Maresi Red Mantle

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  “Why do they need to remember her at all? She’s right here! She’s not dead!”

  I expected Náraes to be angry and to argue with me. I wanted an argument. But all she did was take me in her arms and hold me. She said nothing.

  Outside a terrible snowstorm is raging. It is beating down on the house so hard that the walls are shaking. It is the worst we have had all winter. Sometimes I think I can almost hear the voice of the Crone on the wind and in the icy draughts that creep in through the cracks in the walls. But I do not see her door, and I cannot hear her calling for Mother. Father and Náraes and Tauer are all wrong.

  Father and I take turns to stay by Mother’s side. Right now she is sleeping in my bed. Akios sleeps on the ledge above the fireplace and I feed the fire to keep the cold at bay. Sometimes I have to step out of the room awhile, for it is so torturous to hear Mother’s gasping, strained breath. Her limbs are ice-cold and no matter how much I rub and massage them I cannot make them warm. I have a pot of water over the fire where I brew various herbal teas, weak ones, that I feed to her. But nothing seems to afford her any relief.

  It is one day since Mother stopped speaking. She is so thin that her skull is clearly visible below her sparse hair. Náraes and I have cut it short, to stop it from tangling into knots. Mother lies with open, unseeing eyes, though sometimes her eyes seek mine and it seems that she is trying to ask me something. I know not what.

  I barely remember the last time I slept properly.

  I have little appetite myself. Father cooks porridge and Náraes brings bread, but I cannot eat. Walking around the village is becoming harder and harder, not only because of the storm that refuses to relent, but because I am so weak. It feels as though something out there, the Crone’s murmuring tone, is pressing down on me in the grey winter light.

  Father and Akios are busy building something out in the woodshed. I know what it is. They go out shortly after daybreak. Planing and sanding, sawing and nailing. It infuriates me, but there is nothing I can do. Just keep Mother alive. That is what I am doing. She is alive. Everyone says that she has not long left, yet she lives still.

  Later.

  Náraes came to sit with me this evening, when Father was tending to the animals and Akios was out somewhere, I know not where. I was sitting with my porridge bowl in front of me, and she nudged the spoon closer to my hand.

  “Eat now. You mustn’t grieve yourself to death. Maresi, Mother has led a good life. Not as long as some, but good all the same. She’s had Father and us. Let go, Maresi.”

  I saw that Náraes was crying. Her tears looked so unfamiliar. Everything inside me hurt. I wished I had tears to cry, but my eyes were dry.

  “I miss her,” whispered Náraes. “I miss my strong, vital mother. That’s how I want to remember her. Not as she is now. All I wished her was a quick, good death, but it doesn’t seem that she is getting that.”

  I pushed the bowl aside and stood up. I could not listen any longer. Mother’s room was filled with the sound of her short, wheezing breath. She was lying under several animal hides, yet she was so thin that the bed looked almost empty. When I sat on the edge of her bed she looked straight at me. She uttered a noise. First I thought it was only a whimper, but when I leant nearer I heard that she was forming a word.

  “Out,” she moaned weakly. “Out.”

  “You want to go out, Mother? There is a storm outside. It is too cold.”

  She looked at me, pleadingly. Then I understood what she wanted. By Goddess, the realization cut through me like a knife. It hurt a hundred times worse than when I was stabbed in the belly in the crypt. I was the cause of all of this suffering. The fault was mine, and no one else’s.

  “Yes, Mother. You can go.” I was crying so hard that I could barely get the words out. “Forgive me. You can go.”

  My tears spilt onto the ring on my finger—the ring you gave me. It glinted like the metal on the door of the Crone. The door that I had not seen, even though Mother was on the brink of death. She had been on the brink for a long time.

  I got up and picked up my staff from where it was leaning against the wall. I went out. It was a clear, starry, ice-cold night. The cold struck me like a blow, permeating my nostrils and my chest with every breath. I could feel the protection I had built up during all these moons of walking around the village, like an imprint in the air. It extended down into the earth, among the tree roots deep below. The very air tasted of it: metal and soil. I raised up my silverwood staff to the black sky, high above my head, and I struck. Again and again. With each blow my carved staff met the barrier. The wall. The protection I had made. It was strong, Sister O. It was forged of all my fear of hunger and starvation, my fear of the nádor’s men, all my fear of losing everyone I had only just been reunited with. It was forged of my knowledge, of the symbols of power on my staff, of the ancient magic of colours and hair, and the life force of the First Mother. When my staff met the protection and I could feel how robust it was, I understood that it was not constructed by my power alone. No such thing could come from an ordinary human. It was the boundless power of the First Mother and I was merely its channel. It is the same as the power of Anji, the spring that bestowed gifts upon the First Sisters; it is the power that Arra invoked when she sang forth the wind and fire and mountains, it is the energy that Heo’s foremother travelled through to restore balance to her people. It is the energy that helped me to open the Crone’s door in the crypt and slay all those men. It is a force far greater than any one person: it is the life force behind all things.

  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 odour I recognize so well: the breath of the Crone. But it was different this time, after 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 received her, and that Mother was 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.

  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 cloth
es 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 grey woollen 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 learnt 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 centre. 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.

  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 silverwood 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.

  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 raised 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 learnt 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.

  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, 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 for ever?

  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 north-east.

  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 place, 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.