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In what is a first for the STSC today’s writer has asked to remain anonymous, opting simply for the pen name of Time Lady. This means that I am duty-bound not to link to her Substack or any of her previous work in this introduction.
In fact, for fear of putting my foot in it I am not going to say much else other than to highlight the obvious- that today’s offering is powerful and 100% deserving of your time and full attention.
Enjoy.
There once was a couple that lived along the western road, not far from the king’s palace. The husband was an ironsmith named John Smith, well respected, and the wife, named Bridget, was a herbalist and healer. She had wanted a child for a long time because she had lost several before they could grow strong. So when she found she was with child, she prayed to God, "Please let me keep this child. I will welcome whomever you send."
The babe came early. She was small, and the midwife called her peanut. Amazingly, she did not cry. She lay there quietly, looking at the strangeness of the world around her through wide eyes. They named her Lily because she was beautiful, with almond-shaped blue eyes and midnight-black hair so fine it would blow across her eyes.
But as she grew it became clear she was not like other children. She would not look at anyone except her mother, and she could not speak except a few words, even at age four. She didn't want to play with other children; it was as if she was set aside for God, as her name implied. At that time people thought that the simple-minded had been touched by God, and would include them and care for them. Her family loved her, but her mother was afraid something would happen to her, something bad. She was so beautiful, so small, and so helpless.
Bridget remembered her prayer, and said, “Please protect her!”
Lily liked to go outside to see the flowers and enjoy the sunshine. She sometimes walked with the other children down to the lake and picked dandelions to give to her mother. The other children knew her well, and the older ones kept an eye on her, just as they did for all the little ones. That was their job. They understood she was different because Lily did not speak and rarely looked at anyone. If one of the middles, children a few years older than Lily but without good sense, teased her, the older ones would squash him verbally for being unkind. Rarely did the older ones have to physically intervene. They let Lily wander, but someone always kept an eye on her.
One day the children decided to walk down the road to visit the mill where the wheat was ground to flour. The miller was a friend of theirs because he always had rolls or other small treats his wife had baked for them. At first Lily followed them, but her eye caught a new type of flower, one she had never seen before, growing by the side of the road. She stepped off the road to look at it, but as she went, the flower moved away. She thought it was a game and ran toward it through the scrub by the road and into the woods. But the flower always kept just ahead.
By now she was far from the road. And a man dressed in a dusty green suit and a straw hat came out of the woods carrying the flower.
"Here, little girl, is this the flower you want?" he asked with a grin. "I'll give it to you if you come here."
The man looked scary to Lily. His hands were long and thin, and his eyes were strange, as green as his suit. She didn't like strangers. She backed up, then turned to look behind her. But she couldn't see the road. She looked at the man and shook her head. "No!" she said, as loud as she could.
The man grinned again. "Now that's not the way to be. I want to talk to you." He winked at her.
"No!" She turned and ran. But before she got far, he had scooped her up. She kicked and screamed, and even tried to bite him. He simply pinned her arms and legs and shut her mouth with magic. He carried her a short distance away where he had left supplies, covered her with a sack and slung her over his shoulder.
Lily couldn’t move or make a sound. She lay awkwardly in the bottom of the sack, because she was not very big, and cried silently.
The "bad man," as Lily had named him in her mind, walked a long way into the woods under the mountain. At last he came to a small cabin. Entering, he dumped Lily out of the sack and onto a low cot, and began to stroke and caress her.
"You have such lovely eyes and hair," he said as he petted her. Lily's eyes were wide with terror.
"You are so soft and smooth, like a baby's cheek." He paused, then said. "You are perfect. I want to make you mine."
What came next is too distressing to describe and does not belong in a fairy tale.
Rumpelstiltskin did not harm the children he stole, at least not in this way. The little mermaid was not abused. Neither were Snow White or Cinderella, despite their vulnerability. So why tell this story? You will see.
Lily did not understand what was happening, and there was nothing she could do. So she closed her eyes and disappeared into herself.
After a while he stopped, then released her bonds. She struggled upright, then opened her mouth and wailed, "Mama! Mama!"
The bad man shook her by the shoulders and said "Stop! Now you are marked. This mark will travel with you all your life.”
He stuffed her back into the sack, then reapplied his spell. "I will take you to where I got you now. Do not speak of this or I will come for your family." He gave the bag a shake. He did not know that Lily did not have the words to tell anyone.
He did as he said, and returned her to the woods by the road, then disappeared from sight.
By now the villagers were out looking for Lily. Her mother and father were frantic.
One of the older children found Lily huddled under a tree. They took her home, assuming she had been lost, but Bridget noted that her face was pale and drawn. When they got home she brewed a tonic and tried to get Lily to take it. She would not. So her mother held her and rocked her, singing a low lullaby. Eventually Lily fell asleep and Bridget gently placed her in her bed. John leaned over and touched her gently on the head. "God keep you, my princess." Their dog Cookie curled up next to the bed near Lily.
"Good dog. You keep our princess safe." Bridget lingered by the bed to pray for her daughter's healing, not yet knowing what had happened.
In the middle of the night Lily began to scream in terror. Her parents rushed to her bedside. "What is the matter, Lily?"
"Bad man! Bad man!"
"What bad man?"
Lily pointed to the door. "There!"
"Sweetheart, I don't see anyone. It must be a bad dream."
"No! Bad man!"
"What did the bad man do?" Bridget asked.
What happened next was a mother's nightmare. Lily pulled up her nightgown and touched herself.
John gasped, then grew urgent. "Where is the bad man, Lily? Where did this happen?"
"Cabin! Bad man! Cabin!" she said, pointing at the door, and began to cry again.
Bridget scooped her up onto her lap and held her tight. John looked fiercely at his wife. "I will gather the men and search the woods tomorrow. Perhaps someone will know of this cabin," he growled in a low voice. He had never been so angry.
Bridget merely nodded blankly. Such evil she could not comprehend. Lily said, "Mama! Stay! Stay, Mama!" So Bridget did. For many nights, she slept by Lily's bed with Cookie beside them.
They never found the cabin, or any sign of the bad man. Lily could not describe him or say where it happened exactly. Both John and Bridget were very angry that more could not be done. They even reported it to the King's men, who made inquiries, but found nothing.
Eventually Lily's nightmares went away.
Lily grew into a beautiful young woman. She carried the mark no one else saw, but she learned to speak, finally finding some words. Her mother and father listened to her, stayed with her, cried with her as necessary. Many villagers also helped by welcoming her, and teaching her things she could do, work that she could help with. The miller loved to have her visit, and the priest was always glad to see her. She visited the woods with her mother to collect herbs and helped her with poultices and bandages.
One night, Lily went to bed feeling sick. She woke in the night, screaming and shaking. Once more, her parents rushed in, and once more Lily pointed at the door and window. Her parents were confused. Bridget asked what was wrong, and Lily said, The bad man is here! He’s going to hurt me!” She was nearly hysterical.
“My dear, I see no one,” Bridget said gently. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
“No, he’s here. I saw him!”
No matter how much they reassured her she did not calm down. Her father checked the outside of the house. Her mother lay down bedise her. But Lily remained anxious and shaking and unable to sleep. Every few minutes she asked her mother, “Is he coming?” or “There he is!” she said. No one slept that night.
This repeated itself for the next five nights. They asked the priest to come with the holy water and bless Lily. Finally she slept.
“Father, I think she is seeing things! Is she losing her mind?” Bridget asked when they returned to the kitchen.
John offered the priest ale, but he declined. “No thanks, I still have a few more calls to make.”
He thought for a bit, then said, “Sometimes, the mind is damaged by extremely frightening events. The memories can return quite strongly after a stressful event. Has that happened to Lily?”
“She had a fever that first night,” Bridget responded.
“That might have started it. Only time will tell whether she can recognize that what she sees isn’t real.”
For several years, this pattern continued. If Lily got sick with a fever, her nightmares returned. The priest would come and bless her. Both parents would tell Lily the things she saw weren’t really there, they were imaginary, like a dream. Gradually the dreams decreased, and Lily began to repeat under her breath, “They aren’t real. They aren’t real,” whenever the images returned.
Lily met a young man one day. His name was Isaac and he came to work as an apprentice to her father. Tall, strong, handsome, and most importantly, gentle and respectful, he would invite Lily to go for a walk with friends, or to visit the village shops. They became fast friends.
Isaac was slow to learn, but a hard worker. He didn’t always understand the conversation around the fire at the public house of a winter’s evening, but a slow smile would spread across his face when other young men teased him, and that spoiled the fun. No one could resist that smile. But he wouldn’t let any one tease Lily.
Lily was sometimes subdued, like a sun covered by clouds, but Isaac tried his best to make her smile. Her smile would brighten any room and warm cold hearts.
Sometimes her mother thought about what had happened and again felt pain about being unable to protect Lily. When her father remembered his anger, like a smoldering coal under his heart, he thought he had failed Lily. These feelings never went away. He made sure Lily always was watched by another adult when she was away from home, and he made sure he knew those people well. But the truth is, no one would ever be able to keep Lily perfectly safe, because life is not safe.
Gradually their memories faded, and were not the first thing John and Bridget remembered each morning. It took years and years of ordinary life, festivals, dances at harvest, warm friends who came at need, baked cakes and laundry and patients who needed care. John focused on his smithy. He made a few weapons: a strong axe, a spear, and a sword, and went to the men-at- arms to learn how to use them. He also joined the night watch, and made iron bars for Lily’s window, decorated with ivy leaves and magnolia blossoms in wrought iron,
Bridget immersed herself in herbal lore, seeking recipes to sooth troubled or sorrowing minds. As she cared for women in child birth, she learned the secrets of many families, and discovered many had stories of pain, loss, or heartbreak. Sometimes the crisis was so severe the injured one refused sleep, or food or drink, like Lily had. She practised the skills she had learned for Lily, and it helped many. At least that good came from what happened. And it turned out that Lily herself was a good cure. She had a knack for silly stories.
Lily always had the memory tucked away in her mental closet, but the door was ajar, and being sick or scared for other reasons would awaken the memory again. She would retreat to her room and pet Cookie, who seemed to sense her pain better than any human. She would call to mind all the good people in her life, and fond memories, and tell the evil one to depart.
Whoever or wherever the bad man was, he had no more power over Lily. Maybe he knew that, because he never came back or stole another child from that village. But when Lily’s story passed from history into fairytales, sad to say, people forgot. We mustn’t forget that sick-hearted green men exist in every age, and be vigilant.