The Human Child.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you
can understand.
W.B Yeats.

They took the human child far, far away. He had followed them because they had baskets of berries with them; berries, red like the counting beads in his nursery; red like the rubies his mother wore; red like the apples he bit into as he watched autumn sunsets. They told him that he could have the berries if he came with them. They knew a place where there were thousands of berries. So he followed them.

Now he began to cry. Salty drops ran down his face. Laughing, they said that his tears would make a pearl necklace for their queen.

In the moonlight a mother looked for her child. Every rock took on the shape of the child and she would run towards it sometimes in fear, sometimes in joy, sometimes in tears. The white moon shone down on her, quietly, unfeelingly.

The wind rustled, someone giggled. Pale whispery hands gagged the human child. The mother turned. She knew her child was near. But all around her was barren, open rocky land. Hopelessness filled her and she fell.

The human child was taken deep into the earth. “Here he is”, they said. “We have brought you a human child”.

She was looking into a mirror. A barren world showed itself to her. She could see the mother standing against the hot uncaring wind and the blazing sun that had little else but her to burn. Her eyes looked straight out firm and determined. A shiver ran through the other world. She turned her eyes away from the mirror and held herself for warmth. For the first time she felt fear. ‘Cover the mirror’, she said and walked out.

'My son, have you seen my son?' the woman asked the boys who were playing near her house

'Have you seen my son?' she asked the boy who was chopping firewood.

'Have you seen my son' she asked the washer-man by the river.

'Have you seen my son?' she asked the three women who sat begging at the boundary of the village.

' Your son?' asked the oldest woman. 'She wants her son, did you hear that sisters?' she shrieked

'Have you seen my son, please, kind ladies?' said the mother.
to be continued.