You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?
I
t is this stranger, speaking of her child, that makes me realize I cannot remember my mother’s face. It has been months since I have last thought of her; and perhaps even years since I tried to recollect something specific, something more than words or the feeling within the memory, her voice when I left. I can still remember in nearly perfect clarity when she placed the sun charm on my horn; it had been one of the rare occasions I had felt as if she had loved me, and one of the rarer occasions still I felt connected to her. And yet—I cannot remember her face, the shape of her laughter, or even the exact color of her eyes. I think, perhaps, they had looked like mine.They certainly do and she is especially prone to it, I think. It is my imagination that makes me want to ask what sort of daughter she has. Elena’s little girl looks just like her, I remember; and by the cliffside where I met her, she showed herself to be wise beyond her years. I almost cannot imagine this woman, full of scars and the same color as a swords, to be a mother at all. There is some strange kinship to her, however: and perhaps it is because of her scars, or the patient way that she paints my face.
But I do not ask. In the end, it doesn’t matter. There are people we are meant to know only for a night; only for a moment. Perhaps she is one of mine.
I smile politely and not in agreement. “These festivities are tame enough. She’d have to make the trouble herself.” The comment is playful and lighthearted, juxtaposing the otherwise somber nature of our conversation.
It is easier, I think, to talk of her daughter than to talk of myself. Of searches that are aimless; of wants that are mere fantasy, and besides, what if they had been actualized? I have glimpsed Boudika enough from afar to understand what she is now; the thing we once, together, detested.
I’m sorry.
I do not expect the depth of emotion in her voice; and briefly (in a way I am unfamiliar with: in a way that is a firs time experience) I think she understands what I mean. I hold her eye longer than might be appropriate; I am appraising her; those scars; the hard face and the long hair.
“In the end, it’s just life.” I do not say it’s okay or there is nothing to apologize for, which are more appropriate. There is a severity to my voice, one I meant to be lighthearted: but it seems to suggest you understand?, a question and a statement all at once.
Because, in the end, it is just life. There is no staying, not for anyone. There is a long corridor full of doors; and on the long walk down it, some of the doors open. People enter our lives and exit them at some other junction; some, we hardly notice leaving. Then, for others, it is as if when they depart they take with them something essential. The walk, which we began alone, feels much heavier, much more difficult, with the absence of their company. But we begin and end the walk alone, always, and those interlopers who join us on our journey—none of them stay.
Not daughters, not sons. Not lovers or friends. Not mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. All the doors close, eventually.
There is, but… I can no longer wear it. I fell in battle, and my people suffered for it. I can never wear our paint again.
I say nothing in the face of her admission. I only choose to open a door.
I am quiet, and contemplative; after a long pause I turn to retrieve paints of copper and rich indigo. When I return, I begin with a delicate line down the center of her face in bright, metallic copper. But the design itself quickly becomes asymmetric. It branches out on her cheek opposite the scar. The shapes are swirling, like vines; and the indigo comes in to highlight certain upward facing arches or spires. “My people,” I say softly, as I reapply paint to the brush. “Give this paint to those who fell in battle and have the courage to return. Ardu o luaithreach. ‘To rise from ashes.’”
Perhaps it will offend her; perhaps the gesture is poorly timed, or ill-placed. But she does not strike me as a woman who does not deserve to rise; and besides, the paint without action is meaningless. “The paint, and what it symbolizes, is meaningless without action. Or so my people believe. The action ignites the magic within the symbols; It gives them power they might not otherwise have.” The night is cool against my skin; and my voice, somber and measured, sounds nearly prophetic. The last time I had seen this design, it had been on myself. It had been the last time I had been painted, and the first time I had been painted after my literal fall from the cliffside.
Sometimes, I think, there are different ways to rise. The rising itself does not contain power; the intent of the stand, of the shaking from oneself the debris, the way they turn and measure the new and irrevocably altered life before them—
These are things I cannot express. And instead, I attempt not to stare too heavily. Instead, I paint down her front leg an unfurling of leaves that become stars. Instead, I line under her eyes with copper, and the rim of her ears. The runic symbols unfold on her ribs, spiraling up, up, like embers from a flame.
It feels too intimate for strangers.
But when I draw away at last, my own paint dried, it is to say aloud: “Those who wear scars as you do ought to have the opportunity to rise.”
My mouth is dry, metallic; I realize I am speaking less to her and more to the woman I am looking for, who is gone, who has closed the door.
