A Magpie's Gold

Chapter 2 - Basket Bird and The Mother

Full of defiance the babe was making fists at threats that did not exist but they were very real to her. She had fight and potentially the flight in her spirit.

The 'mother' is something she thought abandoned. Her own kind you see, especially the one who bore her, did not know what to do with a beast that did not resemble their own nature. There wasn't a clarity in her essence as they perceived, she did not move in the same ways as they did, or hum to the same cycles that drove the forest folk. Mags, a shapeshifter from what she had developed as a coping with her surroundings, a hybrid of human and magpie, would shift from one state to the next, her energy chaotic and without what would seem a natural order. Or perhaps it was just beyond what they understood as order. So they left her on a doorstep, cradled in a basket, watching as they faded into the bushes and plants, to see the babe received. There was one within a human home that could and would mother her, for this witch was somewhat of a shapeshifter herself. She was able to transform into the woods, be a leaf on an oak, be the bird that observed, be the streams that played across the lands, be within the otters that held hands. Everything was her and she was everything. So she knew when the baby bird was about to come, she felt it in her dreaming. The voices of her arrival carried through the nattering of the leaves when they rustled upon the winds. This is not to say whether it was right or wrong the abandonment but merely that this is what occurred and much to what follows may explain the importance of such an act. To think that perhaps this was an act of love may be hard to concede, even for me dear reader. Suffice to say it could be that the 'mother' was present in every action, even if she could not be felt. Perhaps she was not wanted to be felt, she was rejected when she showed such harshness.

Through the red haze of anger and tears that covered Mags' eyes, a blazing glow of light came from the open door of the small cottage and the doorstep she resided seemed to change in fortune. It startled her and indeed the stones that held the reality of the cottage together, as they were in sleep and disliked being disturbed when it was the hours where the land slumbered. With the stark change in commonality, the stones did what they knew whilst in a daze, they started to construct themselves into existence as the light hit. They seemed to be in slow motion due to the cold of winter but they made an effort, pulling obscure disgruntled faces. Mags began to make out the detail of the threshold in the night as her vision cleared. It is interesting to note here that what was there already existed in the dark but the light illuminated everything just so, it could be seen. In that moment, Mags was seen, she existed and she began to construct herself accordingly whilst also in a daze. A figure appeared in front of her, the sobbing subsided as she felt the warmth of the fire escaping and wrapping her up. Suddenly there were arms around her, her eyes grew wide and her body became rigid with the strangeness of such tenderness.

The witch whispered to Mags as she held her gently, “My name is Sarah, I'm assuming you are who I have been waiting for Mags. What a lovely name for one such as yourself.”

From that moment and through the years as Mags grew, which was not in accordance with what we understand as age, she learnt about the magic and blessings of the power that was present. What flowed through her and out in every moment she would extend her feathers and her toes. Sarah would take her to the 'nearby' villages that seemed miles away but became closer as she heightened. They went to the circus to meet similar body contortionists, people who were considered magical in their own right for how they moved and the joy they radiated in circled tents. Mags and Sarah would practice rituals and make potions, they read and re-read all the words that could have ever been written and they kept house. They baked pies, peppered soup, painted, carved and lived in a womb of creation. Sarah was adamant that they would move during the day, where the noise of life could pan out as it was meant to. In the dawn and dusk till night, were the in-between moments, as Sarah believed it was the time to be in stillness. Although she always encouraged Mags to be fierce in her intuition and expressing what she felt as truth within herself and if that was in conflict with Sarah's way of being, then so be it. It was Mags' life after all, Sarah could only teach her to have curiosity, to find her own vision and voice. Show her what she knew and ways to channel her power so that it would not contort her form into destruction.

They lived quite comfortably for some time with the same routine, until one day the cottage became quite still. The sun shone upon Mags through a dusty window pained with lead, she was hardly moving, she was only holding a pointed hat and clutching a dried up pumpkin, that had somehow found itself attached. There was an absence of life. Asterix her familiar was the only one that broke the silence, when he would dart in and out from coming in from his wilding.

Sarah was taken, in the night, whilst sleeping, it was not known to Mags how but she still remembered the dullness of Sarah's body. Her spirit gone, she thought it would dwell perhaps, like the black cat did when he passed on, who appeared in the garden and then vanished. She thought there would be perhaps a flickering of light from time to time. No, she was fully gone but this struck Mags as odd. The cruelty of this particular abandonment and what would seem like a pattern in her life, left Mags with what she conceived was nothing. That was not strictly true, there was an anger that was simmering under the numbness and that was certainly not nothing. It would inevitably boil and give her the strength to continue on. Onto not just anywhere but beyond what was known to her. Through portals and realms where she would come across beings and structures that she could not have dreamt of if she had stayed within the confines of the cottage. She had to go beyond and walk the path so that she could find Sarah but also to find herself. Her motivation was placed with another but this walk would become so much more.

The moment had come where there was a bubbling to the surface and so she began. She collected provisions and popped the cat under the hat she placed upon her head, closed the door behind her and took her first steps like she was a child again. The sun was blinding, she hadn't left the house in weeks. She was weak but her determination drove her to eat and build her strength. The sun beamed through her closed eyes and it lit up another body she hadn't seen within her before, she saw a golden armour that coated even her inner feathers. She felt like a warrior going out into the worlds but she also felt vulnerable without Sarah beside her. For the first time she was alone. She chose to carry on regardless with all the lessons she had, past the gates and past the known villages and people. She felt like she needed to get lost and travel far, dwell to the unknown in order to find what she sought.

For days she walked and walked, she did not fly as to avoid detection and the way things unfold on land is different to the skies. Eventually, her feet carried her to a forest that was rich in colour and saturation, there she would meet a bear, a bear that would change everything...