by Lynn Mann
Justin’s presence came crashing into my mind. He quickly grasped what was happening, and to my relief, quietened his presence so as to give me space to think.
I took a deep breath and turned to my friends, all of whom were watching me in consternation. ‘Sorry about that. If you look slightly to your right, you’ll see a horse trying to hide behind those bushes. She’s injured and in terrible pain and I’m trying to get a hold of myself so I can think straight without being distracted by everything I can feel from her.’
‘I see her. Take your time, Am and let us know if we can help,’ said Holly.
I nodded. She’s come as close to us as she dares, but I could do with getting closer to her so I can see the condition of her external injuries. Will it be better if you come with me or if I go alone? I asked Infinity.
She has been drawn to you by the light that you sent to the Kindred youngling. She wants to trust you but your similarity to the Kindred holds her back.
If I go to her alone, walking on two legs will reinforce my similarity to the Kindred. We’ll go together, I decided.
I turned back to my friends. ‘Fin and I are going to try to approach her,’ I told them and then Infinity obliged me by walking forward and gently turning to the right on an arc, so as to approach the mare politely, from the side.
I saw the mare stiffen as she watched us. She’s very brave, I observed. She felt me sending light to Fitt, who is kin to the one who came close to killing her, and yet she’s still dragged herself to find me, wanting to trust that I can help her.
Love trusts love, observed Infinity.
Infinity exuded the assured, ageless love of the horses as she walked slowly towards the mare, who watched our approach with her ears flickering anxiously and her nostrils flaring. Oak, Broad, Nexus, Serene, Verve and Bright added their love to Infinity’s and their gentle energy infused the chestnut mare, slowly and tenderly. I felt her relax a little as she continued to watch Infinity’s and my approach. I felt her relief at the prospect of no longer being alone.
I radiated my own light and sent a very fine flow towards the mare. I was Aware that her desire to trust me and to have my help warred with her instinct to flee a being so like the one who had attacked her. I wasn’t surprised when I felt my light being deflected by the barrier of fear that she held between herself and anything that wasn’t horse. I felt uncertain. I could increase my light flow to full strength and bombard her with it until it penetrated her fear barrier, but she might find my contact overwhelming and try to flee.
If she is to accept your healing then she must first accept your love, Infinity counselled.
I increased my flow of light towards the mare and as she stiffened, I felt the horses begin to gently swirl their energy, moving it in currents as it wove its way into her being. She allowed herself to be lulled by the rhythm of their reassurance and so I increased my light flow even more. I felt her fear barrier begin to waver and immediately she panicked and reinforced it with memories of her ordeal and of the pain she had suffered. As Infinity and I reached the bush behind which she stood, I strengthened my light flow to full strength. It surged at her fear barrier, pushing at it and probing for areas of weakness through which it could reach her. All of a sudden, the barrier gave way. She was held fast by the love and support of Infinity and the other horses as she felt my light infuse her. As her body began to let go of the tension caused by the fear to which it had clung, she looked exhausted and for a moment I feared that she would collapse. I loved her with all of my being. I knew, I absolutely knew, that she would be alright now that she was with Infinity and me. And I felt the tiniest glimmer of hope from her as she allowed herself to begin to believe that that might indeed be the case.
All of a sudden, I recognised the danger. As my light continued to permeate the mare and she gradually allowed herself to relax, everything that had driven her – her fear of being attacked again, her need to find food and water every day as she struggled on in the vain hope of finding her herd, and then her hope of finding me, of getting help once she’d sensed that I was near enough for our paths to converge – was being released and all that was left was a broken, pain-racked body that would soon be too much for her to bear. She needed healing, right now. She began to tremble. Her eyelids began to droop and she lowered her head.
I leapt from Infinity’s back and shouted to my friends, ‘I need your help!’
I rushed around the bush and got my first uninterrupted view of the mare’s body. I had to breathe deeply and focus on maintaining my light flow to her until the shock that wanted to gain prominence in my mind subsided. The mare was desperately thin and her injuries were terrible. She had four inflamed, oozing gashes on each side of her rump where her attacker’s talons had sliced through flesh as he had tried to hold on to her. There were gashes on her right hind where he had grasped it, and the leg was twisted out from her at a sickening angle. Her whole hind end seemed odd in its positioning and as I began to tune into her body, I could feel that her pelvis had been cracked and then parts of it cruelly twisted when her attacker had pulled her leg out and away from her with such force. None of the muscles in her body were healthy, having been strained beyond measure in moving such a heavy, badly-damaged body. Dried blood was matted into her fur along with dirt and pus.
My friends’ horses thundered to a halt nearby and suddenly all of my friends were at my side.
‘Oh no,’ breathed Holly, as she took in the sight of the mare.
‘Flaming lanterns, how is she even alive,’ said Vickery.
‘The poor, poor love,’ said Sonja.
‘Her legs are trembling and if they give way, she’ll hurt herself even more,’ said Marvel. ‘We need to support her while we heal her enough for her to lay down safely. Aleks and Sonja, come and lean against her left side with me, the rest of you lean against her other side.’
We all moved quickly to obey Marvel’s instructions and as Rowena took up her place leaning against the mare’s right side behind me, I was Aware of her remembering how we had supported Infinity in the same way. ‘Just like old times,’ she muttered.
Marvel said, ‘okay, all of us except Aleks can multiskill, so Aleks, can you watch her closely and let us know if you see anything that worries you, while we focus on the healing? Good man. Am, I think the mare will probably be most comfortable if you lead the healing, while the rest of us lend you our strength.’
I nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll start with her pelvis, are you all ready?’
Everyone murmured their assent, so I plunged in. I soon found the guttural, unpleasant tone that resonated with the discord of the broken pelvis and my friends quickly joined their voices with mine. I sent my intention along the pathway created by our voices to the fragments of bone, willing them to free themselves from the flesh in which they were embedded and reattach themselves to one another. I was glad of the strength of intention that my friends added to my own, since the shards of bone had been out of place for long enough that tissue had tried to heal over many of them, encasing them in place and they weren’t easily freed. I tried not to wince as one by one, the broken fragments burst free from the tissue in which they were implanted, and came together in their proper places.
Gradually, we changed our singing to a smoother, lighter tone in order to continue resonating with the pelvis as it healed and as soon as it was whole, I swapped from bone-singing to tissue-singing. My friends were only a split second behind me and soon our voices had paved the way for our healing intentions to reach the surrounding tissue and encourage it back to health. I noted briefly that the mare’s pain had lessened a fraction, before I tuned in to the wounds on her rump. They were badly infected and would need poulticing, but I could feel healthy tissue deep down that we could encourage to knit together, to prevent the infection from spreading. When that was dealt with, I moved my attention to the flesh wounds on her leg, which were dealt with in the same manner as those on her rump. I made a note in my mind of the herbs I would need both to poultice all
of her flesh wounds and to encourage their healing once they were clean.
I tuned into the internal mechanisms of her right hind leg next, and leaned into her further to steady myself from the shock. I heard someone vomiting behind me and felt the horses include us in the supportive energy that they were still giving to the mare.
‘Sorry about that,’ whispered Holly, spitting to clear her mouth. ‘It’s almost too much to bear.’
Vickery whistled between her teeth. ‘How, by the wind of autumn, has she borne it for so long?’
‘What is it?’ asked Aleks.
‘No time, we’ll explain later,’ Sonja told him.
‘Is everyone alright, or do you need more time to steady yourselves?’ I asked.
Everyone assured me that they were okay, so I turned my attention back to the hind leg. When the Kindred had grabbed hold of it and hung on with all of his might, he had wrenched a limb with limited lateral movement out to the side, with considerable force. Somehow, the hip was still in its socket but from there down to the cannon bone, the leg was a mess. There were few bones that weren’t fractured or broken completely, many of which had begun to heal badly. The damage to the muscles, tendons and ligaments was too extensive to list. But it wasn’t the extent of the damage that had unhinged us all – it was the pain that the mare was suffering as a result. I knew I wasn’t the only one wondering at her strength and courage in bearing it for so long. I worried that she wouldn’t be strong enough to cope with all of the healing that her body required.
Marvel and Holly were far more experienced Bone-Singers than I was. ‘How much do you think we should do?’ I asked them. ‘She’s so weak already, we could leave her without any strength to live if we try to heal all of it now.’
‘I would heal all of the bones for now, and leave the muscles, ligaments and tendons. At least then we can help her to lie down without the bones splintering further, and once she’s down and has rested, we can go to work on the tissues,’ said Holly.
‘I agree,’ said Marvel. ‘We have enough painkillers with us to help relieve her discomfort for a day or so and with your and Vic’s herbal knowledge, Am, you can both make more and teach the rest of us how in the process. Then, when she’s had a break from all of the pain, we can work on the tissues, including those in the rest of her body. Her back muscles are strained, torn in places, and her pelvis won’t be straight until we can encourage the tissues attached to it to pull it back into its proper alignment...’
Aleks whistled. ‘How has she survived? How has she dragged herself around on three legs for weeks on end? And how, by the wind of autumn, has she endured the pain?’
As his questions settled in my mind, I knew their answers. ‘She has something that she needs to do. She’s fought to stay alive because there’s something that’s important enough to her to do, that dying without doing it would be worse to her than enduring all that she has.’
‘Then we need to do everything we can to make sure she gets to do whatever it is,’ said Rowena, fiercely.
‘We do. We’ll start at the top of the leg and work down, shall we? We’re going to have to re-break the bones that have begun to heal – I hope she’s strong enough. Aleks, please keep a close eye on her,’ I said.
‘Will do. At the moment, she looks as if she’s unaware that any of us are even here, let alone what you’re all doing to her.’
‘That’s what worries me, but we have no choice, we have to do this now,’ I replied.
By the time we’d healed all of the mare’s bones to our satisfaction, it was hard to say who was more exhausted. As time had gone on, the mare’s trembling had increased, punctuated only by sharp jerks every time we managed to re-break the bones that had been healing wrongly. It was a strange thing for us, as Healers, to do – to use our voices to create a sound that resonated with bones that were healing, and then use the pathway created by the sound to send our intention to them to fracture, gradually adjusting our voices to sing in tones that were less pleasant in order to resonate with bones that were now broken. It was all back to front. It was necessary, though, and the discomfort we all felt at having to do it was quickly replaced with relief as we then sang the broken pieces of bone back to solid, healthy ones. At one point, Aleks had requested that we all lean in to the mare’s trembling body with more force in order to keep her upright, and by the time we had finished bone-singing, all of our legs trembled as much as hers.
‘Right, we’re going to need to lower her to the ground on her left side,’ said Marvel. ‘That means that Aleks, Sonja and I will push less against her for a few seconds and you guys over the other side need to push a little more, so she begins to topple our way. When she does, you guys get round this side as fast as you can and help us take her weight, and we’ll try to lower her to the ground with as little impact as possible. I know we’re all exhausted, but she’s managed to endure all that she has until she found us, so I think we can manage to follow her example and dig a bit deeper too, any questions?’
‘Yes,’ panted Rowena. ‘Can you do all the motivational speeches from now on?’
We all managed a breathless chuckle and then Marvel said, ‘now!’
Rowena, Holly, Vickery and I all pushed harder into the mare’s side. My tired leg and back muscles screamed with the effort. As soon as we felt her begin to fall away from us, we rushed around to her left side, filling in the gaps between our friends who were straining against her, trying to brace her collapse. I found myself by her head, just as her brown eyes snapped open with shock. I took her head in my arms and her right eye locked onto mine, desperately.
I flooded her with light. We’ve got you, you don’t need to struggle alone anymore, I told her. Some of the terror disappeared from her eye, but as we lowered her to the ground, she held my gaze, searchingly. You’re safe, we’ll look after you. Sleep now, I told her.
Once her head rested on the ground, I knelt down by her chin and stroked the side of her face, gently. There was movement behind me and Infinity’s white legs appeared by my side. Oak, Broad and Verve moved to the mare’s other side and all four horses lowered their heads as if to sleep. I felt their loving energy wend its way around and through the chestnut mare and knew that they would support her body as it healed. The mare slowly closed her eyes.
Eight
Flame
Vickery and Aleks went on to Jonustown to see Vickery’s relatives and to gather supplies. We estimated that we would need to camp where we were for at least a few weeks, so we would need more food for us, hay to supplement the horses’ grazing, more blankets to replace those with which we had covered the injured mare, and herbal supplies; I’d used all of the poultice I had with me on the mare’s wounds, and most of the painkillers, and although I could find many of the herbs I needed to make more, some of them could only be found in habitats other than the bushy scrub in which we found ourselves camping. At least there was a stream nearby, so clean water was plentiful.
The rest of us busied ourselves making a semi-permanent campsite near to where the chestnut mare slept. Sonja, Holly and I cleared the scrub from a large circle around our campfire and then we strung waterproof sheets up between bushes, under which we could store our gear and sleep. Marvel and Rowena gathered firewood from woodland a mile or so away, and Broad and Oak dragged it back to camp in bundles. They returned from one such foray dragging logs instead of firewood, which we arranged around the fire to sit upon.
Aleks and Nexus returned later that day, each dragging a litter loaded with supplies. They had left Vickery and Verve behind so that Vickery could help anyone wanting to multiskill. Aleks moaned that he’d thought he might get at least one night in a bed, but apparently Vickery had made him return to us immediately with the supplies. I had a feeling that it wasn’t solely because she thought we had urgent need of them.
Our horses took turns supporting the injured mare and we took turns sitting with her. She stirred at times and rose up onto her elbows to drink small amounts of
painkiller-laced water that we offered her from a bucket that Aleks had brought. Apart from that, she slept. I remembered that Infinity had been the same after she had been injured and then undergone a similar amount of healing. She had been healthy to begin with though, and this mare had been weak, thin and exhausted. Whenever I found myself worrying that the mare wouldn’t be strong enough to survive, I focused on being Aware of her and feeling her strength of will, her resolution to do what she had chosen to do and I remembered the counsel that Infinity had given me so often – everything happens as it should. And I knew, again, that she was right.
On the fourth day after her healing, the mare woke, drank water when I offered it to her and then let me know of her hunger. Immediately, I grabbed some hay from a pile nearby and put it on the ground by her front legs. She began to eat, a few wisps of hay at a time. Her eyes were dull, as was her coat and her ribs protruded even more markedly than before. She was so tired of being afraid and in pain. I bathed her in light and felt her warm to me a little.
As soon as you’re a bit stronger, we’ll finish healing you and then you won’t be in pain anymore. You’ll feel a whole lot better, I told her but she made no attempt to reply to me.
She has no need, Infinity told me.
Immediately, I realised what she meant. She knows that I’m Aware. She let me know she was hungry by... how had she done it? I wondered, suddenly. She hadn’t placed thoughts in my mind, yet I had suddenly known what she wanted me to know.
Enough humanity remains in you that you yet believe that everything that occurs is for your benefit, I was informed by Infinity.
So, she wasn’t letting me know? She was letting all of us know? Me, you, the other horses, all of us who are Aware?
There is no all of us.
No, there’s only one of us. We’re all one. My mind was spinning as it hadn’t for a while. I sighed. Just when I was beginning to believe that I was getting closer to understanding everything of which I was Aware, I was floundering.