“Mama!” Sarah emerged from the hut. “Let go of him.”
I looked at her, and that little smile I had seen on her face yesterday had burst into a huge grin. The boy, whose hair I still held, grinned back with all his might.
“I’ll let go of him after I’ve skinned him and put him into the pot.”
“Mo-ther!”
And she rolled her beautiful golden eyes.
“Mother-of-Sarah, will you tell us the story of the warrior witches, please?” asked the boy when I released him.
“Also the angels suggest you feed them,” Ma came out to announce.
Thus it came to pass that I served porridge to my daughter’s persecutors (never mind that they had gotten the worst of the fight) and told stories about famous warriors till when asked if Sarah could go gather nuts with them, I found myself saying yes.
“Are you a warrior witch, too?” I heard the redheaded boy asking Sarah as they scampered off.
“I reckon,” said Sarah a bit dismissively. “But that’s not how I learned to fight.”
“It isn’t?”
“Of course not, silly. The animals taught me.”
Bemused, I watched Sarah and her rapt entourage disappear into the woods. Somehow she had found a way to be true to both her lineages: Love your enemy, but only after you’ve kicked his ass. I told myself I would never have to worry about Sarah again.
For a time, I almost believed it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE DELEGATION
IT’S CALLED LATENCY: the brief shining years between early childhood and puberty when your child can focus on things like math or memorizing the succession of kings or presidents or perform useful tasks, like the aforementioned gathering of nuts in the fall or swine herding or throwing rocks at birds that menace the crops. Your child doesn’t need you every moment for everything, and yet she still wants you. During this time, you are apt to congratulate yourself on how well adjusted your child is and take more credit than you actually deserve. It is one of the few stages of childrearing when the parent feels competent. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I did enjoy those years with Sarah, and during that time I began to feel more at peace with life on the mountain in general. Or maybe I became like the mountain, shaped by a cataclysmic encounter between tectonic plates but now simply there, solid, enduring, letting the years circle round and round. Snowfall and melt, rain, they came and went; they rolled off me, shifting a rock here or there, washing away some soil, but leaving me standing. Loneliness was just a wind that howled now and then; I got used to it.
Then, of course, predictably and unpredictably, everything changed again.
The day, a pleasant one in early fall, began quietly enough. Sarah was off somewhere with the boys, and I had spent the morning gathering wild mushrooms. When I returned to the hut I found Ma surrounded by a dozen or so women from the village; among them I recognized some of the mothers of Sarah’s friends. It was an unusually large delegation. More often people came to our hut in ones or twos or occasionally in family groups to consult Ma about the advisability of a marriage. I wondered if there was some threat to the village—war, taxes, crop blight.
“May I help?” I greeted the women, for if they wanted Ma to act as oracle they needed Sarah or me to translate.
“Today it might be we who will be helping you, Healer Woman,” said a gaunt impressive-looking woman with streaks of grey hair standing out against the black.
None of the women called me by my name; Ma they called Ma, as a title. My loneliness was not simply lack of a husband. My time with my beloved had, in fact, been relatively brief, but until I came to the mountain, I had never been without women I looked on as sisters. Our Otherworldly status as The Three had protected Ma, Sarah, and me but it had isolated us, too, especially me—a young (more or less), and therefore dangerous, widow.
“Will you hear what we’ve come to say?” the spokeswoman prompted.
The women glanced uneasily at Ma. Though she had never learned their Celtic dialect, I sensed that they felt reluctant to speak in front of her. I could understand that. Ma’s eavesdropping angels had no language barriers.
“Let me speak with them alone, Ma,” I said in Aramaic.
“Please sit and break some bread with me,” I invited.
They exchanged glances and then settled their bony haunches on the ground, but food they would not take. I began to feel alarmed.
“Sarah?” the word sprang to my lips with no sentence attached to it.
“No harm has come to the lass.” A gentler, softer-looking woman reached out her hand and stopped just short of touching my arm in reassurance.
They were all mothers; that much we had in common.
“Yet,” someone added ominously.
“At least so far as we know,” the first woman cleared her throat. “That is why we’ve come, as surely you must know.”
No, I don’t know, I almost blurted out. But no mother wants to admit ignorance about her own child, so I waited and let the awkward silence lengthen until another dire possibility occurred to me.
“She, she hasn’t hurt anyone, I hope.”
Sarah and her pack of boys all continued to play rough. At their insistence, she had taught her fighting techniques to her friends, while they in turn tutored her in weaponry of various sorts, sling shots, quarterstaffs, things available to poor mountain children. No one had ever had more than the odd sprain, and once there were some broken bones from a tree-climbing escapade. But accidents could happen.
“Ah, no,” the kind woman again almost touched me. “She’s a sweet girl for all her rough ways.”
She closed her mouth abruptly, afraid she had said too much. The women exchanged looks. Eyebrows went up and down; there were slight shakes of the head. I don’t think they meant to be disrespectful to me, but I could feel them becoming anxious.
“Healer Woman,” the leader began again. “Surely you’ve noticed a change in your daughter lately.”
I tried not to look clueless as I wracked my brain. Perhaps she had been quieter, maybe even a little withdrawn. But she had always had a secretive streak.
“Please tell me what you mean,” I said at last.
Another flurry of glances, and then the spokeswoman took a breath.
“She’s got her blood.” She looked directly at me; then quickly looked away. “Her woman’s blood. For at least two changes of the moons now.”
I felt my own blood draining out of my face.
Her blood, her woman’s blood, and I hadn’t known? That could not be. She would have come to me! She would have told me. My blood time was no secret in our household, though I had no one to celebrate with me the way my eight mothers always had, making a holiday of the shared blood time, finger painting on the rocks by the beach. I had told Sarah the story of my own first blood, how I had run away to the hidden valley on Tir na mBan and glimpsed her father in the well of wisdom just before my blood began. Later when my poor distraught mothers found me, I had painted their faces with my new blood, and the face of the Cailleach, the old woman of the valley. I still remember the softness of her skin, its fine network of creases. I had promised Sarah that when her time came, we would give her a gift, make a feast or take a journey to the rise of the river that flowed down our mountain.
But now, looking at these grim-faced women surrounding me, I remembered that the last time I spoke to Sarah about the blood, she had been very quiet, and then without warning she had shouted.
“Don’t tell me!” She had covered her ears with her hands and hummed loudly till she was sure I had stopped. I had simply (blindly, willfully) assumed that she meant she wanted to be surprised by a gift or adventure, that she did not want to know ahead of time what treat I might provide.
Still, Sarah would have told me when her blood came. How could she hide it from me, her mother? These women must be wrong; they had to be wrong.
“Thank you for coming,” I managed to say, and I started to get
up.
I needed to be alone; I needed to think. And then I had to find Sarah.
“Wait, Healer Woman,” said the woman gently, too gently.
And all the blood rushed back to my face as I realized that they knew: they knew that I hadn’t known.
“We don’t know what it’s like where you come from. We don’t even know where you came from.”
That much is true, I thought bitterly, casting about for somewhere to put my shame. You never wanted to know.
“But here when a girl’s got her woman’s blood, she cannot run wild with boys.”
It took a moment for her meaning to sink in. Another wave of shame broke over me. I had grown up as wild as Sarah, and lived my life as a whore and an outcast. And would she suffer for it now? I wanted to be angry with these women. How dare they? How dare they make assumptions about my daughter? They knew nothing about her. They knew nothing about me.
But when I could bring myself to look at the women, I saw that they were making at least an effort not to judge. All at once, I wished they were my friends; I wished I could break down and weep and tell them the truth. That I loved my daughter more than life, that she was the heart of my heart—and that heart was breaking. But they weren’t my friends; and I sensed their tolerance for Sarah’s strangeness was precarious, teetering on the brink of fear and suspicion. Now that she was no longer a child.
No longer a child? But she was; she was my child. I had to protect her.
“Blood or no blood,” I heard myself saying. “She’s a child still. You must listen to me. There is only goodness in her. Any fault is mine.”
I could almost hear them silently agreeing. What kind of a mother was I to let my daughter run wild with the boys, as the women had put it?
“She is a child who can have a child, Healer Woman, as you well know. And if she did have a child, how could anyone be sure who is the father?”
Who is the father? Who is the father? The question had dogged my life. And Miriam’s life. And now Sarah’s life? Who is the father, Peter had already asked. Who is the father?
“On this mountain, a child needs a lineage, Healer Woman. No one knows her lineage, and if she then bears a bastard child, so much the worse.”
“I sang our lineage, her matrilineage, when I first set foot on this mountain,” I said, angry now. “I will sing it again, if you wish. As for her father, he…he is a god!”
I could almost smell the fear rising from the women’s skin. She’s crazy; the healer woman is crazy.
“Her lineage is divine,” I said for good measure. “On both sides.”
I knew I was making things worse with every word, but I didn’t know how to make them better. I had been a fool; a blind fool, that was all I knew. How could I have failed to foresee this day? How could I have failed so utterly to prepare Sarah?
“Be that as it may, Healer Woman,” said the leader, visibly shaken but refusing to back down. “If she wants to stay on this mountain, she needs to learn woman’s ways. Who will teach her?”
“Who will teach her?” I repeated, incredulous at her nerve. “Who will teach her woman’s ways? Better I should ask, who will teach you!”
I was losing any sympathy they might have had for me, I could feel it, and yet I could not stop myself or did not.
“What is a woman’s way?” I demanded.
They closed rank against me, tight-lipped all.
“Sovereignty!” I said, softly first, then louder, “Sovereignty! That is what I will teach my daughter as my mothers taught me. Have you never heard of Queen Maeve of Connacht? She was married to King Ailil; the famous warrior Fergus was her lover, and if she so chose, she had thirty men a day. She was a fierce warrior, too, and led men in battle to defend her sovereignty. No one told her not to run wild with the boys.”
I looked at them defiantly, but they would not meet my eye, shamed for me or for themselves or both, I did not know.
“We do not know these stories, Healer Woman,” said the woman. “And we do not want to know them. Your stories are not our stories. Your ways are not our ways.”
Suddenly I felt desolate and defeated and as conquered as the Galatians. How could they know the stories of the free western Celts? I was just alienating them with my anger, my arrogance.
“If I have offended you, I am sorry,” I forced myself to say. “You have been kind and brave to speak to me so frankly. Of course, I will talk to Sarah.”
I could feel my beloved’s presence for a moment: Blessed are the peacemakers. Oh, shut up, I wanted to snap at him. It is only for Sarah’s sake.
Sarah, oh Sarah. Oh my Colomen Du.
“Healer Woman,” the leader rose to go, and we all got to our feet. “You and the old one,” she hesitated, “yes, and the young one, too, have been good to our people. We, too, do not mean to offend.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “If you see Sarah with your sons, send her home to me.”
And we all just looked at each other for a moment, so distant, so dignified; so well-meaning, so not friends.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BLOOD
I HATE TO ADMIT IT (oh, how I hate to), but I should have listened to Ma that day. She tried to warn me, but I refused to heed her.
“Don’t go looking for her,” said Ma as soon as the village women left.
By now you don’t need me to tell you that Ma knew the women had come about Sarah. What else she knew I wasn’t sure. If Sarah had confided in Ma about her blood and not in me, I didn’t want to know.
“She’ll come back when she’s ready,” Ma added, for she could not have failed to notice that I was ignoring her.
“Ah well,” she sighed. “If for nothing else, I can thank the Most High that I didn’t have a daughter. At least he spared me that.”
She finally had my attention; I turned and stared at Miriam incredulous.
“Of course you have a daughter!” I said indignant on behalf of Jesus’s long-suffering sister Leah, whose suffering, I might note, I had alleviated. That much in this world I had accomplished. “How could you forget?”
“Oh, her,” Miriam waved her away vaguely. “You know what I mean.”
I’m afraid I did, and so did all Jesus’s siblings.
“Can you imagine if he had been a girl?” Miriam shuddered.
“Yes,” I snapped. “I can.”
And with that I went in frantic search of the daughter of god.
After what seemed like hours of scrambling up and down steep trails to all Sarah’s favorite haunts, I finally found her sitting as high as she could climb in a pine tree. She must have heard me calling, my voice by turns pleading and angry. What did she feel when she heard me crying her name over and over? Her own anger? Contempt for my need? A longing to run back into the shelter of my arms, to curl up in the crook of my legs as she used to, resting her back against me, both of us so peaceful? Maybe all of those feelings, so strongly and in such conflict that she could only sit still, silent, trying to contain them.
It was the doves that drew me to her. I saw them flying out from the cliffs, their wings caught in last light, as they flew down to the trees. I followed the sound of their mourning calls, low yet piercing, until I found Sarah in the tree with the doves roosting around her. When I approached, a few birds fluttered into the sky, but most stayed close to Sarah. All my anger and anxiety melted at the sight of her with the doves, her namesake. Three times I had taken the form of a dove, once lighting on her father’s head in the Temple of Jerusalem and then descending from the clouds after his dipping at the Jordan River, and once more after I calmed the storm that nearly capsized Peter’s boat. We had made our wedding procession from Magdala to Cana on The Way of the Doves. And in my makeshift temple under the sign of the dove we had celebrated our last Passover. The dove linked us, Sarah, her father, and me. There could be no rift between us; it was a misunderstanding. I would make it right.
“Sarah,” I called, trying to make my voice as soft and compelling as t
he doves’ sound. “Sarah.”
At first I thought she hadn’t heard me, but then the doves quieted.
“Go away,” she said clearly. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Well, I want to talk to you!” I countered.
No answer came from above, except from the doves, who ceased their long cry and cooed and whirred in agitation, an agitation that echoed mine. I sensed that Sarah was blaming me—though I didn’t know why or for what. And I made another mistake, which I regret to this day: I took her anger personally.
“What is your problem?” I demanded, covering my hurt with my own anger.
Then I relented. Perhaps one of the boys had taunted her or showed fear and revulsion because of her blood. Or very likely one of the village women had shamed her. I decided to turn my anger towards them.
“Listen, Sarah, I don’t know what anyone said to you, but your woman’s blood is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a source of power and magic. It links you with the moon, with the tides of the sea, and the seasons and…the animals,” I added for good measure.
“No!” Sarah almost growled. “Not the animals. The animals don’t bleed.”
I supposed she was right; she probably knew better than I did. Well, at least she was talking to me.
“But the animals do come into heat,” I said mildly, conversationally, hoping that Sarah could be persuaded to take off on a tangent as easily as my eight mothers could.
“I told you!” she shouted, her voice breaking. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not any of it.”
Goddess knows I should have taken her at her word and shut up. Well, maybe some goddesses might have been as foolish as me, the ones who are mothers. But I was dealing with god the daughter here and making quite a mess of it.
“I don’t understand!” I burst out. “Why would you hide your blood from me? Why are you so angry? I did my best to prepare you. I told you we would celebrate—”
“I don’t want to celebrate! That’s what you don’t understand!” She was crying now; how I wished I could hold her; maybe if I could have taken her into my arms, everything would have been different. But she was sitting at the top of a tree. “That day, that day was the worst day of my life. It was the end of my life.”
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