I still remember her between the waters and the moon

I rest on cool grass

the moon rests above the lake

and my friend is near

I’m afraid I may awake

then my heart would break

I remember those days, though my memory is sometimes dark, other memories shine bright enough that I can see them clearly. My father placed me in his car and we were driving to some far cabin, through my window the summer Sun shined so bright I barely could see the birch trees and the birds which flied  above the bright green arbors. Nothing but nature ever really used to cheer me up, it was only yesterday that I had gotten into another fight with the older kids from the fourth and fifth grade because “you’re too old to still play with that dumb lion-teddy bear “ i Always felt like whenever I talked no one would listen, that I was just a dumb young kid so I started to act more violent and I kept quiet as much as I could back then. Not even my father seemed to listen but he always meant well, he told me otherwise but I knew for my sake we were going to his cabin. He cared enough about me to know I could only cast off my quietness when the natural world showed me its beauty.

I opened my window and the rush of cold air as our car traveled past the trees caused my eyes to tear up but I didn’t close the window, I wanted to see how much of the speed and air against my face I could take. But just as i began to really enjoy the speed, the car began to slow. I got out of the car and followed my father into the woods for a while. Eventually I saw the little log cabin that lived next to the lovely lake, my father told me about the lake before many times, he would say “the water there shines so strangely son, a star that was sent from Selene sank into those waters, the light in it shines somberly like they were living lights wishing to leap back to their bed among the moon and their sisters the other stars. “ I stood before the lake in silence, seeing the Stillwater, first like a perfect mirror. I saw my body in the blue water, my bobbed hair and my white shirt, then I was blinded by the shimmering lights.

I saw the lights of the sky, of the heavens pouring Down and dancing like raindrops of stars upon the water, I saw the light cover my reflection and I thought I saw my reflection smile for a moment but my father called my name so I could help him unpack into the small cabin. After we unpacked our light luggage I (though lighter in mood) remained largely quiet. My father in the usual style told me to follow him without explaining where we were going or what we were doing. Quietly I walked behind him, he was a large man and wore leather booths, a brown shirt and a pair of blue jeans that seemed to me then to be immortal as they had been through so much and were still yet wearable.

Quietly we walked among the white birch trees and I broke a single branch off to pretend it was some kind of wand or perhaps a Wizard’s staff. As I ran and brandished my unbeatable weapon of battle against some bushes and stomped on some berries and ran quite a bit a round, my father and I had finally reached our destination. A green handled Axe lodged in a hackberry tree’s stump and with a hack of it he lifted it up and sang a song

“my son This is something I have understood,

Time is the swing of an axe against a wood.

and would you wink or wince something will be missed

with so much beauty you’d think it can’t exist”

And with this he began to chop at stumps and have me separate the wood he chopped into small piles, I then helped him pick up the pieces of wood, he took most but I knew I could take much more if he would just let me. Finally we brought all of the wood back into our wood cabin, without missing a step my father cooked us some food of which I cannot remember but it certainly seemed savory from what my memory can call back.

After we ate my father laid himself down to rest upon a chair and before he slept he said to me “son, please do not go outside without me and whatever you do, do not go by the Stillwater of the lake alone “ I neither agreed nor disagreed, just sitting there. Slowly slumber seeped into him and I saw my father resting there.

The absolute quiet of the cabin, of nature, of my large and joyous father just finally resting rose a smile to my face.  I listened closely to the song of silence which rules over the land of sleep and over these lands uninhabited by man in nature, silence mixed with silence, peace with peace. And there I stood awake watching it all. The window showed me the last  rainbow stained colors of the blue sky which only falls when the sun also is ready for its nightly sleep.

And these three mixed all around me with astounding beauty, the quiet of the woods, my child-smile, the quiet of my father and the quiet sleep of the subterranean sun.

Peace filled me completely but I remembered my fathers song

“and would you wink or wince something will be missed

with so much beauty you’d think it can’t exist”

So I walked out of the cabin and looked at the birch trees which gently went with the breeze of the wind. I saw the lake again but I didn’t want to go near it, didn’t want to disobey. I decided I’d just spin around, so I span and span and span past the cabin, woods, lake, cabin wood lake, lake cabin woods, and finally I let myself fall down to the grass. Above my head I saw quietly shining the moon. She was standing above the lake so milky and white. I wondered if it was true the stories I heard of the cheese of the moon and of lions falling from the moon or was it cheese falling from the moon?

As I sat upon the grass I again smiled, stopped thinking and just stared at the center of the moon. But then I noticed something very odd. In the center of the white shining disk there appeared a crimson speck like a spot of blood. The red grew and more and more a tangled mass moved out of the moon, I could barely see what looked like a red ribbon. At its height it was attached to the heart of the moon and its bottom passing into mist and fog which covered what little of the lake I could see. I got up and as I got up more and more so much ribbon fell from the sky that eventually it floated upon the water and accumulated close enough to me that I could reach into the lake and grab it, I got up and noticed the lake was completely covered in fog and mist now but I paid it no mind. I picked up the end of the red ribbon and gave it a little tug. I saw the other end on the moon gently disattach and float for a while above the fog and as it fell closer I saw something grow brighter and brighter covered in the mist. Finally the ribbon fell within the mist completely.

I now saw across the water what looked first like an entirely black object illuminated by its own light, I felt fear but held on to the ribbon and didn’t blink as my fathers words I kept repeating. The object came closer and I saw walking on the lake a girl at least twice my age wearing a completely black dress which hid everything but her hands and face, her hair was bobbed like mine but longer and a bit unkempt. Her skin was pale as a corpse. Upon the waters she walked using the ribbon to guide her towards land. A great fear i felt filling my every part, for I thought I saw in her some winged death or demon as this calm Stillwater was now before me the perilous Phlegethon, as the fear seized me she walked closer and closer and she slowly took her left hand and with a quick motion darted it towards me and touched my nose “boop” she said, which caused me to shake my head as a final shiver left my body and I shouted “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Then she began to laugh at me and she said “you’re a really serious man aren’t you?” And I replied “I’m eight, I’m still a kid you weirdo” and for a moment I looked at her closely, her simple black dress(more a cloth than a dress) almost blending into the black of night, her face smiling in a knowing smirk, the red ribbon in her right hand, now partially wrapped around her arm and a strange illumination covered her from her bobbed hair down to the bottom of her dress, as I stared the light seemed to flicker and dance ever so gently from her countenance. Then I looked into her cold purple eyes, I saw in her soul the singing of satyrs and dryads, the light of the moon in the winter wasteland, i saw the spirit of snowflakes dancing with cheer as they passed into piles and as the piles melted into water and cloud, I finally saw the great ocean and reflected upon it was the luminary but the luminary was naught but her own face. Then suddenly I felt my face get splashed with ice cold water and I jumped back,  she said “why don’t you take a picture pervert? It’ll last longer.” She then began to turn around and looking coldly at me said “you’re pretty boring, I’m getting out of here” and something came over me that just couldn’t allow that, no I couldn’t let that happen, so I shouted to her “wait! Don’t leave yet” and she turned her head around and looked through me again. “Stay right here let me get something that’s fun” and with that I ran off back into the cabin and found a notepad we packed and two strawberry flavored juice boxes. First I gave her the juice box and she said “what’s this supposed to be” and at the box she bent and tilted her head. “It’s Juice! It’s real good, try some” and as I said that she tried to squeeze it open. I took it back from her hands, took the straw and pierced the box for her and as I pierced the box I felt the presence of her pale eyes again. She took the juice box and said “Oh!” And she then drank her juice with a single swallow, her cheeks filled to the brim and a few drops escaped and fell to her black dress and into the deep waters upon which she stood.

She then said “hey is that a book? Let me see it” so I handed her the notebook, she immediately got to work with writing, her eyes and hands whirling and her pen twirling with weight in every stroke and strike, as she wrote I wondered where she came from and why the strangeness of all of this has gone away the second she came close to me, like cold breath breathed and beheld to fade into the cold so did the strangeness of her visage evaporate into her countenance. As I wondered these things she finally turned the book to reveal what I presumed would be a work of otherworldly beauty.

“Do you like it?” She said, showing me a crude image of a man(more an overly large stick figure ) holding what looked to be a turtle wearing a crown? Covered in little hearts and surrounded by water?

“It looks terrible! What did you try to draw? This can’t be right.”

She laughed “have you never heard the story of the fisherman and the princess of the sea? “

“Can’t say that I have, could you tell me it?”

She smiled, with hands outstretched she spun a full circle and then looked me in the eyes as she said the full story.

“once a young fisherman fished for his food

but the sea was in a sad angry mood

the fisher faced the seas furious frown

“if you do not calm, I shall surely drown”

the palms of the sad Sea pelted the boat

and the fisher felt the salt in his throat

as the sea sank his boat and his body

“stop! stop! help me please help me somebody! “

but the fisher never let out a Yelp

so he looked to see who asked for his help

he saw some crooked crabs in a circle

harassing a poor little green turtle

the Fisher with dying breath berated

though the turtle’s fate was now evaded

the Fisher fell into a drowning sleep

but the turtle pulled him out of the deep

the fisher then Felt fresh breath fill his lungs

he then heard the voices of many tongues

suddenly he saw sat on sand some folk

and they saw he awoke, to him they spoke

“thank you hero, thank you savior and friend

without you,  her Royal life would have end”

he saw among many men standing there

between them seated in a jeweled chair

was the creature he saved from the crab’s claws

the turtle spoke “according to our laws

a bride’s life is worth more than her bride price.

we shall be married for your sacrifice.”

then the turtle changed shape color and size

the fisherman couldn’t believe his eyes

before him now was such a strange beauty

her countenance was lacking all cruelty

her fair form was fit for a love goddess

he agreed and took her hand in promise

the princess of the sea said “you are mine”

the fisher of the sea said “you are mine”

thus they would be forever marriage bound

and the island was filled with joyous sound

pearls and jades were jammed in every place

but after a week fell the fisher’s face

he said “I should go home and then return “

but there was a fault he did not discern

she said” go but take this, my treasure box

but do not open it, for precious rocks

do not fill it, nor anything supposed

as valuable by men, but keep it closed

I beg you, take it, but it must stay closed.”

he took the box and then built a new boat

and he remembered the words of his oath

“I will surely return to her” he thought

then he sailed to the homeland he had sought

but naught was as he had remembered it

gone was the chair where his father would sit

and the town was tattered and full of dust

and his home and the shops were full of rust

he wondered where everyone had wandered

and as he sat quietly and pondered

a child passed and then his cry came crashing

“ a ghost! get away!” he began thrashing

the child calmed and said “I am sorry sir

just, this is a abandoned place mister

and it has been for 700 years “

the poor fisher could not believe his ears

for had he really been gone for that long?

surely he thought, this had to have been wrong

he then cried his many tears of mourning

he had seen darkness during his morning

so he walked and returned to the dark sea

and overwhelmed with such melancholy

“If I remember her I’ll have my peace”

he then opened the box and his life ceased

seven hundred years had hid in the box

and his seven hundred years left the box

the Princess still waits fo his return

perhaps one day his soul shall return “

When she ended her story, she gave a overly fancy curtsy and said “so what do you say?”

“What?” I wondered as I didn’t know her story was a question.

“Will you promise to return to me, eventually?”

Without thought my tongue took control of itself and said “I promise”

She then smiled, casted her frosty eyes upon me a final time and said “you are mine” she then tied a small strand of the red ribbon around my right wrist, turned herself around and walked into the deeper mist of the lake.

I sat there staring at the still water and the grey mist and burnt the memory of the meeting into my mind, I returned to my little cabin and caught the last few hours of night sleep that were available. The next day was largely uneventful save for the memory of the strange events and the strange drawing she drew in my book. The rest of my life has been uneventful save for the pale ephemeral memory I had received upon the Stillwater that night, it was another 24 years before I had  worked up the mental might, the memory and the madness to believe that childhood fantasy was truly real enough that I ought to return. For if it was not real, why was the red ribbon upon my wrist?

Upon this ice-cold winter I would win that weird spirit who wrote for me the image, as I rode past the white-hoarfrost covered limbs of the giants, the cold corpses of the birch trees, no longer did the birds bring their beautiful song in the air but the Gabriel hounds had gathered invisibly marching upon the now-dead grass that waits to rise again, but they could not haunt my gaiety, as I came crowned and clothed In white to find her who lives in the mists of the white moonlight, I rode without disruption and finally gazed upon the cabin I had came to so many years ago.

The Moon’s face shined clearly, I could read the book of the moon clearly  the 8 pages of its mysterious 8 phases married in its single form. I stepped towards the Stillwater lake and as I looked I laughed, the water was fully frozen, I had forgotten the affect of the winter frost. I sat myself still against the dead grass just as I had sat when I saw her first, but she would not show herself to me, in anger I shouted against the moon “Open Thou forth, and reveal it to Me: and make all Spirits reveal it unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may unveil IT before my eyes!”

but my mighty command meant absolutely nothing, what was missing that I had with me when I had met her last? I wondered, and with weariness I wandered, looking upon the beauty of the watery mirror that reflected perfectly the boundless darkness of space and shining in its center as a central idol was the light of the moon, so magnificent. I marched towards the image of it and stepped upon the frozen waters. I worried not where my feet wandered and without my wits I willed myself towards the reflected moon. As I reached the center of the lake I looked about me and laughed, for there beneath the ice lay the lady whom I longed to meet again. She rested in a gentle repose and then She smiled at me from beneath the ice and her smile shined with such niceness.

My body and mind then changed, I was a child once more, no different from how I was the day I had first met this strange girl. With an outstretched hand she awaited me with a smile upon her face and the frost pale eyes that so pierced my soul before. In her other hand she held a sword that she then stabbed at the ice with, to try to reach me, but the ice was impenetrable.

I knew in my soul I would be able to have her for myself, how the frozen sea would not stop my search. I repeated the words “I will surely return to her” and with that I took the red ribbon off my right wrist, as it was ripped, the soul was ripped from my body and the ice was rent open.

 she ascended out of the ice to meet my spirit and my spirit descended to meet her.

I held her in my hands and she wrapped the red ribbon all around us both, and as we embraced with her sword she pierced my heart and my soul, suddenly I was now more whole than I had ever been, and I knew from then on I would never let her leave again. She casted the mirror of my soul, her eyes, into my own once more and she said “You are mine”



END