Ursula Pflug - Seeds and Other Stories

Screaming and laughing, the three of them, laughing because of the speed of the current, screaming because the water was still icy with melt-off. Everything so green. Each spring it felt like that, as if a winter of starvation was being assuaged. Siena remembered how that day had been so much better than the expensive asphalt-paved fair. A better thrill, and free. She and her children had looked into one another’s eyes, wide with excitement, barely believing anything could be so wonderful. And then done it again.

How could she have forgotten the creek? It must have been the trauma. But it seemed not only she but everyone in the village had forgotten.

Siena’s heart could not break any more than it had already broken; it had calcified, scarred over. The truth was, she no longer had the strength or hope even to leave and try and find the men. But what was there to stay for? She’d never find Noelle. Noelle was mad or missing or both.

“They don’t have her in a basement,” the girl with black braids said. She was sitting beside the dead fire.

Siena stared at her.

“I heard you say they did one time,” Peter’s friend said. “You were walking, talking, didn’t notice I was here.”

“Just like now. So how do you know?”

“It’s a feeling mostly, not that that’s much help, I’m sure. But it’s pretty strong. I’m Liz, by the way.” Siena stared at Liz. Was she a witch? Witches were always taught to pay great attention to their intuition. “Do you have another?” Liz asked.

“What?”

“Spider web. My friends took the others, and there weren’t any left that I could find.”

“Is that why you’re not in school? You came down here looking for a spider web?”

The girl nodded.

“What’s his name?” Siena asked.

“I’ve known him since kindergarten but he acts like my brother. I can’t get him to see me as potential girlfriend material. Noelle’s spider webs are a charm. She’s the patron saint of love.”

“But I make them, not Noelle.”

“You make them for her,” Liz said. “So she’ll feel your love and come back. So in that way they’re still hers. And I bet she makes them work for us, from wherever she is.”

“Did you know Noelle?” Siena asked.

“We all knew her,” Liz said. “We used to come down here and party. She was a little older. It was a few years ago, back when you still lived in the…” the girl’s voice trailed off, as if she were embarrassed for Siena.

“House?”

“Yes,” Liz said.

“Who lives in my house now?” Siena asked.

“It’s empty. No one will buy it or rent it.”

“Maybe if I stop hating them, they’ll give her back. I just can’t figure it.”

“What did your mother say?” Liz asked.

“Don’t beat yourself up so much.” Siena laughed at the memory. She’d always been hard on herself, and her mother had always told her to love herself. But then her mother had died, and Noelle had disappeared, and then the men had left. Since then Siena had been hard on herself for pretty well every minute of every day.

“Here. I have one in my pocket. If I give it to you will you go back to class?”

“Yes.” The girl held her hand out for Siena’s gift.

“Did you know there’s a creek under all that garbage?” Siena asked as Liz got up to go.

“Really? They’re connected, the missing creek, missing Noelle. I’ll get the others and we’ll clean it.”

“Thanks,” Siena said.

But what did she mean? Thanks for helping clean the creek or thanks for believing Noelle was still alive?

Liz was as good as her word. Over the ensuing weeks the teenagers came and built igloos out of Styrofoam they could stay in when their parents kicked them out for being lippy. They made stick piles and burned them. They carted bags and bags of bottles to the recycling bins on Thursday mornings, until every blue box in the village was full. Even Sally Fish came to help; occasionally she found an object she could sell at her weekend sale.

“It was time to clean the place up,” Sally said. “I had to help, after what they did to Noelle.”

So she’d heard the truth at last. Siena was glad, but she didn’t make a big deal out of it. After weeks of burning and recycling and land-filling garbage, there was a creek. It was still a little murky, so they planted cattails along the edges. By early fall it ran crystal clear, and there were little brown trout in it, and geese flying in screaming Vs overhead. At first they weren’t very good at it, their Vs misshapen; it reminded Siena of when her son had first learned to drive. She missed him terribly and started to cry all over again, even though the creek cleanup had distracted her all summer, the youngsters and their bonfires and tea had kept her warm. So many of them had found love, and all, they insisted, although Siena still wasn’t sure, because of her magic spider webs. They brought glue guns and glued the walls of her hut together, so it would be less drafty in the coming winter. Peter brought a little window to set into the side.

But Siena cried, missing her husband. She’d always called him her husband even though they’d never married in a church, but the witch figured God wouldn’t have noticed the difference; what he’d have noticed instead, if he’d been looking or cared, which was doubtful, was how she’d poured everything into her family—scrubbing and cleaning and working and growing vegetables and cooking and canning and washing and hanging clothes until she was so exhausted she couldn’t even remember what her own dreams had been for herself, or if she’d ever even had any. She hadn’t minded; she’d loved them all so much. It had been worth it. And while the family was on the poor side and complained a lot because of it, they were largely happier and more content than they knew. Isn’t it always so? Although there were days Siena had noticed how lucky they were, that a tiny bit of heaven had come unglued from the sky to land at their feet, astonishing them, allowing them to live in it. It was like a secret, and she’d taken the best care of it she knew how. Remembering her lost happiness, Siena began to shake her head then, and muttered, “I tried not to talk about it too much, lest someone notice and try and take it away. They were always doing that, weren’t they?” She dug first haphazardly and then with more frenzy in her pockets where she thought she’d once put away a little string.

But a hand touched her shoulder then, and made her turn and take a cup of tea, and said, “Maybe they’ll return one day, as geese. Remember that story? They’ll land and shed their feathers and put on clothes,” and again Siena wondered whether Liz might be a witch, whether one could be born into it, and not just trained by one’s own mother.

“Why would they do that?” Siena asked.

“Well, if we found Noelle they’d have no reason to stay away,” Liz said, and with a sudden abstracted look on her face got up and wandered away.

“I know you won’t make them anymore, but you brought so much love into the world making spider webs for her and giving them away,” Peter said. “Maybe Noelle’s supposed to just be the patron saint of love.”

“You can’t say that to a mother,” Sally Fish said, and again Siena wondered what had happened to the minister’s wife. One day she’d have to ask.

“Come here!” Liz called, “I found the most amazing feet!” Peter got up, and when he and Siena got to the creek where Liz was pointing he put his arm around the girl and she smiled, a cat in pyjamas, suddenly.

There were two dead trees lying across the creek, too big and heavy to move. But beneath them in the now sparkling clear water, there were two elegant feet. And the toes, it was undeniable, were wiggling not just with the current but with life. Siena stepped into the shallows at the edge and leaned over to peer under the tree. A young woman was lying on the soft sand at the bottom of the creek, her arms folded across her chest, a fraying daughter catcher held over her heart. Her eyes were closed. Siena reached in and stroked Noelle’s feet.