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[Genevieve Troyes]

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Genevieve ran through the orchard, skirts hiked and pigtails flying out behind her. She paused catching her breath.

"I know you're here!" Her eyes quickly scanned all the trees around her. "You can't hide from me!"

Movement.

She took off full tilt in that direction, bursting through the shrub and yelling, "A-HAH!" The startled doe ran towards the safety of the forest her fawn loping behind her. Genevieve frowned. "I know you're here."

"I am, child," came a voice soft and sweet and old from behind her. Genevieve spun around and smiled.

"There is so much to do and so little time. Come."

The old woman headed for the saplings and Genevieve skipped happily behind her.

[Genevieve Troyes]

---

Stone Stories...


They sat cross-legged on the ground beneath the shade of the tree. It was far too hot a day to be running around or doing much of anything else except sitting. No breeze stirred the air. It hung heavy around them.

The old woman took a small pouch from her many skirts and Genevieve's face lit up.

"Are we going to play Sun, Moon, Stars?"

"Not today, child."

Genevieve frowned. The small bag in the old woman's hand was not the brightly coloured one sewn together from scraps. This one looked rather dull and dirty. She wrinkled her nose. The old woman smiled and poured the contents into her lap. Genevieve's frown deepened.

There were no shimmery crystal stones, none that looked like glistening snow or sweets, no deep greens and blues, no striped ones, nor red ones, no warm umbers. All ofthe stones were black and she decided very boring.

"But where are the pretty rocks? Where's the one that's good for babies? Or the one that helps you find your Love?" She wrinkled her nose again, "Those are all the same."

The outburst surprised the old woman and her eyebrows went up. "Not the same child. Look closer. And oh, what is the stone that helps an easy birth called? I have forgotten that one..."

"Is it Jade?"

"Very good!" The old woman clapped her hands together.

"Now," she gestured to the rocks nestled in her apron, "everything has its own story, child. Pick from all of the 'same stones' in my lap and I will tell you its story."

Genevieve looked at the pile of black and sooty stones. "That one."

The old woman picked up the rock and dropped it into Genevieve's palm. Once separated from the pile its luster was unmatched.

"That 'stone' was once a tree."

Genevieve blinked. She tried to picture such a tree with a glassy bark as black as night and whose surface was almost like a mirror.

The old woman laughed. "A long, long, long time ago that was a tree, rotted away and turned into what you now hold in your hand. It is called Jet."

She plucked it from the girl's hand, rubbed it across her skirt and then held it up to Genevieve's pigtail. A few stray strands of hair stretched outward reaching for the stone.

"It is a stone of good fortune, a ward against serpents and...hm let us see..." The rubbed the stone briskly against the cloth of her skirt for several minutes. As she held it up Genevieve saw small curls of smoke dancing off its surface.

"And also has the power to drive away demons as black as it is."

Genevieve was mesmerized. "What does that one do? No, wait that one..."

[Genevieve Troyes]

---

"Be careful, child!"

The old woman was a speck on the ground from Genevieve's vantage point. She paused, planting a foot against a thick, solid branch and pressed her back into the bark.

"I'm perfectly fine! She called down.

Her prize was a mere few feet away growing almost at the top of the oak and nestled where two immense branches met. She carefully turned and started climbing again ignoring the old woman's calls from below. A few more steps and she would have it. Genevieve grabbed another limb, found purchase on a knot and pulled up. Her coat snagged.

"Ugh."

She eased back down again, hugging the trunk and pulled one arm free, then the other and let the coat fall to the gound. Immediately the protesting started from below. Genevieve laughed and pulled herself up onto the oak limb where the mistletoe grew. It was much easier now without the bulk of all that wool around her. She straddled the bough and looked out over the coutryside.

It was a grey December morn. The clouds were heavy with what she hoped would be snow. She could see the orchard in one direction and the bustling life of the village in another. She laughed again and her breath blew out in a frost puff before her. She settled on the branch loosing track of time and place and puffed more frosty clouds from her mouth.

"Genevieve!"

"Oh! Sorry! I'll have it in a minute!" She carefully pulled the a small dagger from her boot and scuttled closer to the trunk.

"NOOOOOO!"

"What?" Gen looked down at the old woman.

"You must never cut it with iron, child. Use what I gave you."

Genevieve opened the small bag hanging at her waist and pulled out a rather odd looking, miniature curved knife. She shrugged. I guess if this is what you have to use... She cut through the vines that clung to the oak and when it was freed held it up.

"Got it!" She called down and then let the cluster of white berries and leaves fall from her hand to the ground.

"Noooooooooo!" The old woman yelled again as she frantically ran to catch the mistletoe in her skirt.

Genevieve watched puzzled. The old woman looked relieved when she caught it.

"Tis heaven's plant, child. To let it touch the earth would spoil it and all your efforts. Come down now, you rattle my nerves up there. This grows on applewood too."

Genevieve cut a few more boughs from the trunk and knotted them into a section of skirt. She took one last look and the land and sky around her and started the slow climb down.

[Genevieve Troyes]

---

They sat quietly weaving wreaths of holly and ivy. The table between them was covered in those plants and mistletoe. Genevieve tried desperately to avoid pricking her fingertips on the leaves but was meeting with little success. The still of the afternoon would be broken by an occasional gasp and her furiously shaking her hand in the air.

"Why is it that holly and ivy are always paired together?" Genevieve asked.

"Balance, child. The masculine and feminine, a harmony of opposites."

Genevieve sighed and the old woman chuckled. "You will understand one day."

"Is that why ivy is used in charms of love?"

The old woman nodded. "Yes, ivy clings. It is because of this clingy nature that makes it an ideal ingredient in love charms. The ivy is the "girl" half." She winked and seemed amused by this somehow.

"And holly is good for use in dream magic and spells that are spoken?" Genevieve asked.

The old woman nodded again and grinned, "You do listen when I speak."

"Yes, I do. But is it all true?"

The old woman looked suprised. "All that I tell you is true, child. Why would I lie?"

"It's just that..." Genevieve pouted and faltered. The old woman laid the wreath in her lap and looked at her questioningly. Genevieve took a deep breath and the words came out in a jumbled rush, "Well, I'd have you know that despite all of the holly boughs I hung last year, not one of the faery folk came to live in it."

There. It was said. Genevieve narrowed her eyes and waited for the old woman to admit no such thing existed.

"Oh. That is odd."

"Isn't it?" Genevieve countered back.

"Oh yes, mine were full of faery last winter. And now. Take a look." She gestured to the holly hanging over the window.

"That's just a silly story to tell little children and I'm not little." She crossed her arms and shook her head. Her ponytail swung from side to side. She wasn't going to fall for it. She wasn't going to look.

"Suit yourself, Genevieve." The old woman picked up the wreath and began to work on it again. "If you did believe you wouldn't have to look, and if you didn't believe...well, there would be nothing at all I could ever show you to change your mind."


(Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.)