By Bessi Lasala
“Do not stray from the path,” mother once said to me. If it were the same warning fathers gave to their sons, I would never know. All I knew was that the path, worn and cobbled and reddish in hue, was always to be followed so you could reach the Beautiful City.
And it was, as promised, beautiful. It glimmered in the moonlight, standing out in the otherwise absolute darkness, seen even from the farthest of distances. The entire city sparkled in the sunlight, promising splendor unchallenged, except perhaps for the sun. There were white castles towering, reaching the sky, and there was music and laughter to be heard, even as you reached the end of the path.
I loved it. I waited by the city gates like a moonstruck lover, my eyes taking in all the beauty it could. The view seemed to change every time I came close, but the compelling loveliness was always there, beckoning to me. And I yearned to enter it, that land of the Beautiful. For it was not only the city that was beautiful—it was all those who resided there; they gave it the name Beautiful, and they carried it with grace.
There was, of course, another warning, unspoken but followed nonetheless. So I waited patiently by the gates, never daring to enter. It was not yet my time.
The first one to go since I became of age had been Sophitia—beautiful, kind Sophitia, who had been sixteen at that time. The carpenter’s son had loved her—well, many of them did, but he loved her best. It was wise of her, of course, not to have returned his affections. It would have been terrible if she had.
Mother had been there when they took Sophitia away, and she told me later as we washed the clothes by the stream together how extravagant it had been. “It rained flowers,” she said dreamily. “Lilies and forget-me-nots and sunflowers and daisies, and many others. There had been so much color, Eli, you couldn’t have seen the sky.”
I nodded. I wondered what it was like, to be taken away in a storm of color, marched triumphantly through the cobbled path as music filled the air. It must’ve been glorious, and I burned with deep-seated jealousy for Sophitia, the Beautiful.
Perhaps mother had caught sight of my less-than-beautiful expression, for she shook her head and took hold of my calloused, rough hands. “Emily,” she said, quietly. “I have never regretted my life, you know.”
I smiled thinly. “Then I guess I will have to regret it for you.”
“It is not all beautiful,” mother said mildly in reply, though her grip was suddenly too tight around mine. “Not then, and not now. Remember, Eli, beautiful is not everything.”
I looked at her and thought, of course, it wouldn’t matter—not to you, never to you. For mother was not, and had never been, a great and terrible beauty, like the Beautiful City. She did not glimmer nor sparkle; it was just weary smiles and homely wrinkles that took some time to love. Sometimes, indeed, it was almost a burden to love her—because no one had loved her before me, and no one else would after me.
She was simple and ignorant, loving deeply though rarely wisely, and that was why people sneered at her behind her back. But either her ignorance ran deeper than her love or she was really uncommonly stupid, because she never stopped loving, never stopped giving treats to the little children playing on the street or sweeping the porches of the frail old ladies of the village. If only her kindness were beauty, I often thought bitterly. Then maybe.
“Don’t be too harsh,” cautioned one village girl to me in passing. She had big, dazzling blue eyes and rosy cheeks. She, like all others, had known, of course. They all knew my mother and me, as much as they knew about the spoken warnings and the unspoken ones. The entire village knew, for it was small and there were never really any secrets among the villagers. They who could trace your parentage beyond your mother’s great-grandmother, they who still remembered all the girls who had been sent to the Beautiful City, they who lived simple, monotonous lives beyond the forest and near the city—they who spoke in whispers. “She is still your mother, after all.”
I looked at her contemptuously, and she stepped away in surprise. “That is easy for you to say,” I said coldly. “She is not your mother, after all.” I walked away, my arms full of recently washed clothing to be brought to the gates.
I never saw her again after that. Later on, I found out her name was Delilah, and she had been the newest to be carried away to the Beautiful City.
It was hatred and envy and anger that burned within me when the knowledge was imparted to me, and I spent the rest of the day screaming myself hoarse in the forest.
Why, why, why? My time was running out—my beauty would not hold out for long. Would I become like the infirm women of the village, I thought, with a sudden irrational panic, helpless and unhappy, to be left forgotten in caskets and memory boxes?
Or worse, I would end up like my mother. My mouth felt dry. At least, the old women had their husbands and their children. Their world was small, but my world was even smaller, and it contracted with each passing day. I walked with increasing suffocation with every step onto the path, worn and cobbled and reddish. Was I destined forever to take it by foot, and to end my journey before the towering metal gates? Would I grow old, tormented by the sight of the stately spires and sprawling pillars that could be seen from my little window?
I felt myself stumble; in my worry, I had let myself step away from the path. My eyes grew round as I whipped around—never once had I lost track of myself. And suddenly the forest was not warm and inviting, but dark and foreboding.
“Do not stray away from the path,” my mother once said to me—once, and only once, though I never forgot. I plunged blindly around, desperate for a sight of the red cobblestones. But no—it was only mud and grass and brambles, cutting through my skin as I ran past. There was blood on my arms and on my legs; the stench of blood rose to my nostrils. I choked on my own human smell, horrified at the incessant bleeding. The cuts and scratches were small, but the blood simply wouldn’t stop oozing.
I was terrified. Should people bleed this much? The stain seemed to engulf me; my skin, my clothes, my tears—the blood was everywhere. I cried piteously, moaning for help. I was going to die—die—die—
“My, my, my, here’s a pretty little thing,” murmured a voice beside me, and I turned in fright. It was the Wolf, licking his lips with his long, pink tongue. He winked as I stared in a mixture of horror and surprise.
I had heard of the Wolf—people still talked of him, one of the forest gods. He used to show up and entice young girls to the forest; a sacrifice, the villagers claimed. Because after one girl would go missing, the village would experience such a season of plenty that even the distressed parents were appeased in time, reassured that their daughter would certainly be happier living with a forest god, and if he could provide such a blessing to an entire village, surely he could do that and more for the pretty girl he had chosen to be his wife.
There was no reason to think he gobbled them up like a bloodthirsty carnivore—the villagers of the old never found human bones in the forest.
And now he was here again—how long had it been? He was as old as the Beautiful City, and perhaps as eternal. It had been years, though, since a villager had seen him last. The last girl he took had become a legend; she was on the way to the Beautiful City, carried away by the heralds and elephants and whatnot when suddenly her carriage was found to be empty. There had been an uproar; the entire parade was thrown into confusion, and it only settled when a loud, satisfied howl broke the night.
She must have been truly beautiful, I thought, to have kept the Wolf satisfied for such a long time.
“You smell wonderfully,” he said to me now, grinning wickedly. “Fresh and young and new.” He purred the words out, poking his snout against my bloody arm. I flinched as a pink tongue flicked to lick my wounds.
“Lord Wolf,” I began cautiously, and he laughed.
“Lord! The titles you humans come up with are truly amusing,” he says, with a glint in his eye. “Sire, Milord, Your Majesty, Sir Wolf—I am not human royalty, you know,” he hisses suddenly, cold and serious. “I am of the forest. We do not take titles, as they do in the city yonder.” He flicked his tail scornfully towards the direction of the Beautiful City. Involuntarily I looked up, and true enough, the crystal towers glistened in the sun like a reassuring promise. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The Wolf took notice of my sudden lack of tension. “Oh?” He said, baring his fangs. “You seem to have lost your earlier fright, my dear.”
I swallowed. “If you are of the forest, I shouldn’t fear you at all,” I said boldly. “The forest knows me. I am his friend.”
The Wolf laughed even louder than earlier. “Your friend!” He repeated. “Then explain to me why this is the first time I’ve seen you, my pet, because I am certain friends are acquainted much better than that.”
“You were probably always busy when I came to visit,” I said. The Wolf seemed delighted, rather than irritated, at my brash replies.
“Well, I’m not busy now,” he says, stretching carefully, and I watched his long, sharp claws as he did. “So perhaps we may go and do as friends do. What do you and your friends do, dear? Tell me—I am terribly bored, and I wish for some entertainment. The forest can be so dull sometimes.” He looked at me expectantly, and I caught my breath.
For I knew nothing of what friends did, seeing as I had no such person to call in the village. All of them, they had only looked at me in either pity or in askance, and not one had come forth without seeing me as anybody else other than my mother’s daughter.
The fury and the bitterness seemed to return in that moment, enveloping me more tightly than the panic could ever try.
“Ah,” the Wolf said after a moment. “Well, I see the forest is your only friend. How…disappointing.” His golden eyes glittered, not unlike the Beautiful City when the sun hit it at the right spot. He licked his lips again, moving towards me. “I suggest you head back to your little village now, my dear. It is almost night, and I am not the only one of the forest.” He grinned again. “The path is where you have left it.” He seemed to slink away to the trees, and disappeared as easily as he came. I picked myself up; my dress was still a bloodied mess. I turned around, and there was the path, inconspicuous as it had always been, and I returned to it with a sigh of relief, my feet clattering under the worn cobblestones.
The village seemed strangely lighter as I stepped into it, though nothing seemed to have changed. The thatched roofs and little fences were all there, along with the sight of chickens pecking the ground, and little children running like hoodlums all over the fields. Everything was as I had left it.
I walked toward our hut, situated at the outskirts of the village. My mother was there, sweeping away the dirt in front of our house. She looked up as I approached, and her expression seemed to change. “Ah,” she breathed, and then looked away.
She said no more to me for the rest of the day; only led me to the back of the house to wash. She helped me pump water in buckets, and as I scrubbed the dried blood from my skin, she rubbed some oil on my hair.
After bathing, she took my dirty clothes and burned them in a glorious fire. I watched her as she struck the light forcefully, squatting by the firewood, her face ashen with an emotion I could not identify.
“Why did you burn my clothes?” I asked after the fire had died down, and she had swept all the ashes away.
“You do not wash blood in the stream,” she replied calmly. “You will dirty the water. I will make you another dress in replacement, Eli.”
She worked all night, and the sound of the loom haunted me as I turned in my room, dreaming of rivers of blood. I thought I was drowning; the thick fluid entered my mouth as I choked, flailing, unable to reach the banks. I was screaming for help but no one came. No one could hear me.
I woke up the next day to find a dress laid out for me in the chair. It was nothing like I had ever worn—it was made of shimmering brocade, and there were multiple folds and embroidered laces. I stood there, gaping at the masterpiece. It seemed impossible to wear it—and to touch it! I tentatively fingered the cloth—it was light and silky, and my breath was caught in admiration.
“Emily,” my mother said, entering my room. Her face was fatigued; her eyes were red, and her expression was tight. “Wear it, quickly. They will come and talk to you today.”
“Who?” I asked curiously as my mother took the dress and helped me with it. My heart felt like it was going to burst as I slipped it on; the looking-glass had never reflected a more different girl. She was enchantingly beautiful, and I almost wondered who she was.
My mother gave me a small half-smile. “They of the Beautiful City, my dear.”
I could say no more—there was a sharp rap at the door, and in seconds I was in the presence of the gods. I was speechless in amazement—they were more than I had ever imagined, and even just looking at them made my eyes hurt. It was like staring at the sun—the loveliness was too much to behold, and I looked away, lest I be blinded.
One of them took my hand. “I have looked for you,” he murmured, his eyes sparkling like their tower spires, “all this time, you called out to me.”
Did I? But I had never seen him, not even once, in my dreams. I would have said so, but the overwhelming feeling kept my mouth shut and silent. They said more, but I could not listen. All of the sudden, I was in confusion—why was I wearing this dress, why was I sitting here, talking to strangers, why was my mother entertaining them with wit that she had never displayed before? I grew more and more bewildered, and at long last, when the man kissed me gently in the cheek in farewell, I could only utter a relieved sigh in return.
They were gone. I turned to my mother, who neither smiled nor frowned as she surveyed me.
“They will come again in a week,” she said. “And they will take you away, my dear, to their land. It is all you have hoped for.”
I scrambled to stand, my heart bursting—“But why? Why now?”
She looked at me, almost in pity. “You are a woman now, Emily,” she said. “Of course they would want a beautiful woman. Take care of yourself this week—lose yourself, and it will be gone forever, that beauty.”
The week that followed was just as confusing. Never had I been showered so much attention, and though I did not wear the gaudy dress, the men noticed me all the same. The girls also; they smiled at me as though I were a friend, and waved hellos and joined me in my washing. It was just as overwhelming as the Beautifuls’ visit to me.
It was wonderful to be Beautiful, I thought, giddily, as I went to deliver the washing to the city gates for one last time. I would never have to wait by there again—I would enter the next time I took down this path again.
I took note of the path as I walked, painting it in my mind, for I knew instinctively I would never be seeing it again. The forest also; I surveyed with pleasure at the height of color, for it was summer, and the trees were greener, the flowers were brighter, and the skies were bluer. It was a glorious time, indeed, to be Beautiful.
I was almost at the village when the Wolf came out of the forest and onto the path. I started at his appearance, and the legend came flitting into my mind. I paused in fear—I did not want to be taken away the day before I entered the Beautiful City. The Wolf’s domain was surely as majestic, but I preferred the city to the forest.
“Hello, my dear,” he began conversationally, skulking toward me. “It will be your big day tomorrow, I hear. I knew you were terribly pretty,” he said, grinning. “I knew it when you entered me. Oh, the City will be jealous—I have had you before them.”
“You have never had me,” I said haughtily, folding my arms. “I am my own—but I choose the city,” I added quickly.
The Wolf laughed. “Because it seems safer?” He shook his head. “Perhaps you should ask your mother of what she thinks.”
“What my mother thinks is of no consequence to me. She made her mistakes—”
“She?” The Wolf seemed amused. “If I recall, she had no choice in that matter.”
I hesitated. “Still—she could have resisted—”
The Wolf pounced on me, pinning me on the ground. I looked up at him, his black orbs, his saliva dripping from his open mouth, his fangs close to my neck and his breath hot on my face. “Think, my dear,” he murmured, “can you resist me now?”
I was frightened, and I couldn’t move an inch as he loomed over me, licking his lips. Had it been like this for my mother? Did she scream, did she struggle? Or had she laid there like I did now, helpless and unmoving, easy prey to whoever came along?
“I suggest you let go of her, Wolf,” a cold voice said above us, and the Wolf snarled and pounced on the intruder. I struggled feebly to stand up, and someone offered their hand to me. I took it gratefully, and he lifted me easily. I looked at him now—it was the same stranger at the house, though he seemed less magnificent than before.
I looked below; the Wolf was ripping another man to shreds, the blood blending with red of the cobblestones. I retched in horror. Perhaps, the Wolf was clever enough to hide the human bones of the women he had stolen away.
“Don’t look,” he said to me, and his hands covered my eyes. “I’ll take you home now, you pretty little thing.” His words were like the Wolf’s, and I didn’t feel any safer. I gritted my teeth as we swept down the village, landing gracefully in front of my house.
My mother was there. She looked furious, and I realized I had never seen her so. She was a woman of positive emotions, but now she looked dark and angry.
“Let my daughter go,” she shouted at him, waving her broomstick threateningly as she came forward.
“Madam,” he began calmly, though his grip on me did not loosen, “Calm yourself. Your daughter is safe.”
“Not in your hands,” my mother said. “You will let her go this minute, Beautiful, or I will ruin your beautiful face.”
He was amused. “And how do you intend to do that? Do you think beauty is skin deep, madam, that you can peel it away with such a paltry belief?”
“I could expose your ugliness for the world to see,” she whispered, moving so close that I was almost squished between her and the Beautiful. “Just like that girl—isn’t she a proof of your ugliness? Of your monstrosity, of your arrogance, of your humanity.” She spat out the words like she had been saving them for years, and they were all pouring out now, like a raging waterfall. “You call yourself gods, but you have temptations like men—like all men, like all animals. Like that Wolf.”
The man was not moved. “A mistake of one of us is not a reflection of the whole.”
“Oh?” My mother laughed hysterically. “A mistake you say—then this girl, my daughter, she is born of that very mistake!”
I looked at her, her never-had-been beautiful face, and suddenly I felt sick and humiliated. I never loved my mother and now I realized she had never loved me either.
“Let me go,” I said quietly. And then, louder, “now.”
The Beautiful looked at me. “If I release you now, we will never accept you in our city. Do you want to become like her,” a nod at my mother, “bitter and unhappy and unloved? You will meet your father in our city. He will love you, like she never had. He will care for you and love you, Emily.”
“Will he love me like he loved her?” I asked bitterly.
“No,” he said. “That privilege, I intend to keep to myself, my sister.”
It was almost too much to bear, all of the sudden. “Is the Beautiful City the city of vices too?” I snapped, my voice cracking.
He seemed to smile. “You do not know how beautiful sin can be.”
“And I don’t plan to know,” I replied crisply. “Let me go, at once.”
Still he held on. “It is even worse here,” he persisted. “You can live in a castle made of clouds and jewels in our land, and endure a different sort of privations. There is no poverty, there is no hunger. You will not age—you will remain beautiful all your days.”
“As my soul becomes as filthy as your own, you mean.”
He shrugged. “A meager price to pay, and one that only you will be aware of.”
Now I knew why the Beautifuls only took the women of our village. The truth was being laid out for me, and suddenly my dreams seemed silly and ridiculous. It is not all beautiful, my mother had said. I failed to understand then.
“Perhaps I should have chosen the Wolf when I could,” I said coolly.
There was a low growl, and the Wolf, for the first time, came trotting into the village, stinking of human blood and animal lust. “There’s still time to change your mind,” he panted, lolling his tongue.
I stared at the two gods. They were fighting a battle that wasn’t even about me—it wasn’t me they wanted personally. It was just another sacrifice they wanted.
And then there was my mother, the Fury, ready to tear the god who would take me away to pieces.
Though she did not love, and neither did I, at least we both understood how we were comrades in this world. For neither the city nor the forest offered anything that we would be interested to take.
Do not stray from the path.
So I would walk the same path tomorrow as I had walked years ago, that path which mother had carved for me—for though it may be the cruelest path to take, it was the only cruelty I wish to endure. And the village would talk—talk of the girl who had refused the gods, as they had talked of her mother, and they would whisper, whisper about how they had walked a different path—not knowing that from the beginning, it was the only path they had ever chosen to walk.
**The End**
Tags: Bessi Lasala