Magical Mieszko (Week 2)

[serpentinejacaranda]

Look here, Thomasz! A clearing! This morning you did well sanitizing the forceps, the scalpels. Even my bone saw! Though I helped you with that, didn't I? And we had fun stomping through the trees this afternoon, too, didn't we, my boy? Ha!

A doctor and his assistant can't be far from their practice for long. Remember that. So let's take a rest here before we return to the village.

Look around. Would you like a story about this place? It's a long one, with words you might not know, but it's also about your mama. I told you I knew her, but I want to say more to you about it.

Come. Let's sit here next to the flat stone and put our basket beside it. I promise we'll eat, but first let me recite to you the story of Magical Mieszko, the blacksmith's son.

 

Mieszko was a magical boy,

but he didn't know it yet.

he was three years older

than you are now,

and in desperate thrall

when he first saw your mama.

 

she arrived in the village the week before,

pregnant, with a cat on her shoulder,

and a reputation that followed her

all the way from Wieliczka.

 

When her one eye glanced off Mieszko

in the street one day, that moment

was enough to water his heart, make

tiny shoots grow between the stones

in his young fortifications.

 

once, he overheard the innkeeper say 

that your pirate mama spun loose webs

in the attic like a black widow! she danced

with devils masked as angels!

 

Mieszko watched her disappear

into the forest between here and Kraków

for a year, every Sunday,

and her already large belly grew.

 

one Sunday he coughed

and splashed water on his face

until finally the blacksmith's wife 

told him to stay, rest, and say his prayers.

 

when the man and woman he called his parents 

and the boys he called his brothers

went down the path to the church,

Mieszko crawled out of the window.

 

he tracked her magically,

with the barest how or why,

your mama's notes in the sky,

floating behind her as she sang.

 

it was easy for him to tiptoe

into the clearing and spot

your mama alone, down on one knee

in her flowered dress.

 

her hands pointed at a tall stone,

then Mieszko watched from the brush

as she came upright

and pulled out a pinecone.

 

she scraped it with a blade,

said some special words

the boy would always remember,

then sprinkled the stone with white powder.

 

a glow spread up her arms,

to the trees, and down

to the marker, making it transparent,

like flesh in the sun. she didn't spin webs.

 

Mieszko stirred and dry leaves rustled.

his hand vibrated, like he held

a lightning bolt. he felt a sharp shock

and your mama shined green and gold.

 

when the stone flattened, like dough.

Mieszko knew it had come from him,

that had made the spell work:

she with one half, he the other.

 

when your mama turned

with that glow around her,

and recognized what Mieszko was,

she said, he was born of the woods, like her.

 

(....)

Don't be afraid, Thomasz. I see it in your eyes. Do you imagine I was not scared? I ran all the way home. When my family returned, I was well and truly sick. I saw her on the path the next week and never said a word to her, or anyone else. Soon after, she gave birth to you, Thomasz, with Dr. Zieliński at her side. My mentor told me, as I have told you, that she left this world when you entered it, and that it is not your fault, but just the way of the world sometimes.

It is time for us to eat. Open the basket, Thomasz, if you would. We have bread, sausage, plums, and those little pastries. I know you have a faint memory of Dr. Zieliński. He knew everything I'm telling you now.

Before he left me his practice, the good doctor whispered to me in the tavern: "That day, Mieszko: at her moment of death, something bright left her solar plexus! It went out a window. I watched as it flew into the forest, then baby Thomasz finally began to cry."

This marker, Thomaz, which I flattened with my magic over a decade ago, I show you now. It is her living memory. Yes, the very stone. This is where she stood. It is also where I was found, a crying little thing, and brought into the village, and taken up by the Blacksmith and his wife those twenty-odd years ago. It was the forest itself that left me there. And now you, me, the doctor, and your mama are connected to this place, in one way or another.

Yes - it glows! Soft at first, and then I lift my hands like this, and say the words I remember...

You are frightened! And you have so many questions, I can tell. The magic words are a little funny, so laugh at them, if you want to. As you talk more to the spirits, you'll see that they like to laugh, too.

I am a healer, as you are learning to be, and if it's any consolation, I was scared too when I first crept in here ten years ago. Your mama never was. Not even when our magic anchored her soul.

Now you see her figure, forming in the light, so clear on Solstice. Yes, that is your mama! Go to her, if you feel like it, but only if. You can just say hello. Or anything you like. She'll talk as well, but she stays in her place at the center.

The center of what? Why, of all things, ha-ha! All things. And you'll remember her when you leave the glade, but as a half-remembered dream... like a rainbow through mist, my boy.