Letting Her Go

So I’m here. Then I’m there. Sitting on a pile of bones (mostly skulls) in Ravenwoman’s Boneyard. I’m in my full regalia, if you can call it that. Raven feather cloak, marked hand and eye, certain accoutrements, etc. I’m holding a skull, but it is neither Horatio‘s nor a substitute Yorick.

It is the skull of a 9 year old girl. There is a faint crack on the side of her head, but it has healed. I know it well. It’s where my head hit the asphalt when I was run over as a child.

There are ravens perched on bone piles around me, watching curiously. I can hear Ravenwoman muttering in the background, apparently oblivious to me.

I study the girl’s skull, my skull, for a moment. Turning it over in my hands, noting the teeth she had lost, and which teeth were still forming. I don’t have to study it for long to know when this skull was taken. The jaw is missing, and with it, any possible knife marks. But I know to the hour, when this girl, died.

I’ve been carrying her, and the anguish of her death, for 30 years.

The skull is dry, within and without. It is light and feels deceptively delicate. Holding it, I can hear the laughter she spread, the afternoon of her death. The stench of the mosquito spray the military sprayed around at sunset. The sound her bicycle tires made as she raced home to beat curfew. The hand on her neck shoving her into the wall. The voice in her ear promising a quick death after a little fun. But all these sensations, they are in the past. They no longer force themselves to bleed over into the present.

As long as I carry her, her last moments will continue to influence my future moments. Hers was the anguish I cried over when I was presented with those three choices. As long as I carry her, she will die again and again. I understand now, to continue carrying her is selfish and self-destructive. I can not change the past. I can not undo what was done to her. To me. It’s taken me 30 years to finally move on from everything that happened that night. And while I’m not completely recovered from it (I doubt I ever will be), it’s time to let the dead, stay dead.

I start Singing.

There is no need for a purging fire. The skull is ready to disintegrate just by staring at it. I know it is still here, because of my soul’s greedy grasp. The Devouring Fire blooms from my hands and surrounds the skull. It makes the skull appear to be the heart of a budding rose. I smile. She would like that.

The fire now taken hold, I could just put the burning skull down and move on. But like the jersey, this is personal. I have to see it finished. I have to complete the work myself.

More ravens surround me. Huge birds, with feathers so black they shimmer with a midnight blue sheen. Most of them watch me in silence. A few try to sing along with my high notes. Their voices encourage me to fully release mine. When the tears come, I don’t try to stop them. I have to let her go. I have to let all of her go.

In the teary haze, I see Ravenwoman now standing across from me. She is wearing my deathmask and a headdress of black feathers. She throws her head back and joins in the Singing. I feel a wrenching in my heart, the sense of something being forcefully taken. Something that didn’t belong there in the first place, but was still painful to remove. That something changes as it moves, and comes out of me by voice.

I Sing a note that would shatter the living and call back the dead.

The Devouring Fire takes that note, and collapses the skull in my hands.

As the Song fades into the collective cawing of the multitude of ravens sounding around me, the skull disintegrates into drips of burning motes. And even that is consumed into nothingness as it flows out of my hands.

There is nothing left of her skull. That girl that was molested, raped, and tortured, only exists in the past now. And with time, even that will fade.

In my innermost, I feel something missing. It is not a bad sensation. Just a new one. Ravenwoman puts her hand on my shoulder. I look up in reflex. I do not realize I am still crying until she wipes a tear away and studies the wet on her fingers. “You’ll heal.” She releases me and walks away, poking at bone piles again. Just like nothing of significance had happened.

I watch her for a moment. The ravens start to disperse now that the show is over. A few remain by me. I have no idea why.

Yes. I’ll heal. Reflecting on what just happened, I have to agree. It’s not a matter of significance. Just me, growing up, a little more.

I have work to do of my own. I jump down from the bone pile I was sitting on…

I’m here.

I’ve only been gone a few minutes.

I know there are many things in myself that still need work on. This isn’t a quick fix, nor a miracle event. I will likely mourn my 9 year old self for a little longer.

But I can now smile a little more.

Make of that, what you may.