Marei - book one. Part Two: Initiation. Chapter 5

John made the journey up the hill every other week at first, then once a moon. On his next trip up, he was accompanied by his equally large wife, Ursa, and their strapping son, Small John who was easily as tall as I was and only seven years old. This time he and Ursa were pulling a wagon loaded with grains, flour, sugar, salt, yards of sturdy fabric, and the carcasses of several rabbits and a deer John had butchered for me. He had already skinned and cleaned them, but had brought them to me for smoking in a small shed behind the house, near where the chickens roosted.

The Woodsman family stayed for almost a week as they helped me prepare for the upcoming winter. While John strung up the animals in the smoke house and showed me how to care for them as they cured during the day, Ursa checked the stocks of the house and nightly showed me how to turn the warmer fabrics into sturdy clothes I could wear in the winter to tend the animals and fetch water.

I had grown since I had left home and the traveling clothes had become short of leg and tight at the waist. Together we cut and sewed double layered pants and a long sleeved shirt out of the sturdy woolen fabrics. To my delight, the fabric she brought had been died robin’s egg blue and as it became actual clothes, I was so pleased with its construction that I would hold it up against me, just waiting until I could try it on, and wear it during my chores instead of the clothes I still had from my journey.

She had also brought a piece of soft woven cloth whose threads had been patterned as they were woven, making stripes of blue, green, brown and yellow like the tartans of the people of the valley. This she helped me cut into a sleeping dress and loose fitting pants with an ingenious draw string at the waist that would keep me warmer while sleeping than the soft but fine linen night gowns I had been wearing.

John had tanned the rabbit pelts and together he and I cut slippers from the fur that would keep my feet warm inside the house, but allow me to remove my boots when I entered the building so the floors would stay dry. He cut, split and stacked wood while Ursa and I stored the grains and perishables in large lidded earthenware pots below the shelves in the kitchen.

At night, we would all sit at the table by the fireplace and sing everything we could think of. I would bring out an assortment of the instruments from the magick room and in the warmth of the fire’s heat we would drum and sometimes John and Ursa would dance a wild rollicking reel in the small kitchen.

Having them in the house with me was more than just a necessity for winter’s preparations; it was a pleasure. They were all boisterous, loud, full of good humor and easy to laugh. While they were there I felt safe and well loved, though they had all three been strangers not a fortnight ago.

When it came time for them to leave, tears were shed on all sides. Ursa and I hugged tightly and she reminded me that should I need them, all I had to do was toss that powder John had shown me on the fire and he would be up the hill as fast as his feet could carry him. Little John had picked me a bouquet of almost dead wild flowers and I put it carefully in a jar on the kitchen table. John checked and double checked the wood supplies, the smoke house and the animals before he reluctantly decided I would be fine on my own. After another of his bone crushing bear hugs, I was on my own again, in the strangely quiet house.

Days at the House on the Hill became satisfyingly routined. Every morning I would wake just after sunrise when the one rooster would crow for what seemed like an hour. Breakfast was oat meal or leftover bread and eggs from the previous day. I would stoke the fire and start a new loaf of bread to rise before I ventured out into the chilled air to milk Troll-bait. I had discovered that bringing her the remains of the previous night’s dinner would keep her docile and even friendly when I was milking her. When I brought in the milk, I would knead the bread and shape it for baking.

Then I would venture into the chicken coop, bringing with me a bowl of grain to toss, and collect the eggs from the nests while they clucked and pecked on the floor. I would sit quietly and drink tea when I brought the eggs in, and wait as the bread would bake in the oven nooks built into the sides of the fire place. This bit of solitude was something I loved – it was a great luxury to do nothing but drink tea and smell bread baking and every morning I would give thanks that I had such a fine life.

As the sun rose, in the few weeks before and after the frost that did come with the new moon as I had assumed, I would harvest the prolific garden and prepare, dry, or store the vegetables to be used later that winter when the ground was frozen and the plants long dead from the cold. I would lug water as it was needed and then lunch and nap.

After I woke in the early afternoon I would spend time cleaning – washing the floors once a week, washing and drying what few clothes I had to wear, chopping and lugging wood, and carefully repairing anything I found that might mean a colder winter for me; missing tiles from the roof, tears in the oiled paper windows, cracks between the cord wood walls.

And in the evenings, I was free to do what ever my mind decided would be interesting. Many evenings I spent in the magick room, carefully testing each of the musical instruments and drumming and chanting the few songs I knew for hours on end. The peace I felt when I was in the middle of an endless round of songs was enough to make my heart feel as if it would burst. I taught myself to play a few of the different flutes and learned some of the simpler tunes I had heard in my parent’s village. Then, when I got bored with the few songs I knew, I would just let the muse move my fingers and play whatever came out.

Other evenings I would sit by the fireplace and stitch new clothes for myself from the other simple fabrics Ursa had picked out for me. One of the lengths of cloth was dyed pale yellow and finely woven. It was far too light weight to be of use to me in the upcoming winter, but when I rubbed the silky material between my fingers, I could imagine wearing it in the summer sun.

One evening I drew up my courage and entered Grandmother’s bed room. Taking the dresses one by one down from the antler hangers, I tried each of them on to see how they fit, and how I thought they looked on my slight frame. Then choosing the slightly wide sleeves from one dress, the low pointed waist line of another, and the square cut bodice of a third, I carefully spent several nights folding and marking the pale yellow fabric until, finally, I cut and pinned it together.

Holding up the pinned dress, I turned it around and around, tugging at a seam here, moving a pin there, until I was satisfied with how it looked. It took me several weeks of careful sewing, but when I was done, I had a lovely summer dress that I had not only sewn, but designed myself. John had hung the antlers from the deer he shot for me on my bedroom wall and I proudly hung my summer dress from one of the points to await warmer weather.

Alone in the House on the Hill, as the Autumn drew to a close, I was happy.

The full moon was on the rise and I had already seen one frost so I knew that the final harvest festival would be coming soon, and that the veil would thin to the point of breaking when the moon reached its highest point. Commonly this was a time I loved – dancing and music went on late into the night during the festival at home. Seers were called on to divine for the future – next year’s crops, the names of lovers to come, how many children a young girl could expect as a mother. Children played games in the streets and disguised themselves to look like the fey, hoping to catch a glimpse of a faerie or a ghost. Specially made candles would burn all night, commemorating the lives of loved ones who had passed to the other side and people would stretch their hearts and minds trying once more to hear the voices of the dead.

This was not a sad time, nor one of fright. True, there were spirits who intended mischief and even, though rarely, harm to those still of the living. But those were few and far between and for my people this was a time of remembering those we loved, and rejoicing at what they had done during life.

As the full moon drew closer, I began to feel the first pangs of loneliness without a family to celebrate with. I thought of heading down the hill to find the Woodsman family and celebrate with them, but I knew I could not leave the House untended with the animals waiting to be milked and fed, and this did not in my mind constitute enough of an emergency to warrant tossing the powder on the fire. Instead, I busied myself with the preparations for a celebration of my own.

I baked traditional bannok bread, shaped like crescents to symbolize how death harvests us all, just as we harvest the crops in the season of close. I took all of the tiny remains of the house candles and melted them down, pouring the liquid wax into a bowl of dirt to create a new candle. The dirt acted as a mold and created a bowl shaped candle with the sandy loam stuck decoratively to the outside of the wax. This candle, made from the ends of those that had come before would represent how we are all continuously made from those that come before, and remind me not only that there is no beginning and no end to life, but to be thrifty in my consumption during the long winter months ahead.

I had already decided that I would use fresh eggs for the divination method, as I had no other method that I was familiar with, so as the sun rose from the black night on the morning of Samhain I walked barefooted into the yard to collect the eggs.

The chickens were all still sleeping; the rooster had yet to notice the sun and sing out to the morning. Quietly I reached beneath the warm feathered bodies and gathered the eggs they had laid the night before. Carrying them in the fur lined basket, I hurried to the small stone bench in front of the garden and set the basket down next to the dark glazed bowl I had laid out the night before. As the sun crested and shined its first rays onto the yard, I cracked open one of the eggs and let it drop from arms height above the bowl.

Red melded with the yellow yolk and clear, runny whites. A blood clot spun in the bowl when I swirled it; this egg had been fertilized by the rooster and had started to live. With a shiver that was not from the cold, I cracked open a second egg. This time when I pulled it apart, the shell shattered in my hand and a myriad of pieces fell into the bowl with the bloodied yolk. I felt as if time was standing still as I looked down into the dark bowl. The bloody yolks leered up at me ominously – a sign of death, or injury. The shards of shell were markers of something broken, something irreparable. Again I shivered and knocked the bowl onto the grass, spilling the eggs onto the still frosty grass.

I picked up the bowl and shook the last of the augury from it. I was the only person here – it could only be a sign that ill was to befall me, and soon. Hurriedly I rinsed out the bowl and dumped the water onto the grass. I brought the rest of the eggs into the house and carefully cracked them all to see if the rooster had gotten at an entire morning’s eggs, or if it was truly a sign. Ominously, the remaining eggs had no blood in the yolk, only bright cheerful yellow. In defiance, I cooked them up and ate them, though my stomach was nervously tied in knots and for once I did not enjoy a single bite.

I was wary and watchful the entire day; placing my feet carefully on the path when I went on my daily walk to the well for water, cautiously pushing the fire’s coals far into the back of the fire place, jumping at every shadow that moved until I could identify what had caused the motion. I kept my regular daily schedule and after I had finished the morning chores and my lunch, I lay down for my mid afternoon nap.

As I rolled from my back to my stomach I could not get comfortable. My stomach felt tender, as if I were bruised and I pulled back the covers and my sleep dress to see if I had indeed bruised my abdomen as it felt. When I saw no marks, I felt that same chill creep over me. Deciding that ignoring it was the best course of action for now, I curled onto my side, tight in a ball, which seemed to alleviate some of the tenderness.

Now though, cramps rolled through me as if I had eaten something unhealthy and had to suffer the consequences with frequent visits to the out house. Questioning what I might have eaten that was out of the ordinary in the last few days, I slipped on my boots and visited the out house, but found that no amount of sitting or waiting in the chilly air would make the cramps stop. I returned to the house and to my warm bed, determined that even if I could not sleep, I would at least lie in bed and relax during the time I was usually napping.

Eventually I did sleep, and when I woke up, the cramps had lessened until I just felt sore and tired, as if I had lugged too much wood the night before. I stood to again visit the out house and felt a warm wetness between my legs. Embarrassed that at my age I could have an accident when I was sleeping I looked down at the bed and the world stood still.

There was blood on the bed, a bright red patch where I was sleeping that was drying rapidly to brown. My legs were slick with liquid and though I feared to look down at myself, I forced myself to see. The night dress was stained crimson at the center and wet, sticking to my legs. My heart hammered in my chest and for a moment the room spun. I thought I would fall so I sat down on the bed and when I did, I could feel a slow but steady trickle of liquid coming from the area between my legs where I would urinate. But why would I be bleeding?

I began to cry, afraid of dying on the day of the dead, alone. Pulling myself up off the bed, I went to the kitchen and took down the jar of whitish powder that John said would call him as fast as he could go. Being lonely hadn’t been enough of an emergency when I thought about it earlier, but bleeding from inside was certainly something worthy of help.

I threw extra wood on the fire, and when it was brightly ablaze, I threw a hand full of the powder on the fire. Immediately, bluish smoke began to billow up the chimney and some seeped out of the fireplace and into my eyes, making me cry with more than fear. I was afraid to sit, afraid to sleep again, though I felt tired, in case I would drift to the other side while I was dreaming. I paced back and forth across the room while I waited, hoping that John had seen the smoke and was even now rushing up the hill to save me from bleeding to death.

Not long after I had sent up the signal, I heard the sounds of a horse’s hooves on the hard packed earth and throwing the front door open, I ran outside in my bloody night gown towards the path where John always came out of the woods.

He was riding at a break neck pace up the hill on a fine brown horse that was large enough so that it did not look dwarfed by his largeness. As he crested the hill and came through the woods into the clearing surrounding the House, he jumped from the horse and raced towards me, eyeing my bloody dress wildly. Without a word, he scooped me up like a child in his arms and raced for the house, slamming the door behind him before he set me down next to the fireplace.

He had a long sword in a scabbard at his left hip and he drew it fluently in one motion as he stalked through the house, throwing open each of the curtains and peering inside the rooms before returning to me, with sword still in hand.

“What is it, girl? Has someone hurt you? Have you cut yourself? Tell me now, for wearing blood and calling me from my celebrations is needing an explanation, and quick.”

Briefly, around frightened sobs, I told him what little I knew, of the augury from the morning and of the cramps and the blood. That I hadn’t cut myself and that there had been no one here to harm me and ended in a wail of desperation and fear.

While I had been talking, John had lowered his blade and then sheathed it again. When I had finished talking and begun to sob in earnest, he pulled me close to him in a hug that was far gentler than any other I had received from him and smoothed my hair soothingly.

“You poor thing. No one’s told you about your moon yet?” I shook my head and wiped my eyes and nose on my now stained night gown. “Well you’re not dying, lass. And you’re not injured. But you are bleeding and you need to have some help and someone who can talk to you with better words than I will have. I’ll send Ursa up to you.” He wiped the tears from my face with his big thumbs and smiled at me.

“Get one of those rabbit pelts that we didn’t cut into slippers and wear that on the wound for now, until Ursa can get to you. And if you soak that dress in some cold water, the blood’ll come right out. I’ll go fetch some water for you to have a bath and give you some privacy while you clean yourself up.” He slipped red faced out the front door with the yoke and buckets and left me standing confused in the kitchen.

In a daze, I decided that I should follow his advice, removed the soiled night dress and dumped it in a heap on the floor. I cut a square from the towel and soaked it in the semi warm water in the tea pot then used it to wash the blood from my legs and bottom. I tucked a strip of the rabbit fur between my legs to soak up the blood from the wound I could not see and put on a clean gown. I pulled the bloodied blanket from my bed and dumped it too onto the growing pile of soiled fabrics. A bucket I used for the food scraps I fed the goat and the chickens was mostly empty, so I dumped the remains onto the table and filled it with cold water from the rain cistern outside the front door. John had said that soaking the stained clothes in cold water would get the blood out, so I carefully immersed the pile and let it soak until I saw him returning with the buckets of water.

I held open the door for him and he dumped both buckets of water into the suspended pan. Then, kissing me on the forehead as if I were his daughter, he put a finger under my chin. “Don’t worry, lass. What has happened to you is what happens to every woman, sooner or later. I’ll send Ursa up to you to explain it just as soon as I reach my home. Don’t be afraid. Make some tea, and try to relax while you wait for her to get here. She’ll be up just as soon as I can get to her.”

He hugged me again and squeezed his large frame out the door. Mounting his horse, he waved cheerily at me and trotted away down the path to his house. I still could not think of my own accord, so I let John’s words be my guide and set about to make some tea. When it had steeped to a warm reddish brown color in the pot, I poured out a mug for myself and sat down at the table to wait for Ursa.