The Head of the Hydra Flower
Carol Reid

Carol Reid lives on Powell River, British Columbia, from which address I received a manuscript submitted to Fantasy Macabre, a ghostly tale entitled "The Coffin Builder," with all the beauty and charnal romanticism of Poe or Gautier. I wrote back at once begging for any other manuscripts available and received a second stunning composition, this time of vampirism and ennui, called "A Feast of Ashes." I was by then willing to feature a Carol Reid story in every issue of Fantasy Macabre I put together, so long as Carol remains willing to let me use them!
"The Head of the Hydra Flower" has had no previous publication.

Mara set down the untidy bunch of wildflowers outside Mother's bedroom door and listened, holding her breath till the heavy tide of her blood pounded in her ears. Mother must have heard her approach, for she had stepped down hard with her little feet on every step' that creaked. Mother must have heard and understood the protesting of the dry wood of the staircase, "Mara comes, Mara comes," for they had lived a lifetime in this house, and each knew its cries and whispers as a mother knows her child's.
Mara stepped back from the doorway and sat down on the second step of the staircase. A patch of light had settled there, flowing in from the small window set into the house's eastern face. She crouched and huddled, trying to fit entirely into the square of gentle morning light that waned where it touched.
The patch had narrowed some by the time that Mother's bedroom door was opened, popping like the seal of a vacuum jar, and Mara felt a rush of cool cologne-scented ah- as Mother knelt in the doorway and took up the bouquet in her hands, turning it over and over as one would the limp body of a sparrow, dead apparently, but without a wound.
Mara spoke in the soft tones that were kind to" Mother's ears. "I found them at the lakeshore, Mother, cast away. Perhaps they be the bridal flowers of a nymph who left her bewitched lover standing on the sand and dove into the water...." The tale was sweet as syrup in a golden-tinted glass, and Mara held it to the light of her mind's eye. Perhaps if she returned now to the lakeshore she would find the naiad's lover still bewitched, still waiting for his bride. Would he perceive that she was mortal, only? This she did not speak aloud.
"Foxglove is poison," Mother said, stroking the deep pink bellflower that nestled among the columbines, and then, like a wisp of smoke, she slipped behind the bedroom door and was gone.
The sun moved higher in the sky, leaving Mara in shadow. She went down into the kitchen and found some bread, which she broke apart and spread with strong cheese. She poured a glass of cider from the carafe that stood always full on the shelf of the cold room, and took her meal alone at the bare oak table that was strewn with crumbs and dust.
She turned and straddled the bench she sat upon, and through the cloudy window watched the knobby flowering cherry tree, the one surviving beauty of the garden, as it dropped its petals on the breeze. A soft confetti rain fell upon the bare branches of the wild rose and the brown skeletons of hydrangeas, whose branch tips were torn and gnawed as bitten nails.
At the lakeshore there were flowers, bursting alive, enough to gather and cast away, and gather again.
The house was silent.
At the lakeshore the breeze made the alders tremble and laugh, and the water lapped softly over the silt and sand. Unseen birds clucked and chattered, dropping from nowhere to pierce the body of a fish with their bills and claws, and then vanishing again, hardly burdened by their prize. There, she-creatures with slender, graceful bodies moved in the lake at twilight, between the snaking tendrils of the waterflowers, and then danced into deeper channels, down and down into the wet blackness.
The house was dark and silent, even early in the afternoon.
The lakeshore was forbidden.

Mara brought Mother's tea and toast up on a tray borrowed from the luncheonette in town, years before. It was a sturdy tray, undaunted by countless rings from teacups and overheated plates. It endured, even to the gold-stamped letters that spelled out "Purdy's," and reminded Mara daily of the theft, though it had never occurred to her to return it. She had been a mere child then, floundering in the full-size chair she had been sat in, the knife and fork over-large and clumsy in her hands. Mother had sat at her side, demurely pushing the food in delicate circles around her plate. The man had put out his wide flat hands, one on Mother's arm, and one on her own; then, as now, it had all seemed so totally without reason that Mara doubted that it had happened at all.
Mother opened the door to receive her meal, accepting the tray with steady hands. "Bring me the head of the hydra flower," she said, and shut the door.
Mara stayed a long time on the stairs, watching the shadows flow along the banister like slow black polish. So cold it grew in the house at twilight, such a cold to which one never grew accustomed, unlike die numbing cold of lakewater, that comforted in the end.
Never had the staircase loomed so steep, the darkness at its foot so full of dread.
All these long years, the lakeshore had been forbidden, and yet these past days she had been compelled to go there, again and again. Once to fetch a red-veined stone, another time the tender root of a squirrel-house tree, and just this morning... what was it she had been sent to find this morning? It was then that she had found the flowers strewn upon the sand. And now she must return to the forbidden place, this time to gather up the nine floating blossoms of the hydra, by this time closed into plump yellow buds, and rips them from the submerged stalk that was rooted into the lake bottom. There was less than an hour before darkness and she must walk through town to reach the place. She clamored down the staircase and wrapped herself swiftly in scarf and cloak. A sudden, small voice spoke inside her ear, "hurry, hurry!" and she flew into the street, her cloak billowing at her back, as purple as the creeping edges of the evening sky.
"Witch! Witch!" the familiar boy-voices followed her as she pattered down the sidewalk of the village street. Why did they always taunt her so? She most certainly was not a witch, for she had seen them pictured in her nursery books -- bent, foul creatures that consorted with cats and worshipped the devil or the moon. Anyone could see that she was not of that race, fair and straight of limb as she was, and in truth she worshipped no one. The only thing to which she was deeply drawn was the lake and that, though she had recently been compelled to go there, was forbidden. Much as they yearned to dip into the silver water, to immerse her face and body li within, she knew her wish to be impossible. She knew, all too well, that once submerged, she would drown. Mother, while bathing her once, had shown her the truth of this.
She passed by Purdy's luncheonette, and hugged herself inside her cloak. Inside, diners sat in pairs at tiny tables and took their food together. There seemed no mystery in it, no secret to their ritual.
The night sky was closing in ever faster as she neared the path that led down to the water. She must hurry, hurry!
The lapping of the lake was a special music to her ears, a friendly slopping sound. All day the lake had caught and held a reservoir of light that it now exuded, a silver shimmer that guided Mara to the thing she sought, the long braids of green and gold that were the hydra flower.
She lay along the trunk of a fallen alder that lay half-in, half-out of the water. The image of her outstretched hand was broken into a dozen hands, all reaching up to touch her as she reached to grasp the floating tendrils. The nine braided stems were all gathered in her hand, and still the image hands reached up, almost breaking the surface of the water, almost touching Mara's skin. She tore the flowerheads from their stalks, and then looked again, but there was nothing to be seen but nine thin trails of inky black that dissipated quickly, and the fading image of her pale face in the darkening water.
She rose, brushing bits of leaf and bark from her cloak, and smiled at the ascending moon, the golden goddess of the witches, merely an orb of stone, dead as night without the sun to give it light, alone without the mirror of water to reflect its sad, pockmarked face. Hardly a venerable presence, but to witches. Perhaps just now, in the woods, a ring of crones were keening to it, burning their bits of filthy sod, and shaking their fetishes of woven hair and bone, even now as Mara stepped alone along the path, her armful of dripping flowers dribbling a trail of quicksilver at her feet. She pricked her ears, but the woods were silent and still, but for the friendly lapping of the lake upon the shore.
The sky was black by the time she found herself home. She hung her cloak on the hook behind the door, and took her prize into the kitchen, where she wiped bits of silt from the smooth green stems, and dried the yellow blooms that were closed up hard, protecting the soft red centers from the vapors and cold of night.
She mounted the ever-protesting stairs, trailing the green streamers of leaf behind her like a queen of May. The air above was laced with orient perfume, a smell of spices set afire, and a bitter scent of something wet that smoldered. She tapped at Mother's door with her elbow, fearful that her prize might fall. The flowers had lost warmth since their uprooting and had taken on a waxen glaze that was cool as fruit in Mara's warm hands.
The door popped and opened, and Mother reached out to receive the armful of blossoms. Inside the room, on the bedside table where Mother took her meals, stood the tray that had borne the tea and toast Mara had brought her. Upon the plate there was a mash, streaked pink and white, a taper burning, and a cup, striped with melted paraffin. Mother turned and pushed shut the door with her bare foot.
Mara's hands were sticky with the sap of the hydra, and her clothes and body smelled of mud. In her room she poured water into the basin and plunged her arms and face within, rubbing herself dry on the soft fabric of her shirt. Sleep came fast, and in her dream she confronted those who taunted her, a brace plus three of faces flat as coins, street-weary bodies stooped like sunflowers, save the one whose dark eyes met hers, and did not call her "witch." She dreamed of a lover who never spoke, and a marriage bed of water and glass, broad as the night sky and as deep.
She awoke to a tapping and, opening her eyes, saw a thread of grey light slip in between the gap of the heavy drapes. Mother crept in, holding a taper and a cup.
She spoke, "We who fast at night will sup when the moon is down, and the sun is up." Her hope-filled smile dwindled, and she bounced like a petulant child at the foot of Mara's bed.
"We have come to our wits' end," Mother said, setting down the cup and tapping her forehead with two fingers. A new smile appeared, making her radiant once more, and Mara longed to embrace her, but the hand that held the taper stood stiff between them, and its flame, however tiny, still could burn.
Mother offered her the cup, saying, "Eat the mash, and purge thy heart of the heavy, dark, and mortal part, and no more shall you banished be from the silver waters of the free... I have ground the root and bloom with stone, and took from the hydra the immortal one... with tooth and drool have bound the magic through, here, take the dowry that I offer you..."
Mara peered within. The pink-white mash was veined with yellow, and in its center, like a beating heart, was a globule of red. Her flesh turned strangely cold, as if touched by a dozen gelid hands as Mother pushed the cup up close to her mouth. In the increasing daylight she saw Mother's hands, stained grass green and pollen yellow but for the fine pink webbing between her fingers, and on her face, the ring of yellow green that stained her mouth. Mara felt a movement in her belly, like a tide that rose and fell, tingling through her skin.
"Come with me to the lakeshore, Mother," Mara said, and led her out into the hall and down the staircase, Mother cradling the cup like the last candle in a storm.
Mara wrapped her in the purple cloak, taking for herself the old black overcoat that had hung unused from before Mara could remember. Still it reeked of street smells and something like burned meat, but its weight was pleasant on Mara's back, and it was warm.
Outside, the world was drained of color, and mist clung like sleep to the eyes of dawn. The streets were empty. Even the first pot of Purdy's coffee was not yet brewed, and the pack of youths huddled in their dens, not long asleep, but deeply so. The early summer dew fell heavy on Mother's face, and her skin shone as if young again in the kind light of daybreak. Now, they stood upon the path that was pitted from three seasons of rain, and carpeted with roots and brambles run wild.
Mother stopped, grasping a tree branch and leaning upon it, her eyes shut tight, her stained lips moving, making no sound. Mara touched the brittle shelf of bone that trembled beneath the purple cloak, startling Mother's eyes open, and the breeze rose up, stirring the maples and alders to chattering, "Mara comes," and just ahead the lake foamed with the flapping and splashing of jumping fish. Mother's eyes grew wide, and she again pressed the cup of mash to Mara's lips, so close that she could taste its scent of mown grass and wildflowers in bloom.
"And no more shall you banished be from the silver waters of the free...." With one stained hand she stroked the coat that Mara wore, shaking her head as if rousing from a half-remembered dream. She lay her palms against her eyes, and the breeze and fish were stilled.
The lake lay flat and cold as steel before them. Near its edge the tangled roots of the hydra flower were already sending up tiny green-gold shoots, nine floating strands, braided three by three just beneath the surface.
The mash was cold and thick, its perfume stale. Mara circled Mother's shoulders with one arm and held her fast, and poured the potion into her gaping mouth. Tears streamed from Mother's eyes, ribbons of ice blue against the whiteness of her skin. The empty cup dropped and broke in two, oozing the remains of the pink-white mash into the sand, and a sigh rippled through the trees and the lake and the long-sealed flaps of skin on either side of Mother's throat. Her gills were coral-hued; exquisite ruffles of netting fine as tulle that undulated softly in the dew-soaked breeze. Mother tore at the garments that constricted her, the heavy cloak, the sheer damp silk of her dressing gown, the soft cloying cotton of her chemise, all the while watching Mara curiously, cautiously, as one species regards another. She stood naked, shimmering, on the shore, her hair falling free of its pins and ribbons, her arms outstretched to the barely rippling water. Mara watched her walk into the lake and disappears silently beneath the surface. After a moment she emerged, far from shore, a silver arc that rose and fell, a mere glint in the light of the rising sun.
Mara gathered up the shreds of Mother's garments, and then scattered them along the path. Others had done so before... here lay a leather shoe dark with mold, there a mound of tattered underthings, and near the spot where only yesterday she had found a like bouquet, a bunch of wildflowers were strewn upon the sand. She picked out a bleeding heart and tasted it, drawing its sweet green stem between her teeth, and wondered absently as she strolled back into town, when, oh when, would they ever meet again?