My Heart Laid Bare

by Joyce Carol Oates

  1.

  . . . THE PLACE THAT is haunted, the place that smells of sweetness and rot, the place where the marsh gas bubbles, the spider-trees lift themselves on their roots, the talons, the teeth, the shrieks, the rippling tawny snakes, the mayflies that brush against your face, the soft black wood teeming with ants, the eating, the gorging, the hollow trees gray with excrement, if you wander too far you will be sucked down, if you wander too far you will be drowned, your life will be sucked from you, do you think your breath is your own, do you think you can find your way back, don’t listen to the singing, the voices, her voice, the shriek of the owl, the cry of the hare, the mayflies’ droning, it is not singing but the voice of the woman at the bottom of the swamp, you must not heed her, you must not go to her, Katrina forbids it.

  . . . THE PLACE OF summer heat rising in waves, the stink of scummy green water, the puddles rich with Death, the wings and glittering eyes darting through the air, the place that has lured in children who have never returned, their bones ground down fine, their bright shining hair adrift in the marsh, their eyes sewn into the hides of snakes, their teeth given to the baby weasels, the baby foxes, that music? it is not music, it is the cries of the children, it is their souls caught in the roots of trees, in the roots of the lilies, in the soft black muck, waiting, waiting for you, waiting for you to drown, you must not heed their cries, you must not go to them, Katrina forbids it.

  . . . THE PLACE WHERE sunlight ages and withers to Night, the place where the trees are Night, beneath the sticky wet leaves there is Night, inside the silky cobwebs there is Night, the vines covered in babies’ hair, the grasses, the whispering, the pondweed, the rain pelting like gunshot, the rising mists, the woman who walks in the mists, the woman who brushes her long hair in the mists, it is a tall white lily, it is a tall white poison lily, it is the Night brushing its hair, it is the Night singing, Katrina forbids you to listen, it is the place of pestilence, it is the place of lost children, the flies will cover your eyes if you go, the flies will fill your mouth and crawl up your nostrils and eat out your skull if you go, Katrina knows, Katrina has seen the doe gutted of her baby, the torn belly, the grass trampled in blood, Katrina has heard the cries of the children, Katrina knows the woman’s trickery, Katrina knows.

  . . . THE PLACE OF hunger, the place of feeding, the place of quick-jabbing beaks, the talons, the sticky tendrils, the tiny sucking mouths, the mosquitoes ruby-bright with blood, the leeches swollen with blood, the gassy bubbles, the rot, the stench, the pale brown speckled eggs smashed and licked clean, the fruit you must not eat, the delicious black fruit you must not eat, if you bite into it the hot black juice will burn your mouth, if you swallow it your throat will close, do you hear the sound of drinking, do you hear the sound of lapping, it is the sound of terrible thirst, it is the sound of shame, you can’t see its shape in the dark, you can’t see her yellow eyes, her hair is twining in the trees, her feet have turned to roots, her song is hunger, her song is Night, do not listen, she has no name, it is only the steaming rain, the heavy pelting rain, the rain that turns to ice as it falls, Katrina has warned you.

  . . . THE PLACE OF fat green leaves, of slugs, puddles teeming with Death, tiny white worms, tiny white eyes, the place of yellow iris, Muirkirk violets, the hot rich smell of green, the dappled backs of snakes, do you think your breath is your own, do you think your thoughts are your own, the woman at the bottom of the pond is listening, that is the sound of her sorrow, that is the sound of Night, the larvae eating the leaves, the white cocoons being spun in secret, do you hear the soldiers’ shouts, the soldiers’ laughter, the gunfire, the screams, the flapping wings, the wild darting eyes, the bones sifting to ash, falling from the sky to melt in the swamp, to turn to vapor in the swamp, her voice is muffled in snow, her blood has frozen white, Katrina knows.

  . . . THE PLACE OF your father’s blessing, the place that will be your father’s grave, the teeming water in which he secretly bathes, the bubbling laughter that runs down his chin, the grasses, the sickle moon floating in the marsh, the cries of summer insects, whose name? whose name? it is not your name, it is not your music, it is Night, it is Death, it is the sound of the woman in the mist, her hair twining in the trees, her feet tangled in the roots, it is the sound of the woman at the bottom of the swamp, you must not heed her, you must not go to her, Katrina loves you and Katrina forbids it.

  2.

  Esopus, the lost village.

  Settled in 1642 on the curve of the river where Muirkirk now stands. A small Dutch outpost of approximately seventy-five men and women who made their way upriver, from the more populous settlements south of the Chautauquas. According to one Claes van Hasbroeck, who kept a personal daybook, in addition to filing systematic and meticulous reports for the Dutch West India Company through the 1640’s, when agents for the Company explored the area of Tahawaus Pass, above the great Nautauga River, it was discovered in 1647 that the little settlement of Esopus no longer existed. All traces of it had vanished from the river’s bank: no houses, or farming plots, or human artifacts, or even any graves, were to be found. The wilderness had not entirely grown back, a clearing of sorts remained, though overrun with vegetation at its edges.

  In his daybook Claes van Hasbroeck asks eloquently what had become of the brave settlers of Esopus: had they been killed by Indians, or sickness, or a bitterly cold winter; had they been frightened away into the wilderness to die; had their God simply abandoned them in this remote spot? But why did no human artifacts remain, no sign of human habitation?

  So it happened that Esopus vanished; and vanished yet a second time in memory; for this was the heady era in which Dutch adventurers were intrigued by the prospect of “prodigious” and “fathomless” copper mines in the more southerly part of New Netherlands; and Esopus was soon forgotten, a mere notation, a curiosity in the historical records of the time.

  ROBIN, THE MILLER’S youngest son, was treated cruelly by his father, and mocked by his three older brothers, and, as his mother had died, and there was no one to love him for his quiet ways, he said to himself, I will leave home and live alone in the marsh. And off he went afoot to the edge of the marsh, and for an hour or more pondered how to proceed; for many a luckless wanderer had died in this place, lured by the beauty of the smooth waters, and the swamp flowers, and the great trees, and the shimmering birds and butterflies that dwelled there. Until finally a snowy white bird approached, of the size of a swan, yet possessed of long legs and a long sharp beak, and the bird asked of him where he meant to go, and Robin told him, and the bird flew off to lead him to firm ground, by which he could hurry across, into the depths of the marsh; and he was cunning enough to disguise his path behind him, so that no one could follow to bring him back home.

  For three days and three nights he wandered in the marsh, seeing many wondrous sights, and, on the fourth day, he saw an old woman walking in the mist, with white hair, and white skin, and white lace on her head; and carrying in her hand a tall white candle. To Robin the old woman was young and beautiful, so he followed without hesitation when she led him to her home in the marsh, to give him food and shelter. The old woman said, Am I to be your bride, dear Robin? and Robin answered at once, Am I to be your bridegroom? for he had fallen in love, and took no note of her strange hooded eyes, and long curving fingernails, and fine-wrinkled skin like the striations on ice; nor did he see that her dwelling place at the heart of the marsh was dank and cold, for to him it was warm, with a glowing fire, and polished floorboards, and smelled of rich heated broth. So it was, Robin the miller’s son became the old woman’s husband, and wanted never to leave her side.

  One day it happened that his brothers sought him out, for his father was old and ailing, and wanted his youngest son by his side. Like Robin they were perplexed as to how to enter the marsh, for they knew of the many wanderers who had died there; until the great white bird flew to them, and asked of them whom they sought, and did they mean harm, and the brothers said only that t
hey sought their dear brother Robin, and meant no harm. So the bird spread his wide wings and led them to the place where Robin had crossed over, and which he had so cunningly disguised. And like Robin they wandered for three days and three nights, and on the fourth day they came upon the old woman’s dwelling-place at the very heart of the marsh; and saw to their astonishment that their brother was the loving husband of an old woman, known as the White Witch of the Marsh. How is it possible, they asked, that Robin has wed her, and that he sleeps by the fireside oblivious of her evil?

  As there was no way to break the enchantment save to kill the witch, Robin’s brothers rushed into the house, and fell upon her at once, with no warning; striking her to the heart with their sharp knives, and killing her; and rousing poor Robin from his slumber. He struggled with them as if they were enemies, crying, Why have you killed my young bride?—for there is no one so beautiful in all the land. His brothers overcame him, and threw him down; and explained that the White Witch of the Marsh was not young and beautiful as he believed, but an old wicked woman. In scorn they showed him her corpse that he might see her white hair, and her white wrinkled skin, and the talons that grew from her fingers; yet Robin in his enchantment continued to lament the loss of his bride; and begged his brothers that they strike him to the heart as well.

  Against his will, and in great sorrow, Robin was brought out of the marsh by his brothers, and restored at last to his father, who was lying on his deathbed. Seeing how he had wronged his youngest son, the miller gave him his blessing, and instructed him that the mill was henceforth to be his, and his brothers merely his assistants; and that there was a young maiden who lived close by, whom he should marry within a year. These matters Robin complied with, as his soul was shrouded in mourning, and he cared not what the remainder of his life must be.

  Though Robin’s bride was fair, she never conceived a child; and Robin the miller was known through the Valley for the iciness of his touch, and the frost-glitter of his skin, and the fact that, despite the modest riches he accumulated, he had no care for worldly matters, nor any wishes, it seemed, of his own.

  ONCE, LONG AGO, in Old Muirkirk, in the last years of English rule, the Crown Governor Sir Charles Harwood had a beloved daughter he named Mina, who was dearer to him than anyone else on earth. So comely, and graceful, and gay was Mina Harwood, very few persons held it against her that she was the Governor’s daughter, and inclined at times to pride; or that, as a result of her playfulness, one could not always judge whether she spoke in earnest or in jest.

  If Sir Charles or his wife approached Mina with the kindly intention of wiping away her tears, she surprised them with a bright smile, and the admonition that they took too seriously what was but a whim; if they, or Mina’s fiancé, or one or another of her cousins, dared to smile at her outbursts, she charged them with cruelty, and not caring to know what was in her heart. Even as a child Mina threatened those who loved her with running away, as she called it, to her true home, but no one understood what she meant by these strange words; nor could Mina herself explain. Where was her true home, if not in Muirkirk?

  One midsummer day when Mina was eighteen years old, she and her fiancé and a small party of friends went picnicking on the riverbank, in the vicinity of the great Muirkirk marsh; and somehow it came about that Mina wandered off, being nettled, it was thought, by an inadvertent slight on the part of her fiancé . . . and disappeared for hours. Her friends called out her name, and searched for her, to no avail; not knowing if the headstrong young girl had lost herself in the marsh, or whether in a pique of childish temper she was simply hiding in order to frighten them.

  Finally Mina returned, appearing suddenly out of nowhere, flush-faced and smiling, saying in a chiding voice, “Why are you looking at me so strangely?—don’t you know your Mina?” If she had truly been hurt by a stray word or gesture of her fiancé’s, she now forgave the distraught young man (who indeed adored her); her arms were filled with things for her friends—violets, swamp lilies, purple lobelia, a strange pulpy fruit (of the size of a large apple, but a dark orangish-purple in hue, and disagreeably soft to the touch), which she pressed gaily upon them. For the remainder of the afternoon, and, indeed, for days afterward, Mina prattled with delight of the “secret wonders” of the great marsh. How unjust it seemed to her, that the swampland was feared and loathed, when it was a place of such exquisite beauty . . . .From childhood on Mina had heard ugly things whispered of the Muirkirk swamp: that it bred pestilence; that it was a place where unwed mothers might dispose of their infants; that, in former times, it had been the ceremonial ground for unspeakable tortures and executions practiced by the Mohawk Indians. But all she had glimpsed were wonders, like the flowers and fruit she had brought back, and the tall straight leafy trees she had seen (so very tall, Mina claimed, their tops were obscured in cloud), and the black and gold butterflies large as a man’s fist (in whose delicate wings glinted “eyes” of a sort), and the nameless birds whose songs were infinitely sweeter than any she had ever heard (a bird the size of a sparrow, but beautifully marked in crimson, gold, and blue, had perched on her forefinger, Mina claimed, and had showed no fear of her), and many another remarkable sight . . . .She had been able to walk on the surface of the plankton-encrusted water, she said, for a brief distance, a most uncanny sensation indeed, as if for her, and for her, Mina Harwood alone, the laws of Nature had been overturned.

  (Of the persons who had eaten the dark pulpy fruit, including Sir Charles and his wife, all reported disagreeable symptoms, vomiting, malaise, loss of appetite, which Mina dismissed with a wave of her hand, insisting that the fruit was a secret “love fruit” whose juice would have a beneficial effect upon them, in time.)

  Weeks passed. It was observed that Sir Charles’s daughter wasn’t wholly herself: for she either shrank from the touch of those she loved, or pressed herself too anxiously upon them; her manner was often arch and strained, and feverish; too relentlessly merry. She quarreled with her fiancé over trifles, and declared tearfully that she would never marry him, or any man. Who was there, she asked boldly, in this world, fit to be her bridegroom? Though Mina was no less beautiful than ever, her beauty was of a wild, unsettling sort: her long dark hair was snarled and matted and smelled of brackish water; her skin was damp, clammy, very pale, like the skin of a certain species of swamp mushroom; her eyes had faded to a silvery-pale lustre in which the pupils were tiny pinpricks; even her fingers were white and puckered, as if resting too long in water . . . .

  Is this my daughter? or a changeling? Mina’s mother thought one day, as the girl spoke in her bright, gay, oblivious manner, for wasn’t there something in the cast of her eye? the quirk of an eyebrow? a momentary frown that caused her entire smooth face to be encased in ghost-wrinkles?—as if an elderly female face were beneath, cunningly hidden. Yet in the next instant, Mina laughed, and became herself again. “Why do you look so grave, Mother?” She took up Mrs. Harwood’s warm hands in her own cool ones, and squeezed them reproachfully. “I am here, after all.”

  More disturbingly, Mina began to behave coquettishly with nearly every man she encountered, including the minister, the elderly bishop, the chief justice and the lieutenant governor, and most disagreeable of all, Sir Charles himself!—as if an animal wildness were stoked in her by the mere presence of a man. At first this behavior was supposed harmless enough, if disconcerting; then it began to be whispered of the girl that she sought out even servants, and cajoled them into meeting with her at night; that she’d gone so far as to “give herself” to several young men in her social circle—yet not, out of sheer wantonness, to her fiancé, whose very touch Mina now claimed to abhor. By one or another mannerism she was perpetually drawing attention to her physical being, and didn’t hesitate, even in public, to yawn with her pretty mouth open, revealing a shocking moist redness like the interior of a snake’s mouth; nor did she hesitate, in the most innocent of conversations, to give to ordinary words a lewd color by an insinuation of her
voice or a suggestive movement of her body. Then again, only a while later the Mina of old would reappear, sweet, vivacious, playful in a childlike way, and perplexed that her family should regard her with such unease . . . as if this Mina didn’t comprehend what the “other” Mina was about, or even that she existed. Or what disturbance she was wreaking not only in the Harwood household but through the small community.

  “Why are you all looking at me so strangely?” Mina frequently asked, with a baffled, hurt smile. “Don’t you know your own Mina?”

  At last, in early winter, it was discovered that Mina was with child.

  In fact, several months with child. So cleverly had the young woman kept her secret from even her mother.

  This revelation rocked the household, and threw all the Harwoods into grief; except the guilty Mina herself, who owned the fact with an astonishing arrogance, as if it were no more than a child’s prank at which she’d been caught. “Why, you are all very silly,” she told her family, who stared at her appalled, “to suppose that Nature can be guided according to your narrow wishes.” And she laughed, showing the moist red interior of her mouth.

  From time to time, over the weeks, Mina did seem to repent, shutting herself away in her room; then, haughtily wiping away her tears, she insisted upon coming downstairs as if nothing were wrong; or, rather, as if the Harwoods were at fault with their attitude of despair and anger over her. Of course, Mina was questioned repeatedly about the child’s father, and always claimed with a cool smile that the partner of her “sweet sin” was—why, someone very close; well known to the Harwoods; perhaps even a member “of austere reputation” of the Harwood household.

  Quickly it was whispered through the Colony that Sir Charles’s beautiful daughter Mina was with child, and unrepentant; that the father was rumored to be a man of her own social set (yet not, perversely, her fiancé—on that score, everyone was agreed); unless it was a servant of the Harwoods (the lowest caste of whom were indentured Irishmen known for their promiscuous ways); even a Negro slave, or an Indian; or (it began to be whispered) an emissary of the very Devil. What was most remarkable was that Mina appeared to be drawing strength from the heartbreak and disorder she provoked on all sides; even as her father languished in ill health, the despoiled young woman thrived. Her cheeks were full and flushed, her silvery eyes unnaturally bright. Where the delicate Mina of old had had to be coaxed into eating properly, this Mina now devoured everything placed before her with appetite; playfully ate off others’ plates; laughingly commented that it seemed, overnight, her “physical being” had become a fathomless pit which it fell to her to fill.