Sister Light, Sister Dark

by Jane Yolen

  “Amalda!” Mother Alta’s voice, sharp and commanding, brought her back to the moment. “We shall hear all this tale tonight from the mouths of the three who lived it: Jo-an-enna, Marga, and this young Petra. We will listen for the truth and to discover what you may have—all inadvertently, I am sure—left out.”

  Amalda nodded miserably, trying to remember what she might have omitted in the telling, and could not recall a word of what she had said.

  “The others, the infants and the children,” Mother Alta continued, “shall go to bed and watch over one another while we speak. All shall know the horror and the shame of this. All.”

  Mother Alta’s face seemed to have taken on a feral look, reminding Amalda of a fox on hens. It made her increasingly uncomfortable. She wanted to argue, but without Sammor to back her, she felt unequal to the task. So she said nothing and waited for some signal to indicate the priestess had finished speaking. After a moment of silence, Amalda stood.

  Mother Alta made a dismissive motion with her hand and Amalda left the room, grateful to be away from the confines of those particular walls.

  As soon as the door had closed after Amalda, Mother Alta stood. Smoothing down her long woolen skirt, she took a deep breath and turned toward the mirror. She snatched the covering from its face and stared at herself for a long moment. A familiar stranger stared back.

  “Do I believe her?” she asked the mirror. “Why should she lie?” Shaking her head slowly, she considered the question. “No, Amalda does not lie. She has not the wits for it. She says only what Jenna has told her, a shameful tale. But what if there is a lie somewhere in the story? An untruth or a not-saying? The Book is clear, that One falsehood can spoil a thousand truths.” She waited, as if expecting the mirror to answer her, then reached out and touched the glass, palm to palm. The blue mark doubled itself before being covered, and around her hand the mirror fogged, making ghostly fingerprints.

  “Oh, Great Alta, thou who dancest from star to star, I believe and I do not believe. I want to be the Mother of the Anna, but I fear the ending that comes with it. I have led a good life. I have been happy here, It is a fool who longs for endings, a wise woman who longs for beginnings, as you say in the Book.

  “If I deny her, will I be wrong? She is but a girl. I have watched her grow. I have seen some strangeness there, true. But where is the crown of glory? Where are the voices crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy’?

  “To choose wrongly is to declare myself a fool. And like the fool in the tale who learns the game after all the players have gone home, I will be laughed at if I am wrong. Laughed at. By the women I command. Thou knowest, Great One, that I am no fool.” She took her hand from the glass and watched as the moist prints slowly dried.

  Staring at the ceiling, she cried, “I have waited fourteen years for an unambiguous sign from thee. Now, now is the hour. Give me that sign.”

  But it was a clear day and there was neither thunder nor rainbow, nor a voice from the sky. If the Goddess spoke to her, it was in whispers. Mother Alta put her hands over her eyes and tried to weep, but no tears came.

  Up first, Petra brushed her long dark hair and braided it into a crown, which she pinned atop her head. Her dress was badly wrinkled, since she had slept in it, and there were creases on her right cheek still where the bed linen had marked her. Yet she seemed remarkably alert and cheerful nonetheless.

  Jenna, on the other hand, felt as if someone had beaten her about the head and shoulders before flinging her onto the mattress. The bed looked as bad, the covers rucked up by the foot. She came awake slowly.

  “Amalda was in, though you did not hear her,” Petra said when Jenna began to move. “There is to be a meeting tonight at dinner and we are to tell the story then.”

  “Mother Alta will be there?”

  “And Pynt. And all the women.”

  “And the children? I would not like to tell the story of Nill’s Hame before them. They will know it soon enough, but not from my lips,” Jenna said.

  “They are to go to bed in one another’s charge.” Petra came over and sat beside Jenna on her bed. “But I am to be at the meeting. That way we can tell the sisters everything. Everything, Jenna.”

  Jenna looked down at her hands and wondered that she was twisting and winding them together.

  “Do not be afraid of your destiny, Anna,” Petra said, putting her hands over Jenna’s.

  “It is not destiny I am afraid of,” Jenna said sharply, drawing her hands away.

  “Then why are you angry?”

  “I am not angry.”

  “Look at your covers,” Petra said, pointing. “Look at your mouth.”

  Jenna stood and went over to the water basin and stared down into the still, silvered face. Her dark eyes seemed echoed by dark smudges on her cheeks. The cheeks themselves were hollowed. Her mouth was thin and sour. Touching her lips with her right hand, she suddenly felt as if her mouth had forgotten everything, even Carum’s kiss. “I look like our Mother Alta,” she said.

  “Water over stone,” Petra reminded her.

  Jenna smiled at that and the face in the water basin smiled back. Turning, Jenna said to Petra, “I am ready. I think.”

  Petra held out her hand. “Sisters,” she said, “side by side.”

  THE HISTORY:

  Folktales and myths about women warriors, either avatars of their goddesses or female incarnations of the godhead, abound in all the religions of the world. The Greeks, according to Herodotus, knew of such women who—he claimed—lived on the northern coast of Asia Minor in the city of Themiscyra. The man-hating Indian princess Malayavati was another such unnature, commanding like-minded females. In Brazil, the Makurap of the Upper Guaporé River told of a village of women even farther afield who kept all men at bay. And so forth. (For an extensive monograph on the subject, see J. R. R. Russ’ “The Amazon Explosion,” Pasden University Monograph Series #347.)

  So it was not unusual for the folk of the Upper and Lower Dales to have conjured up a White Goddess, an Anna (which in the old tongue means “white” or “the white one,” according to Doyle), a female hero. But their Amazon warrior differs in several important respects from the classic mythos.

  For example, the Altite Anna was not worshipped as a mare or in any other way associated with horses, as her Continental and Eastern counterparts were. In fact, in the few snippets of narrative which have been positively identified as part of the ancient Anna Cycle (see Dr. Temple’s chapter on these stories in Alta-Natives: “Tongue-tied in the Dales”), the Anna is seen as afraid of horses or at the very least puzzled by them. In one battle she mistakes a horse for a monster (“… the two-headed demon of the foggee …” is a line from a modern ballad that scholars agree is a remnant of the Cycle). In another she falls off a cross-grained gray mare into a puddle at the feet of her human lover. The modern Anna songs found today in the Dales are not heroic at all, but rather mock-heroic or even antiheroic. In some cases they are downright humorous. (Cf., “Krick’s Horn,” “The Battle of Anna and the Catte,” and “How the Warrior Anna Knocked Heads.”)

  Also, the Altite Anna was in no way a man-hater. A number of the ballads are love songs that detail her rather lusty affairs with an amazing variety of men, most notably (and anachronistically) King Langbrow. There is one homeoerotic song, a rather wistful melody, about her best friend, Margaret, dying of love for her as the Anna strides off into battle once again.

  It is safe to say, though, that the Anna of the Dales was not a historic personage but merely a popular mythic figure. That such a one as Anna or Jenna or Jo-hanna ever actually lived and fought pitched battles for the sake of her warrior sisters (as Magon in his sentimental essay “Anna of a Thousand Years,” Nature and History, Vol. 41, would have it) is patent nonsense. It is true that the word history contains the word story, but every good scholar knows better than to confuse the two. We must, therefore, look deeper than the mere rota of events for the real meaning of the Anna of the Dales. We must probe int
o the very psyche of the Isles before we can begin to understand what needs brought forth a folk creature of such staying power as the Amazonian White Goddess during the time of the brutal and devastating Gender Wars.

  THE STORY:

  There was a tension throughout dinner that would not dissipate. Even the chatter of the children did nothing to dispel the dark mood. Everyone knew that Jenna, Pynt, and the girl Petra had much to tell. But the word from Mother Alta’s room had been to wait. Wait until the meal was over and the children put to bed; wait until the moon rose to bring forth the dark sisters. They had heard tantalizing pieces of the story from the children themselves, and from Amalda.

  Donya and her kitcheners had done their best Slabs of venison made tender by beating, and early spring salads freshened with the sharp wines Donya had laid down from the year before, were at every place. But the meat and the crisp vegetables and the saucy wine did not perform their usual magic. The tension in the dining hall was as palpable as the mist around the Sea of Bells. And the women were as silent as if a Fog Demon had, indeed, stoppered their mouths.

  Jenna and Petra sat at a small side table apart from the others. Jenna pushed the food around the plate the way a cat plays with its catch. Petra did not even bother trying, keeping her hands in her lap and silently watching Jenna’s display of nerves.

  At the three long tables where the rest of the women gathered, only the occasional clink-clank of foodsticks on platters marked the passage of time.

  But at last the meal was over and Donya, disgusted at how little had been eaten, directed her girls to clear the places, muttering about the waste of food, saying, “It is better to eat when the food is before you than to be hungry because the food is behind you,” a piece of folk wisdom she had picked up from one of the men in the Dales. She used it all the time and no one paid her any mind.

  Mother Alta had chosen to eat in her room, something she often did before a meeting. She knew how to use the tension to her own advantage; when to enter the dining hall and when to leave it. This time she timed her entrance so that the moon was just rising and the dark sisters slowly coming into view.

  Standing in the doorway, side by side with her own dark twin, hair plaited with spring flowers, Mother Alta raised her hands in a blessing. Her sister did the same. The motion was sharp and commanding and all the women in the hall bowed their heads, save Jenna.

  She stared into the priestess’ face and was just opening her mouth to speak when Skada appeared by her side, the misty edges of her outline quickly brought into focus by the moon and the fluttering torches.

  The look in Mother Alta’s eyes was one of complete surprise. Jenna realized that Amalda—whatever else she had told Mother Alta—had left Skada out of her telling. Jenna smiled and her dark sister smiled, too.

  The priestess’ eyes slid away from Jenna’s and she recited the blessing in a voice made wooden by surprise. “Great Alta, who holds us …”

  The hall echoed with the response. “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 …” And for the first time the priestess’ voice faltered.

  But only Jenna seemed to notice, for the women countered immediately with the proper response: “How to call the twin.”

  Recovering, Mother Alta finished the blessing emphatically: “Great Alta, give us grace.”

  The answer resonated through the hall. “Great Alta, give us grace.” Then the women looked up, anticipation shining in their faces.

  Only a few of them noticed Skada at first, but soon the room was abuzz with it. Mother Alta moved in a slow, stately manner toward her great chair by the fire, as if the appearance of an unnamed sister were of no consequence. Her own sister enthroned herself in a slightly smaller chair by her side. They summoned the women from the tables to them with a slight wave of hands.

  Pushing the benches away, the women of Selden gathered in a semicircle by the hearth. Some sat on the floor. Others, like Mama and Zo, leaned against the fireplace stones. Jenna led Petra to a place directly opposite the priestess’ chair, with Skada trailing slightly behind. They waited for Mother Alta to speak.

  There was another slight flurry of excitement when Pynt came into the hall, escorted by Kadreen. She leaned heavily on the infirmarer’s arm, but walked upright. When she saw Jenna and Skada, she winked at them. Then Kadreen led her to the fire and Amalda and Sammor brought over a chair with a deep cushion for her, which Pynt sank into gratefully.

  For a moment after that the only sound was the crackling of the fire and a thud-pop-pop-pop as a half-consumed log slipped down into the blaze. Jenna strained to make out the sighing breaths around her. Looking about the half circle, at all the dear, familiar faces, she suddenly saw the features of the slaughtered sisters of Nill’s Hame slip over them like masks. Like the hound’s helm over the engorged face of the dead Kingsman. Reaching out, her hand found Skada’s and she laced her fingers through her sister’s. Only that touch kept her from tears.

  Mother Alta began speaking in a low voice. “It has been two weeks since our young sisters, our four missioners, went forth. And in that time such events have transpired that will shake the foundations of our cozy Hame. But it is not my story to tell. It must be told by those who know it best: Jo-an-enna and Marga and Petra of Nill’s Hame.” She smiled her serpent smile, and though she looked as if she tried to put some warmth in it, Jenna saw none there.

  So Jenna began the story, starting at the confluence of the two rivers where she and Selinda, Alna and Pynt, had said their good-byes. She spoke movingly of her feelings as she had walked away from them, and how the woods had seemed more beautiful because of their parting. When she got to the section of the story where Pynt had come after her, Pynt herself interrupted the account.

  “I disobeyed the Mother’s wishes,” Pynt said. “I saw myself as dark sister to Jenna’s light. You remember—I was always called her shadow. And so I became it in truth. I could not let her go on without me. I thought what Mother Alta had asked was too great a sacrifice. So I followed Jenna. If there is any fault in all of this, it is mine alone.”

  Mother Alta smiled broadly for the first time, and Jenna saw wolfish teeth.

  By her left side, Petra muttered, “No blame, no shame.”

  As if Petra’s comment spurred her on, Jenna took over the narrative again. She told them of the fog and the strange, low calling that had turned out to be the Hound hunting Carum. Deliberately, she did not describe Carum in any detail beyond the fact that he was a prince. If anyone noticed her omission, the sister did not say. But Pynt looked down at her lap during that part of the recitation, with a silly, knowing grin.

  When Jenna got to the telling of Barnoo’s death, she hesitated, and it was Pynt who entered the story again. Swiftly, as swiftly as a knife across a throat, and plainly she told it. Jenna stared up at the ceiling through that part, her hands remembering the feel of the sword and the awful sound it had made going into the man’s neck. Then Pynt’s voice got ragged and Jenna picked up the thread of story again at the burial of the Hound.

  She introduced them to Armina and Darmina; she led them with the tale to the gates of Nill’s Hame. As she spoke of the carvings, Petra interrupted.

  “We were so proud of those gates,” she said. “Oak and ash they were. And carved over a hundred years ago by … by …” She could not go on. Biting her lip, she folded her hands one around the other, the right gripping the left so tightly the knuckles went white.

  Marna and Zo, who had been standing close by, their backs against the hearthstones, moved as one to her and enfolded her in their arms. It was the act of tenderness that undid Petra, and she began to cry in earnest. Her weeping made the warriors so uncomfortable, they did not know where to look. Though they did not speak to one another of it, most suddenly found themselves staring either
at the high, ribbed ceiling or at the rushes on the floor. Mother Alta was still, unaccountably, smiling.

  Jenna thought that if she continued the story, everyone would watch her and Petra might get control of her tears. So she quickly sketched out the buildings at Nill’s Hame. Those who had visited the Hame on their own missioning nodded their heads at the memory. Then Jenna told them of the back stairs and described the six-fingered, blind priestess who ruled the Hame.

  The rest of the tale tumbled out quickly: Pynt’s wounding, the severed hand of the Ox, and the great leap into the Halla in which she and Carum almost drowned. She mentioned everything but Carum’s kiss, though she brushed her fingers unthinkingly across her mouth when she told of their farewell before the walls of Bertram’s Rest. Skada’s hand, she noticed from the corner of her eye, seemed to linger on her own lips longer than was quite necessary.

  And then she told them about her return to Nill’s Hame and all she had found there. By the time she was done, even some of the warriors were weeping, and those who did not sat stone-faced or shook their heads slowly back and forth, as if by their denial they could make it not so.

  Jenna stopped speaking at the moment in the story when she had brought the tiny Mother Alta, the last of them, down the stairs in her arms. A deep sigh ran around the room, but the priestess was not part of it. She leaned forward in her chair and her dark sister moved with her. “Tell me how you called your shadow forth, how one so young managed it. I understand this much: that you thought you had lost one shadow and needed another. But I need to know how you did it. For if you can do it, perhaps others can. It is a breach that must be repaired.”

  Jenna gasped. She had not thought of it that way—that having lost her dark Pynt, having lost Carum, she had needed a replacement. Was Skada only that? A poor substitute? But Skada’s shoulder suddenly touched hers and she turned her head slightly, looking slantwise at her.

  “Be careful,” Skada whispered. “Or you will bruise yourself on that flinty heart.”