Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Aunt Bronwyn laughed and clapped her hands as Hattie finished reading aloud. Good for Hattie! Aunt Bronwyn patted Hattie’s arm and told her how proud she was of Hattie’s defiance of the thesis committee. That was the old family spirit!

For centuries the clergy made war on the ways of the old ones! King Cormac the Magnificent cruelly suppressed the druid religion; in revenge, the druid Maelgin paid a sorcerer who caused a salmon bone to catch crossways in the king’s throat at the dinner table.

Indigo let the parrot play by himself with the spools while they listened to Aunt Bronwyn. The Council of Tours decreed excommunication for those who persisted in worshiping trees; the Council of Nantes instructed bishops and their servants to dig up and hide the stones in remote woody places upon which vows were still made. Yet the wisest Christians were respectful of the pagan spirits. St. Columba asked God to spare the sacred oak grove at Derry because while he feared death and hell, he feared the sound of an axe in the grove of Derry even more. Hattie asked if the sacred grove was still there. Her aunt shook her head.

Yet despite the persecution, the old customs persisted — dairy keepers spilled a bit of milk for the fairies, morning and night; on the first night of August, a few people (Aunt Bronwyn was one of them) still gathered around fires on nearby hilltops until dawn, though the church tried to outlaw such practices centuries before. People still bowed to the standing stones at crossroads and threw coins into springs and lakes. At one time the church ordered the slaughter of all herds of white cattle, which were suspected of pagan devotions; fortunately not everyone complied with the order. Aunt Bronwyn’s tone of voice grew more intense.

Did Hattie know (did anyone know) how much innocent blood spilled in Derry over the years of the occupation or how much more blood might yet spill? Ireland’s suffering began with the betrayal of fairies. Those who cut down the sacred groves doomed themselves and all their descendants!

Hattie was surprised by her aunt’s vehemence, and concerned at Indigo’s reaction; but Indigo’s expression became thoughtful. Jesus was betrayed too, she responded. But after the Pharisees tried to have Jesus killed, he left the Sea of Galilee to return to the mountains beyond Walker Lake, where he was born. As Aunt Bronwyn listened, she glanced at Hattie to see her reaction to the child’s comment.

Hattie nodded. It was true; six or seven years before, newspapers reported the Indians claimed to have a Messiah, a Christ of their own, for whom they gathered to perform a dance. Hattie followed the reports in the New York Times . It all ended rather badly; settlers feared Indian uprisings, and in South Dakota the army killed more than a hundred dancers.

Aunt Bronwyn shook her head slowly; her expression was solemn. Indigo stopped playing with the spools and the parrot, and looked up at them; she told them not to worry: the soldiers would not find the Messiah and his family or the dancers because they fled far away to the east. By winter it would be safe, and the Messiah would return with the first snow.

Hattie was about to caution Indigo about exaggeration and falsehood when Aunt Bronwyn asked Indigo if she had seen the Messiah. Indigo nodded eagerly; they all were so beautiful. Aunt Bronwyn smiled and nodded. Here on the remote islands people sometimes heard the sounds of voices and drums in the night; through the fog or rain mist at night people sometimes saw the silhouettes of dancers around fires on the hilltops. Indigo’s eyes were round with delight as she nodded vigorously.

Hattie cleared her throat; she wanted to change the subject before her aunt went any further and confused the child with superstition. But the old woman’s face was bright with enthusiasm as she rattled on about sightings along the shore in the fog and mist; the people saw his Mother, sometimes with a child they called the Son of God. Indigo and her aunt exchanged smiles; yes, the Messiah and his dancers were safe.

Hattie was at a loss for words. Her mother had complained of Aunt Bronwyn’s growling terriers and the cattle on the front steps, but she never mentioned Aunt Bronwyn’s enthusiasm for Celtic mythology. Why, her aunt had left the church altogether! Hattie was critical of developments in the early church, yet she never considered leaving the church entirely. Hattie did not want the child to become confused — certainly not by the notion old stones should be worshiped!

The intensity of the storm seemed on the wane. Hattie returned the thesis notes to the portfolio. Just then Edward appeared in the doorway clutching his left hand in a towel soaked with blood.

Their dinner of picnic food was forgotten as Aunt Bronwyn and Hattie cared for the deep gash in Edward’s left hand. Somehow the freshly sharpened knife slipped as he practiced diagonal cuts on green willow twigs. Hattie applied pressure to the wound with a clean napkin while Aunt Bronwyn went to call the coachman to go for the doctor. A dozen stitches were required to close the wound, and Edward was pale and shaken when the doctor finished. By the time they remembered dinner, it was nearly eleven o’clock and they were too tired and overwrought to eat more than a few bites before they all went to bed.

An emptiness in her stomach woke Indigo just before daylight; she could barely make out the silhouette of the parrot asleep with his head tucked under one wing. She took a sip of water to try to quiet the hunger and wished she had more of Mrs. Abbott’s ginger cookies. It was much too early to get up, so Indigo lay in bed thinking about Sister Salt and Mama, and her longing for them made her chest ache until tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks into her ears. Her sobs and sniffles woke the parrot, who watched her curiously. She had one hopeful thought that stopped the tears: On their walk to the excavations the day before, she heard Aunt Bronwyn mention a Christ Church to Hattie and Edward, but Indigo didn’t see which direction she pointed; she was too shy to ask where it was, but it must be nearby. Today she would ask Aunt Bronwyn to show her the Christ Church. The Messiah and his followers went away when the hot weather came, and though she knew it wasn’t likely, still she thought it might be possible that he stopped at his church in England on his way to the Holy Land.

At the first sounds from downstairs, Indigo got up, and with Rainbow on her shoulder, she went to the dining room, where the coachman’s wife served her and Aunt Bronwyn tea and hot shortcake. After she ate two shortcakes and drank two cups of tea with sugar and milk, Indigo asked Aunt Bronwyn if Christ Church was nearby. She thought she heard it mentioned and she thought they might find out if the Messiah and his followers had been seen nearby. Aunt Bronwyn’s expression was thoughtful — yes, there were a number of churches and even villages with the name Christ Church. Then she smiled. Indigo was right, she said; Christ might be at any of those places. He might be anywhere.

The morning after the storm was clear and sunny and the air rain-fresh and fragrant with the damp plants and new flowers. They left Edward with his citrus books, his injured hand elevated on a small pillow, in a garden chair under the arbor of rambling white roses.

The coach took them up and around to the hilltop park estates of the wealthy, who resided in Bath for a month of gambling and therapeutic baths each year. Hattie asked if these were the old families of Bath, and Aunt Bronwyn laughed merrily. Fled long ago, they had, to escape the milling flocks of tourists and vacationers and the traffic jams like this one forcing their coach to inch past the hotels and shops. The sounds of the street traffic, music from the organ grinders, and shouts of the street vendors made conversation difficult. Indigo leaned out the window to get a better look at the toys — windup dogs and bouncing rubber balls sold on the sidewalk by men and boys dressed in white.