A Song for Rebekah

A Song for Rebekah

  by Kate Everson

  Copyright 2011 Kate Everson

  Something was whispering in the wind. Rebekah heard it and wondered if it was for her.

  “Is this my song?” she asked the trees bowing down to the west wind. “Is it for me?”

  There was no answer from the trees. But one broken willow branch stared at her with its knotty eye.

  Rebekah sighed. She had been waiting so long for this. Some sign. A way to enter her cold, cold heart. But there was nothing. No one could penetrate the steel that had become her very being. She was locked inside by her own doing, and refused to come out.

  “Have I lost my soul?” she asked the sky. There was no answer. But a gray cloud pushed the reeds along the shoreline and five blackbirds flew out.

  Five. Rebekah counted them. She had been doing that a lot lately. Counting crows. Counting clouds. Counting. Counting. What was she looking for? Some sign. Was there anything in the wind that would set her free? Maybe a magical number would indicate some hope in the future for a girl with a cold, cold heart.

  She had not always been like this. Oh, heavens no! Rebekah remembered a time, it must have been when she was very young, when she was free. She laughed and sang with her whole heart. If a baby laughed, she laughed. If a songbird died, she cried. She could feel then.

  But now? After what happened, how could she?

  It had been a long day. She remembered it well. There had been a cold wind blowing from the north, sweeping over the gray sky. She shivered at the thought. Someone had come walking over the barrens, wearing a long, black cloak. He held a scythe in his hand. Death walked softly and carried a tool to cut out her heart.

  She had not died that day, but someone dear to her had. And her soul died with him.

  “How could life be so cruel?” she asked no one. And no one answered.

  The wind, so cold, just blew and blew until there was nothing left of her but an empty shell. She walked, she talked, she breathed. But she was not really there any more.

  She was cold as ice. Nothing left to warm her up. It was a cold world and Rebekah felt like death herself.

  Her friends tried to cheer her up, but it was useless. She could play their game, but she would not really be there.

  Until one day. Something happened. A blue bird flew across the sky, its wings beating softly to her aching heart, and looked down at her with compassion. She felt its tiny beak open up to speak to her. “Rebekah,” it called. “Rebekah… ”

  And she knew that something was about to change.

  And it did. She felt a different vibration in the air. The wind blew a little warmer. She felt her goosebumps disappear. And a strange glow appeared around the sun.

  “I wonder… ” she thought. “Is this, possibly, it? The moment of redemption? Will I, can I, come back from the dead?”

  She wasn’t too optimistic. She had been dead so long. But she still had hope.

  Even in the midst of ice and snow, there was always the hope of spring. A memory perhaps. But something.

  Rebekah had to cling to that. It was all she had. She could not let go of hope, even if it was just the smallest glimmer inside her cold, cold heart.

  Then she heard the song. It was not a bird’s song, but it was melodious, like someone singing far away. She looked all around but could see no one.

  “Well, isn’t that odd,” she thought.

  She went about her day and did not hear it again for awhile. But that evening, just before sunset, she heard it again. Like a memory haunting her, she felt it in her bones. Like a shiver, it went straight up her spine, from her toes to the top of her head. She shook it off.

  “What the.. ?” she said, looking around at nothing.

  But nothing answered.

  Finally, Rebekah walked to the top of her hill, the big hill behind her home. She had always found answers there in the old days, when she was young. But that was a long time ago.

  Still, she needed some answers. And she didn’t know where else to turn. The trees always spoke to her. Or at least they used to.

  She climbed the old oak tree, where she used to sit for hours, just watching the deer or the squirrels in the woods. It gave her comfort to know those creatures were still there.

  But could they save her?

  She lit a fire to keep out the chill and watched as the flames danced. She could almost see tiny people in there, jumping in the sparks.

  In fact, yes, they were little people. She could make out their hats and long, flowing hair and big feet. They seemed to be singing as they danced in the flames, and each word seared Rebekah’s heart.

  “We are the dancers of life!” said one. “Life! Life!” they all called back. “We are the dancers of life!“

  Rebekah drew nearer and watched intently at the world going on inside the fire. Little people dancing, singing about life in the heart of the flames. What could it all mean?

  Then she felt herself being drawn in. She leaned forward more and more, until suddenly she was inside the fire with the little people. She was small too and she began dancing with them. She opened her mouth and songs came out.

  “Life! Life!” she screeched. “We are the dancers of Life!”

  She felt warm and tingly, and rejuvenated, like the fire had swept away her dark shadows and made her new again. She didn’t know what was happening, but felt mesmerized by the fire. She danced on a burning log and jumped across its flame. She loved the way it licked at her feet and she began to laugh.

  The laughter came out of her like a song. Lalalalaaaaaaa! She tipped back her head and laughed some more. She was on fire!

  The little people came over and started dancing with her. They jumped on the tips of the flames and surfed on them like water. One leaped over the flames in a huge jump and the others laughed. A girl with long, red hair smiled as she put her tongue out to the fire and lapped it up. Then they all laughed and leaped into the flames next to her. All the while, singing, singing, “We are the dancers of Life!”

  Rebekah began to jump too. She leaped from one flame to another, laughing, singing, throwing her head back and letting her long hair fan the flames. She grinned and her teeth glowed gold in the firelight. Her eyes were luminous, sparkling with fire. She leaped on the back of one strong fellow and he took her for a ride, the fastest she had ever travelled, faster than the speed of fire, flitting between the flames.

  Finally, exhausted, Rebekah jumped out and sat beside the fire. The little people disappeared and there was nothing but red hot coals.

  Behind her she heard the howl of coyotes, yipping shrilly in the night. One let out a real howl and the others joined in. It was so exhilerating that Rebekah opened her mouth and began to howl. She almost scared herself. But then, she couldn’t be afraid of coyotes. She was only afraid of herself. And she let go. Let go of all her fears and dark shadows. Let them go in that huge howling in the black sky. She crouched on her haunches like a coyote and tipped her head right back and let it all out. She howled like she had never heard anything howl before. She howled from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. And the coyotes howled back.

  She turned around and there they were, suddenly, all around her. They were baring their sharp teeth and their eyes glowed yellow. Rebekah forgot to be frightened. She just kept howling. She howled at the big alpha male that led the pack. She went right up to him and looked straight into his eyes and pulled her lip back to show her teeth. And she howled so loud it scared the coyote and they all went running back into the woods.

  For a long time, she kept howling. Then she stopped. The woods were silent. She could only hear her heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump. She was alive.

  Rebekah looked down at herself and realized she no longer
had a body. She was luminous like the stars in the sky. She had no face, no arms, no legs. She was brilliant and shone and shone. The light seemed to come from inside her, some deep, inner place that she had not even known existed. But it seemed to have no end.

  Rebekah howled one more time, then curled up on the damp earth and went to sleep. She was fire. She was coyote. She was a star. She was nothing she had ever imagined. And now she was asleep.

  While she slept, the little people came back and carried her to a cloud. They poured tea into her throat, and massaged her cold heart with their good wishes. One starry-eyed girl put arrows at every intersection of her body, then pulled them out, pulling dark shadows with them. Then they all sat around her and meditated on her sleeping form. Eventually, the large white-haired old man came up and rubbed something silver in her eyes, then hopped off the cloud and disappeared.

  When Rebekah awoke she was home in bed. She yawned and stretched. She felt different but she could not remember anything that had happened the night before. Her throat felt strangely sore, and there were little pricks in her skin at the intersections. She wondered where she had been last night. She vaguely remembered a fire, but the rest was a blur.

  She walked into town and said hello to every person she met. She even spoke to the dog lying in the doorway of the shoe store. A smiling cat winked at her from the window. And then Rebekah knew. She had been healed. Somehow, something had come into her and changed everything. She no longer felt sad or depressed. There was a sense of lightness in her heart and she felt positive and even joyous.

  “I am alive!” she laughed. “I am alive!”

  And Rebekah did not even know who or what to thank. So she made some shortbread cookies and passed them out to children and adults walking down the lane. They smiled at her, and one little red-haired boy gave her a meaningful look. “We are the dancers of Life,” said he.

  And Rebekah, for the first time in her life, knew exactly what he meant.

  It was a time to feel free, to live every moment and to love every day no matter what.

  She had been healed, and from now on, she would be a flower in the garden of life and give her gift to all.

  * * The End * *