Breaking the Spell

The dry spell, that is.

Cold weather is here at last, and with it, rain. Last night I heard the thudding of heavy droplets and the screeching of banshees.

"A Norwegion Spring," my former AP Euro teacher remarked. He held open his classroom door and we peered into the bleak scene, illuminated by grayish light. In swept a gust of cold-smelling air. Yes, cold-smelling. How strange that cold should have a smell.

The last of his students had gone and we tutors sat, shivering and thinking still of Marat and Robespierre and the fall of the Bastille. Fitting.

Strange how cold flourescent lights look when the sun doesn't shine. It reminded me of an old story my grandmother used to tell me, years ago, when I lived with her in China. I think I shall tell it to you now.

Once upon a time there was a little girl whose family was very poor in a land that was very cold. It snowed most of the year there, and the winds cut through layers of clothing and slipped in through cracks in the walls and roofs.

"Where, Grandmother? Where is this land?" But my grandmother would never tell me. She would say something in Russian and move her hands around in the air.  Perhaps it was Russia she was speaking of.

Anyways, the Father had to go off to war and so he left behind his pregnant wife and his young son.  When the War was over, he didn't come back.

"Which War, Grandmother?" Again, no answer. Sometimes a little Russian mixed into her Chinese, but nothing I could understand.

The Mother had long since given birth to a beautiful baby that grew into a beautiful girl, and the son was grown almost into a man. The Mother was very proud, and although a candle was still lit for the Father every night- left in the window facing the road- the family was loving and strong.

One day their village was besieged with strange creatures. They were as tall as men, but they weren't human. They looked like bears, with fearsome strength and cruelty in their eyes. They burned the fields and stole the livestock, overpowering able bodied men that tried to stand against them. In the end, there weren't enough men left to stop them from taking women and children and looting the houses.

They came to a hut with a burning candle in the window. A boy not quite grown into his gangly legs and big hands rushed out brandishing a farmer's scythe. The creature in front brushed him like he was brushing off a mosquito.

They had heard about the sister. They had come for her. But, not knowing that she liked sometimes to sleep in the stable with horses, they couldn't find her. One raised his staff to strike the Mother for refusing to give her up, when the Brother stabbed him viciously with his scythe. There was a sharp clink, as though the blade encountered metal. The other creatures roared but the leader lowered his weapon and stared at Mother and Son, huddled defiantly before him.

He said something in a harsh, foreign tongue and they left. Not a single thing was taken, save a bird roasting on a spit.

"What kind of bird, Grandmother?"

"Goose."

So except for that goose, they took nothing and disturbed nothing further. But as they filed out into the snow, the barn door creaked open. The moonlight shone silvery on her flaxen hair, her pale skin. Sister and Creature looked at each other in surprise.  The humanoid warriors were reverently silent and when their leader beckoned with a clawed hand, she came to him as though in a trance.

There were horses waiting, great big brutes with red eyes and dark hides. Vicious like their masters, they bore them away faster than any horse could run. The Sister disappeared with them.

 They took to lighting a candle for her too, although the surviving villagers gave her up as dead. But life went on. Springtime, Summertime, Fall.

The village rebuilt itself, and the dead were properly buried and mourned. The Brother got himself a sweetheart, the cobbler's daughter. She wasn't especially beautiful, but she was a pretty little thing, sweet and kind and merry. Not the icy queenliness of his Sister, but the warm, Springtime breeze of youth.

Sorry that line sounds better in Chinese.

One day, the Brother went hunting. Trudging homeward with his game bag full, he lost his way. He, who knew the terrain better than his Father. Bewildered, he dropped the bag from his shoulder and looked about him.

He came to a frozen lake. Beside it were a number of dwellings like he had never seen before. They were large and squarish, all along the banks of the lake on both sides, forming a U around it. In the center of the lake rose a dark palace.

"What enchantment is this?" He said aloud. Then something heavy hit his head and he fell. The dusky light faded in his eyes.

He awoke somewhere warm. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes like a child, the Brother found himself in the midst of the bear-like creatures. Fear pierced his heart and he stood, reaching for his knife.

Then someone called his name. A young man and woman in furs were seated upon thrones carved from the stump of a tree. The same stump, symbolizing, he later learned, both the intertwining of life in all things and the joining together of King and Queen.  The Queen was tall, with silvery cornsilk hair and snowy skin. The torchlight glinted on the gold that circled her brow and she ran to him. He opened his arms and embraced his sister. They laughed and cried and there were many questions.

The Queen stood back and said a command in their tongue. They removed their furs and helmets and to the Brother's surprise, a band of men stood in place of the creatures.

"They're just men," the Queen said quietly. "They were robbers. They robbed a virgin traveling alone, and spilled her blood. It was a goddess from another world and she was furious that they killed an innocent, whose body she had been inhabiting. They are forbidden from living in our World. The Goddess would have killed them, but a Bear God saved them from her wrath and they live in His realm now."

The warriors listened with bowed heads. The Brother looked to the young man sitting in his throne. He was a giant, with a great black beard and cold blue eyes.

"We have lived here since," the King said.

"Why do you still kill?" The Brother asked through clenched teeth. He had not forgotten how many of his village were slain, nor how much was lost.

"To conquer," the King replied. "Our God is one that conquers."

The Queen looked sadly at him. "They have not learned," she whispered. "They will be cursed forever."

"It is a spell," the Brother took her face in his hands. "And there is another one cast over you."

"Yes. I, too, and bound to them."

"Come back with me. We will seek wise men. We will break the spell," he said. But the Queen shook her head.

"I cannot leave now," she said sadly. "And I would leave the spell unbroken." And she kissed her brother one last time and returned to her king, who held her close. The walls vanished and the Brother was standing alone in the forest, game bag at his feet.

"Goodbye," he whispered, and trudged home in the inky twilight.