myth for moonwort

There were stories about this place, this place beyond the fields - the dry, arid fields. Here Sweetie found herself in the western forest, where she had rarely ever been, and certainly never followed the path so far into the trees so that she could not see the wildflowers and grasses of her home beyond the forest’s edge.

Now she dove further than she even imagined the forest could extend. The trunks were muscled as rock with grains that twisted and turned like rivers. They stood far enough apart so underbrush boldly expressed themselves in the dappled light that came in from above.

It would not have been so fearful had the stories of the place not taken precedent in her mind: that the beings who lived here were terrifically evil. They were shadows with such extreme cruelty they would think they were playing when they killed. So the stories went on in sharp whispers - the perceived threats of the forest was one reason no one dared escape the grass men. Who knows what greater evil that western wood held? The fear of the forest was as old as Sweetie and all of her ancestors. Yet she pressed forward on the path, which dwindled into nothing. Yet she could identify some sort of strange pull that seemed to come from the jimsonweed flower in the jar she held. It was a small suggestion, giving as much direction as a candle in the dark. So she had to pay close attention, so as not to be consumed by the fearful stories that played in her mind and lose the small pull the plant had on her.

West - she soon understood. They were moving abosultely west. She saw the way the shadows pulled back behind her. The way the sun blinded her as evening approached. In this way she went west without knowing why. Days passed like this. The bread she brought became moldy. She was grateful for her knife and what knowledge she had of edible plants.

She was hungry. But she was surviving, and there was something beautiful in that.

As the days went by, she felt the season begin to turn. The nights cooled, and the winds came, shaking the crowns of the trees.

The flower seemed her only companion, along with the crows who squawked overhead. She would reply to them. She would tell her dreams. The sounds of the forest became familiar, so that it was strange when one twilit evening she heard voices, and laughter; singing and music. With the hope the might have pair of shoes. Her feet were so blistered they often bled, she did not know how much longer she could go on like this.

The beings wore all white and danced around a blue fire in a large clearing in the woods. Tentatively, she walked into the circle of trees and just as she did the people disappeared and the music sounded distant as if the instruments themselves dispersed but refused to stop for her. A great shadow rose up around the trees from whence she had come, and the temperature dropped. Something felt distinctly alive now in this forest - and where it had been blindly in the business of being a forest, it now was distinctly aware of her. She could almost feel it breathing at her neck. She froze. What magic is this? She tightened her grip on the small jar with the flower, and looked up into the sky.

The moon shone bright. It was a small lifeline somehow, so familiar in its face that tears streamed down her cheeks as she melted onto the forest floor. She had made a mistake leaving. She had no instructions, she had no purpose - what would the moon people do? What could anyone do to undo the damage done to her home, to the people she loved? How could she protect her family from so far away?

Lost in these hopeless thoughts her heavy eyes closed. And when they opened a great satin light shocked the circle of trees. The moon was before her like an unearthly temple. Its texture rose and fell like dolloped oil paint. At it’s based a door creaked open, making a dark outline in the brightness. She approached and found a woman in the threshold as dark as a peach pit and just as winkled.

“The moon sees the floods and sings the river. We pour out your cup and fill it back up. Where is your payment?”

Sweetie looked at the flower in her jar. It was wilted as anything, growing rot at them stem. Yet she found herself reluctant to part with it.

“This brought me here. I must give it to the moon goddesses. But I fear I will not go home without it. I feel my home in its pull even now. If I lose it I will have no anchor.”

“So have no anchor. The payment will be received within.” The woman replied without affect like an echo. She took the jar and led Sweetie into the dark warm caverns of the moon. As the moon rose again all that was left of its footprints were plants with translucent discs that played a tune like tamborines. As the beings and blue fire came back and danced. Where there is Lunaria annua there the moon has visited the earth.