A Labyrinthine Affair: The World of Taboo

In the Beginning - Part 1

In the beginning there was Mother and Father and James. Together but fractured; details too slippery for his mind to yet hold.

Mother, or Amma, as he called her, was a fairy to him. A caster of spells. She held pools of time in her deep dark eyes and loved to run free in the woods. Sometimes gathering ripe berries for them to eat, other times taking him to the bed of a nearby stream and removing their clothes so they could take a swim. There was no shame or impropriety between them. They were mother and son and what he knew of her body was comfort and nurturing and safety.

In the earliest days, they would speak in her native tongue and James would beg for stories of their people. At night, curling him in the ambit of her arms, she told him of her own family: mother, father, three sisters and three brothers. They'd lived close to a beach and every day they searched for oysters, swam in the ocean, fished and gathered water to take back to their village. Some nights she would relay stories of the creatures that haunted the forests far away in the other world. There were owls and hawks, bears and wolves; watching, waiting and eventually, hunting.

He hoped one day to be transformed. To go to sleep as a little boy and to awaken as a creature of the night. Flying, hunting, swimming beyond the terrain of mortals and plunging into the hidden world that lay just beyond the horizon.

Amma named him Qw'ayaci'ki (her Little Wolf) because of his penetrating eyes and purposeful stare; the way he could quietly stalk the creatures in their forest, feet pushing the fertile ground, not making a sound. As well as the way he would often curl up next to her, needing the sound of her own breathing to lull him into a deep sleep. These were the secrets they held tightly, together.

Da, or Father, on the other hand was stern and rigid. A tall and slender man with medium brown hair and a chiseled jaw, he didn't approve of anything wild and free. His was a world of logic, planning and rules. Rigid rules. Even his heavy footsteps seemed to be measured and precise. He demanded respect and obedience. And if there was no compliance there was certainly punishment. He was concerned with shipping and commerce and spent long days away in his offices. There were trade agreements and tracts of land and fortune to be discovered. James found no smiles, or cuddles or kisses in his domain. Only a stern regimen.

Their pieces didn't fit neatly, yet they belonged together. They were a family.

Before long Anna began rebelling. At first in back handed ways, then outwardly defiant. She refused to wear the clothes Horace bought her, preferring her own crudely make garments to the finery of colored silks and soft cottons. She began wearing her hair in two long braids on either side of her head and painting her face in strange colors. First coral and golds, then gold and blues and finally white with black highlights. At the sign of every full moon, she would strip down naked and wander outside to sing in her native tongue, thanking the Gods for fertility and harvest. Crying to see her home once again.

This wouldn't have been such a problem, except soon the neighbors knew. They whispered behind Horace's back as he attempted to live a normal life in the countryside. Her language was one thing. But tribal painting on her skin? Crude dress and savage customs?

She began cutting herself, mostly on her limbs. It seemed the oddest and most dangerous thing for a wife and lady to do. Was this some sacrifice she made to the spirits to whom she talked? Did she not care that her dresses were spotted with her blood, leaving her to look deranged and unfit? Wayward actions outweighed wayward words.

Initially, Horace decided to confine her to the grounds and then finally inside the house, but never to accompany him to dinners or musical concerts or any sort of respectable affairs. When she began cutting herself, becoming wilder in her behavior and refusing to acknowledge any rules of dignity, he banished her to her room. She became more rabid, more rebellious, painting her skin, the walls, drawing crude carvings into the mantel of the fireplace, screaming for hours on end.