Dialogue With Donkey’s
Enchanteur and her favourite donkey, Purdie, do not seem to be phased by much at the moment.
They are relaxing, waiting, settled in a simple room at the House of the Serpents. Ravens have been flying back and forth keeping E informed about the whereabouts of everyone.
Heather Blakey May 2009
Francesca Let’s Go
“I am so afraid,” Francesca said as she ran her fingers slowly through the tuft of fur between Maya’s ears, her bright crimson nails visible through the dull grey. Francesca could tell Maya was wise and that this was not her first journey down Serpentine Road, but still she could not stop the anxiety that was filling her mind with dread.
“I will protect you,” Maya said, gently, trying to ease Francesca’s fear.
“Why do I always think of the worst possible scenario?” Francesca questioned – more to herself than to Maya.
The sky was glowing with swirls of pink and orange, the blue barely visible as the sun began to set. The clouds were smudged thin, lacy over the burgeoning colors. The journey was going slowly for Francesca. She was so unsure of herself that she could not make even the smallest decisions. A fork in the road kept her busy for hours as she created stories of disaster for each path before her. She was paralyzed by her lack of self-confidence, but Maya stood patiently beside her knowing Francesca must find her own way or have the courage to ask for help.
“I should never have left the Abbey,” Francesca said, “I should have never let Sarah talk me in to this. I just wasn’t ready.”
Maya led Francesca to a lake hidden beyond the lush green trees. It glittered with the last remnants of the sun and Francesca had a sudden urge to jump in. Maya stood at the edge and drank from the clear, pure water. The sound of rushing water falling endlessly from the rocks above drifted through the silent air. Francesca slowly removed her clothes and stretched her body towards the darkening sky and a feeling spread through her that she had never felt before.
She slowly inched the tips of her toes towards the water wanting to get a feel for the temperature before entering. It was warm and cool at the same time. It was a new sensation and she could no longer wait for it to embrace her skin. She slipped into the water, her footing unsure on the slick, black rocks. She paused under the waterfall and let its healing powers flow through her.
Francesca emerged a new woman. She stood on the edge of the lake refreshed and renewed.
“I’m ready now, Maya,” she said, “Thank you for being so patient with me. I am going to need your help, knowledge, and guidance if I am going to make it to the House of Serpents. Will you help me?”
“Oh Francesca, I have only been waiting for you to ask,” Maya replied, “We will begin in the morning. You have much to learn my child, but I am here to guide you through whatever may come your way.”
Francesca curled next to Maya that night letting Maya’s breaths lure her to sleep knowing that she could handle whatever came her way with Maya by her side.
Uncetrys The Donkey
I am always the last to know anything. I am always on the fringes of everything. To be honest, I do live in my own little world and I follow my own things, which usually do not include a great many others. I have my outside sources of information, but they are few and far between, and are mostly the people who love me best in spite of myself.
I had heard rumors of a trip, a life-altering tour of the continent sort of trip. My best friend told me I should go. He even bought me the ticket. He held me in his arms and kissed my forehead as he told me I needed to get out of my home and visit the world, see what I could see, before I became too old too fast, before my sodden fertile garden swept up to envelope me and I never got away. The scent of his skin and the beat of his heart I carried away with me, locking it deep in my soul, for I knew how much I would miss him. But, because it was him, I did decide to go.
When I got to my first final destination, I found out my trek was to be made on donkey-back. Uhm, I’m not much of an ass person; I am much more of a horse person. Give me a great shiny steed that looks as if he can gallop for miles and for days on end any day without pausing for such needless things as, say, rest or water. Yeah, sounds like my knight in shining armor that. Donkeys. They are small and dull and they smell. But then again, that pretty much describes my dog as well, so who am I to judge?
I was the last person to come through apparently. I was told that others, many others, even stragglers, had come and gone weeks ago. I must really have missed the boat, some older gentleman missing several teeth leered and tried to joke with me. I have a sense of humor, but not when I am feeling too small and inadequate. I shrugged him off as I looked out into the fields.
There were only two donkeys hitched to the fence near the entrance of the cantina or whatever it was. The man who rented out the pack mules sat in a folding chair, under a big umbrella, waiting patiently as he fanned the flies away from his face with a bit of newspaper all folded up. These two little grey beasts didn’t bother to look up at me. I felt no real affinity for them. I had to pick someone though, obviously. I sighed out loud, sorrowfully. I wasn’t planning to walk with my pack flung over my shoulder. Especially since I had no idea how long this journey would take, much less how far it would be anyway. I had been given a general map. That didn’t really help since I am not much of a map reader. I was going mostly on faith.
Again, I looked out into the field. Not too far from where I stood was a tree, a thick solid thing, its trunk brown and black in the shadows cast by the abundance of leaves on the limbs above. I could see sticking out on either side of the tree two donkey ears and part of its sides. It was a greyed honey brown shade, from what I could tell. One ear flicked randomly to shoo away a menacing fly that was just too stubborn to give up. Before I knew what I was doing, I whistled, the same whistle I have used on horse and dog and cat and any other critter that ever came near me, since I was a child. The same whistle my grandfather used to call in the horses from the fields when he was alive.
The donkey behind the tree jumped, both ears flicking this way and that, before he peered out from behind that tree to look at me. There came that blast of affinity and knowing that I had been waiting for. This then was my donkey. I smiled at him. He snorted and hid behind the tree, very unimpressed with me, it seemed.
I chucked at him, under my breath, sort of like I chuff at the chickens when I feed them, only this was louder and deeper. He peered out from behind the tree again. He puffed out his breath again, and ducked behind that darn tree again.
Ok. So, I was losing my patience. As well as all my good will towards the asses of the world. It didn’t help me the fat man behind me chuckled at my dilemma either, with no offer for help. Was I going to have to catch the darn beast myself or what? With my bare hands now less? I did what any well-bred farmer’s daughter would do. I stuck two fingers in my mouth and uttered a long shrill piercing whistle the likes of which could wake the dead. Then I hollered, ‘Get your ass over here now!’ in the tone of voice that would stop a raving berserker in his tracks immediately, which seemed quite fair a thing to me at the time.
The mule balked a moment. He actually took a step back and I heard him grunt in annoyance. It did the trick though. He slowly meandered from his hiding place and came towards me. If he ambled any slower I might have to carry him on this journey of mine. I gritted my teeth and swore above in an effort to gain some patience and to take this in stride.
He came right up to me, hanging his heavy head over the fence so he could knock me off-balance by head-butting my shoulder, in what seemed a good-natured manner. The heavy-set man snickered a little as he hefted himself up out of the chair to come towards me. He nodded in the donkey’s direction, ‘He’s an odd one, that,’ I was told. “but he’ll take you where you need to go.’ I scratched the pretty varmint directly between his eyes, leaning into him as I did. He nosed into my pocket, the little thief, grabbing the apple I had stashed in there as a treat. I am not sure if I had meant to eat it myself or to treat whatever came my way during my trip, but he got to it first and I wasn’t arguing over that. Maybe it would seal the deal between us. Earn me some of the creature’s goodwill or something.
The mule nudged my arm after he was done chewing. ‘Name’s Uncetrys.’ He informed me. I was not surprised the donkey spoke to me. Everything talks to me, living and dead. It takes a lot to surprise me these days. ‘Uncetrys Tratec Outshi the Third.’ The brute had a carefully modulated voice, throaty and pleasant, not unlike James Earl Jones. Ok then. I was going to fall for the donkey based on his voice alone. I sure was. I stroked the wheaten edge of his ear and replied, ‘Nice to meet you, Uncetrys. My name is Kaily, otherwise known as Alice.’
The donkey harrumphed as he stuck his nose under my arm and shoved me merrily. ‘Why Alice, Miss Caitlain James Scott?’ Oh, well, then. How good was it that the beast knew my name when I wouldn’t even admit it to myself? ‘Alice because I just dropped down the donkey hole, of course.’ I told me. He blew out his breath in my face, but seemed satisfied. ‘Kaily it is then.’ He prodded my chest with his head, pushing me back a step or two til I caught myself. ‘Nice to meet you.’ I rubbed with deft fingers under his chin, as if he were my favourite pet cat. ‘I do believe,’ I intoned right back,’ it is nice to meet you too.’
written by Tabitha K
http://onthewrongsideofthemirror.wordpress.com/
http://knittingjourneymanredux.blogspot.com/
The Book In The Woods
by Gail Kavanagh
Hamish and I had wandered off the Serpentine Road, as is our wont. We can’t help it, really, we are Easily Distracted, and this particular path led through a dappled wood carpeted with bluebells. It might have occured to one or the other of us that we were under an enchantment, but it didn’t. We walked on through the billowing waves of bluebells, under the cool canopy of the trees, until at last we came to a clearing.
It was a swathe of velvet green lawn and moss, soft as carpet under our feet. The trees ringed it like calm sentinels. In the centre of the glade was a smooth, flat rock as big as a table, and on it lay an open book, chained through the spine to the rock itself. A bright blue feather quill in an inkpot stirred slightly in the breeze as we came closer.
“Now there’s a thing,” Hamish said. His voice was hushed, as if someone was listening. “Whit d’ye suppose it means?”
There was no telling how long the book had lain there. It was untouched by wind or rain, so it may have just been dropped by someone who passed by the rock a few minutes ago – on the other hand, it was chained down, and the chain, and the rock it penetrated, looked timelessly old.
I leaned closer. The book was open at two blank pages, but as the pages fluttered in the breeze, I could seen that the pages to the left were filled with writing – flowing copperplate writing, and each page illuminated with paintings of such beauty that I was enthralled.
“Mebbe its like a visitor’s book,” Hamished hazarded a guess. “We have to signh it and move on.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “These pages are too beautiful – I’ll just spoil them if I write anything. Let’s move on.”
We walked on down the path that led through the glade, marvelling at what we had found, but when the path ended, we found ourselves once more in the rock and the book.
Hamish and I glanced at each other, and by mutual unspoken consent, we tried another way out of the glade, between the trees. Once more a path opened up for us, and once more it led us back to the rock and the book.
“It’s an enchantment, Lassie,” Hamish said. He spoke with relish and grinned all his huge teeth at me.
I flipped the pages of the book and gazed at some of the stories written there. Such adventures, such romance, the margins filled with illuminations that leapt off the page – I knew I couldn’t write or paint like that, but I was reminded of a Celtic legend. It was said that when you died you came before the God and he wanted to hear your tale before you were allowed into Paradise. He wasn’t interested in the morality of it, in whether you were good or bad, wrong or right – he just wanted to know – did you make great poetry?
“Well, Lassie,” Hamish, “It looks like ye must write something, or we’ll no get oot o’ here.”
I took the feather quill out of the ink pot and the pages immediately stopped rippling and lay flat, in an expectant way. I wracked my brain, but no poetry came to me.
I remembered I had heard on the grapevine of a game they were playing in Lemuria now, where you wrote your memoirs in lines of six words. I had been meaning to try it, and at least it would look to the Gods or whoever put this book here that I was trying at least. So I began to write:
Born in the Harbour of Tears.
Grew up wild, a gypsy child.
A caravan my home on wheels.
Loved freedom, hated cities, needed belonging.
Travelled the roads, travelled the seas.
Dreamed somewhere was home, but where?
Dreamed somewhere was Prince, but who?
Saw dawn break over shining Avila.
Heard Maoris sing under starry sky.
Trod black sand on Tahitian beach.
Tasted crab fresh from the sea.
Held my baby in my arms.
Rode my horse on endless sands.
Rode my bike down endless lanes.
Knew love, knew heartbreak, knew despair.
Burned my bridges to the past.
Lit my phoenix fire, rose again.
Danced in a grassy fairy ring.
Danced when the moon was full.
Found no home, found no Prince.
Found family, found peace, found me.
Still travelling, still seeking, still wondering.
In the end, everything found me.
As I wrote, strange things happened. The words glittered on the page, and pictures appeared around the edges, as if I were writing a heroic adventure of daring, courage and romance. The pen took me on a journey through the valleys of adversity and the heights of joy – gold shone on the page as I uncovered it in my humdrum words.
When I had finished, I stood back in astonishment. These pages looked just like all the others. Did everyone’s life read like a hero’s journey? My story flowed with the inevitability of legend, and it was not done yet. Even a my lowest ebb, I saw the poetry in it, and beauty I had not seen or imagined.
“Let no one say,” I had written at the end, “that no matter how far I fell, I did not wake to a new morning and a clean page.”
I didn’t remember writing that at all. But it was the truth, and the hope, of this life and the next.
A breeze fluttered the book and it opened to two clean pages. The breeze rippled the bluebells and we followed it through the woods and back to the Serpentine Road.Was it a dream? But life is a dream in Lemuria, we reminded ourselves. I placed my arm over Hamish’ neck and we walked on, to where Le Enchanteur waited for us at the House of the Serpents. What a tale we would have to tell her!
