Swallow tales

You know the sense of a place by the way it braids itself with your heart. Memories can sometimes tangle, collapsing the smooth flowing course of life. Here in the room where once a younger Border Witch lay on a bed of stones, the braid was a loose over and under affair. Pale felt at once younger than she was back then yet older than the past.

"It's a peculiar emotion, isn't it?" Hi'iaka was eavesdropping on her. 

"What exactly would you call that?" For a lifetime, and at different times, Pale called it longing or homesickness. "Longing for what I loved when the only mask I wore was to tell a particularly juicy story. Performance art." The goddess pulled a chair out from the small table overlooking the cliff below. Rain pelted. She raised the window a couple inches. "Honu will appreciate an easy entrance."
Settled now, Hi'iaka encourage Pale to unfurl. "Living here in this place for nearly fifty years, it has become as comfortable and dependable as my soft chenille slippers. In and out, my feet fill the soles and my soul in turn. But I miss the home of my valley, the smells of pakalana, the feel of fresh manapua and the first bite rich with pork. Pork!"

"Ah, the language of heart and soul is the language that avails itself of all utterance and hums fill in the crevices making a home like a species of Moss. Your dear Silver man calls you a name for the sweet sticky goodness gathered by bees. Miel ... to say it as a Native makes me salivate." Goddess humor was such welcome company. Pale was laughing out loud when the soft glow of Fairy Lady came through the bedroom door. Hi'iaka rose enveloping the pixie in her strong arm she lifted Lady off her feet. The tea pot wobbled. Pale reached for it.

Pale set the pot in the middle of the table, went to the open-shelf lined with mugs, cups, saucers and plates. "Mug or cup and saucer?" Hi'iaka thought a dainty cup of tea would be such fun. Pale chose the lavender mug. "Will you join us Lady?" She nodded, glowing golden behind her kitchen apron with obvious delight.The Lady always liked a cup and saucer.

The bag was filled with four scones, two each of ginger-lemon and cranberries with slivered almonds. It was delightful to see that the beautiful old hand-painted dish with the slight chip in it was still there. Pale mounded the goodies onto the plate. The feeling of longing doubled.

Tea poured and the trio amiably dunking, nibbling and sipping between friendship, Pale finally pulled out the package Kate had handed her. The plastic Ziploc held a triangular fold of brittle leaves. "La'i" Pale was surprised to feel an old friend. Once waxy the faded leaf was nearly the same color as the feathers on the Campbell hen. Laying the leaves flat a roll the friends saw weathered paper no larger than the Lady's small hand . Opening it the Border Witch saw it was a piece of ...

Hi'iaka hummed. "It is a piece of an old story. A Swallows' tale and it has come to remind the muli, the ones that are the youngest sister and brothers--Humans--of their place in the order of things."

My own dear sister and I were the first born from the promise of reckoning the smallness of beings. Shelela and your own dear story teller were the Wood Crafters first lineage of Swallows. In our fashion we have paid well the attending of grace for the littlest of details and the finest of reserved nature. Nuance and peculiarities have been my particular favorites. It pays to have such grace when it is remembering the story that is your kuleana your responsibility. My twin sister has nurtured the love of small shiny things, some as minute as grains of sand others as grand as gold specks in the eyes of a wandering witch. 

Muli. That word and all its kaona meanings hidden or so clearly in the open had been cropping up again and over again. How plump the kaona grew thought the Border Witch. Just where will the loose fitting garment, the holoku, take us now that we have gathered where safety pins hold life together? Reading between and into the lines was something Fairy Lady was primed and fit to employ. It is the reason small has such long-lasting value. Though she was not privy, nor nosey, about the conversation she walked in on, The faded bit of old story filled in the cracks as surely as her cookie cutters made moons, stars and ducks from the succulent cinnamon toast.

This room when guests did not need it was Fairy Lady's special place. She stored old and new treasure and pouches filled with stones and stories. Today she knew just which pouch needed to join them. Along the walls at different levels lengths of beautiful colored ribbon were strung from side to side. Safety pins and wooden clothes pins, clothes pins made with stout and proper springs, held pictures, collections of drawings, shells dangling from orange string; and pouches of different sizes.

Fluttering to get at what she wanted Lady released a plain leather pouch from a clothes pin. It was heavy. "This is where you'll find the rest of that story. The story called Wood Crafters a tale of collection and hording, greed and correction. It is the story of older times, and now it is a story for today." With that said in her quivering voice, the Fairy slipped into this time and went back to her toast making.

the pouch of Gathered Magic