Kris Erskine
Loose limbed, in a fury, she skittered on the freshly waxed floor in the hallway, snatching at the creamy wood panelled wall to remain upright and leave a few grubby fingermarks to mark her irate passage towards freedom. The satisfaction of creating just a little more mess made up for the angry tears. A smudged handprint for the mirror and, tugging out the sideboard drawers, despite a broken nail, she hurled herself forward. But ideas were running out, replaced by the power in her legs, kicking through the screen door, across the porch and down the path. No one could make her do anything. She’d wanted so much to shove all the plates off the table, throw the glasses at the sink, tip the milk on the floor. As she pounded along, she glanced down at her feet on the soft summer grass and wondered if she should go back for her shoes, but her body had other ideas.
Back inside her mother would be watching her go. She yelled over her shoulder, ‘I hope all the dishes have food stuck to them! The glasses break in the sink! And you have to stay inside ALL DAY, cleaning, because you are SO horrible and unfair!’
The first spatter of red marked her arm about an hour after she’d stormed from the house. Her attention was still inward on the terrible injustices done to her so the first few specklings went unnoticed. Only when she automatically wiped the sweat from her face and her hands came away marked crimson and purple did she stop.
Her feet had carried her steadily away from the house until this point. Good feet, sure feet, feet with a purpose. They’d ignored her screaming mind, her grasping hands, and responded to the basic biological prompt by running her whole body out of the house.
She realized she’d been following a blackberry hedge at the far end of the field and had come to a corner, wrapping round to the east. Above her, noisy with fury and deadly determination, two swallows appeared engaged in combat. But it was their tiny riders who duelled with needles driven like broadswords. The flying gobbets of blood were blackberry pieces, accidental victims in this minute aerial warfare. Were they fairies? These little beings certainly looked like fairies, though the ones she’d imagined were a little neater. Once she’d stopped gaping, her throbbing feet told her they were tired and sore. She’d run further than she recognised. Reassured by the safety of thorns and brambles she abruptly sat, rubbing her soles, and continued, neck craned backwards, to watch the battle. When the first piece of blackberry hit her mouth there was a further revelation. She was thirsty, and very hungry. Handfuls of the berries solved both problems; however, she also revealed herself as a spectator in her frantic rush for sustenance.
Above her there was a pause in hostilities. The tiny cavaliers peered downwards as their exhausted steeds perched on branches. For a little time, nothing moved except the heaving breasts of the swallows matching her own as she slowly recovered.
She stared upwards at the tiny naked men, noted their bird-skull helmets and the wicked long needles brandished in her direction.
‘Forgive me,’ she said. The words shocked her. Where had they come from? Even her voice had sounded plucked from elsewhere.
The little warriors were definitely intrigued now. They urged the swallows downwards till they were eye level with her, sitting cross-legged on the ground.
She drew a deep breath. Though they had no wings of their own, and were not like any fairies she’d seen in books, these were warriors. Maybe not fairies then—angels? Were fairies just little angels? Different stories jumbled through her mind. Holy angels, righteous, doing god’s work, devilish sprites, goodness and badness, perhaps they were heaven sent to her for today?
The bramble hedge became a confessional and the tiny men her priests. ‘Forgive me Lords, I have sinned and I know not what to do.’
The watchers made no reply. Never had she been the subject of so much focused attention. Down they slid, one subtly shading a darker hue, the other glowing brighter. Dismounting from their swallow steeds who took shelter within the thorns, they took the liberty of each squatting upon one of her shoulders. She heard, or rather felt them say, ‘Tell us.’ It ought to have been a hiss but was a clear statement of demand.
‘Do I walk on?’ she said. ‘Do I turn and face what I have done?’
‘What have you done?’ the bright one asked.
‘I have…’ her voice faltered. What had she done? Stood up for herself? Refused to behave? She remembered that one word used in particular that morning. ‘I have defied.’
‘Defied? Defied what? Defied whom?’ the other asked.
‘I have not done what I was told. I have done what I choose instead.’
‘And is this a sin?’ This from the bright one. The darker one said nothing.
She squirmed. ‘The Book says it is so.’
‘And when you knew that it was a sin, what did you do?’
Finger marks on the walls, smudges on the mirror.
‘I left. I ran towards the sun. I did not turn back.’
The truth burned inside her. There had been words. Loud words. Stinging words.
She pressed herself back into the tangle and felt the prick and scratch of the brambles. The sun beat down, through the wilting leaves and woody thorns, scorching her hiding spot.
In the smallest of tiny voices she said, ‘I cursed. I cursed, and then I ran away.’
Their colour deepened, brightened.
‘What would you have from us?’
She paused, considered. ‘I don’t know. I want someone to… I don’t know, tell me what to do…’
The midnight sprite mounted the prosecution. ‘You have sinned, most wicked indeed. How do you feel?’
How did she feel? She looked at her powerful feet and chuckled. ‘Good, I feel good.’ The sprite watched her without speaking. She smiled and then her bravado dissolved and she frowned. Her belly felt queasy and her face hot. ‘Not all good really. Scared.’
The other mannikin spoke, ‘You have sinned, it is only righteous to feel fear. How will you atone?’ His voice relished the word, as if he were imagining the penance she must pay for such a sin. Tears again stained her face, mixing with the berry blood.
The darker hued one said, ‘You took your power in hand, you defied. Do you not feel you are righteous in speaking your own truth?’ His words were quiet and reflective, quite unlike the brighter one. That one instead spoke with ringing authority, already raining down judgment upon her bowed head. The little dark one was more objective, more interested in the process than the outcome.
Their sharp, sweaty, fruity scents distracted her thoughts. The reality of her situation hit her; it wasn’t just the presence of tiny creatures on her shoulders whispering into her ears, it was that they were naked little men that caused her to blush and want to curl into a ball under the hedge. The entire day had been too much for her and now she was tired and hungry and had to pee. An ordinary morning to… this, hiding in a bramble hedge? Talking to fairies and hoping no one found her. Maybe she could lie here under the thorns, let berries fall into her mouth and her hair wind itself into the roots. She’d become part of the hedge, and no decisions would ever have to be made again. Something jabbed into her forearm and knocked her out of her fantasy.
Both little knights prodded her with their rapiers.
When she was brave enough to look up, they’d remounted and were assuming battle positions once more.
‘Please Sirs, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do, should I seek forgiveness or should I walk away?’
The bright one, as was his wont, spoke first and over the other. ‘You should atone. You have broken a rule of the Book, you have sinned. You should return, bow down and receive your punishment.’
Beside him the dark one shook his tiny head. ‘Is that the only way? Just two ways? Walk forward into the sun or turn to grovel? There are always many ways forward.’
His companion snorted in disagreement. ‘She has told us the Book judged her actions as sins. There are only two ways. Look at her, a sinner if there was ever one, dirty and ragged.’ His tiny nose wrinkled as if he’d suddenly caught a whiff of her large sweaty self. Without warning, he kicked his swallow upwards and they vanished past the thorns and fading leaves, shining brighter still, upwards towards the sun.
Unperturbed the other asked, ‘Where do you want to be?’
She met his gaze. Her wild soul whispered, I know where I want to be. Not there. I want to be out here. Running, walking, by myself! As if the little men still whispered on either shoulder, another part of her retorted, During the day with a packed lunch perhaps, but you wouldn’t be doing this if it was nighttime. She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge a prickle. If I go home there will be more shouting, more telling me what to do. If I stay out here, I can do what I like. Slowly, still caught in the gaze of the tiny sprite, that little voice she didn’t know was hers said, ‘I want to be home. I want to go home.’
‘Do you seek forgiveness for your defying?’
‘Yes! No!’ Her body, beginning to uncurl, stopped mid crouch. ‘This was not my fault!’
‘Your words?’ Her kind interrogator paused, ‘They were not your fault? Something else had grip of your tongue?’
She frowned. ‘No, I said the words. But I was fair angry.’
As the little sprite was about to speak, his opponent fell from the sky in a fury of feathers and struck him between the shoulders. ‘Leave the animal and continue our duel! Her whimpers and whinings and sinnings and sighings are not our concern.’
Slamming to a landing, the bright, tiny man pointed his needle directly at her heart. ‘Choose your path and disturb us no more.’
Whilst he spoke the dark one rose to his feet, dusted himself down and whistled up his steed. Each movement deliberate, keeping his foe within his sight. A brief courtly bow in her direction, then he mounted up, raised his needle sword high and vaulted heavenward.
His last words slid out of the air towards her.
There are always many choices. Make the ones that sing in your heart. That you can walk with for a lifetime.
She could indeed keep walking towards the sun but what waited for her there? She’d be mistress of her own destiny, the only one to say which way her feet would go. But she’d be alone. No one else would care if she had food or drink. No one would hug her when she was sad. And her courage faltered, or perhaps her heart opened, and she rose to her feet.
Her feet turned back the way she had come to march down that long track. When she reached the house, she walked through the open door and picked up her apron, still huddled on the floor. All was quiet. She only paused to use the bathroom and wash her hands. In her bedroom she started to tidy, hung her dressing gown on the back of the door and pulled her quilt neat over her bed. Pillows were fluffed, all the books set neatly on the shelves and dirty clothes in the basket.
When her mother came in from the garden, she found a grubby and tired but smiling girl carefully wiping off each fingermark from the hallway panels.
‘This is a change,’ her mother said.
‘Yes,’ the girl agreed, ducking her head. There was a moment of awkward stillness and then reconnection, arms out and round and bumping heads. Almost too tall now to snuggle into her mother’s chest or her shoulder, the girl and the mother noticed at the same time. They slid down against the wall, arms still around each other. Her mother rubbed her finger across her crimson-streaked arm.
‘Are you hurt?’ The sudden, ragged distress in her mother’s voice felt like the little men’s rapiers piercing her soul.
‘No, just blackberried.’ The girl smiled, then tilted her head, pressing her face into her mother’s neck, said, very quietly, ‘Oh, mama.’
‘It’s okay. You’re home now.’
The girl nodded and wondered if the Book would say that the angels on her shoulders were better than berry stains on her Sunday best?
Outside, as the sun trickled below the horizon, the knights continued their battle in the ancient hedge.
Kris Erskine (FSAScot) is a writer and an academic. Kris was born in a national park and now lives in the foothills of another, quite by accident. A peripatetic wanderer in between, she’s written on folklore and oral history contributions to interpreting the archaeological record, the profound importance of place names to understanding human movements, and had everything from bed time meditations to horror poetry published. You can find her at wedowords.com.au.
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