Ruby's Garden

a fairytale about mothers & daughters
by Jennifer Stewart

Her garden was more lethal than pretty… 

by Jennifer Stewart

What once was a cornucopia of vibrant blossoms and sensual scents of lavender and rose is now a tangle of twisted thorns and wilted, fallen petals. I sometimes still come down to rest in the nest of the old cherry tree, (the one she use to sing to everyday). Days like today, circling far above the garden, I can see some things more clearly. The intricate patterns of empty branches stretch across the now colorless ground. But, to know the patterns of the human spirit one must come in closer…nearer to the ground, nearer to the feeling of the heart beating, nearer to the sound of a voice singing. I land upon the tombstone that is her body, recovering the dried fruits that have collected on what was once the warmth of her outstretched hand. A hand that once held out seeds to me and delighted in my company as I delighted in hers.

She, now a stone mistress gazing timelessly over her garden, she whose curves and flowing hair like a garden statue, a decoration in the flowerless garden. Many a season ago, her given name was Ruby - given for the rosy tint of her life filled cheeks. Her garden hadn’t always been unwelcoming and neither had she. 

…But, I am getting ahead of myself here…lets go back. Back to the beginning.

Ruby was a beautifully sensitive and expressive young girl and her mother loved her enthusiastic and bubbly nature.  Ruby and her mother were very close. Her father had fallen in a deep hole when Ruby was very young, so young she could hardly remember him. His absence simply made her mother that much more important to her.  Ruby’s mother seemed to be far away at times and her skin didn’t feel as warm as it use to be. It seemed her mother had fallen into a hole of a different kind.  Ruby became set on making her mother happy again. She would perform songs for her while her mother sat in her rolling chair in the garden. Her mother loved it so much that her eyes began to have stars in them again, her smile began to carve lovely lines in her soft face again, her heart began to blossom again  - literally! Blossoms started emerging in the garden as Ruby sang and her mother’s heart overflowed with joy. Each note, a seed, each song a new flower. Her mother’s skin began to glow as her gaze became fixed on Ruby and the world she was creating for them. The garden began to burst with blossoms of every color…buzzing bees and dancing dragonflies…brightly colored birds all delighted in the flowerful feast! Ruby had a special affection for all the creatures in her garden. She loved to sing to us as she collected fruits for their breakfast and we loved to be near her. 

For many years, Ruby and her mother were happily wrapped up in the comfort and beauty of the garden. Each morning Ruby would roll her mother’s chair out into the garden and each night she would place her in bed to rest. Ruby would excitedly announce the morning with her song and we would all chime in with ours, happily collecting the worms as Ruby delightedly sang the garden into blooms. 

Ten years passed quickly.

Ruby’s mother, still ever excited and encouraging of Ruby’s gifts, gushing about how beautiful her voice was, how perfectly smart she was. But, Ruby was changing. She had started to wonder, she started to notice new feelings inside her, she began to have strange and wonderful dreams, new insights. With a sense of excitement, she shared with her mother, all that was changing in her. 

Her mother’s face seemed to turn to ash, ”leave those things, they will only bring us trouble.”  Ruby wanted to make her mother happy, but her curiosity for the life outside the garden had been ignited.  The more her mother forbade it, the more it seemed to grow in her. Something hot took hold inside her belly, like a fiery coal burning inside her…an ember that seemed to burn up her chest, singeing her throat. It became painful to sing, her burning vocal chords charred by the ember in her belly.  The ember now growing and burning down into her legs, into her feet, the earth below her charring with the heat. She closed her eyes, and wished to push all of this fire, all of this heat, all of her dreams and desires down deep into the ground.

To her surprise the earth broke open. She slipped down deep into a cavern below the garden surface under the cherry tree.  What a thrill she felt!  A perfect place for her to dream and to hide this new found life inside her. Perhaps she couldn’t go out and explore the world, but she could imagine it, and she could hide it from her mother.  Each evening, after sunset, she would take all of her daytime desires, her dreams and her ideas and push them into the hole, and then lower herself down into the earthen cave. Contentedly she would ruminate to herself.  The more she filled the underground nook with life, the bigger it got and the more she didn’t want to return to the surface with her mother.  Of course, there were challenges to this hidden life, when she returned to the surface, her throat would be full of the dirt from her den. Day by day, a bit more dirt settled making it increasingly painful to speak and impossible to sing. The scratchy sounds like sand paper turning the flowers to brown. Her voice inspiring thorns to grow in tight spirals around the garden, surrounding Ruby and her mother. 

With just a straw sized opening, Ruby breathed in and out, but could hardly speak, and could not sing at all. Ruby’s mother came to her concerned “ Ruby, Ruby, the flowers, they are wilting! The thorns seem to be getting bigger, the colors seem to be fading, what could be happening? Please Ruby, you have to sing, you have to fix the garden!” Reluctantly, Ruby opened her mouth to sing, but nothing came, just the thin whistle of the wind as it passed along her stony throat…the flowers began to crumple and fall from the vine. “My dearest daughter, What is wrong?” Just then, Ruby felt as though her throat was closing and Ruby’s mother watched as her daughter struggled to breathe. Ruby grabbed for her neck, her mother watching, eyes wide open. The stone, it spread from her throat to her chest, down into her belly and all the way down to her toes, it spread across her face, freezing her lips, her father’s nose and her amber flecked eyes. Her entire body was turned to stone and with it her song became silent. 

Her garden blooms went dormant. 

The thorns and weeds claiming what was left. Her garden cave now vacant, holding the precious seeds of her unlived life. Ruby’s mother fell into a darkness she’d known before, though this time, there seemed no way out. Strewn across the ground, she sobbed at her daughter’s feet. 

Many weeks passed, each day just like the last and it seemed Ruby and her mother would forever be frozen together in the thorn garden. That was until a visitor landed outside the garden gate. There was an unexpected knock, Ruby’s mother peered up through the twisted thorns that surrounded them. 

She saw a dark beard, mysteriously reaching toward the ground, a coat made of the finest feathers, dark like the night sky, with hints of violet and indigo branching through it like blood filled veins.  Feeling a bit tentative and yet curious, she crawled toward the gate, as close as she could. The thorns did not allow her to see clearly. He spoke though she never saw his mouth moving. 

by Jennifer Stewart

Descend Ruby’s

Earthen cave

Under the cherry tree roof

Collect her dreams

Lay them in the sun 

Encircle her graven form 

She couldn’t be certain, but she thought he might have flown away as he disappeared as quickly as he appeared, leaving behind a single feather on the ground where he had stood.  

She hadn’t used her legs in so long! She unsuccessfully tried to crawl across the garden, pulling her body along the ground toward the cherry tree. She took a few deep breaths and grabbed a hold of a nearby tree, pulling herself up to her feet for the first time in ten years. Her legs wobbled and she was unsteady, but the feeling of the warm, damp earth enlivened her. She had forgotten what it felt like to be on her feet, and it seemed to even change the way her heart beat. She lifted her right foot and stomped it back onto the ground, and then the left foot. Stomping her feet, her blood began to pump more strongly through her body…her chest and face flushing with the blood of her pumping heart. Her body began to warm and with a new coordination, she hurried to the cherry tree. Looking down into Ruby’s dark underground den, she felt hesitant. Just then there was a tickle that started at the top of her foot, a single ant crawled up her leg, over her belly, across her chest, atop her shoulder, down her arm and onto her right index finger.  She looked down to see a river of ants, just before they hoisted her up on their backs, and with one big push, threw her down into the bottom of the hole. 

As her eyes adjusted, she took in the sight of the colors, the images, the sound of Ruby’s songs. Her dreams ran down the sides of the cave like trickles of water. She gathered the dreams in a tall glass bottle. The ants worked together to empty the hole, together she and the ants carried everything to the surface and laid her treasures out around her in a circle in the sun. The ants circled Ruby’s stony form, her mother’s now warm hands caressing her sunlit face. We don’t really know how this happened, but a small crack started to form at the base of Ruby’s throat. As if he was on cue, a brightly chirping cardinal bravely pecked at that opening and the tiny crack shattered into a large opening and Ruby’s form became more fluid, her body more supple. Her hands feeling over her body with wonder, her mother embracing her in tears. All of Ruby’s dreams and desires surrounded them, here in the sunlight. Smiling at each other, feeling a new sense of possibility.  A life full of their own dreams, free to be in the light of day.

In the midst of all that was cracking open and coming to life, the ants quietly receded…surely to carry others where they need to go. 

And I returned to my nest at the top of the cherry tree, where the sun shone brightly and cast a violet hue across my feathers. 

by Jennifer Stewart