by Rose Jermusyk.
A magician once sunk their hands into their chest, eagerly removed their own heart, and held it out as an offering. But now that same magician sinks those same hands into the earth to dig a grave or prepare a planting, they don’t know which. Piece by piece the heart once offered to another is now placed tenderly into the soft, waiting earth.
The magician had been so sure that there were hands waiting to catch the heart falling so quickly into love. Now, instead of making a home with another’s heart, their heart is being covered over with soil.
How do you heal a heart that has fallen so quickly into love that not even love could catch it, that has fallen all the way to the ground and shattered? If we look carefully we may yet see the pieces trembling in the soil for some unknown purpose. The magician is not looking carefully, and still they find a goose feather large and gray just in reach of where they’re kneeling.
The magician sees only the goose feather, not what is becoming of their shattered heart, not the abandoned hut nor the girl-like creature who watches the magician from the doorway and strokes with their right hand the goose wing large and gray that hangs in place of a left arm.
The magician is putting the goose feather through the button-hole of their lapel, largely unaware of their surroundings and how they’re affecting each other. They do not think to stay and see what is becoming of their heart, they think only that there are towns to visit and ply their trade.
The goose-girl continues to go unseen as the magician walks past the hut. The magician does not even notice the face reflected in the window of the hut. It is the same face the goose-girl wears.
But when the magician dreams they dream through the goose-girl’s eyes as they look over every inch of the hut.
Their body shudders at the sound of the door falling off its hinges. Their body aches having only one arm to clear out all the furniture and refuse. Their body balances at a twirl as all the dust and cobwebs are swept away by the large, gray goose wing. Their body sighs with relief when they get the water pump going. Their body stretches to wash every window. Their body shimmies as they mop the floor with rags under their feet. Their body shudders again, this time under the weight of mending the door with one hand. Their body aches some more as they mend the furniture and single-handedly drag it all back into position inside the hut.
The magician wakes exhausted, having felt all the goose-girl felt, and vaguely remembers some story of old about a flower keeping house until it was returned to its true form. Not far from where the magician slept, a gaggle of geese are taking a respite from their migration and seeking a meal in the river. The place where the magician’s heart once took up residence feels sore at the sight and they know immediately they need to follow the geese wherever their migration might lead.
Now where the geese fly the magician follows, and when the geese rest the magician rests, and when goose feathers fall from the sky the magician picks up every single one that falls upon their path. The geese follow the river so the magician follows the river and finds themself mesmerized by the driftwood that collects along the banks and is bleached by the sun til white as bone, and some of these they cannot help but collect as well.
It is when the geese seek shelter from the rain that the magician seeks shelter in a chapel and does not see the face reflected in the font of holy water as they bless themself. Looking up at the colorful windows made drowsy by the storm clouds outside, the magician sees an angel’s large wings made goose gray and sets to sketching them while humming a different kind of hymn.
There was a magician
Whose heart was a-broken
Who said, “Darling Heart, shall we cry or fly?
You were gone and buried,
Now you’re smartly-feathered,
Yet in my dreams you neither cry nor fly.
Tell me, Darling Heart, shall we cry or fly?”
As a kind of reply
The heart let out a sigh
And began preening feathers left and gray,
“I’ve accepted my lot,
What it is, what it’s not;
And shed no tears on my wing left and gray
Knowing you know enchantments left and gray.”
The goose-girl makes the hut a home and finds an old mirror with only a simple crack to hang neatly upon the wall. In the mirror the goose-girl sees the magician’s face and feels seen for the first time in a long time.
The geese seem to know the magician’s intent and rest at night so that by candlelight the new work might be completed of fastening goose gray feathers to bone white driftwood.
Now one goose does not fly with the others, but walks alongside the magician dragging a broken wing. The magician uses a smaller piece of driftwood and makes a splint for this fine-feathered friend. But even with the splint the goose cannot quite keep pace, so the magician carries the creature by day, continuing to follow the geese in their migrating.
By night the magician tucks their little friend between their own two feet to keep him safe while they continue working towards helping the goose-girl to fly. By day the magician shares their food with the goose and keeps a watchful eye for anything that might improve their work.
And now so much time has passed that the migration has doubled back along the river and returned the magician to the hut-turned-home and the heart-turned-goose-girl. Without a word the magician straps the wing they have made over the goose-girl’s right arm so that even if the girl-like creature does not have two hands with which to work, at least they can have two wings with which to fly.
The magician’s smile upon their own face, the goose-girl turns and runs and spreads their wings out wide. A graceful lift and swing of those wings and suddenly they are in the air.
They fly high above the trees and give the geese above a thrill, the healed goose sounding their approval and recognition of those feathers. The goose-girl turns back to home, back to the magician. The girl-like creature does nothing to slow their descent toward the place where the magician’s heart once took up residence.
The magician opens their arms wide for a homecoming.
And now the magician stands holding the wing they were so long in making. Once more the magician feels their heart beating brightly within their chest, now filled with the knowledge of what it is like to fly. The magician’s whole body prays there is yet enough feathers and driftwood for a second wing.
The geese seem to wait for the magician to finish their wings, just in case a few more feathers are required.
The work is finally finished, the magician with a goose-girl heart puts on their wings and runs and spreads their wings out wide. A graceful lift and swing of those wings and they are in the air.