Rien

Breaking up my writer's block a bit here....

He told me to write this story. I argued that I’m no scribe, I barely know my letters, but he keeps telling me that this story deserves to be told, and he is even less a scribe than I am.

“That’s poor excuse,” I say.

He simply grins in that odd way he has, and I know I’m at a dead end. I have yet to figure out what goes on in that head of his, but I am in no hurry – no doubt much of it is addled nonsense.

The truth is, I do not know how to write an epic as the monks and scholars in Lunden do . But I do remember, and so I will write it as I remember it.

*

My name is Maria.

I was born and raised in the Lakus Forest, which stands a little ways from a small town known as Laktown. How and why the town came into existence is something only the scholars in the City know, but I do know that throughout its long history, our family had always lived separate from it. It is said that when we first came to the forest, it reminded them so much of their old country that they built a cottage and settled down right there and then. The men have always been woodsmen or carpenters, going into the town only occasionally to trade their goods or talk with friends. Any sons born in our family, with a few exceptions, have stayed in the forest, while most of the daughters left when they reached adulthood, to go find husbands and make their way in the world. I can understand - the cottage is small, and (according to my father’s philosophy, which my mother never liked hearing) women have ‘wandering hearts’. They grow restless, and go where their heart says to go – which, more often than not, lies beyond our forest.

My mother herself left a long family tradition – she used to always tell of how her family lived in a big, ancient house that stood on top of the hill, and there was a magnificent dog kennel that she always loved to visit when she was little. My mother adores dogs, and we always had at least one sleeping in front of the fire in our home.

When she was old enough, she visited the nearby city with her mother, and there she met my father. He was a very young man at the time, and very handsome, from my mother’s description. Father was in the city because he had grown restless of life in his family home, and decided to see what else the world had to offer. “I was homesick the first week out,” he told us. “A year later, I wanted nothing more than to return home.”

As a matter of fact, he was only a week away from leaving when he met Mother. They only caught a glimpse of each other in the street that first time, but Father was immediately entranced. Truth be told, my mother is no beauty – her looks are plain, with thin red hair and many, many freckles, but my father always said that it was her smile that caught him. My mother has the loveliest smile – it makes her face shine with her happiness, and she looks like a goddess.

My mother, on the other hand, did not think too much of the poor boy in a patched shirt and trousers standing in the street in the thick crowd, and did not think of him again until weeks later, when she was walking through the city with her mother and she saw him once again. He recognized her and, thinking quickly, bought a flower from a nearby stand, and stepped out in front of her. “Penny for a poppy, miss?” he asked.

Startled, Mother could do nothing but stand there, staring at him in bewilderment. Then, coming to her senses, she pulled a penny out of her purse and bought the poppy.

After that, they saw more and more of each other, and my mother found more and more excuses to go out with her mother. Oddly enough, her mother never suspected them, which was probably God working in their favor. The night before they were supposed to return to the big house on the hill, my mother and father ran away, and were wed in a quiet little church on the fringes of the city before traveling to Lakus Forest

My parents loved to tell this story. I, being a terribly practical child, found it somewhat unnerving. “How long did you know each other?” I would always ask.

“Three months,” they would always answer.

“Why only three months? Why didn’t you wait, to see if one of was mean or lazy?” I would ask next.

They always laughed at this point. “We were little idiots, right enough,” Father said. “I suppose there would’ve been a way…..but we were too impatient. We wanted what we wanted, and we wanted it right then.”

“What if Father hit you? What if Mother was of bad temper?”

Mother would smile. “Truly, we should have thought of that. Bern,” she turned to Father, “I would assume you will never hit me?”

“And Selene, I certainly hope you will never develop bad temper.” My father said, quite seriously.

I would give up when we came to this – there was no point in continuing. My parents teased their children mercilessly, and I hated to be teased.

The story I most liked to hear was about myself. What child doesn’t like to hear good things about themselves? My mother would always start with the weather – “It was a heavy snowstorm, and your father was worried about food. We had plenty of wood – we’d chopped half the forest down to fill our winter pile. The fire was going in the fireplace, and it was very warm. The wind was howling at the window as though it were determined to tear our house down, but this house has seen so many snowstorms that it barely squeaked.”

There is another of my parents’ odder traits – they always talked about the cottage as though it were a living thing.

“I was in the bedroom, pushing and heaving for all I was worth,” Mother went on ( I grimaced when she talked of this) -“Your father was pacing, trying to think of what to do. Poor boy – he had no idea what to about babies. We had called for the midwife, but that was before the storm came. We were sure that she would not be able to make it through the snow.”

“But she did.” I interjected.

“Yes, indeed she did.” Mother said, grinning. “There came a loud knocking at the door, and your poor father, thinking it was the wolves come to eat us, went to see who it was. And there, blessed be her name, was midwife Vaina, with her long curls all a-tumbling about her face and her eyes like fire.” Mother’s face would light up at this memory. Vaina had died of sickness when I was three years old, but she had been very close with Mother – she had been the only townsmen who came to welcome her when Mother arrived with my father at the cottage.

“She came in, and suddenly everything was under her command,” Mother said. “I swear, she could order the fire to light itself, and it would do it. She came into the bedroom, and before I knew it, I was holding you in my arms.”

Her grey eyes became misty, and she absently reached out to clasp my hand. “You were so beautiful. Vaina, she looked at you and said that you were for certain a winter child – the way your skin was so pale and hair so black and curly. And you had the bluest eyes – they looked up at me, all big and round and curious about what was going on. Only an hour old, and you were up and awake. I’ve heard tell that most babes don’t do much seeing in their first months, but you were different – you looked at everything, and I swear you wanted to touch everything. You would always reach out your fat little hands to brush against my hair, or the bedcovers, or the floor.…..”

I sighed. My eyes were no longer blue, but boring brown – a loss that I always grieved deeply as a child. It was my firm belief that blue eyes were the most beautiful sort of eyes you could have.

My curiosity, though, did not go away. When I could walk, I would follow my mother around the house, watching her cook and clean and asking questions about everything little thing she did. Fortunately, she liked answering questions, and I was never so curious as to do anything dangerous, such as sticking my hand in the fire to see how it felt.

No, that was what my brothers did. After me, there came three boys – Josef, one year younger, and then Tomas and Martin, who were three years younger than me and two years apart from each other, but who spent so much time together that they might as well have been twins.

Josef had the same curiosity, but was far more restless, driving my mother mad with his ventures through the chimney and in the cellar and (when he was older) out in the woods. He could never sit still, and was always annoying me with his prodding and teasing.

The two younger boys were the opposite of what you might expect. They were both very quiet and shy, and liked to help Mother with the housework. They were eager to learn their letters and sums (which Mother insisted on teaching us), and did very well at it. They invented games with the numbers, and would make up words and letters and write notes in the dirt outside. We had very few books in our house – I believe there was only three – but they would read them all the time, going over them again when they were finished and never tiring of reading the same story.

Sestina

How long, I wondered, will I wait
for broods to gather round my legs
and I’ll have feed. Every dry mouth
will fill for ripening cheeks. I glean
from spare fields, following, with two
shallow baskets. My hands are old.

At ten I fancied to be old
enough to take my own train, wait
by myself on benches. With two
more years to run on young spring legs
I fished like mad and scrapped to glean
sweet, white flakes for my greedy mouth.

When I first shut my parching mouth
against the dust that made me old
I watched a grey crow scratch and glean
for moldy bread. I thought to wait
to see if it would beak my legs
and try to find a crumb or two.

Then ants came marching two by two
across my prickling, salty mouth.
I swallowed, tried to bend my legs
and run to catch up with the old
-est, brownest boy. He couldn’t wait
for me to bend my back and glean.

When Marchest days brought winds that gleaned
a tree branch of its pear or two,
I thought to ask my love to wait
while I found seeds and crammed my mouth
and prayed for fruit before I’m old
enough to trip on tottering legs.

The grass still cut my blue-skinned legs
before I knelt with shears to glean
as stars crept out. The moon was old
and almost full. I wished for two
more pomegranates. Watch this mouth
shake, catching flakes. And still I wait.

The wheat grows old as I try two
crumbs and cross my legs. The crows glean
for worms. I press my mouth and wait.

The Long Journey (more or less), Part 2

I've decided to go with the Nancy Farmer Method of Writing: just keep writing the story until you get to the end, and THEN go back and fix things. I will be taking notes as I go along, of course, so suggestions would be appreciated.

The loading took a few hours – Gehnn’s arms ached badly by the time they were done. It wasn’t a bad sort of ache, though, she decided. It was rather refreshing, doing some heavy work after all that time she had spent doing nothing but walking.

During the loading, Gehnn found out that, besides herself, there were only five other workers – three men and two women. Out of everyone, she was the only one working for passage rather than pay. There wasn’t much chance for formal introductions while they worked, passing each other on the way to and from the caravan. Some glanced at her, maybe handed her another crate, but for the most part, they paid her no attention.

When the sun was starting to set, the last crate was put into the cart, and Mr. Tummett set up the camp stove beside the caravan. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow,” he informed them, hauling out a couple of empty barrels to serve as seats around the stove. “A little after dawn, I’d say.”

“That’s over schedule, isn’t it?” one of the men said, seating himself on one of the barrels.”You said early on that it would be this evening.” He was about Mr. Tummett’s age (perhaps in his mid thirties), and he gave the impression of being more familiar with the caravan than the rest of the hired workers.

“Well, they can have speed or they can have whole goods.” Mr. Tummett said, sitting on the barrel beside him. “They can whine all they want about it, they’ll still pay for it.”

He turned to the rest of them, all standing silent at the edge of the camp. “We didn’t make a stove fire for gawking. Pull yourselves a seat, for Lord’s sake, we gotta get to know each other better if we’re going to be traveling all that way.”

Awkwardly, they seated themselves on the remaining barrels or sat on the ground. Gehnn sat a little away from the others, legs curled up and head bowed. Mr. Tummett raised his voice.

“All righty, then, since I hired all o’ you separate, we’ll have to go ‘round and tell our names. Just to get familiar with faces, you understand – gotta know names and faces if you’re going to work together over this week.”

Some of them rolled their eyes at this – they just came for work, not to make friends – but since there was some logic to this, and because he was the caravan master who determined their pay, they grudgingly complied.

They started with the man next to Mr. Tummett. “I’m Logan Flatts.” he said. “Come from Port Poskall. That’s about it.”

They all nodded, and went to the man next to him. He was younger than him, sort of short and weedy looking, with a surly sort of expression that didn’t look like it ever came off his face. “Hyram Felps.” he said shortly. “Port Poskall.”

Next - a stocky woman with dark hair and skin, who looked like she could take the head off of a boar without blinking. “My name is Lissan Zzirrissk,” she said, with a trilling, slithery accent. “I come from Samare.”

Gehnn stiffened, fingers closing protectively over her shoulders.

They went on to the last man – a middle-aged, burly sort with a thick mustache that he stroked as he talked. “Stephan Smith. I’m from Port Corsellis.”

“Oh, that’s me as well!” the woman sitting next exclaimed.

They all turned to her.

She was the youngest of the group, besides Gehnn, who thought that she was maybe only a few years older than herself. She was very tall, with long arms and legs that had muscles that rivaled Lissan Zzirrissk’s, and wore a sleeveless shirt that displayed the swirling black and blue tattoos that covered her arms and shoulders. It was hard to tell in the stove’s light, but they looked like designs of oceans and fish, the sort of which Gehnn had seen pictures. Her hair was dark blonde, and cut at neck-length, mostly covered with a striped maroon-and-navy kerchief. She wore dirt-stained pants and worn, heavy boots, and the way she held herself spoke of someone who did not care how people looked at her. Most noticeable, at least to Gehnn, were her piercings – thin silver rings spiraling through her ears, studs running down her earlobes, three rings in one eyebrow. Just seeing them made Gehnn’s face hurt.

“I’m Yul Blunt,” the young woman said, raising an arm. “I’m also from Port Corsellis. Born and raised. Unlike you, I’d say.” she eyed the man sitting next to her. “Where’re your silvers, man? Where’s your marks? Were you too wuss to get them or what?”

Stephan Smith looked quite startled by this affront, and no less angry. “What-“

“Moving on!” Mr. Tummett interjected. He looked at Gehnn. “All right, what’s your name, then?”

Feeling all eyes on her, Gehnn shifted uncomfortably. “Um….I’m Gehnn.” she said, quavering. “And…and I’m f-from….down south.”

There was a little silence after this, as they all looked at her curiously. She shrank back, pulling her hood lower over her face and staring at her legs.

“Well!” Mr. Tummett clapped his hands, making them all jump. “That’s all settled, then! So now - DINNER!”

And just like that, he whipped out a burlap sack and handed out bowls and spoons, which they took with some bemusement. He then took out a large can, cut it open, and set it on the stove, shoving a dipper in as well.

“The fare’s not so good tonight, I’m afraid, just some preserves, but that’s all I got time to feed you.” He said, spoon some of the now- steaming stew into his bowl.