The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  Professor Temple, on the other hand, stakes out the more conventional ground in the chapter “Vanities” in his book Alta-Natives. He suggests that the Hames, being places of women, would naturally be filled with mirrors. He offers no explanation, however, for the peculiar burial of the piece. Though his later work has been pilloried by feminist dialecticians, it is the very sensibleness of his thesis that recommends it.

  Off in the stratosphere once again is Magon, who tries to prove (in “The Twinned Universe,” monograph, Pasden University Press, #417) that the great mirror found in the Arrundale dig was part of a ritual or patterning device in which young girls learned to call up their dark sisters. Leaving aside the flimsiness of the dark-sister thesis for the moment, we find the monograph offers no real proof that the mirror had any but the most mundane of uses. Magon cites the odd carvings on the frame, but except for the fact that each carving has a mirror image on the opposite side—a perfect symmetry that reflects its use as a mirror frame and nothing more (if I may be forgiven the little joke)—there is little else to back up his wild thesis.

  THE STORY:

  Mother Alta touched the Goddess sign at the right side of the mirror frame and sighed. Now that the four girls were gone, the room was quiet again. She had come to treasure more and more the quiet aftermath, the echoing silence of her rooms when no one else was there. Yet this very evening the rooms would be filled again—with Varsa, her foster mother, and the rest of the adult sisters. Varsa would be saying her final vows, calling her sister from the dark. That is, if she could remember all the words and could concentrate long enough. It was always hardest on the slower girls, and Varsa was none too bright. And if, as had happened before, the dark sister did not emerge on the Night of Sisterhood, despite Varsa’s years of training and the vocal encouragement of the others, there would be tears and recriminations and the great sobbing gasps of a disappointed child. Even with the assurance that the dark sister would eventually appear (and Mother Alta knew of no instances when one did not), the girl’s hopes were so entwined with the ceremony it was always a terrible blow.

  She signed again. She was definitely not looking forward to the evening. Putting a hand on each side of the mirror, she drew herself so close to it, her breath fogged the glass. For a moment her image looked younger. She closed her eyes and spoke aloud as if the mirror twin could hear her.

  “Is she the One? Is it Annuanna, Jo-an-enna who is the White Goddess returned? How can she not be?” Mother Alta opened her eyes and wiped the fog away with the long, loose sleeve of her robe. The mirror’s green eyes stared back at her. She noticed new lines etched across the image’s forehead and frowned at it, adding yet another line. “The child runs farther, dives deeper, moves faster than any child her age. She asks questions I cannot answer. I dare not answer. Yet there is no one in Selden Hame who does not love her. Excepting me. Oh, Great Alta, except me. I fear her. I fear what she may, all unwitting, do to us.

  “Oh, Alta, speak to me, thou who dancest between the raindrops and canst walk on the back of the lightning.” She held her hands up to the mirror, so that the blue on her palms was repeated. How new the mark looked, how old her hands. “If she is the One, how do I tell her? If she is not, have I done wrong in keeping her apart? She must remain apart, else she taints them all.” Her voice ended in a pleading whisper.

  The room was silent and Mother Alta leaned both palms against the mirror. Then she drew back. The moist shadow of each hand shimmered on the surface.

  “You do not answer your servant, Great Alta. Do you not care? If only you would give me a sign. Any sign. Without it the decisions are mine alone.”

  She turned abruptly from the mirror and left the room just as the prints of her hands faded from the glass.

  Mother Alta’s room was crowded with sisters, light and dark, the only singleton being Varsa. Kadreen, as a Solitary, could not take part in the ceremony and, of course, the younger girls were not present.

  The little fires in the lanterns blew about merrily and in the hearth there was a great blaze. Shadows danced across the ceiling and floor in profusion. Because the fresh rushes on the floor had been mixed with dried rose petals, the room was sweet with the smells of past springs.

  Varsa, her hair crowned with fresh woodflowers, stood with her back to the hearth as if the fire could warm her. But Mother Alta knew she was cold and afraid, even though the flush of excitement stained her cheeks. She was naked, as naked as her sister would come from the dark the first time. If she comes at all, the priestess thought warily.

  Mother Alta and her dark sister walked over to Varsa holding their right hands up in blessing. Varsa bowed her head. When the blessing was done, they removed Varsa’s crown of flowers and threw it into the hearth. The fire consumed it eagerly, giving back another sweet smell. In past days, the girls’ garments had been stripped from them in front of the fire and thrown into the flames as well. But that was in the days of great plenty. In a small, poor Hame, there were many economies to be made, even at the time of ceremony. Mother Alta had made that particular change ten years before, to only a small amount of grumbling from the sisters.

  The priestess and her dark sister held out their right hands and Varsa took them eagerly, her own hands sweaty and cold. They led her to the mirror, between the rows of white-clad sisters, each holding a single red blossom. In the silence, their steps through the crackling rushes seemed as loud as thunderclaps. Varsa could not stop shivering.

  Slowly Mother Alta and her sister turned Varsa around three times in front of the mirror, and at each turn the watching women murmured, “For your birth. For your blood. For your death.” Then the priestesses stopped the spinning girl, keeping their hands on her shoulders lest she fall. Often a nervous girl ate little for days before the ceremony, and fainting was common. But Varsa, though she trembled, did not faint. She stared at her image in the glass and raised her hands, her fear blotching her small breasts and the flush creeping down her neck from her cheeks. She closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and opened her eyes again.

  From behind her, Mother Alta and her twin intoned:

  Dark to light

  Day to night

  Hear my plea,

  Thee to me.

  Varsa turned her palms toward her breasts and made a slow, beckoning motion, reciting the chant along with the two priestesses. Over and over and over she called, till first the dark priestess, then Mother Alta, dropped away and only Varsa’s soft importunings could be heard.

  The room was tense with anticipation as the sisters all breathed in Varsa’s rhythm.

  A slight mist began to form on the mirror, veiling Varsa’s image, clothing it in a mantle of moisture. Varsa caught her breath at the sight, swallowed hard, and missed a beat of the chant. As she stopped, the mist faded slowly, first at the edges and then contracting inward to a white, snowy spot over the heart.

  Varsa kept up the chant for another few minutes, but her eyes were brimmed with tears and she knew with the others that it was no good. Once the mist began to break up, all hope of the sister emerging that night was gone.

  Mother Alta and her sister touched Varsa on the back, below the shoulder blades, whispering, “It is over for tonight, child.”

  Varsa lowered her arms slowly and then, suddenly, put her hands up to her face and wept aloud. Her shoulders shook, and though the priestesses whispered to her to stop, she could not. Her mother and her mother’s dark sister came over and draped a green cloak around her shoulders and led her away.

  Mother Alta turned to the others. “It happens,” she said. “Never mind. She will call her sister another night, without the extra burden of the ceremony. It will be as good in the end.”

  Nodding and arguing among themselves, the women left the room to go to the kitchen, where a feast awaited. They would eat well, whatever the night’s outcome.

  But Catrona and her dark sister Katri waited. “It is never as good,” Catrona said fiercely to Mother Alta.

 
Katri nodded, adding, “The bond is not the same.”

  Catrona touched her on the arm. “Remember Selna …”

  “You, Catrona, you, Katri—you are never to say this to Varsa. Not ever.” Mother Alta’s hands were clenched. “The child has a right to believe in her sister. You shall not say other.”

  Catrona and Katri turned and walked silently out of the room.

  Varsa was still weeping in the morning, her eyes raw-looking, her nails bitten to the quick.

  Jenna and Pynt sat on either side of her at the table, stroking her hands.

  Pynt murmured, “But you will call her eventually. She will come. No one who calls has ever gone without.”

  Varsa snuffled and swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “It is the worst thing that can happen. All those people staring and then my sister not coming. Nothing worse could ever happen in my whole life.”

  “Of course something worse could happen,” said Pynt cheerfully. “You tell her, Jenna. Of course something worse could happen.”

  Jenna made a face at Pynt. “Some help you are,” she mouthed.

  “Well, tell her, Jenna,” Pynt said.

  Jenna thought a minute. “You could be without a mother. Or without friends,” she said. “Or you could be Hameless. Why—you could live in a town and never even know about sisters. Those would be worse.”

  Varsa stood up, pulling her hands angrily from theirs. “What do you know? You have not even tried yet. Nothing could be worse.” She walked away through the arch.

  “Let her go, Jenna,” said Pynt as Jenna started up after her. “She is right, you know. Nothing could be worse.”

  “Oh, there you go being stupid, Pynt. There is a lot worse. But she is right about something. We cannot know how she feels. Not yet.”

  “Well, I know one thing,” Pynt said, “I am not going to make a mistake. I am going to get my sister the first time.”

  Selinda, sitting across the table, shook her head. “Why such a fuss? She will get her sister eventually.” She spooned more porridge into her mouth.

  But in fact it was Alna who understood best. “Right now it hurts her more than anything and of course she cannot think otherwise. And nothing we say will console her. I was the same when I had to choose the kitchen. And now—well—I cannot think of a better place to be.” She smiled in satisfaction and cleared the table.

  As soon as Alna left the room, Selinda spoke up. “How can she say that? She knows that being in the fields and gardens is the best. She, of all people … How can she say it?”

  Pynt put her hand on Selinda’s but Jenna laughed. “What is it they say? Words are merely interrupted breath. That is how she says it. By interrupting her breathing. Easy, quite easy, Selinda.”

  Selinda got up and walked away without speaking.

  Pynt slid close to Jenna and whispered urgently, “You do not suppose we were the cause of her failure?”

  “Because we watched from behind the door?” Jenna asked. “No one saw. No one heard. And we will know the ceremony ourselves in time. We hurt nothing.”

  “But suppose …” Pynt let the sentence hang.

  “Varsa is slow and afraid of too many around her. That is what caused it. Not two extra pairs of eyes and ears. You saw her; you heard how she hesitated the moment she saw the mist.” Jenna shook her head slowly. “She will find her sister. And soon.”

  “I know what happened last night to Varsa has affected us all. It happens, sometimes, that a girl does not call out her sister during the Night of Sisterhood. It does not happen often, but it does happen.”

  Jenna elbowed Pynt meaningfully.

  “But you shall see,” said Mother Alta. “All will be for the best.” She raised her hands and held them in Alta’s blessing over the girls.

  They bowed their heads and closed their eyes.

  “Sometimes Great Alta, she who runs across the surface of the rivers, who hides her glory in a single leaf, sometimes she tests us and we are too small to see the pattern. All we feel is the pain. But there is a pattern and that you must believe.”

  Selinda made a small, comfortable sound and Alna nodded her head, as if remembering her Night of Choosing. Pynt poked a tentative finger into Jenna’s leg but Jenna ignored her, thinking, There is something more. I feel it. She is saying something more. For some reason she felt chilled and there was a strange emptiness in her stomach, though they had just come from the meal.

  Mother Alta spoke the words of Alta’s grace, the girls following in response. “Great Alta, who holds us …”

  The girls answered, “In thy care.”

  “Great Alta, who enfolds us …”

  “In thy bounteous hair.”

  “Great Alta, who knows us …”

  “As thy only kin.”

  “Great Alta, who shows us …”

  “How to call the twin.”

  “Great Alta, give us grace.”

  The girls repeated, “Great Alta, give us grace.” Then they looked up at Mother Alta and began to breathe in her rhythm. After they had chanted the hundredfold breathing prayer and had worked for an hour, each in turn, in front of the great mirror, Mother Alta had them sit once more on the floor in front of her. She took the Book from its ornate wood stand and opened it to the place marked off with a gold ribband.

  “It says in the Book that Before a child becomes a woman she shall greet the sisters of her faith in every Hame, for a child who knows not of the world chooses out of ignorance and fear, just as the dark sisters before they came into the light.” She looked up from the Book, smiling her smile of little warmth. “And what does this mean, my children?”

  Jenna sat still. She no longer answered immediately, even though she knew the expected response, for the priestess always became angry when she spoke first. Now she held her counsel, reserving the last place to speak, summing up when the others were done, adding to it and refining.

  “It means our mission,” said Alna, clearing her throat halfway through the short sentence, a sure sign of spring.

  Selinda, elbowed by Alna, added, “We go to every Hame in turn.”

  “Or at least as many as we can get to in the year,” added Pynt.

  Mother Alta nodded. “And Jo-an-enna—have you nothing to add?”

  Jenna nodded back, holding on to her right braid as she spoke as a reminder to herself not to be sharp. “It is true, Mother, that we go from Hame to Hame, but not just to visit and play. We must go with open eyes and ears, mind and heart. We go to learn, to compare, to think, and to … to …”

  “To grow!” interrupted Pynt.

  “Very good, Marga,” said Mother Alta. “And it is that growth the Mother of each Hame must be concerned with. Sometimes growth comes when all the girls go together and …”

  Jenna felt the cold return. She pulled on her braid until it hurt in order to keep herself from shivering.

  Mother Alta drew in a deep breath and instinctively the girls breathed in with her, all except Jenna. “And sometimes the growth comes when they are apart. It is my judgment therefore, as your guide and as the Mother of this Hame, that you will do best separated during your mission year. Marga, Selinda, and Alna, you will begin by going to Calla’s Ford. But you, Jo-an-enna …”

  “No!” Jenna said, the word exploding from her. Startled, the other girls moved away from her anger. “Girls are never separated in their mission year if there be more than one girl ready.”

  “Nowhere does it say that in the Book,” Mother Alta said slowly, carefully, as if speaking to a very young child. “All the rest is mere custom and laziness, subject to change at the discretion of the Mother of the Hame.” She opened the Book to another page, one not marked by the ribband, but obviously often consulted, for the pages stayed open without any pressure from her hands. “Here, child, read this aloud.”

  Jenna stood and read the sentence underlined by Mother Alta’s long nail. Her lips moved but no sound came out.

  “Aloud, Jo-an-enna!” commanded the pri
estess.

  Jenna’s voice was strong as she read, betraying neither her anger nor her sorrow. “The Mother’s wisdom is in all things. If it is cold, she shall light the fire. If it is hot, she shall let air into the room. But all she does, she does for the good of her children.” Jenna sat back down.

  “You see, my child,” said Mother Alta, a smile starting in her mouth and ending up, for the first time, in her eyes, “you will do as I say, for I am the Mother and I know what is best for you, Jo-an-enna, and what is best for the others. They are like little flowers and you the tree. They cannot grow in the shade you cast.”

  Pynt’s hand crept into Jenna’s and squeezed, but Jenna did not respond. She willed the tears not to start in her eyes. She willed her heart to stop pounding so wildly. Slowly she brought her breath under control and stared at Mother Alta, thinking, I will not forgive you this, not ever.

  Mother Alta raised her hands over the girls, and Selinda, Alna, and Pynt obediently bowed their heads to receive her final words. But Jenna stared up at her, dark eyes into green, and had the blessing of Great Alta flung into her upturned face.

  They packed the next week, on a morning so filled with the trillings of birdsong, Jenna’s heart ached. She had been silent about the priestess’ ruling, but everyone else at the Hame was abuzz with it. The girls, especially, had been inconsolable and Pynt had cried herself to sleep every night. But Jenna nursed her sorrow to herself, thinking that way she would not double anyone else’s, not realizing that her silence was more troubling to the sisters than any tears might have been.

  Only once during the week did she refer to it. She pulled Amalda aside as the girls and their mothers went on the traditional walk around the Hame for departing missioners.

  “Am I a tree shading everyone?” she asked Amalda. “A-ma, does nothing grow around me?”

  Amalda smiled and pulled Jenna into the circle of her arms. Then she turned her around and pointed to a great chestnut by the path. “Look under that,” Amalda said.