MOON

The Moon

C.S. MacCath

 

Three dreams of sorrow were given to Serkleit, Goddess of Art and Fermentation, Keeper of Caves at the Heart of the World, before her deification.

On the night of the first, she was a small boy running barefoot over grey dust. A veil of ice clung to the fine hair on his arms and legs. Chest muscles heaved a prayer for atmosphere that went unanswered. Above him a dog crouched, inverted, to the left of a winding road, yellow teeth bared in a downward snarl. A wolf stood to the right, suspended, howling from a place of air and sound. Serkleit reached up as he passed, hands thick with baby fat, to grasp the merlons of the towers hanging out of the meadow above. But they were far, far away, their topsy-turvyness a mockery of the safety they might have offered.

Boy. The word was a slickness under the heel. Boy, boy, boy, an edge on the blades of grass above. Boy, the wrong body in the mirror. Boy, the hated clothes in the press. It tolled like a bell in his mind, lived under his skin, in his bones, a corruption from the time he had emerged out of the Cosmic Mother’s womb into the stars. He stopped, blood on his hands and feet, flesh under his little nails. Don’t call me that! he wanted to scream but could not and wept instead. The tears turned to diamonds on his cheeks and fell away.

On the night of the second, Serkleit learned there were thirty-two paths to the towers; sixteen greater and sixteen lesser, each one blocked by a beast. The Goddess Nephropidae descended from the surface of the sea, at the edge of the winding road, and beckoned upward with a clack of mighty claws. “You must travel them all,” she signalled in a wash of pheromones, “or they will say you have not passed.”

A willowy youth in a kirtle of petals from every blossom in creation, Serkleit traced the scars on xyr palms and tried not to despair. Instead, xe sang to the Beast of Mouths a dulcet lullaby. But the melody was silenced by the airless expanse of space while the beast declaimed in a gabble of tongues, “You will never be her. You will never be free.”

For the Beast of Faces xe painted xyr own in the kohl of the void and the crimson light of a dying star. A terrible thing of square-jawed hate, the beast leered back at xem in a caricature of the man xe might become, trapped and defeated. The Beast of Limbs pulled xem into a dance. Naked and hairy, a thick cock bouncing between his legs, he made a puppet of xyr body. We do not speak further of this.

But these lesser beasts were shades of their greater kin, whose paths to the towers were narrow tracks between the moon and the meadow above. The Beast of Curses, lacking a body, slipped around Serkleit’s neck like a noose and whispered execrations into xyr ear. His brother, the Beast of Blows, beat xem with fists heavy as mountains until he grew weary of xyr immortality and lumbered away from his post. Xe crawled from there to the Beast of Knives and begged for his touch, fearsome but welcome. He cut into xyr flesh while xe remembered the Cosmic Mother’s loveliness and the Goddess Nephropidae proclaimed that all the paths had been traveled at last.

On the night of the third, Serkleit lay in a cloth-of-silver gown, listening to the call of a nightingale. The meadow was blessedly beneath her, soft and green, the moon blessedly above, low and full. Curled into the curves of her out-flung arms, the dog and wolf guarded the mistress they had menaced in her boyhood. She drew breath and exhaled a sigh, long and low, grieving for what she beheld above.

A set of footprints marking the dust where a child had taken flight, trailing the blood and diamonds of his sorrow. A brave youth’s kirtle of petals trampled beneath the feet of a beast. Serkleit lifted a graceful hand as if to gather those younger selves close to her breast. But they were already within her, solemn and joyful by turns, and they were safe.

So when the Goddess Nephropidae, pereiopods resting in the glory of her hair, gestured left and right at the looming towers, Serkleit drew herself up and away from them. There was no airless cold she could not endure, no beast whose name she did not know. Behind, a bright star shone beyond the moon. Ahead, a rosy sunrise chased the darkness from the sky. Serkleit bade the lobster goddess a grateful adieu, whistled for the dog and wolf to follow, and continued down the road toward apotheosis.