Of Vampires & Gentlemen. A.R. Morlan

still more berries.

      “How dare you sneak into my garden and steal what is rightfully mine? Did you grow this fruit, that you feel obligated to fest upon it?” she hissed through her snaggle teeth, as the frightened neighbor man stammered, “N-not for me...it is my wife who craves these sweet berries. Without them, she would die of hunger, and starve the child growing within her—”

      The mention of a child piqued the interest of Mother Gothel, for in her case, the appellation “Mother” was a term of respect among her fellow magic-makers and spell-casters, not an indication of her own fruitfulness. And since she was a woman wise in the ways of divination, she looked up at the window in the neighbor’s house, the high one which overlooked her garden, and by making some signs with her gnarled fingers, and peering through the configuration of her overlapping hands, it became known to her that the child growing within the belly of the neighbor-woman was a girl...a girl-child who would become a woman, with the secret sweetness only a woman possesses.

      Deciding that the stolen berries might be worth that future—the sorceress uncrossed her hands, and said as she stared at the frightened neighbor through her cloudy blue eyes, “Keep the fruit you have taken...but in payment, I want the fruit of your wife’s labors in return. Take as many more of my berries as she needs, as long as I am given the child—” (Mother Gothel didn’t let on that she knew the child would be a girl) “—once it has been born. And fear not, the child will thrive as my garden thrives.”

      Seeing the sorceress’ garden was a lush paradise of tall-growing trees and many-petaled flowers, the husband agreed to Mother Gothel’s request.

      That harvesting time, Mother Gothel only savored but a few fragrant red-gold berries, but come early winter, she was given a gift of a girl-child, carried into her garden by the neighbor couple, who were grateful that they’d escaped the wrath of their conjuring neighbor, and be allowed to live out their lives unscathed (which is what the couple did do; and they had many more children, none of whom were nourished on a diet of persimmon berries while waiting to be born), simply by giving up the milk-skinned baby with the flaming orange-red thatch of wavy hair, which did not match that of either parent, but instead came from the colorful sweet fruit her mother had consumed.

      Once the couple had tip-toed out of Mother Gothel’s enchanted flowering garden, the sorceress raised the autumn-haired girl-child as tenderly and as attentively as her beloved persimmon tree; as a sign of her interest in the child, Mother Gothel named her Persinette, both for her flaming hair and for her pre-birth diet.

      But Mother Gothel thought not of the child as a daughter, for even though she was an enchantress, she was also once a human being, with the same needs and aches and longing of a woman...but, even as she was well-versed in the black arts, and the ways of magic and spell-casting, she was also moral, in her own dark way, and thus she envisioned the fire-haired girl not as her daughter, but as her some­-day love; but, just as the berries of her dearly-thought-of Asian witch-woman’s gift-tree were not fit for the tasting until they were fully ripe, so was Persinette not suitable for the taking by Mother Gothel, even as she longed to partake of the girl’s hidden sweetness.

      So, as the girl grew closer to her sixteenth winter, and her time of ripeness, and the temptation all but overcame Mother Gothel, she cast a spell over the stones and the mud, in the field near her humble sorceress’ abode, and caused to be built a tall, tall, tower, with but a single room at the top. And it was in this room that she placed Persinette, who by this time had hair longer than the number of hours in a day, glorious, rippling bright hair caught up in two rope-thin braids which the young woman wore in a crown-like coil atop her head. Whenever Mother Gothel’s desire to feast her cloudy eyes upon the young lady grew too overpowering (just as she often sat under her beloved persimmon tree, and gazed at the slowly ripening fruit amid the dark oblong leaves), Mother Gothel would stand at the base of the tower and implore:

      “Persinette, beloved Persinette,

      Uncoil your hair for me.”

      And down would flow the silken braids, upon which the sorceress would climb to the top of the tower (even though she possessed the ability to fly to the top), until she be so tired upon her arrival that she could literally do no more than feast her eyes upon the budding beauty of Persinette, and watch the continual growth and maturation of her gift-child into a fruitful ripe woman, even as her mouth watered in anticipation....

      But it so happened one day, that when she finished her climb to the top of the tall, tall tower, then sat exhausted upon Persinette’s narrow maiden’s bed, she noticed a gently-rounded swelling beneath the flowing gown of the henna-haired girl, right above the hidden sweetness within her. Noticing Mother Gothel’s pointed stare, the girl asked sweetly, “Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming tight?”

      And despite her already certain intuition about the origin of that swelling beneath Persinette’s simple gown, Mother Gothel made the secret configurations with her hands, and, when she peered through the open spaces of her fingers, she saw what was resting within the belly of Persinette. Two babies, a boy and a girl...neither of which had been nourished to sweetness on a diet of persimmons.

      Keeping the worst of her rage to herself, Mother Gothel stroked that rounded protrusion through Persinette’s thin gown, and asked with a sweetness to match that of the girl, “Did something go in you, to leave behind this growing belly?”

      Her trust in Mother Gothel still intact, the girl answered dutifully, “A man slept with me, in yonder bed...but he spoke the same words you do, so I knew it was all right to let down my coils of hair for him. He is a man most fine, with most...unusual sources of pleasure—”

      Now while Mother Gothel was well-versed in the ways of love of her own kind, she did not take kindly to the thought of a man having his way with her Persinette, especially before she herself had partaken of her love-gift, so, in a rage which caused the errant young woman to stand, shocked into mute silence, in place before Mother Gothel, the sorceress snatched up a sharp bread knife in one hand, and, after she’d grasped Persinette’s braids in the other hand, then wound them into a coil upon her fingers, she sawed through the fiery hair, until only a short mane of it covered Persinette’s head. But, when the greater length of her tresses were freed, the hair that remained curled and clung so cunningly and so tightly to Persinette’s head that the lonely enchantress was captivated by its resemblance to that hair which sheltered the sweet fruit below the girl’s now-full belly, and instantly felt her angry heart soften with love and pity for the sadly-used girl.

      Using her magic powers, she sent the girl wafting downward on the wind, to her secret, fecund garden, and bade her to dwell in the little well house amid the flowering trees and bushes. Then, in order to quell her desire to savor the already-tasted girl, just in case her condition was a sign of full ripeness after all, Mother Gothel busied herself with unraveling the shorn braids, and wound each strand in turn on bobbins she’d carved herself from the fallen branches of her departed witch-woman’s persimmon tree. And as she worked, Mother Gothel thought to herself, Each hair is so strong, so supple...much like the string which stretches the simple length of wood into a deadly bow....

      And so, knowing as she did the ways of men, especially men most fine bearing sources of unknown (to her, at least!) pleasure, Mother Gothel was well-armed when she heard that harsh (again, to her ears) voice implore:

      “Persinette, Persinette my own,

      Uncoil your wreath of curls.”

      Peering out from the lone window of the tall tower room, she saw the man standing far below her, looking up toward the distant window—and, perhaps because the window was so far away, he did not realize that the finger-thin arrow which was aimed at his heart was, indeed, an arrow (and not the tip of one of Persinette’s braids) until it had been propelled by Persinette’s springy-hair-bow, and it sank deep into his manly, fine chest....

      * * * * * * *

      And once Persinette’s belly-ripened to the point of full persimmon-berry-like roundness, Mother Gothel was there to deliver her twins, which—once they were wrapped in downy blankets, and tucked into a wooden box fashioned of cured persimmon wood slats—were dutifully left under the cover