Disclaimer: Harvest Moon... it's not mine. :)
Author's note: My entry for this month's Writing Festival. The theme was Sacrifice, and after looking up the dictionary definition for inspiration, this weird offering was what I came up with...
The Meaning of the Word
The Goddess pond would keep your secrets safe. The lies it told were little white ones. Harmless.
From a young age, the children of Mineral Town had been told that throwing something into the supposedly sacred spring would bring good fortune. If they did, the Goddess, in turn, would smile down upon them. No one truly believed that, of course. It was just a myth, a legend, a silly old tale.
One of Ann the barmaid's earliest, yet most vivid, memories was of that pond. She was only a little girl at the time - five, six years old? She remembered the stillness of the water's surface and how it reflected the whole vast, blue sky; the spider's webs that were over-hanging tree branches. It offered everything it reflected this sad, soft shimmer that incited only envy. It taunted, "You'll never have it as good as this, not up there." And okay, so maybe Ann didn't notice all of that in that first recollection. But what she did remember was scrambling about on her hands and knees trying to find a flower that had survived the harsh summer drought.
In the end, she made do with one parched and withered daisy and brown handful of weeds. She threw them passionately into the water, scattering the world it reflected. It wasn't something she considered at the time, but surely it was misguided to give a gift purely because you expected to recieve one in return? Ann was there on account of her terminally ill mother. Her anxious reflection gawped back at her, pale, freckly and flame-haired. "Please," she pleaded at no one. "Don't let her die. Not my mommy."
Suggesting, not intentionally, that someone else's should be taken instead.
It didn't work, anyway. Ann had not known that her mother was terminal and would be dead a month later. Maybe her gift had not been well recieved... According to her friend Mary, who worked in the library, the word sacrifice had more than one meaning:
1) The offering of a plant, animal, human or material possession to a supreme deity.
On the surface, what she had done was just that. And maybe the Goddess had listened. Only she decided a few dying scrubs were a poor exchange for a woman's life, and turned away.
But then there was the other option.
2) Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
Well, weeds certainly weren't highly valued; Ann thought you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thought they were. So, by that definition, she hadn't made much of sacrifice at all...
Some years later, Elli's mother and father died. They left behind not only her, but a little boy too. When Ann heard the dreadful news - even though her trip to the Goddess Pond had been years previously - she felt a beat of guilt gaining momentum in her throat. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim. Who decided what had a greater claim? Trying to change the future was obviously pointless, but was it really that twisted?
Don't think she didn't wonder.
"Hurry, Stu. Hurry up! Run!"
"You can't make me do anything," Stu retorted, super quietly. May had those sharp, pointy, girly nails and could pinch really hard when she was in a mood. She hurried along ahead of him, occasionally slipping on the uneven ground. Her hair was a long sheet that gleamed in the clear spring air. It was also the exact shade of dark chocolate. But Stu didn't like dark chocolate. Too bitter.
"Do you know what?" he called out to May, as she skipped over a creaky, wooden bridge that let out a high-pitched squeal of protest.
"What?" She reached the grassy verge and whirled about, hands on her hips, in a pose that was so Elli. He froze. "Well?"
A wicked grin flashed across Stu's face. "There is something worse," he said, "than your Gramps seeing you on the meadow, where he told you not to go." May's hazel eyes went wide and anxious at the thought. "And that would be running back so fast you fell and broke your arm or your leg or something. 'Cause then he'd know you went somewhere you weren't supposed to and he'd get to say I told you so! Adults just love that."
May rolled her eyes and made a soft, sighing sound - also like Elli! "Forget it, Stu," she yelled, rushing off again. If you can't beat them, join them. Not wanting to be left behind, Stu clattered after her. They raced each other around the narrow, winding track that criss-crossed down Mother's Hill to the Goddess Pond and safety. Reaching solid ground at last, Stu flopped onto the grass. In springtime, the ground was lush and almost bouncy, like the new carpet at home.
May lowered herself onto the grass at the lip of the pond, tucking her legs neatly beneath herself. In the springtime, though the sun shone keenly, the wind whistled through the peaks of Mother's Hill; it was wicked cold. Just sitting there was boring, but that was all May seemed to want to do. She carefully lifted flower after flower out of a pouch hanging around her neck. Embarrassingly, that was what the journey to the meadow had been all about: flower picking. As she arranged them like a sickening pastel jig-saw, Stu thought of all the things he'd rather be doing right now. There were a lot of things. They could play Tag, Dares... even going home to complete his chores was beginning to look appealing. May sat back proudly at the same time as Stu let rip a massive yawn.
She scowled at him. "Fine. Let's go, then," she said, in that hurried tone that suggested annoyance. May began lowering the flowers gently, so as not to damage a single petal, back into the pouch, without waiting for a reply.
A pang of guilt struck Stu suddenly and unexpectedly. He had no idea what to do with the feeling, however. "They're nice flowers, May," he told her, when in fact he meant, I'm sorry. "What you gonna do with them?"
"Put them in a vase at home," May replied, "and put the vase in the front window. Grandpa always said my mom liked flowers." She shrugged in a would-be offhand way that failed badly. "Then if she sees it, she definitely won't walk on by."
Stu was left speechless. Now, he thought, she must have known how dumb that was. If it was that easy, he could cook up a delicious home-made stew - his mother's favourite meal, apparently - and expect his dead parents to walk straight through the front door. Of course, May's mom was still alive as far as they knew, but Stu would bet a year's pocket money that she hadn't even considered returning to Mineral Town. But he didn't say so.
"I know it's... silly," she admitted, bending over to avoid meeting his eyes. She had been struggling to scoop up the last flower, which was pure white and looked especially delicate. "Oh!" Caught on the breeze, the flower wriggled out from beneath her fingers. Stu lunged foward, but missed completely. The flower didn't fly far; it landed too softly on the pond's clear glass surface. There was an eerie silence in which they both stared at it. The calm before the storm.
"Dammit!" May muttered, and Stu was so surprised to hear her swear that he moved too slowly. Years later, he'd think that he should have stopped her. At the time, he just saw her lean over the water, and then he saw her vanish in a terrifying splash. A shriek tore through the morning air, then ended almost immediately.
Silence.
The eye of the storm.
It was as if some outside force was dragging her downwards. She didn't notice being soaked to the bone, or the weight of her water-logged dress. Or even that she simply couldn't breathe.
The cold numbed everything it touched, both physically and emotionally, despite the sun's blurry glare. Her mind was surprisingly blank, save for vague thoughts of her mother, as she thrashed, fought, lost.
They called him a hero, but Stu didn't think of himself as one. He was a lucky idiot, that's all. What had he been thinking, jumping into that frigid water after her? He was ten years old and no one had properly taught him how to swim.
Then he remembered that May was also just ten and probably not prepared to die. Then, it all made a bit more sense.
The overriding emotion associated with that day was relief - pure and unglamorous. Stu didn't focus on anything other than scrabbling free of the water, dragging May behind him. He roughly pulled her upright, grimacing as she coughed her guts up. He was too goddamn angry with her to have any sympathy. Anger was the secondary emotion.
The flower she had risked her life to retrieve was now plastered to her hair. It was a bleak image for a ten year old to conjure up, but he saw her, in a sudden flash, dead. White faced, eyes closed, sleeping but for the petal's glued to her wet hair.
A dead giveaway.
Shuddering, he peeled it away and threw it aside. They went to Gotz the woodcutter's. Moved on to the Clinic. Moved on, fullstop.
Or tried to, at least.
Twenty years down the line, and Stu was still haunted by the memory. May didn't mention it that much; either she wasn't bothered or she'd blocked it out. One postive side effect of the incident was that she had stopped longing after Joanna. Perhaps all you needed was a simple brush with death to remind you of what was truly important. Joking aside, it was Stu that felt most deeply scarred.
He couldn't rationalise his fears, but couldn't skake them off either. It wasn't simply that he could've lost May that day... it was something else. Something darker was unsettling him and shocking him awake in the middle of the night, every night.
The pond.
Stu knew what they said, of course: "Offer a gift to the Goddess... blah blah blah." Was an offering the same as a sacrifice? Because humans used to be sacrificed, didn't they? He had done some unpleasant research and discovered that Mineral Town's past was a bit sketchy in that area. There were the vaguest of rumours: bad harvests coinciding with missing young girls, mysterious drownings.
Now, this all happened centuries ago. But when Stu and May's own daughter was born, it was all he could think about. And in any case, the more recent stories were disturbing enough in their own way. If you listened hard enough to the whispers, you could uncover all sorts.
Aja ran away, not just because of her father's drinking, but because her mother wasn't there for her. She spent too much time at the Goddess Pond, praying for a perfect family when she should have been at home striving to create one. May's grandfather, Barley, had begged for his cherished daughter's return. Presumably, the Goddess got her wires crossed and he ended up with May, unwanted by her own mother, instead.
It was another cool, spring afternoon on Mother's Hill - just like that one - when Stu noticed his seven year old daughter edging towards the pond. Again, he moved too slowly, only this time it didn't matter. His wife, carried on the memory of that dreadful day, was there in less than a heartbeat. Awash with relief, he took both of their hand's and suggested they head home to Yodel Farm. May did not protest.
The Goddess pond would keep your secrets safe. The lies it told were little white ones. Harmless - if you kept your distance.