Almost everyone experiences moments in their life when they feel 'out of touch' or 'not quite with it'. Most don't grow up with a deep and abiding belief that there is something wrong....something deeply twisted about their life. That there must be some dark and sinister secret dating back to their birth, and a driving need to know what it is.
As I stood in the drizzling rain over my mother's grave I was aware that the need to know would never be fulfilled now. The last person capable of telling me the truth of the matter was being buried today. I can't say I felt grief, more of a cold and sullen rage that when she died, she took the secret with her to the grave. I know as the rain dripped from my nose and chin that those around me believed I wept, but the truth was revealed in my rigid posture and tightly clenched fists. I wore black, not in mourning but by preference -- it suited me, not just off setting the wild tangle of my curling black hair and the green fire of the eyes that reflected back at me in the glass, the cream of skin so fair and fine you could watch the blood course through my veins. Black suited my moods. I preferred the night to the day, shadows to brightness and quiet to loud and boisterous celebrations.
I would have to deal with a loud and boisterous celebration of sorts today however. My mother's wake would follow the burial with food and drink in abundance. There would be loud weeping and wailing from many who professed to know and love her, and tales of her youth and good natured gentleness. They didn't know her at all to think this. A more acid and poisonous tongue never spat from serpent lips. She was an evil bitch who delighted in keeping her youngest child and only daughter as slave to her whims and her temper.
In rare moments alone as a child I'd been convinced that fairies had left me on her doorstep. I looked nothing like her or my brothers or like the small watercolor of our sire that hung by the fire. She was fair and father was ruddy, while I was small and dark, a child of the shadows with strange ways and strange desires.
I knew things you see. Things I couldn't know...except I did. I saw strange lights and colors surrounding folk and knew them as good natured or bullies or worse. On that fair summer day, with no cloud in the sky and the sun beating hot on the earth, I clung to my brother Micah crying, pleading with him not to go to fish. He laughed at my fears and told me he'd bring me a fat red salmon all for myself. In the middle of that afternoon the sky turned black and trees thrashed the sky. The wind whipped the waves into white foaming mountains and Micah's boat never returned with my fat red salmon.
People began to look sideways at me then, especially when mother began nosing it about that I'd cursed Micah's boat into sinking in the storm. Four boats went missing in that great storm, but I loved my brother Micah. His was the only one I'd seen with torn sails wafting gently with the tides, deep beneath the sea. And when I cried over Mordecai's fat bonny wife's babe hung from the gallows tree, people made the sign against evil behind their backs. Ruta prayed to the old gods and went to the friar as well for a blessing. But her son was born with the cord round his neck and I stopped going to town, except when mother demanded.
I was happier in the woods and meadows. I watched the animals and listened to the tales the trees told me. I learned about the flowers and roots and grasses. What could help heal a soul, and what could hinder one. Mother whined and raged and spat foul words when I mixed strange flavors into our soups and stews. I'd have stayed my hand if I'd wanted her dead sooner. She had no knowledge that it was my herbs and bits that kept her strong and vital with many of her own teeth, far past the time when her siblings had gone to their own rest.
I hated her -- and loved her too. She was, after all, my mother. Real or not, the only mother I'd ever known and I spent many years trying vainly to win her love and approval. And now she was gone along with my last hope of learning what, if any truth lay hidden by my birth. And I was alone in the world. As much as she'd hated me, she'd kept me close by and protected me. I was virgin still, though I knew much of the ways of men and women. I was small, and dark, and quiet -- no one noticed when I was near, and I could watch.
It puzzled me. Although the men all seemed to universally desire the union with a woman, and enjoy the process, the end result seemed to cause them pain. And their brains drained from their heads when their cocks stood hard. Even my brothers turned into smiling, simpering apes when a girl lifted her skirts for them. But the girls...I had no idea what they did or why. They did not seem to enjoy much of the act, but seemed somehow resigned. A few others seemed to think it was a funny game to play against a man until such time as he could be 'caught'. I did not think any of the women involved derived any amount of pleasure from men, based on the solitary activities I observed them at. I was in no rush to find out.
I was right about the wake. The weeping and wailing made my head ache and the noise and smoke from too many pipes made me feel ill. I crept out and away until the trees blocked the light and noise and the slow rain cleared my head.
If I was honest with myself, and I had no one else to be honest with, the noise and smoke weren't the only cause of my pain and ill feeling. I had nowhere to go where I was wanted. Mordecai, as the oldest, would get the house and the bit of land. He might have taken me in out of pity, but after I saw and spoke of the death of his son in the womb -- well, his wife was certainly no friend of mine.
I kept walking and wandering. I might as well. There was nothing to go back to. I had some dried herbs and bottles of tinctures, but those were easy enough to replace I mused. Assuming I could find somewhere warm and dry to rest, and perhaps to stay. A light wind began to murmur through the trees and a creeping fog nosed around my skirts like a lonely cat. There would be frost by morning. I had only the damp shawl I was wearing to keep me warm, I had to find shelter.
In the distance a lone wolf howled mournfully. One more danger, and one more reason to find shelter quickly. I felt in the pockets of my apron. I had some small coins, mostly brass and copper, saved from market trips. Like most women I carried fire-striker, tinder (now mostly damp as well), a horn cup and spoon for eating and a wooden spoon for cooking. Not that I had anything to cook...or a pot to cook it in.
A twig cracked suddenly in the wet silence of the night woods. I turned my head only slightly, trying to look from the corner of my eyes as Micah had taught me to look. A shadow moved against the night. Damnation, the biggest wolf I'd ever seen moved to my right, it's eyes flashed ghostly green in the dimness. I wandered to the left, slightly faster but not running enough to draw attention as prey.
The fog thickened even as the drizzle abated. The wind seemed to have started murmuring my name, soft and low...Moya....the breeze seemed to whisper it back and forth among the branches. Starting low and soft but rising to a strong note, the wolf howled again, from my rear. I picked up my pace again, not quite trotting forward, driven by my fear of the hungry maw behind me.
Moya, I huffed with a snort of steam. The name was both clue and insult. We were all named with an M after our sire Malaky -- my brothers Micah and Mordecai and little Matthew who died young and was buried next to our mother and father. Holy names blessed by the friar and read from his book. But for me there was no holy name, no priestly blessing. Moya was a name from the old times. In the old tongue it meant 'bitter'.
Yes, I suppose I was bitter in fact. My life was sham, my name was curse and I was homeless. Who wouldn't be bitter I thought. Lest I forget, the wolf sounded off again, behind me and slightly to my left this time. Yes, and being toyed with by an enormous wolf bent on having me for dinner. No reason to be bitter at all, I cursed cheerlessly.
And now I seemed to be feverish. I was hallucinating or dreaming or...certainly seeing things. There was light ahead of me. We were deep in the dark heart of the forest, but I was seeing the flickering light of fire ahead. I headed for it as a drowning man reaches for light and air, and as if to spur me on, the wolf howled again.
