Mars in Retrograde. Chapter 10.

We are a light.

Can you find the hope in all this distraction? I think you can.

Chapter 10. We are a light.

June returns before the sun rises to four people nesting under downy covers seeking comfort in one another, quietly telling themselves that they will not stay another night in this place if it requires that they wake before dawn each day like some sort of boot camp readying them for war, absolutely no chance in hell that there is anything any cult leader could say to convince any one of them to stay. As people so susceptible to cults, they are decidedly immune to the rhetoric. They know this.

In the dark blue of the encroaching dawn, June is a black silhouette in the doorway. The scent of cool, wet earth rolls in all around her.

“Get dressed,” she says brusquely. “Shepherd Maya is waiting for you.”

June leaves something at the foot of their beds and closes the door, her wispy shadow still hovering outside. Upon further investigation, the items she left are long, lacy dresses that match the other women’s. Marshall’s fits surprisingly well, falling gracefully down his long body and gathering just above his ankles in floral frills. He is not looking at Jamie as he changes clothes though he is thinking about Jamie’s penis again like a stupid skipping record with uncontrollable blood flow. When they’re finished putting themselves together in the dark, they join June outside. She begins walking.

Marshall has never been held before. Not even once, he knows this as factually as he knows that sweat gathers at the nape of Jamie’s neck when asked a question that must be answered with words. He’s certain that his very first memory is of populating his mother’s 17 year old mind as she envisioned a future in which Eddie is forced to change, to be a better man for a child they would conceive together. Even in this thought, Marshall’s improbable form abstract in Elaine’s head, she did not hold the thought of him but clutched it too tightly like a tiny coin purse.

He knows that his skin is a sort of history and he can trace it back to his very origin and understand that neither his father or their cult leader lover held his mother after his conception and though Marshall does not believe that is where life begins he still feels it to be significant. Unfeeling in the womb, floating in amniotic fluid, he knows that his mother’s body housed him, provided for him, but did not hold him nor did she really acknowledge her swelling stomach for nine months despite wanting a baby so badly to tether her to Eddie. He knows this.

Marshall was placed directly into a basket when he was born, of this he is certain, from womb to wicker. The basket carried him from place to place after Elaine and Eddie fled the cult but the basket did not hold him, it merely contained his fresh form. When he cried, he was shushed or threatened with the potential of being launched into space which can feel very real for a baby. 

Marshall has held someone else after having sex. He’s hugged someone and been sort of hugged back. He’s kissed like it would kill him if he wasn’t kissing, like being absorbed into someone else’s mouth would make his hulking frame small enough to be loved, small enough to be truly held. His lovers have only sought shelter in his massiveness, never considering that it might need support too. Lana could never bring her brittle bones to circle his.

No one has found the courage to curl their one and only pair of arms around something so violent. Marshall knows this.

Jamie held him last night. And Marshall, in a rare unguarded display of his need, tucked himself away into the shelter of those long brown arms like a snail curling into a new shell. Slow and steady. Like a miracle. All night long he was held so sleep settled atop him like a fine mist, rest swaddled him against a cotton bosom, and even upon waking to June’s shrill urgency, the embrace never unsettled and never once faltered.

It’s never too late for something to happen for the first time. Marshall feels that everything he does today must be the first time he’s done it. First time wearing a dress. First time stepping through deep mud in bare feet. First time waking in Missouri. Seeing that sunrise, hearing the birds waking with their chitter and chatter, taking a deep breath in and out. This might be the first time Marshall has greeted the day and felt the day greet him in return with a tight hug and the kiss of life.

In the pale blue light as the sun reluctantly crawls over the horizon, June leads them deeper into the cult’s domain. The fog has lifted and the sky cleared, hanging above them like a quiet ocean. The morning breeze that ripples across the land carries the scent of an encroaching autumn, each day shorter than the last, each tree closer to dropping its life-giving color to the welcoming earth.

They leave the area where they’d slept, a strange disorganized smattering of cabins that seems to conform to the aberrations in the land’s topography rather than fight it. Behind them, the Big House looks more welcoming than it had the previous night when it appeared the sort of place only the final girl in a horror film would emerge from. The candles in the windows wave at them now, more like a greeting than a warning, the dark shutters thrown open to invite the morning.

The farm too is much less intimidating in the passing of the storm. What had appeared to be towering walls of impenetrable shadow in the night proved to be sweetly ears of corn shooting high from loamy soil, papery leaves tickling one another with a sound like whispering in a lover’s ear. 

“Looks nothing like all those farms we passed driving out here,” Lana notes.

Marshall agrees. “I worked on farms like those back in Georgia. Always called family-owned but the family lived an hour away. Only ever came out when someone complained about the pay so they could fire ‘em in person.”

Jamie says, “You worked for the Gilsons, yeah?”

The sound of his voice startles Marshall after the long quiet closeness of the night. He clears his throat. “Yup. Other families too, but they’re all the same. Old pricks, bastards through and through.”

Jamie focuses on skirting a muddy puddle, politely holding up the hem of his dress, then says, “My parents stocked the store with produce from the Gilsons. Always gave me the creeps.”

Marshall grunts. “That’s evil produce. They grow that shit in straight ass lines, everything’s gotta be the same size and shape and color so it hardly feels like food by the time it gets boxed up. Don’t get me started on the pesticides. Most every one of the guys I worked with was undocumented with fucked up lungs.” He bows his head, wondering how many of them have probably died since he quit working the farm after high school. “There’s good air to breathe out here.”

“This is farming with respect for the land,” June says over her shoulder. “We use the Three Sisters method, an indigenous practice of growing corn, squash and climbing beans together. Each ear of corn swaying in the wind has a squash full and bulbous at its base and beans ripe for harvesting as they trail up the corn’s stalk. The three species work together to grow and are rewarded for it. We believe greatly in the divine power of trinities here.”

Marshall knows the Three Sisters method, he even tried it once on a shaded patch at the edge of the Gilson farm, sowed the sister seeds amongst the weeds and wildflowers. He watched them grow taller, fuller, happier than anything in the lifeless production line that they called a farm, the taste of the ripe veggies at the end of the summer sweeter than any other satisfaction. Nature’s bounty. It was sort of his first stab at landscaping, the thing that led him to his job after high school. He’d discovered a special artform in the crafting of a beautiful, ecologically stable landscape, a balance as delicate as mixing colors on canvas. Every detail mattered, the placement of each individual plant in relation to one another essential and intentional, just like painting. Nature is impossible to imitate entirely, but if Marshall looks close enough he can see it all moving in abstract patterns. Breathing. A living thing.

He liked the manual labor that working on the farm had provided but there was little life to be found in the land. He despised the machines that clawed into the earth, ripping apart the barren soil that struggled to produce ripe, full food; the chemicals he misted over the fields to imitate what nature can already provide, to kill insects and critters that thrive and survive in thick foliage. Land was an industry to the Gilsons. Here, the corn grows in clusters, uneven and sporadic. There’s a freedom to the land that is difficult not to be moved by.

He watches the sky paint itself to life now overhead. Pale blue collapsing into pink and yellow and tiger lily orange like a glass of iced tea warming in a shaft of light.

Deeper into the farm, winding through thickets of berries and wildflowers exploding in colors to rival the blazing sky–deep red berry clusters, shocks of pink and purple flowers, an apple tree hanging over a trickling stream, cucumbers crawling across the haphazard dirt path. 

They pass women already digging into the day’s work. A tall and wide woman with thick hair braided down her back pruning the yellow leaves of a rose bush. A short, thick woman with dark skin and even darker hair harvests tomatoes on her knees, examining each one with precise eyes and fingers prodding for ripeness before plucking it from the stem and placing it into a basket held firm against her hip. Another woman with a wide nose and shaved head gathers water from a slow, clear stream in a pail and checks the soil with her index finger before tipping her pail and letting the cool water soak into the dirt and feed the crops.

Some of them talk quietly, others work alone and hum to themselves. All smile and nod gently at their passing. Their quiet begets more quiet and nothing else is spoken until they reach Shepherd Maya’s hut, a sturdy wooden thing, large and wide like a carnival tent with lots of flowing beige fabric and a mosaic thatch roof comprised of a variety of different woods in a dozen rich shades of brown. The structure has an energy to it, solid and timeless where it rests before a sprawling crystalline lake at the edge of the farm. Water stretches out past the hut at the length of a football field before ending abruptly at a thick stand of trees and brush, towering and impenetrable. Not a hint of outside civilization creeping into this place.

Shepherd Maya is not in her hut. She has her back to them, sitting cross-legged on a rock just a stone’s toss out on the water. Her dress is like theirs, long and white but with more intricate frills, strips of leather and colored string hanging from her shoulders, her sleeves, her waist. Dark hair falls down her back in serene waves so long they nearly meet the gentle waves of the lake lapping at the shore.

Though they are silent, she hears them coming anyway and turns to greet them with a placid grin. She remains in her sitting position, framed by the vibrant sunrise exploding on the clear water behind her. In a word, Marshall would say she is breathtaking. Her brows are thick and regal, her eyes dark and knowing. Her nose is long and thin, her cheeks sharp as box elder leaves. Thin white lines are painted across her simple lips. In the morning light, her brown skin looks fiery and alive.

June holds her hands behind her back and bows slightly. Marshall follows suit. Awkwardly.

“Greetings,” Shepherd Maya says, voice dripping like sweet nectar. “What beautiful faces I’ve been brought to start a new day. I’m so glad to have you here, children.”

Marshall clears his throat. “Uh, yeah, thank you. You guys are all really pretty too.”

Lana punches his arm discreetly.

“What is your name, angel?” Shepherd Maya asks though her questions feel less like inquiries and more like a flower crawling down your throat and lifting the words sweetly to your lips, a beckoning.

“Marshall. Ma’am.”

“Please, call me Maya.” She takes a deep, intentional breath of morning air, savoring it in her chest like cold water and when she exhales, Marshall feels something pass over him like a distant memory of a lovely time that he’s never had. “Marshall,” she whispers. “Do you know what your name means, Marshall?”

He shrugs. “I think my ma just really likes the Marshalls department store. I coulda just as easily been named TJ Maxx or Home Goods.”

Lana kicks him in the shin. The pain makes him want to be more stupid.

Maya seems unaffected by his coarseness. A mourning dove coos nearby. A flock of geese take off over the water. “In all languages, Marshall means keeper of horses, rider of horses, lover of horses.”

Marshall frowns. “Now, I’ve seen a lotta horses in my life but I’ve never been a keeper of one, certainly not a lover.”

Beaver stifles a laugh. Marshall is racking up bruises wherever Lana’s harsh limbs find space to chastise him.

“Horses,” Maya muses. “Such temperamental creatures. They can seem larger than life when one brings its muzzle and those big block teeth close to one’s face. They’re deeply empathetic animals as well. Studies have shown they are actually better at reading a person’s emotional state than us people can do with one another. Are you an empathetic animal, Marshall?”

There is a thread tied around Marshall’s heart and he can feel Maya tugging on it as if it’s always been wrapped around her long, spindly fingers. She’s a web weaver and Marshall finds that he cannot bring himself to lie to her.

“I’d say so,” he replies quietly.

Maya sighs and smiles. Sympathetically. “Maybe you are the horse that you are keeping. A wild and untameable thing who has been holding himself back all his life, always carrying others, never allowed to run free and lovingly. Such is the nature of the horse.”

Marshall finds himself nodding along as if in a trance. He’s always been a captive of those who need him, big and strong and solid Marshall. Unmoving man. But always seeing. Always understanding.

“I am more than something kept,” he says in a weak attempt to resist her culty wiles.

In one swift movement, Maya pulls herself into a crouch, launches herself from the rock and soars like an eagle over the water, landing on solid ground with all the grace of a dark-haired cat and she comes to Marshall on feet that barely touch the ground.

“Oh my goodness, you are so much more than something kept, my dear.” She places a delicate hand on his cheek and something electric passes between their eyes like lightning coming up from the ground. “Yes, Marshall, I see something special in you. A light that this planet needs in order to survive.”

His voice barely reaches a whisper. “A light?” 

Maya’s face is always bubbling like a quiet stream, always in graceful flux, never meandering in one expression for longer than necessary but never losing herself in the constant shift, the calming smile, the gentle but prying eyes. Up close, Marshall can see specks of gold in her iris buried in the rich mud.

“A magnificent light,” she says. “That empathy you feel is a gift. A mind like yours is one that can make you one with people and with nature. It is a rare disposition, a dying breed among our species. If we were all free horses…” She drops her hand to her side and trails off for a moment, something like a shadow of sadness furrows her brow but the bubbling stream smooths it over and she breathes deep once more. “Come with me. All of you.”

Maya beckons them away from the lake and into her hut. June holds the curtain aside for them and Marshall notes that she cannot seem to lift her eyes from the soft dirt to meet his own curious gaze. Inside, the floor is lined with a carpet of downy grass and soft moss thriving in the humid air that swells like a steady heartbeat in the open space. Marshall digs his toes into the spongy moss and feels the earth shift beneath his feet as if it is observing him right back.

Despite the size of the hut, the big room is rather simple. A large low table sits in the center of the room peppered lovingly with tea mugs, notebooks, bags of tobacco and bundles of sage. Her bed appears to be a collection of pillows and blankets on the ground under a lacy canopy that might just be a mosquito net. In the back corner is a tree stump so massive it must have been the largest tree in the forest when it lived. Maya sits in the center of the stump and lights a stick of patchouli incense. June remains by the curtained door while the four of them sit in the grass and moss in front of the stump like schoolchildren about to learn of the many different kinds of bugs, etc.

Maya is serene. She shimmers in the golden slabs of light angling their way through gaps in the curtains. “Tell me lovely ones,” she says, “what has brought you here?”

Lana jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “Her grandpa.”

Maya seems to register June’s presence for the first time and the look on her face is neutral. “June, dear, would you run to the Big House and gather some breakfast and coffee for our guests?”

June hesitates for the shortest moment and then nods, disappears through the curtains.

Maya looks down on them with benevolence. “Now, I’ll ask again. What brought you here, to this convergence of time and place?”

It is Jamie who responds with a surprising steadiness to his voice. “We came here fleeing violence.”

She hums, a long drawn out, “Hmmmmm” then asks, “Whose violence?”

“Our own,” Jamie says. “And the people who taught us that violence.”

Maya closes her eyes hard and winces as if feeling or seeing all of that violence laid out in front of her. “So much pain you’ve all endured. And so useless, all of it. So pointed and yet pointless. You’ve come to the right place.”

“Have we?” Lana asks. Marshall delivers an elbow to her side. They can hurt each other all day long.

The wispy smoke trailing off of the ember glow of the incense seems to curl around Maya’s unmoving body, spiraling around her like a benevolent and curious dragon. “If you were directed here by June’s grandfather, I imagine you are led to believe that I run a cult. It’s not an unfair comparison. I expect a lot of hard work and dedication from my followers and I do expect it to be unwavering. But the place I offer here is not one that is confining or restrictive or ruled by power. Do you know what I do offer here?”

Marshall shakes his head.

“Freedom. Freedom to live, to love, to breathe the same air that our ancestors breathed through gentler lungs. This place is free from the constraints that the modern world has laid across the land like the bars of a cage. Things like borders, gender, presidents, man versus beast, they do not exist here. In this wall-less place there is no hate, no war, our healthy land fights the changing climate. We are a beacon in the dark calling out Yes! There is a future where we can live and love in harmony with one another and with the beautiful earth that nourishes us! We are not a cult. We are a light.”

She looks at Marshall as she says this and the thread around his heart tightens. He wonders what it would be like to live without the confines of a trailer, without the chain smoking hateful men outside and a wilted mother inside. To live without a constant stream of global news and an always impending sense of doom. To live for the sake of living. Could such a thing really be possible?

Maya places both palms flat against the tree stump and something visibly enters her. Back straightened, eyes lucid, she says: “If you aren’t convinced, let me tell you then how this place came to be. Long ago, before this place was called Pleasant Farm, before it was called Missouri, this land was free. This land was not owned or used or called property. It was the land of my people, the Osage tribe, a people whose way of living I will never truly know. I need not go into the detail of how white settlers ravaged our land and claimed it as their own, nor the endless violence and hate we faced. My people were forced from this place to a smaller land, land not sacred to my tribe. I was born there on our government allotted reservation but I was always drawn here by some unseen force trying to remind me of where I came from. Where my spirit lives.

“This tree I sit on now was once a very sacred tree to my people, what we call an ancestor tree. She fed the other trees in the forest and kept them alive, connected. They worshiped here, offered thanks and blessings. She was fed and she fed us in return. When I came here as a young girl, I wept for its loss though I’d never seen it as it once was, tall and proud as my ancestors. The tree was felled by white settlers who sought to develop the land and never did anything with it in the end. I’d always felt the world to be somehow off kilter, but I understood then just how inhospitable the people have become toward the earth. Our connection to the world that so graciously houses us has been severed. We are killing the land and so the land will rightfully kill us–unless we return to a place of devotion.

“Using what little my family had, I bought this land. To own it shames me, but to care for it is my purpose, just as it was my ancestors to be the stewards of this good green earth. This is a place for people who feel a connection, the connection to the land and wish to see it saved and to see themselves saved in return. The people who have joined me here are the new stewards of the land. Most of us are tending to the land on a daily basis. Some of us have more refined skills such as weaving or fishing or even hunting. I have been running this commune for thirty four years now. We are eighty six people strong and when the day comes that the world decides people are no longer welcome here, this place will be saved for the care that we have given it. Pleasant Farm is a refuge for the connection between people and the land.”

Her voice is mesmerizing. She rises and falls like the stirring branches of trees. She speaks with a deep power that rises from the earth through the roots of the dead tree she preaches from. For the duration of Maya’s monologue, Marshall forgets why he’s here and where he’s come from. All he can feel is the hard dirt beneath his butt, the grass and moss pressing into his palms, the ladybug exploring his finger with all of the curiosity of a toddler by the sea. There is a feeling almost like nostalgia that spills over the flat stump like a cold fog and it reminds Marshall of a childhood he never had. Nostalgia for a life that was taken from him by the learned violence and indifference of a world being destroyed on the back of progress. Could he have that life, still?

Marshall clears his throat and struggles to speak in a way that doesn’t sound like he’s submitted to sinking into the earth and becoming the dirt. “Shepherd Maya, thank you for sharing your story. It’s very kind and…cool. But we were just hoping to stay the night and be on our way and we’ll put in whatever work we need to but really we do need to keep moving.”

Maya nods thoughtfully. “So I’ve been told–and all that is required of you four is some manual labor and then you are free, I promise that.” She pauses. “You said you were fleeing violence.”

Marshall nods.

“How long will you run for? And how far? This state, this country, this world has been built on violence. Outside of this place, to live one must participate in violence and indifferent cruelty or have themself broken down by the violence bit by bit until they are a whittled thing to be controlled, no longer a living breathing person but a thing to hurt. A thing to perpetrate hurt.”

She lets this message settle like morning dew. There is no sense of a threat in her tone, her words are like a caress on the cheek from a loving mother. She is presenting an offering, not an ultimatum. She is offering sanctuary.

“Please, stay the day. Do your work. You can even stay one more night, no work required tomorrow. And if by the end of your stay you’d still like to leave, then be on your way… But I see something special in you all. Like Marshall, there is a light in each of you, one that has been dimmed by violence, abuse, hatred, but it can be fostered back to life here. This is a place like no other. I only ask that you spend the day with yourself in deep contemplation. What is it that you want? And can you find it here?” She smiles so sweetly. “I’m biased of course, but…I believe that you can.”

today the sky is orange / and you and i know why

Previous chapter. Chapters 11 and 12 available next week.

Table of Contents.

What pretty language. I hope she’s right. I hope we are a light. As a reminder, if you wanna skip the wait for chapters, you can grab your own digital copy of the whole book on my website or on amazon for your e-reader.. I leave that decision up to you.