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Wait for me… I’m coming
Wait
I’m coming with you
~
Imogen is six feet under the ground.
For years she’s been plagued by a fear of heights. When she’d ride the city gondolas her imagination would terrify her with visions of the tether holding her aloft snapping. She’d see herself falling down, down below.
And now here she is, walking a winding path ever deeper into the darkest parts of the earth. She could easily tumble over the side, into the abyss, and the thought still fills her with terror.
But it doesn’t matter because Laudna is there. Down below, in Hadestown.
So she has to go.
~
Times have been hard in the world of men. It’s either blazing hot or freezing cold. There isn’t enough food to go around. There is hardly any spring or fall at all anymore. But times have been hard for Imogen for a long time. People give Imogen strange looks and a wide berth.
“She’s daughter of a Muse,” they say. “Touched by the Gods themselves.”
“Oh she’s touched alright.”
“You know how those Muses are”
“Sometimes they abandon you.”
Imogen had never known her mother. And these past few years she’d never known a moment of peace either. They said Muses were supposed to make music but instead it was the Fates who were always singing in the back of Imogen’s mind, sending her thoughts from the minds of others, and echoing her fears and doubts. Imogen lived in a storm of sound, an ever-present cacophony.
Until the day she met Laudna. From the minute she’d encountered her she knew she was different. Laudna’s thoughts were music. Even her name was like a melody. Imogen knew she would follow Laudna anywhere, that wherever Laudna was would be her home.
And then Hades had taken her home away from her.
Little songbird he’d called her, and he’d stolen Laudna’s music for himself.
~
“She called your name before she went, but I guess you weren’t listening.”
Imogen tries to shake the memory from her mind, the moment she’d come back, finally feeling like she understood the power that she held inside her. Running to find Laudna, to tell her what she knew.
“Laudna!” she’d called her name.
She was met with silence.
“Laudna?”
Laudna was gone. All that remained was a many-petaled crimson-red flower lying on the ground. Imogen had given Laudna that flower and she kept it with her always. “This way, it’s like wherever I go, I’m holding you with me,” she had said.
But the flower is here and Laudna is not.
Laudna is alone. And Imogen is, too.
~
As Imogen descends, she grips the red flower in her hand, holding it out in front of her as if it will show her the way to Laudna. As if it will save her.
Imogen’s boot scrapes against the edge of the narrowing path. Suddenly, chunks of the ground fall away beneath her. Imogen loses her balance with the certainty that she is about to plummet into the depths below. Her arms flail out, desperately reaching for something to hold onto. Her hand finds a dried out root and she grasps for it. Miraculously, it holds her weight long enough for her to regain her footing.
Imogen is trembling and she sinks down to her knees. The flower is somehow still in her hand. She could have so easily dropped or crushed it.
“Who are you?” The Fates taunt in her head.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Their voices are a dissonant refrain that echoes again and again. Imogen covers her ears in a futile attempt to block them out but it’s no use, the words come from inside her mind.
“Why are you all alone?” They hiss. Imogen’s breathing grows shaky. She tries very hard not to cry.
“Who do you think you are?”
“Who are you to think that you can walk a road that no one ever walked before?”
Imogen tries to remember another voice. Laudna’s.
“You’ve got this. You’re very capable.” she’d always say.
Imogen thinks of Laudna’s smile, her laugh, her belief in Imogen.
“You have a gift to give.”
Imogen closes her eyes and thinks of Laudna’s song, the one she had taught Imogen.
~
“I kind of forgot who I was, being alone for so long,” Laudna had told her one night when Imogen had asked her about the story of her name. They were cuddled together beneath a campfire, the night was clear and the sky was full of stars. Laudna looked up at the constellations as she spoke.“I used to sing to myself, and I think all the ‘la la la la la la las’ that I used to do alone just slowly turned into… Laudna.”
She’d demonstrated by singing a melody, “Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.”
~
Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.
Imogen begins to sing Laudna’s song, here, on the road to hell.
Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.
A song to fix what’s wrong. Imogen prays.
A song to sing us home again.
Suddenly, the crimson flower in Imogen’s hand begins to glow. A beam of red light emanates from the flower’s center, its light extending down the stem, and then continuing beyond the flower, unraveling down the road like a line of red light, a glowing red string.
Laudna’s red string, illuminating the path.
“So, just how far would you go for her?”
“To the end of time,” Imogen says, to no one but herself. “To the end of the earth.” And she stands and takes another step forward.
~
The first time Imogen had sung Laudna’s song it had been a revelation. They’d been taking shelter from the storm in an abandoned hut that barely kept out the cold. Imogen was searching for something, anything to distract her from the torrent outside as well as the one raging inside her. With trepidation she had begun to try to sing.
Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.
The music emanating from Imogen’s voice was strong. It overwhelmed her, but not in a bad way, in a way that made her want to surround herself so fully in it that she’d closed her eyes and let the melody fill her mind and her senses.
Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.
She could feel the song combating the raging storm inside, channeling it into power, into possibility.
Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.
“Imogen!” Laudna had called out. “Look!”
When Imogen opened her eyes she held a single red flower, blooming in her hand.
“How'd you do that?” Laudna had asked, eyes wide.
“I don't know,” Imogen had stammered, as she offered the flower to Laudna, who’d leaned in close to examine its many red petals with a focused fascination. When Laudna had finally looked back up at her it was with a certainty Imogen had never seen before.
“Imogen, if you can do this… you’re the one who can fix what’s wrong! Take what’s broken, make it whole.” Laudna had kneeled in front of her, her eyes filled with earnest hope. “You can make spring come again!”
“How?” Imogen asked.
“With this,” Laudna took Imogen’s hand and guided it to her voice, “A song so beautiful, it brings the world back into tune, back into time, and all the flowers will bloom.”
Imogen stared at her dumbfounded for a moment, and then she laughed, as if she was trying to shrug off the weight of Laudna’s words. “You really think so?” she’d teased.
“I do,” Laudna said, and Imogen saw she was completely serious.
Imogen grew nervous. She shook her head. “I’m just a poor girl.” She said.
“No, you’re not.” Laudna said, still holding Imogen’s hand. She squeezed it tight. “You’re very capable. And you have a gift to give.”
~
Under cover of night Imogen follows the red thread to Hadestown’s outer wall of barbed wire and concrete.
“That town will try to suck you dry,” they said, “They’ll pluck the heart right out your chest.”
They had already torn her heart from her when they’d taken Laudna away.
Hades had tried to make her think that she’d be better off with them.
“Hey, little songbird”
“look all around you”
“See how the vipers and vultures surround you”
“And they'll take you down, they'll pick you clean”
“If you stick around such a desperate scene”
His whispers had haunted Laudna for years as the world above had grown harsher and colder.
And in the end, Imogen hadn’t been enough to save her from them.
“Who are you?” The Fates taunting once again grows loud in Imogen’s mind.The shadows crawl on the walls around the cinder bricks and razor wire, the sound of hound dogs howling echo.
“Who do you think you are?” They whisper. Imogen can feel the darkness closing in. It fills her with dread, makes her want to turn and run.
Imogen grips the red string tight and the red flower tighter.
“You have a gift to give.” Laudna had said.
“A song so beautiful, it brings the world back into tune, back into time, and all the flowers will bloom.”
Imogen looks down at the red flower. She holds it out in front of her and sings to the gates before her.
Laaa, la-la laa-laa Laudna.
When she finishes there’s a crack in the wall that wasn’t there before. Big enough for her to slip through. She crosses the border and is immediately blinded by the bright neon lights of the city. The smell of smoke and heated metal nearly overwhelms her. She can hear the chant of workers nearby. The red thread is still in her hand, its ever-present red glow leading her towards the center of the city. She takes a steadying breath and stealths deeper into the neon necropolis.
~
I’m coming wait for me
I hear the walls repeating
The falling of my feet and
It sounds like drumming
And I am not alone
I hear the rocks and stones
Echoing my song
I’m coming
~
The thread leads Imogen to the very heart of the city where a giant tree towers over the power lines and factory walls. Its dead branches loom over her in a tangle that almost forms a cage. The string leads up the trunk disappearing into its boughs.
Imogen begins to climb the twisted branches of the tree. Soon she can no longer see the ground, and the fear of falling begins to grip her once again.
“You’re my tether, Laudna,” Imogen had told Laudna one night, “Sometimes I feel like I’m about to float away, but, as long as you’re there...”
Imogen grips the red thread tighter and keeps climbing. She ascends ever higher, until she begins to hear a familiar voice.
“Flowers” it sings mournfully, “I remember fields of flowers. Walking in the sun. I remember someone. Someone by my side…”
Imogen hurries her pace. She crests a bough of the tree and finds herself in a tangle of branches that make a landing amidst the height of the tree, almost like a nest, but the twigs arch up to form a cage-like shape. In the middle sits a woman with long dark hair with a shock of white. She looks lost. She’s wrapped her arms around her knees, and is staring at the bracelet of red string that is tied to her wrist. Her sad eyes stare at it intently as if she knows it is important but can’t remember why.
“Laudna?” Imogen calls out.
Laudna looks up in confusion, and for a moment Imogen’s heart stops. Laudna looks back at her red bracelet. There’s a loose end to the bracelet that dangles from her arm, along the branch of the tree. Her eyes follow the long red tail until it is the red string Imogen holds in her hand.
Her tether.
“Imogen?” Laudna whispers, her voice breaking.
Imogen nods, and crying, runs into her arms. Suddenly there is sunlight all around. Everything is bright and warm, as if Imogen is holding the world in her arms. And for a moment she forgets about Hadestown, about the dark and the cold.
“It's you.” Laudna breathes, relaxing into her embrace.
“It's me!” Imogen says, laughing from relief through her tears. They pull out of the embrace and gaze at each other.
“Imogen,” Laudna says her name so gently, like a sacred word. “I called your name before-”
“I know.” Imogen cuts her off, “Whatever happened, I'm to blame.”
“No.” Laudna shakes her head fervently and grabs Imogen’s arms, “You came.” Laudna stares intently into her eyes, taking her in. “How'd you get here?”
Imogen shows Laudna the red thread in her hand, the one that leads to the red string bracelet wrapped around Laudna’s wrist. “I walked.” She says. “A long way.”
“How'd you get beyond the wall?” Laudna asks, wide-eyed.
Imogen smiles and says, “I sang a song so beautiful the stones wept and they let me in. And,” she says, gripping Laudna’s hand, looking at her with certainty. “I can sing us home again.”
Because, finally, Imogen understands.
“You have a gift to give.” Laudna had told her. But that was only half the truth. Laudna had a gift to give, too. Laudna had taught Imogen to see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is.
A song so beautiful, it brings the world back into tune, back into time, and all the flowers will bloom.