‘No, it cannot be over. No …’ It didn’t even begin. And she grabbed the dead knight’s upper body and held her tight; rocking her like a baby, her limp head had fallen down against her chest. She screamed uncontrollably and wept.
After a few moments she cried, ‘It is all my fault. I should never have asked you to come along with me. I should have listened to you; you were right about people following us and it not being safe, and the chance of reaching Dochas unhurt small. And I should have taken better precautions against those two mad men. You would still be alive then. I am so sorry Tirsa … so sorry.’ And new tears appeared in her eyes; mixing with the blood, rain and dirt on her face.
After some time, she laid her back carefully and kneeling next to her jammed at her own running eyes. She wouldn’t let go … couldn’t.
A single beam of sunlight shone across the floor, breaking through the evaporating clouds, sparkling on the wet mulch and needles scattered about, but Artride didn’t notice. More clouds left and more sunlight managed to get through, bathing the trees, plants and rocks in its heavenly warmth. Sunlight shone on her quavering back and long wet braid of black hair; but she didn’t feel it.
One sunbeam, however, moved across Tirsa’s body, moving back and forth. That got her attention. The beam of light seemed to explore the body. Artride blinked her eyes and looked again.
Just above the body appeared a bright pure white light and Artride stared in amazement at it. The light seemed to transform into a figure; a transparent white woman with hair so long that Artride thought she was dressed with those strands. But when she looked closer she saw it was a long white dress covering her tranquil figure. The fine-looking woman stepped lightly between Tirsa’s body and Artride.
‘Hello Lady Artride,’ a calm, pleasant voice announced.
She was too stunned to respond – even to ask how she knew her name, and remained seated.
‘I am sorry to frighten you. I am here to help.’
She glanced back at lifeless Tirsa, not wanting to be disturbed really; not even by a white divine woman. ‘Are you an angel of death coming to take Tirsa? How is that helping me?’ she asked bluntly. The woman smiled a sad smile. ‘No, my dear lady. That would do you no good. Usually when I speak of help, I mean help.’ And she came a little closer. Artride shook her head, bewildered. ‘How?’ her voice cracked.
‘I represent life and death, and I am a guide between the worlds. Only those who are just born and those who pass away know who I am. Well, here in Dochas that is. Out there you probably have a different delegation. They call me a goddess and I think that should honour me. But mostly gods represent certain aspects in life; things that need an explanation in the mind of higher creatures. Gods; except for the Higher Spirit, are created to guide and to be worshipped and bring steadiness into people’s lives. I am not created, however, although many cultures worship us guides, more or less. I merely exist, whether people believe in me or not, and am therefore as real as you are. Except that my body is of a different substance; but do not let that disturb you.’
Artride tried to think about her words, but they confused her; she couldn’t seem to think clearly. The woman noticed and added concerned, ‘All you need to know right now is that I can help you.’
‘Help me? I do not need help. If you were here earlier … but now … now is too late. Not even my healing skills could have brought her back. She is gone.’ Her throat felt thick as her eyes rested on Tirsa’s body again, and she continued weeping.
The woman laid an emphatic hand, which felt strangely real, on her shoulder.
‘You care about her,’ she said with feeling. Her eyes were dark pools, but clear like a moonlit night sky and her body seemed to glow from within.
‘A … lot.’ Only, she wished she had said that to her while she was still alive.
‘Your soul is pure and good, but troubled, torn and weary from secrecy and immobility.’
Artride didn’t dare to meet her strange eyes again. It’s like she is reading my soul.
‘I just have to ask you one thing, in order to try and bring her back.’
Now she did look up. ‘Bring her back? Is that possible?’
‘You are in Dochas, my dear. Almost anything is possible here as long as you believe in it. Remember that.’
‘I forgot.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Even with this wound?’
‘In your world it would not be possible, no. Here it is a different matter.’
‘Magic?’ as she remembered she was indeed in the Magical Land now.
The woman nodded.
Hope returned into the queen’s heart and silent tears rolled down her cheek, falling on the wet grass.
‘Can I help?’ she sniffed. ‘I would give anything to bring her back.’
‘I believe you.’ And she stared at length at the body of Tirsa and sighed. ‘Because I haven’t known her from the day of her birth, for she was not born here and I am after all the Guide of Dochas, it might prove to be complicated. However, not impossible. Can you tell me a little bit about her; what she is like; her past, her personality, her dreams, hopes, anxieties, passions. I have to know to be able to find her door and pathway, in order to bring her back.’
Artride blinked a couple of times and swallowed hard before she started to tell all she knew about Tirsa Lathabris, and what she had learned during their short time together. She had to trust her.
‘That should be enough, but Artride, I have to be honest with you … it might not work. It is possible she has found her peace and does not want to come back.’
‘Why would she not want to come back?’ That did not make any sense to her.
The white woman only stared at her and didn’t reply. In her heart Artride had some idea.
‘She loves Talamh, she loves life!’
‘I shall do my best, Artride. That is all I can do, my very best. I know what’s at stake.’
~ ~ ~
It all had happened so quickly. Was she down? What was this terrible pain exploding from within her chest; numbing her, weakening her?
She felt so heavy. Why did everything around her suddenly turn so small and meaningless?
Tirsa felt herself rise, being lifted by an unknown force. She looked down upon a body covered in blood, with an arrow sticking out of its chest. It took her some time to comprehend she recognised it; it was her own lifeless body. But it did not matter. It was as if she had voluntarily joined the warmth around her; more comfortable than any warmth she had ever felt before. And she felt free; free from pain and darkness. She was lying in her mother’s arms; singing to her. She felt so loved and safe. Next, she was listening to her beautiful fairy tales and she was feeling so grateful. The next moment she was strolling on the moors with both her parents and sister; listening to her making up her own stories; truly listened at and cared for. She played the pebble game with her sister and together they laughed. As she had both laughed and cried the day her brother was born; he looked so fragile and helpless. She felt so much love radiating from her family; a feeling she had almost forgotten. She was not alone.
Then she was floating …There was a light; brighter than the sun, but less painful when you looked straight into it. She was bathing in this light that seemed to heal her wounded spirit. It felt so good. And all was more vivid than any dream she had had before.
The light she dwelled in appeared to contain many colours. Colours so marvellous, almost too much for her comprehension; mixing and blending, growing and fading; circles of a pastel yellow turning in a warm energetic orange; a deep violet purple surrounded by soothing blue shades, and the green shades were such a comfortable green. She immediately felt at home.
She breathed in so much peace and love, trust and strength; she forgot all about her worries, fears, anything connected to her past or her future. There was only here and now. No thoughts, memories about any darkness any more.
The green dissolved with the other colours and made way for a dark turquoise tunnel; she insti
nctively knew she had to follow. Somehow it all seemed familiar.
She easily flowed into the tunnel that gently guided her forward to the brighter light; which seemed to be the source of it all.
Returning home finally – something she longed for her whole life.
Slowly she began to notice vague figures like smoke aside of her; staring at her, all smiling with such warmth and love. She could not recognise the faces at the beginning of the tunnel, but when she came closer to the light, she began to finally see faces that were somehow familiar. People she knew were her long lost friends and relatives, grandparents, aunts, people who looked vaguely like her mother, her father … but mostly persons she had never personally met.
But then gradually she came across an endless, lovely hilly meadow, with thousands of colourful flowers spread about, and countless beautiful butterflies. Ultimate happiness filled her soul when she breathed in the scenery. The air was sweet with a flower scent like jasmine.
The road seemed to end and more people dwelled here; smiling at her, opening their arms for her. Among soldier friends who had died during battle, she recognised a bright one who came walking, or rather floating, towards her. She knew instinctively the kind features of her father; exactly how he had looked, only better and brighter. Shining so bright like a star, so that she almost couldn’t see his features. She remembered her happy times with him, and his brutal murder included. Even her revenge had not taken away the pain. Dead, he was dead!
She felt herself jump both from joy and grief and a sudden realisation that this all could not be a dream after all: she had never dreamt so vividly about him before. It had to be the Afterlife and all those people souls who had died. But they seem so alive … Why had she not trusted what she knew?
‘Daddy?’ she called out and he just nodded at her, but didn’t come close. Why not?
He pointed silently at her tunnel still behind her; somehow she thought it would close after her. It remained open though, as if it was waiting for her. Why?
And then in answer she saw his face turning, and she followed his gaze, which rested on her lost friend and lover Mabel. At this sight she cried out; but her voice sounded more like a melody than her voice, and the place where her heart had been felt warm and overflowing with love.
She looked just like she remembered her, only a little vaguer and more transparent; her ebony half-long hair waving around her on the soft breeze, her round face, with a few freckles on her nose and rosy cheeks, her impudent pink mouth and her vivid amber eyes sparkling with love and recognition. Only the knight’s clothes she wore brought Tirsa brutally back to the day of her cruel death. That all seemed so awfully long ago; and she remembered that pain all too well; and now that Mabel was standing right in front of her; intact and smiling without a care in the world, Tirsa didn’t understand how she ever could have dealt with the separation death had caused. But it did not matter now, that was over. She was back.
My love, so soon? It even sounded like her voice too, and her voice was the only sound she could hear.
They hugged each other closely, holding one another tightly; only to part to look at the other again.
Tirsa would have wept if she had eyes to cry with, but now that she was all soul, all eyes and ears, she glowed all over, feeling so much – as well as pain in her soul. But without the body having to deal with all those raging emotions, it felt very odd indeed. To look in her eyes again was all Tirsa had ever wanted, and now that she had her back she would never leave. Mabel sensed that and took her hand daintily in hers. It felt strangely warm; nothing like the cold hand she had felt when she passed away, and somehow thought she still would have felt. Don’t think about that. Mabel had spoken, but without opening her mouth.
‘How can I not? I saw you die. You’re dead.’
Do I look dead to you?
Tirsa smiled at her and she glimpsed at her own hands, feet and legs, just how they looked like when she was alive; not much vaguer and she wondered …
It gets hazier the longer you are here.
‘Like my dad …’
Yes, but do not worry, we never fade away. Mabel spoke to reinsure her with a giggle she was used to. We still have the image of our last body, that housed us; only to return to a new one later on. Then we, our souls, take on that new shape.
Tirsa gazed around at the meadow, so lovely and so familiar.
This is our meadow …
How could she ever have forgotten?
That is necessary, Tirs. If we would remember this place completely;we would forget about our tasks on Talamh; always longing to go back.
‘But I have somehow …’ she found herself saying. ‘I have been here before haven’t I?’
Oh, yes. You have been here many times, like I have. Death is not the end. It is merely another phase in life; a stop in between. This place is a place to recover and to reflect on the life you have lived. A place to learn, before you go to another field. There is no death; not like most people think. We don’t stay here though. Everyone, your true self, returns to the mundane world; Talamh, our mother. Over and over again; life after life, always changing and bettering ourselves. We are immortal Tirsa, like you always wanted, like your Windchildren.
... Come back, Tirsa, you have got to come back. A voice interrupted softly.
Tirsa stared confused into Mabel’s eyes; but it wasn’t her voice she had heard, in a singing fashion.
It looks like you have something to complete.
‘But I just got here!’
Now you know I am never ever far away; distance does not exist here. Remember that and you will deal with the natural course of life better.
Tirsa tried to recall why she was suppose to go back. Nothing came to her; only her life with Mabel, as if all the rest was meaningless.
‘I tried to be strong, Mabel, but it was so hard living without you; dealing with all the fearful things around me, that didn’t seem to matter when you were there. The emptiness in my heart … Now that I’ve found you; I won’t let you go again, not again.’
Mabel looked frightened and Tirsa didn’t fathom, shaking her head.
It was my time, Tirsa. My tasks were completed, my life fulfilled. I had to go.
‘You were killed by a soldier in a war! It was not a choice.’
It was my destiny. And therefore also linked to yours.
‘What about us and who decides that anyway?’
I’ve never left your side. I have been watching you. You were starting to do better; ready to live again.
Tirsa remembered what had made her want to live again. Elimar … and suddenly she found herself back in the blue tunnel.
‘No, please let me stay with her!’ she panicked.
You are too early, Tirs. I’ve missed you terribly, but I have been trying to comfort you. Trying to stop you that moment you … She paused for a moment. Yes, Tirsa remembered her suicide attempt all too clearly. It nearly cost her her job as well; not that she would have cared at the time. And now nothing mattered at all, or did it?
It would have been selfish to let it happen; all to have you with me again, but I was never far away. Time and space really do not exist between the worlds, once you comprehend that ... Her voice sounded soothing. Another knight had come in her room that day, and prevented her just in time from slicing her wrists. Mabel had sent that knight; a living angel.
‘I often had a feeling … I felt your presence.’
Yes, I was there …
… Come back Tirsa. Come back to us. It sounded very persuading now.
‘Who is that?’ she asked confused, but Mabel didn’t answer to her direct question, only said:
You were the only one I’ve ever loved, and I don’t think anyone ever loved me more than you did. With you I laughed and cried. Nothing could part us, but death … It was hard for me to accept that I couldn’t go back physically. Oh, how I wanted to! Mabel sounded angry and her shape quivered. Life is our goal, Tirs, not death! Never forget that. I d
idn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted, but you have. Use it well. We have to accept the fact I am here and you’re there. One day we will be together again. You’ll have to let go of me though ... Remember me before our separation; cherish those memories, but let me go. Now, you must go back; listen to that voice, follow it … They need you and you need them. Your chance is not over. Live your life. Time is precious. We will meet again, love, and until then … know that I will never forget you, ever …
Tirsa felt reluctant to leave; it was so placid here, but Mabel was fine … while she had let herself wander in darkness, refusing to live, hiding in her pain, regret, guilt, refusing to go on, missing Mabel terribly; all the while Mabel was not really gone. She could have known; she had felt her, but she had been afraid; afraid to live without her and to rely on herself again perhaps; having no love and goal anymore. And now she had reminded her about her life on Talamh; a life Mabel had lost regretfully, but one Tirsa could have again. The green, luscious planet with all its creatures she loved so much and her life she had almost forgotten; harsh and mean as it could be, but also beautiful and full of wonderment. Where this world was perhaps only a shadow of – or the other way around.
She had no special desire to go back, however, Mabel was the proof of her former life. She understood everything she had said and didn’t question her; for a sense of all knowing suddenly overtook her.
‘Life is not the same without you, Mabel, and it never will be. There is this emptiness–’
But you mustn’t throw your life away either. You have so much to offer; your love to give. You must let go of me; otherwise we both cannot go on. Follow your heart, Tirs, and love will find you again. For love is the most important thing in our lives; to give and receive, that is one of the things I have learned. Without love no one will survive, including you. There are many who need you; more than you know.
‘I could stay with you, couldn’t I?’
Yes, if you desire so.
‘But I could go back as well …’
If there is still time. But she nodded.
The Queen's Curse Page 11