All in the Name

Aespera.

That was my name. I held on to it, with numbing fingers, as my bones were scattered to the seas. My hair and my teeth spelt the name in their hollow shafts, as I was flung from the highest cliff of the Golden City.

When the cathedral bells tolled, my name crashed to pieces against rocks and waves. Only to reawaken, reinvent another violent end in the sea foam.

Once, I had beautiful lives. They were not tedious, nor terrible; for after all, they were mine. A woodcutter father, who was tricked by a goddess into hating his life, his choices, himself. His axe returned to him – neither gold nor silver, nor diamond-encrusted – and he took his own life with it. We found him in the woods, the ravens finishing what he'd started, splitting him into fragments we no longer recognised.

Our mother had long vanished after the riches disappeared, abandoning me and my sisters to our fate. We lived in penury, on mushrooms and other things that began with death, till my eldest sister learnt the craft of wood. She unstained father's axe, chopped the wood that was aplenty, and sang over them, into lovely, beguiling dolls that she sold in the market. She would come back from Friday markets, enthralled and bubbling with tales of magic beans, five-legged horses, dancing swans, and bright gold apples.

Those were halcyon days, blessed by the skies and the sun. I would roam the forests with my younger sisters, guard them from roaming mischief-makers, romp in the river with magick-less nymphs, and learn the five languages from the birds and the trees. The languages that common folk called sorcery.

But I was no magick-folk, for I had no soft tongue. My nails were curved and sharpened on animal hides, as were my teeth and bones. Blood ran in my veins; not mine alone. For that was the way I'd learnt would serve best – becoming the iron glove over the tender naivety of my sisters.

My favourite sister, the second from the last, was an apple-cheeked and imprudent sprite. She would trail behind me while I hunted, and care for me in her sweet way. Bringing hot taters for me to eat, sharpening my nails and teeth on her tiny thimble.

"Go back to the others, child," I told her once, exasperated. For a troll had nearly torn her to shreds, and I now had a new bone to reset.

She looked up at me with blazing eyes. "I want to learn how to protect my sisters too."

No more was said between us.

But I taught her the magick of binding wood and stone, to imbibe their spells deep into our bones. She learned to listen, and to know the difference between lie and truth.

For things of nature can be vicious liars too.

"One day, you will be the finest lady of this land." I said, and laughed at the sour lemon-face she made.

One day, my eldest sister disappeared, never to return. It was my turn to care for the younger children. With the money my sister had saved, I moved us to within the walls of the Golden City, and assumed the guise of a witch – to deter wicked folk from taking advantage of my sisters.

It did not succeed. Had I but known, we were safer in the wild woods. Among treacherous swamps, the wolves, the skeletons and the banshees.

When we lost our youngest, I crept into the soldier's home and poisoned his food.

Alas, his entire household fell ill, and died. Divining the fate that would soon befall me, I sang to the broken carnage of my house that the townsfolk had set afire, and breathed a smoke carriage into life. The forest winds beckoned, and I obeyed their homeward call, spiriting my three sisters into the whip-sharp winds.

My erstwhile carriage disappeared in the morning dew, and we fell into the garden of an old married couple. I bid goodbye to my sisters, leaving them in the care of the doting old woman and her husband in their cottage in the woods.

"Don't leave us," begged the now youngest, tears flowing from her dark eyes. I stooped over her, and kissed her forehead.

"I do this for you darling. Remember, you're the cleverest of us. One day, you'll be the finest lady on this land."

"Whatever do you mean, Ursa?" asked the now eldest sister.

They called me Ursa, for I was their Mother Bear. A title I was proud to own; for I had earned it through my everlasting determination to protect, and unhappily, avenge them.

"We are but wanderers on this land, dearest. Remember that. And little one," I turn to the youngest. "Do not allow wood nor stone to thwart your journey."

It was advice given in the spur of a moment, mouthed in nonsense. For the sake of the name that my father had given me. Aespera.

For I had learnt that even the wildest, abstract words could be construed as hope; an occult message, in times of utter darkness and despair, takes the shape of weapons that no metal can forge.

The heart that beat within me, the one that had long since turned to stone – for how else could I have watched over my sisters? – wept at parting. Not all of nature's things are liars.

'Perhaps,' I reflected on my way back to the city, my heart beating heavy. "I'm a witch after all.'

My conviction grew in the coming days.

When I was quartered for taking the life of an entire family in lieu of the unpunished actions of one soldier – I did not die.

Aespera.

They burnt me in four flames, in the four directions. I did not die, but neither did I survive.

They threw my screaming bones under the horses' hooves. Ground me to grist and fed me to their giants.

Aespera, Aespera, Aespera.

Like snowflakes, and stars, like the sword forged in fire, the shatter of their flames only made me burn brighter.

My tears, no one saw. Not even the fires that burned my flesh.

Finally realising their folly, the denizens of the city flung me to the seas.

My name, twined with my being, was torn eternally asunder, like sea foam and dark wisps of smoke. I could not hold on, for I was no longer whole, and knew I had to let go of one or the other of my names.

What woman was ever given the choice to choose the form of hope? That woman was not I.

I enfolded – in bulbous, bloated embrace – all that would survive death's generous gifts. For I could not forsake the maligned kindness that once protected me and my sisters.

Sorcery.

With my name, Aespera, I drowned my guilt and shame, and all that remained of hope. Like all things that begin with death, the blood that was not mine embraced broken fragments of my soul.

My pieces churned the ocean song, learnt its cruel salt-bite and tide-spin. The mermaids erected thorns of stone, and I melded to them like a boat-less sail.

A single name alone withstood all, and a heart that once knew my sisters names was born. That aching, heavy heart took me deeper and deeper into the ocean, their names ballooning and bursting like unborn stars.

One last name. I clung to it, for I'd fought tooth and nail for it. The name which was given to me in other lives, by inveigled and naive hope.

The name that would find me again someday, to be maligned in new ways. Just as the names of women who fight, to protect, are twisted into beings that are not us. Not ours.

For if we cannot be pitied, are we truly women?

But with that name, Ursa, that had made me an iron soul, I grew and grew till I could grow no more. Until I'd fashioned an ocean-dom of my own.

Perhaps I was a witch after all.