Andrea posted a photo earlier, with an invitation that a writer with a restless muse could not resist. The image itself is a great one, and right off the bat, Marilyn snapped off a fairy tale that kept a goofy smile on my face for the whole day. I’d planned on writing something, as the image presents so many stories, but I didn’t expect what actually came out. I sometimes wonder about my Muse. You can find the original photo HERE. Oh, and just so you'll know, the character's name: Ëtéep is accurately pronounced as "Ee-yay-tep." (Don't ask where these names come from...they just happen.) **** Anabelle and the Stork _____________________________ You understand the rings of a tree. You know the subtle transitions from heartwood to bark. The oak and the maple, the chestnut and the birch mark your nights with the whisper of their leaves; and the gift of cedar at your door is the quiet announcement of another supplicant taken to The Wander. Wood and leaves are the world’s paradigm now. But you remember the ways of plastic and metal, though you were born as such times ended; you miss the things your grandparents described, but you have adjusted to the modern ways, and those ways—you realize—are more accommodating than those your grandmother mourned in the quiet nights of your childhood. You are independent: devoid of tribal allegiance, and so the Tribes (one for each of the new seasonal gods) will send their boys at Wander to your threshold, bearing gifts of cedar: currency, as the Tribes reckon it, but as a Host, you are beyond the necessities of this new currency. You understand the rings of a tree, and the comfort of pulp-wood between them. Yours is a pulp-wood house, as you think of it: one of many, but singular in this region. It is safe and necessary comfort for the young tribal men at Wander—a place in which they may gather their strength and their resolve before facing the trials and tribulations that will greet them as they test themselves and search for the most appropriate of manhood names. There are times when you pity them: times when you admire them. It depends on who arrives and how he presents his offering. Ëtéep—with you for his second night now—was friendly in the manner of his introduction. He arrived last night—and by honest Tribal count, this is his first. “I’ve got nae a knife,” he declared in keeping with ritual. “You’ll find nae a weapon with me prints on it.” He is healthy with muscle and a shock of sandy blond hair. There’s something on his chin and only youthful bravado might call it a beard. He the son of a Fisher’s tribe; marked so by his accent. His cedar disks—you recognized on the drizzling night of his arrival—were likely imports from some tribe across the straights, though engraved by local artisains. You accepted his payment. You allowed him inside, marveling at the manner in which he paused, slid his feet from within his buskins, and propped them outside the door. You know the Fishers’ saying and you thought of it as Ëtéep stepped—for the first time—into your house. It always amazes you when you see the gesture; there is always grace in its movement and something profoundly sincere. Trust the Fisher Tribes maintain, walks on naked feet. Now, after a day of work with an axe and logs made friendly for the hearth, Ëtéep pokes his head through your kitchen window, and if he recognizes the smell of your cooking, he indicates nothing. He smiles, but smiles are a common expression carried on his muscular cherub’s face. “Sundown’s about,” he announces. “I’ll be need’n a river if there’s one available, or a bucket if nae a stream’ll greet me. I reek of a day’s sweat an’ I’ll nae offend you by settin’ foot past your threshold.” “There is a bathroom,” you announce. “And you’re fit to use it.” “But I reek!” “Which is why you’ll take a proper bath with warm water and soap. You’re here for only a few nights, and then you’re off on your Wander. There’ll be rivers enough for you then…and cold ones too.” He accepts your words and nods his agreement. He bathes quietly, scrubbing himself—as you well know—with chestnut leaves and scented bark. The soap you’ve mentioned remains untouched. He pads, barefoot—much later, and still faintly damp—to the table you’ve set. You indicate for him to sit, realizing that a good Fisher Tribe’s boy won’t take a seat until it is offered. Though extravagance (by Tribal measure) is well within your means, you’ve prepared an evening meal of balanced simplicity—extravagance, as a Tribe might reckon it. You know the recipes: for fish soup with beets, and bread—unleavened. This, you have decided, is a fitting meal for Ëtéep, who’d likely balk at something made with land-dweller’s meat. You’ve known others from his Tribe and at each table you’ve set for them, you saw the same pattern—balking at cow’s meat or the meat of lambs; they had no right, they always said to demand such lavish expense at table. Their acceptance of such meat was—in Tribal logic—a passive demand for preferential treatment. Tonight’s meal—Ëtéep’s expression tells you—is glorious and appropriate. He is dressed in a sleeveless pullover, cinched at the waist by a hand-woven belt. You remember images from the past and find yourself surprised at how now—the future?—bears so striking a resemblance to what (once) was ancient. His skin is pale, his hair is the color of spun honey, and his rough-weave tunic is the color of oatmeal. His pants—of a softer weave—carry the barest whisper of dandelion yellow. His Tribe, you guess, finds significance in the colors of mustard and butter, and pale, living heartwood. It is not Ëtéep’s simple rough-weave clothing that draws you. It is the ink imbedded in the flesh of his arms that captivates your gaze. It is intricate tattoo-work, something—you think—applied by a buzzing, electrical needle. You’ve scarcely heard the sound, but you remember it: from your grandmother. You ask him about his marks, and the meanings behind him. “You’re not of the Tribes,” he says quietly, “So I’ll ask if you know the Four Gods.” “I know them,” you say. “My Tribe worships the feather god, Him that Flies and whose name is the crow and the sparrow, the stork and the swan.” He shrugs. “An’ ever-else you’ll be callin’ them with the feathers and the pointy faces.” With the fingertips of his right hand, he touches his left bicep. “These are the marks of my name an’ the parents that bore me. They’re the name-shapes of Him that Flies, but mostly from His name-shapes that I liked most when I was wee.” “You’ll take more marks, I assume?” “When I’m done with the Wander, I’ll take a new man-name mark. It’ll be the one I’ll use for takin’ a wife and a brother.” You don’t understand the custom. It sounds complicated, but you know this is little more than idle assumption. The Tribes are quiet on the topic of marital subjects, speaking of them only in moments of necessity. You are content to leave these tribal matters to the Tribes themselves; it helps, you realize—as a Transit Host—it is best to maintain your distance from Tribal mindsets, and thus, your neutrality. Ëtéep shifts your mood, however, and draws you—for the first time—into the desire to look into his Tribe, to forge a link—however tenuous—with the kid who has probably left leaf fragments in your bathtub drain. “Does the Wander determine your man-name mark, or is it likely that you can choose it before your journey.” Ëtéep considers those words, stroking his arm. “It’s nae the same for any two people; I know nae a thing about the mark I’ll take, and as I cut kindling for your winter’s hearth, I thought, maybe I’d find a mark before leavin’ and provin’ the worth of that mark to me an’ mine as I go west, where the other ocean slams the rocks.” “Can you read?” you ask. “I can read.” “The old language…?” “Some words, here and there…I can hear it well enough, and I know it’s in your speech; I can hear the accent.” “I have a library. Books in the old language and the new. You’re welcome to look through them if it’ll help you with choosing a mark.” It is as much involvement with Ëtéep and his Tribe as you’ll allow yourself. It is enough. In your grandmother’s world, small gestures held little value, and in this world—an alien one to her—the smallest considerations carry the most impressive weight. You clear the bowls and balk at Ëtéep’s insistence that he should handle the washing. “You’ve paid in good cedar,” you tell him. “There’s no reason for you to do extra work. I appreciate it, but it’s unnecessary.” “I want to do it,” Ëtéep says. “It helps. Everyone says to meditate and prepare, but that’s nae a thing but sittin’ still.” You understand. You nod, and talk to him as he washes pots, bowls, and spoons with meticulous care. *** Your sitting room—the heart of your house—is a marvel, according to the Tribe’s-boys that come through at the start of their respective Wanders. Lit—now—with tongues of flame fed by kerosene and held in colored-glass globes, the wavering amber light recalls days more than a lifetime ago. Your house is old and cradles wires behind the walls. On irregular nights, electricity may course through them at the flip of a switch. You’ve come to prefer the kerosene lamps. Their smell, you think, is a comfort. Your sitting room bears colors that must find comforting; he smiles—softly—as he pads across parquet and rug-work given to you by the inland tribes. The Fisher Tribes are known for their baskets and their glass, and delicate utensils carved from living rock. You have a collection of such things, and antiques as well: plastics and ceramics far finer in their cast than the heavier clay works of the modern day. You have mirrors and music makers the likes of which you doubt Ëtéep has ever seen: a turntable and arm that draws songs from black, vinyl plates, a sleek and old-fashioned box that draws both music and images from smaller mirror-shiny disks. Your grandmother cherished these the most: the image disks that cast murder mysteries and love stories on a screen you no longer possess. The larger black plates belonged to her grandmother. She’d deemed them as primitive as any aspect of the modern day. These are things that require electricity, and the wires in your house seem to have abandoned all hope of ever holding it again. It doesn’t matter: you have your books, and the arts you practice, sometimes for yourself, and sometimes as offerings of exchange for the traders who meander the road beyond your rearward garden. “Is she your clockwork maid?” Ëtéep’s voice draws you from your reverie. You follow his gaze and smile. “That’s Anabelle,” you say. “She’s not a maid. She not much of anything, really, but she has her uses.” “What’s the use of a clockwork lady if she’s nae a maid?” “I make dresses for women in the center towns; I make paintings for them as well. She is a model, and at times, a reminder of things that’ve passed. She’s a mannequin, and I’m afraid she lacks clockwork.” “Her wear…you’ve made that for some fluff lady in the center towns?” “If one wishes to buy it. Anabelle is—if anything—a sale’s assistant; I stand her on the road, and the occasional customer may inquire as to what wares I’ve got for trade.” “Her color-specs…you make those too?” “I found those, and I think they look good on her.” Ëtéep steps forward and fingers the fabric of her dress. “It’s flash,” he says. “There’s more than a girl in village who’d sell her teeth for a frock like this.” You smile. “When you’ve Wandered and return,” you say, “perhaps you can buy this flash little frock for the lady who’ll be your wife.” Ëtéep laughs. “I’ve a net rigger’s job when I return from Wander; it’ll be a way time before I’ll make cedar enough and buy flash for a lady.” He falls into immediate silence and the unexpected arrival of it makes you think he has seen something to give him a shock. It has happened before, with the more superstitious of tribal Wanderers: sight of a small thing normally does it, an electronic thing of ill-omen as your grandmother mockingly called them. But you see, with relief, that Ëtéep’s silence is a smiling thing, and touchingly reverential. “That’s George,” you say, nodding toward the wood-sculpted stork, on the sill of your north window. “Him that Flies,” Ëtéep says. “But I nae have heard him with a name like George.” “A friend of my uncle’s carved him.” “How’s he got a name like George?” You know by his tone that Ëtéep is asking for a story. Names, among the Fisher Tribes, bear half-epic tales of beguiling emotional complexity. “I have a friend. She lives far away, where fog covers the land; she lives far across The Vast, months by steamship and rail-train. She’s a tale-spinner and the one who named him George in a story she invented to recite to children. We correspond, by written word.” “They know Him that Flies even across The Vast?” “Not as a god, not like you know Him…but yes…they know the stork, and they recognize him as a harbinger of babies.” Ëtéep nods. “They’re good people then.” “They’re good people,” you echo. You think, now, that it is fitting to leave him with George, and Anabelle’s wordless and undisturbing company. You find a reason to walk away. “It’s high dark,” you say. “The best time for evening’s tea. Would you like to share a pot with me?” Ëtéep, taken by some unnamable emotion, touches the ink needled into the flesh of his arm. He nods. “I would like that,” he says. *** Tea is a time for silence in the serene complexities of Fisher Tribe etiquette, and so Ëtéep consumes his brew wordlessly and with an expression of inward contemplation. You are content to leave him to what he doesn’t say. You are content to occupy yourself with your charcoals and the paper you’ve pressed. It is fitting, you think, that even with a guest at the start of his Wander, you can have silence as you’ve come to cherish it. You render a sketch with no firm idea in mind. You allow your hand to go where it will, leaving charcoal streaks to mark its progress. You work quickly, and easily, lulled into comfort by the rhythm of your strokes. You ignore the impulse to impose order on what you sketch and simply record some protean, emotional current. The night has mastery over what your create, and so your mind drifts into stillness and rest. You drink your tea. And later, Ëtéep—in half-lotus position on the floor—steps to his feet. He stretches, catching his weight on outstretched toes. He smiles. You smile. “I know my next mark,” he says. “I’ve considered.” You know what this means. Though he’s paid for a week’s span of nights, he is likely to leave tomorrow. “Your friend across The Vast,” he says. “Does she know of our Wanders?” “I’ve told her,” you say. “She likes the idea.” “Her men don’t Wander?” You laugh at the accidental pun. “Not, in a way as good as the Tribesmen here.” Ëtéep glances down at some spot on the floor bracketed between his feet. He has the expression of a scryer, you think: someone reading the grain of wood, or the cast of footprints left by some sacred bird. He glances up, a serene expression on his face, and a spark in his eyes: something that speaks—at least momentarily—of torture, combat, and peaceful resolution. “I’m nae to say the name of my Wander’s end,” he tells you. “Nae am I to ask the name of my first Wander’s Host.” You know this custom. You accept it and tell him that he is under no obligations to share with you anything more than what custom requires. “I know,” he says. “But you’re nae of the Tribes anyway, and so I’m nae breaking any rule.” You nod. “So, if there’s nae offence in my asking: can I have your name and the name of your friend across the Vast?” You smile. You tell him your name and the name of your friend. He smiles and touches his chest in the Fisher Tribe’s gesture of profoundest gratitude. He collects the tea cups—empty now—and the small, porcelain pot. It is empty as well. You have learned—quietly so—not to balk at his insistence on washing the dishes or cutting wood for winter fires he’ll never feel. You allow him his acts and wonder at his family. Does he have brothers? You wonder. Does he have sisters? You will not ask him these questions. You put your sketch aside, but pause before following him into the kitchen. It is best to give him silence, you think; to let him work through meditation that would otherwise seem too much like sitting still. After a while, you make your way into the kitchen as he finishes washing. He dries his hands on his rough-woven tunic and smiles. “I’ll make leave tomorrow,” he says. “I know.” “My Wander ends at The Vast, and so it’s a long one for me, and a long ways back.” You nod. This is information of extreme intimacy, you realize, and you are touched that he shares it so freely. His voice is weighted by somber tones, and you know that he is aware—fully so—of the breech in protocol he has just committed. You aren’t of his Tribe, however, and so even as grievous a breech as revelation is diminished. “At The Vast,” he says. “I’ll find a stone fit for gizzards and I’ll etch your name on it, the name of your friend from the foggy land. I’ll etch George’s name too, and the name for Anabelle.” He smiles. “That’s my Wander,” he says. “And I’m of the thinking that it’s a first from my village. It’s the way to Wander for yourself…but maybe there’s a thing wrong with that thinking. I found my mark here, and I know the story of a name like George; that’s all a part of the man who will wander back, and so it’s only fair that I make my Wander at first sun tomorrow, so I’ll remember everything you gave me with this night’s tea. “I wanna give something back, and so maybe—with luck—Him that Flies will need a gizzard stone, and so he’ll take your names and this night, and maybe carry it across The Vast. Maybe your friend will find it, and have a new story.” The night is quiet after that. In the darkness of your room, you listen to the echo of Ëtéep’s words and the subtle reasons behind them. It is a custom to allow a Wanderer to depart alone. By Tribal custom, there can be no good-byes and parting words, no gifts of exchanged promises to visit or keep in contact. You know that Ëtéep has broken Tribal etiquette by revealing the goal of his Wander, and as you are not a member of the tribes, you climb from bed and make your way into the kitchen. You find a sack and load it with bread, with cheese, and apples. You step—quietly, through the darkness—and open your front door. Ëtéep’s buskins rest where he has left them. You leave the gift of journey’s food on the stonework of your stoop, placing his footwear on top. You return to bed, and listen to the sigh of wind through boughs of oak and maple, and distant, distant chestnut. THE END