Rose Madder

“Wendy” seemed to feel her eyes and looked up at her.

“It’s the big piece you’ll want first,” she said.

“Be ready with it.” Before Rosie could answer, “Wendy” had pierced her own skin with the tip of the dagger. She hissed a few words Rosie didn’t understand-maybe a prayer-and then drew a fine line across her forearm, one that matched her dress. It fattened and began to run as the skin and underlying tissue drew back, allowing the wound to gape.

“Oooh, that hurt bad!” the woman moaned, then held out the hand with the dagger in it.

“Give it to me. The big piece, the big piece!” Rosie put it in her hand, confused and frightened but not nauseated; the sight of blood did not do that to her.

“Wendy Yarrow” folded the strip of cotton cloth into a pad, which she placed over the wound, held, then turned over. Her purpose did not appear to be compression; she only wanted to soak the cloth with her blood. When she handed it back to Rosie, the cotton which had been cornflower blue when Rosie lay down in her Trenton Street bed was a much darker color… but a familiar one. Blue and scarlet had combined to make rose madder.

“Now find a rock and tie that piece of cloth around it,” she said to Rosie.

“When you got that done, take off that thing you’re wearing and wrap it around both.” Rosie stared at her with wide eyes, far more shocked by this order than she had been by the sight of the blood pouring off the woman’s arm.

“I can’t do that!” she said.

“I don’t have anything on underneath!”

“Wendy” gri

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” she said.

“Meantime, gimme that other “un, before I bleed to death.” Rosie handed her the narrower strip of cloth, this one still blue, and the brown-ski

“Ai!” she cried in a desperate, breathless little voice.

“Oh, ai! So cold!” She dropped her nightgown, still mostly dry, over the hand holding the bloody rag and spied a rock the size of a ci

“Wendy’s” rain-thi

“Go on!” the brown-ski

“Go on in the temple! Walk right through it, and don’t stop for nothing! Don’t pick nothing up, and don’t believe in anything you see or hear. It’s a ghos place, no doubt about that, but even in the Temple of the Bull there ain’t no ghos can hurt a livin woman.” Rosie was shivering wildly, water in her eyes doubling her vision, water dripping from the tip of her nose, drops of water hanging from the lobes of her ears like exotic jewelry.

“Wendy” stood facing her, hair plastered to her brow and cheeks, dark eyes blazing. Now she had to shout in order to make herself heard over the relentlessly rising wind.

“Pass through the door on the other side of the altar and you go

“Go in the grove! Into the dead trees! The one tree still livin is a pom'granate tree! Gather the seeds that you find in the fruit around the base of that tree, but don’t taste the fruit or even put the hand that touches the seeds into your mouth! Go down the stairs by the tree and into the halls beneath! Find the baby and bring her out, but “ware the bull!

“Ware the bull Erinyes! Now go! Hurry!” She was afraid of the Temple of the Bull, with its curiously twisted perspectives, so it was something of a relief for Rosie to discover that her desperate desire to get out of the storm had now superseded everything. She wanted to get away from the wind and rain and lightning, but she also wanted to be under cover in case the rain decided to turn to hail. She found the idea of being naked in a hailstorm, even if it was a dream, extremely unpleasant. She went a few steps, then turned back to look at the other woman.

“Wendy” looked as naked as Rosie did herself, her gauzy red gown now plastered to her body like paint.

“Who’s Erinyes?” Rosie shouted.

“What is he?” She ventured a glance at the temple over her shoulder, almost as if she expected the god to come at the sound of her voice. No god appeared; there was only the temple, shimmering in the downpour. The brown-ski

“Why you act so stupid, girl?” she yelled back.

“Go on, now! Go on while you still can!” And she pointed wordlessly at the temple, much as her mistress had done.

Rosie, naked and white, holding the soaked ball of her nightgown against her stomach to protect it as much as she could, started toward the temple. Five paces took her to the fallen stone head lying in the grass. She peered down at it, expecting to see Norman. Of course it would be Norman, and she might as well be prepared for it. That was the way things worked in dreams. Except it wasn’t. The receding hairline, fleshy cheeks, and luxurious David Crosby moustache belonged to the man who had been leaning in the doorway of The Wee Nip tavern on the day Rosie had gotten lost looking for Daughters and Sisters. I’m lost again, she thought. Oh boy, am I. She walked past the fallen stone head with its empty eyes that seemed to be weeping and the long wet strand of weed that lay across its cheek and brow like a green scar and it seemed to be whispering from behind her as she approached the strangely configured temple: Hey baby wa