As he talked, we were walking deeper into the forest, away from the path. I could hear the sound of a stream babbling to itself nearby, and the air smelled fresh and sweet. Finally, we came to the place George had been looking for. It was a small clearing, grassy and smooth. The trees overhead were solid and strong, old patriarchs of the forest. I sat down feeling as if I had come home, so welcoming was the little clearing.

“Ahem,” said George, twitching his withers under the packs.

“Oh! Sure, George! I’m sorry!” I leapt up and took all the gear off of him, and he rolled in the grass gratefully. “Hold on, and I’ll get the brush out and give you a good brushing,” I told him.

After he was brushed and the camp set up, I boiled water from the talkative little brook to make some tea and George and I chatted.

“You probably could have stayed a few more days with Lissa, or just gone straight back to Riversleigh to get some rest, but I think you need to be away from folks for a few days to refresh yourself. Everyone needs a little solitude now and then, but some folks need it more than others, and you’re one of those folks.”

I nodded. “Yes, I do. Sometimes I just forget how much I need it. I’ll rest here until I feel ready to go on again, once I have assimilated some of the knowledge I have gained in the last few days. It probably won’t take too long,” I added, “I’m not that fond of sleeping on the ground!”

George brayed a laugh and went back off the graze on the fresh greenery.

The little interlude proved to be just what I needed, and soon we were on our way back to Riversleigh again. We crossed theRiver of
Creativity again, and I plunged back into those exhilarating waters with a will. It was still a bit hard to steer through the currents, but oh, what a ride!

When we finally walked up the driveway at Riversleigh, I was more than ready to see my own room again. But first, I took George out to the stables and made sure he was unpacked and brushed with fresh water, oats and hay. He told me, “If you ever need a donkey, just let me know. I’ll be delighted to travel with you again.”

“Thanks George,” I replied. “I can’t think of a better traveling companion than you’ve been.” And I gave him a hug.

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After returning to Riversleigh and planting my dream seeds, I spent a few days just hanging around. I visited other people’s rooms, chatted a bit, but did not do any real work. Finally I decided to get out a bit and take a walk in the Enchanted Woods.

The woods were deep and shady; walking through them was like a draught of sweet fresh water for my soul. I spied small flowers hiding at the base of huge trees, and listened to the birds chattering and playing overhead. A little creature that looked something like a chipmunk bounced along on the limbs overhead for a while. The path I followed wandered around the woods and crossed several small streams; I found myself wondering if any of these fed theRiver of
Creativity.

When I sat down to rest on a large rock beside on of these streams, I discovered I was not quite as alone as I thought I was. First I felt something tugging on my hair. I thought I had caught it on a twig, so I reached around and batted at it, to get it loose. My hair wasn’t caught on anything. Then I felt a bug crawling up my neck. I brushed at it quickly, but again there wasn’t anything there. This was a little bit irritating, but I decided my imagination was too busy, feeling tugs and bugs where there weren’t any.

Then what felt like a cup of ice cold water from the stream went pouring down my back. I jumped up, shrieking, and turned around. Not only was there nothing there, but my back was dry. I heard a giggle, a very tiny giggle, coming from behind me.

Now I suspected I had company. I sat back down, as if I hadn’t heard anything, grumbled out loud to myself about my imagination, and waited. Sure enough, someone decided to try another trick. I felt tiny, busy fingers at my collar and turned around rapidly. I found several large and unhappy ants suspended in mid-air right where my collar had been. They fell to the ground as a busy set of wings buzzed away from me.

“It’s no use; I caught you in the act!” I called, “Come on back and talk to me!”

I heard a giggle from behind me again, and then another one in my ear. Then something landed gently on my shoulder.

“You’re no fun, She Wolf,” said a tiny voice. “You’re not supposed to catch us until we’re ready to be caught!”

“Well then, you must have been ready,” I replied. “Because I caught you! You seem to know who I am, but I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced.”

“We’re just some of the fairies that live here in the Enchanted Woods. We come over to Riversleigh sometimes, but we just hadn’t gotten around to visiting you yet. When we saw you out in the Woods, we thought we’d come over and say hi!”

The slight weight on my right shoulder had been joined by one on my left shoulder and another one on top of my head. The one on top of my head began to pick up small sections of my hair and play with it.

“Hey, no fair making elflocks out of my hair!” I said.

The only reply was another giggle, but the sensation stopped.

“Do you want to come with us and see some of the magical and wonderful places here in the Enchanted Woods?” the fairy on my right shoulder asked. She seemed to be the spokesfairy for the group.

“Sure, why not. I’m always up for a little adventure,” I replied.

So with the guidance of the fairies, I explored the paths in the Enchanted Woods. The little chipmunk-creature ran around over head as I was shown the paths to the Gypsy Camp (this looked like fun), the Golden Seed Grove and theTemple of
Solace which I had already visited, and the path to the Faraway Tree. The fairies told me not to go there quite yet. I would be visiting it soon enough.

We were on our way back to Riversleigh when I heard a small sad voice crying piteously somewhere off the path. The fairies darted away in the direction of the crying and I followed after them.

The fairies were tiny and fast and were quickly out of sight, but the crying was easy to follow. I came into a small glade and there were the fairies swirling around a larger being, about the size of a toddler. It was wizened and wrinkled and crying loudly, as if its heart were about to break.

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” I asked as I ran over.

“My, my baby,” she sobbed. (The being was obviously a she, now that I was close enough to see her through the surrounding fairies.)

“What about your baby?” I questioned.

“She’s lost, and I can’t find her…” the little mother trailed off in a wail.

“We’ll help! We’ll find here for you, Old Mother! And the She Wolf will help us, too!” chorused the fairies.

“Sure we will!” I said. “What does she look like?”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know!” cried the woman.

“Huh? What do you mean you don’t know what she looks like?” I was truly puzzled.

 

“She likes to look like different animals! I don’t know which one she was today!”

I had a feeling I knew. “Is she quite curious? Curious enough to follow a stranger all over the Enchanted Woods all day long?”

The mother nodded.

“You know, I would be willing to bet that if you were to say something very loudly about it being time for dinner, and about not being angry if someone were to be a little bit late if they showed up right now, that your problem would be solved.” I was pretty sure I knew where her daughter had been all day.

The mother creature did as I suggested, with the fairies still buzzing around excitedly, and sure enough, there was a crashing sound in the branches overhead and a small chipmunk-like creature landed in a heap at our feet.

“I thought as much!” I said. The fairies burst out laughing.

The mother creature grabbed the little one in her arms and sobbed loudly. “You’re home, oh, you’re home! I thought I had lost you forever! Oh my, oh my!”

The fairies and I thought this was as good a time as any to make our exit. As we left, one of the fairies whispered in my ear, “She loses her daughter at least once a week! We’re always going off looking for her, only to have her turn up on her own a short time later.” A tiny sigh accompanied the words.

We were soon back at Riversleigh, and the fairies accompanied me to my room. They hovered around the dream seed pot for a few minutes and then darted around the rest of the room quickly before flying away through the open window. “We’ll be back!” they called as they left.

I tended my dream seeds, which were beginning to sprout, and went to see about some supper.

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In the Grove

I walked amongst the trees

Giant Live Oaks

Dripping moss

Time personified, aged masters

 

Tall tall Pines

Spears to the heavens

Taking our prayers

Straight up

Cypress

Soaking in the

Waters of Life

Knees sticking up

 

Cottonwoods granting

Quick shade

Finding water

In dry lands

 

Orchard trees, peaches and pears

Nourishing the body

Telling tales

To nourish the soul

 

Still I looked

I found Maples

Running with sweet memories

Each spring

 

Magnolias taking the breath away with

Sweet scent

Willows touching their fingers

To the ground

 

And then I found

A river of trees

Running together in a pack

Like the wolf

 

Slim Aspen with trembling leaves

Bright green leaves

Paper white trunks standing

In hosts together

 

They spoke of

Being one in the face

Of the world

And all

 

They spoke of knowing that

Together we can

Survive that which alone

We cannot

 

They spoke of the

Joy

Of being

Together

 

So I sat listening

Beneath

The Aspen trees

In the Golden Grove

 

And they spoke to me

Long and sweet

Of being close

To those we love

One Response to “In the Grove”

A Map of My Heart

I mapped my heart today

In black and white

A list, a simple formula

Of my life

And found with surprise

A pattern therein

A pattern of lights and darks

Valleys and peaks

I traced each path

I saw whence it came

Where it went

I found where the fears

Tied knots round my heart

I tried to loosen them, but

My fingers could not yet

Work loose the knots

But I found them

There in the dark times

Holding part of me hostage

I saw the climb into the light

The joy, the good times

I saw that my path

Wound back up

Into the light here and now

I must use this light

Here and now

To see the dark knots

And loosen their

Grip on my heart

To leave it free and open

Once more

A Dame and Her Tub

I was standing at the base of the Faraway Tree, looking up. I don’t like heights, but it looked so interesting up there, that I thought I might give it a try. Just as I reached for the first branch, a voice behind me said, “Uh-uh, not so fast, young lady!”

I turned around and was about to reply that really, young lady hadn’t been accurate for quite a few years, when I saw who was uttering those words. This had to be the famous Dame Wash-a-lot. Drat. I had thought I could get by without seeing her. Well, I almost did, but she saw me first. Maybe I could bluff this one out. I really didn’t want a scrubbing.

“Hello!” I said brightly. “I was just going to climb up the tree a bit!”

“That’s fine, but you get scrubbed first.”

“I had a shower just this morning, and I really didn’t get too dirty on the walk over here,” I said desperately.

“Doesn’t matter. In you go!” she said, pointing with her scrubbing brush at the bubble-filled tub that had somehow appeared on the ground beside her.

I gulped. I had heard that her scrubbings were very, very thorough. I winced at the thought of those bristles and the strong yellow soap she held. Still, I wanted to go on more adventures, and the only way to do it was to allow Dame Wash-a-lot to have her way with me. Ouch.

I sighed. Moments later, I was in the tin wash tub (my, it was a large tub!) and Dame Wash-a-lot was scrubbing away at me. The scrubbing brush’s bristles weren’t as coarse as I had thought. They didn’t exactly tickle, but they didn’t hurt, either. Still, I could feel them reaching down through layers of thoughts I had held fast for a long time, and ideas whose times were past. Then she started in on the inhibitions that kept me back so often. She grumbled as she scrubbed at these. “Why’d you ever let anyone tell you to think this way? You’ve got thoughts a-plenty of your own, and there’s never been any reason to let others tell you what you can and can’t accomplish. You’ve the sense to know what’s moral and right and these inhibitions don’t have a thing to do with that! Get rid of ‘em, I say!” With that she wielded the brush more fiercely, and this time it did hurt.

“Ouch!” I cried, “That smarts!”

“It’s for your own good, and all,” she replied, “you’ll feel better once it’s done, I promise you!”  All those “but I could never accomplish this” and “I could never do that” sorts of ideas were floating away in their own little bubbles.

At this point, I wasn’t so sure. I had kept that shell of inhibitions around me for so very long, as a protection against the world. If I didn’t push out beyond them, I would stay safe- no one could get to me in my little shell. And here was Dame Wash-a-lot, saying that I was better off without it and just scrubbing it away, as if it were dirty and harmful. Well, maybe it was, but it was mine, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe a lot of it wasn’t mine at all, but thought others had given me that I had accepted as mine. Maybe the good Dame was right. I sat back in a thoughtful daze and let her scrub away.

I could feel the water around me growing thick with scrubbed off bits that I really didn’t need anymore, but still the good Dame scrubbed. Finally she dumped a jug of cold, clean water over me as a rinse. I looked at my skin, surprised to find it still intact. I could have sworn she was going to scrub me right down to my bones.

“There now, isn’t that better? You’ve been good, and let me scrub you. Here’s a sweet for you, for a reward!” She handed me a candy wrapped in printed paper.

“You’re done, for now. I’ll be watching for you, though, and if you build up a dirty layer of mucky thoughts like I just scrubbed off you ever again, I’ll come hunting you down, and scrub ‘em right off again! You just bet I will!” She nodded emphatically, dumped out her tub, picked it up, and strode away. I was left standing there in my squeaky clean skin, with my clothes over my arms and my mouth hanging open. I felt naked, but not so much because I didn’t have my clothes on. It went deeper than that. I heard a giggle above me, and there were my friends the fairies.

“How long have you been there?” I grumbled, getting into my things.

“Long enough to see that Dame Wash-a-lot hasn’t lost her touch!” they said. “Don’t feel bad, she does this to everyone. Your scrubbing wasn’t the first, or the worst, we’ve seen. Now hurry up, so we can climb up the Faraway Tree! It’s wonderful up there!”

Just then I remembered the sweet in my hand. I looked at it. On the paper wrapped around it were the words “You can do whatever you choose” over and over again. I unwrapped the candy and put it in my mouth- it was sweet and flavorful, just like life should be.

I was surprised to find that not only did I still want to climb the tree, I had an energy and enthusiasm for it that I didn’t have before. I knew that I could go right up that tree, and my adventures there would be wonderful. As I reached for the first branch, I called out over my shoulder,”Thanks, Dame Wash-a-lot!”

One Response to “A Dame and Her Tub”

 

The Garden

I decided to take a slightly more literal approach to Lemurian Greening, and write a story about a garden and the wonderful person who worked in it.

Mrs. Roberts had always had a garden. It had always been a well loved, well tended garden. She said that gardening was good for the soul. She weeded, mulched, fed and watered her garden. She also sang to it. She liked old folk songs best, but she threw in a lively hymn or two sometimes. She said that singing was good for the soul too, and that putting the two things together, gardening and singing, was the best of all.

Her neighbors loved to hear her out in her garden, working and singing. She had bumper crops of vegetables- huge zucchini, giant tomatoes, cucumbers the size of most folks’ zucchinis, and salad makings of all varieties. She kept the whole neighborhood supplied with veggies all spring and summer. Her flower garden, too, was a sight to behold. The colors of the masses of flowers with the butterflies floating above them had inspired more than one person to plant a garden of their own.

It was with great regret that Mrs. Roberts left her garden to move to a senior citizens’ high-rise across town, but there was no help for it. She could not handle a big house and yard by herself anymore. The new apartment was nice, but it seemed so sterile and empty. Even when all of her favorite things and the pictures of her family were there, it just didn’t feel like home. She hung plants in the windows, put herbs in the kitchen, and African violets on every window sill, and that helped a little. But it still didn’t feel right.

One day at the store, Mrs. Roberts saw a nice big planter. She realized that if she filled it with potting soil, she could grow some nice lettuces for salads right out on her balcony. She went home with four planters, soil, and seeds for lettuce, carrots, marigolds and tomatoes. The next day she went back and got planters and seeds for beans, petunias, daisies and sweet peas. By the end of the week, her little balcony was empty of the iron table and chairs that had been on it, and full of planters. By the end of the month, it was green, and by the end of two months, flowers bloomed and vegetables flourished.

Soon she was supplying all of her neighbors with the fruits of her little garden again. She sang to her plants as she worked in her little garden, and her neighbors grew used to the songs that accompanied her gardening.

You could tell which was Mrs. Roberts’ balcony from the ground. It was the one with all the green on it. Some of the other tenants in the high-rise thought she had a good idea, and they started growing gardens on their balconies, too. Most stopped with a few pots of flowers, but some had almost as much as Mrs. Roberts did. Theirs didn’t grow quite as well or produce quite as much - Mrs. Roberts said it was the love she gave her garden, and no one could deny that her garden was well loved. She said they should try singing to their gardens like she did, but most of them were too embarrassed to try.

Mrs. Roberts began to start small pots of flowers and vegetables to give away. She made sure that the pots were full of the recipients’ favorite flowers or vegetables and soon even more balcony gardens were growing.

And always, every day, Mrs. Roberts sang to her plants, singing with joy as she gardened because singing and gardening were both good for the soul.

One day, as she stepped outside with her watering can and little garden fork, she thought she heard someone else singing. It was a strange, lilting voice, and she couldn’t tell what the words were, but it was very compelling and beautiful. Mrs. Roberts was delighted that someone else was singing. So she listened for a little bit, and then began to hum along with the voice, eventually making up words as she went along. The gardening was even more pleasant than usual that day.

Soon she began to hear the other singer almost every day. Together, they formed harmonies and while the words the other voice was singing were never clear, the results were beautiful. The garden flourished as never before and Mrs. Roberts did, too.

In fact, Mrs. Roberts was feeling wonderful. Her arthritis wasn’t bothering her very much, she was sleeping better, and she just had more energy. She and her garden were both very happy. Her neighbors beamed when they saw her in the halls. “How well she looks,” they said to each other.” Maybe there is something to all this singing and gardening.” More of them went out and bought planters and soil and seeds for themselves.

One day, however, Mrs. Roberts took a fall. It was just as she stepped back into the living room from the balcony. She turned as she was shutting the sliding glass doors, and tripped over her own two feet. She tried to catch herself, but down she went, with her leg getting caught in a chair by the door. She fell into a table which crashed on top of her, with the lamp from the table landing on her head with a thump and her leg going snap as she fell. Mrs. Roberts lay there in the middle of the mess, out cold, with her leg at a very nasty angle.

Sometime the next day, Mrs. Roberts’ neighbors noticed that she had not been out on the balcony singing and gardening since early the day before. By the day after that, they realized that no one had seen her in the halls and no one had found fresh veggies by their doors for several days. They tried to call her, but got no answer. Worried, they got the manager to unlock her apartment.

When they went inside, they got quite a surprise. Mrs. Roberts was lying on the floor by the balcony doors, with an ugly lump on her head and her leg at a nasty angle. Of course she was in pain, but there was something strange about the scene. The odd thing was the small pile of tomatoes and cucumbers beside her, and the trailing bits of vine that snaked in the crack where the sliding door wasn’t quite shut. The vine plants had come right in and made themselves at home, with fruit growing right where Mrs. Roberts could reach it. She wasn’t hungry or very thirsty; the vegetables beside her had taken care of that. It was odd, though, because those plants were on the far side of the balcony, and the vines had apparently come inside and produced fruit in the span of a day. The neighbors decided that Mrs. Roberts must have been having them grow inside for a while.

Mrs. Roberts was taken away to the hospital, where they put her leg in a cast and said that for someone her age who had been lying there for three days with a lump on her head and a broken leg, she was doing remarkably well. They sent her home with a wheel chair the day after that, which was several days earlier than usual. Mrs. Roberts was delighted to get back to her home. The neighbors chipped in and helped with the shopping and all the little household chores she couldn’t do in a wheel chair. They said that she had been helping them with their gardens and giving them vegetables and flowers and now it was their turn to help her. Many of them sang while they helped in her apartment and Mrs. Roberts beamed at them.

Soon her neighbors were hearing her sing again as she gardened. It was strange, though, she always sounded like she was harmonizing with someone when she sang out there on her balcony, but no one else was singing. And she had said something strange when they had found her, too, but her neighbors thought it must have been that bump on the head.

She had said that wasn’t it lovely, all this time she had been taking care of her garden, and now it had taken care of her, too.

5 Responses to “The Garden”

Dead Man’s Detail – A Pirate Story

I took my cue from the coloring picture story starter of the pirates burying their treasure. I wonder if there will be more adventures? I think there may be!

 The fine pale sand shifted under his feet as Jake staggered down the beach. It was searing hot under the leathery soles of his bare feet, but he was so dazed he hardly noticed it.  The bandana tied around his head had dried out again and the sun beat down heavily on his head. His skin, already a deep brown, showed signs of reddening in the relentless glare. Finally he veered off towards the sea and plunged into the shallows. The cool water revived him, but the salt made the gash in his scalp burn like hell. He had to remind himself not the drink the salt water. He had seen more than one man go insane after doing that. Instead, he lay in the water, letting the small waves wash over him until he felt his body begin to cool down and then he was up and off again, still staggering, but not quite so unevenly.

   He knew there was no point in it- no matter how many times he went around the little island, he would find no sign of his ship. The longboat that he had arrived on had long since been rowed away while he lay unconscious on top of the mound of dirt by the cove on the other side of the island. Still he peered at the horizon, hoping in vain for a sight of the ship he had known as home for most of his adult life.

    Every man on the ship knew that this day might come. When the captain decided a man had outlived his usefulness or a man just couldn’t pull his weight anymore, that man would be left behind somewhere- on Dead Man’s Detail. Usually the blow to the head killed him, or so the crew thought. Apparently this was not necessarily the case. There were a few jokes about the men left behind the guard the buried treasure but no one really liked to talk about it. Most of the men thought it was bad luck to talk about those left behind and it might even bring them back to haunt the ship. According to the captain, Dead Man’s Detail was an honor, reserved for the senior and most loyal members of the crew, but everyone knew it was just a convenient means of disposal for the old, infirm and rebellious.

   Jake never thought his day to guard the treasure would come. He had thought he would die in battle, taking some rich treasure ship, or at the very least in some sleazy bar fighting over cards or a woman. He hadn’t thought his bones would wind up bleaching in the sun on some forgotten beach with no one to drink to his death.

   Finally Jake came back to the cove where the treasure was buried. It could have been worse, he thought, as he collapsed on the mound of dirt in the shade of the palm trees. He could have been the man in the hole left to sit atop the chest forever, buried under all that dirt. At least he was still breathing, thanks to a skull that he had always said was the hardest on the seven seas. Although, if he didn’t find some fresh water soon, he might just start envying that man.

   Sighing, Jake got to his feet again. He hadn’t looked at the center of the island yet but things weren’t looking hopeful. On all of the circuits he had made of the island, he hadn’t seen any signs of fresh water flowing towards the sea- not so much as a streamlet.

The going was rough as he went inland. The ground sloped uphill slightly and there was a lot of thorn filled underbrush. He added scratches and cuts to his injuries as he forged ahead. Everything would be futile if he didn’t find fresh water soon.

   The water found him first. One minute he was pushing through some thorny tropical version of hell and the next he had plunged into an ice cold pool of fresh water in a deep sinkhole. He surfaced spluttering and then stayed where he was, treading water while he gulped mouthful after mouthful of the stuff. It tasted clean and sweet; at this point a flux brought on by stagnant water was the least of his worries.

   Finally he drank his fill and paddled around looking for a way out. The pool was small, no more than ten feet across, but he could feel no bottom beneath his feet anywhere in the pool. The lush undergrowth went right down to the edge of the pool and overhung it in places. Finally he found a vine hanging down and used that to pull him self out of the water. Refreshed, he made a small clearing and sat down in the shade to rest and take stock of his options.

   Water- well, that was taken care of.

   Food- there were all the fish in the sea to spear and catch. He might get tired of fish, but he had seen no sign of any sort of animal, either small or large, on the island. There were sea birds, though. He could eat those and raid their nests for eggs. He knew there were coconuts and he had seen several other plants he knew were edible- enough greenery to ward off scurvy. Food wouldn’t be a problem.

   Fire- well, he had his flint and steel on an inside pocket where no one had thought to look when his shipmates had looted his body before they left. There was a small knife in the same pocket, too, so he had that as well. Beyond that, he had the ragged clothing on his body and his bandana. His former friends had taken everything else.

All in all, things could be a lot worse. He decided to make a shelter close enough to the buried treasure to keep an eye on it, but far enough away that he wasn’t visible to the casual gaze.

   He lay down on his belly and drank a little more of the water which was as cold and sweet as it had been in the first mouthful. Finally he set out and explored the rest of the little island. He found one more sinkhole, although not quite so suddenly so he didn’t go for another unplanned swim, and a lot more trees, vines and bushes, but still no signs of animals or other humans. He did find a bird’s nest and raided it, taking two of the four eggs it held while the parents looked on and screamed imprecations at him.

   By nightfall, he had made a shelter from small trees and big leaves and had a fish roasting along with the eggs and a few edible roots.

   Over the next few days, he slept a lot, letting his body heal from its various injuries. When the gash on his head looked like it wasn’t going to get infected and his bruises felt better, he improved his shelter, dried some fish, and made some water containers from shells and gourds. His life was a bit boring, but he kept busy improving his living conditions and finding better sources of food.

   Sometimes he though he saw sails on the horizon, but it always turned out to be nothing more than clouds. He didn’t really think anyone would come back- he had never known the captain to return to the site of a buried treasure chest in all the years he had served on the ship. Frankly, he wondered why the captain even bothered to bury the chests- he never seemed to want them again. Maybe he planned to dig them all up in one big orgy of treasure-finding, when he decided to retire from his career of mayhem and theft on the high seas.

   Jake thought about his own life, too. He remembered being a child, playing with his brothers and sisters and having his mother tuck him in at night after a supper of bread and milk. He remembered being a cabin boy on the ship he found work on, when he was ten or so- that made one less mouth to feed for his widowed mother. His dad had gone to sea, and even though he had never returned, Jake had felt the need to follow in his father’s footsteps.

   That job as cabin boy had proved to be unfortunate. The ship was returning from a profitable trading trip in the
West Indies when it was beset by pirates. Most of the adult crew had been slaughtered, either in battle or afterwards for being too cowardly to fight to the death. A few had escaped overboard and were left to the mercy of the sharks. Jake had been trying to defend himself and his ship with a sword far too big for him when he was hit from behind and knocked out.

   When he came to, he found himself aboard the pirate ship. The captain gave him a choice of joining the crew or being tossed overboard. Jake chose life, even if it was the life of a pirate. The crew had never babied him or coddled him; they taught him with cuffs and curses. He had felt the lash a few times for not hopping quickly enough. He learned to fight with sword, cutlass and knife, and to load and fire a flintlock pistol. He learned to pack the cannons and fire them well enough to hit a target. He did his share of cooking and cleaning and polishing the brass and earned his way on the pirate ship.

   He thought about what his good God-fearing mother would say. He knew that she thought he was dead, and it was better that way. The Jake she knew was long dead. He took the life fate had dealt him and lived it. He had never gloried in the murder and robbery, but neither had he backed away from it. It was his life, and the only one he knew.

    He had served aboard the pirate ship for more than twenty years, now. He had never been injured badly in battles and was not infirm in any way. He was not ill-tempered and the men seemed to get along with him well enough. In fact, many of them even looked up to him. He was still young, in the prime of his life.

   But then the captain wasn’t. The captain had grown older along with Jake and was no longer in his prime. Since the men looked up to Jake, it was possible that the captain saw him as a threat or a rival. That would explain why Jake was chosen for Dead Man’s Detail, guarding the treasure chest.

   Jake had plenty of time to reminisce over the next few weeks. He remembered whittling as a small boy, and took to carving small figures out of bits of wood and decorating the useful items he made with carvings just to pass the time. And every day, rain or shine, he spent part of his time gazing out to sea, looking for sails on the horizon.

   The day the ship showed up it took him by surprise. It had come in the dawn, before there was light enough to look out to sea. Jake was up and stalking a birds back to their nest to raid it for eggs when he heard voices on the beach near where the chest was buried. Quietly he slipped back through the brush to see who had come to the island.

   It was still dark enough that he couldn’t see who it was, but several of the voices were familiar. He crept closer so he could hear what was being said. “There’s no bones ‘ere, boys, so ‘e musta lived. I ‘eard that Jake was the one the ol’ man was goin’ ta leave ta guard the treasure this time. ‘E ‘as a ‘ead as ‘ard as a piece of granite, so the whack on it prob’ly dint kill ‘im. Fan out and see if ye kin find ‘im or some sign of ‘im, at least.”

   Jake waited until the men had gone off into the underbrush and then, arming himself with a sharp stick, crept up behind the man who had been giving the orders. As he reached the man, the man turned and Jake got the surprise of his life. It was Big Arnie. The last time he saw Big Arnie was when he had been rowing away with the captain to bury the treasure on another island ten years before.

   “’Ello, Jake. I thought you’d be along soon. I sent the boys off so we could ‘ave a little chat, just the two of us.” Big Arnie smiled genially and gestured at the ground, indicating that they should sit down.

   “I figgered that if anyone could live when ‘e went on Dead Man’s Detail, it would be you. I been makin’ a point of pickin’ up the fellers that was still alive when I got the treasure chests from where the ol’ man buried ‘em. I got ears set about ‘ere an’ there an’ I keep an eye on the ol’ man, an’ when I find out ‘e’s buried a bunch o’ swag, I go where ‘e’s been, but far enough be’ind ‘im that ‘e don’t know I’m there. Then I pick up the man ‘e left, if there’s anything left o’ the man, an’ take the chest for meself an’ me crew.” Big Arnie laughed loudly. “There ain’t been a man yet what didn’t want to join Big Arnie’s crew after the ol’ man went an’ left ‘im fer dead.”

   Jake was starting to smile. “So you survived when the captain left you for dead, and now you’ve made a crew of the other men he left for dead, too?”
   “Aye, an’ a few others I’ve picked up ‘ere an’ there. An’ a good an’ loyal crew they are, too. Grateful, they are, an’ we share the loot even-like. We don’t need to go about fightin’ and such. We just live on what we takes from them that does the piratin’ and tried to do us in. We figger fair’s fair an’ all.” He grinned. “So, Jake, will ye join us then?”

   Jake didn’t even hesitate. “When do we leave?” he asked.

   When the men had filtered back, they dug up the chest. “Ah, poor Simon. That bum leg he got in the last raid did him in,” said Jake as they reached the body that lay atop the treasure chest.

   “Yeah, real fine way th’ ol’ man ‘as of inspirin’ loyalty, ain’t it?” Big Arnie snorted.

“Come on, let’s git this chest up an’ back to the ship. I don’t want to ‘ang around ‘ere any longer than we need to.”
   The chest was raised, Simon was decently interred with a stick cross on his grave and a few words from the Bible said over him, and the party returned to the ship. Jake looked at the name painted on the stern: Dead Man’s Revenge, it said. It was a fitting name for the ship, crewed as it was by men left for dead.

   Jake was surprised to find a nice sleek fast little ship with a contented, if a bit motley, crew aboard it. There were more missing body parts among that crew than Jake had ever seen before in one place.

    The treasure from the chest was parceled out publicly amongst them. Some of it went into a couple of extra chests down in the hold. Jake looked questioningly at Big Arnie and Big Arnie told him, “I tole ye I ‘ad eyes an’ ears set about ‘ere an’ there. Well, this is their share. We don’t stiff our crew mates even if they ain’t Johnny on the spot when we dig up the treasure!” Jake was about to inquire as to who else was in the pay of the Dead Man’s Revenge when Big Arnie shook his head. “No one but me knows ‘oo they be; it’s safer fer them if no one else knows. You know a secret’s only safe if you an’ me knows it an’ you is dead, eh?” and then he laughed his big laugh.

   When they came back up on deck, the little ship had already set sail for a port in the opposite direction from where Jake’s old ship would have gone.

   Things went along well for a while, and Jake settled into the crew. He was made a mate in short order; all the men agreed that he was best for that position. There was time in a fair little port, with bars and women and good times, and time at sea with the good wooden deck rolling under his feet. They rescued a few more men and treasures, and were too late for a few others. These men they buried as they had Simon, with a cross made of two sticks and a few words from the Bible.

   One day as they headed for port with a fresh chest in their hold, Big Arnie called Jake to his quarters. “Lad, I’ve a proposition fer ye. Ye know I’m not a young feller any more, an’ I’ve ‘ad just about enough of roamin’ the seas in my lifetime. I’m thinkin’ I want a little ‘ouse on the shore an’ a floor that don’t roll under me feet. In short, I’m thinkin’ o’ retirin’. I talked it over with some o’ the lads, an’ they’re thinkin’ like I’m thinkin’ that yer the man to take over me job. I’m offerin’ you the job o’ bein’ captain o’ the Dead Man’s Revenge.”

   Jake was dumbfounded. “There are lots of men who have been here longer than me. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. Some of the men might not like this!” He swallowed hard at the thought of what those men might do to him for jumping over them in position.

   “Nay, lad, they was all agreed. Yer smart, an’ yer fair, an’ yer brave. Yer the one man in the crew they all like an’ look up to. Yer the one, lad. Take the job.”

   It took a little bit longer, but Jake gave in. When he and Big Arnie came out onto the deck again, all the crew was standing, waiting, with serious expressions on their faces. When Big Arnie smiled and nodded, they all broke into cheers. Someone hauled out a cask of the best rum, Cook brought up special treats, and Jake got slapped on the back until he was bruised black and blue.

   For the rest of the voyage, Jake acted as Big Arnie’s apprentice in the ways of being a captain, and by the time they made port, he was comfortable in his new position. When they made port, Big Arnie had some other news. He came back from his favorite hangout and called Jake and the first mate for a meeting.

   “I jus’ got word, from one o’ me eyes an’ ears, that our ol’ ship ‘as ‘ad a bit of a setback. She was almost beaten in a fight with a ship ‘oo was ready fer ‘er.  Now she’s down crew, an’ she limpin’. She’s took off fer a port ta git repaired in, but she’s movin’ slow. Now, Jake, yer a young feller. Do you an’ the crew want a little revenge, like? I ain’t never ‘ad no desire ta fight no more, so alls we ever done was ta pick up men an’ treasures, but I know more than one feller would ‘ave liked ta go after a ship er two. An’ if ever there was a time ta do it, that’s now.” Big Arnie paused and looked expectantly at the men. Jake was getting a very big grin on his face. So was the first mate.

   “Ah, I see ye like the idea. Fine now, let me give ye the details.”

   For the next hour or two, they planned out the attack. Any man who didn’t want to be in on it could wait in port with Big Arnie, and no one would think worse of him. The men pooled their knowledge of the old ship, and with the information that Big Arnie had been given they soon a solid plan was in place. Big Arnie stopped Jake on the way out. “One last thing, feller-me-lad. Don’t hurt the cook on the old ship. Ye never know when ye’ll want a good meal.” And then he winked. Jake went off whistling. Now he knew who the “eyes an’ ears” belonged to on the old ship.

   The Dead Man’s Revenge did a quick re-supply and sailed with the outgoing tide. A few days later, sail was sighted and the men assembled on the deck, ready for battle.

   “We’ll take the ship- any men who surrender will go in the brig, the booty goes in our hold, and the first mate here will captain the prize back to port. But the captain, he’s mine,” Jake grinned wolfishly.

   The old ship never even had a chance. It was an older ship, and badly damaged with a hole in her hull and a broken main mast. The crew was down in numbers and demoralized even with treasure in the hold – they rarely saw more than a little of it, any way. The crew of the Dead Man’s Revenge overwhelmed them in short order. Many of the crew of the old ship insisted on fighting to the death – that was just the way they thought. Jake made sure the cook was safe, along with the newest member of the crew, a little cabin boy no older than he had been when he was kidnapped by the pirates, and then went looking for the captain. The captain had been conspicuous by his absence during the battle. Jake found him down in the hold.

   The old captain was doing something over near where the damaged hull was patched. Jake called out and the old man stood up and looked at him. Jake noticed that while the old man was not much into middle age, he looked, well, dissipated. “Jake! I know I left you for dead. What are you, a ghost with a crew of ghosts, come back to take revenge?” He laughed bitterly.

   “No, I’m as real and alive as they get. But I have come to take my revenge!” Jake replied. He sneered at the old captain. “You should have volunteered yourself for Dead Man’s Detail long ago. Look at what a pitiful specimen you’ve become!”

   The old captain reached for his cutlass and the two went at it. Jake was by far the superior physically, but the old man knew dirty tricks by the boatload. They fought up and down the hold, which was empty because of the leaking patch in the hull. Jake was soon covered with cuts that would hurt later, after the fight was done. Finally, when the old man took a chance and slashed at Jake’s throat, Jake managed to disarm him.

  “Well, go on, finish me, you coward!” the old captain roared. Jake started towards him, ready to strike and then thought better of it.

   He tossed his own sword aside and came after the man, fists swinging, bellowing, “I’ll drag you out of here by the scruff of your evil neck, you scurvy cur! I’ll take you to an island and hit you over the head and leave you on Dead Man’s Detail, just like you left so many of us!”

   The old man was full of dirty tricks here, too; he grabbed a board left from patching the hull and managed to belt Jake square in the mouth. Jake spit out a front tooth, and grinning a new gap-toothed grin with blood running down his chin, went back at the old man with a will.

   All the time they were fighting, they had been moving away from the damaged portion of the hull. Now the old man was moving back that way and Jake quickly saw why. There was a lit fuse running to a bundle of gunpowder set by the badly patched breech in the hull, and it was almost ready to blow.

   The old man saw where Jake was looking, and grinned evilly saying, “Aye, Jake, I’m denying you the pleasure of taking my ship as a prize. If I can’t have it, then no one will! At that point, the powder exploded. The ship rocked, and Jake was thrown to the floor with splinters of wood piercing him. As the sea rushed in, the old captain laughed maniacally and did what Jake would have sworn he couldn’t have had the strength to do. He bulled his way through the pouring waters, disappearing through the gap.

   Jake ran back up the ladders and emerged on deck, calling for everyone to abandon ship, because she was going down fast. The remaining crew from the old ship either threw down their swords or jumped overboard, and Jake’s crew made quick work of clearing the valuables.

  Again and again Jake looked over the sides for the old captain, but couldn’t find him anywhere. He liked to think the old man was dead, but somehow, he just couldn’t quite convince himself of it.

   They headed back to port with a mixed sense of victory.

   Jake gave the rescued cabin boy a share of the treasure and bought him passage on a ship going home. He told the boy to find a nice trade on the land and take care of his mother; the sea just wasn’t a safe place for a little lad.

   After thinking for a while he put together another packet, with some money, a small carving and an unsigned letter in it, and gave it to a captain headed for the port Jake had called home when he was just a little lad himself. The letter and the packet were addressed to his mother, should she still be alive.

   The cook joined the other cook in the galley and some of the captured crew joined his own crew. The Dead Man’s Revenge settled into port while several bad storms hit one after the other.

   One day, as Jake and his friends were sitting around in their favorite tavern by the harbor, a strange man came in. He was dressed in fine silks and held a scented handkerchief to his nose. He looked very, very unhappy to be there. He peered around the room, asked a question at the bar, and then made his way over to where Jake was sitting.

   “Captain Jake?” The man had a fancy accent, too.

   “Who’s asking?” replied Jake.

   “The governor wishes to meet with you. Your presence is required tomorrow at 10 AM at the official residence. Be there.” The man dropped an envelope on the table, sniffed haughtily, and quickly left with his nose in the air.

   Jake and his mates looked at each other and started laughing. Eventually, they quieted down and Jake reached for the envelope on the table. Reading it quickly, he said, “This says about what the snooty lackey said, but it does say something about a mutually profitable business arrangement. Hmm. I think I’ll talk this over with Big Arnie, get his take on it.” Jake paid up the tab and left.

   Big Arnie thought it would be worth investigating, so the next morning, Jake and his top crew members put on fresh clothes and showed up at the Governor’s residence promptly at 10:15. “Can’t have the man thinking we’re just a bunch of lapdogs to come when he calls, now can we?” Jake grinned.

   The Governor made them wait in turn, but finally the men were shown into his office. He was not as foppish as the lackey who had delivered the letter. He was an older man, shrewd looking, dressed in a suit rather like a military uniform.

   “Captain…Jake, is it?”

   Jake thought for a minute. He had been just Jake for most of his life. He thought back to when he was small, to the name he remembered his mother calling him. “Puckett,” he stated, “Jacob Andrew Puckett.” It felt strange to have a real, whole name again after all these years.

   “Captain Puckett, men, I am glad you came. Let’s get right down to business. I have a proposition for you.” He paused. Jake and his men waited silently.

   “I heard a rumor that someone took care of a certain pirate ship that has been causing trouble for me for quite some time,” the governor continued. “Naturally, I don’t know who this could have been, but your ship looks like it could handle certain tasks along that line.” Jake his men remained silent. “My proposition is this: I would like to have someone willing to do that sort of thing on a regular basis. Troublesome pirates who prey on our ships would be taken out of commission – naturally those doing the work would keep the spoils – and my ships would be kept safe. If the occasional ship from another country with whom we do not get along were to be taken by mistake sometimes, well, mistakes do happen.” The governor sat back and looked at the men.

   Jake looked him in the eye. “And what’s to stop the navy from taking care of the ship that’s doing this – by accident, of course?”
   The governor smiled dourly. “This.” He slid a package wrapped in brown paper across the desk.

   Jake pulled off the string on the package, and opened it.

   They all stared at the contents. It was a flag- an official flag of the sort flown by naval vessels.

   Jake and the men looked up at the governor.

   The governor said, “No strings, no conditions. But remember, those who get greedy find that accidents do happen and mistakes do get made. That will be all, gentlemen.” He got up and went to the window, dismissing his guests.

   Jake and the crew members looked at each other. They grinned suddenly. Jake picked up the package with the flag and they left. The Dead Man’s Revenge had work to do.

5 Responses to “Dead Man’s Detail – A Pirate Story”

Water fire earth air

Maiden Mother Crone

Maiden lies deep

In the past

Mother’s days dwindle fast

 

Can I keep some fertile

Aspect of Mother as I

Climb my way to live in the

House of  the Crone

 

Wise woman, juicy crone

Can I hold the fertility

Of Mother in my soul

 

Can I always keep this

Light shining in my heart

 

That lets me create?

2 Responses to “Fertility Plea”

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The Ferry Woman and the Whale

Water fire earth air

Maiden Mother Crone

Maiden lies deep

In the past

Mother’s days dwindle fast

 

Can I keep some fertile

Aspect of Mother as I

Climb my way to live in the

House of  the Crone

 

Wise woman, juicy crone

Can I hold the fertility

Of Mother in my soul

 

Can I always keep this

Light shining in my heart

 

That lets me create?

2 Responses to “Fertility Plea”

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Dolphins

I was sitting on the end of the dock, picking a splinter out of my foot and cussing quietly under my breath. I hadn’t been able to resist taking my boots off and padding down the length of the dock in my bare feet. The weathered boards had felt good beneath my feet, reminding me of pleasant times in my childhood. It had felt good, that is, until the weathered boards got rough and shoved a splinter in my poor defenseless foot. Darn boards! It wasn’t my fault at all, of course- just the boards. I was feeling very put upon and tense and cranky.

Anyway, I was sitting there picking the splinter out of my foot when I heard someone come up behind me. Whoever it was wore boots – I guess they knew how mean the boards could be. I turned around and saw a pair of canvas trousers going up, and then a set of strong looking hands holding some packages, and finally a grinning face. It was the ferry woman from last night. She must just be coming back from her night runs. “I see you’re a bit of a tenderfoot!” she laughed.

“It’s not me, it’s these boards! They were out to get me!” I said.

“Yah, that’s what they all say.” She abruptly changed the subject. “Be here tonight, just after dusk. I’ll take you over to the Isle of Ancestors.” She turned and walked away, her boots clomping down the dock. At the end of the dock she turned and called, “The dolphin baths are a nice way to spend your morning. You might go and see if the dolphins are in today!” Then she disappeared into the village.

 I put my boots back on and went to see the woman at the dolphin baths. The thought of soaking a morning away, after all the traveling I have been doing lately, was irresistible. The dolphins were the icing on the cake.

When I checked in at the baths, the woman who handed me a towel told me that yes, indeed, the dolphins were there today, and they looked ready to play. Play, I thought. Hmm. I wanted to relax, but I didn’t know about play.

I got undressed, leaving my clothes in a basket, and started to hurry across the wet tiles. I slowed down to look at the pattern they made. It was soothing, geometric, in watery colors. The air was damp and warm. I could hear the dolphins splashing and chattering at each other at the far end of the pool. I put my towel down in a dry place and slipped into the water. It was a little cooler than I had expected, but the air was so warm in here that it felt good. The salt water lapped gently at my skin and stung the bottom of my foot where I had picked out most, but not all, of the splinter. I eased down into the water and let my feet drift up as I relaxed. It was so easy to float in the buoyant salt water! My entire body relaxed and I listened to the dolphins playing through the distortions of the water. Sounds are always strange under the water.

I must have floated there for about five minutes before the dolphins came up to me. It was long enough to relax me thoroughly; they allowed me that. When they came, it was silently, sliding along beneath the surface without a ripple to give them away. I felt one rubbery snout nudge me and then another. There were soon quite a few of them all nudging and poking at me. Finally they were tickling me. I started to laugh, and twisted over to look around. They had nudged me all the way to the other end of the pool. Now they danced around me chattering and clicking- laughing dolphin laughs. I was treading water since the pool was quite deep here.

One of them brought out a bright blue ring and tossed it. It sank and one of the other dolphins swam after it, catching it before it hit the bottom. Then it brought up the ring and tossed it. They continued this and I began to see a pattern of who tossed and who caught it. It was like a game of dolphin frisbee.

Suddenly, they were all looking at me- it was my turn.  The dolphin with the ring dropped it. I dove after it, but I am no dolphin, and couldn’t swim quickly enough to catch it. Then a shape swam up to me. I saw a dorsal fin being offered and grabbed it. The dolphin pulled me through the water like it was nothing and I grabbed the blue ring. We bobbed back up and I held the ring triumphantly aloft. Then I too tossed the ring for the next one to catch. We played this for a while, like a bunch of little kids at the community pool and then all of them but one raced off.

The dolphin who had helped me stayed behind and offered her fin again. I grabbed it and we took off through the water very quickly. We raced around the pool and then down into the water. Just when my breath was about to give out, she surfaced and off we went again. The next trip down I let go and swam by myself for a few moments with the dolphin swimming beside me. Then I grabbed her fin again and she pulled me up.

Finally she brought me back to the shallow part of the pool and floated there gently beside me. I took the hint and started to float again myself. It was even more peaceful this time, with her rubbery body floating beside me, after all the activity we had engaged in.

As I drifted both physically and mentally, she began to speak. “Play refreshes the spirit like rest refreshes the body,” she told me. I knew this was true. I do try to remember to play, but reminders, especially when busy-ness drags me along and wears at me, are always good.

 The warm water lapped over me and the dolphins all came back one by one and nudged me, and then I was alone. I lay there in the water a time longer, until my skin was very wrinkly

 As I dragged my soggy self out of the water, I realized that my foot didn’t hurt any more. The splinter had worked its way out and was gone. I was refreshed and ready for the rest of the day- and night. As I dried off and dressed again, my skin soft from the salty water, I was glad I had come and played for a while. The dolphins were right. Play refreshes the spirit.

2 Responses to “Dolphins”

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Ancestor Mine

I was sitting on the end of the dock, picking a splinter out of my foot and cussing quietly under my breath. I hadn’t been able to resist taking my boots off and padding down the length of the dock in my bare feet. The weathered boards had felt good beneath my feet, reminding me of pleasant times in my childhood. It had felt good, that is, until the weathered boards got rough and shoved a splinter in my poor defenseless foot. Darn boards! It wasn’t my fault at all, of course- just the boards. I was feeling very put upon and tense and cranky.

Anyway, I was sitting there picking the splinter out of my foot when I heard someone come up behind me. Whoever it was wore boots – I guess they knew how mean the boards could be. I turned around and saw a pair of canvas trousers going up, and then a set of strong looking hands holding some packages, and finally a grinning face. It was the ferry woman from last night. She must just be coming back from her night runs. “I see you’re a bit of a tenderfoot!” she laughed.

“It’s not me, it’s these boards! They were out to get me!” I said.

“Yah, that’s what they all say.” She abruptly changed the subject. “Be here tonight, just after dusk. I’ll take you over to the Isle of Ancestors.” She turned and walked away, her boots clomping down the dock. At the end of the dock she turned and called, “The dolphin baths are a nice way to spend your morning. You might go and see if the dolphins are in today!” Then she disappeared into the village.

 I put my boots back on and went to see the woman at the dolphin baths. The thought of soaking a morning away, after all the traveling I have been doing lately, was irresistible. The dolphins were the icing on the cake.

When I checked in at the baths, the woman who handed me a towel told me that yes, indeed, the dolphins were there today, and they looked ready to play. Play, I thought. Hmm. I wanted to relax, but I didn’t know about play.

I got undressed, leaving my clothes in a basket, and started to hurry across the wet tiles. I slowed down to look at the pattern they made. It was soothing, geometric, in watery colors. The air was damp and warm. I could hear the dolphins splashing and chattering at each other at the far end of the pool. I put my towel down in a dry place and slipped into the water. It was a little cooler than I had expected, but the air was so warm in here that it felt good. The salt water lapped gently at my skin and stung the bottom of my foot where I had picked out most, but not all, of the splinter. I eased down into the water and let my feet drift up as I relaxed. It was so easy to float in the buoyant salt water! My entire body relaxed and I listened to the dolphins playing through the distortions of the water. Sounds are always strange under the water.

I must have floated there for about five minutes before the dolphins came up to me. It was long enough to relax me thoroughly; they allowed me that. When they came, it was silently, sliding along beneath the surface without a ripple to give them away. I felt one rubbery snout nudge me and then another. There were soon quite a few of them all nudging and poking at me. Finally they were tickling me. I started to laugh, and twisted over to look around. They had nudged me all the way to the other end of the pool. Now they danced around me chattering and clicking- laughing dolphin laughs. I was treading water since the pool was quite deep here.

One of them brought out a bright blue ring and tossed it. It sank and one of the other dolphins swam after it, catching it before it hit the bottom. Then it brought up the ring and tossed it. They continued this and I began to see a pattern of who tossed and who caught it. It was like a game of dolphin frisbee.

Suddenly, they were all looking at me- it was my turn.  The dolphin with the ring dropped it. I dove after it, but I am no dolphin, and couldn’t swim quickly enough to catch it. Then a shape swam up to me. I saw a dorsal fin being offered and grabbed it. The dolphin pulled me through the water like it was nothing and I grabbed the blue ring. We bobbed back up and I held the ring triumphantly aloft. Then I too tossed the ring for the next one to catch. We played this for a while, like a bunch of little kids at the community pool and then all of them but one raced off.

The dolphin who had helped me stayed behind and offered her fin again. I grabbed it and we took off through the water very quickly. We raced around the pool and then down into the water. Just when my breath was about to give out, she surfaced and off we went again. The next trip down I let go and swam by myself for a few moments with the dolphin swimming beside me. Then I grabbed her fin again and she pulled me up.

Finally she brought me back to the shallow part of the pool and floated there gently beside me. I took the hint and started to float again myself. It was even more peaceful this time, with her rubbery body floating beside me, after all the activity we had engaged in.

As I drifted both physically and mentally, she began to speak. “Play refreshes the spirit like rest refreshes the body,” she told me. I knew this was true. I do try to remember to play, but reminders, especially when busy-ness drags me along and wears at me, are always good.

 The warm water lapped over me and the dolphins all came back one by one and nudged me, and then I was alone. I lay there in the water a time longer, until my skin was very wrinkly

 As I dragged my soggy self out of the water, I realized that my foot didn’t hurt any more. The splinter had worked its way out and was gone. I was refreshed and ready for the rest of the day- and night. As I dried off and dressed again, my skin soft from the salty water, I was glad I had come and played for a while. The dolphins were right. Play refreshes the spirit.

2 Responses to “Dolphins”

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Ancestor Mine II

Ancestor ancestor mine

Root of my trunk

Trunk of my branch

Branch of my leaf

How would I grow

 

How would I grow

And green and change

How would I go from now

To then

And stand ‘gainst the winds of time

 

The howling winds of time

To stand straight and tall as you did

And not let the winds strip

Me bare

Nor yet steal the sap from my veins

 

The life running in my veins

The blood from my life

Leaving me withered and dry

Not juicy and full

Leaving me bent and tired

 

Bent and tired and all sucked dry

From the winds of life and time

You have met this wind

Face on and lived thru it

Held straight and tall and fresh

 

Straight and fresh

And ready to stand more

All that came at you

With pride and dignity

And love

 

Child of child of mine

Leaf to my branch

Branch to my trunk

Trunk to my root

Gift of my love’s love

 

Love

Love is the answer

I loved and that was why

The winds which pulled at me

Never took me down

 

Never took me down nor

Sucked me dry

They did their best

But my love

Held me safe

 

Held me safe within

For tired is not lost

And pulled at is not down

And if the dry winds parch then

Pull sweet moisture from down deep

 

Sweet life from love

And all I did

I did for love

And consecrated it to

Life

 

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I found a note from Enchanteur when I woke up from my nap after my night visit to the
Island of the Ancestors.  She said that the next place I was to visit was the House of the Serpents and Blind Springs. I was to make certain I still had my little bag she had given me, and to go outside of town, where a donkey would be waiting for me.

 

I packed my things up again, and made sure my little bag of magical items was nice and safe. Then I went downstairs for a bite to eat before I left.

 

It was already late afternoon by the time I walked out of town to find my donkey. She found me first. I had been hoping I might see George again, but no such luck. Instead I got Shirley.

 

I was walking down a small path wondering where my donkey could be when something came out of the underbrush and rammed into the back of me. I landed on my front- fortunately not my face, but it was muddy out and I got thoroughly mucky.  “Sorry, sorry! I mis-timed that! Didn’t mean to knock you over! Oh dear!”

 

Something goosed me in the part of me that was sticking up and I grunted, “Oof! Get off of me!”

The nose moved away and I struggled to my feet, my backpack throwing me off balance.

I turned around and saw a donkey standing there, contrite. “You must be my donkey,” I sighed.

 

“Shirley. I’m Shirley and I’m so sorry I’m late. I was supposed to be back in that clearing waiting and I was thinking and just lost track of time. Oh dear. I am SO sorry.”

 

I stopped the stream of apologies, “I’ll live. And what clearing are you talking about? I haven’t passed any clearings!” I was trying to scrape some of the mud off my front as I talked.

 

“Why, the clearing back there…. Uh oh. It’s just around the next curve. Oh my. I did it again, didn’t I?” Her head drooped and she looked very dejected. I had to admit I was a little worried. She was supposed to know the way to the House of  the Serpents and couldn’t even find the clearing where she was supposed to meet me. This might be a problem.

 

Still, I hated to see her so sad, so I tried to cheer her up. That turned out to be a mistake.

 

 

“Hey, Shirley, don’t stress. Everyone gets a little off the path every now and then. It’s fine. And look, I got most of the mud off my front. Let’s just get going, okay? We got a really late start today, and I want to make some distance before we stop for the night. Come on, let’s go.”

 

She cheered up immediately, braying and dancing happily. A donkey doing a happy dance is something to behold- that is, until she steps on your foot. Now I was hopping around, too, but I was holding my foot and yelling.

 

Shirley, of course, was very contrite. I stopped her before she could get going on the apologies again, and climbed on her back. We set off down the trail. I am happy to say that she only smacked my head on one really big overhanging branch on the first part of the trail, and only ran me into thorn bushes twice. She kept up a running apology as we went.

 

“Oops, watch that branch. Didn’t mean to let that branch slap back against you like that. Oh- look out- I slipped on that rock. Sorry, I’ll try not to get quite so close to those sticker bushes next time.”  And so on. Shirley really meant well. She really tried. She was really sweet. Her intentions were good. And you know what they say about good intentions, and where the path they pave leads to.

 

Anyway, after an hour or so of this, I decided to get off and walk for a little bit. It seemed safer. We traveled like this for a while, and then the path got very narrow and rocky.  In fact, it seemed to be disappearing, and it was starting to get dark. I didn’t like this combination. I liked it even less when Shirley said, “I think I should have taken a left back at the last branch in the trail.”

 

“Are we lost?” I asked.

 

“Not really, no. I mean, we aren’t where we’re supposed to be, but I know where we went wrong, and if we just go back a little way on this trail, we can fix it.”  We turned around. I was getting tired, so I climbed on Shirley’s back, and we went back down this narrow, stony game track in the growing dark, towards where she thought the mistake had been made.

 

We found the fork in the trail and tried the other branch. Unfortunately, this one didn’t seem to be any better. In fact, it was worse. We were soon going single file, first Shirley and then me, on a narrow path on the side of a hill that seemed to be turning into a mountain. This trail, like the other one, was disappearing. We made it past the bad section, though, just as the last of the light from the sky faded and it got really dark. I climbed back on Shirley and looked around as I rode. We were now in a dark forest. This wasn’t a nice tame forest, either. It was the kind of forest that has eyes.

 

The eyes turned out to be real ones. I was just getting ready to dismount from Shirley’s back when hoof beats sounded behind me. I couldn’t imagine where they were coming from, since the trail was so bad, but then they were on us, and I was being yanked from Shirley’s back and hauled onto my tummy over the front of a saddle. All I could see was a big black horse and the flapping black cloak of the rider. I could hear poor Shirley braying in distress as the rider pounded away with me.

 

I was very uncomfortable, very frightened, and more than a little bit mad. The mad was what showed. I was yelling and squirming and flailing around. The rider said nothing and didn’t react to anything I did or said. The horse just galloped on through the darkness.

 

I was starting to feel really ill, being on my tummy on a jouncing horse. Just about the time I thought I couldn’t take anymore, the rider reined the horse in. I grabbed at the rider’s cloak for something to hold on to just as he pushed me off. I toppled off- my legs wouldn’t hold me- and pulled the cloak off with me. I was rolling on the ground, tangled in the cloak when I heard the rider pound off again. I got my face clear in time to see a silhouette of the rider against the moon; I couldn’t see well but I wasn’t sure I saw a head on the rider. As I finished untangling myself, I realized that this fit with where I was. I was in a graveyard.

 

I could see leaning headstones all around me, with weeds tall around them. There seemed to be a crumbling mausoleum a short distance away, and even sitting down I could see that some of the older graves were sunken in. As I swiveled around, I realized there was a headstone right behind me, and I was sitting on a grave.

 

This gave me goosebumps all over. I struggled untangle myself from the black cloak and get myself off of that grave. I got to my feet and jumped off the grave just in time, because the ground where I had been began to heave and buckle. I stood there frozen with terror as I watched the grave split open and something start to emerge.

 

I found my wits and my feet at the same time, and turned to run. All the graves around me were doing the same thing, and the graveyard appeared to be endless, rolling off in all directions.

 

I ran in the first direction I turned and at least got away from the opening graves. I found a huge old tree with low hanging branches and scrambled up in it as fast as I could. That tree seemed to be the only living thing besides me in the entire cemetery, and it was also the only thing that wasn’t moving. The graveyard below me was churning with graves opening up. The ones that weren’t tearing open had wisps of white coming out of them.

 

Ghosts and zombies and here I was stuck in a tree. Life just didn’t get any better than this. Shirley must have rubbed her bad luck off on me.

 

However, bad luck or not, I would be very glad to see her about now. I clung to the rough bark and wrapped the cloak tighter around me. As I shifted, I knocked the bag from Enchanteur loose and it bounced loudly off branches all the way to the ground. Of all the things to drop, it would be the one thing I couldn’t forget about or do without.  The noise had alerted some of the zombies down below that I was hiding in the tree and some of them were shambling over to deal with the intruder in their home. Some of the ghosts were floating up towards me. I decided to follow the bag down, grab it quickly, and then run for it again. At least the zombies didn’t seem to move very fast.

 

I slid down the tree, scraping my legs raw as I did. Just before I reached the ground, a zombie shuffled past, caught his foot on the bag and shambled away with it in tow. I yelled incoherently and fell the last few feet, landing on my already bruised posterior with a thud.

 The zombie was disappearing into the darkness with my bag when I heard a horrible commotion. There was a loud braying, and a lot of thumps and a few crashes. Then the zombie with the bag came flying back in my direction, head over heels. The bag came loose from his foot and flew back at me. As I grabbed it, I saw other zombies rolling this way and that with a loudly braying donkey plowing into them left and right. It was Shirley, doing what she did best- wreaking havoc – bless her heart. She bowled them over clear up to where I was standing at the base of the tree and brayed “Climb on! Let’s get out of here!”

 

I didn’t wait for a second invitation. I jumped on and we careened out of the cemetery, knocking a few more zombies flying and barreling through the cold wispy ghosts. Shirley only knocked my shins against two headstones on the way out and only tore through one thorn bush. I was impressed. As we pounded through the rusty iron gate, which caught my shirt sleeve and ripped it off my shirt, she brayed triumphantly. She didn’t stop running until we were well away from that place.

 

When she finally slowed down, gasping and wheezing, I climbed carefully off her back. I still managed to catch my foot in her harness and fall down. She was truly amazing, this donkey. “What happened and where are we and what is going on?” I asked her as I lay on the ground, dazed.

 

“Ummm, you need to get up. We need to keep moving. I’ll tell you when we find a safe place to stop,” she replied.

 

I struggled to my feet and we staggered on. We crashed through the underbrush with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. Finally we reached a small bridge over a fast moving little stream. On the far side, Shirley slowed down. “Across running water. We’ll be safe here for a while, so I can catch you up on what is going on.” She continued, muttering, “Oh, this is terrible, just terrible. It was bad enough when it was just me, now it’s people in my care, too. Oh dear, oh dear.”

 

I stopped right where I was and sat down. “Okay, Shirley, tell me what’s going on, RIGHT NOW.”

 

She sighed dramatically and said, “It’s a curse. I’ve been cursed.”

 

I waited for her to continue.

 

“You see, I got a little lost one day and was walking down the wrong trail.”

 

This I could believe.

 

“Anyway, it was the trail that the black riders use, only I didn’t know it at the time. I walked in front of one of them and tripped him.”

 

So far I could picture this perfectly.

 

“He fell off his horse and, well, he lost something. We couldn’t get it, where it fell. He was really mad at me, and he cursed me. Until he gets it back, my luck will be terrible. Everything will go wrong.” She sniffled. “I’ve tried not to believe in the curse, thinking maybe it would go away, but that hasn’t worked. I was afraid to tell anyone because I didn’t want to lose my job. And now look what’s happened. You’re hurt, we’re way off our path, and who knows what will happen next.”

 

I stopped her and asked, “Shirley, what on earth could he have lost that is so important?”

 

We both looked up at a noise on the far side of the little stream. A voice rang inside my head, “IT WAS MY HEAD!”

 

The black rider sat there on his horse, headless but still radiating contempt. “That fool donkey knocked my head out of my hands. I can’t reach it to get it back and if I’m miserable, so will she be!” was what I heard inside my head.

 

“Uh, right, Mr…?” I said

 

“Murphy.”

 

Somehow that figured.

 

“Where is this head of yours? Maybe I can help you find it? If I did that would you take the curse off poor Shirley here?” I asked.

 

“I suppose so. Be warned, though, there’s only so much that will do,” the rider replied sourly.

 

“Okay, then, let’s get going. Show me where it is.”

 

We all set off downstream. He stayed on his side of the water and we stayed on ours. Shirley and I both felt much safer like that. After about half an hour I started smelling something unpleasant. It smelled like rotten eggs. I stopped and sniffed again. “What is that smell?” I asked.

 

The rider replied, “That’s where my head is.” For a headless guy, he sounded awfully sarcastic.

 

The head had fallen into a hot sulpher spring. According to Shirley and the rider, it had gone all the way to the bottom of the pool and was lodged there under a rock. It was down quite deep. Apparently headless horsemen don’t swim, and of course donkeys don’t have any hands so the head was lost.

 

It was far too dark to see anything, but the horseman had a solution for that problem. He summoned a few will o’ the wisps from the forest and they came and hovered over the pool. I still couldn’t see, so one of them dove down into the water. It went all the way to the bottom and then I could see the skull, grinning up at me. It was down about ten feet, so I would have to dive for it.

 

I took off my boots and stepped into the water, muddy clothes and all. Fortunately, the water wasn’t too hot, even though it smelled rank. I placed my glasses on a handy rock, well back from the edge so they wouldn’t fall in too, and dove.

 

On the first try, I reached the skull and pulled on it. It was well and truly stuck, so I tugged on the rock it was under instead. This moved. I went up for air, and then dove back down again. This time the skull came loose. I swam up to the surface and held it aloft, triumphant.

 

“I got it!” I shouted. Climbing out of the water and putting my glasses back on, I went over to the rider. He reached for it, but I held it back, saying, “Not until you take the curse off of Shirley, Mr. Murphy.” He sighed, but I felt something Happen.

 

I looked at Shirley, and she nodded. I grabbed the cloak I had pulled off of him and offered it to him along with his skull.

 

Murphy took the skull, but refused the cloak. “I’ve got others, and you may need it. You’re way off course and it’s a long ride where you’re going. If the weather gets bad, you’ll want it. Remember, I said that removing the curse would only do so much.” His body turned back towards Shirley and he shuddered.

 

 “I am going back to the graveyard to see if I can persuade all the zombies and ghosts to go back to their graves. Please don’t follow me. Your help I don’t need.” Then he tucked the skull under his arm. The eyes started glowing red in the darkness, and as he rode off, I could have sworn one of them winked at me.

 

I looked at Shirley and then at the hot spring. Sulpher or not, it was hot and wet and cleaner than the mud and sticks and so forth I had been wearing most of the day. I already stank of the sulpher anyway, so I shrugged and climbed back in the water, sitting on a rock that was at a nice depth. The will o’ the wisps hung around overhead and I leaned back and relaxed.

 

“Uh, She Wolf, don’t you think we had better be going?” Shirley asked.

 

“Nope. This is the most comfortable I’ve been all day. I’m not moving until I’ve soaked out a few of these aches that I seem to have acquired.” I replied. “After that, I’m finding a comfortable pile of leaves, unrolling my bedroll and finding some food in my pack. Tomorrow morning we will be going. Not until then.”

 

Shirley sighed, and then nodded. “Okay, I guess that’ll work. I’ll go look for a pile of leaves for you.” She ambled off and I heard a crash and an ouch from the direction she went. I was beginning to see what the rider meant when he said there was only so much removing the curse would do. I heard another small thud and winced. This was definitely going to be an interesting journey.

 

Three days later, in the middle of a torrential downpour, we arrived at the House of  the Serpents. The woman at the door looked at me, eyes widening. My clothes were torn and I was scraped and scratched and filthy. I also stank. She wrinkled her nose. “Brimstone?” she asked. Then she looked at Shirley and nodded, saying, “Oh. I see. Let’s get you in and cleaned up. We have some special salve and a first aid kit just for people who come in with Shirley.”

 

I turned around to say good bye. Shirley was walking away toward the stables dragging a branch which was stuck in her harness. I smiled fondly. Yes, the rider was right. There was only so much that could be done.

2 Responses to “Accursed Donkey and the Black Rider”

A Story for the Gorgon

I summoned my courage and entered the banquet hall. I knew the serpents would all be there, and I am not really very keen on snakes. To my surprise, the snakes were not there yet, and I sat down between two robed women who smiled at me in welcome.

No sooner than I sat down, though, the snakes began to arrive. I wiggled in my chair but refused to run away. The women on either side of me murmured words of encouragement to me as the snakes slithered down the long table and sampled each dish. There were so many of them, all sizes and shapes. Finally they began to move away, off the table, and I began to relax.

As the last of the snakes slid from the table, I heard a fluttering, swishing sound. I looked up and there, circling the chandelier, was a strange sight. It had a long body like a snake, but it was covered with feathers. It had wings like a bird, too, with iridescent feathers, and was flying in ecstatic loops and swirls all around the chandelier. As I watched, it dipped and swooped down onto the table. A collective “oh!” was voiced by all the women in the room. The flying snake was certainly a marvelous sight.

The feathered snake slithered and fluttered from one dish to another, sampling each of them as his earth-bound brethren had. When he had finished, he did not take off again and leave the room. Instead, he slithered over to the woman at the head of the table and wound onto her arm. He went around the back of her neck, as she sat there perfectly still, and then he went down her other arm. Then he repeated this with the next person at the table. One by one, each of us at the banquet table was visited by the feathered serpent.

When my turn came, I held quite still and concentrated on the feathers and wings rather than the snakier qualities of the visitor. He felt soft and warm as the slid up my arm. When he passed around my neck, I felt embraced, and I was sorry when he slid down my other arm and went on the next person. After he had gone around the entire table, he spread his iridescent wings again and flew up to the chandelier once more. He circled it several more times and the swooped acrobatically out of the room. 

After he left, the banquet hall was quiet for a few minutes, as people took in what had just happened, and then everyone burst into conversation.

The woman next to me turned and said, “I can’t remember the last time that happened. It really is a rare thing for the feathered serpent to come and join us. That was wonderful wasn’t it?”

I had to agree with her. I felt honored to have been at the banquet table this night. I thought about this as I filled my plate with the delicious food on the table and ate until I couldn’t hold any more.

After the banquet, I went happily to the comfortable rooms I had been assigned to. There was a note on the door – parchment, with fancy lettering. Tomorrow, just before noon, I was summoned to see the Gorgon.

I gulped. I had heard tales of her since childhood, and I was a bit leery of meeting her. Still, I had heard good things from others about her, especially if a performance pleased her.

I had thought long and hard about what to do for the Gorgon. I can’t dance – I have two left feet and usually just hope to make it across a floor without tripping when I walk. Singing – well, dogs don’t howl and small children don’t cry and I usually blend in well enough at church, but singing unaccompanied is kind of iffy for me. Visual art – again, I’m all right, but it’s not my best skill. Performing – I can bluff as well as any mother can, but I’m not an actress. Story telling – ah, I might be able to do something with that. First thing in the morning, I would visit the costume shop and find something suitable to tell stories in. I fell asleep planning the story I would tell her.

When I was ushered into the Gorgon’s chamber the next day, I was as ready as I could be. I had donned the costume of a wandering storyteller, with bright colors and a tall wooden staff with a raven’s head carved on the top. I bowed low, removing my feathered cap with a flourish, and announced myself.
“I am She Wolf, Madame Gorgon, and I have come to entertain you!” With no further ado, I began my story:

Once upon a time, a family lived at the far side of a deep forest, up against a range of tall mountains. The mountains rose right up out of the forest, looking like a giant had dropped a bag of rocks right in the middle of the trees. They were made of stone so white it looked like snow. No hills led up to them, and they were so steep and rocky that nothing grew on them and even the doughtiest climbers were defeated by them.  They extended for miles and miles, only stopping a few miles from the seashore on either end of the land. They were like a great wall dividing the land in half. Their jagged tops were always covered in snow, so high were they, and a few were so tall that the clouds almost always covered them.

People told all sorts of tales about these mountains. Some people said that in the middle of the range was a magic land where all sorts of mythical creatures lived, and other said that there was an entrance to the underworld there. Some said that there was secret passageway to the far side hidden somewhere, and others said that there were giant birds that lived there that would give you a ride to the other side if you could catch one. Of course, you had to get into the mountains to catch one first, so no one had ever done this. There were tales, too, of terrible monsters that lived there that could walk through rocks and climb sheer rock faces that would sometimes come out of the mountains and wreak havoc in the lands beside the mountains.

The family that lived there, in the shadow of the mountains, didn’t say much about them. They kept a eye on the mountains, but never saw anything strange or magical or frightening come out of them They just stuck to making a living, picking up the bits of rock that fell from the mountains that were of a good size to make rock walls and houses, carving them into usable shapes, and transporting them to a town on the far side of the forest where there weren’t any rocks for building so that people were willing to pay good money for them.

This family had lived there for many generations, gathering rocks and selling them, and nothing had ever happened to any of them. They rarely told the stories about the mountains around their fire at night – they saw no point to it, as they could see for themselves that the mountains were just that -plain, boring oversized hunks of rock. As a result, the children never heard the stories unless they happened to go to the town on the far side of the forest with their parents.

When the little daughter of the family was five or so, she went along with her father on her first trip to town. The trip was long, for it took several days to get to the far side of the forest, and so she had never been before. She was astounded by all the people and the sights in town, and in the inn that night, she heard her first storyteller, and she was mesmerized. The storyteller was as good one, with many new and wonderful tales to tell, several of which were about the mountains at the back of the family’s home at the far side of the forest. The little girl listened, her mouth wide open as she hung on to every word. When her father came to take her to bed, she cried until he had to threaten her with no more trips to town if she kept it up. After he tucked her into bed, she dreamed dreams of the magic in the storyteller’s tales, magic on the other side of the mountain walls.

For years, while she was growing up, each time it was her turn to accompany her father or mother into town to sell the rocks, she would seek out the storyteller. She learned to ask for tales of the mountains and hung on each word the storyteller said. Her parents joked that she wasn’t expensive to take to town, as she never wanted to go into the shops, and they always knew where to find her.

The little daughter did not just listen to the stories, she believed them. Well, not all of them. There were some that were too far- fetched even for her to believe. But many of them seemed like they must be true, with magic laced through them and wonder filling them.  At home, she  began to creep off to search along the rock walls for a hidden entrance or some sign that the magic might be true. She was very careful not to let her family know what she was doing, for she was afraid they would make fun of her or even forbid her to explore. She kept her quest silent, all through the years of growing up.

By the time the daughter had reached the age of 17 or so, she began to look less often. Real life was taking up more and more of her time, and a young man from a house half way through the forest had begun to court her. She hadn’t looked for magic or ways into the mountains in quite some time, really.

One fine spring day, she was out with one of the pony cart, looking for nice rocks of a certain size and maybe a few spring greens for dinner if she could find some. She was humming a little tune she had heard on her last trip to town, not thinking of anything in particular and picking up rocks from an exceptionally nice and very recent rock fall she had come across.

As she pulled another rock from pile, she felt a slight breeze on her face. It came from the direction of the side of the mountain. Startled, she pulled back away from the rock face. As she pulled, the rock she was holding on to suddenly came with her and the rest of the pile shifted, revealing a small dark hole in the side of the rock face. A steady fresh breeze was blowing out of the hole. She sat there in shock with the rock on her lap, staring at the hole that no one had ever though could exist – a hole that quite clearly led to Somewhere Else.

Finally, she got her wits about her and, putting the rock aside, scrambled to her feet. She looked carefully at the hole. The fresh air was definitely coming from it. It was black as pitch inside, and she could see nothing. Carefully trying to avoid causing another slide that would hurt her and bury the hole once more, she set about moving rocks to make the hole larger. When the rocks had come down off the higher part of the mountain, they seemed to have crashed against this section of the mountain with enough force to break through a weak section of the wall, revealing this cave behind it. It didn’t take long to make the opening large enough to let in a little light and then to look inside. The cave floor appeared to be clear of rubble. This was good, for it meant that the cave wasn’t in the habit of collapsing. She could see a small chamber and a passage leading down and deeper into the mountain.

She was beside herself with excitement. This was what she had looked for all those years. The cave had to lead to somewhere, or there wouldn’t be a fresh breeze blowing from it.

She hurried to the pony cart and grabbed a candle stub out of a basket kept there. Then she paused and grabbed the basket itself. It was full of supplies for family members caught away from the house at night, with a blanket, package of waterproof matches, a small skin of water, and some journey cake and dried fruit. There was also a small length of rope in the basket, which was the sort designed to be worn on a person’s back. She though she would just go a little ways into the cave and see what it was like. She had to be home in a few hours, and didn’t want to worry anyone at home by being late. She wouldn’t do anything dangerous, she thought. She just wanted to have a little look at this cave she had been searching for since she was small.

When she entered the caves, the young woman lit her little candle and held it out as she looked around the room. The chamber was coated with a shiny, slippery looking stone which glistened in the light from her candle. The floor was rough in places, but fairly even as she walked across it. She touched the wall and was surprised to find it damp. Slowly she walked into the passageway and the next chamber.

While the cave may not have contained magic, it certainly contained wonders. There were rooms full of huge spears of stone hanging from the ceiling, and others rising up from the floor. Some rooms had crystal clear pools with ice-white eyeless fish swimming in them and others had strange looking walls covered with stony popcorn and rocky draperies. The colors varied, too, from the basic snowy white to rusty colors and greens and even blues. One room looked like a sunset as the colors shaded from top to bottom. She lost all track of time, exploring in those caves. A real sunset shaded the sky and it grew dark outside. Eventually, her pony grew hungry for his dinner, pulled his rope loose from the branch he was tethered to and took himself and his cart home to eat. When he arrived without his young mistress, the house went into an uproar. The young daughter was always home on time. They could only imagine that something terrible had occurred to her. Her brothers came boiling out of the house like upset bees, her sisters ran to get their own ponies from the stable, and the young man who was courting her ran out bellowing her name in a panic. Her parents grabbed whoever they could long enough to try to organize a search.

Blissfully unaware that she was causing a panic, Annalise (for that was her name) was staring at each new cavern full of wonders. The breeze was stronger now, and she knew that she must be near the other end of the caves. Just then, a puff of wind blew out her candle and she was left standing in the dark. Annoyed, she took off her basket and rummaged around in it feeling for the package of matches. As soon as she pulled the package out of the basket, though, it jumped from her hand and fell somewhere on the black floor in front of her. Grumbling, she knelt down and tried to ignore the rocks under the heavy canvas knees of her trousers as she felt around for the package. She moved slowly forward as she swept her hands along the floor in front of her, searching carefully by feel. The matches proved to be elusive, and she was nearly crying by the time she finally felt them in front of her. How they had bounced all that way, she didn’t know. As she sat back on her heels to re-light her candle, she noticed that the darkness to the side of her was a little less black. It almost looked like night in that direction, instead of the absolute pitch-dark lightlessness of the caves. Then she saw some thing flit across it, looking a lot like a fire fly. Hurriedly she lit her candle once more, and, grabbing her basket, she walked quickly to the lighter patch of darkness.

Moments later, she stepped out of the caves into the night. It was a beautiful night, clear and full of stars with a bright moon overhead, and filled with the flitting of fireflies and other insects, including a huge green moth that came over to investigate Annalise’s candle flame.

She was on a steep hillside, with fir trees all around her; she could see down into a dark valley below. There were no lights, other than the fireflies, but the place wasn’t quiet. Annalise could hear all sort of insects, an owl, and then to her terror, something large crashing around in the woods. She backed slowly into the mouth of the cave again and blew out her candle. As she crouched there, several huge beasts with legs like tree trunks all covered with shaggy hair crashed by. They were enormous and had great curving white tusks in front and long appendages on their fronts. They looked a lot like the pictures of oliphants Annalise had seen in books, but oliphants weren’t so big and covered with hair. They were frightening beasts.

After the beasts had passed, Annalise relit her candle. That was when she realized that there was not enough of it left to see her safely back through the caves. She would have to go looking for something she could use as a torch – but that would need to wait until the sun was out in the morning. With a mental apology to her family for all the worry she must be causing them with her thoughtlessness, Annalise resigned herself to spending the night on the far side of the mountains. She was not going to sleep out there where huge beasts could step on her and never even notice, though. Annalise went a little deeper back into the cave and curled up under her blanket in a little niche in the wall.  She fell asleep listening to the strange noises of the valley beyond the mountains.

Meanwhile, her family had followed the tracks of Annalise’s pony cart back to where the rock slide and cave were. They were shocked to see the hole in the mountainside, but knew immediately that this was where Annalise had gone.

“I only hope she went willingly and wasn’t dragged off by who knows what,” said her father grimly. The young man who was courting her was moving the rocks, trying to make an opening large enough for a grown man to enter. Annalise had slipped through a much smaller entrance. As he struggled to move one of the larger rocks, aided by some of Annalise’s brothers, they all heard a loud rumbling from above them. The rocks that had fallen in the original slide were apparently just the first to fall. With a curse, the young men ran to safety as more of the mountainside came crashing down, burying the entrance to the cave behind tons of debris.

Annalise awoke slowly, feeling very warm and cozy. Her mattress seemed quite lumpy this morning, but she was wonderfully warm, even though the early spring air was quite chilly.  She stretched, opened her eyes, and was surprised to see a rocky ceiling above her until she remembered finding the cave entrance the day before. As she shifted slightly, a voice right beside her said, “Ah, I see you are awake now.” The warmth at her back moved, and a large grey wolf came into view.

Annalise crawled back into the very back of the niche in terror, clutching the blanket to her and screaming.
“Hush, child, you have no need to fear me.” The wolf was talking. Annalise stopped in mid-scream. If the wolf was talking, this must be a dream. Wolves didn’t talk. Annalise and the wolf stared at each other and then the wolf sat down and spoke again.

“You really are lucky you fell asleep in the cave, you know. If you had chosen to sleep outside, you wouldn’t have woken up as yourself. You would have been transformed into an animal while you slept, thanks to the sorcerer’s curse on the valley.”

“Huh?” Annalise thought this was a bit far-fetched, even for a dream. She reached down and pinched herself. It hurt. But she couldn’t be awake, could she?

“A curse,” repeated the wolf. “The same curse that turned me into a wolf, and all the other folks in the valley into other animals. Even though the sorcerer who created it is long dead, the curse lives on.” The wolf settled down and grinned a gape- mouthed lupine grin at Annalise. “I can see you don’t believe me and have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“This is just a dream. I’m still asleep. I have to be!” Annalise answered the wolf. “I thought there must be magic on the other side of the mountains, so I’m dreaming that there is!”

“Well, if you think this is a dream, you might as well hear the whole story,” the wolf laughed. “Listen well, girl child, while I tell you the story of the valley.”

“Once, long ago, how long I am not sure, for as an enchanted wolf, time flows differently, the valley was a happy and busy place. Magic abounded here, and the people of the valley traded with the people who lived on the other side of the mountains – magical wonders for natural wonders, things of many lands coming here in trade for the magical things we took for granted. It was a wonderful time, with plenty for all. There was a sorcerer, however, who had decided that he would wed the young daughter of the king of the valley. He thought she was beautiful, and wanted her hand more than anything else. The girl had other ideas, though. She was in love with another young man, and before the sorcerer could do anything to detain her, she ran off and wed her love in secret. The sorcerer found out and came after the young couple, but they disappeared for a while, out into the world beyond the mountains. Soon the young bride was with child, and wished to return to the valley to have her baby.  As soon as she set foot in the valley, the sorcerer knew that she was back and he was furious. He met her half-way to the palace and confronted her.

‘How dare you wed another when you knew I wanted you!’ he roared, red faced with rage.

‘How dare YOU demand that I wed you when I did not love you or want to marry you!’ she shouted back at him. ‘I wed the man I wanted to, and it was no business of yours. Now begone and let us pass, so that we might go and see my parents.’

The sorcerer’s lip curled. ‘Your parents are gone. I took care of them myself, with my magic, as soon as I heard you were gone. Since they would not stop you and make you mine, they had to be punished. Now you will be punished, too.’ With that the sorcerer threw a bottle on the ground, where it broke, a thick orange smoke billowing from it. He laughed cruelly, and said, ‘Your disloyalty to me has sealed the fate of the entire valley. You shall be as lonely as I am, for all eternity!’ With that, the sorcerer disappeared, leaving the young woman sobbing in the arms of her young husband.

As he held her, though, she could feel something happening. He was changing, shrinking. She pulled back just in time to see him turn into a snake. As she stared at him in horror, he turned and slithered away, frightened.

The curse had turned everyone in the valley into creatures of various sorts. The young woman had not changed, to her surprise, and as she wandered through the valley that morning, she saw that the palace guards had become mammoths, like huge hairy oliphants, the bards and minstrels had become brightly plumaged birds while the sturdy farmers and their families were changed into equally sturdy donkeys and ponies. All the people of the valley, except the young woman, had been turned into creatures. The young woman wandered all day, and as the sun began to set, found herself by the entrance to the caves that connected to the world beyond the mountains. She felt a new pain now, and knew that the time to deliver her child was upon her. Alone in the cave and alone in the valley, she bore her child, a girl, and wrapped her up well. She laid the baby beside her and then, exhausted, fell asleep there in the mouth of the cave. Sometime while she slept, she moved slightly and one of her feet slipped out of the cave and into the open air of the valley exposing it to the curse still hanging there. As she slept, she too changed. She awoke to hear her daughter crying with hunger and turned to nurse her.  To her horror, she could not care for her little daughter. She had become a wolf. Raising her head to the sky, she howled in sorrow, in fear, in loneliness. And in his tower, the sorcerer heard, and smiled.

The young woman turned wolf knew that the baby would not live if she did not find someone raise the child, so she did the only thing she could. She took the baby’s swaddling wraps in her jaws and carefully lifted the baby and carried her through the caves, back to the other side of the mountains.

She made directly for a small house near the mountains, because she remembered that the young woman of the house was also quite pregnant. Perhaps the woman would be willing to raise this child alongside her own. She laid her squalling daughter down on the doorstep and slipped into the trees to see what happened.

The door opened, and a woman looked out. Seeing the baby, she gasped and reached for it. The baby was taken inside, the door slammed shut, and the wolf went back into the cave. She returned several times over the next few days to make sure all was going well. Her daughter was being treated like a daughter of the house and was safe and well. The wolf realized that staying nearby would probably get her killed as a dangerous predator and came back through the cave to the valley.

Over the next few months, she watched the cave carefully. Traders came through the caves into the valley. As soon as they stopped to sleep, the curse took them and they became animals. A squirrel, a porcupine, a magnificent stag – all of the people transformed into some sort of creature. It bothered the young wolf-woman very much to see this happening, so she gathered all the magic she could find and all the magic she could use as a wolf, and went through the caves again. At the other side, she carefully wrought her magic, and the entrance to the cave disappeared. The rock wall became smooth, as if the cave had never been there. Sadly, the wolf-woman went back to the valley, all alone.”

Annalise looked at the wolf in front of her. “My great-great-great grandmother was a foundling,” she said, “and there were tales of a large wolf who was seen in the forest for a while about the time she was found.”

“Yes, I thought so. You have the look of my mother,” replied the wolf with a certain sadness.

“But, how could it be you! That was so long ago!” Annalise asked.

“It seems to be part of the magic spell,” the wolf said.  “If I am to be lonely forever, forever needs to last, well, forever.”

“But surely the sorcerer would have relented eventually,” Annalise said.

“He might have, if he were still alive. He died a few years after he cursed the valley, all alone, in a fall down the stairs to his tower. Some cats who lived there (they used to be his servants, before the curse) told me that they could hear him screaming for help for several days. Of course, there was no one to help him.”

Annalise shuddered. “Is there no hope, then, ever?”
“Well you might ask. There may be, but none of us in the valley can do anything about it. As we are all animals, we can’t get into his tower to see what may be done.”

“None of the creatures have the ability to get in?”

“In his fear of vengeance, the sorcerer made the tower so that no animal could enter it. It is magically shielded from us as surely as if it were made of seamless steel. We have tried, all of us, and we cannot enter it.” The wolf shook her head, a very human gesture. “I think that perhaps there is a spell to break the curse therein, for the sorcerer was growing quite lonely in his last years. Still, I do not know.”

Annalise sat silently for a while. “It has been so very long. My world has begun to think that the land here never existed. I do find that strange, since there was once trade between the lands.”

The wolf replied, “No, for not all traveled here. The routes in were hidden to all but a few traders, lest we be overrun with people wishing to play with the magic, which is always a dangerous thing. It may be a side effect of the curse, as well, seeping out into the world beyond.”

Annalise looked at her, trying to get her head around the idea that this wolf had been a woman who was her ancestor. Finally, she spoke, “How far off is the tower?  Do you think I could get into it?”

“Child, the tower is near, but I do not know what sorts of traps the sorcerer may have laid in it. It may not be safe, and I do not wish to endanger you.”
“If the tower is near, then I will go and try. The sorcerer was defending himself against animals, not other humans. I’m willing to bet that I can do it.”

“You know you may be gambling with your life, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. But I want to do it. If you won’t show me the way to the tower, then I’ll just go exploring until I find it myself,” Annalise added.

“Then let us waste no more time. I will show you the way. When you have seen it, you may wish to turn back. Then I will guide you through the caves to your home and seal the entrance shut once more, so that no one else can be harmed.”

They set off down the hillside, with the wolf telling her about the land as they went. Annalise told her some of the stories she had heard, and the wolf laughed at a few of them. Others she confirmed as being true. She pointed out magical creatures to Annalise as they went, too, some of which Annalise had never even heard of. Finally, the wolf said, “It is strange to think of my home as being nothing more than a tale in the world beyond. It is even stranger to think that so much time has passed. But there, look, the tower is just beyond that rise. You can see the top of it now.”
The tower was indeed just ahead, and Annalise began to feel quite nervous. At the top of the rise, she paused to look around her. While they had been walking and talking, all sorts of animals had joined them. Others had already gathered in the clearing around the tower. The great mammoths, colorful birds, squirrels, badgers, porcupines and deer, the cats and dogs, donkeys and ponies, birds and beasts of every kind. They were all there, waiting and hoping. How had they known, Annalise wondered. It must have been the magic here. The wolf beside her sat down with a great sigh and looked up at Annalise wordlessly. Annalise just looked back, and then nodded.

Annalise pushed through the throngs of animals to the base of the tower. Many murmured words of encouragement as she passed. At the head of the group was a large snake. Annalise had a feeling she knew who this was, and this was confirmed when the wolf came and sat down beside it.

None of the animals could come within ten feet of the tower, so she walked the last few steps alone. There was complete silence in the clearing as she approached the door.

Annalise put her hand on the doorknob and turned it. It turned and clicked with a rusty, dirty, grating sound. She pushed on the door and it move slightly. She tried again and put her shoulder into it. The door was stiff and warped with age, but finally it gave and she stumbled into the musty darkness inside. As daylight streamed through the door for the first time in two hundred years, the first thing that Annalise saw was the skeleton of the sorcerer at the bottom of the stairs. It was clear that both legs were badly broken. Annalise shuddered and stepped over it as quickly as she could. It was sad, but he had chosen his own fate. She mounted the stone stairs slowly, checking for surprises as she went.

“The workroom will be at the top!” The wolf called out one last instruction as Annalise slowly climbed the stairs. The first level and the second level were simply living quarters and Annalise moved quickly through these. The next level seemed to have been just a storeroom, full of dusty trunks and broken furniture. The top level was next. Annalise saw a heavy wooden door on the landing at the top of the stairs. There was no key hole, no lock, just a doorknob. Annalise slowly reached out to grasp it. Nothing happened, so she turned the knob carefully. This door had been protected from the elements, and opened with only a small creak.

The workroom was covered in dust – fortunately, the sorcerer had been a tidy sort of fellow, and so the dust was the worst of the mess. Annalise saw shelves of books and scrolls, more shelves of bottles and small boxes all carefully labeled, and dusty but otherwise clean glassware and strange apparatus on the wooden worktables. She went over to the windows and unlatched them, pushing them open to let in the clean spring breeze. A fresh gust of it burst through the windows and rushed through the room, blowing away much of the dust and leaving Annalise sneezing violently. It seemed that the land itself was trying to help lift the curse.

Annalise wandered around the room for a short while, getting an idea of what was there and where things were stored. Finally, she came upon a locked cabinet on the far wall. If she were the sorcerer, this was where she would keep something like the counter spell for the curse. Unfortunately, this cabinet was locked. The keyhole was a tiny thing, so the key could be hidden almost anywhere. She remembered that the skeleton had had a small pouch, nearly rotted through, strapped around its waist. Although she was not happy with the idea, she knew she needed to check this for the key.

Slowly, she made her way back down the stairs – she didn’t want to end up like the sorcerer had, broken and helpless at the bottom. When she got there, she carefully opened the little pouch, which fell apart in her hands. In it were a few coins, a miniature painting on a locket, and a tiny key. She put the other items in her pocket to examine later, and hurried back upstairs with the key.

The key fit into the lock perfectly, and the cabinet opened with a snick. The doors creaked open, and displayed there were row upon row of bottles, all carefully labeled in a faded, spidery script.  Annalise sighed with resignation. This was going to take a while.

She leaned out of the window to let the waiting animals know what was going on, and then took a chair over to the cabinet.

Several hours later, she had found spells for growing hair on a bald spot, making flowers appear in thin air, speaking to someone miles away, changing the colors of one’s clothing, and cleaning one’s clothing while still wearing it. There were dozens of others, mostly frivolous, some truly useful. She was tempted to try the one for cleaning clothing, because she was filthy from her trip through the caves the day before.

 The light was beginning to grow dim as she took the last bottles from the cabinet. She was very discouraged – perhaps there wasn’t a counter spell, after all. The last bottle came out – it was a spell for untangling your horse’s mane – and Annalise set it on the table beside her with tears in her eyes. She had failed.

She turned to leave the room, to go and break it to the animals that there was no hope for them, when something caught her eye. There was a mirror hanging on the wall which did not sit tight against the wall. It appeared to be raised, as if something were under it. Annalise reached out to take the edge and as soon as she touched the mirror, something odd happened. The image of herself swirled and she saw herself as a young child, as a daughter and sister. She saw, flashing past, major events in her life, things she wished she had never done and things she still laughed over. Tears came to her eyes, and she laughed at the same time. She saw the woman she had become and how she affected those around her. She even saw her beloved desperately moving rocks at the entrance to the caves, and her conscience pricked her. Finally she heard a voice saying, “Face yourself. Do you accept what you find here?”
Annalise held firmly onto the edge of the mirror, and answered, “Yes, I do. This is me, and I accept who I am.”
The mirror’s surface stopped swirling and disappeared. Where it had been was a single bottle. She reached in and took it. It was labeled, simply, “Counter Spell.”
Slowly, Annalise descended to the bottom once more. As she exited the door, the sun began to set on the horizon. She looked at the wolf, and the wolf told her, “Just open the bottle. If it works, we’ll know.”
Annalise took a deep breath and pulled the stopper from the bottle. A cloud of blue smoke rushed forth, and expanded to cover everything. Annalise could see nothing for a few seconds, and then the smoke cleared. Before her stood not a crowd of animals, but a crowd of humans, all smiling and staring at her in wonder. A great roar went up from the crowd, a roar of joy. People began laughing and crying and hugging one another. Annalise looked at the head of the crowd and saw a young woman who looked very like herself, and like the miniature she had in her pocket. Beside her was a young man who reminded her slightly of her father, which made since, since he was her great-great-great grandfather. They were smiling, with tears in their eyes, holding hands as if they would never let one another go again. As one, they turned to Annalise. “There is no way we can ever thank you enough,” they said. “You have given us back our lives.”

As the stars came out in the sky above them, a joyful escort led Annalise back to the caves. “What I don’t understand,” said Annalise, “is why the sorcerer would have stored the counter spell in such a way. He would have had to face himself to retrieve it, and that wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do”

“Perhaps that is the reason. He didn’t wish to use it, so he made it as hard as possible to reach it. He didn’t want to use it the first time he got lonely,” suggested the lovely young woman who was her ancestor.

“He was lonely, though. I found this in his belt pouch,” said Annalise, handing over the miniature and the coins.

“Yes, the picture is me, and the coins are those from lands we used to trade with,” came the reply.

“And will trade with once more!” someone else added.

When they reached the caves, someone just waved their arms and said a word, and lanterns in the walls lit up. “This is much better than a candle stub!” said Annalise.

The group walked through the caves, pointing out wonderful rock formations and strange sights as they went. When they came to the end, they could hear people digging on the far side of the wall.

Several of the people did a few mysterious things and suddenly the wall had a large opening in it. The folks digging on the other side were standing there in astonishment.

Annalise flew into their arms and hugging everyone she could reach, said, “Boy, do we have a tale to tell you!”

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