Spinning Fact into Fiction

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Where do stories come from? What mysterious alchemy stirs fact into fiction? This week I’d like to talk about the writing process that led me to write a children’s story in the folktale tradition, so you can see concrete examples of the creative process at work.

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When I was about six, I remember going to the farm of family friends for Sunday dinner. After the meal, my mom and I took a walk with the farmer’s wife down an overgrown lane on the edge of the pasture. At its end was an old cellar hole, all that was left of an abandoned home that backed up to a dark hemlock wood. There in the dappled sunlight, I first saw the flowers my mom called bleeding hearts, their delicate pink blossoms shaped like a heart torn in two by a single drop of blood. The flowers spilled over the lip of the deserted foundation and marched towards the forest’s shade. As a little girl, the plants came up to my waist, and their profusion reminded me of the briar roses that overtook Sleeping Beauty’s castle. 

Fast forward to when my adult children were leaving the nest, I was an ELL teacher, helping immigrant high school students learn English for the first time. In one of my classes was a handsome young man from Moldova whose stories of his village painted a picture of a place lost in time. Old fashioned hay wagons pulled by giant draft horses. Wrinkled old women dressed in kerchiefs and aprons. Farmers, woodcutters, and craftsmen coming to market to hawk their wares. All amidst the ethnic strife and religious persecution that caused him to leave his homeland.

While I was teaching this boy, sitting at my desk at home, these words came to me. In a time when magic still quivered above the earth and wishes were sought through enchantment, there lived an old woodcutter and his wife whose desire for a child had never been fulfilled. 

This was the beginning of my tale titled Bleeding Heart. In my mind’s eye, I pictured a fairy tale Moldova and an old woodcutter and his wife living on the edge of a great forest not unlike the abandoned house on the edge of the farmer’s pasture from my childhood.

I had no plot in mind, but I let the heartache of a woman longing for a child guide me, a common theme in fairytales, a woman, watching her fleeting childbearing years with a frantic desperation. Perhaps a woman like me, no longer in her prime, childless in a whole new way as my little ones became adults, married, and moved far away.

This is where the Romani people entered the story. Ancient outcasts of central Europe where Moldova is situated, they’re called gypsies, and among other things, renowned as herbalists and musicians. So, I placed a very old woman in a kerchief and an apron like the women of my student’s village in a gypsy wagon in the dead of night and let her intersect with the desperate woodcutter’s wife’s begging for a baby.

Then out of my subconscious came a sac of magic seeds and the gypsy woman’s words, Plant these in your garden by the door, and in the spring a daughter, will be yours.”  I didn’t know yet that they would be seeds for bleeding hearts, but my mind had long ago attributed magic to the beautiful flowers I’d first seen by an abandoned home.

I should mention here that I am adopted, a longed for child myself, cared for by a childless mother and father who cherished me. And shortly before I started Bleeding Heart, my adopted mom died. Out of respect, I’d never searched for my biological parents until both my adoptive parents had passed away.

Without spilling family secrets, I found my biological mom, and discovered I’m from a clan rich with writers, musicians, artists, and actors. This knowledge explained all the college majors I pursued even though my adoptive dad, an engineer, and my mom, a home economist urged me to choose more practical careers. Finding my birth mom was like finding my people even though we were absolute strangers.

So, I gave the woodcutter’s wife a daughter as if by gypsy magic, and the gypsy woman prescribed the child a gypsy name, Lavuta, the Romani word for violin. When the daughter comes of age, she awakes in the middle of the night and hears her name whispering through the trees.

I will stop here and let the remainder of the story tell itself below.

With the information I’ve shared about my tale’s conception and formation, I hope as you read the tale itself, you’ll be able to see how the fingers of the creative process flipped through my mental files and plucked seemingly disparate episodes from my past in order to make peace with the grief of losing my mom to death, the angst of losing my children to adulthood, and the power of discovering my true identity all expressed through story.

Those of you who regularly read my blog, know that I usually write memoir. But I also have a slew of stories for children. My point in writing this is that whether we write fact or fiction, for children or adults, God is the author of our lives, and as writers, we are free to use the material he gives us to portray his glory in any format that serves his truth.

So, like the Miller’s daughter in Rumpelstiltskin, let’s spin our straw into God’s gold.

What facts can you spin into fiction that contain a deeper truth?

Cover photo by Zura Narimanishvili on Unsplash

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BLEEDING HEART

By Ann C. Averill

              In a time when magic still quivered above the earth and wishes were sought through enchantment, there lived an old woodcutter and his wife whose desire for a child had never been fulfilled. They lived in the forest and kept to themselves, for whenever they brought their wares to the village, children’s laughter filled the market and made the old woman long all the more for a little one. One day as their cart wended its way home, she wept, “Dearest husband, my golden braids have become a silver crown. I fear I will never be a mother.”

Drawing her close, he whispered, “Dear wife, can you not be content with my love?  Fear grows only itself, not a child.”

              That very night, the old woman awoke to the jingle of a gypsy wagon rolling through the wide meadow between the forest and the village. Surely it was the fortune teller she’d seen in the market. Silently she slipped out of bed and crept down the steep stairs. She pushed aside a basket set upon the hearth and lifted a loose stone. Underneath was a small pouch of golden coins. Clasping the coins close to her heart, she hurried through the dark wood until at last she came into the lavender light of a full moon spread across the open field.  

Running beside the wagon, she held up the pouch and pleaded with the toothless crone, “Tell me, will I ever have a babe of my own?”

The fortune teller drew her horses to a halt and opened the old woman’s palm. “Yes, I see a daughter, and her name is Lavuta.”

“The name is strange,” said the old woman, “Are you sure? My hope has drifted away like a dream in the morning light.”

“I am sure,” said the fortune teller, exchanging the clinking pouch for a wrinkled sack of seeds.” Plant these in your garden by the door, and in the spring a daughter, will be yours.” She shook the reins and vanished into the distance.  

The old woman hurried home clutching the charmed sack, but at the edge of the wood an owl swooped from the top of an old oak and startled her. Raising her arms above her head, the seeds scattered. She fell to her knees in tears, for there was no way to reclaim them.        

When she opened the cottage door, her husband was kneeling beside the loosened stone. “What have you done with our bit of gold?”

The old woman confessed.  

“Foolish woman,” he pounded his fist, “sorcery plays only tricks, and now our small treasure is gone for naught.” 

But in the spring a babe was born, a daughter with jet black curls.  

“What name shall we give this child?” asked the old man.  

“Lavuta,” the old woman said for fear another name would break the spell which had brought this long-awaited gift despite her fumble.   

“Why this odd name?” her husband tilted his head.  

The old woman lied, “It has such a melodious sound.”  

“Very well, Lavuta,” said her husband, “for she will be the song of our hearts.”

As Lavuta grew, she picked up her little skirts and danced for her parents in front of the winter fire.    

“Oh, child, how you warm our hearts,” her mother said.  

In the spring she waltzed about a broom made of sticks as she helped her mother sweep the cottage.  

“Someday you will make your own happy home,” said the old woman.  

Summers she wandered the woodlands and sang as she picked bouquets for her family.    

“You have the voice of a lark,” said her father, “and your maiden beauty rivals the petals you’ve put in our hands.”

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Lavuta awoke to the sound of her own name. She rose from her bed and followed the call out the door, through the black tunnel of trees and into the meadow where a full moon spilled its silver upon the dewy grass. At the center of the field, under the twinkling stars, were a dozen gypsy wagons around a blazing fire. The silhouettes of men and women whirled before the flames. They clapped and shouted, “Lavuta, Lavuta.”  Irresistibly she drew near.

At the core of the circle was a handsome young man with a shock of dark hair. He cradled a violin beneath his chin and sawed upon it like her papa sawed a log. Music soared towards the heavens with the sparks, music Lavuta seemed to know by heart, and in an instant she understood. Her name was the Roma word for his instrument shaped like a voluptuous lady. And out of its long throat, the young man caressed the very melody of her soul.  

The old woman awoke from a nightmare in which she heard Lavuta’s name. Seeing only the curves of her daughter’s body carved in the feather bed, her fears gathered like a great storm cloud ready to burst. She scurried, gasping for breath, down the path to the meadow.   

There were the circled wagons, and at the center, Lavuta. Her daughter’s cheeks flushed as she danced in front of the fire. Her eyes flashed as she circled the fiddler as she’d circled her broom. Her voice harmonized with his instrument like a lark calling its mate. The old woman pushed through the throng and begged, “Please, please, don’t enchant my daughter.”

A large man in a leather vest stepped forward and silenced his people. “Old woman, it is we who have been enchanted. For this we give your daughter a gift.” He summoned the wise woman of the clan from the far side of the flames. The toothless crone laid a necklace made of golden coins around Lavuta’s neck.    

Without any thanks, her mother yanked Lavuta’s hand. “We must go.”

They spoke not a word as Lavuta fingered the necklace and looked back at the young fiddler. At the edge of the meadow, the old woman turned to her daughter and whispered,” We cannot accept this gift. I fear it’s laced with sorcery and will only play us tricks.”  She tore the chain from her daughter’s throat and watched its coins scatter under the big oak.    

Lavuta fell to her knees and sobbed. “Is it magic to fall in love?”

The old woman pulled her daughter to her feet, “It’s magic that brought you to me, and magic I fear will take you away.” They walked home as if struck dumb by a curse.  

The old man and the old woman had grown too deaf to hear the departing bells of the gypsy wagons, but with the morning light, they saw Lavuta’s bed was again empty. Hand in hand, they trudged through the wood, stopping at its edge. Before them new grass waved in the wind. In the dappled sunlight under the old oak, was a blanket of brilliant pink flowers.  

The old man fell to his knees and plucked just one blossom. “Is this where you spilled the fortune teller’s seed long ago?”

“Yes.” His wife stared.  

Something sparkled amidst the blooms, and she stooped to reclaim what she knew must be the scattered coins of the necklace.    

“Foolish woman those coins are the price you paid for this.” Her husband held out the flower in his hand.

The old woman gasped at the petals shaped like a miniature heart dripping a single tear of blood.

And this, so they say, is how the wildflower, bleeding heart, found its name.