by Jane Mackenzie
Young and gullible I listen to the story tellers, the stories, being engrossed in them. Sometimes feeling the burn and excitement at the same time in imagining the tale, for it was forbidden to listen.
There was a saying - that stories were sewn into the seam of the devil’s dressing gown. And, once believed your soul was forfeited.
So many sayings and such a curious child. Pure and all of innocence. Thirteen, not even and a beauty. Born into a glorious kingdom she knew her fathers love and remembered sweetly being held in her mothers arms while she suckled.
It seems some in the kingdom had jealous hearts and they couldn't bare her innocence and pure heart. So a story was concocted amongst them to trick her out of her gift and to teach her a lesson.
Let her know what suffering was.
So the story went like this .... She was gifted a lie and she would burn in hell if she kept it. She didn't however fall for this one but she laughed at the trickery of it, still too innocent to realize any harm that might come of it. So they made the story more elaborate, in the hopes to draw her into the spiders web. Where she could be snared and bound. The story took her into dark labyrinths more and more maze like, twisting and turning more and more into darkness. But, she was still of innocence and was trusting.
However, what began to happen was doubt began creeping in to her thinking .... when her journeys back home from a rather long winded story became more grueling and she began to wonder if she could find her way back. Doubt had entered her mind and her heart was no longer innocent. The first snare held. Her innocence was not as it was. You see, she still was curious and wanted to know the outcome and still she knew her father and mother would always be there waiting for her return with food and a warm bed.
As she once again had returned to hear more of this grand story, unlike any other she'd ever heard, she began to ponder the saying of the devils seams and going to hell. What was that? What might it have to do with this tale where she was being lost for longer and longer spells, sometimes not even finding her way back till days later.... hungry and cold? Was there truth in it?
She questioned her mother and father who by now were becoming terribly concerned finding her looking pale and thin. They saw she was becoming more obsessed with the journey into the labyrinths of story telling than with herself. They witnessed her slipping away from them and did not know what to do. They were unaware of any jealousies. It would not have crossed their minds to consider anyone intending harm to their beautiful child. Perhaps she was become by some terrible sickness. They grew more worried as each day before the sun was fully up they saw their now pale and innocent child slipping further away from them. They began to fear she would one day no more return from the tunnels woven by the story tellers.
The daughter had no idea what her parents were talking about when they began pleading with her to not return to the story tellers. She began to mistrust them.
As the story goes this once beautiful innocence was lost in a web of lies concocted to diminish and destroy her belief that she was loved.
Her gift was in her innocence and believing.