Red Mantle

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  But I did break through the wall. With red-chapped hands and my back aching with strain, I breached it, Sister O. I walked around our house and tore down my own work. I was knocked down by the wave of force that hit me when the barrier gave way. The hum, the murmur, the trembling in the ground enveloped me, and suddenly I could hear the sounds it was made up of. Maresi, my daughter, whispered the Crone.

  I scrambled to my feet and went inside. Around Mother’s bed sat Náraes, Father and Akios. Father held one of Mother’s hands, Akios the other, and Náraes caressed her head. At the foot of the bed stood the door of the Crone. I walked over to Mother. I bent down to kiss her and whisper my farewell. They are words that I do not intend to share with anyone. They belong to Mother and me. Our final words.

  Then I rose and walked to the Crone’s door. I had no blood on my hands, not mine, nor the Rose’s, nor Mother’s. But I had opened this door once before. It knew me. My hand reached for the handle—shaped like a snake swallowing its tail, just like the ring on my hand—and opened the door to the Crone’s realm.

  This time I spoke first.

  “Take what is yours,” I said into the darkness. “Free my mother from her suffering.”

  Maresi, whispered the Crone, and her voice no longer frightened me. It sounded tender, Sister O. It sounded almost like your voice. The handle of the door was cold in my hand, and the air was filled with an odor I recognize so well: the breath of the Crone. But it was different this time, when I had opened the door calmly and purposefully. No blood offering was necessary. There were no screams. I let Mother pass through. She took a short breath and became completely still. My hand was still resting on the handle. There came one final, gasping breath, and then no more. I know that the Crone had received her, and that Mother had been made party to all the Crone’s mysteries—and the Crone to hers.

  Then I closed the door, slowly and quietly, and with an aching heart.

  Now my mother is no more.

  ϖ

  Náraes and I have prepared Mother for her burial. Washed her, combed her short hair. She no longer looks like my mother. Her facial expression has changed. She is already somewhere else. Once she was ready, we stood and looked at her.

  “You got more time with her than I did,” I said, unmoving. “Three years before I was born, and eight years while I was away.”

  “I know,” Náraes said, and squeezed my hand. “It isn’t fair.” She sighed. “We may as well go through her clothes now, so we know what to dress her in.”

  She opened the lid to the chest by the bed, and we took out Mother’s few garments: three blouses, four chemises, one everyday skirt, one special skirt and an embroidered apron for festivals. Right at the bottom of the chest we found an object tightly wrapped in a gray woolen cloth. I reached my hands in to lift it out, and we laid the bundle on the floor and unwrapped it together.

  Inside was a sword. It was long and heavy and sharp, and had clearly seen more than one battle. Náraes and I looked at one another. I lifted the sword carefully and examined it. Two words were engraved on the hilt. Not by a smith, but scraped as one does with a nail or other sharp object. Náora, it said. Mother’s name. And Leiman. Suddenly I remembered that Mother had mentioned the name Leiman when she was sick.

  “She got it from her first husband,” Father said from behind us. We turned around. He was standing above us looking down at the sword. “She was carrying it when I found her in the woods. She said his name many times while she was delirious with fever and my mother and I were taking care of her.”

  “Was Leiman her husband?” I stared at the name on the sword.

  “Yes. They married when they were very young. He was already dead when she came here.”

  “How did he die?”

  “I don’t know. Náora didn’t want to talk about anything that happened before we met, so I didn’t ask. We got married, and I was always amazed that she actually wanted to be with me. I suppose she lived a very different life when she was young, but I know her as my wife and mother to my children. And my heart’s true love.”

  I had never heard such words come from Father’s mouth. I got up and embraced him. He truly loved her. I barely know who she was, yet I know all I need to: she was my mother.

  We are blessed to have each other: Father, Náraes, Akios and I. We are not alone in our grief. We talk about Mother, we remember her, we recreate her as she was before she fell sick. I think about what she said to me, that she no longer regretted letting Father send me away, because it was thanks to the Abbey that I had learned to manage without her.

  I know she is right. It is strange, Sister O. I miss her terribly. It is like an enormous black hole in my center. But at the same time she is still very much present. The only difference is that now she lives through me instead of her own body. I carry all that she was inside me: in my body, mind and heart.

  ϖ

  Mother has been lying in her bed all day, and the villagers have come to bid farewell with songs and small gifts. Father and Akios have prepared the funeral pyre. At this time in winter we cannot dig a grave in the hard-frozen earth among the roots of the silverwoods, so we must burn the body and scatter the ashes in the burial grove instead.

  She is lying in her casket now, which Father and Akios so lovingly made for her. Náraes and I wrapped her up, and the little girls laid down gifts of grain, salt and bread. When dusk falls the men will carry the casket to the pyre outside the village, and in the wintry starlight Father will light the fire.

  I do not know if I can witness it. I will try. But the mere thought of the fire that is set to consume what was once my mother is too awful to bear.

  When it is all over—these things I cannot think about—the ashes will be taken to the burial grove. It will not be an easy journey, for it is bitterly cold and fresh snow has fallen, making travel difficult. I hear the Crone’s whisper again, as I heard her at the Abbey. I could not hear her before through the protection I had built around the village. My barrier shut out even the Crone herself. I did not believe such a thing was possible. But shutting out the Crone could not keep death out of the village.

  We could wait before making our way to the burial grove, but both Father and I have a feeling that it must be now. Náraes agrees. “You have appeared in my dreams,” she said to me today. “Under the silver-wood trees. But the trees are bleeding.”

  Father made a simple scabbard for Mother’s sword. My siblings and Father all agree that the sword should be passed down to me.

  ϖ

  The others are still asleep, but I am dressed and eating porridge and writing to you. I am about to set out to accompany my mother on her final journey. I am thinking of you, Sister O, and I need to share my thoughts with you. It has occurred to me that I am unlikely to be present when your time comes. I cannot aid you in your passing into the realm of the Crone. I cannot accompany you on your final journey or be there when your bones are laid to rest in the cold dark of the crypt. This hurts. But what is more painful is the fear, gradually transforming into a certainty, that I will never see you again in this life. I hope you can forgive me. I need to write the words I never spoke to you, Sister O. You are very dear to me. You gave me the most precious gift I have: my love of knowledge and the written word. You made me feel safe when I came to the Abbey as a child. I remember how you stroked my hair, and were the first person to touch me with tenderness since my own mother. I can never thank you enough for all that you taught me, or all that you have meant to me. For you allowed me to choose my own path, even when that path led away from the Abbey, and from you.

  I have dressed myself in every garment I own, for this midwinter is the coldest that Rovas has ever known. I am taking my staff with me, and the sword. I am reminded of an image I once saw on a silver bowl in the Temple of the Rose, when Ennike, Jai and I were helping the former Rose to polish silver and copper. It depicted the Warrior Maiden, with bared breasts, flowing hair and a ferocious expression on her young face, with sword ra
ised high above her head. It is with this picture in mind that I carry the sword as I accompany Mother and guide her true. The Crone is whispering to me now. I hear her very clearly. Maresi, she whispers in every shadow. Maresi, she howls in the biting winds.

  Something is waiting for me out there. The Black Star is dark, the moon is low, and the longest, darkest night of the year stretches before us. It does not bode well, Sister O. I can feel it in my bones and my blood. I have gathered all my letters in the chest by my bed, and on top lies a note with instructions for Akios, written in large, clear letters so that he might be able to read it without Maressa’s help, asking him to ensure they get sent. Just in case I do not return from this journey. For I wonder if this is not what the Crone has been trying to tell me all along. She is warning me of a great danger, but she is also calling to me. Luring me. Now that I can hear her I am no longer afraid—not in the least, Sister O. I know that I walk in the footsteps of the Crone. I know that she will steer my hand, if need be. My actions are my own, and I bear responsibility and blame. Yet I am not alone. I will never be alone, as long as I let the Crone in. I have imagined her before as a hungry, black-mouthed witch with yellow teeth and scraggly hair and scratching, claw-like hands. Even after I opened her door for the first time and learned not to fear her, this image has remained. No longer. Now she has the face of my mother. And what I remember of my father’s mother, whom I never saw be wicked or angry. All the wise, strong women who have passed through the Crone’s door before me have lent her their faces and wit, their voices and hearts. Why should I fear them? They are with me now, and I am not afraid.

  I am ready.

  ϖ

  Later.

  I am writing this in a shelter we made in the forest. It is very cold. Forgive me if my handwriting is difficult to read; my fingers are frozen stiff. The fire is of little help. Yet I must write now, for soon it may be too late.

  I dread recounting what has happened. It is so unbelievable, so awful. I do not know . . . I do not know how we will ever recover from this, Sister O.

  When we left the village it was bitterly cold. Everybody in the procession carried something that had belonged to Mother, or that she had made or given them, as is our tradition. Garments, a jar of salve, knitted gloves. I took her sword and my woven belt. I carried the pouch of ashes. Father walked before me, marking the trees along the path to help Mother find her way, and Náraes and Akios walked behind me scattering juniper twigs and singing the songs that prevent her from returning from the realm of the dead. I pondered this as I walked bearing the pouch and beating my staff into the ground in rhythm with the songs. Why are we so afraid that the departed might return? Could we not live alongside them, if need be? Or do we fear that they would bring some nameless terror back with them from death’s realm, or else that they would drag us down there with them? Why would they do that? If they loved us in life there is no reason why they would not love us in death.

  I am not sure what I believe about death, Sister O. Is it truly a realm behind a silver door, or do I only envision it in that way in order to snatch a glimpse of the unfathomable? Is there really a world under the roots of the silverwoods? Or is death something else entirely? Can we see what happens in our world after we have died, or is contact broken forever?

  We came to the offering grove first.

  But the offering grove was not there.

  As I have already mentioned, the grove lies in a valley. Ancient, enormous, broad-leaved trees grow around a central elder oak where our offerings are made. A stream runs to the northeast.

  All that remained when we arrived at the valley’s edge in the early afternoon was the stream. The trees were gone. Stumps were in their places, some as large as the foundation of a small house. There were visible tracks on the ground where the trunks had been dragged away, and there were big piles of brushwood and branches all around. We all stopped, quiet, dumb. A ghostly wind whined through the empty valley. There were traces of woodcutters’ fires, and I remembered what Kárun had said.

  I should have known. I should have seen the signs. Perhaps it was my protection around the villages that prevented me from doing so, or perhaps my mind was too filled with concern for Mother to notice anything else.

  Maresi, the Crone whispered on the wind. Hurry.

  “My father prayed in this grove,” Father said slowly. “He honored and made sacrifices to the land. As did his father and mother before him. And I remember my grandmother saying that her mother had done the same, and the elder oak was already great and ancient then.”

  “Where will we make our offerings now?” Náraes said helplessly. We spoke no more. We continued toward the burial grove, silently agreeing to quicken our pace as much as possible.

  Our offering grove is used only by Sáru and Jóla. Other villages make their offerings elsewhere. But the burial grove, that is for the whole of Rovas. Those who live farther afield have various traditions with their deceased. Either they burn the bodies and bring their ashes to the grove, or they bury them close to their villages, dig them up again when only skeletons remain, and bring the bones to the grove for their eternal rest under the canopy of the sacred silverwoods. But all who die in Rovas end their journey in the burial grove sooner or later.

  Dusk fell. We continued tirelessly under the narrow sickle of the moon. My hands and feet were like ice, but otherwise the cold did not bother me. I beat my staff into the ground. The earth heeded my call. Rovas responded and bade me hurry.

  It was long after sunset when we reached the deep valley where the silverwoods grow. Thanks to the snow, we could still find our way. The path down to the valley cuts between two hillsides. But it was no longer a path; it was a cleared road. Up on the slope of the eastern hill we saw points of light glimmering in the darkness, though we heard nothing. We could only assume that they were the woodcutters’ night camps. I held Gray Lady’s halter and led her toward the path into the valley, and prayed to the Goddess that she would not feel the urge to bray. The sleigh runners glided silently over the snow. We did not speak; we hardly dared breathe. At the edge of the valley we stopped. A cloud masked the moon, and thick darkness lay before us. I gripped Náraes’s hand. We held our breath and waited.

  The cloud drifted past and the light of the narrow moon spilled into the valley. Everything glittered and shone as though made of silver. The trees were still standing. I swallowed, and leaned heavily on my staff.

  Yet as we descended into the valley, we saw that they had already begun their work. The nearest silverwoods lay felled, with branches still intact. It was too dark to find our family burial tree, so we set up camp among the slaughtered trees and lit a fire. It was a risk. We did not know what the woodcutters might do if they saw it. But without fire we would not survive the night.

  ϖ

  Early next morning we stamped out the embers and continued deeper into the valley. Father led us to the right tree. Akios sacrificed a chicken, Náraes hung a silverwood spoon in the branches, and I dug away the snow to expose the soil and stuck a copper coin under a tree root. I could not make so much as a scratch in the frozen-solid ground. Father scattered Mother’s ashes in a circle around the tree, on the naked soil, while we all sang the song of the earth. As we sang I looked upon the faces of my family, and knew that though we each have our own personal sorrow, none of us needs bear it alone.

  Afterward I walked three circuits around the tree, and said a prayer to each aspect of the First Mother, one with each turn. Then I stood for a while and watched the daylight brighten over the snow-covered ground and snow-white trunks and leaves, and silently thanked my mother for all that she taught and showed me.

  When Father and my siblings started to pack up, I pulled my red mantle tighter around me and slipped away unnoticed to walk back through the white, snow-silenced forest to the mouth of the valley. The cold bit my cheeks. My staff kept trying to slip out of my gloved hands, and Mother’s sword bounced uncomfortably on my back.

  The woo
dcutters had entered the valley by that time. A team of five men was already trimming the felled trees, while smaller teams of two or three were walking around and examining the living trees with axes at the ready. All in all, there were perhaps twenty men. I saw no soldiers.

  But I knew that they would come.

  “Blessings on your hearth,” I said. Some men looked up, and then away without answer, and I knew them to be Rovasians. They knew what they were doing, what taboos they were breaking by even carrying an ax in the burial ground of their own ancestors. The others just stared at me, with fur hats pulled low over their foreheads.

  “Seven generations of a Murik family rest below that tree,” I said, and pointed at a tree that two of the men had just been inspecting. “And that cluster is the final resting place of every single inhabitant of the small village of Isto in southern Rovas.”

  “Leave us be,” said a beardless man of short stature wearing a knitted neckerchief over half his face. He took a few steps toward me and fingered the ax that hung in his belt, but came no closer. I posed no threat.