ACT 1
SCENE 4
(Lady and Mother are traversing the headlands of the coast. Lady follows Mother. She stops)
LADY: Mother what are we doing here? Why have you brought me all this way?
MOTHER: I will tell you a story, child, and then perhaps you will come to understand why I have brought you here. I know how you see me, old, tired, wrinkled like the flesh of an apple left to wither and crinkle in the sun, but there was a time when I was young and beautiful, much as you are young and beautiful now.
LADY: You mustn’t speak to me as though I am a child mother
MOTHER: But you are a child, my dear, and you cannot see backwards, cannot remember as I remember the days when I was like you, my skin soft and smooth as a seashell’s gentle insides, my gaze strong, chin lifted in defiant beauty. I remember when my legs could carry me far over the hills, down to the sea, down to the water, when I could shed my clothes on the sand and strike out from the shore, out to the horizon, my arms strong and sure as they pulled me away, away from the dirt and dust of my home, towards the beauty and mystery of the clouds and water.
LADY: I do not doubt this mother, I don’t understand why you feel you must berate me
MOTHER: There is little I do without reason child, little that I have done that I have not planned, have not foreseen, and you must listen to me, for I am your mother, and what you do not know is what I must tell you now, for when you know you shall understand why I have brought you here.
(Pause)
LADY: I will listen, mother
MOTHER: Good child. There was a time when I was beautiful, and as you well know beauty is a key that unlocks much, a key that many will covet, many will chase, and that many will desire. And there were many who desired me, desired my beauty, just as there are many who desire you, many who wish to make you theirs
LADY: Mother
MOTHER: Do not be modest for my benefit child, we both know how the men in town look at you when you pass by, how their eyes roam
LADY: I thought this was a story about you
MOTHER: It is. But it is also a story about you. Child you often asked me about your father, and every time you did what did I say?
LADY: You told me that I shouldn’t ask you of him
MOTHER: That’s right, I told you to forget those questions, to pretend as though you did not care, as though you did not wonder.
LADY: And I didn’t
MOTHER: (laughs) So you say, we both know how your mind is my dear, how it prickles and twists with thoughts, never stopping for breath.
LADY: What would you have me say mother? For years you told me to forget, to pretend, why now? Why now is this important enough to warrant you breaking your silence?
MOTHER: Quiet child, listen and I will tell. I was young, and beautiful, and the men of my village desired me, but I did not desire them. I did not desire any of them; I did not desire any man. I did not wish to marry, did not wish to be a wife. I did not wish to stay in a home, be it shack or castle. I did not want a husband. I wanted a child. I wanted you.
(Pause)
LADY: But, mother, you could not have had me, not without a man
MOTHER: That was what my mother said to me. She told me that I could not have a child without a husband, without any man. Do you want to know what I told her?
(Lady nods)
MOTHER: I told her that I would find a way, that I would have a child without a man, that I would never allow a man to touch me, to be inside me. I told her I would have a child, and then I left.
LADY: Left?
MOTHER: I left my home, my village, my mother and father, and I started to walk. I walked for days, along the cliffs, until there were blisters on my feet, cuts on my legs from the brambles, my arms turned brown from the sun, my hair tangled from the rain. I walked until I arrived.
LADY: Arrived where?
MOTHER: Arrived here.
LADY: Here?
MOTHER: Where we stand right now, this is where I stood so many years ago. And standing here, the mouth of the cave open in a gentle breath, I felt I had found the place I needed to be.
LADY: But mother how could you know that? It’s, it’s just a cave
MOTHER: Can you not feel it, child? Feel it calling to you? Drawing you into the darkness?
(Pause)
LADY: It doesn’t matter what I feel, I still don’t understand
MOTHER: Listen, child. Listen to what they are saying
(Silence as they listen, a sound grows, a soft chanting/singing/whatever that is calling them in)
LADY: I, I hear it.
MOTHER: You hear it as I heard it, heard it and followed it. Followed the call deep into the heart of the cave, and that was where I found her.
LADY: Who did you find mother? Who is calling to us?
MOTHER: The Witch.
(Pause)
LADY: Mother, there are no witches, you are speaking of fairy tales and stories. You are confused-
MOTHER: I am not confused. I know what happened. I know that the Witch called me in, and I followed her call, followed deep into the cavern, and I met her there, in its heart, sitting by a pool of water so deep and so dark that at first sight I feared its depths, feared that if I were to fall into those depths I would never see the light of day again. She sat, there, before the pool, her eyes closed, the ripples of water reflected on her face by some invisible light, and as I approached she opened her eyes.
LADY: And she saw you?
MOTHER: She had already seen me, long before I came to stand before her. And she asked me why I had come, even though she already knew the answer. And I told her I had come for a child.
LADY: And what did she say?
MOTHER: She laughed, and asked me why I had come to her for something that any man could give me. And I told her that I did not want any man inside me, that I just wanted a child. And she stopped laughing, and called me to come forward, to sit by the pool. And so I moved to the pool, and sat myself across from her, and she bade me put my feet in the water, and I did.
LADY: Was it cold?
MOTHER: It was warm and soft as sunlight through glass.
LADY: And?
MOTHER: And she told me that she could give me what I wanted, that she could give me a child like a red rose pushing itself from the snow of winter to spill red onto the white, painting all around it with its power and majesty. And I told her that there was nothing on Earth that I could want more than that.
(Pause)
LADY: And?
MOTHER: And, she asked me what I would give.
LADY: Give?
MOTHER: Give in return for everything I had ever wanted. And I told her I did not know, that I could not put a value on a child, on what I wanted. And she looked at me, looked through me, and told me that I could give her my beauty.
LADY: Give your beauty?
(Mother nods)
MOTHER: And I told her that without my beauty I would have nothing. To which she replied that I would not have nothing; I would have the child. I would have everything I ever wanted, and that was far from nothing.
(Pause)
LADY: And?
MOTHER: And?
LADY: Did you give her your beauty?
(Mother smiles and takes Lady’s hands)
MOTHER: Well, you are here, aren’t you child? And are you not as beautiful as can be? Like a rose fair and soft, brilliant and violent and captivating to all who see you?
(Pause)
MOTHER: And look at me. Look at my wrinkled face, my bloodshot eyes, the veins that run like rivers of muddied water along my arms. My hair like straw, brittle and grey. You are here, and I am ugly, and I have the Witch to thank for that.
(Pause)
MOTHER: And now you know. You know that the Witch can give you everything you want.
LADY: She can give me what I want?
(Mother nods. Lady lets go of her hands and enters the cave)
(END SCENE)