The Piper
Georgina Anne Taylor
Copyright 2011 Georgina Anne Taylor
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The Piper
Georgina Anne Taylor
In a tiny fishing village perched on the edge of the grey rolling waves, where the air was heavy with salt, blood and brine, there lived a young woman who could not abide the scent of the sea.
Birthed on a night when the ocean rose up in wild-crested fury, her newborn cries were scarcely heard above the sound of her mother’s pain and her father’s low curses. The child’s first gasps became the mother’s last, and while the father stood contemplating his loss he found the infant placed in his arms. Hardening his heart to his child’s beauty and the strength of her cries, the fisherman passed her aside and left his house for the solace of the sea.
As a child she had run wild, a brown-eyed and tousled-hair creature, lanky limbs scratched and bruised, among the fishing boats, the shanties and the dunes. A girl at once curious and tempestuous, a girl all too comely, too sharp of wit and her laughter all too loud. As her lean frame budded, her curls transforming into long tresses and her girlish stride slowing to a sultry sway, it was agreed by all that the young woman should marry.
A young man was chosen—a fisherman, with eyes as grey as the waves and his body hardened by the labours of his days. A man bonded with the sea.
They wed upon the shore, where the land met the swell, the incoming tide foaming up across the sandy slope. The villagers, kinship in each and every face, gathered around to bind their words.
And afterwards, as the newly-wedded couple lay within his hut, their bodies entwined, with the scent of the sea so heavy upon his skin and soul, he claimed her with actions so cold, so devoid of desire, that she knew his passion had long since been pledged to another. Then as the fisherman slipped into dreams of the deep grey sea, the young woman lay beside him upon their meagre bed, dissatisfied and unfulfilled by their brief union.
The waves crashed onto the nearby shore. The wind whistled against the door. An owl hooted, soft and low. The young woman lay awake, listening to the night, hearing as she did the sounds of a distant piper.
The tune sent strange shivers across her skin. A sense of discontentment with her lot began to grow within her, and although she knew no more of the world than the fishing village in which she had been born, the young woman found herself longing for the scent of the earth and the forest, the mountains and the streams, far, far away from the salty, salty spray and the endlessly rolling grey waves.
When dawn’s first light stole into their abode the young fisherman awoke from their marriage bed. His eyes lit with fervour that she could never hope to inspire, he left to cast his nets into the sea.
The young woman tended her husband’s hearth and home. Yet when the fisherman returned that evening with his ample catch and laid the rewards of his strength and skill upon their table, the sight of the glimmeringly-scaled creatures from the depths of the ocean arose no pleasure within her. The scent of their blood and of the sea itself permeated the tiny hut.
On the second night as her husband lay beside her, his skin sticky with salt and his hair stiffened with brine, it seemed to the young woman that the fisherman held no ties with the earth; he was a creature of the ocean, washed ashore and awaiting the return of the morning tide. He did not reach for her. Turning his back so that he faced the sea, the sound of the fisherman’s even breath heralded swift slumber.
And then she was alone, as evening filled the hut with soft velvet shadows and the small stove gave off its deep crimson glow. As she lay beside the sleeping fisherman, her displeasure vying with despair, the young woman heard again the sound of the distant pipes.
Within the pulse of her blood excitement surged; a strange and sensual urge. Agitated by the heat of her blood the woman tossed upon the narrow bed, then stood up and walked to the door with the intention cooling her flushed form. Yet as she opened the door a swift wind mounted, sending her cotton nightshift swirling.
The wind bore no scent of the sea.
The sound of pipes began again, closer now. The wind picked up, a teasing flurry that played with the tendrils of her hair and brought colour to her face. And upon that joyful wind came the smell of fertile earth, of trees: resinous firs and gnarled oaks, and of high, moisture-filled mountains. The woman stood upon the step and breathed in deeply of the strange and wonderful smells, enlivened by the feel of the wind in her hair, her nightdress gusting up around her.
The piper’s tune resonated in her ear and within her mind. She felt an itch on the soles of her feet and an urge to run dancing through the dunes, singing, crying, screaming, shedding her clothes, shedding her identity, shedding duty and restraint.
She glanced back at her husband’s sleeping form, thinking as she did that the piper’s tune must wake him, yet his sleep remained undisturbed. When her gaze returned to the scene outside, it was to see a dark figure standing amidst the dunes. A figure that turned her way.
With a shiver of trepidation the woman stepped back and quickly closed the door. Her breath was short. Her thoughts spun. Her heart beat loudly. The sound of pipes was louder now, so loud that the young woman felt that the player of that tune must be on the very threshold, yet still the young fisherman did not stir from his dreams. The excitement became an ache within her, a desire so great that moisture beaded her temples and lined her palms. A heat within her very soul called her to the dance.
The young fisherman rolled over, drawing the woman’s gaze back to the bed. She shot home the bolt, fearful of her husband’s sudden awakening and beset with an uncommon guilt. Yet as the woman turned around and made to return to the marital bed she heard the rustling of something moving across the threshold stone. A light touch upon her ankle and she looked down to see deep green tendrils of ivy questing beneath the door.
The vines twined their way around her calves, a soft tickling sensation accompanying the movement, the tip of one already reaching up to stroke her thigh. The young woman cried out and pulled back. The ivy retreated, the tendrils retracting into the night.
The sound of the pipes grew fainter. The fisherman tossed in his sleep. Climbing back into the bed the young woman kept her gaze upon the door as the tune faded into the distance. Slowly the woman’s heart resumed its faithful beat. Slowly sleep claimed her. The woman slipped into wild and wicked dreams of the piper’s dance, and of the one who leads them all.
On the morning of the third day as her husband arose and readied to leave and cast his nets into the depths of the salty sea, he paused upon the threshold. For a moment it seemed as if he had noticed the jade green leaves that lay there still, but his gaze was held by the dawn sky and the flight of a lone albatross that soared above the sea. His footfall passed on.
The sun rose and the day drew on but the woman could find no peace. Memory of the piper’s tune resounded in her mind. A feverish intensity seemed to underlay each moment of the day. She gathered the leaves from the threshold, breathing in their scent eagerly, then searched outside the hut for sign of the ivy itself, seeing only the scrubby grasses that crested this side of the dunes.
The young woman did not tend her husband’s hearth and home that day. Instead she threaded the ivy leaves amongst her long brown hair and laid down upon their bed, thinking of the piper, the dark figure upon the dunes and the fertile scent of the earth, and so tangled in sensual thoughts, the stroke of her hand across her flushed skin, brought her breath to feverish flight.
The sun had well set by the time the young fisherman returned from his daily labours. Entering the hut in a loud and baleful mood he tipped a sack of dark black mussels onto the table and ordered that his bounty be added to the broth. His gaze did not linger on her dishevelled form. He did not question that she still wore her shift, nor the sight of the deep green leaves threaded amongst her long, loose tresses.
His thoughts seemed elsewhere as he waited for her to prepare his meal. He ate quickly, piling the empty mussel shells to one side of his bowl. Then the young fisherman walked to the bed, collapsing on the bedclothes fully dressed, oilskin boots and all, he spoke in tones of final and bitter lamentation—‘your skin bears no scent of the sea.’
The statement needed no answer and in truth there was none to give. The tiny hut fell to silence.
And so again the young fisherman slept, while the woman sat in the red-tinged darkness longing for the piper’s return and the wind that brought with it the scent of the verdant woods, until her skin was beaded with sweat and her nightshift clung to her body and thighs, and her breath was short and shallow.
Then she heard that distant sound.
A tendril of deep green ivy appeared under the door, quickly questing upwards. Moss crept over the threshold stone. Soft green shoots burst through the floor by the edge of the bed, growing swiftly into vines, the new growth heavy with bunches of lush purple grapes.
The call of the piper grew louder. The ivy twined up the walls of the tiny hut. A small seedling sprouted by the side of the door, shooting upwards in prolific life. The newborn tree’s bare branches budded, bursting into blossom, the blossoms into dark red apples that gave forth a scent of such sublime delight that the woman’s mouth watered. Plucking a fruit from the miraculous tree, the young woman took a bite and the taste of that apple within her mouth was sweet ecstasy. The moistness flowed down her chin as she devoured it to the core.
The piper’s tune called loudly, as if he stood outside. Outside and waiting.
The woman refrained from looking back at the sleeping fisherman as she shed the apple core and then her shift.
Clothed only by the ivy leaves that graced her hair she walked to the door and flung it wide.
The piper took her hand and whisked her from the threshold.
They ran between the huts and dunes, amid the rapturous revellers, while the wine and ale poured from pitchers, urns and jugs, and potent, sweet smelling smoke wafted through the air. Wagons adorned in twining ivy and vines passed by, the occupants carousing and singing loudly, as they travelled away, far away from the sea.
The piper’s hand was entwined in hers and his smile was wickedness itself. The woman abandoned herself to the dance.
When the long night drew to a close and dawn’s light infused the sky above the tiny fishing village, perched on the edge of the rolling grey waves, the fisherman awoke to find his pillow draped with tendrils of ivy and grape.
The door hung open on one twisted hinge. An apple core and the young woman’s nightshift lay discarded on the floor, and on the moss-covered threshold of the fisherman’s hut was the deep indentation of a cloven hoof.