Hazel was more than consolation. She loved when the house was left alone to just her and her father. She would chatter on to Jacob about all the adventures they would have and ask him questions at a relentless pace. “Why do the fish live in the stream? How come people eat fish? Is there a way to catch more fish at one time? If we eat the fish, what do the fish eat?” On and on she went, and Jacob laughed at the dizzying barrage.
“Did I ask so many questions of my mother when I was young?” he wondered to himself.
If Hazel was a chatterbox, her elder sister was the opposite. Still and almost silent, always. Sometimes, she didn’t even speak words. She and Rebecca would whistle at each other like birds, and both of them seemed to know what the other meant to convey. Jacob could count on two hands the number of times he had actually heard Salome speak in the last fourteen years. He had asked his wife, more than once, if there was something wrong with their daughter, but Rebecca laughed and waved her hand at him. “Be glad we have the one to balance out the other,” she had said at his recent inquiry. “I don’t think Hazel drew breath all through dinner. I’m still amazed at how the food can go in her mouth while the words pour out of it at the same time.” He let Rebecca’s explanation lull him. He wanted to believe her. He didn’t want to voice his lingering doubts. Before spring was over, he would stand in front of four large Ash at the edge of their forest where it met the wildflower field and wish he had said more. By June, it would be too late, and Salome’s small hand woven through his would not be enough to quell his grief.
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Chapter: Salome
She raced up the hill from the stream. Her youngest little one had been so excited by the idea of fishing, she had talked of nothing else for weeks. Salome had promised her that she would teach her on the first nice day of spring.
That year had seen fickle weather, though, and winter seemed to cruise right by the equinox. They were nearing the end of May before they finally had a day that suited them for the adventure. The late spring arrival, coupled with her daughter’s fretting, had gotten Salome all turned around. Not until they were halfway through the afternoon and the light changed along the water had she noticed with a start which day it truly was. She had looked anxiously upwards towards home, realizing she was too far away to do much of anything except arrive too late.
She left Jeanne with her eldest and thanked the stars that Constance had offered to join them. Otherwise, Salome would have been sprinting upwards with Jeanne clinging to her back. Her lungs burned enough as it was.
One small blessing was that since it was so late in the day, Jacob would have already left the house. She only had to climb to the field where the four large Ash stood side by side. If she was lucky, she would meet him as he arrived. The light turned again on the forest floor, and she knew she was farther behind the day than she realized.
The wildflower field was beautiful that day. Pollen, held down too long by the constant spring rains, floated through the air with extra vigor. Large tufts wafted out from the forest to join the meadow. “They look like sprites from fairytale books,” Salome thought, and then found her father through the white fluff. No point in rushing, now. She walked across the meadow, but on this day fourteen years ago, she had been running full stride towards her father’s voice. She had seen mother was speaking, but so softly Salome couldn’t hear her. Her father’s voice had been anguish and heartbreak, and it had carried across the field clearly.
Today, he stood quietly where the meadow met the trees and simply stared at the space between their trunks. The day her mother left them had made a change in him, and he was ever after a quieter man.
“She didn’t leave you,” a small voice in Salome whispered. Every year, the small voice whispered this. Staring at her father’s back as she approached him this time, she took in his stooped shoulders. She felt the sadness and anger that still pulsed from him on this day of remembrance. Today, she answered back to the small voice and said aloud, “But she did. She did leave us.” As she said the words, she felt her own anger pour out of her. Anger she never thought she had felt towards her mother.
After a moment, though, she knew her feelings weren’t fully about Rebecca. They were because all the years since her mother’s disappearance, Salome had let herself believe that she would join her someday. Her own day would come when she had to choose to leave her babes and trust them into the care of her own husband. This was the year Salome realized that none of it would happen as she had planned.
When her eldest girl had turned four, she could tell that Constance didn’t have the spark inside her. She enjoyed the forest outings she took with Salome but gave no indication that the forest resonated with her. “She’s not the one,” the small voice whispered. Salome easily consoled herself that another would come along in a year or so. Two years passed before there was a hint of another, but that one was lost to her almost as soon as it began. Finally, she had Jeanne. After the labor, Salome held her with relief and looked for a light in Jeanne’s eyes that she couldn’t find. “It’ll come when she’s older. It’s too soon,” she cooed to the newborn and lightly stroked her tiny, red cheek. Constance was allowed in to see her little sister, chattering on about having to share a birthday. Chattering in a way that Salome never had as a child. Hazel came in the room and soothed Constance saying, “Sharing a birthday isn’t so bad,” and she winked at Salome, reminding her that their own dates were seven years apart. Something inside Salome tugged at her though she couldn’t place it.
This year, Jeanne had turned four, and still there was no spark. “None will come,” the voice had said. Salome hadn’t wanted to hear it. She had buried its message deep and waited. Someday the knowledge would push itself up through her until she could not deny any longer that she would be the last to know these woods the way her mother and generations past had known them. Without a child to carry on her legacy, Salome would stay here on this earth until her heart gave out or some ordinary sickness found her. She understood suddenly why her mother had never taken Hazel with them past the age of three. What point was there in showing a child what she could never have?
********
Salome’s first memories are all of birds. There’s a hummingbird drinking from her mother’s cupped hands. The wings are moving so fiercely that they make a sound like thunder in her ears. Another time, she is swaying slightly from side to side. She must have been strapped to her mother’s back as she walked along a forest path. There was a crow that followed after them, hopping from branch to branch, but always ten feet behind them. Another is so strange, Salome doesn’t think it was real. Tiny swifts were pouring out of her mother. They came up from somewhere inside her and flew out of her mouth to disappear into the treetops. “That one must have been a dream,” Salome thinks, but she knows that she had to have been very small. In the dream, she can see Rebecca’s hair was loose and wild, like a bird had made a nest out of her untameable mass of tresses. By the time Salome was five, her mother always fastened her hair with beautiful, dark brown combs that were a gift from her father.
Even the first sounds that she could recall were of birds. A woodpecker hammering against a tree. The peeps of a flock of tiny, grey titmice. A screech of blue jay as she and Rebecca surprised it.
“You’re lost to me today,” her mother’s playful voice cut through the fog in her head.
Smiling apologetically, Salome whistled the Redstart song she always used when she was sorry. Their latest trip away from home had stretched into its third month. Rebecca seemed to be reviewing everything she had ever taught Salome. She was tired today and had let her mind wander more than once.
“I know all of these things you’re showing me, Mama,” and she whistled the Redstart song again.
Rebecca stared at her for a moment. “I need to be sure you know them.” She pulled her daughter closer to her side.
The day ended and a new one began. By day, Salome was asked to identify plants, show she could make cordage, catch fish
from the stream, set traps for game. After the evening fire was made, she had to demonstrate to her mother other traits. How to steep the healing herbs, what words to say in thanks for the rabbits they had caught and skinned, when to set the charms to keep unwanted visitors from their hill. At night, even though she slept, Rebecca seemed to come into her dreams. Pointing to animals as they drifted in and out of mists, making Salome repeat the meanings of the visions they brought with them. Rebecca would take her dream hand, and she felt herself pulled upwards until they sat on tree limbs just below the stars they studied. Salome had never seen so far beyond their home before. Looking down from their perch, she saw a faint yellow-orange light that undulated over the ground and surrounded the trees. The light encompassed even her own body below, asleep in front of the last of the fire beside her. Surprised, she leaned over to see more clearly, and suddenly there was a rush of dark branches as if she were falling.
She woke with a start into the daylight. Rebecca was already awake and seated at her side. “Poor bird,” she cooed and stroked the hair from Salome’s forehead. “I thought it best to let you sleep.”
Salome let herself rest in her mother’s arms. “Why are we still out here, Mama? Let’s go back home.”
Her mother tilted her head down until her coarse dark locks nearly mingled with Salome’s silken flax. “Bright one,” she whispered, “I won’t be going home.”
Salome’s tiny heart beat fast in her chest, like the hummingbird’s wings all those years ago. “Why not, Mama?” She sat up. “What’s happening?”
Her mother’s face lit up with the smile she always saved for Jacob and for her girls. “Something lovely. Something that will happen to you someday.”
********
She was very near to Jacob, now. A few more steps, and she would be at his side. She would slip her hand into his. He would hold it as he had that day years earlier: softly in his while they both looked straight ahead. She placed her hand, still smaller than his own, in his grasp and stared at the empty space between the trunks as if she would see her mother the day she left them.
Surrounded by sparkling, orange light. Her hair loose again and wild, the combs from Jacob left on a dresser at home. Bands of orange and yellow seeped out of the four Ash and reached for the rays that were emanating from Rebecca. The forest was still, concentrating on this union. The lines of Rebecca’s person gradually blurred and then faded. The trees’ solid mass bent towards her, gathered her into an opening that the forest and Rebecca seemed to create together. Even as Salome watched her dissolve, she also knew Rebecca was becoming something else.
Though she focused as intently as her father, she could not make her mother reappear. Not fourteen years ago and not today. Rebecca had raised her to believe that Salome was special, and she was realizing that she was not. Today was for understanding that she would need to satisfy herself with a life in this plane with questions unanswered and hope that her father may finally do the same.
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Chapter: The Girl
Salome’s girls were playing in the deep woods today, and the crows came to tell her. The crows liked Constance. They followed her and sang to her whenever they saw her. Sometimes they even brought her gifts. Not the kind of gifts they brought to the Girl, but pretty baubles they might find. A bit of lichen wrapped in sparkling spider’s web. Shiny green beetle shells from which they had already scooped the meat.
The Girl had asked them, “What’s so fascinating about this one?” Then she tried to decipher the noises they made. She had never been able to learn the language they spoke, even though they seemed to be able to understand her.
They fluffed their feathers, and one of them reached over and lightly nipped the Girl’s ear and then a wiry lock of her hair.
“You like her ears? And her hair?” The Girl smiled. “What does she remind you of? I wonder,” she asked them. They spread their wings as they sidestepped along the tree branch. When they bobbed their heads, she did as well and that made them caw with laughter.
Constance and Jeanne walked underneath her perch. The crows left her to follow along through the trees. The Girl dropped down silently to the forest floor. Disguised as a cottontail, she hopped behind the children.
“Not a child, really, the eldest,” her little rabbit brain thought. If her plan had worked, Constance would have been helping Salome get ready for her journey. Instead, her greatest responsibility seemed to be minding her younger sister.
“Such a waste,” the rabbit thought and stopped to nibble some clover. “The crows would have loved having her with them.” She left her snack and hurried to catch up.
She followed them as they explored. When they neared the caves, she hopped behind a large rock to change her form. She was trying to decide what to become next. She didn’t realize she had lost track of the girls. She knelt with her hands along the ground as the Girl and turned her head just as Jeanne stepped into sight.
She was caught. There was nothing left to do but smile her pointed toothed smile at the child. Jeanne caught her breath and watched the Girl as she turned into a young deer who trotted into the forest. She heard Jeanne call to her sister, but she kept the distance between them. Jeanne ran after her, and the deer bounded a little faster into a dense copse. Jeanne caught up and peered into the shrubs.
“She saw me, “ the Girl thought. “What else could she see?” The deer changed again and walked out of the green in her tallest form. The Woman of the Woods smiled down on the astonished Jeanne. She beckoned to the child to come closer, and for a breath of time she saw Jeanne consider the request. Constance’s call broke the moment, and Jeanne seemed to realize that the Woman before her was not quite of this world. The girl ran towards her sister’s voice. The Woman heard her say, “Constance! Come quick!”
“Better to go now,” the Woman thought with prudence. She pushed off from the ground and became a bird that flew away. She climbed high above the trees and then glided on the thermals. “What use in staying when they cannot join us? What use in showing them the beauty they cannot have.”
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Chapter: Salome
Salome was knitting on the porch when her girls emerged from the woods. She sat in the rocker that her husband had made for her. It was a gift for “no particular reason,” as he said. Will often gave her such gifts, and she counted herself fortunate to have him. A good man who had given her two strong girls. “Not girls for much longer,” Salome thought to herself. Constance was likely to have a suitor within the year, and Jeanne ran off on her own to explore almost daily.
“You two seem to have your heads together about something,” she remarked as their pensive faces got closer.
The elder waved her hand to the side. “Jeanne said she saw something in the woods, but I didn’t see it.”
Salome slowed the rocker and put her knitting in her lap. Her heart gave a little thump. “What was it?”
“You’ll have to ask her. I’m not sure she knows.”
“I do so know,” Jeanne retorted hotly.
Salome pulled her gently to her side and held her hands. “What was it, love?”
“I saw a little girl like me -”
Constance interjected, “I thought you said you saw a lady wearing furs?”
Jeanne pursed her lips at the interruption. She glared at Constance and then turned back to Salome with wide eyes. “I saw a little girl, and then she went behind some trees, and when she came out from behind them, she was a deer.”
“Truly?” Salome asked. She hoped her face looked calm, as if she believed her daughter was making up a story as all children tend to do.
“Yes,” Jeanne answered, her eyes still widely open. “I followed the deer for a while, and then I lost it. And then I saw a lady. She was tall and wore furs. She was pretty, Mama. She looked like you,” Jeanne stroked Salome’s cheek.
Salome managed to give a small smile to her youngest. “You’re very sweet, little bird,” she told her and placed a kiss
on both of her wrists. This made Jeanne giggle and pull her hands away. Then she ran inside, remembering that Salome had been making gingersnaps when they left that morning.
Salome set her knitting aside and looked out at the forest.
“What is it, Mama?” Constance asked.
She gave a small shake of her head. “It’s nothing, love. I just,” she searched for words and found some that at least had truth to them. “I worry about you girls sometimes, as a mother is like to do.”
Constance seemed satisfied with her answer and turned inside as well.
Salome stared out into the woods and wished the being that preferred a girl’s form would appear to her. She might know where her mother had gone. She may even know how Salome could find her again, or at least be able to answer why the gift that had run in their family for several generations seemed to be at an endpoint. The Girl could tell her why her sister Hazel knew things before they happened.
Years ago, Hazel had been the one who had told their father that Rebecca was leaving. Sobbing, she had told him where to find her. She had begged him to run and stop her. Jacob was so alarmed to see his joyful girl so distraught. He hadn’t actually believed that Hazel told him the truth. He thought she had had a bad dream. He promised to go to the four Ash trees by the meadow only to soothe his daughter. She watched him from the porch, so he had to pretend he was actually going. The day was so bright and fine that once he started out he decided to walk down to the meadow anyway.
When Salome had returned alone earlier that week, she had only said that Rebecca was spending a few days with the woods in solitude. She had already said her tearful goodbye to her mother and had let her soothe her with the knowledge that one day Salome would join her. “After your own child has been born and you can see the magic growing inside her,” Rebecca had said. “I promise, you’ll be able to sense it. As I did with you.” Then she had given Salome the ring on a chain that she wore around her neck. She had bent to kiss Salome’s cheek, and she had whispered, “All your daughters will be fierce and strong.”
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