Tender Morsels (57 page)

Slowly Branza closed the locket. The mother-of-pearl Wolf was almost more than she could stand to look at, so static and carven when she had just felt his pulse, his breath. That dream Wolf, the life in him, the absolutely convincing impression of life—well, she did not know whether she could ever open the locket again. It wrenched her heart to have seen him, though she loved him. It pained her to think of herself in the times when he had been her only companion, when Urdda had gone and it was only herself and Mam and the dream-world around them. No Davit! No children! Only that strange, bland town! She could hardly imagine it now. How poor she had been, and how empty her life!

She enclosed the locket in her hand; it was too powerful a gift—a piece of her soul handed to her, dressed in the kindest, keenest part of her sister’s feelings. Still unable to speak, she lifted it by its silver chain and put it over her head. There, now it rested against her chest; she need not see it and grieve over it. She tucked it into her bodice, where it lay private and no one would ask about it.

‘A sampler, you say, Urdda, yet you have near broke my heart with it.’ Still vibrating from all the strong feelings, she took her sister’s hands. ‘It frightens me what else you might do, with the main part of your magic.’

‘Oh, no such damage as naughty Annie did, in her time.’

Annie let go of her and cackled through her tears. ‘Oh, I never made anything like that beauteous beast! And how’d you transmoggerfy the room so? Greshus, my skin is still all a-creeping with the amazement!’

‘Do you like it?’ said Urdda to Branza.

‘I love it. I shall treasure him.’ Branza held the locket through her bodice-cloth. ‘What a gift! What a power!’

‘That is two extraordinary women you have reared there, Liga,’ said Davit.

‘Indeed,’ said Annie. ‘You can take all the credit for that.’

They all looked to Liga, seated by the window with her face to the light, to the faint midsummer air, which moved the tendrils of hair at her temples. She turned and slightly smiled at them all, and tilted her head most graciously, accepting the witch’s and the woolman’s compliments, and her daughters’ pleasure in them, as no more than she deserved.

I’m very grateful to the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts for the two-year fellowship that bought me the time to write
Tender Morsels
.

The wRiters On the Rise workshop held in Tasmania in 2007 gave the first draft a good kick along: thank you to Tansy Rayner Roberts for organising the weekend, and to Marianne de Pierres, Rowena Cory Lindquist, Maxine McArthur, Richard Harland, Launz Birch and again Tansy for the useful critiques and the support.

Jan Cornall’s monthly Draftbuster workshops also provided essential support. Thanks to Jennifer Moore for the beautiful setting, and to Jan, Jennifer, Sunny Grace, Tom Thompson, Lyn Berggren, Helen Chambers, Cecile Bower, Lee Lamming, Belinda Bourke, Wendy Fitzgerald, Narelle Scotford, Jinks Dulhunty and Barbara Pheloung, and everyone else who came by, creating the climate in which this impossible thing became not only possible but inevitable.

For sustained and valuable editorial input, I’m deeply indebted to Rosalind Price at Allen & Unwin, Nancy Siscoe at Knopf and Bella Pearson at David Fickling Books. For making the whole four-way arrangement happen, many thanks to Jill Grinberg of Jill Grinberg Literary Management.

For the title, I thank Jack Zipes for his translation of the Grimm brothers’ ‘Snow White and Rose Red’ in
The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm
(New York, Norton, 2001) and the anonymous translator of the same story in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm,
Complete Fairy Tales
(Routledge Classics, London and New York, 2002).

The basis of the St Olafred’s bear ritual is the
journée de l’ours
held every February in the Catalonian town of Prats de Mollo la Preste, which I first saw on SBS’s documentary program ‘Global Village’. A good description and background can be found online at
http://www.anglophone-direct.com/Fete-de-l-Ours-Prats-de-Mollo
.

M
ARGO
L
ANAGAN
is an acclaimed writer of novels and short stories. Her three collections of short stories have been rapturously reviewed around the world and have garnered many awards, nominations and shortlistings. Her second collection,
Black Juice
, was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and won two World Fantasy Awards, as well as the 2004 Victorian Premier’s Award for Young Adult Fiction.
Red Spikes
was a
Publishers Weekly
Best Book of the Year and a Horn Book Fanfare title, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Margo lives in Sydney.