pine needles

[asakiyume]

Alongside the road and in the woods, the pine needles have dropped. Where the woods path goes through a stand of white pine, I met a grandmother and granddaughter raking up the fallen needles with small bamboo rakes. They were putting them in a long bag, like a cotton picker's sack. Remarkably, they were both wearing coats of exactly the same shade of copper-orange as the pine needles.

"Are you going to put the needles around blueberry bushes to make the soil more acid?" I asked. "Or are you making baskets? Or maybe you're planning a fragrant bonfire?"

"None of those: we're gathering these for felting," the grandmother said. "I didn't realize how much Bethie'd grown this past year--show the lady, Bethie."

Bethie stuck out an arm and I saw the skin on her bare wrist between the end of her coat sleeve and her hand.

"We're going to make you a bigger one, aren't we?"

Bethie nodded.

"Wow--I didn't know you could make felt out of pine needles," I said.

"Oh no? Well, you can, if you have the knack," the old woman said.

I looked more closely at her coat, and at Bethie's, and saw now that the rich, fuzzy orange fabric was decorated with geometric starbursts of pine needle embroidery--a marvel. The grandmother caught my admiring eye and smiled.

A red-tailed hawk screamed, and for some reason that put me in mind of time passing. Work called.

"Well, good luck with the gathering and the project," I said. "The coats are amazing."

"Thank you," the grandmother said, returning to raking. "You have a nice day now." Bethie waved goodbye, and I continued on the woods path. I looked back once, but they were lost from sight.

Photo: "Carpet of Needles, Delamere, Cheshire," by Ian Helsby on Flickr

Comments

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

Great story! Like a fairy tale in limbo, is it true, is it fic?

Missed the clue but suspected fiction, like the suspended gender in Ancillary J!

Just finished Ancil. Sword, also very good.

Best witches, always, ca-madre!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked this little sketch :-)

Did you like Ancillary Sword as much as Ancillary Justice?

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

It's very good. The gender mysteria was so interesting, I missed this, tho it still cropped up, and the Odyssey was always one of my favorite books- and Justice followed that path. One reason I liked Cherryh's Morgaine Trilogy, altho it emulated Lord of the Rings more in its own way. Homer could have enthralled audiences for weeks or months with the M.T. [not to mention making a year's work out of Rings], as with the Illiad; I think of the Ody. as a shorter work, I'm not sure if it really is.

If you haven't read THAT (Mor. Tr), I recc it MOST highly; if you don't have time for extended reading, buy the old copies, Gate of Ivrel 1st, (with the hilarious covers [M. commandeering:] "so this is how you keep my liegeman?") one by one from Amazon, and digest them piecemeal, fairly short works, instead of buying the more recent volume. Poor Vanye is so troubled by circumstance, but Morgaine is troubled equally, so the emotional balance is better than some of C's other works.

I would say it is about the equal of Justice, just some of the interesting ambiguous ambience is dispelled...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Cherryh is definitely high on my to-read list. And glad for your take on Ancillary Sword--thanks!