myth for black bat flower

Pearl was getting agitated. She really didn’t do much of anything but sit and tend the fire and cook the food. She would always stay very still when the grass men came to inspect, and with all her white cloaks on you would have thought she was a pile of cloth, left for a moment to be swooped up and arranged when night fell. This is why she was never given a job in the field or baking bread. Now she was cracking her neck and her fingers. She was stretching her body as if there was something that needed to get out.

Everyone was so busy with emmer, they didn't notice.

If anyone really had the time, they would have seen how she arched her back.

Talked to herself.

Rebecca saw. She sat with her.

As Pearl spoke her words became to sound like the chirp of crickets

That moved around the room and settled in the corner by the wash basin.

And a shadow consolidated in the corner. The words moved from Pearl’s lips to the shadow. They spoke in unison.

“I knew a man who was sharp as the sun and had crickets in his cloak. He came from far in the east one day in the old kingdom, where I was a princess. He asked me to make him well and I did. But I made him so strong he will never die. The medicine I gave him was blue as the sky, and I loved him, I wanted him to stay. I gave him a medicine that would make him live forever. When people are made timeless they disappear to our world. The must not know the sun or the moon. They can’t feel the water rise and fall. They know rocks. They live in the ashes of forever.”

The sounds were cracking. Pearl began to weep and took her cloak off again. Her belly was massive. It looked like an entire planet, bulging from her hemp gown embroidered with gold.

Rebecca was horrified. Pearl must have been pregnant for longer than the nine month we are given. She could not deny the strength of the woman, and knew she must have been tremendously weak. The shadow remained in the corner, breathing. “If I give birth I will have to give my baby to the shadow.” She whispered.

“Give my baby to the shadow.” came the voice from the corner.

“What will happen then?” Rebecca asked.

“I don’t know.” Pearl could barely lift her voice, “I have broken a rule. The shadow appeared when he disappeared.” Rebecca didn’t have to ask to know this was the reason why she left.

“Broken a rule.” The crickets echoed.

The shadow vibrated and called in a tremendous wave of cicada song. Rebecca’s hand was swift as she caught it stopping its sound at once with a forceful grip. It struggled a bit, but she trained it into her small loom. She wove it into a black bat flower. “I can’t make it stay.” Rebecca warned. “But it will save you time.”

The black bat flower wavered and slept, measuring time as Pearl gave birth.