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reborn—or perhaps unborn. Supplementary concepts to this
wishful interpretation included a rather whimsical function
to the faded lady’s soul-catching. Specifically, that after
enough stillborn souls were collected, she would give birth
to the Ancient Child—a tiny, wizened heir to the boneyards
of the world, who would preside over the courts of the dead
atop a throne of tombstones. It was a lovely Post-Darkness
religion, one that I wished all the best.
The approach to the towering statue was crowded with
small humps of piled dirt, each one marked with the browned
blossoms of baby’s breath. The meadow had become the
burying place of tiny hopes, where grief-stricken mothers
came to offer their departed children one last chance at life.
The contemplative statue had become the sole gravestone
for throngs of the tiny dead, a lonely anchor for a last and
darkest hope.
I once considered a relationship between this mother
and the White Gaia, supposing one for the cultural
appropriation of the other, as Jupiter was of Zeus. But as I
stood before Black Helen, as she was often called, I knew I
was completely wrong. There was no lasting death among
the tiny, nameless graves, only a desire to overcome at any
price. Alternately, it was the elegance of her worked stone,
the sublime coherence of purpose, which recalled my own
mother. The resemblance stirred a memory—my mother’s
face, twilit and doubtful. Yet it was her eyes I remembered
best, the gentle pull of purest darkness. When I touched the
hand of the statue, I might have spoken a name, a sound
haunting two worlds, lost to both.
I slept at the foot of the statue, where dreams might
cluster thickest. I remember the touch of a hand against my
cheek. It gently drew me to my feet. A composite mother
made from my own memories and the one whose feet I
laid at examined my face, turning it within her grasp. Two
voices joined by their words came to me. “You might have
been one of my own.” Then, from behind me, I heard the
82 | Mark Anzalone