The Seasons of Salt

All good stories are like rivers, Da said, because all good stories are like life, and life itself is a river; turning now this way and now that, sometimes fast and rocky, sometimes slow and smooth. It has many little rivulets and inlets and channels and you choose which bend to turn down, never knowing what might happen down the other. It only takes one thing to change the river; if the rain fell a little harder or too many branches fell, or the droughts came sudden and sharp. Every time you journey its different and the same. A story is like that, if it’s done well. Once there were four little girls. Not this one again, Sylas said. It’s a girls’ story and besides, she already knows it by heart. And she did. Once there were four little girls and their names were Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. And they loved and were loved, they were happy and sad in season and lived through such adventures that it would shake you to the core to hear of them – and though their lives ran crossways many times, they were fated never to meet. And you can not fight fate, can you, Da? And his eyes twinkled with the same old answer every time. No lass. But you can negotiate with it, if you’re canny.   There was an embroidery up on the wall, she remembered. Women gleaning and sowing and gathering, in rich garments of scarlet, ochre, navy, emerald, violet and white. The intricate folds of the gowns caught the candle light sometimes, and seemed as if they were made of starfire, shimmering as if they might be dancing. Cerissa stared at them between her fingers, holding her podgy, often sticky, digits up high in front of her face, pretending they were tree trunks she was staring through. She would peek through them, hiding in that forest from the spirits and the nymphs that dwelt there, frozen in their work upon the wall before her. And when Sylas argued that neither spirits nor nymphs worked like peasants, she would ignore him – and pretend herself there, out in the forests still, far from him and his nagging logic. Her Da had told her once that these were the seasons in all their splendour, ladies with the pure white hair of winter and the vibrant auburn curls of autumn, summer sunshine yellow – just like hers – and the branch brown springs, and she would always picture them there when he told the tales she loved best. Once there were four girls.   Where does the story start? Where does the river? Does it begin where the streams merge and swell, rivulets running together, adding their strength to one mighty pulse, crashing wave and swirling current? Does it begin at the spring, spurting fresh laughter, glinting in the sunlight? Does it begin deep underground, where rushing waters roar and rage, hidden in the darkness and the night? Or the rain, feeding the soil, soaking through rocks and dirt, slipping past greedy roots and thirsty creatures? Or with the sun, draining puddles and soaking up the sea to start the whole sordid mess once more? Must it always start with anger? Must it always start with war? And must it always end where it began? Once, there were four girls.