Fox Woman Dreaming

Copyright © 2021 Daniela Joy Voigt

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 9798498254517

Written by Daniela Joy Voigt

Edited by Johnathan Back

Cover art by Mareano Ruíz

Cover design by Albert Strasser

Inquiries can be directed to joyisintheheart@gmail.com

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Table of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter I

º º º

Listen, Sybil. Listen to the sound of my voice. Anchor there. Listen.¨

There is ash on my hands. I can feel the delicate substance dance through my fingers in its unusual weightlessness and almost liquid form. A smell is here of rotting vegetables and a warm hearth. I feel the earthen floor beneath me and am comforted immediately by the feeling of home.

¨Sybil, listen, listen carefully. Describe what you see around you.¨

¨I see wooden walls surrounding me. I am inside a room. There is a gentle breeze flowing through this building. I feel comfortable here. I sense that I have lived and worked here my whole life.¨

¨Very good, Sybil. Well done. Now it’s time for you to play your Bridgepiece for me, honey. Play it now.¨

My eyes have become more accustomed to the dim light now. I can feel the cold, steely, familiar feeling of the Bridgepiece in my warm hands. I hesitate for a moment. Something in me wants to pull away from his voice. Something in me wants to do the opposite of what he is asking me to do. I struggle. Inside me there is a cascade of wriggling confusion.

¨Sybil….Sybil. Stay with me, darling. Listen to my voice, anchor there. All you have to do is play the Bridgepiece for us. You be a Good Girl now and do as I say.¨

Warm again. Good Girl. Yes, that is exactly what I am, a Good Girl. I can do what he asks of me. I would do anything he tells me to do. He loves me. He has my best interest in mind.

I take the metal piece, with its familiar handle and two prongs. I feel its weighty density in my hands and hit it against the wooden table next to me.

¨Well done, darling. Well done. I am so proud of you. You are such a Good Girl.¨

I am filled with a familiar sensation. A resonating vibration fills my body from head to toe and I find myself smiling, for no reason, into space. My mind is blank. I am completely malleable.

¨Darling, concentrate now: tell me your name.¨

The smile vanishes. I am no longer tingling. My mouth is grey. There is a terrible, loud clanging in my ears. I have the sensation of worms crawling on the edges of my teeth. My tongue has become vast and thick, like an obese eel trying to escape the caverns of my mouth. I am dizzy and can just make out his voice. But I know what he is asking me. He has asked me so many times before. I know what he wants to hear, I know what he wants me to say. The eel is making moves, it is trying to highjack my throat, and I have to wrestle it to make it say what I want.

¨My…My…My n…na…name is. My name is Yeh-hsien.¨

¨Yeh-hsien. Good. Very good. OK, dear, it is time to go outside now. Tell me what you see.¨

I gather my skirt around me and make my way to the wooden door. I go over the threshold and am instantly marinated in the golden warmth of the afternoon sun. I have the taste of honey in my mouth and my legs seem to float over the well-beaten earth around me.

I look up and see my father. He is coming toward me, smiling, I believe. When I try to focus on him, his face morphs from shape to shape, one moment having a broad countenance and bushy eyebrows, the next a slim face with a wide grin.

¨Yeh-hsien, that is your father. You know that. Relax your concentration now, do not focus on the face. Remember you are never meant to focus on anything. Just let it be there and move on. Who else is there?¨

Resistance again. I find in me the wish to stare at this man’s face, to lock eyes with him and let his features wash over me in familiarity. But something else in me knows that this is Bad. And I don’t want to be Bad. So I reluctantly look away and find another face.

I gaze past my father and see her. She seems to be surrounded by a sea of steam. I try to find her face. Again, a mutative collage of facial features dances before me, all of them laughing and sneering. I avert my gaze quickly and find myself speaking through muffled lips, ¨Stepmother.¨ Beside her, suffused in the same coiling steam, stands another feminine figure. Stepsister.

¨Okay now, look down at your hands, Yeh-shien, what do you see?¨

¨A golden fish.¨

My hands feel slippery. I look down, a golden goby is swimming between my fingers and I find myself delighting in its graceful movements. Everything around me stops. Fish scales catch the light of the sun and shimmy in a hypnotic dance that leaves me enthralled. The piscine form seems to melt into my own skin and it is hard for me to distinguish where I start and where the goby ends.

¨Very good Yeh-hsien. Tell me, who gave you this golden fish?¨

¨My mother did, before she died.¨

¨Yes, yes she did. And now what is happening?¨

¨Stepmother is coming closer to me. She takes the golden goby from me and hands it to Stepsister who, in an instant, dismembers the fish before my eyes and tosses me the lightweight bones. I am crying.¨

¨And what do you hear now, Yeh-shien? What is that sound you hear?¨

¨I hear a female voice coming from somewhere in the distance. The voice is golden, like the fish. It wraps itself around my body and speaks, ´Take these bones, my child. Take them with you. Whatever you want you will have, you only have to ask.´¨

¨Good Yeh-hsien. Tell me now, whose voice is that? To whom does the golden voice belong?¨

¨My mother.¨

¨Yes, your mother. Like all Good Girls, your mother will always be there to take care of you. Isn’t that right, sweetie?¨

I find myself nodding as if in a trance. Yes, Good Girls are always taken care of. I’m a Good Girl, I will always be taken care of.

¨You are doing very well, darling. Now, look around you Yeh-hsien. Where are you?¨

¨I am back in the earthen room with wooden walls. Time has passed, but it is hard to tell how much. I feel like I have been here forever. My body is hungry and I remember the fish bones. I am on the floor and remember what my mother said. I am asking them for food. When I turn around, I find a small feast under an earthen pot. I am thirsty. I ask, my thirst is quenched. I am cold. I ask, I have a hearth.

¨Outside there is the sound of trumpets and music. I can hear the large bustle of a crowd gathering. The local festival is here. I try to look out the window but Stepmother is standing there.¨

¨What does she say to you, Yeh-hsien? Tell me what she says.¨

¨She tells me that I do not belong at the festival, that I am too awful and ugly to go, that my presence there will dampen the greatness of her beautiful daughter and herself. She gives me a list of tasks to do and expects them all to be done by the time she gets back. She tells me that she will beat me if I do not do as I am told.

¨I watch Stepmother and Stepsister, along with Father, leave, dressed in silks and their finest jewelry. I am left behind, alone.

¨I hear the fish bones rattle in the corner. I take them in my hands and find myself speaking to them.

¨I am standing now, a gust of wind has pulled my dirty dress away. I gaze down and am enrobed in a beautiful gown that sings through its stitches. Every pearl embroidered on the fine silk glistens with ecstatic beauty. The dress knows itself to be exquisite and holds my body in regal charm. I look around me and my chores have all been done. The door has creaked open and I find myself stepping outside.¨

¨Where are you now, Yeh-shien?¨

¨I am at the festival. Beautiful men and women laugh and smile. Everything smells of lavender and hydrangeas. Every texture I behold seems to be made of velvet and ebony. Every object I behold radiates merriment. The very floor beneath me pulsates with pleasure. My body is light and the air wraps me in its enchanting weightlessness, as if inviting me to sway in its embrace. I am, for the first time in a very long time, happy.

¨I see her. Stepsister spies me in the crowd. Her eyes are boiling, her body is spiteful, she is a venomous creature about to pounce on her prey.

¨I turn and flee, running as fast as I can. My body is heavier than it has ever been. I seem to be sinking into the earth beneath me. I can barely breathe and, when I try to turn my head to see the one who chases me, my neck stays locked in place, as if frozen in terror.

¨I lose something. I can sense it, but I do not know what it is.

¨I have run for a long time and am now home. I lock myself in my earthen room and clutch my fish bones close to my heart.¨

¨Good, good Yeh-hsien. What is happening now?¨

¨I hear the distant sound of a clarion. It keeps getting louder. It is coming closer and closer.¨

¨Yes, yes, Yeh-hsien. The clarion, very good. Tell me what it says. What is the message it brings.¨

¨It is the clarion of a great noble man. He has been searching far and wide for someone. He has something that belongs to that someone, he found this object at the festival. He has searched and searched and failed for so long. He is tired but determined. He must meet whoever owns this object that he carries with him.¨

¨Very good, very good. Now tell me, what is the object he has?¨

Again, a glimmer of resistance. My mouth wants to run away. But I am Good. I am Good.

¨He has a shoe. A very small shoe, for a very delicate foot. He says that the woman who has such small feet must be the fairest woman of them all. He says that he is searching for this fair maiden to make her…to make her…¨

A pang, a pang so deep the soles of my feet curdle.

¨What, Yeh-hsien? What does this noble man want?¨ The taste of iron fills my mouth. My fingernails dig into my palms. I feel the tiny pores on the back of my neck bristle like a wild wolf.

I am Good. I am Good.

¨He wants to make the woman with the small, delicate feet… his wife.¨

¨Good girl. Good. Now tell me, Yeh-hsien, tell me what you see when you look down.¨

I don’t want to look. I know what I will find, I know what is there. I knew it from the moment I opened my eyes in this place, the telltale signs that I have been avoiding all along.

¨Yeh-hsien….Tell me now. It’s okay.¨

My eyes are going blank. Breath is becoming agitated.

¨Yeh-hsien, come on now, dear, sweet one. Tell me what you see.¨

There is dirt on my tongue. The wind around me gets cold, the walls seem to coagulate and shrink.

I force my neck to bend and I look. I look at what I already know.

¨I…I…see that my feet….my feet are very delicate and small.¨

¨Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! I am so proud of you! Tell me, darling, what is happening now?¨

¨A crowd has gathered outside Stepmother and Father’s house. I can see the nobleman from where I am standing by my window.

¨Stepdaughter is dancing in delight. She is showing off her delicate feet to Stepmother. She is buoyant and giggling in that strange way of hers.

¨The group of people have gathered closer to the house, they murmur with excitement. The nobleman stands before her and is holding a small shoe. Stepsister sits down and, elegantly, lifts up the hem of her skirt. Her smile is as big as the sky. She is staring at the nobleman with wide eyes and shows him her small foot. He smiles for a moment and then kneels down.

¨She seems to be delirious. Shoe is being slipped on, sliding on, almost fitting but then, the heel refuses to give. Stepsister pushes, budges, makes herself bleed. She muffles a cry, the air around her quivers. The nobleman gets up and walks away without a second glance, he seems to be broken.

¨In his despondency, he is walking straight towards the earthen hut. He is coming towards me. My hair is standing on end. I know what is going to happen.¨

¨Where is he now, Yeh-hsien? Where is the man?¨

¨He is right in front of my door.¨

The air is filled with the smell of chrysanthemums. The floor beneath me feels like a bed of golden fish scales. Something inside me is shimmering. I feel electric, scintillating. My body seems to be gyrating in small elliptical movements and my cheeks are flushed. My palms are hot, my tongue feels alive and hungry. He is at the door. I can feel his hand on the doorknob, the weight of his bones and the texture of his hands almost touching my own skin and bones.

¨Good, Yeh-hsien. Tell me what you see now.¨

¨He is opening the door. I am about to meet him.¨

The door is creaking. A floodgate of light blinds me for a moment but I can see the silhouette clearly: a body cloaked in a large golden robe, as if made of fish scales; the brow is high and noble; the eyes are deep set and oceanic. In a flash I know, this is not the Prince searching for his bride. I look down, trying to make out the rest of the body…and as I gaze down on the chest, I pause for there is a very clear sign of…of breasts.

¨Sybil! Sybil! You devil of a woman. Bad girl, bad. So Bad. You get the hell back here now, you hear me. Play your Bridgepiece right this moment. Wake up! Get back here now!¨

I find my hands moving unconsciously as I play the Bridgepiece. My body’s weight is fading. My eyes are slowly closing. I can feel everything shaking, gyrating in a chaotic dance. The figure is still at the doorstep, grinning, almost foolishly, waving at me as I am slowly ripped away.

¨Open your goddamned eyes! That’s enough of this circus now. I am not going to be degraded by your nonsense anymore! Wake the hell up.

Wilhelm’s hands were wrapped around Sybil’s shoulders and he stood there, violently shaking her and swearing. Beads of sweat were cavorting on his wide forehead, some of them trying to hold on to his moistened skin for dear life and others, the reckless kamikazes of the bunch, were