The Wall of Thorns

Finally, a human figure. It’s a woman standing there with her back turned. I quickly rush in her direction and grab her by the arm.

“Excuse me. I seem to have lost my way. Could you point me in the right direction?”

It’s the forest. It’s endless. Up and down valleys it goes. The trees stretch across the land in never-ending belts. But no matter how high I climb, and no matter how deep I go, I can’t find my way. But at long last, I have some help. She turns to look at me, and smiles.

“Well, where do you live?”

“I live in the Elf-Valley.”

“No, you don’t,” says the woman.

The words strike at me, harder than any blow I’ve taken, and I’ve taken many. With gritted teeth I stood there, fighting against twenty men. Sometimes people rushed me, weapons in their fists. Those with longer hair have rended at my chest. Must she too be one of them?

“Before that I lived in the Rumble-River, and much poison befell me there.”

“No, you didn’t.”

I try again.

“Before then I lived in Iron-Ore, where the silence became like the stones from the mine.”

“No,” she says. “No, you did not.”

“Grong it was before then, when I was cast out a final time.”

“That isn’t true either.”

“The Law Area of the Trønders, it was my home for most of my days. I returned there.”

“You haven’t returned to anything. You realized that yourself.”

“The foreland of Horns, where everything was set in motion.”

“Nothing ever did.”

“Tromsø, where I lost my final love.”

“Ice and snow? I care not. You did not do that either.”

“The Law Area of the Trønders, where I spent my youth. A Christian man, wandering on the roads with a cross, blessed me as I went.”

“No blessing, no Christian.”

“The hills of the mountains,” where I grew up, and where my demon was born, condemning me to loneliness.”

“Nothing was born. Nothing at all.”

“The law area of the Trønders! I was born there!”

I’m screaming at her now, trying to deny what she’s saying by the volume of my voice.

“You don’t believe that yourself.”

I know now she’s an opponent, and that she must be crushed. But I do not yet know if it’s convincing it will take, or force of arms. I know full well what’s hanging at my belt. Slowly, I take to circling her. She turns with me. Her smile has disappeared, but I didn’t notice when it happened.

“What are you? It’s not good for you to say the things you do.”

“Oh, come on,” says the woman. “Don’t pretend with me now!”

I slowly draw my knife, hanging from my belt. A Sami knife, the worst kind, inherited from my father. I know how to threaten, so I flick the blade, as I bare my teeth, and let my eyes flash at her. Soon I’ll take to snarling, and gargling and screaming. Thin, uncontrolled screams. They get distressed then, even the strongest men. They lose their cool and balance, and so I lunge. But the bitch is unfaced.

“I know what you did. On your knees, crawling through the heather, face to the ground.”

“Don’t you dare! That’s mine! Mine alone!”

“You made your face wet. From the heather! I know what you spoke. Must I say it!

“You’re not allowed to say it! I didn’t say anything!”

The insane bitch laughs and approaches me with arms outstretched. I concentrate all force, every ounce of strength at the tip of the blade and stab her in the stomach. But the blow comes before I’ve even started the movement, and I’m thrown face first to the ground.

Fear such as I’ve never felt before is over me. The knife flew out of my hand with her strike. Already, my father mocked me for not knowing how to use it. A Sami would laugh at you, he said. I crawl a small distance, then I get up, and run. Branches snap and crackle. The planes and meadows swirl before me. I’m a fast runner. I ran the fastest runner to a draw. But, I think, as air starts wheezing through my lungs, she’ll probably deny that too. It’s with a sickening feeling in my stomach I realize that my running path is getting narrower. Branches strike, bushes dash, and there are thorns. When I realize I’m getting funneled to a dead end and want to turn, it’s already too late. The woman has returned. Her back is turned, and she’s taking off her dress. She’s naked, her hands behind her back, upon facing me again.

“I would like to know your heritage,” I say. “Because then I’ll know how to best deal with you.”

“Oh, really,” she says.

“So therefore, I want to know if your perchance might be Laplander?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

She’s right. It is stupid. Her hair is tawny, the hair between her legs likewise. Rounded eyes, and something peculiar with the nose. It’s sickening, but it could remind me of the nose of my sister. She is us, as we should be, belonging to another age.

“Saxon? You cannot be a full Swede!”

“Milk-drinker, careful-foot, bent-back, one of these I am not, and you know which one.”

“Your back has never been bent … for long.”

“Open planes, forest deep, lowland weak.”

“You have never been weak.”

“When I dream, I dwell deep, awake I fly wide, do you think I’ve seen the inside wall of a church?”

“No.”

“So then, you must know what has befallen you. For you are these things too.”

I don’t want to listen anymore, so I turn to find a way. I will climb, if necessary, or find a hole in the underbrush to crawl through.

“It’s not every woman that can strike such a blow as you did unto me,” I say, even as I search, in the hopes to win some time.

“Might it be that it tells you something?”

Wanting only to escape, I don’t listen. But thorns are growing. Thorns are growing impossibly fast. Stalks rise off the soil, waving through the air as clumsy, thin arms, and everywhere, they block the way.

“Going somewhere? I think it’s impossible.”

I want to struggle through, but the thorns snag at my clothes, and soon they’re holding me back. Fast, my cheek is bleeding. Over and along the ground the thorns crawl, and form a thick, impassable wall, firm around us. Behind her is a last portal, which her naked figure blocks. Slowly, that way of escape is closing too, overgrown, like having too many dreams.

“I said: It’s impossible.”

Her bare foot takes a step towards me through the grass. Then another.

“The words you said. Say them.”

“I don’t want to.”

To avoid the sight of her, I lift my face to the sky, only to feel my ears be blocked by drops.

“Say them.”

Forced in such a way I recount from memory, from when I was in the heather.

“O goddess, guardian of my life. If you truly love me, reveal yourself to me. Show yourself, and give me the strength to win.”

The woman is right next to me now, we’re standing face to face. She holds her hands up, allowing them to be met by mine.

“There never was any poison. There never was a pain. None of it could ever harm you.”

Our lips meet. The arms of the thorns give shade, they cover and surround our embrace, and out from those jagged ends, the petals of roses sprout. Red, only red, deeper and more fierce than I could ever dream.

“For like a drop of water, just born from dew and quivering to fall, you are, and forever will be, clear and pure in the sun.”

The color of red keeps sprouting, and as the thorns guard our union, I finally get to know love and strength.

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