I wrote this a year and a half ago during a trying time that I haven't been free to tell about to my satisfaction on this blog. Writing is therapeutic to me, and that is it's purpose, not perfection, so please bear that in mind if you want to read the second half. I don't really feel like editing it substantively though I did tweak it a bit, as to me it is more of a snapshot peculiar to a time and place, and I care more about that than making it better now.
By the way, there is a violent word used.
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A few days later as she was searching for bright red berries to fill in the field of her latest circle with a large representation of the light, crusty cubes that had lead her to the children, she heard the approaching rustling in the forest from the direction of the other visitations. This time a woman came with the man and the children. The girl wondered if she were the children’s mother, but they walked closer to their father. When they saw the crusty arrangement in the dirt with a few of the bright stones from the hungry friend’s hut, the children smiled and pointed as they chattered to each other. The woman turned her attention to the girl with a wrinkle between her brows when she looked at her. The smile underneath it and her subsequent cooing confused the girl. The woman then approached her and held out her hand as she smiled. The girl thought that if she touched her that she might not be able to get away, so she backed off. She also noticed that the birds, frogs, and insects had stopped chirping.
The woman approached again, and for the first time, the girl withdrew and climbed a nearby tree out of reach. This seemed to make the woman angry and she raised her voice crowing while her arms reached toward her feet. She stayed in the tree while the father took the woman to see the stars, eye, and cross circles. The woman shrugged her shoulders at the pictures. The girl’s heart was not as heavy as it was when the man had come last time, but still she felt the need to keep distance.
Many days passed as the girl worked on her next circle. Inside was a man’s face framed by a beard of dark stones with light stripes made by seed husks. Two small round, glistening amber stones shone under his dark brows and dark tall hat covered by a drape that extended to the bottom of the circle frame. His draped dark torso was also stopped by the bottom of the white circle. Golden stones provided the background under the top of the white circle.
As she laid the last stone, she heard the approaching rustle. This time it was just the father and the children. She grabbed a handful of seeds and slowly approached them, smiling and offering the seeds. He rumbled and they chattered as they took some of them from her hand. She hummed as she took them to her newest picture. The children bent down and touched the seed casings to see how she had made the stripes in the beard, but the father just stood staring with his eyes wide.
After a few days, before she could see who was causing the now familiar rustling, the girl noticed that a fox and a rabbit had also approached as she was filling in more of the red background to her crust picture with scarce berries.
Birds were also whistling merrily to each other from the trees.
She walked towards the rustling in anticipation. First came the children, then the father, and then the hooded man in her picture! As he approached she bent down and kissed his hands. The fox, rabbit, and now some squirrels also approached. A bird even lighted on his head. The man placed the top of his hand on her head. When he did so, something wet began to erupt from her eyes. Startled, she straightened and put her hands on her cheeks to feel the strange warm liquid streaming from her eyes.
“My child” he said, and she understood!
He then began to explain her story both to her and her friends. The girl could see that he knew it in the same way that she knew how to arrange her stones. From inside.
“The one buried under the cross is her mother. She was cruelly treated all her life and when she was finally raped she escaped to this place in her shame and pain, hoping to never see any other person again. She cared for her resulting baby alone out here in the forest, so that her people could not hurt her as they had her. When she was just a toddler, the mother knew she was going to die. At this time she found a small icon of the Virgin on a tree trunk of a felled tree, and knew that she would take care of her for her. While she still had the strength, and while her baby was napping, she went to find a place to bury herself. She dug her own grave and gathered her own stones. Stones as colorful and pretty as she could find. When she knew her time had come, she made a bed of pine needles under a tree, and for the last time, laid her baby down for the night. She covered her with bark and placed the icon near her head so that she would not be alone when she awoke. Then she went deep in the woods and covered herself with stones. The exertion caused the end of her earthly life. Since then her praying soul, the angels, Saints, and woodland creatures have been guiding and protecting her and keeping her company.”
He had been speaking to the father so as not to overwhelm her with too direct a gaze and the intensity of the specifics of her life. The father then asked as he turned to her flooded face, “Why did she bury the icon with her mother after she found her?”
“She thought her mother seemed more lonely than she. She didn’t feel she had experienced the pain she had.”
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That's all I have so far.
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