Sacred Pear Trees and Pagan Rites

To the North of the Silk Road, between the Black Sea on the west and the Caspian Sea on the east, lies a barbaric and mountainous land held by pagans called the Vainakh. Merchants who travelled nearby told stories of the strange rituals of these lands: ancestor worship and tree veneration, among other foul heathen practices.

Every spring a week before Beltane, the priestesses gather to perform a lottery. One girl of marriageable age is chosen as the sacred vessel, to take part in a rite honouring Tusholi, the goddess of fertility, though purportedly no Vainakh will say what the rite entails.

-Marco Polo, on an expunged page

I have been chosen to make tomorrow's sacrifice to Tusholi, she who makes all things flourish. Auspiciously, her pear trees are in full bloom. We will make the journey to Lake Galain-Am, where she dwells. It is not Tusholi's Day, which would be better still, when we bring the horns of red deer and candles to celebrate her bounty.

But I have been chosen and I am equal parts thrilled and fearful.

II

A firm hand shakes me at midnight, and I awake with a start. I laid down before the sun had set but stayed awake for hours, buzzing with anticipation. Now, I am exhausted and wide awake all at once. Just enough moonlights slips into our one-room cottage for me to see the figure crouching over me. 

Without a word, the priestess rises and exits through the open door. In the moment before I slide on my thin boots made of deerskin, I hear the noises my sleeping family makes. My two sisters beside me on the bed, tangled in the furs. My parents nestled on the other side of our long one room, my youngest siblings sleeping on a mat beside their narrow wooden bed. I hear my brother's snores from above, where he hangs from the rafters in a hammock. Will I ever see them again?

No one from our village has been chosen in decades, but the rumours whisper that many do not return. 

The thought nearly seizes me, but I slip out after her. Robed and cowled, Tusholi's handmaiden walks just ahead on the path until we are out beyond our small village, two dozen squat stone cottages amidst a flock of sheep and chickens. 

"Our first task is to find the medicine you will need. Do you know what we seek?" she asks.

I hesitate. Am I supposed to know, or not know? It seems wrong to start such a journey with a lie, and so I answer, "I believe it's the sacred mushroom, Honoured Priestess. The one we're never supposed to pick?"

"Mmmmm. And if you are so wise, have you tasted it before?"

Involuntarily, I gasped at her suggestion. "It would be blasphemy!" 

At this, she pushes back her hood and I see her silvery hair illuminate the night. It is difficult to see clearly, here under the trees, yet her face looks smoother than her hair implies. "And yet many cannot control themselves. Your piety does you credit, child. Come, then. Some are fruiting nearby." She strides into the woods and I follow closely, afraid I will lose her in the dark.

The wind is high and the persistent creak of the trees will surely drown out all but the loudest of noises. Mokh-Naana - the wind mistress - must be fretful tonight.

It is clear the priestess knows exactly where she walks despite the dark, and I marvel at her sure-footedness as I stumble over roots and stub my shins on the unyielding knees of the cypress trees. I mumble my apologies to their spirits, woken so rudely with my clumsiness, and hope they are appeased. Within minutes, we slip into a clearing. The leaves are still small buds and so the dim light filters through, dappled and dancing. At the far side of the clearing, a large cluster is just visible in the moonlight, glowing faintly, pale like bone. 

The priestess kneels, and as I near, I see that the mushrooms grow in a fairy ring. What has given its life so that they may grow? I wonder, idly. I kneel beside her, but I do not know her sacred words, so I am silent. I try to steal glances at her, this close, but Mokh-Naana teases me by keeping her silvery hair moving and it is like trying to see a fish through fast-moving water. 

III

Time passes as she chants, low and humming like a hive, and I realize when my legs begin to tingle that somehow I've dozed. The moon is several candlemarks across the sky and she has completed her recitation.

"Take your pick of them, now. Two or three should be enough," she says as she rises to her feet.

I make my choice quickly, for she is already moving away. As we exit the woods and resume the path, I can just see Mount Deela T'e outlined in crimson, foreshadowing the dawn. Instead of turning back toward the village, the priestess takes the path the other way, the long miles towards Lake Galain-Am. 

Does she never flag? I think as she steadily eats up the distance on tireless feet. Foolishly, I had thought we would make the trip with the others; or rather, I suppose I had only remembered the way I had taken this journey every other time before, as a child: in the back of our rickety cart, drawn slowly by our pale grey oxen. 

I do not know if it is the sleeplessness or the ache in my stomach but now I tremble. I know what lays behind me: a simple life of bearing child after child till I am worn and weary. But what lies ahead?

Soon, we have passed through the rocky, winding foothills and look down into the valley that holds the lake in its lap like a child. The other priestesses have set up close to the shore and this lip of rocky land, before it dips down, is the closest I have ever come to the sacred waters. 

The priestess turns and I can now see her face clearly. We only ever see them on feast days, at ceremonies, and they are always carefully hooded in their dark green robes. She is as smooth-skinned as I suspected but a silvery tattoo has overwritten her features with snaking branches and budding flowers. A pear tree, sacred to Tusholi. 

"After this, there is no turning back. There is no shame in refusing the call. Are you prepared to make your offering to Tusholi, so she will grant us a fertile harvest - the crops that grow, the animals that fill our bellies, and the ones we wear on our backs?" Her intonation tells me these are sacred words, part of the rite performed as long as there have been Vainakh.

I know the path my ancestors walked, my mother and her mother before her. I know what it looks like and where it leads. But what Tusholi offers, what she demands - these are mysteries. A thrill goes through me and I don't know if it is ecstasy or terror. Either way, I have never felt such a thing before and now I know I cannot refuse. "I am ready," I whisper.

She nods, "It is well. Come. The fires are burning and you will cast your clothing in, the vestige of your old life. Then you will take the medicine, and Tusholi will guide you from there." She turns without beckoning but I follow faithfully, though dimly I wonder if I am a lamb for the slaughter.

IV

I am naked and shivering and the fires leap as I toss in my long wool tunic, not even a winter old. It is spring and the sun is still low; this close, I can see a mist lingering over the water.

The priestesses have taken my mushrooms and steeped them in water heated in the fire. The one who guided me here hands me a thick clay mug, and I take it, grateful for warmth. I gag on my first sip, rotten and foul, but I drink, for I know that I must.

When I finish, I look up and see the rocky ledge above is now lined with watchers, every Vainakh who lives close enough to make the journey in a day or two, their oxen and carts left just out of sight. At this distance, I cannot tell them apart though I imagine I see my family. For a moment I am up there with them, as I was last year and every year before for as long as I remember.

The buzzing that began when I first woke now grows, as though my body is a hive. The priestesses have started a chant that sounds like the sensation enfolding me, or perhaps escaping me. Even my vision begins to pucker, as though I look up through the water of the lake.

The priestesses watch me with their onyx eyes, and I now see the trees on their faces are growing. I am not frightened but it is time to flee. Like a deer, I pivot and fly into the nearby grove. Each footfall bounces through my body like a drum.

The blossoms are blooming and swimming like fish. The trees are rioting and their vibrant spirits welcome me. How have I never seen them before? The vines crawl up their trunks like snakes and tempt me to embrace them. How long can I run? How deep is the wood? My cheeks are flush, but I don't want to stop. 

The oop-oop-oop of the hoopoe sings that my fecund goddess watches over me. I hear the dry flash of wings and I look but it is not a hoopoe I see. A raven, inkblack and gleaming, watches me from a low branch. Gracefully, he drops to the ground and when he lands he is a creature shaped somewhat like a man, still a glistening midnight.  

Unbidden the certainty comes that he is Hunsag, the forest's patron, and I see in his shifting shape the tentative deer, the industrious beaver, the frolicsome fox - all that is untamed and unfettered. 

His voice is the rasp of the raven and the screech of a lover. "Are you ready?" he asks as I have always known he would. I have been waiting for this moment since before I had human hands so when he clasps mine I feel startled at the revelation that they remain.

As we walk back through the grove towards the lake where Tusholi waits, Hunsag pulls a ripe pear from a low-hanging branch. I sink in my razor-sharp teeth and my mouth is full of nectar and flesh. My lips are sticky and he kisses them so tenderly that I know soon he will feast on me just as I now relish the pear.

Above the sky is gone and the constellations are too large and wheel too quickly, near enough to touch. The trees caress me one more time and then we are out in the open; Lake Galain-Am unfurls before us, boundless and shimmering. The priestesses, the crowd - all are gone, but a loud and pervasive thrumming reverberates through my skin and bones. 

With an unfaltering tempo, we stride lightly towards the water. I glance once more at my companion and he is flashing scales and iridescent eyes and primordial past. As my inquisitive feet part the water, it is unexpectedly warm, the temperature of my heart. 

Mokh-Naana now reposes and the surface is so still it nearly disappears, visible only because of how perfectly it reflects the craggy mountain peaks and the azure sky. Another world, beneath the water. Tusholi waits.