The Morel Maiden (standard:other, 2617 words)
Author: Alpha43	Added: May 03 2005	Views/Reads: 3439/2183	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A fellow tries deperately to accurately recall the joys of his youth growing up around his grandparents, but fears he must be mistaken because events just can't happen as he recalls them.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

I have ever seen, then and now. Looking back at my shooting skills, I 
never missed any critter that I ever aimed at. Dad was the king of 
fly-tying and he was the best fly fisherman in Kalkaska County, brook 
trout beware! 

My grandparents were prone to slow walks through our property, and Pops
was a whiz at finding beefsteak and stump mushrooms. Grandma would go 
along, never gathering much of a bounty. But later, just before dusk, 
she would slip out alone and always come back with so many morel 
mushrooms; it was all she could carry. She would fill potato sacks and 
onion nets with the delicious fungus, and sometimes she was forced to 
take off her apron, filling it and removing her ruby and brass ladybug 
barrette to pin the bulging apron closed. 

No other family member ever found a morel mushroom on our land. Even mom
would slip off every spring in an attempt to find Grandma’s treasured 
spots. Grandma was the morel master. 

Back to that blurred memory; it was on an April 20th, the birthday of
that infamous monster Hitler, dead then some ten years, that we all sat 
down to venison steaks smothered in a rich black morel gravy. We had 
sautéed black morels, mixed with fiddler fern buds and early spring 
field leeks. To top it all off, we had a small platter of the years 
first white morels, rolled in an egg wash, dipped in cracker crumbs, 
and fried to a perfect golden brown. Life could not get much better, 
thanks to Grandma! 

Grandma had been on the hunt. She was quiet at the supper table, with
everybody praising her skills at chasing the elusive fungi. She was the 
first one up after supper, grabbing all the empty plates, quickly 
carrying them into the kitchen. I carried the dirty glasses into the 
sink, when I noticed Grandma pinning her hair back and changing her 
apron for a bigger one. 

Brother Lynn and I washed the dishes every night, with Grandma usually
cleaning up the stove and counters. It cost me my favorite Case 
jackknife, but I bribed Lynn into doing the dishes alone. I knew 
Grandma was about to head out to one of her secret morel hunting 
grounds, and I wanted to sneak behind her to get in on the bonanza and 
find her secret picking sanctuary. 

There was less than an hour and a half of daylight left so she wasted no
time getting outside. She grabbed a pan full of chicken mash from the 
bag in the back room, pretending she was going to feed the chickens and 
ducks. She headed towards the barn, grabbed some burlap bags, put the 
mash pan on the rain barrel, and briskly headed towards the northeast. 

This was wrong! Our whole northeast section was a mixture of red pine
and white pine; it tapered off to the cranberry bog and the swimming 
hole, blowsand and rocks. Hardly the area to look for morels. She 
stayed off the path, ducking under pine limbs, moving as swiftly and 
quietly as a deer. 

I waited for an eternity before I entered the pines, just catching a
glimpse of her in the ferns as she approached the swimming hole. The 
only rocks of any size on our property were along the south end of the 
pond. Grandma never missed a step as she went down the large boulders 
and out of sight. I had the idea that I could head northeast, going 
around the swimming hole, where I would be in a great position to spot 
her as she headed to her sacred morel sanctuary. 

I crouched down behind some wild lilac bushes and waited. It was just a
matter of minutes before I realized I had made a giant mistake; Grandma 
had not came this way. I decided to head west, either spotting her or 
picking up her fresh trail. As I moved towards the setting sun, I heard 
giggling or singing, or both, and the pleasant sounds seemed to come 
from the pond. 

I slipped from tree to tree. Sure enough the verse and laughter grew
louder as I approached the pool. Our pond held the greenest clear water 
I had ever known, and it was always cold. In August it only gained a 
couple of degrees of warmth compared to late May. This was April and 
the ice had only been off the pond since early March. Surely, no one 
would be in the pond! 

I stood up in the cattails, looking around. I had never found a
toadstool in this area, let alone any morels. Then my heart stood 
still. I spotted a pair of ladies black shoes, and a pile of clothing 
strewn on the rocks. Soon I heard a splash very much like a rainbow 
trout makes when he first feels the barb of a well-set Drake on 2-pound 
test leader. I dropped down, hoping nobody had spotted me. 

Ten different thoughts bombarded my mind at the same instant. Was
someone with Grandma? Was Grandma the one singing and laughing? Was 
Grandma committing suicide? Had she went over the edge? Was she with 
somebody? Was she really naked? Had she...Wait - laughter! I heard 
laughter and the wordless humming of a tune I had heard before. 
Splashing, giggling, humming, more splashing. I began to question my 
own sanity. I had been sure grandma was after mushrooms, so what was 
she doing in our icy pond? But these joyous sounds were coming from 
someone who truly loved this moment. You can not fake the immense joy 
that these sounds expressed. I did not stand up; I slowly crept 
forward, cautiously parting the cattails. 

I will apologize now for the obvious loss of memory from here on, but I
must report to you without any additions or subtractions. It’s 
difficult to speak these words, knowing how unbelievable they must 
seem, but this is what I remember seeing that day. 

I saw a young lady swimming, about nineteen or twenty years old, and she
was beautiful. She had a very healthy looking face and great color in 
her cheeks and lips. Mine would have been blue from the cold. 

Her hair hung straight down into the water, a mix of lighter and darker
blonde strands. Her teeth were pure white as she held a joyful smile; 
rolling, then slipping under, reemerging, always with a beautiful 
smile. 

She swam on her back, she floated, then she would do the breaststroke,
and speaking of breaststroke, well, I’ll get to that in a minute. Slow 
graceful strokes turned pond swimming into an art form. Aquatic 
elegance! 

The water had never been greener, the sky had never been bluer, and I
was staring at this vision in total awe. Body parts emerged from the 
water, depending on which swimming stroke the lady was doing. I as a 
young boy was perfectly aware that you just did not take the liberty to 
observe a naked young lady. I am sure that if just such an occasion 
ever occurred again, I would do the honorable thing, but right then I 
was mesmerized! 

Submerged, she swam with stealth, and even through the quivering wake,
the vision was like an artist’s canvas, something to be admired and 
committed to memory. Swimming away from me, her silhouette was equally 
captivating, with her hair streaming out across her back. Once out of 
the water, humming and scrambling, she walked with her left side in my 
direction and crossed the few feet to the rock ledge, picking up her 
clothes and shoes, entering a tag alder stand. Then she was out of 
view. 

I stayed in the cattails until I was sure the young lady was out of
sight. I picked myself up, knowing better than to brush at the mud on 
my knees and shirt, it was smarter to let it dry. Pretty rational 
thinking for a lad that had witnessed what I had just seen. The most 
startling event in my life, yet I did not dare tell anyone. I knew that 
I should never have watched the young lady in that state of undress. 

The walk back home was a disappointing blur; no morels, no secret
hunting grounds revealed, but I soon became totally alert when I heard 
the praise and excitement as I approached the house. Grandma was in the 
kitchen. The rest of the family were around the sinks or at the 
newspaper covered kitchen table. Dad and Lynn were shaking and trimming 
the bottom stems and Mom and Pops were adding the nearly two bushels of 
white morels to the salty brine water in the sink. Grandma had a 
gleaming smile on her face, lapping up the praise from the family as 
she placed a ribbon in her long silver and off-blond hair, quickly 
turning to give me a quick wink. 

We had a morel festival for a week or so, and we continued to enjoy
morels for a very long time. We dried them and canned them. Mother’s 
gravies, omelets, and stews had a special flavor until well past 
Christmas. Grandma sat silently, while the family continually praised 
her skills every time we dined on her forest floor harvest. 

I thought about the beautiful swimming lady many times after that, the
strands of blond hair on that pearly white skin. I slipped back to the 
swimming hole several times, only to witness a water snake catch a 
frog, then I got eaten alive after the mosquito hatch was on. Once, I 
walked carefully around the rock ledge, checking the new spring velvety 
moss cover to see if any fresh footprints were present, but there were 
none. 

My last trip to the swimming hole, several months after I witnessed the
magical maiden, I did find a metal object in those rocks that I 
pocketed. Later that evening, after supper, I caught Grandma alone, 
cleaning up the kitchen. I said nothing, I stepped up beside her, and 
when she glanced down at me, I just held the found item out in my hand. 


Grandma looked me in the eye, then down at my hand, taking in a quick
breath. She looked back in my eyes with that side-ways grin on her 
face, taking the gift. She walked over to the mirror, undid the ribbon 
in her hair, combed the long silver-blond strands a few times, took a 
handful of her hair forming a twist, and promptly placed the recovered 
brass and ruby ladybug barrette in her hair. 

She stared in the mirror at me, still smiling, turning to admire her
re-styled hair. She had brilliant sparkles in her eyes as she turned 
her head back at me in the mirror, slowly giving me another all-knowing 
side-ways grin. 

My eyes were fixed on the red glass stones in that brass ladybug
barrette, when I had a strong urge to smile back at Grandma. As my eyes 
moved to her refection, just for a couple seconds, I saw a beautiful 
young lady with long blond-streaked hair and the whitest teeth I had 
ever seen. But again, I must apologize for my memory, it has been so 
long, and... 


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