Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

“Matilda?” my mother repeated, surprised. “Why?” “It means mighty in battle.”

“Your daughter will be a messenger, carrying words and tidings and proclamations from one realm to the next.”

Death was moonlight on a sword, an ocean eddy at high tide. Ephemeral and vicious and cold, like frost over iron.

“Asking questions about mortals is a weakness?” “Feeling for them is,”

we possess hearts, as much as we try to ignore them, and a heart always wants what it cannot have,”

“Do you know what dreams are?” “They are something the mind creates,” I said. “Silly fancies, is what my mother calls them.” “To some, yes. But they are also a glimpse into the soul.”

“That does not answer why this strange boy is dreaming of me when he and I have never met.” “Maybe when you read his first dream, a connection was forged between you two. Perhaps you left an impression upon him.” “But how? By the time I read that first dream of his in your scroll, it was just ink. The night he dreamt it had long passed.” “The soul does not follow time as we do. It does not move the same way.”

This is the beginning of the end, I thought. If heartless gods can be made soft by such love, we are all doomed.

Thile. My father’s name was her last word.

Let me be not loved but feared.

“Sometimes,” I said, stepping closer to him, “it is good to laugh, even on terrible days.”

“He chose me first,” I replied. “He dreamt of me before I knew of him. His soul found mine before I even knew how to look for his.” “Perhaps they will one day sing a ballad of the two of you. If so, remember that I said it first here.”

My home is your home. My arms are a haven for you to rest. My last name is yours if you desire it. I will love you to my grave, and even beyond it, when the mists welcome me, when I am hopefully very old and gray and grouchy and have spent the seasons beside you when you are here and dreaming of you when you are gone. I love you, dearly, Red. Come home to me. Return to me, when you can. I will be watching the skies and the river until then.

“Come inside,” he said. “I have been waiting for you.”

Sobbed.

A goddess who loved a mortal. My name was destined to be blotted out of the divine myths and perhaps even forgotten amongst the poets and the bards as the seasons wheeled onward. Time did not favor such quiet stories. Once, I had feared this, until I realized my story was not one to be devoured by strangers. No, this was for him and for me. And if we wanted to tell it, we would in our own way.

“I would wait a thousand years for you,” Vincent said. “If you asked me, I would wait for you until only my bones remained upon an altar. But if you must leave again, then let me follow you, Red.”

She pressed down on the key marked by I, then R. The M and the V. She watched in delight as the typebars swiftly responded, flying up to hit the ink ribbon. “Typewriters,” I said. “They create messages by pressing words onto paper.”

I think you know that the soul can be found in words, and words within the soul. The two reflect each other in the sky, do they not?”

Matilda’s magic was about to rewrite all the old myths.