I lie on the green bank of the millpond threading
two thin blades of grass until they lie entwined.
Together, I think, then wonder
how long it has been since I knew
what together really meant.
A yellow leaf falls,
drifting on the breeze, I watch it:
a glossy butterfly;
a golden ray of sun;
it kisses the surface of the water.
I lean forward as though to kiss
it too- “Gemma!”
My father’s voice rings in my ears like
the discordant bells of the village
church. Sighing, I shake out my skirt
and go home, shedding
yellow leaves from my hair like
a hundred golden butterflies
resting on the reeds by the pond.

The weathered boards of the Inn
are a flat dull grey above
the warm and sandy stone. Flat and grey
like the rest of the village- the rest
of my world. Mother’s roses grow
in a riot of color,
an overflow of life,
but that was her world- not mine.
I thought that they would wither
now that she is dead and gone. But only I
have withered here. Da tried to prune
them once; I think he forgot that
roses have thorns.
No one disturbs them now. I walk
past them without a nod.
I do not love them,
today. Da cracks his hand across
my rump as I brush past him
into the kitchen. It always stings.
Soon I am up to my elbows
in soapy water and scummy plates and
cups sticky with the residue of ale.
The pig keeper, Sam, leers at me
as he grabs the bucket of slops
from the base of the sideboard.
I want so much more than this.

The millpond is grey today;
grey like the village, grey like the world,
grey like the future that stretches
out before me. I used to think
there was more to the world than grey,
but even that dream had faded, now,
until it too is grey. Little eddies of wind
stir the turgid water; the bottom has disappeared
into an inky shadow that goes down
and down and down.
I hate it like this.
I throw a rock into the pond. It breaks
the surface with a “blurp,” sinking
slowly down like it is falling
into jelly. I wonder
if that is how it felt when Jonathan drowned.
Pulled slowly under the water, his skates
like metal shackles dragging him down
despite his struggles. Sometimes I think
the water must have been gentle,
enveloping him in a cool cloak
like the embracing arms of a loving friend.
Sometimes I am sure that it was not.
Today, the pond is leaden
grey like the sky. I only
hate it more when it is ice.

Da has arranged a match for me
with Peter Smythson. He said,
“It was the only way I could be sure
you are taken care of.” I said,
“I can take care of myself.”
He laughed and I flushed.
I hate him for laughing.
I hate myself for being ashamed.
Peter is the only one who will have me;
no one else wants a woman who can
read or write. I do not want my ears boxed
so I refrain from pointing out that Da did-
but he wanted her money, too.
Money makes up for so many faults;
it’s a pity I don’t have any.
But Peter does.
I wish I had learned Latin,
maybe Peter wouldn’t want me then.
I don’t want him either. But where
can I run when I’ve got no where to go?

The stranger comes in on a red horse,
a magnificent creature underneath
the dirt of the road.
Its foot is lame from a stone
in the shoe. It is such a small stone
to bring down so great a beast.
He is all in red, too, a dark
crimson rust, like
dried blood on steel.
Lines furrow across his face, haggard
and haunted. His dark eyes are haggard
too, black and pained like his horse.
I lead him to the best room in the Inn,
listening to his weary tread behind me
up the stairs, and wonder
if his world is as grey as mine.
But at the door he thanks me
politely and I hold my tongue.

Peter came to see me. I don’t know why
he bothered; I will be his soon enough.
I suppose he is a good lad, for all that
his chin is weak and his thoughts
are always solid, sensible, and
dull. Peter came to see me, but
I see him first. I run
away from the Inn,
away to the woods.
Behind me, I hear him call “Miss Hilyard,
wait! Gemma!” If only
I wasn’t been wearing skirts, I could
have run faster. And it is in the woods
that I meet him. A startled look, then
I gasp, “I’m not here,” and hoist myself
into the waiting arms of the old oak tree
while he clears the consternation from his face.
“Have you seen a girl run through?” Peter asks
his face flushed from his sprint. “I have
seen no one until you,” he replies.
And I breathe the only
breath of hope I held.

When Peter is gone, I drop
from the tree and for the first time
see amusement in the eyes of the stranger.
“He is your lover?” he asks. “He is
a nuisance,” I reply and am rewarded
by a brief bark of laughter.
“Surely, he cannot be that bad;
he is handsome enough, I suppose.
A lover’s spat was it then?”
His tone is blithe but contains
a bitterness echoed by a flash of pain
in those dark, dark eyes, and I know
what stone had lamed his heart.
“I will not marry him,” I swear,
my voice hot with reproach that this man
with all his crimson hues cannot
see the color I once lost
and now so desperately crave.
“I will not marry grey Peter and keep
his grey house and live in his narrow world
until I am old and grey. I want color
and magic and so much more
than this. I want to see
the oriental wind of the east
or the sunny zephyr dancing by,
the dragon which curls around the rim
of the world, and holds its tail
in its mouth, what it looks like
on the other side of those hills,
the rings where faeries dance to music
light and gay, and to dance with them
until the phoenix bursts upward
in a golden ball of flame.
I want all this, but who
could give me such a gift?
No one.” I turn on my heel
and leave him staring at my back.
He will not see me cry.

Da corners me in the kitchen
as I put the final touches on the pie
filled with sweet carrots and peas and
golden potatoes newly dug from the yard and
tender slices of chicken breast in
mother’s secret flaky buttery crust.
My mouth waters but my head knows
that I will be lucky if the guests leave any
scraps to supplement our
dry, brown bread supper.
“Peter is a good lad,” he says.
“Peter will keep you safe, and keep
the Inn running when I am no longer able.”
I should know better, but still I argue
that I could keep the Inn running,
that I could not have lived under its roof
for so long without discovering every secret
of the place that an outsider like Peter
would never know. “Enough,”
my father stops me, “you are not a son
but a daughter, you are not Jonathan.
You will marry Peter.”
“Peter is not your son, either,” I hiss,
fury choking my voice. “Peter is not
Jonathan, and never will be.
And Jonathan is dead!”
I duck a clout to the ear
and run out the door,
Da’s face a thundercloud behind me,
darkening even the blazing sun.
I could be so much more than this.

The banks of the river are swollen and damp
but I don’t care as I sit in the reddish clay
my fingers drifting in the icy, rushing stream.
I spread my fingers wide
as though they could catch, hold back
the flow. But all they can snare
is a leaf, deep and mossy green.
Green like my eyes,
green like Jonathan’s.
I remember when my world
was green, too. Leaves rustle behind me
and I wince, but it is only him.
“I did not mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t,” I lie, uncertain
of whether to stay or go.
“I have been thinking,” he begins,
looking fixedly at the muddy ground
near my hem, near my feet,
“about what you said to me the other
day. I should not have dismissed
your troubles, believing them to be of less
import than my own. I would
make it up to you, if I may.”
I smile and let the leaf slip
through my fingers to be carried away
with the rushing water. I don’t need it,
now. For a moment, I feel green inside,
a spring of forgiveness.

He sits down beside me and pushes
his fingers into the firm, red clay.
“Do you believe in magic?” he asks
so softly his words are almost carried away,
by the rippling gurgle of the river.
I do not know what to say. “I want
to believe,” I tell him slowly.
“I used to believe, once, but it is
so hard, now. I want to believe.
I want to,
I want…”
He sighs, as though with my words
some terrible decision has been made
and he cannot unmake it.
What have I done wrong?
Absently he rolls some of the red clay,
the rich, firm clay of the river bank
back and forth and back and
forth between his fingers. Slowly,
a crude form begins to take shape
until in his hand he holds
a crimson butterfly,
kissed by the golden sun.
He taps it with a slender stick pulled
from his tunic’s breast and the clay
melts away; the roughened wings
to gossamer blink, the antennae
thin and twitch in the gentle breeze,
alive. Glorious
and alive, it flies
over the flowing water and flickers
through the trees. Magic.

My fingers dig into the clay,
the firm red clay of the river’s edge.
“Teach me,” I beg, and pour my heart
into my eyes, into his hands. He smiles,
but his eyes are sad, and cold, and dark
as he shakes his head. “I cannot.”
My heart cries out in pain at this gift;
so close and yet I cannot grasp it,
even as I hold the firm clay
and warm it in my hands.
One more dream that has
faded into insubstantial grey.
“You will not,” I accuse,
“for you do not believe I can.”
He does not strike me
as my father would, but looks away
and I hear his affirmation in the silence.
Slowly my fingers shape the clay,
the firm red clay of the riverbank,
clumsily at first, but soon it grows
under my fingers, a butterfly
caged only by the thin red clay.
Each thin leg waits, anticipating
the flight that is never to come.
Each wing prepares to beat
with every palpitation of
the still, clay heart. It waits.
He picks it up, gently,
for it is more delicate than the crude
model that he had fashioned.
“So real,” he breathes, his fingers
caressing the rich red clay, “so alive.
I can only bring things to life
with a wave of my wand, but you
can create beauty such as this with
only your fingers. It is your talent
which is the true magic,
and all the richer and dearer for it.
Do not sell yourself too lightly.”

In one day spring has blossomed
into golden summer and I am like
a calf, newborn into the world.
I lead him down to the Aspen grove;
he is Godric now, and he calls me
Gemma or “his dusky potter”
for we have been twice more
to the red clay of the river bank.
In summer I love to hear the gentle
quiver of the leaves and the quiet
shiver as the boughs wave to me,
orchestrating my dance.
“Can you not hear the trees
playing the melody of the fae?”
I whisper to him solemnly.
Unladylike, I loose my smoky hair
from its tidy braid and leave my shoes
at the edge of the clearing. Throwing
out my arms to the sky I dance
as I do every year and Godric
leans against one sturdy, dappled
trunk and watches. He will not
join when I beckon, but
as I twirl round and round and
round again his laughter joins mine,
soaring up from our throats
into the golden sun.

“What was she like?” I ask one day
as we lounge in the tall grass
of the pasture where his proud horse
grazes amidst our scrawny cattle.
“What was who like?” Godric feigns
but I am undeterred. “The woman
who broke your heart, the one
you came out here to escape.”
He sighs, but does not ask
how I knew, instead tipping his face
up to the warm rays of the sun. “She was
beautiful; hair like rich honey and eyes
deeper than the shadow of yon tree.
She was good, too. Far too good and
kind and sweet for me. She did not
break my heart, I did that myself.”
I can hear the regret in his voice
for this woman, so unlike myself
in every way. Would anyone
ever care so for me, once I have
faded into dust? He continues,
“she was right. We argued but she
was right and I was too proud
to admit it. So I left, but now
I am too proud to return. Nay,
I’ll not lie, I am too much a coward.
And so I wander.” I wish I could
comfort him, but I do not, for a wistful
look is in his eye, and a spark
of jealousy beats within my breast.

Peter comes again as the bursting sun
prepares to slip below the distant hills.
I stand at the gate, gazing at the shivering trees
while across the lea a crimson figure leads
a noble, prancing horse in circles through
the waving grass. “The horse looks well,”
Peter says, startling me from my reverie.
“He will leave soon, and we shall be married.”
I shrug, my face calm although my heart
stings and fights against the sudden tightness
that spreads across my ribs from panic
at the thought. Yet Peter sees my disquiet.
“I know you have been spending time
with him, Gemma, and it is not seemly.
I will not have my wife,
nor my betrothed,
behaving in such a way. You shame me.”
“Then do not marry me,” I hiss.
“You are not my master yet.”
Yet.
The word reverberates between us,
and his chin rises in victory. Gently,
he takes one of my hands in his and forces
my eyes up to his own. “I will be
a good husband to you, Gemma.
I know you are afraid, but I will
take care of you always.
We shall live here in comfort, always.”
I do not cry as he walks away
and pulls me from the dream that
the last week has been. I do not cry
as I look into the future,
distant, hazy, and grey. In the dusk
I seek out Godric, but the coming night has faded
him as grey and insubstantial as a ghost.
Always is grey.

“I leave tomorrow,” he says as we sit
at the long wooden table in the main room,
sipping small cups of the honeyed mead
that I had prepared three months ago.
I can barely remember the sullen
stirrings that had lay so long
in my breast; will I return to them
once more when he is gone?
“I know,” I whisper. “You must.”
His voice is flat, passionless, grey.
“Perhaps it is for the best.” But we both
know that is a lie as well. Slowly, he stands
and retires to his room. I do not watch
him go. Instead, I gather our mugs
and bend over the tepid wash water.
Beneath the floating specks
of scum and dirt my reflection wavers,
a deep and leaden grey.
Jerking my head up I run,
and find myself
outside his door. I knock
with a trembling hand
and he is there. I smile.
“I want one night of color, one dream
that is mine and will not fade away,
one night that I am not alone and grey.”
His strong arms draw me in,
muffling my words against his chest
and I feel the deep rumble of his reply
reverberating upwards, “Sweet,
proud Gemma,” his lips graze mine
with the gentlest brush, like a fallen leaf
or a butterfly’s wing, “my dusky,
lovely potter,” again they touch
and their heat makes me shiver.
“You will never be grey, but
light and color, and all that is
spirited and free. Do not lose
yourself so easily.” Behind me
the door swings shut; then I am lost
in him and nothing matters anymore.

I wake up with the morning light
inside the circle of his arms. His face,
so calm in sleep, nestles close to mine
and I take care as I slide from his embrace
that I do not wake him. My scattered
clothes are cool as I slide them on
and I do not lace them securely
for the walk to my room is short.
A foolish smile lingers on my lips
as I raise my face to the rosy dawn
and let her paint a maiden’s blush
across my cheeks. The door creaks,
gently, softly, as I pull it open and slide
into the darkened hallway.
“Gemma?”
I nearly scream in fear at the sharp
exclamation behind me, and then
Peter is there, like a ghostly apparition
who is all too real he stands before me
his eyes wide in shock as he takes in
my disheveled appearance.
I wait for the rosy glow of dawn
to streak my face with a maiden’s shame,
but she does not, cannot.
I will not be ashamed of love.
“That is his room, is it not?” It is
not an accusation, but a fact. I nod.
“I see.” He cannot, he will not.
How can grey Peter see the color
I feel when he has always been
satisfied with his muted tones?
Yet his face is streaked with sorrow
in the pale morning light, as though
a little bit of grey has entered his soul.
“I must speak to your father.”
I know. He turns down the shadowy hall
with a solemn tread, and I call,
“Peter, I am sorry.” He nods, and I run
to my room; I had forgotten that
color brings pain.

I wait; it won’t be long now,
I’m sure of that. Every second ticks by
with infuriating slowness,
reminding me that I have
crossed my bridge and burnt it well.
There is almost a release when
the angry bellow comes,
“Gemma Alyse Hilyard!”
and I present myself to Da’s rage.
“What have you done, girl?”
His eyes burn with fire, all to warm
with its crimson hues, “Ruined.
You’ve ruined yourself; Peter
nor no good man will want you now.
You’ve ruined your future and
the Inn and all our dreams are in tatters.”
I bend beneath the force
of his words like a sapling
before a mighty wind, but I will not
break. “Your dreams, Da,
they were never my own.”
I can see the slap coming, a ringing blow
his only payment for the dreams
that were dissolving like smoke before him,
but it never lands. Godric catches it
upon his upraised forearm,
appearing before us from the shadows.
“You will not hit the lady,” his voice
is calm and firm and he looks every inch
a noble lord. Da will risk no offense
with so powerful a man lest it destroy
his precious Inn. Once, I would have wished
he would care so about me.
“Get out,” he hisses, “you are no Hilyard;
you are my daughter no more.
I did not raise so brazen a hussy,
who cares naught for duty or family.
Get out.” I go.

We ride along on his red horse,
a gentle pace since he carries a double load.
Sometimes we walk side by side
through the fields and he tells me
of magic, and color, and life.
For three cycles of the moon we wander;
stopping at Inns along the way,
or when none are near we sleep
wrapped in his cloak, under the tent
of the stars. I am alive at last.
We meander slowly northward,
and although no destination is named
I know that that thoughts of her
and his home have crept into his mind.
One day we spy a rider, one of many
we have encountered on our journey
and Godric stiffens behind me.
“I know that horse,” he whispers,
and then the rider is upon us,
a stern looking man, but his face
is wreathed in joy. “Godric!” he yells
and clasps his hand warmly,
“I’ve been searching for you
these past three moons at least.
And I find you now, so near to home!
Where have you been?” His eyes rove
up and down my form as I sit
before Godric on the horse.
“Hither and yon,” Godric laughs,
“hither and yon.
But why are you here? I did not think
to encounter anyone so soon.”
“Helga sent me out, not an hour after
you quarreled. But you concealed
yourself far too well, my friend.
Come. I have a tent set up over yonder hill.
We will talk more there.”

I stand under the leafy boughs of an oak,
watching the moon rise slowly
in the evening sky. Only last night
I watched it rise with him, and him alone
in the dusky world.
Tonight, twilight comes too soon.
Inside the nearby pavilion, the emerald
green pavilion, green like my eyes,
and Jonathan’s too, they sit and laugh.
My heart is heavy; I wonder if it has drowned
with the sun, but I cannot envision
it rising again in the morn. Not when
I know what it is I must do. He comes,
not my Godric, but the stranger. He comes
and stands beside me, thoughtful,
but unapologetic. “She loves him,”
he says at last, “has loved him
for a very long time.” I nod,
and finish his thought. “He loves her.”
“Yes.”
The word hangs there, softly between us
in the night air. He turns to me,
and for a moment his brows crease
and his eyes widen in momentary surprise.
“Does he know?” he asks harshly.
I raise one hand protectively
to my stomach. “He does not.”
Relief creeps slowly into his face.
“He has not changed too much then;
but he will not let you-”
I interrupt, “He will not know.”
The stranger, Godric’s friend
appraises me, a new light in his eyes.
“It is a hard road you will walk.”
“I have walked hard roads before.”
“But you will be alone.”
“I am no stranger to loneliness.”
Slowly, he unhooks the purse
which hangs at his belt and presses
it into my hand. Bowing low,
the deep, deep bow of a subject
before his queen, he says,
“We ride out at dawn.”
And then he is gone, back inside
the gay, green walls of the tent,
and I turn and let myself fade
into the deepening fog of night.

For two days I walk in a grey shroud
of mist, enveloped once more
in the dying embers of my dreams.
He is gone, he is gone, he is gone.
They pass so silently no spark remains
save one, a weak and distant flicker
reminding me that not all is lost.
He is gone. I remain.

For two days I languish in my prison
of grey, when at last a tall steeple
and the dolorous ringing of the
deep church bell rise
from the mist before me.
A fair sized village sprawls across
the dusty earth. An old woman stands
in her garden; from the crossroads
I can see the red kerchief she wears
upon her head bobbing as she feeds
a brood of squawking fowl.
She looks up as I approach.
“Please, mistress,” I beg, my heart weary
and my feet aching, “I have gotten lost
upon the moors,” lost in spirit, lost in place,
“and I know not where I am.”
Her eyes are kind as she leads me
to sit on the low stone wall
surrounding her croft.
“You are in the town of
Lesser Middlesburgh, a fair day’s journey
from Greater Middlesburgh in the south.
But how came you to be here alone
and in such a condition?
Where is your husband?”
I blink away the tear that rose to my eye;
once I had been so sure my tears were spent,
yet even now they return to me.
“He is gone. Gone and I
shall never see him again.”
Though I am a stranger to her,
she rests her wizened hand upon my arm.
“Oh, child. I too was widowed too soon.
But have you no family, no friends
who can offer you succor?”
An image of my father’s face,
crimson in his wrath, flashes before my eyes
and quickly I reply, “Nay, I have not.”
She sighs, her eyes heavy with regret.
“Once, I would have sent you to
Brother Matthias, for he cared for all
who were in need of aid, but he has lain
these past three years in the cold clay
outside the kirk. No one has been sent
to help us now; not with our poor or
our sick, nor our children, and
we have few who can read
the blessed scriptures to minister to our souls.”
At her words a glimmer rose up before me,
the gentlest opening of a door flooded
with the golden light of the sun. “I can
do such things, if you wish it of me.
I have run an Inn, and could run
a cottage for those in need. I am no healer
but if you have an herb-wife, I will learn.
And I will read the scriptures to all who
would come to hear; but most of all I can
teach those children who wish to learn,
as I was once taught at my mother’s knee,
to read and write. For as much as you
had need of your monk, I have need
of a hearth and home.”
“You will do, mistress, you will do
quite well. There is a fire in you
that reminds me of myself,
so many years ago. We have kept up
the poor brother’s home, it would
serve you well, mistress…?”
I pause, remembering Da’s angry words.
I am no Hilyard, his daughter no more;
then who am I, who have I become?
The woman’s red kerchief flutters
in the breeze and I remember
a crimson butterfly, poised,
flying from the rich red clay of the riverbank.
“Gemma. Gemma Potter.”

The cottage is small, but clean and warm.
I run my hand across the wooden post
of the door and imagine our child,
dark and smoky haired,
with my green, green eyes
and his bold and handsome face,
running about the room as I knead
at the dough or sitting with head bowed low
over a small slate tablet and stylus.
I roll up the sleeves of my shirt
filled with purpose I had not felt
since Jonathan slipped under
the inky water of the mill pond.
I will stay here for five years,
or ten, or more. I will save money
and raise my son, and then perhaps
we will travel to far off to the castles
of the south, or to the lands that lie
far over the sea. We will search
for the phoenix and dance with the fae
and feel the warm winds blowing
its song ever in our ears.
I look once more out the doorway
to find the grey mist has lifted,
and the purple moor stretches
far around the gay colors of the
whitewashed houses with their
flowering gardens and the golden stone
of the church and it’s steeple.
I press one hand to the subtle swell
of my belly and gaze hopefully
outward at the boundless horizon.