Sunday, June 26, 2011

Forty Days and Nights: Love Stories. 33. Girlie: The Crone

[This is a story in five parts.This is the fifth part.]
Tell me can you love me, he said and on he came, leaning forward so as not to miss a word, his crown catching the sun, tossing the light, lifting the light and letting it free. Letting it fly, letting it soar though back it came no more, loosing it and whirling it round, hard and serious. But now he had to look up to her, high and higher into the great tree where she climbed and where she sat, swirled in the jewels of her own, own hair. Down she leaned, hard and serious, so he would not miss a word, not a single word. Go home, she told him, go home and I will come to you if I can. Something there is I must do and sure I must be, sure of you. And perhaps he went then, the King on his high horse, and perhaps he lingered. Perhaps he cried out to her, and perhaps he spoke not a word. Perhaps he did what he must, or did all he could, or did only what Kings and proud, good men should, but she looked not down to see, and the sun went down and down and down and it was dark. She wrapped her own hair about her and set herself to a-wait the crone, and she waited in the strength of a broken heart.

When the sun came back upon her the King was gone, and down and a-down came there the crone, striding along the King's way, her raven set hard and serious on her shoulder. Hie there, dearie, the crone called with never a look at her up in the tree, hie there my mutton chop, my honey pot, my peppermint drop, what and what have you gone and done with the King? He's gone, said the girlie, he's not here no more, and you have been a-telling me lies. Not so, not so, cries the crone, naught and not so. How say ye it to me? What lies ever gave I ye? Like this, the girlie says, like this and like these. It's you said to me that sad and sorry was I and would be, so I was and would be forever and forever did I not now find those brothers which had wandered, had traveled, had lost themselves sadly and badly and madly from me. Then the crone screwed shut one eye, the better to see things. Where then's that lie? the crone gave back to her, and the girlie nearly screamed with the frustration and tangle of it all. Why, says she, why, how is it and how can it be? Naught that you have said is true to me. Brothers five found I, knit them into shirts of my own hair, but no happiness found I there, nothing lasting, nothing true, and the youngest brothers, the last two, I left with no shirts to clothe them, to hide and to show them. How can it be, how can it be true, that happy I'll be when the seven I've found?

Oh, my roast chicken, my plum pie, the crone told her, said I you'd be happy? I think not, no, not I. She said only, the raven put in edgewise, leaning forward so no one missed a single word, she said only how you'd not be happy. You found the seven, the crone gave her gently, nor you'd not be happy unless you did. You're not the one to walk away from brothers lost, not you, not you. And it was well, well and truly done, my lolly, my jam roly poly.

I pulled out my own, my own hair for them, the girlie said from her high, high tree.
Yes, said the crone, yes and you did.

I brought them back to who they were, the girlie said, I set things as they should be.
No, said the crone, no, that you did not. You gave them shirts. You washed their sheets.

But, said the girlie.
But nothing, said the crone. Now do you listen to me.
Brothers are not for keeping, not as such and as so. Their hearts they give away, to the world, to fond wishes, to their own, own lives. Such are the brothers as they are, such are the brothers as they will be. Let be, the crone said to the girlie in the tree, let be, let be.
You wrapped them in your own, own hair that you might them see, not that any of them might see you. It's not a gift can be given, the crone said gentle and mild, to make another see true heart, true deserving. Only we can choose to see, or not choose.
Not any of what was done was done for the saving of them, the crone said, but only that when time was, you might come in the way of a King. And so you have, so you have, my crispy comfit, my glaceéd fruit. There's magic here, the crone confided, magic and conniving. Oh, said the crone, oh but you're a good girlie. Now, tell me what you've done with the King himself and why you're hiding up a tree.

Look at me, the girlie cried, look at me. How can he be loving of me, when I'm covered in this? You're speaking of your hair, the crone said, one eye shut and the raven leaned forward to catch it all, every word, yes, I see your meaning. Gold and silver, jewels and gems. You're afraid, the crone said so soft, so gentle, so sweet, so kind. You're afraid of your outside, isn't that so, my baby, my queenling, my own, own girl? How can he see me, the girlie cried, how can he see me when I'm covered in this? and she wept sore, her tears streaming down like a fall of stars. The crone looked up, high and higher. You're so tired, the crone said, and you've done so well. It's down you must come now, down, a-down. And when she said it, the girlie slipped and caught, and slipped, and the girlie let go, and down she fell. Through all the tree she fell, new sunlight catching on the gold and silver, tossing the light and color of the jewels high and higher. All in a blaze she fell, a comet with a living tail, and she landed in the soft dirt of the King's own way. And the crone watched her fall and saw her land and took her raven which sat on her shoulder like a lack of light, like a blindness, and went the crone on her way.

One hundred horsemen found the girlie lying there in the soft light cast by her own hair when back up and up that way they came, when they rode empty back to their own king, for they could not bring to him the one woman in all his kingdom fitted for a tear. Many and many a woman had they found, yes, many and most and all, but not a one who was not fitted with tears a-plenty, tears of her sisters' and tears of her children and tears of her life and her lands and all the things of her own, own hands and with tears, too, with tears all all her own. So the King's Hundred rode back up the King's own way, softer in their hearts, and sorrowing for the things they had that day found. And it was nigh dark when under the great tree they passed and her they found, another thing, one other thing to be found on this day of seeking, and they took her up from where she lay on a bed of her own shining tears. Carefully, carefully they took her up, carefully they brought her home, carefully they laid her before the King himself, for she had on her and all over her tears and tears of her, and a woman's tear is a dreadful and dangerous thing.

She's dead, the King's One Hundred said.
She's dying, the King himself said, and he sent for a healer.
The healer came, old and bent, with her raven black as a memory of the time before words, black as a dream of death, set hard and serious on her shoulder.
The crone stood before the King and told him, yes, she knew a healing. But you must in yourself be sure, she told him, you must be very sure, for if you're wrong, it's not she but you will die. And if I'm right? the King asked. If you are right, if you are right, if you are right she'll be born to you anew, the crone said, and drew forth and handed him a straight razor, sharp, sharp. All of it? the King asked. All, the crone gave back to him, all and all. The King took the straight razor in his own hands and straight to his task he went and the last deep breaths he took were none of them to steady himself to his task but to steady his hands for the saving of her.

Tenderly he cradled her head in his hands, tenderly he set the razor to her, tenderly he cut it all, all away. The crone watched him sharp and sharper when he worked, sharper than ever was the razor, and it was as sharp, as sharp as life. He took away ropes of gold and shaved away nets of silver, cut off piles of jewels short and tight and threw them from him, impatient with their weight, tossed them where the sunlight shone on a trash heap, where the light picked them up, twisted them into the air, tossed them and spun them and lofted them up and away and they never were seen again. But never and never did the King take his own eyes from the girlie's face. The crone watched a king's ransom tossed so lightly aside, and all the while the King himself cradled the girlie's head in his tender hands, held her like his heart would break. This is the King as he is, the crone said soft to her raven, this is the King as he will be. Magic, the raven gave back to her, magic is for conniving. And when the girlie's head was shining, when she was light and free, her eyes she opened, eyes warm and living, eyes bright with loving, and she saw herself with hair all shorn and him with his arms held out. You see me, she said. You came home to me, he gave back to her, and his own, own tears ran like stars down the cheeks royal. She caught them then, the girlie caught them, and close forever after she kept them, because beautiful they were to her, and because the tear of a King is a dreadful and a dangerous thing.

When the King married his girlie, a raven black as dried blood, black as fresh ashes on new snow, sat hard and serious on his shoulder royal and leaned forward to whisper magic, edgewise, into the ear of the King and also of his own, own Queen, but the crone herself set the shining crown on her Queen's bald, bald head. When their own first child was born, the girlie Queen's hair was long and curling and deep darkest red.

4 comments:

  1. Lovely. Lovely tale.

    P.S. I'm reading a book right now titled, "Crones Don't Whine." God bless the wise old juicy women.

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  2. But I do wonder - is beauty always the mask? Can bareness, baldness also be a masking?

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  3. wow, suzanne. breathtaking story.

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