Before the ululations of the mothers have crested to their full and aching diapason, we light the cauldron. The deepest realm of the wood flickers with light made wild beneath night’s unbroken shadow. The feathered and furred creatures flee as more of our number heed the summons and uproot from the soil with a resounding crack-crack-crack. We contort, trunks shrinking, branches twisting into four limbs. Joining the chorus, the hymn caroms in every direction, like thunder snatched by greedy wind.
The Queen watches from Her throne, antlered head heavy. Motionless.
How wonderful these bodies she grants us but once in a Motherwood’s age! We frolic about the glade, our skin evergreen, ochre or sorrel, braided with the pattern of bark to which we will later return. Not until after the feast! Not until after the wine! Newly sheathed in flesh and able to perceive glory, we cast our praise into the sky where looms the fecund moon, lustrous as an egg about to burst.
The saplings are last, hesitant. We remember our first promenade, the maelstrom of new senses, glorious, overwhelming. We bid them, “Be not afraid. Come!” Under our instruction they gather brittle moss, bruised fruit, fungi gone to furry spores. Into the cauldron go the forest’s jewels. Steam gilds the air, a shimmering veil perfumed with juniper and nettle.
The Queen watches with Her eight shining eyes. Silent.
A mother dips the goblet into the brew; holds it aloft. “Ours the wine and Hers the feast!” We bellow. The children shed their bashfulness and drink deeply, fear falling like scales from their eyes.
All but one sapling who stands apart.
She studies the Queen, Her regal form sedentary with the wisdom of ages, implacable as Her onyx-hewn plinth. She does not dance but through us, we should tell the child. We are Her limbs, Her lungs, Her children! We must celebrate for Her!
But we’ve succumbed to revelry, ceremony overflowing to frenzy, losing first the capacity then the will to worry over one nervous youth. Back and forth the cup is passed. The grandmothers drink deepest, sing fiercest, even stooped and gnarled with age. We pass them the wine again and again until they are glutted and swaying, mouths stained poppy-red.
Arm in arm, we spiral around the Queen. Her skin is pulpy folds tattooed with lichen, fingers like petrified wood clutching the stone armrests. We cannot discern the direction of her black eyes, but we sense her studying the saplings.
The dance ends suddenly. We feel the signal as instinctively as a seed molts into a shoot. Without the rustling of small creatures, the breeze is deafening.
It’s time for the feast.
The revelry sobers, “Ours the wine and Hers the feast,” we intone. With great dignity we prepare the stone tabernacle. On it we place a knife, quicksilver in the moonlight.
The children jostle into a loose knot, curious, wine-glazed. The mothers hum, melody no longer a celebratory gale but a guttural groan, a wordless dirge.
One grandmother bows before climbing astride the table. She lays back, face flushed, her gore-hued smile content. She’s gazing placidly at the moon as another grandmother brings down the knife.
The death is not quick. The Queen shivers—we ripple in response. The saplings are stunned as the grandmother carves her unresisting sister into a feast. But they understand. Trees ever fall in the forest. Only during the feast do we choose who dies, their willing sacrifice made consecration.
As the platter of verdant flesh is presented to the Queen, another grandmother mounts the blood-slick table.
“No!”
Stillness falls, the outcry a profane surprise. It is the recalcitrant sapling. Not all the children understand, after all. Her eyes are fixed in horror on the next of five sacrifices. Perhaps she is the sapling of a seed fallen close to her kin, living with roots tangled close beneath the ground.
We try to pacify her, assure her of the great honor. We insist it has always been this way, but she rails against us. “Tradition is no reason at all. Kill the Queen instead for her gluttony!”
Foolish child. We are all the Motherwood, but She is all us. Would you raze the forest to feed the trees? We restrain her while her grandmother exposes her belly to the blade.
The Queen stands.
We whirl around, stunned. Have we committed some offense? One ancient finger rises slowly, creaking with effort. She points at the sapling.
We don’t hesitate. The child thrashes, spitting and feral. We force the goblet to her lips. Wine breaches her throat, fragrant and incarnadine. Unwilling obeisance stiffens her body rigid, even as rebellion smolders behind her eyes.
Our music devolves to a natal thrum, comforting, rebuking. Don’t you see what a gift this is, child? In our roots we are connected, and through our leaves we taste the succor of sun and air. But we are blind, mute, incapable of joy when we sow seeds, incapable of sorrow after the ravages of wildfire, of mourning children felled, too young, by the axe.
She resists as the blade splits her body like a rotting log; cursing us with her eyes even as she convulses, even as our fingers breach the weeping slit to disgorge glistening offal. Her mouth gapes wide as another wound, so impossibly wide. But silent.
Oh, that won’t do. We are granted flesh and voice so we may experience the full dimensionality of sacrifice, so we may scream our pleasure and pain as we are consumed. Scream, child. Scream!
She screams.
We scream with her, our howls shaking the night. She does not accept. But now she understands. We all feed the Motherwood, but she doesn’t have to pass silently into that earthy gullet. As the knife carves deeper, she makes herself known. She screams.
Our answering scream of revelry and mourning is as bright as the stars and as ancient as the moon, lasting long into the night. On Her throne, the Queen feasts.
We All Feed the Motherwood is the winner of the Apparition Literary Magazine December Flash Fiction Challenge.
Photo by Tomasz Filipek on Unsplash
