She did not mind her days alone, away
from the eyes outside. It was better this way, her secret stories hidden
so no one could touch them, take them. Her sisters listened, rapt, but did
not try to take. They cared more for the eyes and ears; they seemed to
want to collect these like charms to wear around their necks, the eyes and
ears and the mouths whispering - beautiful, beautiful, why did it matter
she wondered. She was free, still, like a child, the way it is before you
are seen and then after that you can never remember who you are unless
someone else shows it to you. She had the stories she gave to her sisters
that made them love her. Or need her, at least.
And she had the tasks. She loved to
plant the beds with lilies and wisteria, camellias and gardenias, until
her hands were caked with earth. To arrange the flowers in the vase like
dancing sisters. To make the salmon in pomegranate sauce; the salads of
spinach, red onion, pine nuts, oranges, and avocados; the golden vanilla
cream custards; the breads and piecrusts that powdered her with flour. She
loved, even, to dust the things, to feel them in her hands, imagining
their history. The glass music box that perhaps a boy had once given to
his grandparents - the first present he had ever chosen, making them close
their eyes, watching them standing there, before him, suddenly looking so
small with their eyelids closed and their hands held out until they heard
the tinkle of their first dance. The glass goblet with the roses and grape
clusters one could feel with the fingertips like Braille that perhaps a
man had given to his wife because she was losing her sight and he was
afraid to give her more books of poetry. The candlesticks like crystal
balls, many-faceted; though the girl could not read her own future in them
perhaps if she looked closely enough she could see the young bride tearing
away the tissue and holding them up to the light to see herself being
imagined by this girl, now. This girl, now, who did not mind polishing the
wooden floors or scrubbing out the pots until her sisters could see their
reflections, or cleaning between the tiles and lighting the candles,
running the water and scattering the petals and powders in the bath so
that her sisters could lie in the tub where she would tell them stories.
Always she would tell them stories; they returned at night and sat before
their mirrors, let her rub their feet with almond oil, soothe them with
her words and in this way she felt loved.
But the woman came to her then. The
woman with hair of red like roses, hair of white like snowfall. She was
young and old. She was blind and could see everything. She spoke softly,
in whispers, but her voice carried across the mountain ranges like
sleeping giants, the cities lit like fairies and the oceans - undulating
mermaids. She laughed at her own sorrow and wept pearls at weddings. Her
fingers were branches and her eyes were little blue planets. She said, You
cannot hide forever, though you may try. I've seen you in the kitchen, in
the garden. I've seen the things you have sewn - curtains of dawn,
twilight blankets and dresses for the sisters like a garden of stars. I
have heard the stories you tell. You are the one who transforms, who
creates. You can go out into the world and show others. They will feel
less alone because of you, they will feel understood, unburdened by you,
awakened by you, freed of guilt and shame and sorrow. But to share
with them you must wear shoes you must go out you must not hide you must
dance and it will be harder you must face jealousy and sometimes rage and
desire and love which can hurt most of all because of what can then be
taken away. So make that astral dress to fit your own body this time.
And here are glass shoes made from your words, the stories you have told
like a blower with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets
of light out of what was once sand. But be careful; sand is already
broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing not for running
away.
So she washed off the dust and ash and
flour and mud and went to the dance where sure enough everyone whirled
around her, entranced by the stories in which they recognized themselves,
but in the stories they were also more than themselves and it always felt
at the end fulfilled not meaningless and empty like life can sometimes
feel. She knew they all loved her with her stories because they became
her and she became them.
He came to her across the marble
floor, past the tall windows glowing like candles, the balconies
overlooking the reflecting pools full of swans, the stone statues of
goddesses and beds of heady roses - had she made all of this, like a
story? He had dense curls and soft full lips and bright eyes like a
woodland beast and a body of light muscle and mostly she could see he was
gentle, he was gentle like a boy though he could lift her in his hands.
He held her and she felt his hard chest and stomach and hipbones and she
felt his strong heart beating like the sound of all the stories she could
ever hope to tell. Maybe she had not created him, maybe she was his
creation and all she dreamed, his dream. Or maybe they had made each
other. Yes.
Beloved. One. He planted in her a seed
of a white flower with a dizzy scent; in the night garden the oranges hung
like fat moonstruck jewels and the jasmine bloomed as she spun and spun.
Now she had everything and the sisters eyed her jealously, secretly, in
their mirrors until the glass cracked, clutched the little bags she had
made for them until the crystal beads scattered and broke - they had
stories, too, they'd like to tell. They'd like to make someone cry and
swoon and spin with love for what they made. Who was she to take this
away from them? How dare she wear the glass shoes? They could see what
was wrong with her. She wasn't perfect, she wasn't so beautiful. Her
skin was blemished and her body was too thin, or not thin enough, and she
wasn't perfectly symmetrical and her hair was thin and brittle and why was
he looking at her like that? It was just that she knew how to make
things. Or not even that - just rearrange, imitate.
She felt their envy and this broke
her. The story ended, she couldn't tell the rest, they'd hate her, she had
to stop it, she wasn't any good shut up you bad bad girl ugly and you
don't deserve any of this and so the spell was broken and she ran home
through a tangle of words where the letters jumbled and made no sense and
meant nothing, and the words were ugly and she was not to be heard or
seen, she was blemished and too fat, too thin, not smart, too smart, not
good, not a storyteller, not a creator, not beautiful, not a woman not not
not. All the things that girls feel they are not when they fear that if
they become, if they are, they will no longer be loved by the sisters
whose hearts they have not meant to break. And besides, if the sisters are
gone and only the beloved remains with his dense curls and his lips, how
safe are you then? You have to have him or you will die if the sisters
are gone with their listening ears and their feet to rub and their bodies
to dress and their shared loneliness.
She lost one of the glass slippers -
shine, fire, bright of her making like a dropped word lost, like a word,
the missing word to make the story right again, to make it complete.
It doesn't matter, she tells herself,
shredding up the dress she made. It doesn't matter. I am safe. Alone
and safe. The sisters don't hate me. I am small and safe, no one will
hate me, hear me, no one can break me by leaving, by taking away his seed,
the promise of the jasmine blossom in the garden.
Still he came to find her even without
her enchantments, her stories, her dress, her shoe. He had the shoe, he'd
found it when he followed her. It was so fragile he didn't breathe.
She made him want to cry when he
walked up the path through the ferns and doves and lilies and saw her
covered with earth and dust and ash. Only her eyes shone out. Revealing,
not reflecting. Windows. Her feet were bare. He wanted her to tell him
the rest of the story. He felt bereft without it, without her. There
were only these women with mirror eyes strutting across marble floors,
tossing their manes, revealing their breasts, untouchable, only these
tantalizing empty glass boxes full of dancing lights he could not hold,
only these icy cubicles, parched yards, hard loneliness.
When the sisters saw him kneeling
before her holding the one shoe, not breathing, trying not to crush
anything, saw how he looked at her, how he needed her, they knew that if
they tried to take this from her they would never know, have nothing left,
they would starve, they would break, they would never wake up.
The fairy who was not old, not young,
who was red roses, white snowfall, who was blind and saw everything, who
sent stories resounding through the universe said, You must reach inside
yourselves where I live like a story, not old, not young, laughing at my
own sorrow, weeping pearls at weddings, wielding a torch to melt sand into
something clear and bright.