'Three men they come from the West,
Their fortunes to try,
An each made a solemn vow,
John Barleycorn must die...'
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Sunlight wove over the golden sea, never silent even in the heat of the day. The vast plains of wheat undulating in the wind that could turn into vicious twisters, ripping and destroying everything in their path.
Marie was uncomfortable in her uniform, the jet was off to the south with Storm, the tornados that had suddenly appeared weren't normal triggering their response from New York. Someone out here in the middle of argriculutural america was using them to destroy farms, so here she was in the far drop area, just in case.
Heat prickled her skin, she used to love summer when she was a child, the way the sky used to be a burnished blue. As if she could just pluck the colour down from heaven and cover herself in the coolness. Not now though, the weather was hot, clear and she was sweating hard in the protective leather she wore. Dropping the zipper on her top she fanned the pieces trying to get an airflow going. Sat on the edge of a huge wheat field that looked like a golden sea, the slight breeze that rippled the ripe heads not enough to even cool her skin.Closing her eyes for a second she let herself relax, there was nothing and no one out here for her to be a danger to. Allowing her mind to relax as well she felt the familiar tickle of Logan in her head. Releasing him for a while as she re-opened her gaze and saw a different scene altogether.
//The men were working hard going over the ground, the small fields were stone lined as were the hills in the distance. Heat was beating down on bare backs, making the horses sweat as they moved up and down the field. The scent of new mown wheat, the stickiness of sweat as she moved. Watching the men move across the field, stacking, pulling the sheaf's together, stooks drying in the harsh sunlight. A cool stone jug being passed from hand to hand, drinking deep when it landed with her and the laughter that rang round when she handed it away from her. Wiping her mouth with rough fingers and cut skin, the scythe in her hands worn smooth from use.
The day passed quickly, eating and drinking when they could, and soon the entire field was stacked only a small corner was left. No more than a few feet across but the men stood back from it, none wanted to cut the last pieces down. A hand slapped her back and she saw the tight smile of the foreman, it was her job and it filled her with a dread that was unfamilliar to her. Moving slowly as the long handle scythe was replaced with a sickle, the grip old and worn. Kneeling in the dark earth for a moment before bringing the sickle to the last few pieces of wheat. As the blade cut the first few stalks a voice, old, worn, deep and as rich as the earth under her knees rang out.
The song old, older than the field, older than the words, lilting and flying over the heads of the men gathered at the corner of the field. All of them joining the song as she cut away the last few stalks, when it was done, it was tied in a different way from the rest. Not a stook, but a cross form with arms, bound with green from the hedge edges, when it was done her hands were red. The grass and thorns had cut her hands, the wounds slowly closing as she stood back up, her knees covered with dark black earth. The men around her moving out of her way as she walked through the drying wheat, the song still being sung as the sun finally dropped to the earth. A tiredness filling her skin, as if this cycle would never end, that life would always go on, always follow on from death.
Turning and seeing the song fade as she was apart from the men who'd she'd spent the summer with. A hand was raised to her and a smile on faces that appreciated the thing she'd done, time now to celebrate, the last field done. The life secured until next year, the men made a play of the weight of the cross stook, bending under the thing, almost buckling knees as they went. A song of harvest weaving across the fields, of apples and warm nights, of soft bosoms and golden moons hung low in the sky. Finally she went with them, her steps heavy as she clenched her fists, if they knew her secret....they'd welcome her for a while but only until the harvest was over. Then she'd be gone, driven away. Her gaze took in the straw man at the fields boundary, her eyes boring through the sack cloth face, knowing the truth of the thing. What it meant and how close she was to being hung on the cross bar. Turning her back to it she moved into the lane, the heat still bouncing off the dusty road. A man slapping her back and offering the cool stone jug again, losing her thoughts to the contents of it she let herself be led away.//
A touch on her shoulder shook her out of her reverie, Logan's face was looking at her, "Kid? You okay?" Moving backward a little Marie found it hard to concentrate for a moment. The jet was on the tarmac a way down the road, it looked a little battered but everything looked okay from the outside.
"Marie?" Logan's voice was filled with concern, "How long have you been stood out here in the sun?" Her eyes weren't focussed on Logan, her head was filled with the lilting song. Suddenly feeling sick to her stomach, weak and shaky she let the tone of the song take her away from the heat of the fields. Dropping to her knees and into Logan's grip as the fields protector looked on with sackcloth eyes.
Marie woke in the medbay, a blue face peering at her and taking her blood pressure. As soon as was humanly possible she got out of there, her mind filled with too many memories of medical facilities for her to ever feel safe in medbay. Hank told her to go slow for the next few hours, she'd gotten heat stroke by standing out in the direct sunlight. He also told her that wheat fields reflect heat so she'd picked a doozy of a spot to stand in. She felt stupid enough as it was, getting herself lost in a memory that wasn't even hers and to do it on a mission as well. She'd be lucky if Ororo didn't chew her a new one for this, when Hank cleared her to go she moved slowly upstairs. Her uniform still sticky with sweat and she knew a nice cool shower would improve her mood considerably.
Inside her room (her supposed privacy from the world) Logan was sat on her bed edge, his face neutral but she knew she was going to get a lecture from him as well as Ororo. She'd been stupid, sitting out in the open when she should've been in the shade, something she knew from being a child growing up in the south. She started before Logan could get his own barrage in, "Ah know Ah was dumb....Ah should've gotten under cover to wait for ya'll but Ah got caught up in somethin'." She was about to start again when her eyes finally went to see Logan playing with something in his hands. A little man made of straw, his feet, hands and head made of heads of wheat. Logan got up and walked to her shelf and put the little thing down on the dark wood. It shone out against the dark grain and Logan's voice hummed the same song she'd been hearing in her head.
Time seemed to stretch out as the deep humming lilt filled the room, she was transfixed by the sound like a snake on movement. Only when he turned to look at her did the spell break, there was a darkness in his eyes that told of sorrow, pain and memory. It was then she put the pieces together, she'd found a memory of his, one he'd repressed. And it looked like she'd made him remember it, she opened her mouth to speak when Logan beat her to it.
"You were singin' when I carried you back to the 'bird. Somethin about three men killin another, you sang it all the way back just under ya breath." Logan turned his head away to look at the little figure on the shelf.
"You made me remember, another place, another time..." he looked so old then, as if he'd been at the end of his rope. When he did look up at her there was something else in his gaze, not thanks but something else, something deeper than that. He left soon after, her gaze stuck on the door he went out of until her gaze was dragged as if by magnets to the small man made of wheat.
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Hank was sat in the study, where he usually was when everyone else was watching what passed for entertainment. Not that he wasn't partial to a little tv himself, just that he liked it to teach him something and not just how many eels can you get in a mans underwear.
Sat in his usual chair Marie approached him quietly fiddling with the little wheat man. Hank looked up and smiled at her then his gaze took in the small poppet in her fingers.
"May I?" Marie handed the little man over to him and a smile went across his features, seeing the thing in it's entirity he smiled and handed it back to her hands.
"It's a beautiful thing Rogue, I never knew you had interests in folklore."
"Ah didn't make it....Logan did." Hanks face became serious for a second before he put down his magazine and reached out for her gloved hand.
"Come with me Rogue, I think there's a few things I should tell you." She followed him out into the moonlit garden, like beauty following the beast.
When they were seated in the rose garden Hank's fingers went to the little man, his voice suited to the night of the garden. "Logan didn't let you go all the way home, he kept you close to his chest after you'd been checked out by Ororo. She said you were mumbling something and Logan just pulled you closer to him so no one else could hear you. This little man..." Hanks large fingers touched the body of the constructed human, "Is something from another age, do you mind if I ask you what you were mumbling?"
"No Ah don't mind as long as you never tell anyone else..." Hank nodded as he worked out what he was about to hear.
"One of Logan's memories?" Marie nodded and her fingers traced the small figure in her hands, "Would you rather not tell me?"
"NO, Ah mean Ah need to know what it means...there was somethin' he did an it meant so much but Ah don't understand it."
Hank waited for her to start and start she did, describing the scene, the summer at it's height, the heat, the cutters in the field, the way the men moved and worked so hard. Then the last piece in the field, the larger version of the one she held in her hands, and the song, the lilting odd song that filled her heart but also emptied it of all hope and love. When she'd finished Hank put his arm around her shoulder and looked out at the stars that were now bright against the dark void.
"The Tale of John Barleycorn, an old poem, reworked many times but the same thread throughout it. The tale of a man who is killed only to spring back to life again, an allegory for the wheat in the field. To sow the seed, cut it down and yet it lives again, his bones and body put into a scarcrow. To hang there until the next harvest when it'd be restuffed with the fresh bones of the new John. Every worker at one time on the land had to cut the last sheaf, it was a thankless task because you took on the role of John Barleycorn. The one who died and returned again, bit like King for a Day."
It made sense to her now, the pain he'd felt, the weight as he'd gotten up from the sweet dark earth. He *was* John Barleycorn, and whether the men he worked with knew it or not intentionally, they knew it in their blood. He would've moved on after that, she knew he would, his pain and age would've made it impossible for him to stay. Fingering the small man she suddenly had to find him, Hank released her shoulder, his hand resting on her upper arm for a moment. "He's old Rogue, the last time that song was sung here was in the 1880's." Marie looked at the memory in her head, the land wasn't America, neither was it Canada. It was somewhere older, somewhere where the land and people were intertwined.
"Thank's Hank," she left him then, sat in the moonlight the song humming at his lips.
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She found him, he was out in the walled garden, wild wheat had grown here from where Ororo fed the birds. A small patch had been cut and Logan was sat on the earth looking into the rest of the stalks. She came over and silently sat with him, resting her head on his shoulder and feeling the air around him warm.
"It was England wasn't it? Ah mean Ah don't think it could've been anywhere else." Logan nodded in answer to her question, his arm going around her shoulder and pulling her close to him.
"Yeah, 1919, Somerset. A small farming village. I'd served with the boys from the farm, they didn't come home. I did. I promised I'd help their families get the harvest in if I made it out."
A face popped up in her head, a young boy, his face spattered with mud and grime, blue eyes that were filled with fear. A shell explosion then there was nothing there, not even a piece of cloth left.
"Didn't stay long, just as long as the harvest." Marie just sat in silence next to him, the shared memory something they both felt deeply. And running through their heads was the song, sung by men who'd known their sons were laying in cold soil across the water. A song about life after death, that all has it's time to grow and fall. Yet he was still alive, John Barleycorn, he that falls to live again, hope in the darkness, the poppy in the mud of Flanders field.
When the sun rose over the walled garden, the stook that sat where the wheat had been, shaped like a man, resting in the sun to dry. It was enough to remember and next year it'd be there again.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sometimes the truth about someone is more than you see...
//denotes memories//
//denotes memories//