Bones and All.

❴ three: "YOU BURY ME..." ❵

THREE YOU BURY ME...

( APRIL 'O4 )

✷

       LET IT BE known, Mallory used to be a dreamer.

       As a little girl, her dreams were full of fantastical things, sweet nothings given the breath of life from the bedtime stories told to her by her mother or most often, her grandfather. Stories of a princess living alone in a big wooden house deep in the woods. Now, her residence wasn't because she was imprisoned or exiled, nothing like that, but rather, out of her own choice. She was too formidable and she liked her space, like that's just what it was. This was not a 'princess' in the way every other typical kid considered one to be. This had been a different kind of princess; a more ill-fated one, perhaps, but nevertheless a little more wonderful than anyone else. It had been Mallory's favorite dreamscape, to pretend, as she settled into bed and closed her eyes to be that special little thing from her grandfathers stories. If just to ignore the way her father had made her mother cry for another night and her brothers were more concerned with sleeping themselves than their too gentle little sister and her slumbering.

     The story went like this: a Chiefs daughter was born on the warmest day of the year, he was the tribes only Spirit Warrior left—the tribes last defense from a land riddled with warfare from every side, wars he started on the arrogance of his great power—the chief had been an old man by this point and all his sons had been lost from wars he began. The old chief was ailing and worried for he was unable to transform into a warrior anymore ever since the Mender, an almighty woman chosen by the Creator to guide the wolves, had been purposely slain by their enemies from the old chiefs boasting. This new child had been a sweet surprise to the old chief but a small disappointment, added on the fact, as they learned later, she would not speak and above it all, she was no son with the chance to be a wolf nor an almighty girl with mending hands. After many moon turns, the old chief's wife had a great Potlatch thrown in his daughters honor to celebrate her sixteenth moon; the neighboring tribes all paid respects to the great chiefs daughter, down to the trickster Raven and the Bluejay. And though the Chief was wary of the tricksters, fearing their cleverness, they had no tricks in mind that day. Only many blessings and a message. They bowed to the old chiefs girl and whispered something to her. The daughter nodded back to the creatures, all knowing. Then in front of the immense crowd, she stood up, kissed her fathers cheeks and hugged her mother tight.