‘They’d like to move her, Jaq, but didn’t want to interrupt until you’d finished your research.’
‘Why? Where?’ I suddenly feel like I’m turning into Alexa with so many questions flooding my brain.
‘They want her to be closer to the lupuna tree that is protecting her. The closer her body is to her protector, the safer she’ll be, just like people are when they embark on soul flight with the shaman.’
Who am I to argue? It still sounds like madness to me, but if they believe she will be safer, I won’t be disagreeing.
‘That’s fine, Leo.’ I try to temper my tone, as I’m a bit embarrassed about my previous outburst.
He nods to the elders.
We carefully pick her up and carry her light frame on a stretcher to the lupuna tree. It’s dark now and we will take turns keeping vigil around her apparently soulless body. I reluctantly leave her to have something to eat and, if I can, to catch a few hours sleep. The noises of the jungle initially keep me wired until I am lulled into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Alexa
It is like nothing I have ever experienced before. A different time, a different place and it can only be described as simultaneously ethereal and visceral. I am everywhere but I’m nowhere — the sensation all too unreal. It’s as if I am watching a movie but from the perspective of being both the director and the actors and even part of the set itself. I can see them and hear them, even understand them, but they cannot do the same. They are playing their roles and I’m floating about the scene, within it, yet invisible, untouchable.
My senses are on high alert, absorbing the feelings of those within each scene, but maintaining my own self. It is the strangest form of unreality imaginable and I can only surmise this must be my version of Leo’s soul flight. I immerse myself in both the process and possibilities.
My vision shifts and I can suddenly focus. I see a mother putting a young girl to sleep; she looks to be about five years old. The mother is lovingly stroking her forehead, gently caressing the strands of her long dark hair away from her face. She gently kisses her cheek goodnight and the girl’s smile speaks volumes of the love she has for this woman. I can feel the emotions from each of them in my heart, as though I’m invisibly connected to their deepest thoughts. I remember my own mother doing the same thing when I was small, just as I do now for my own children.
The mother draws the makeshift curtain and takes a last look at the girl before closing it fully. She returns to the candle in the middle of the round table. The kitchen is rustic; we are in a time where water is fetched from the stream in a bucket, bread is homemade and clothes are scarce and valued. She walks over to the fireplace that is keeping the night chill out of the small dwelling. Lighting a taper from its burning flames, she illuminates a circle of candles and sits in the middle of the almost bare room, as if in deep meditation.
The scene suddenly flashes and changes rapidly before my eyes, as though some one has flicked through many pages of a novel to continue somewhere else.
The same woman is entering another home in which she is warmly welcomed. The family embraces her and thanks her for coming to them. I can feel their trust in her just as I feel the woman’s quiet confidence in the task she has come to perform. She has a satchel slung over her shoulder that she is about to open when her young daughter comes running in. The girl looks similar to me the year I began school.
‘Mama, I just want to be with you, please, can I watch?’
The mother raises her head toward the elders of the house they are in and they nod in unison.
‘Of course, Caitlin, come here,’ she says calmly.
There is a sick boy resting on a blanket in the corner of the room. He is older than the young girl but is slight and frail. He looks desperately unwell and as I look toward his body, the unnatural stench of his illness permeates my being. Though it is offensive and vile, I can feel the compassion they both have for the boy lessening the strange sense of his odour.
My curiosity pulls me in closer to the scene, to the sick child, just as the mother moves to him. I feel connected to her; I feel her love and commitment to healing this boy regardless of any risk to her own life from his disease. Linked by some indescribable bond, we move closer. From the sheen of his skin I can see the boy has an acute fever. He is weak and I sense that the foul smell is eating his body from the inside out. He is gravely ill.
Taking her time to feel his tortured body, the mother carefully smooths her palms over his arms and legs. Her every movement is watched intently by her daughter, Caitlin. She then places both palms on either side of his face and closes her eyes. She seems to be deep in prayer or thought and begins chanting some sort of incantation. The young girl quietly moves across the room to kneel by her mother’s side, also placing her palms on the boy’s skin, replicating her mother’s actions.
The family remains watching from afar, the fear in their eyes recognising the tenuous hold the young boy has on life and sensing the magic in the room. Long moments pass before the mother and daughter withdraw their touch from the boy and again open their eyes as though released from a spell.
The mother returns to her satchel and removes some herbs that she places in a mortar and pestle. The woman of the family adds a few drops of hot water to the mixture and nods her approval to continue. The mother reaches for one last item, and indicates that the family should turn away, not observe the last step of this process. They do so, maintaining their silence, their grief for the boy evident in their hunched bodies.
Caitlin continues to watch her mother with an intensity and curiosity that I recognise in myself. The mother takes a small dagger out of the satchel and deftly pierces the skin of her middle finger, squeezing three drops of blood into the concoction before discreetly replacing the dagger and sucking the remaining blood from her fingertip.
‘You may turn around now,’ she states quietly to the family as she grinds and stirs the ingredients with the pestle. ‘This must be given to the boy from a place of the heart. Only a mother’s love will help heal him now; continue to watch over him in his rest.’
The mother of the boy steps away from the rest of the family and walks over to the boy. She cradles her dying son in her arms before raising the concoction to his lips. She helps him open his mouth and pours it in, little by little. The father rushes over to their side with some additional water, which the mother gives to the boy to wash the medicine down his throat. He coughs a little before they lay him gently back on the ground and return to the healers.
‘Thank you, Evelyn. You are our last hope.’
She acknowledges the family before packing her satchel with her few items and holds her daughter’s hand at the wooden door. ‘We shall continue to pray for your son’s health.’
The family stares after the pair as they leave, feeling exhausted, but for the first time they have hope in their hearts.
A few days later Caitlin is out feeding the chickens when she sees the young boy walking along the side of the road with a hefty bucket in his left hand. At full height, he is much taller than she. He has a healthy glow in his cheeks and a strong stride. He looks nothing like the fragile body barely able to move in the corner of the room. A smile lights up her face as she realises that her mother’s magic has helped remove all signs of illness and infection from the boy’s body.
She runs toward him and he puts the bucket on the ground to receive her hug as she wraps her small arms around him. She glances up at him, holding his gaze with her large silver-green eyes; the radiating warmth in them indicates that he shares the same joy in his heart as she does in hers. She feels secure in her mother’s magic and though not expressed in words, Caitlin knows that he will protect and help others as he travels his path in life. She knows they are bonded by her mother’s blood and that somehow their connection, however brief, will be meaningful in the future.
I see my own eyes reflected in Caitlin’s and realise I experienced the same sense of calm serenity from Leo, when he
captures my gaze, a trust that everything will work out as it is meant to. The completeness of Caitlin’s connection with the boy reverberates through my entire ethereal being.
Caitlin has watched her mother work small miracles all of her young life. Evelyn has a kind heart and shows such compassion for others that the young girl wants only to follow in her footsteps. Her mother never accepts direct gifts or payments for what she does, but they also never want for life’s basic necessities. It’s as if the village itself has some unspoken agreement to maintain their existence; it is never discussed, it merely occurs.
Often Evelyn leaves at night for a few hours, when she thinks her daughter is sound asleep. She goes deep into the forest and partakes in rituals that are intimately aligned with the cycle of nature. She can feel when and how things need to happen, the awakenings of spring and the heat of the summer, the turning of autumn and the temporary death of nature in winter. Every season is as much a part of her body as is the earth itself.
On nights when the moon is full, she leaves the house for longer periods and comes back to the small house with her hair matted and wild, clothes torn and dirty and sleeps long into the next day.
People within the village feel her raw energy and presence when she is close to them and although they know this woman is one of the most compassionate among them, they are also a little afraid of her, of a magic they don’t understand or allow themselves to fully believe in. Unless they are in need themselves, they tend to keep their distance. Their fear of the unknown both entices them closer to her and eventually turns them from her.
As Caitlin grows older, she spends as much time as she can with her mother, wanting to learn and understand the gift of her magic so she can one day make it her own. Once she commences bleeding, her mother teaches her things about her magic that she couldn’t before. She explains that although they can talk to each other openly, it should never be discussed with others. Caitlin understands they have a duty to use their gift for the good of others. She also knows, but doesn’t understand, why people have an inherent fear of the power of the blood gift, which is why it can only be used in the context of unconditional love. Her mother explains this is even more important with times changing so rapidly and a sense of darkness and menace descending on the world.
Evelyn asks her daughter to promise to keep the power of her blood a secret and she solemnly makes this vow. Caitlin always wondered if she too has this gift, the healing magic in her blood. Her mother slowly lowers her shift over her left shoulder and Caitlin sees the small heart-shaped mark beneath her left shoulder blade. She has seen this mark many times before when they have bathed together.
‘This is the mark of the blood.’
Caitlin raises the palm of her hand to her left breast, where she has the same mark. She had not realised until now the power it represents.
Evelyn places her hand over her daughter’s. ‘As your breasts continue to grow, your mark will become hidden. This is a sign of the shadows that will soon darken our earth and our lives. You must keep yourself safe and out of harm’s way. When the time comes, someone will come into your life who will understand you and their need to provide you with protection. You will know who to trust by looking deeply into their eyes and you will see the truth in them. Just as we do now.’ The gaze between mother and daughter is intimate and close, never threatening or tyrannical. ‘Trust your intuition. This will guide your journey through life. Even if I am not by your side, know that I am always with you, loving you, bound to you.’
The two women embrace each other, not knowing what the future will hold but with a strong sense of the responsibility their gift has bestowed upon them.
On the night of the next majestic full moon, Caitlin pretends to be asleep as her mother lightly kisses her cheek. Evelyn closes the timber door leaving her daughter behind and escapes quietly into the forest. The girl waits only a few moments before following her mother along the same path, the lucent moon paving the path before her eyes.
At one point, her mother turns around, hearing the rustling leaves and smiles wisely before continuing her journey deeper into the forest. Her daughter stills then sighs with relief that her mother hasn’t seen her. The ground is littered with the falling leaves of the forest providing padding for her bare feet. An owl hoots from the trees above, as if acknowledging her forbidden presence in the deep forest at nightfall.
Eventually Evelyn enters a clearing and Caitlin drops behind, hiding behind a grand elm tree. Her heart pounding fiercely within her chest, she attempts to steady her breathing and calm her nerves. She hears a rustling in the trees on the other side of the clearing where her mother has disappeared before she hears the low chanting of voices.
Worried about being discovered in case others arrive along this pathway, she quickly climbs up the tree, giving her an uninterrupted view of the clearing and the proceedings below. The chanting quiets to a whisper, as if it belongs to the forest itself, and she sees her mother emerge naked, except for a wreath of native forest flowers around her head, the last of the season.
Evelyn begins to sway and dance along with the light breeze tantalising the trees. Caitlin senses their energy and connection with her mother below as if they are becoming one. She is illuminated in the clearing and her body looks beautiful and bountiful with her arms raised above her head and her hips undulating like the branches in the wind. The daughter has never seen her mother look so vital, so vibrant.
The hidden, chanting voices become silent as their naked bodies emerge from the trees and form a circle around Evelyn, all bowing their heads toward her. After a few moments of meditating with the sounds and breath of the forest, they too begin to move like Caitlin’s mother, but with slower movements as if waiting for the rhythm to enter their bodies.
The chanting begins again, much louder than before, as they raise their voices to the heavens and spread out around the clearing, each carving out their own space and energy in their movements. Evelyn moves toward a slab of rock at the edge of the field, lays down on it with her hands falling back behind her head and spreads her legs, wide open. One at a time, both men and woman approach her, bending to kiss the inner lips between her legs.
Evelyn writhes and moves in a delighted trance as each person takes their turn, touching her sex with their lips. Then they return to the clearing and recommence their alluring sounds and move in a trance-like state of sheer sensuality, each of them pleasuring their bodies until they release their ecstatic cries as if paying homage to both heaven and earth. This continues for some time as until they all eventually lay silently in the field, surrounded by nature and basking in the light of the moon.
As clouds pass over the light of the moon, they pick themselves up from the grass and silently return to the hidden canopy of the forest, never speaking a word to one another. Caitlin, wide-eyed and worried about being seen, hurriedly descends from the branches of the giant elm and hastens home.
Early the following morning, a heavy pounding on the door awakens both women from their deep sleep. Soldiers enter their home and Evelyn is physically dragged out the front of their small house. Her hair is roughly held by large calloused hands at the back of her head, her face shining in the thin light of the dawn.
‘Is this she?’
A man standing off to one side nods his head, deliberately keeping his eyes away from Evelyn, who is staring directly at him. He slinks away in the shadows behind the gathering of the small crowd.
‘You are pronounced witch, woman. You shall be burned at the stake.’
Caitlin’s wails pierce the air as the mother is hauled away by the guardsmen. She lunges forward and grabs hold of the edge of her mother’s shift and screams with every ounce of energy in her body. Her fear for her mother soaks through to her bones. She has been the focal point of her young life and it’s as though the very essence of her heart is being ripped from her ribcage.
The soldiers, holding each of her mother’s limbs, roughly kick Caitlin away as anot
her guard grabs her around the waist, preventing any further progress being made. Why is her mother not fighting back? Where is her magic to stop this from happening?
This is worse than any nightmare Caitlin has experienced and she shuts her eyes and quickly reopens them just in case this is all a horrible dream. But instead she watches her mother being shoved into a wooden cage with three other petrified woman with ashen faces. Evelyn’s eyes are filled with tears of sorrow and longing toward her daughter, but her physical presence remains calm, almost as though she knew this time would come.
Accepting this fate, the end of her life, she turns to her hysterical daughter and says clearly, ‘Be strong, my love, for this is our destiny, so long as men fear power in women.’
Caitlin falls, crushed and abandoned, to the ground. Her screams can be heard far in the hills, as she is left with a hole in her heart as round as the moon and she understands that she will never lay eyes on her mother again.
I, too, feel as though my own heart is being crushed. My feeling for Caitlin is so strong, I can only believe our connection is based on kinship somehow. I feel both the mother’s pain and the daughter’s anguish and fear, like two souls being brutally ripped apart.
I want to run to her, save her, help her and love her. I reach out, but heartbreakingly I know I can’t touch her. I want her to know that my love, like her mother’s, will always be with her. No physical separation will ever be great enough to keep them apart and that one day, somehow, somewhere they will be reunited. But I can’t, I’m being pulled away from the scene as I desperately try to cling to the sobbing girl.
Jeremy
As soon as I awaken from my slumber, I grab my kit and make my way to Alexa at the lupuna tree to relieve one of the elders, Mapu, who is keeping watch over her. From afar, she seems to be resting in exactly the same position, looking content and relaxed. That is, until I am close enough to see the sheen on her skin and feel the heat from her forehead.
Destined to Fly: An Avalon Novel Page 13