A Pocketful of Crows

How can you fly with a stone around your neck? How can you run with a chain on your feet? 'But I love him,' I said. That's the stone. That's the chain, said the hawthorn. And until you can give them back, you will never be free again.

And if I never have a veil, or a golden ring on my hand, I will still have you, my love, and that will be enough for me. Sleep well, love, and dream of me. And know that, if I were to live for a thousand years, there would still not be enough nights in which to dream of you.

If only I had patience. If only I could sleep till spring. If only I were the hawthorn tree, too old to love, too wise to hate.

I wish I had kept the adder-stone. Such a stone is a powerful charm, and looking through the hole in its heart by the light of a tallow candle, you can see as far as the ocean – even, perhaps, through castle walls. If I had kept the adder-stone I would watch him as he slept. I would watch wherever he went, until at last I tired of the game. But the charm is lost, though the spell stands strong, and all I can do is hope to forget the young man in the May-green coat, who crowned me with wild roses . . .

Today it is raining; soft fine rain like stitches of the finest silk.

I fled when, for the second time, the young man asked to know my name. He tried to follow, but was too slow and clumsy in the undergrowth. I fled through thicket and bramble and thorn, then crossed where the river ran shallowest, following the secret paths that only deer and foxes know. But W-I-L-L-I-A-M stayed with me somehow, and in the song of the linnet I heard his name, and in the sound of the wind, and all day from the sky I watched for his horse, and for the green of his coat, and listened for the sound of his voice. But I did not see or hear him again, and finally, I went back to my hut and tried to eat, but could not; and tried to sleep, but could not; and tried to forget him, and could not.

All Hallows’ Eve, though the travelling folk call it by a different name. This is the night when spirits walk: when the Folk set out plates for their vanished ones and offerings for the Faërie. It is the night when fires are lit, and apples roasted in the hearth. It is a time of old gods; lost loves; of mulled ale and strong cider. On All Hallows’ Eve, the dead arise, and the travelling folk walk in their skins for the last time before winter.

shall bind my love with the cry of a snowy owl in the darkness. I shall bind him with nightshade, and the collarbone of a moon hare. I shall bind him in a sheet made from stars and thistledown, and sleep with him for a thousand years, until the seas are nothing but sand, and the mountains are nothing but ocean.

Must lessons always be so hard? Must battles be so bloody? And must it always be our kind that keep the wheels in motion? The year, it turns, and it turns, and turns. Now it has come full circle. Winter and summer: life and death; the adder stone and the wedding-ring; all echo that endless coming of age. Who can stop the word turning?