The Pearl Fox

Magic Moon

Thistle carried two baskets of bread loaves and entered the study room of Crow-Thorn. She always put baskets on the central table, so she did. There was a window of green stained glass, that moonlight shone through and gave the room a certain soft green glow. Besides the flames in the sconces and the candle lights, the moon was strong tonight because there would be three full moons again. Crow-Thorn sat in a chair, meditating, although that is what she assumed he was doing. She noticed that today, Crow-Thorn wore robes of dark blue silk. His hair was braided and bundled up, and his enormous black beard was drenched in sparkling glitter. Earlier she found that her own natural fluids were wrong, and a potion turned green when she added her urine. It was the same colour green as the shade of light in Crow-Thorn's room. There was only one reason for that. She was with child. Her thoughts flitted from Crow-Thorn to her lover, who was a handsome young guard of the Black Castle. He had long red hair and silver eyes. As her life was in doubt working as a servant of Crow-Thorn, she wanted to dedicate herself to a life of motherhood. Being a wizard's apprentice wasn't what she imagined it to be. This particular wizard, Crow-Thorn, was cold and unfriendly, impossible to talk to, and he always gave her mundane tasks. He never taught her about the magical arts. He turned her into an elaborate servant. His ugly Black Garden wasn't an ideal place for her, being pregnant and surrounded by toxic plants. 

Later, she approached him and gave him the news. He wasn't behaving in a way that she'd anticipated. He always surpised her. "You should depart from this job then," he said, kindly. "I shall reward you with a fee and a good luck token." He gave her a pouch of silver rolls (S.r) and a raven carved from tourmaline. Thistle wasn't sorry to leave. She hoped that Crow-Thorn would find a better apprentice, someone else. He wanted a male apprentice instead from a wizard background. She was a disappointment as an apprentice in his eyes because she's female and not related to any wizards one iota. She considered learning more about healing herbs from a white witch living in Moondome. It mattered not if the guard was father of this baby, or it was Crow-Thorn that might be the father, as he sometimes bedded her. She only wanted to get out of the clutches of these dark castle walls for good. 

Crow-Thorn wasn't sad to see her leave. He didn't want an apprentice at all but she was given to him by the association of wizards, simply because she lived in the same city as him. He strolled around in the corridor outside of his study, then went to his private chamber. Now his daughter, Blood-Rose, was living in the Black Castle with her children, since her barren husband had died of a heart attack. Crow-Thorn wanted to track down a new husband for Blood-Rose, and he was also set on locating a governess for his four grandchildren. All of those children were really his own children but no one could ever know about that. Crow-Thorn and Blood-Rose kept this a major secret, but he will never forget.

Blood Rose's children were not allowed to play in the Black Castle, except for the nursery, the other garden of sweet flowers, and their bed chambers. They could go in the courtyard but never allowed into the Black Garden. The door to that place was locked. The youngest was two year old Tia, with black hair and ruby red eyes, with the features like her mother Blood-Rose. Siblings Lamor and Chandor inherited the same red eyes. Murok had Crow-Thorn's pale grey-blue eyes, but no one noticed that much because in the Black Castle, nobody knew Blood-Rose's late husband, and he had amber eyes. Everyone that knew him all lived in Luniapolis, and they had never seen Crow-Thorn. Once, Blood-Roses' deceased husband made an observation about it when he was alive but he chose to say nothing. He met Crow-Thorn once, during the wedding and he knew that he wasn't as powerful a wizard as Crow-Thorn.

After she returned to her chamber from a meeting with Crow-Thorn, Blood-Rose ate a lot of harmful papaya fruits. She wanted to put an end to whatever ripened and grew within her. She couldn't afford to do this again, yet she felt the same needs as before. All that would help her now would be to find a new husband. She wished that her future husband will be fertile. It mattered not if he was young, handsome, old or ugly. She wanted a devoted husband that could perform his duties and make her happy. Maids filled the marble tub with warm water, donkeys milk and roses. They helped to undress her, and once she was naked, the maids discovered that her body was covered entirely in glitter. Her bounded up hair was covered in a film of glitter that couldn't come out. Blood-Rose entered the bath and washed. When she got out of the bath, she unbound her magnificent long black hair that fell to her knees. Maids laboured in combing the glitter from her hair but it was next to impossible. Then Blood-Rose got frustrated.

"Cut it all off!" She ordered one astonished maid.

"But, my lady..."

"Please do it. I've carried this hair for years and its filled with misery. I can't do anything because it's in the way. My hair is tainted."

After some coaxing at the reluctant maid, then offering an increase of her salery, a pair of scissors did the job. It took a while, and when Blood-Rose was please with the result, she ordered the maid to stop. Blood-Rose looked in a mirror and her hair was now very short. She felt light and free to be rid of the heavy burden. All of the glitter was in the chopped mane that piled on the floor like a silken black folded blanket.

Later that evening, she dined with her father and children. She wore a green silk dress, and a necklace of emeralds.Green jaspers dangled from her ears. Upon her head she wore a braided headband woven in gold thread, made from her cut locks of hair. Crow-Thorn's beard was freshly coated in purple glitter as it sparkled like a nebula cloud in the night sky. He wore robes of velvet in colours of red and burnt sepia. The governess wore white and she sat on a stool beside Tia, helping to feed the small child with spoonfuls of mashed curd. Everyone else ate omelettes, cheese cake, pies of berries and onions, swan chunks, sugared vegetables, bacon and yellow rice. The adults sipped black wine from crystal chalices. The children had wooden cups of elderberry and vanilla flavoured milk.

"I hear that your apprentice has resigned", Blood-Rose said to break the silence.

"Thistle wanted to settle down and have a child," he responded, and didn't look at her as he spoke. "I despise what you've done to your beautiful voluminous hair."

"I should've done it years ago."

That night, her father arrived at the door without glitter. She wore only a blue nightgown, and it was clear what he wanted. But it wasn't what she expected. He held her hand and led her away, out into the corridor and further away from his own study. They came to the stairs, and descended. At the bottom, waiting, was a very handsome man dressed in armour, with a head of bright yellow curls. He was ten years her junior, but she felt her heart pounding at those luscious eyes and his smile.

"This is Binofft DeGrim," Crow-Thorn said. "He came all the way here from Tropiz. He has agreed to marry you."

Many months had passed. A violent storm from the thrashed against sturdy walls of the Black Castle. It was rare to experience storms like this in Moondome because they were on the eastern coast of Diaphry and the Dark Green Sea was a marginal sea with relatively warm currents. Only on bad days will the winds fom the far north at the North Green Sea change and batter the east of Diaphry with angry storm surges. It was a strange time because the sky was absolutely clear and all of the three moons were visible. The three moons would experience a triple lunar eclipse. Those three moons all went dark, one after the other, and turned into blood red globes. It was on that very night of the storm and three red moons that Blood-Rose gave birth to triplets. Each child represented a moon, and she named them quickly as soon as they were born. A daughter came first, followed by two sons. She passed out from loss of blood and the painful long birthing itself. She named her daughter Magic-Moon, and her sons were named Furd and Blood-Thorn.

Blood-Rose never recovered and a day after she gave birth, she died. Her body was burnt at the funeral. Crow-Thorn dug a small hole in the Black Garden, choosing a shadowy corner next to potted jasmine flowers. He poured Blood-Rose's ashes into the hole and filled it up. He selected a dark blood red coloured crystal that was to be his daughter's gravestone and he etched her name into on with phosphorous silver writing. He then planted a red rose bush there to remember her by.