Mama-Moon-Mask was among the
eldest of the valley. Her stories were often told to the children during the
earliest part of the day when older folk went for chores and younger folk
stayed to learn.
Mama Moon, as we called her, was one of the
aged few who had a head full of grey, and a wise smile. She knew how to make
the finest of breads and the sweet sauces and spiced berry wines which were
shared at the quarters of the year. She taught all how to carry on the
traditions of the valley peoples. She was also a skilled healer of both animals
and people alike.
Mama Moon lived through decades of hardship,
when the sickness came and left and came again, reaving the old and the
youngest of kin, only the heartiest of stock were able to live past the
groaning disease that tore through families. Many droughts, many floods, and
many raids. But no war. Not until now. She had recalled stories that would come
from travellers of villages razed to the ground, entire crops burned and lives
squandered over this disagreement or that. But this is the first time she had
ever listened to a tale of a neighboring village – one whose friendship was
assured through trade and tribute – would turn on a friendly neighbor – nay,
two unfriendly neighbors.
Indeed, the past three years had brought
hardship. Three years of drought, and then rodents which would rage in throngs
across the valley. But the People of the Book, our valley families, had learned
how to catch the rodents live in pens, lured in by their desire for the sweet
honey that they spread on chunks of bread at the ends of the traps. The rodents
proved easy to capture, and for the past year were no more problem, their kind
living now only to serve as food stock. They grew fat and privileged in their
cages, and bred well and often enough to feed a family a great deal of the
year. Once we discovered how to capture them, they were no longer a
threat.
But for some, such as the village to the
North, there were certain other problems, such as the plague of locusts which
tread through their land, stripping their fields bare. These did not manage to
make their way to the Valley, but word travels from trader to trader, and many
such stories were heard of hard years following insect swarms devastating
crops.
Mama Moon was old, her sight was beginning to
grow dim, and her tellings of stories would sometimes repeat themselves, as the
children would often tell her. But she was a survivor, and after these great
many decades, some would say that she was fortunate to have outlived so many
tragedies. Someone was there to carry on the traditions, and teach the youngers
how to read, and how to bake such fine foods.
Mama Moon knew, too, how to read, and her
collection of journals were kept there among her stock of herbs and medicine
jars. She was no doctor, but she could lance a boil and set a broken limb when
called upon to. She knew the treatements for fever and cold, and her remedies
were tried by everyone in the village. Every child born in the valley came into
this world into Mama Moon’s hands. Mama Moon was needed, and her daughter Day
Bringer, fortunately, had learned all of the secrets by her side. She spent most
of her days farming the cattle, and tending to horses and livestock, including
the aforementioned caged rodents. Both were meant to stay behind in the
caverns, and tend to those who would need it. She kept her bag of herbs near,
for the flu would likely share its time with those hidden underground in the
dankness, in the darkness, and shared with animals in deep rooms and
recesses.
They stayed below the underground spring with
the animals, ensuring that they not soil the water with their refuse. Before
the others fled the valley and stoned up the enterance to the caverns, Mama
asked Tall Man how deep underground they were. He guessed twenty yards, give or
take a few. But it was only a guess. It would not matter, the coolness was like
an autumn’s eve and the wet was chill like after a late evening thunder
storm.
Mama Moon did not like it much, the darkness
lit only by a few candles hither and thither. But she wrapped herself close in
her shawl, made a fresh pot of tea over a little candle stand, and watched on
as Day Bringer and her three helpers tended the animals.
She wondered after the children and women who
fled on the horses and with hand carts and buggys. There were nearly four score
who left the valley for safer days following the hiding. They might be gone a
fortnight, long enough to make a plan, or to meet with friendlier people near
the mountains. We had distant cousins, but they were long ways away, and to
travel might take weeks before refuge could be found. Many of our cousins were
wandering folk, she knew, and many followed the roving streams and traded amongst
the distant villages, selling furs and dried fish and herbs of the forest.
Still, we were People of the Book, and we shared the letter and the word with
all we knew. It was our way.
Mama looked down lovingly at the leather
covered chest she sat upon, perched like a stool, the light of the cooking
candle glimmering dimly against its ancient brass fixtures. Inside were thirty
ancient books, kept preserved in individual boxes specially made. She
remembered every word, every sentence memorized. She shared the stories with
the children. How she missed them so. But she had the books, and the words, and
the letters, hidden safely under the ground, in this ancient fortress, with
fresh clean water dribbling down the steel and stone walls, and the caverns had
enough air flowing through to keep them for ages if necessary. She hoped it
would not be necessary.
Her tea warmed, she stood and stretched her
old bones, her elderly figure still supple like a young woman’s, but gristled
somewhat with the decades. She looked on towards the lanterns of Day Bringer’s
assistants, and saw that they were farther on, mending a hastily built
fence.
She thought there would be much more of this,
mending and fixing and feeding and tending and keeping the animals they stowed
away down here in the dark. Thirty farmers were sure to pack as much of the
year’s harvest as they could manage, working right to the final hour when the
hoard of the enemy rose over the hill beyond the edge of the valley. The vast
metal door shuttered us in, and the heavy rocks piled upon the cairn covering
its enterance, as it did every other day, trees growing amongst the cracks, hiding
it from plain sight.
She recited the stories in her head, she
leaned resting against the stone wall, rocking her body back and forth,
reciting the ancient words from the books beneath her as she fell into a dream
filled, shallow sleep,
“Assured in the dark tides of the world that
rest,
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as
we?'
We have found safety with all things
undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men
and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and
clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the
autumnal earth. ”