Grace stopped and looked back at the cabin behind her. When everything around it was dark and formless, it alone shimmered with a soft, golden glow.
Grace nodded to herself and walked on home.
The day of the funeral drew near. In their isolated cabin, Grace and Balat prepared, going over blessings and incantations, preparing cachets of dried flowers and sweet-smelling plants that would be crushed or burned to add aroma to the celebration. There was much to do. Days ago, Grace knew, both James and Kamala had been “abducted,” spirited off to secret waiting places that represented the limbo between death and the funeral. Since then, the lovers’ parents, families and friends had begun their grieving and they would continue until the funeral. That ceremony would mark the demarcation between past and future, between what had been and what would be. That would be the ending, damming the flow of time, so that the beginning of the future could unfold.
The evening before the funeral, Grace and Balat went unseen to the appointed place in the forest and began their preparations there. The graves had been dug and now the two magic-weavers were to create the bodies. Painstakingly they had sewn the sweet-smelling cachets into human shape and now they laid the forms in the graves, arranging them carefully, then shrouding them with finely woven white clothes. That done, they set up braziers at appointed places about the clearing where tomorrow especially prepared oils would burn and lend their heavy, cloying scent to the gathering. Others of the colony had been pressed into service to pick flowers and great baskets of them awaited Grace’s and Balat’s distribution. Carefully Grace laid them out along the path the procession would take where the feet of the bier-carriers and the mourners would crush them into fragrance.
Finally, well past dark, Grace and Balat returned to their cabin for a small meal and some much needed rest. Only stopping to check the set of some newly made candles, Grace slipped gratefully into bed and slept dreamlessly.
The drum woke her. Dawn was only a gray murk, not yet colored by day. Grace rose and washed, then awoke Balat. The continuous work of the last several days had tired him, and Grace was not surprised he could sleep past the drum. Its low, distant voice was almost more a vibration than a sound, a low boom ... boom ... boom. It echoed the sound of a slow procession, of a funeral, of a wedding. Soon feet would move to that sound, moving forward, away from the past, into the future.
With the first prick of nervousness upon her, Grace brought out the carefully wrapped package that Jeh had delivered to Balat some days ago. Together they unwrapped the robe that Jeh had created for Grace for this day, the robe that he had woven with as much skill and love and magic as he possessed.
“Dear Goddess,” Grace breathed as Balat held the robe for her to see. It was beautiful. Made of purest, brightest white, it reflected light like a mirror. The back of it, Grace saw, was black, as deep and bottomless and black as the white was brilliant, and the line of contrast between them was a handspan-wide swath of blazing, blood-red crimson.
The thing seemed alive. Its colors were so vivid, it seemed to move of its own accord, flashing white, flashing black, flashing streaks of red. It shimmered and flowed like light, like shadow, like life itself. It was glorious.
“He said he wove charms into it,” Balat told her as he helped her slip it on. Holding a wide, flaring sleeve up closer, she could see the evidence; small irregularities in the fabric showed where tiny stones had been captured in the weaving, or a bit of down, or an ancient, archetypal symbol. The gown was alive with life, with spirit, with presence. She felt small with it on, and omnipotent; she felt unworthy and empowered. The robe was a gift and an obligation, power and responsibility.
“My body trembles,” Grace told Balat with a nervous laugh.
“There is much energy captured here,” he said, nodding. “Jeh has done well.” He stepped back and looked at the vision that Grace was. His old eyes did not see well anymore, yet when he looked at Grace, he saw more than any younger, keen-eyed other would see. Her face was at once sharp to him, yet blurred; she was Grace and she was not. Her face was before him and another swam in the space between them. He found himself thinking he should be immune to the magic of suggestion, yet he knew this was no half-trance that Grace had brought down on him, no easily taught and easily-learned trick of light and shadow. This was no magic but the magic of life, of creation, of the universe. This was more real than anything Balat had ever been privileged to see before.
“You are She,” he said, more to himself than Grace. “As I breathe, you are She.”
And for a moment, even Grace felt it was so.
“Come,” she said softly, rousing him from his musings. “We must go. The drum has started to move.”
Throwing on an old robe of earth-brown over her priestess’ garb, Grace and Balat made their way to the clearing they had prepared the night before. Everything was ready. Grace took a place behind a large, wide-trunked tree that stood back from the gravesite and with her dark robe about her, as much as disappeared into the forest. Balat went about the clearing and lit the braziers, one by one, until their blue smoke and thick, sweet aromas were coiling up through the trees. Then he took up his own place across the clearing from Grace.
The drum was moving, winding through the forest. Its slow, mournful beat pounded out the cadence of the procession: boom ... boom ... boom. Like a huge serpent, the sound wound through the trees, coiling, gliding, coming closer. Balat, unhidden as he was, watched for the first movement that would herald the procession. He did not have to wait long.
There, through the trees: Attis came at a stately walk, the large wooden drum slung like a god-sized amulet about his neck. He held a mallet in each hand, and struck the drumhead squarely with one, then the other, as he stepped with the alternate foot. At the sound of his approach, birds exploded from trees and shrieked away, completely out of rhythm with the pounding drum, boom ... boom ... boom.
Behind Attis, Balat saw the biers come into view. Wide, strong platforms of wood, they each weighed a great deal, and so were carried by many strong-backed men. Through the forest the biers wove and crossed, first Kamala’s at the fore, then James’, braiding a path like a plait of hair. As they neared the clearing, though, the two platforms came abreast, for here the way was wide and together the lovers were borne along the way of flowers to the glade.
The smell of crushed flowers came to Balat and mingled with the scented oil and the smells of tree and field and sun. Attis walked a circuit about the clearing, his drum resounding, and the procession followed. Behind the biers, the people came, weeping, singing, wailing. The families were openly distraught, tears streaming, faces stricken, while others less close came on somber, quiet. The clearing was filled with the sounds of drum, footsteps and voices, filled with sound and vibration. The feeling there was at once composed and agitated, contained and eruptive. The air was filled with energy.
Once around the clearing and Attis took up a place to one side of the graves, boom ... boom ... boom. The biers were brought to his other side and carefully, carefully, lowered to the ground. Now it could be seen that, yes, there was Kamala and, yes, there was James, lying still atop their beds of flowers. Shrouded in their white wedding robes, they lay like death, unbreathing, unhearing. Kamala’s mother keened with new passion at the sight of her daughter so uncompromisingly gone from her, yet even her voice, raised in anguish, could not rouse the girl.
Boom ... boom ...
The drum ceased and the vacant place where the sound should have been crashed like thunder on the people. They turned, startled, toward Attis but Attis was gone, and instead they were shocked to behold Grace in her priestess’ robe. She stood at the head of the graves, arms outstretched in the dappled morning sun, black and white and crimson flashing. Her face shone with holy devotion, and some people went to their knees while others stared in awe.
“Behold the ones who have gone from us,” Grace commanded in a strong, clear voice. The people obediently looked to the biers. “They are no
more as they were. Gone is the young girl; gone is the boy. The future is what we must look to now. Hear me!” And the people resolutely turned from the biers to Grace, to her image of strong arms held high overhead, to her tall, supple form that pulsed with energy, her magical robe shimmering in the sun.
“Hear me!” she commanded. “The future is change. The future is letting go of what has been and preparing for what will be. It is letting go of our children so that they may have children. It is letting go of our parents so that we may be parents. It is letting go of spring so that autumn can come. It is letting go of day so that night may come.” She paused and looked from face to face in the crowd. “It is letting go of that which we cannot hold; and allowing that which cannot be denied.”
Moving gracefully in the shimmering robe, she walked to a raised spot of ground between the two dark graves.
“Today we will bury our past,” she said tenderly. “Today we will bury that part of us that is no more and from that fresh-turned earth, the future will sprout and grow. This is sad work we do here; but it is also necessary work.”
As if in response, Kamala’s mother cried out again. No one else moved; all eyes were on Grace.
“You do well to cry,” she told the mourning mother softly. “You do well. For your daughter is no more. Look! And she is gone!”
Startled by the sudden command, startled by the abrupt gesture of Grace toward the biers behind them, some people glanced over, gasped, stared, cried out. The biers were empty.
“Gone!” Grace called, and the voice of Kamala’s mother sobbed behind it. “Gone!” And now another—James’ mother—began to cry piteously. “Gone!” And other voices, younger, older, men, women, all began to murmur nervously to one another. There was confusion. A few brave souls went to the biers and peered amid the flowers as if the lost lovers might still be found. Others shifted nervously or tried to comfort the more affected.
“Don’t look for them there,” Grace told the ones who searched the biers. “They are not there.” She drew herself up to her full height and looked down on the people before her. Coldly, mercilessly, she thrust out a hand toward either grave, and pointed. “They are here!”
For a moment, no one moved. Then a man, James’ father, broke from the crowd—from his wife, who clung to him tearfully—and walked slowly to the first grave. The people saw him stop, his back stiff, his shoulders slumped; Grace saw his face twist in anguish. He dropped down before the grave and moaned.
The others edged forward until they too could see. “Look! Look!” the voices said to each other. “Their bodies are here! The bodies! What magic is this?”
“This is no magic but the Goddess’,” Grace intoned over the murmur of the crowd. “This is the face of the Goddess—light and dark, life and death, creation and destruction. This is Her magic, Her will, Her way. This is the form of Her river, in which we all float unknowing, in which we bob and weave and rise up and drop down. We must all do Her bidding.”
The anxiety began to dissipate some, and the people regained most of their composure. The families of the lost lovers took places as close to the respective graves as was personally comfortable for them and settled in to mourn. The women cried softly; the men coughed or shed tears silently.
At a small sign from Grace, several men came forward with shovels and took up places beside the graves. She waited until she felt sure all the mourners had seen the shovels, until all understood what was to come, and they had looked last on their children. Then she signaled again and the first clods of dirt began to shower down on the shrouded figures.
Sweet breaths of flowers exuded from the graves, the fragrance rising and mixing with the sounds of mourning. The sounds and smells were bitter and sweet, dark and light, rain and sun.
Slowly, Grace stepped down from her raised ground and with bowed head addressed the people there. “You do well to mourn,” she repeated softly. “You do well. Be blessed.”
And she disappeared into the forest.
Exhausted, Grace sat with her feet up and Balat brought her invigorating tea. She sipped it gratefully.
“The wedding is easier,” he told her with a smile. “Giving is always easier than taking away.”
“That was difficult,” Grace sighed. “And only symbolic. How much more so to officiate over a real funeral?”
Balat fixed her with a loving but serious, look. “Only symbolic? You know better, Grace. You saw their reactions. Those people have lost their children.”
“Yes, I know,” she agreed quickly, “but not as irrevocably as if they had actually died. That must be very hard.”
“In some ways, yes. But in other ways this is harder, because that woman’s daughter is still alive, yet she will not be the daughter now. Sometimes it’s easier to lose something completely—and accept that—than to lose only partially, and try always to regain it. Either way is painful, but necessary. Either way offers blockage or growth.”
Sipping her tea, Grace agreed. Life went on, regardless. Even for a priestess.
The wedding was three days later in late afternoon. It was the equinox, the day of cosmic balance. All morning the people feasted and played, toasting the couple that now reappeared in their wedding robes, crowned with flowers, radiant with love. For most, the painful symbology of the funeral was past and the day was lively. Only for a few were the new boundaries of new relationships uncomfortable, but in time that, too, would ease. For now, joy was the order of the day.
Although Grace and Balat would not take places at the long feasting tables, food was brought to them at their cabin and they ate well, too. While the people reveled, the two magic ones talked quietly, and when the afternoon was half gone, they prepared for the ceremony. Again Grace donned her priestess robe and again they went early to a prescribed place in the forest.
When the lovers came to stand before Grace, hand in hand, she thought she understood the necessity for the funeral first and why it had so drained her. That morbid ritual had acted to sever all the bonds that once bound this man and woman to others so that now they stood before her free and separate, unchained, radiant. The funeral had, in fact, been for all the people who were left behind, and had demanded all of Grace’s energy to effect the transition; this ceremony today was for this man and this woman only, and by contrast was no drain at all. This was as pleasant as a gift, as simple as a sunrise and every bit as much of a miracle.
“Do you choose,” Grace asked the pair, “to wed each the other on this day?”
“We do,” shyly now.
“James, do you take Kamala to be your wife?” He nodded. “And what would you say to her?”
Nervously, stoically, James turned to Kamala and took both her hands in his. “Kamala.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Kamala, I vow to love you, to honor you and to provide for you always. You are the face of the Goddess to me, and I will accept Her in whatever form you take—wife, lover, mother, crone. You are my life.” Caught up in the passions of his own declarations, James faltered, seemed to remember his audience and flushed shyly. Sure he had said enough, and maybe too much, he finished briskly. “This I vow to you today and always.”
Grace turned to Kamala. “And do you Kamala, take James as your husband?”
“I do.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“And what would you say to him?”
She turned to James and took his hands. “I would say to him,” she began softly, her voice quiet but steady, “that as you see and honor the Goddess in me, so shall I see and honor the Goddess also in you. I will love you in all ways; I will love you in mind, spirit and in body; I will love you with the children we bring forth; I will love you in age and infirmity.” She smiled at him, beaming sweetly. “I look forward with joy to the life that we will create together.”
Grace addressed the crowd. “Kamala and James have thus pledged themselves to each other and thus shall they live from this day forward. As they have spoken, so shall the Goddess bless them and charge
all others to respect these vows and honor this union.” She put one hand on James’ shoulder, one on Kamala’s and for a moment the three were an unbroken circle of light and love and energy. “Be blessed,” she said softly to them, “for you truly are.”
Then, stepping back, she raised her hands to the gather. “In the name of the Goddess, I give you Kamala and James, wife and husband. Do them honor.”
The people went cheerfully crazy. Laughter rang out and good wishes were shouted across the glade. Kamala and James were both scooped up and touted about on broad shoulders and everywhere people danced and sang and clapped and cheered. The forest was bedlam.
Grace watched only for a small moment, then quietly slipped away to toss on her drab robe so that she and Balat could walk unseen to their home. Later, she thought, in everyday clothes they might go and join in the feasting, but not yet. For right now she wanted only quiet and peace and companionable isolation. She wanted to rest and integrate these new roles into her sense of self. She had learned much in these last days, and had grown to meet it all; now she wanted to rest and be balanced.
On the way back to the cabin, she sent a prayer of thanks soaring up through the trees.
CHAPTER 15
Although that summer was hot, it was not so hot as some feared it might be and the crops did well as long as they were watered. The prevailing feeling in the colony was joyful contentment and gratitude. Most felt their colony was truly blessed; what other place had such wondrous gifts—two capable magicians, good harvest, good health, balanced relationships and harmonious families? Some wondered if there was even a need for the mythical, prophesied Sibling; what more could such a one do for them? To ask more would be silly.
Unfortunately, Grace did not share their contentment. She was amiable enough with Balat and those people she talked with and her days were quiet and restful. Outwardly her life was as effortless and enjoyable as the others’, but inwardly she chafed.
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