Twisted Winter by Catherine Butler Page B

beneath my feet, my mouth opens in an O and a scream escapes as I am caught.
    This is where my story begins. Perhaps you already know how it must end.
    Now the memories pale in the flood of sunshine, the distant shadow is cleared from the sky, I am alone in the fields. I choose to leave the river bank, walking through the stubbled fields where the short stalks lash my ankles and prickle my feet.
    Fruit hangs heavy in the vineyards and orchards, dragging down the vines and boughs. My mother iswaiting for me under the trees. She is Demeter, the goddess of fertility. She is larger than life, glowing with health and vitality. She reaches out to claim me and twines her strong brown arms around my neck. She strokes my hair, gathering it through her hands like harvest wheat.
    â€œIt’s so good to have you here,” she says. “Do you see how happy everyone is when you’re home? You make us happy.”
    She speaks as though it is my choice to stay, to leave, to bestow happiness like a gift. She speaks as though a whistle will summon me home – and so it will. But when summer ends it won’t be her tune I dance to.
    In the fields farmers bring home the harvest. Children chase each other through the maize and the older ones play games at the edge of the woods that are just becoming dangerous.
    I watch as a young shepherd boy chases a nymph into a grove of cherry trees, bearing down on her until they fall laughing together into a drift of leaves. Their bodies intertwine and I turn away. The games of kiss chase are all part of the late summer madness that falls over everyone. It’sonly me who sees the shadow of the trees and the drift of leaves as sinister. The shepherd and the nymph leave the grove hand in hand, leaning on each other.
    Girls flare suddenly into womanhood, a harvest to be gathered. One second a child, a clocktick later a nubile nymph; suddenly part of someone else’s story. Heroic men reach out and take.
    The trees are aflame with autumn colours: the red of burning coals, orange tongues of fire, scorched yellow. I wear a crown of golden leaves at the harvest dances: spinning and whirling like a leaf in the wind. The peasant girls and nymphs form rings around me. The boys and men dance circles around us.
    Food is abundant. All the fruits of the field and the orchard are spread in a feast. Apples, pears, wild cherries; plums the colour of bruises; melons ripe and succulent – but no pomegranates.
    My mother is seated at the head of the high table, presiding over the festival. Her clothing is wine red and beaten gold and the women around her sink down in awe when she looks at them. Demeter is Queen of the Summer and her smiles fall like rays across the company.
    When the black god hid me under the earth she roamed the earth in quest of me, a madwoman calling constantly for her lost child. Famine followed in her footsteps. The earth was barren as an empty womb. All creation cried out for succour but Demeter cared for nothing but the daughter she had lost. In the end the Great Gods were forced to intervene to save humanity – but too late to save me.
    Now at the harvest dance Demeter seems radiant with joy. She is surrounded by her worshippers, she has her daughter once again, these are her rites that are celebrated. Am I the only one who sees it cannot last? Children grow up, belief fails as doubts are sown, and I am not the same girl who was snatched from the wildflower meadow. For half a year he held me hostage. Demeter chooses to forget, but I don’t have that luxury.
    The harvest cups run red with ruby wine. Faces are flushed with it, speech slurred, eyes brightened – or dulled. As the music becomes wilder and the drink stronger, Dionysus arrives with his company: goat-footed men and loose-limbed women with satirical smiles.
    I eat bread soaked in honey mead. My lips aresticky with it: my body heavy with the drug. The God of Wine catches me around the waist, daring where