maggie crane / fiction

Dawn's Passing

We came from the forests and to the forests back we go.

First we were known for our ample trees, dense forests, how loudly we cried out in bed. Men called us goddess, witch, heathen, divine. Women called us minikin, saucy, featherhead, gauche. Then they called us beautiful too. 

War descended and they called us to their quarters. Snorted like distrusting horses pawing at snakes which are really fallen branches in the grass. Like their parents, grandparents, they suspected we were not of them. Grim expressions painted their faces. “We need weapons, clothing, gold,” they dared, pointing to the front line. The possibility we’d say no did not enter their minds, we had not yet uttered the word, no matter what they used, ropes, blindfolds, wax. 

Dutifully we wrapped our hair in scarves, but behind tent flaps we filled our bags meant for loot with secret seed. Oak, birch, and elm, willow, maple and fir, juniper and ash. We ran from their encampments into the fray of cannon and musket fire. Our hearts whistled when we dropped to the grass. Over our heaving breasts, we listened to the fungus-filled earth. Detected her faint, irregular pulse. Purred to her beat. At the next reloading, we gathered our skirts, darted to each quiet mound. We recognized their faces, as we had lain with them before and knew them well. We gave them their final kiss. Planted seeds in their open mouths, in their palms we closed into fists. Payment for the goods we took, weapons, munitions, shoelaces, jackets, tobacco, belts. Most often we found no gold, so instead we plucked their silver teeth. 

The living rejoiced at our return. Men prayed to us. Women fed us their rations. While they kissed our hands, tears dampened our palms. We dropped a few seeds under their bent, grateful knees and shivered in expectation.

Funeral pyres billowed and cooled. Topography swelled with freshly-dug graves. Time buried their memory like bone saws long rusted under soil. We sat vigil. Sleet and snow rent our dresses, harsh sun baked the shreds to crisps. They thought we mourned their children and parents, their siblings too. Skin thinned on our bones like phantoms possessed. Our cousins and godparents called us home, but we weren’t ready to return to the pantheon, that ethereal middle world, its smothering, exquisite grace. They could not comprehend we were mothers, listening. For white downy roots snaking deeper in dark soil. For sprouting stalks like fingers reaching for sun. For crisp leaves snapping their green arms in that first refreshing stretch. 

We strode grasslands, moors, and meadows. Wheat and oat heads brushed our shins. Dew drops broke under our bare feet. We sang to our offspring as children, adolescents, and still when they were older than an age. We murmured stories of the pelican girl, the fairy lover, the werewolf and his wife, the great warrior mouse who had tickled their rooted toes. We were full.

Ignorance fell way to another ignorance. On stifled air, sunrise brought roaring saws biting into wooden cores. Every felling was a slashing of our wrists. We called incessantly over mycorrhizal networks, coaxing our children to pool their strength and move. A great rumbling migration, roots clawing soil, vast canopies blotting out sun. We begged and pleaded, spun webs of guilt, pushed them to choose the best possible chance at life. Some rumbled to action, though it took great effort. They knew the long journey into the dawn might be their end. Some—

Tree stumps spotted the planet like chickenpox. Our lovers ground these trunks to dust, stealing even the markers of our children’s graves. We fell to our knees, our hearts weeping. Blood poured from our open wounds. 

We wandered long and weary, succumbing to weeks of sleepless grief only to waken from muscle spasms, our hands curled like mangled, rotten roots. We dreamed terrible dreams of starting wars among humans. Visualized planting seeds inside their live, wriggling bodies, enthralled as our tree offspring matured, ripping them from the inside out. 

When war came again, we were summoned to the front, sent now to retrieve the dead. We planted our seeds with a secret vengeance. Transformed and became snow women who preyed on travelers lost in our storm, wild women who tied our hair in knots robbing humans of their greatest wish. The pantheon was quiet. We were no longer immortal, inside a part of us was always dying. We could not follow our children into the dawn and step on those shores of the new world. We had missed our chance. 

Humans saw our enduring anguish and wanted us even more. They beckoned us to their beds with cloying endearments. Unable to feel their heat or softness, we wondered how much they could really want us if they could so easily kill our children. 

“More than the moon,” they said. But they had no moon to give. “More than my teeth.” But their measly teeth were worthless. “More than my gold,” they said. 

Seed spilled from our pockets, our hair, our fists like plinking thimbles. “And if I were dying, what would you give to save me?” we asked.

“Anything. Everything,” they said, squeezing our hips at the thought of losing us, and plowed our soil again. We winced, knowing empty promises of easy times disintegrated under their own weight. 

As they sleep, we whisper their dreams into horrible visions. We meticulously position the room: broken lightbulbs, tossed furniture, sliced pillows. Blood splattered on walls, curated to pool in our mattress imprint. We take care placing their fingerprints, DNA. Once satisfied, we withdraw to the forests, the cool comfort of our children who remain. Our lovers waken. Their clenched bowels foul the air with fear. “Shit,” they cry, and not, “What have I done?”

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Maggie Crane is a northern California writer. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories and a novel.