It was mid-September and the air was dusty. The long summer of the island left the people with sticky, cracked lips, their eyelids falling heavy at the end of each day and their skins were red and dehydrated from the long hours spent in company of the burning sun. Annou was walking uphill towards the small, low roofed house of the witch. The gathering clouds let a heavy rain fall before she could reach the house. It was one of those hot storms, her clothes felt clammy on her body and the muddy soil made it hard to move. She knocked at the door and the witch let her in.
The witch was a hundred and one years old, her frame was skinny and her black dress made her look like a shadow in the low lighting of her house. Annou sat on a wooden chair and removed her head scarf. ‘Yiayia’ she said ‘it is raining; maybe we should wait until tomorrow.’
‘No, no child’ the witch said and she took two cups and filled them with rose water and milk and handed one to Annou. ‘It has to be done tonight for the boy will be forever dead tomorrow. We will wait until night comes and then we can bring him here; wash him and wake him up.’
Annou remained silent for a while. Outside the storm was calming down. The witch had been at the service of the palace for years, she took care of young Annou and at nights she used to tell her stories about dragons and princesses that lived on top of Mount Troodos. She used to braid the girl’s long black hair with her thin fingers and the girl would ask the same question every night. ‘Is this true Yiayia?’ And the witch would answer ‘I have been alive for a century my daughter and I have seen a lot and I have been told from the dreams of saints and spirits that a young boy will soon come and he will marry and you will rule Pafos together.’ And with this hope the girl would sleep.
But the only man ever to appear in her fathers’ kingdom was a hairless man. He came one day in the company of a young boy, tall and strong who had the face of an angel. The hairless man said he was the king’s godson, the one he had baptized years before during one of his travels and he had a letter and a wedding ring given from the king to him as a proof. When he first appeared in front of the king his emaciated body was wrapped in rags that barely covered his torso, his hairless skull was burned form the sun and the skin was peeling off. With his black, cracked nails he kept scratching his arms and legs which were covered in lice. The hairless man was taken into the palace and the king had decided to marry him to his daughter and the young boy was sent to work at the stables.
‘Why Yiayia,’ Annou asked ‘do we have to save a stable boy? My father had him killed for he laughed at my future husband. I know he is ugly, hairless and disgusting but I have to obey my father’s wish and you have taught me that I should never judge a man based on his looks.’
‘Oh my child but the hairless man is not only ugly but evil as well. Sit, sit my daughter and I will tell you the truth. You see the young boy has a kind heart and the hairless man tricked him. It is the young boy that your father baptized years before and he gave him the name Manolis and he is your true husband. But on his way to the palace he met the hairless man. He asked Manolis to take him along so that the king would take pity on him and take him out of his misery. They soon felt thirsty and the boy found a water hole. He asked the hairless man to help him down so that he could fill his flask but when he had the water the hairless man refused to pull him out and made him switch places. And Manolis made a promise that only if he died and rose again he would reveal the truth. You see, my daughter, we have to save the boy.’
Silent then, they waited for the night to fall. When it was dark enough they went out and made their way to the cemetery. It was still raining softly but the light raindrops gave them comfort and made the night feel less hot. When they reached the boy’s grave the witch began digging. The witch’s black dress was stained with soil as she was dug deeper and deeper. The sudden smell of his flesh made them both dizzy when the witch’s hands finally reached the boy. Her white hair was sticking on her wrinkled face. When she had collected all the parts of Manolis’ body she asked Annou to give her the head scarf she was wearing and in there she wrapped Manolis in it and they carried him back to the house. There they lay his body on the floor and prepared warm water and scented oils.
‘Here my daughter, said the old witch, ‘take this cloth and carefully wash the body and I will prepare the needles and the thread’.
‘Yiayia’, said the girl, who was not at all disgusted or afraid of the dead body ‘how did the boy die?’
The witch looked at the girl and smiled. She took out of a basket the red thread and then said:
‘Red thread tied on the reed
Red thread on the spinning wheel
I will turn it with speed
For the story to begin’
And the red thread passed through the needle and the needle danced around the room and then it moved on top of Manolis and as Annou walked away from him the needle begun sewing through the muscles and the flesh. And the witch began her story. ‘You see Annou, the hairless man was much afraid of the young boy. So one day the boy was observing the nest of two swallows.’ And at that moment the witch’s voice turned into the two swallows and both flew over Annou’s head. A tree rose from the floor and Annou looked with awe at the shadowy figures of her father, Manolis and the hairless man that were walking and talking as if they were real. Annou was standing in the middle of the story as it revealed itself through the characters the witch brought to life.
The female swallow was scolding the male because he was late with the food and their babies were hungry. Manolis, who was standing next to Annou, laughed at the birds fighting but the hairless man told the king that the boy was laughing at his baldness. Manolis kneeled in front of the king and tried to explain but none would believe that he could understand the language of birds. To prove his ability they sent him to bring the bird of Pippiri which is guarded by fire and no man has ever seen. Seeing this Annou was shocked for she knew it was impossible to capture the bird.
But the boy was smart. The scenery changed and Annou saw the stables rising around her. Manolis came in from the door, his strong frame barely fitting in and he took the flying horse that the king kept there, he rode it, and rushed right through Annou. Fire came out from the fireplace and circled the room. ‘Three days he waited next to the burning fire and on the dawn of the fourth the fire went out and a golden olive tree appeared and all the colours of the Iris were reflected on its leaves,’ said the witch in a low voice and with her scrawny finger pointed to the tree. The bird of Pippiri was sitting on a thick branch. It was a disgusting creature, its long neck hairless and pink, its wings wide open emitted the smell of death for it fed on the flesh of the men who had tried to climb the tree and steal it. Manolis flew and gripped the bird.
Back at the palace the hairless man was not satisfied. He wanted the boy dead. Annou heard him telling the king to send the boy to bring water from the immortal spring. The king agreed and said that if the boy did not succeed he would take his head. ‘The boy knowing that the only creature that could take water from the immortal spring was the bald eagle, slaughtered a lamb and took it to the eagle’s nest,’ said the witch, ‘and look, look Annou, what Manolis did.’
Around them a mountain appeared and a bald eagle was eating the lamb and as the eagle was eating Manolis kept saying: ‘Eat, eat and if you want more I will bring you more’. And the eagle said: ‘Many people come to my nest but no one was as kind as you. Ask me anything and I shall do it for you.’ So the Manolis asked for the water and the eagle took the boys’ flask and flew and disappeared from the ceiling and then came back from the floor and brought the flask back full.
Manolis took the flask and walked towards the chair where the witch was sitting. ‘When I saw the boy arriving I asked him to fill a small bottle with immortal water for me because you see my child I need the water, I am old and it will keep me alive for longer,’ said the witch and holding the small bottle in her hands she waited for Manolis to fill it.
‘But the hairless man had a new plan. He went to the king and told him that the young boy had cursed him and that he had to kill him,’ continued the witch. ‘The king could not accept that a stable boy was cursing his godson and the future husband of his daughter so he gave permission to the hairless man to kill the boy,’ she said. The room turned even darker than it was, the fire and the candles went out. Annou saw the servants’ room forming around her. Manolis’ body was now on a bed and not on the floor. The hairless man came in the room and attacked the boy. With his sword he stabbed Manolis and he then began pulling the boys’ flesh off with his crooked fingers and black nails and he cut off Manolis’ head which rolled on the floor and stopped in front of Annous’ feet.
The witch blew with her wrinkled lips and the shadows disappeared. The room looked the same as before and the thread had finished and it returned to the hands of the witch who placed it back in her basket. She then went to the boy and massaged his body with the scented oils and combed his golden hair. She gave the bottle of immortal water to Annou and she placed it to Manolis’ lips. The white flesh began regaining its colour. The cheeks turned red once more and the purple cold lips moved. Manolis cracked his fingers and opened his eyes. ‘Oh what a sweet sleep I had,’ he said.
‘Sweet sleep, sweet sleep my boy,’ said the old witch but the boy couldn’t see her anywhere. His eyes were now used to the darkness of the room and he realised he was still in his father’s house. He got up and lit the lamp. He picked up the letter his godfather, the king of Paphos, had left for him when he baptized him sixteen years back and in which he was warning him not to bring a lame, blind or hairless man because they were marked by God and they bring bad luck. He got up and dressed to set out for his journey to find his godfather knowing that in a hundred and one days he would have captured the bird of Pippiri, he would have collected water from the immortal spring and he would command for a hairless man to be tied to the back of a wild horse and be dragged around the rocky land of Cyprus as a punishment for the misfortune he will bring to him.
