The four sisters

I tuck you carefully in and kiss your forehead. Stop squirming little one and I shall tell you a bedtime story.

Once upon a time there was a group of four sisters.

Oh they were the wildest girls you ever saw. Like a herd of delicate Arabian mares.

Everything about them was musical and magical.

Their laughter was like the sound of falling snow, light delicate and hushed.

 Life flowed from there hands as they linked arms and spun in circles. You could see the joy radiating from there eyes.

No one knew there names, or ever called them...

Everyone liked to watch them. Young girls wanted to be like them. To taste their freedom.

The sisters would ride there horses at a full gallop down the crooked path to the ocean.

There they would write messages in the sand and wait for the ocean to wash them away. Occasionally they would have to start over as one of the horses would prance over there messages.

No one knew there names, or ever called them...

Their days were care free and unblemished. They never new pain or hurt.

One night, when the stars were late to rise, the girls woke and rode bareback down the crooked path, the horses dancing in the distilled moonlight.

There on the beach was a girl with long dark hair. Around her bare feet were angry words scratched deep into the sand. The ocean tried but could not wash them away. The cool dark water filled the holes, but could not stay and ran out in dark trickles.

The sisters shivered and reined the horses around. Wanting to flee the beach. They had their happiness and their peace. There was no room in their hearts for this darkness.

"Joy, Hope, Trust, Love!!" The girl with windswept hair called.

The sisters twisted on there horses and their mouths opened in surprise for no one knew there names, or ever called them...

"I don't know you." said one of the sisters

"But I know you" said the girl as the wine dark sea swirled around her ankles. "you haunt me in my dreams, and I call for you and you never come." Her face reddens with anger " WHY DO YOU VISIT OTHERS AND SPEND TIME WITH THEM AND NEVER ME?"

The sisters dismount and walk through the cool sand. "well" said Trust, "I'm not with you...for someone has taken me from you. That man with the flesh knife. Someone else must give me back to you."

"NEVER" snorts the Girl drawing up a wall of sand. " to protect myself I will not allow people to get close to me."

With a voice so soft it sounded like the sound of butterfly wings, Joy spoke. "I cannot be held."

The dark haired girl roared, "but I must have you! I want to know what it feels like to have
joy."

"Do you even know what joy feels like?" she whispered.

Darkness clouds the girls eyes, and her legs give way and bring her to the sand. Her shoulders slump and draw her closer to the earth. "No, but I just know if I had Joy I could put her in my heart and ease the ache that is there."

"That is where my sister belongs." Joy responds, pointing to Love.

The girl erupts from the sand. "NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME! TO BE LOVED IS TO RISK BEING HURT! I HAVE BEEN HURT ENOUGH. NO ONE WILL LOVE ME!"

The sisters wait.

The realization is slow and painful, like a process of disarming a bomb. One of the heavy chains of the darkness drops off...slowly it dawns on the dark haired girl.

"No one will love me...I don't even allow myself to love me." She wails painfully into the night.

Love and Joy and Trust speak as one. "start your journey there my friend." They remount there horses.

"WAIT!!" called the girl, "I am stuck."

"Then stop hiding and come after us" they said reining their mounts around and starting back up the crooked path.

"WAIT!!" called the girl, "I am alone."

"No you are not." They responded pointing to the riderless horse next to them. "Hope will stay with you."

"She is always with you." Said Love. ""Always."


Dissipating like fog the sisters dematerialized into the night.


"How will I find you again?" She said quietly.


"It is easy..." said Hope in her singsong voice, "you follow the beats of your heart."


The girl smiled and her heart sang.


Carefully I close the book and for a moment watch you sleep. One last kiss to your forehead and then I slip out into the night to ride with the sisters.

(C) Jan 12, 2005 P R