Green Book Of Meditations Volume 6 The Books of Songs - Student ...

Chapter Eighteen
Now I grow weary of the passage of time, and this telling
has nearly reached its end. Five years later Juliana was the best
harpist in the world, without a doubt, by any standard you cared
to name. There were those who said she was the best musician in
the world, that she played on peoples' souls instead of strings.
The seasons’ changeless change had swung through to
Beltain again when the couple came to visit me. I led them down
to the workshop where I had labored all winter.
“I have something for you,” I let on as we approached.
Standing on the bench was a small traveling harp of darkest
mahogany, completely unadorned, polished as glass. Its strings
glowed like liquid sunshine in the clear spring light.
“Is that what I think it is?” Sam wondered aloud.
“Golden strings,” I smiled. “The best harpists have always
had them.”
“You’re trying to make a legend out of me, aren’t you?”
Said Juliana.
I laughed.
“If I am, I am too late. You are that already. I just
wondered what gold harp strings might sound like, that is all, and
you are the only one good enough to do them justice.”
She gave me a quick hug.
“You are too kind.”
“Hardly. But come outside. The Maypole is starting.”
Chapter Twenty
The rest of the day was a time of celebration and life, that
fluid, wonderful, time defying clarity that once seen remains
forever living in a persons' heart. The feast was consumed, the
pole danced and braided, the King and Queen of the May chosen,
crowned and married. I sat on a sun soaked log to rest my knees
after the ceremony, watching the wedding games. The King and
Queen stood in a circle of revelers, their hands tied to full wine
cups, holding a kiss between them. Those in the ring joked,
teased, and shouted, gleefully doing everything they could short
of actual contact to make the couple laugh and break it off.
Juliana collapsed lightly to my right, flowers in her hair and
laughter in her eyes.
“All these years, all these Beltains,” she began. “How is it
that you never married?”
I looked at her in surprise. Her eyes teased mine.
“Who would have had me?”
“I might have.”
“I am twice your age, dear.”
“Not any more you’re not.”
“True. But you had Sam.”
“True.” She gazed at him fondly from across the green.
“We are thinking of having children, he and I. I am not
quite too old yet.” She laughed. “But what sort of mother would
a soulless woman make?”
“Juliana Spring,” sighed I, and took her hand in mine. “I
never took your soul.”
She stared.
“You what?”
“I never took it. Your soul has been yours all along.”
“But you did! Our bargain- you spoke those words and I
felt it leave!”
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“It was all in your mind then. I do not really know if souls
can be sold. Lost, saved, destroyed, nourished, abandoned, loved,
certainly, but to the best of my knowledge your soul is with you
always, love it or hate it, to do with as you will. What would I
have done with an extra soul, anyhow?”
The harpist’s jaw worked soundlessly.
“But if you couldn’t buy my soul, why did you even want to
meet me in the first place?”
“I wanted to see what it was like to want something that
badly. I never have, you know. Most people never do. I could
not imagine a desire so strong in a person that young. I had to
meet you.”
Laughter erupted throughout the glade. Someone had
started people-fishing with doughnuts.
“You tricked us,” she said at last.
“I did. Are you angry?”
“I don’t know yet… If there was no bargain, then
everything you’ve done—“
“I did nothing.” I cut her off. “It was all you, Juliana.”
“But why?”
“What would you have done all those years ago, if I had
told you souls could not be sold, that only practice, passion, and
infinite dedication could make you a better harpist? What if I had
told you that even with guidance, time, and expert teachers there
was no guarantee you would ever be as good as you wanted, or
that dream music could never be properly reproduced? I had
never even heard you play, remember?”
“I might have become a nurse,” she reflected. “Why didn’t
you though?”
“Because you were serious. Because you were strong
enough to make me wonder. Because the gods love it when we
act bravely.” Her deep, deep eyes searched mine.
“And because, watching you, I got just an inkling of how
powerful that desire might be.”
In an ideal world she would have kissed me then. But we were in
this one, and the moment passed.
“I will name my firstborn after you.”
I laughed.
“Even if it is a girl?”
“Even better! I could never have done it without you.”
“Nonsense,” said I, but it is hard to sound believably stern
when your cheeks are flushing crimson.
Chapter Twenty-One
Juliana played her new harp for us that night, while the
couples snuggled and the stars blazed down. She sat on our log in
a borrowed cloak with her hair blowing long about her shoulders.
The strings burned golden in the firelight as they sang, and a
whole generation of listening fools began to believe in magic.
It was the story of her life we heard, made music, wordless
and eloquent. Dream songs from her childhood, her mother
vanished, father possessed, early despair in her years in college
and the flush of young love in meeting Sam. Then came the
power, the wonder, the mystery and horror of an unspeakable
bargain, the surrender, confidence and strange purity it
engendered, and at last the full splendor of the mature theme
began. Two decades of concentration and skill in one ascending
spiral, the struggle, journey, grief, love, discovery, mastery—and
at the end, when I was sure there could be nothing left to feel,
came joy.
The End.