Shining Berries of the Dark Bramble
Broken ivy tendrils of the bramble spoke to her gently. A tunnel of serpentine branches guarded Mog’s grave, deep in the back garden bushes.
The sod was not settled two days, and it was already speaking.
Beatles breaching the muddy rubble, blackbirds scuttling in their afternoon stealth, and twigs clicking in the wildlife chorus. It sang through the thicket, like a larynx of nature, and whispered to Freya.
“She is filthy,” Mother muttered with a taut neck to no one, as Freya weaved wriggles of pasta with her fork, and Father amused himself in her meaningless play. She was still grieving, he was still learning, and Mother was sulking.
She sulked because she did not know Mog was in the driveway that day. She was already consumed by a corrosive guilt—that she had taken a life from Earth, that she had denied her only daughter’s joy on Earth, and that she could never again give birth to a life on Earth. Everything layered heavily on her soul.
“Yes, you are full of muck,” Father said warmly, leaning close with attentive elbows on the table. “Were you trying to visit Mog again?” he asked, knowing she was five and fearless.
“Yip! He said some stuff through the little berries,” Freya babbled, swirling uneaten food.
“Wow—and what did he say to you, pet?” He was equally torn and smitten, as he had treated the ginger cat as the second child he would never have.
Mother tonelessly pointed out that it wasn’t the season for berries, to which Father replied with instructing, stony eyes.
“No, mommy,” Freya riposted, fixated on her fork play. “The berries are asleep, but at night, they will glow really bright—but only when everyone is in bed—and then the berries will get really big— and grow legs—and a tail—and a face—and they will make Mog become a shiny berry, too!”
After a brief silence, Father tentatively unseated himself, kissed his two distracted women, and quietly told his wife that he was going to the attic to fetch something.
That night, a midnight overcast plunged all life into blackness when he placed a sleepy Freya on his lap to see the prophetic berries. He signalled a wink to Mother who then left the viewing room briefly.
“Daddy!” Freya gasped at the sudden glitter of a dozen bulbous lights by the bramble, glinting in a rhythmic loop. “Mog’s out there! So pretty—just like Christmas lights!”
“Yes,” he replied, hoisting her from his leg and kissing her goodnight. He turned to his smiling wife, silhouetted in the open doorway. “Just like Christmas lights.”
As the two sauntered, hand-in-hand, to their bedroom, Freya’s gaze followed the move of the dancing lights, until a new glimmer appeared.
A shape of white light, incandescent among the rest, floated from the dark bramble, morphing into the glow of four legs, a face, and eyes with golden slits.
And it spoke to her gently.
Fintan Walsh is a communications specialist and occasional writer from Limerick. The 29-year-old is fixated on the magic that is woven into everyday life.