Names

1

My name is Meadow. 

That is what Granny Maddy calls me.

Her true name is Madaline of the Eastern Star Deer Clan. She knows this in a way you can only know  things when they’ve been told to you so many times you’ve lost count. Her mamma and her grannys told her.

She knows them, her mamma and her grannys. She knows what it feels like when their rough, old fingers stroke the lines on her also ancient face. She knows what their breath smells like as they whisper in the night the stories of their clan. She knows her mamma and her grannys in a way I never will.

I don’t let Granny Maddy touch me.

And I don’t let her get close enough so I can smell her stinky breath or hear any of her whispers - even if the sun were to be shining.

Granny Maddy tells me her stories, instead, when we stand across from each other, either a berry bush or rose acting as my shield. Or when we’re at the dinner table. 

I need something between us when she tells me her stories because otherwise my jealousy runs hot and I burn inside. I love her stories but they also make me think about how I don’t know my own truths, not really. 

At night, when I’m all tucked up in my bed under the window - and only if the moon is waxing and it’s been a sunny day - Granny Maddy will tell me my the story of how she found me and remind me that not everyone gets even one story and I should be grateful I have at least one! 

I plan on having many stories.

“It was a  full moon night and with only a few clouds The Bright Lady  could be seen properly and she surely was watching us! I was out at the edge of the rose garden, just before the gate that leads to the wild meadow. I was offering that old black cat with the white front paw, the one that’s Snow’s papa, I was offering him some cream when I heard you crying. 

But I didn’t know it was you yet, did I?  I didn’t know what it was I was hearing. It sounded like it could have been a hurt fox, or a cat, so I went to see.

You were curled up into a ball like a fox. I really did think you were a fox at first.” She always stops here to light her hand-rolled cigarette and we both stare at  the red flame of her lighter, seeing red foxes dancing in the fire. 

“It didn’t help you were covered in blood.” She exhales.

“I scooped you up. You weighed almost nothing. I scooped you up without thinking at all about what my mamma or grannys would think and I brought you right to this bed. You slept for 3 days! When you woke up the frist thing you said was “ I need a bath.” So I made you a bath. You would have stayed in the water for 3 days if I hadn’t made you come out when you started to shiver like a cat in the rain! You showed me then that you were not a fox or a cat, but a selkie!

I asked you your name. You stared at me with those big black eyes and one tear fell. We both watched that tear of yours turn into a white crystal and then a blue feather and then a golden egg, before it solidified and landed on the earth as a rose petal.” Here Granny Maddy and I always both turn and look at my rose petal sitting window ledge.

“I knew then that you were Fey and my heart both blossomed and ached. It blossomed  because I knew at that moment I would take care of you and adopt you into the Deer clan as my granddaughter, protecting you both in this world and the world of the spirits. And my heart ached because I also knew you would never remember who you were before I found you and named you Meadow. And that was probably a good thing knowing what had happened to the Fey tribes.” Here she would  always stand up from beside the bed, grateful despite her old bones having sat on the cold floorboards once again without a sheep skin to comfort her. She’d blow out the golden candle on the window ledge, the one always standing guard beside my rose petal, and say “I love you Meadow,” before leaving me alone with my dreams.

2

My father was a fisherman. In the summer he lived on the water. 

My mother was a flower-grower. In the summer she lived at the temple.

In the winter they would meet in the city. That is why they named me Winter.

3

There is a big tree. It is one of the biggest trees. It is right outside the gate. If you go through the gate - if you can get through the gate, as it is regularly overtaken with roses - you’ll find the house of Lady Crow. 

(You’ll know you found the right big tree and climbed through the correct rose bushes to find the proper gate of this particular Lady by the way her house will shimmer. Shimmer and sparkle and glisten, almost like water in sun! Lady Crow’s house is highly decorated with shiny things.)

With a torn piece of red velvet - true velvet - is a  weather-worn piece of paper tied to the big tree beside the gate covered in roses

. On this piece of old brown paper, in handwritten and spidery script, it says, “You can call me Lady Crow. I require a gift. My cat will bite. Welcome.”