Leaves of Fire: Part Two of the Newirth Mythology

by Michael B. Koep

  Loche scowls. Why did he write her character into this fate? Why did he turn her into an adulteress? Was she always deceitful? Had she always loved Albion Ravistelle? And now, this woman, his wife, the mother of his child is on the phone, and he struggles to allow the truth of his words to flow over him. He lets the fiction of the journal mix with the evidence around him. Slowly, he begins to trust the planks that he has laid out over the abyss, and he takes a step.

  “Helen,” he says, “I am sorry that this has happened. I don’t know why or how it has come to this. Somehow our lives were strained from the very beginning. It was never my intention for you to be unhappy. To feel trapped. I just thought that people choose eventually to compromise to be together. I may not have been everything you wanted as a husband, but for my part, I loved you. I will always love you. I don’t know why I turned you into—into what you now are.”

  Loche waits. No sound. He stands and motions for George and William to follow. The three enter the hallway and close the door.

  Loche hears Helen sigh. He taps the speaker control on the phone so George and William can listen in.

  “Dear,” she says, “you didn’t make me into anything. It is me that should be apologizing. And I love you, too. But, Loche, not in a way that will last. My heart has always belonged to someone else. I am sorry.” There is a long pause. Loche squints—lowers his head into his hand. “But there is one thing that will always connect us, and that is our son. I want him, Loche. I want him with me.”

  Loche nudges the door open and looks at his sleeping boy. “Helen,” Loche says, carefully, “I don’t know how to answer you.”

  “Simply, Loche,” Helen replies, “tell me that you will give me what I want.”

  “I think we need to talk about this, Helen,” Loche says. He adjusts his tone—control—calm—care—familiar techniques when speaking with Helen, he thinks.

  “Yes,” she says, “let’s talk about this.”

  “I am now thinking of Edwin’s safety. We have found ourselves on different sides of a dangerous situation and—”

  “Loche, you are clearly out of your league. Don’t start with me! Don’t put on that calm, psychologist bullshit—you know damn well what is at stake here—all of this has been going on for longer than you can believe—a very long story—and you must know by now that the Orathom Wis are nearing extinction. They are nearly destroyed according to our reports—and if you are with them, you are putting Edwin in danger. You are not safe where you are. I am holding off an attack at your location as we speak—because of my son.”

  “Helen, I don’t trust you or your state of mind. And what you’re asking me to do is beyond my control anyway. But more importantly, I will not send my son into the hands of killers. And it appears that you have chosen them over us.”

  “I thought you might respond this way. So fucking rational. As usual. So Mr. Fix-it. That’s fine. Since we’re talking about choices, I have one for you. But I don’t think you’ll like it. Your choice is a kind of lose-lose situation.”

  “What is it, Helen?”

  “Simple, really. I have Julia.”

  Julia’s voice floods into Loche’s ears. “Loche, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I never meant to—” The room circles in a dizzying spin.

  Helen interrupts, “She never meant to get involved with a family man. Well, she’s certainly gotten her young, immortal little self into quite a pickle. Where should I start, Loche? Should I torture her, beat her, cut her? What do you think?” Helen stops. Her air veers toward a kind of restrained lunacy. “You must understand, Loche—a mother should not be separated from her child—and a mother will do anything to get her child back. I must sound crazy, scary—but you’ve stolen my baby. Bring him to me, Loche. Bring him to me.”

  “What choice, Helen?”

  “Julia is dead anyway, Loche,” Helen answers. “Julia can either be killed quickly, or we can take our time. That choice is up to you. I will insure that she will not suffer if you bring my boy to me. I promise. I promise, Loche.”

  From the background, Julia cries out, “Loche, get Edwin away! Don’t give her—” then a snapping sound, loud and sharp. Loche thinks that he hears Julia choking. A rustling overwhelms the phone’s speaker. Scraping static. Silence.

  “You can prevent more pain,” Helen says.

  “Let me speak to Julia,” Loche demands.

  “Sorry, dear. Seems she’s passed out. She won’t be able to talk for at least fifteen minutes. And that is only if I decide to pull my knife out of her mouth.”

  Abrupt burning tears blind him. William places a steadying hand upon Loche’s upper arm. “Helen, what are you doing? What have you done?”

  “Loche, this awful situation is just a small part to a very long, long story. I’m sure it seems unbelievable—but now with what you’ve seen with your own eyes, use that writer’s imagination of yours and consider the kinds of things I’ll do to Julia if you keep Edwin from me.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do, Helen.”

  “Bring him to Venice. You know the place—you have two days. After that, Julia goes into a box and underground—alive of course, and I will figure out a different way to get Edwin.”

  “Helen,” Loche pleads, “don’t do this. Don’t do this.”

  “I want my son. Bring him to me.”

  The call ends.

  The Leaves of Fire

  April, 1338,

  outside the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood, England

  William had seen dead bodies before. Many, in fact. The first he could remember was just as he was able to walk—on one of his mother’s healing visits. A blurry image in his mind. A family of three, huddled together in the dark.

  When Geraldine had opened the door and stepped into the room, William could tell immediately that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the sour smell. It made him cough. The family was seated on the floor together beside a table leaning against the wall. Welts of purple and pink stained their skin. Their open eyes were large and black at the centers—and they stared away beyond the walls of the cottage. Beyond even the trees and the sky.

  “We’re too late,” he remembers his mother saying. “Too late. Come away, William.” She pulled him back and closed the door.

  It was not long after that William began noticing death all around him. He watched his father slaughter chickens. One autumn, his father snared five coneys and showed William how to dress them for a stew. William had found dead rats at the riverside. A year ago, he and his mother saw several bodies drifting down the river. The smell was awful. They were men, women and children. No one ever told him who they were or why they were floating there. A little girl, not much older than William, her hair splayed out on the water like gold weeds—her eyes stared up at the grey sky—still, black pupils. Geraldine lifted him up and carried him all the way home.

  She said to him, over and over, “They dream, and they are gone from here—far, far away, little one.”

  “Can’t you save them, Mama?” he had said.

  “No.”

  “Can you teach me to heal them?”

  “No. It is too late for them. They are dead.”

  “Too late?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s dead, Mama?”

  “It means that their bodies are gone.”

  “No, Mama. They were floating on the water. I saw them.”

  “I mean, their bodies are broken—their bodies are dead. They now dream.”

  “Where?

  “Far from here,” she said.

  “How far?”

  “Very far. Too far away to reach.”

  William shakes his head. He lifts his hands and places them just next to his ears. He remembers his latest experience with death: Albion’s sword cleaving the guard’s head from his body. Then they buried both bodies. Their bed. Their bed where they will dream.

  William turned onto his side and peered up at the pavilion ceiling. It was still dark. He could make out
the wheel spokes above and the center pole rising up into black. Beside him he could hear his father’s breathing. A few feet away, Albion was lying on his side facing him. His eyes were closed. With a gentle twist William turned himself out of the blanket and stood. He looked down and felt a crushing wave of loss. His mother was gone.

  Before he could understand what he was doing, William was running along the stream toward the road that led back to the village. Maybe, he thought, his mother was not dead—not burned. Maybe she got away. Maybe she waited for him in the village square. His feet scrambled up onto the road and he ran as fast as he could. The night air was cold. With each footfall his confidence increased. She would be there. She would be waiting.

  Crossing the bridge, he passed the first of the small houses that defined the outer boundary of the village. There were no lights. He crawled beneath a fence and hurried across a narrow field—a shortcut to the village square. A lingering bitter smoke hung in the dark.

  Something snapped in the distance behind him. A branch maybe, he thought. William dropped to the ground and struggled to listen. His panting and booming heart made it impossible to hear. He held his breath. Aside from the thud of his blood coursing through him, he heard nothing but the quiet sigh of the night—the line of trees ahead combing an April breeze. He rose and darted ahead, aiming for the cover of those trees. They bordered the square. As he moved closer, his eyes searched for his mother. He imagined her beneath the boughs, crouched down. Hiding. Waiting. She will be hard to see, he thought, for she can make herself look like leaves, like a tree. But she can see me.

  “Mama?” he whispered, calling. “Mama? Where are you, Mama?”

  But she was not waiting there. He weaved a quiet course through the grove but found nothing. He then lowered himself to his knees and turned his eyes to the square.

  The plot of land was no larger than the Abbey courtyard, which William could run across and back before his father could finish reciting the ten lines of The Lord’s Prayer. Surrounding it were several small structures. A pole fence jutted out from the tree line marking the south end. Opposite were a collection of open stalls that were used on market days. William recalls the times he and his mother would come here to buy vegetables, cloth and, most importantly, wooden toy horses. But there were no vendors here, now. He had never been to this place at night. And he had never seen it without people bustling about. He shuddered at the lonely gloom.

  I’m not alone, he thought suddenly, for somewhere near, my mother waits. I can feel her eyes on me.

  William remained in the trees until he felt the courage to walk out into the open square. His first steps were careful. He called, whispering again, “Mama? Mama?”

  The smell of stale, heated soot caught his attention as he edged further in. And then he saw the mound of ash.

  It was as high as his chest, conical and whitish grey, and as wide as the trunk of an old oak tree. A sour fume rose from its tip, and at its base was a nearly imperceptible, incandescent orange, buried deep within. William crouched down and leaned his face closer, relishing the radiant heat upon his cold brow and cheeks. He had not noticed the bitter bite of the night air until he felt the unexpected warmth. The unexpected fire.

  He then scurried backward in terror—in question. What was burning here? He rose to his feet and began to circle around the mound. As he stepped to the right, the answer became clear. There was not just one grey cone of smoldering ash. There were nine neatly raked piles in a row. Stabbed into the ground in the middle of the row, no longer hidden now by the night’s shadow, was a tall crucifix hewn out of tree limbs. A long length of tattered cloth, like a wide ribbon, hung from the crossbar. It was too dark to see a color, but William knew that it was red, like the sashes Bishop Gravesend’s followers wore. Like blood.

  The bitterness on the air now made sense. The empty square was suddenly colder than before. A chill raked across his shoulders. Searing tears rose. His stomach lurched and he vomited.

  “Mama,” he croaked between throes. “Mama.”

  He took a deep breath and wiped his chin. Slowly, he climbed to his feet and looked up at the cross again. “No, Mama, no,” he said.

  He began to walk along the row, his eyes scouring the piles and the surrounding ground for anything that might disprove his fear. The dark made it difficult. At the fifth mound William saw a torn piece of fabric—quite likely from a garment. He picked it up and examined it. It was not his mother’s. He tossed it onto the pile.

  A long, black smear stained the ground near the seventh mound. It stretched from the ash pile away into the darkness, toward the square’s entrance. William sensed the smear had a reddish hue, like the hanging sash upon the cross. He knew it was blood. His face crimped as he fought back his imagination. He spat and moved further down the row.

  When he arrived at the last mound, his eyes were blurred with tears. He turned in a circle for a last look around. A last desperate wish for his mother to appear. She was not here. She was gone.

  There were no more questions.

  He dropped to his knees at the base of the last mound and pushed the tears out of his eyes. He thought of his father and how he must be worried. Then, sudden anger and fear stabbed at his heart. The face of Bishop Gravesend flashed into his memory, the tall crimson headdress, the cross upon his chest, the long nose and arrogant glance.

  Why did he burn her? Why? She only loved. Only loved. Why did he kill her? She was light in the dark. William’s hands squeezed to fists and his eyes narrowed at the glowing base of ash.

  But the glow was not orange.

  There, like new buds on a bough, young leaves—a circle of living vines and ivy shoots had whorled out. There, at the base of smoldering ash and buried coals was a wreath of bright green. William’s eyes squeezed shut then opened wider at the sight. He reached down and pushed his hand into the leaves. His mother’s fingertips—soft as rose petals, strong as forest vines. He could hear her voice. He caught the scent of her sleeping, and the taste of her kisses.

  Another hand then appeared beside his in the leaves. Startled, William looked up to see his father kneeling beside him.

  “Papa?” William said.

  The Priest did not answer.

  William watched his father’s head bow down.

  “Father?”

  “This rage,” Radulphus said, “this rage possesses me, boy. We must not allow it to rule us. No eye for eye, evil for evil. It is not the will of God. Your mother would not have it.”

  William began to cry.

  “She would bid me turn away. Run far and keep you from harm. She would bid me to love. She would bid me to love.”

  William listened. He wanted to lie down in the leaves and sleep.

  “What am I to do, boy?” His father asked. “My wife and my God show me the path to forgiveness. The path to healing.” His voice lowered to a near silent prayer.

  Healing.

  There were only three things William wanted at this moment. Sleep was foremost in his mind. Sleeping in his mother’s arms was next; and in the strangest way, he seemed to have found a way to do just that—here at this base of ash. But most of all, William sought healing. His entire body ached of loss and need. Though just yesterday his throat was cut and he was left to die in his father’s arms, he awoke. He healed. But not fully. There was still pain. Too much for his heart to manage.

  But the word healing had rung in his ears, and he heard his voice say, “Mama knows how to heal…”

  The priest halted his prayer and stared into the coils of green. “Aye, that she did.”

  “These leaves are Mama’s leaves?”

  “I believe they are.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I wish I could die, Papa,” William said.

  Radulphus found William’s hand.

  “I wish I could make the pain go away, Papa. If I die, will it go away?”

  The Priest pulled a small leather pouch from out of his tunic and he laid it down beside the
pile. “Let’s take Mama with us, shall we?”

  William gently lifted a handful of ash and soil, and funneled it into the pouch. He then pinched three leaves up by the root and planted them on top. He tightened the drawstring. The glowing leaves drooped from out of the bag’s mouth. He held it up. Radulphus smiled.

  As they stood the priest gasped. William looked down to the wreath around the pyre. It was withering and burning away in flames of emerald green and gold. The boy turned his attention to the three leaves in the pouch. It seemed that they moved, pointing their fine tips to the flames below. As if saying goodbye.

  “What does this mean?” William asked.

  “I am uncertain,” he replied. “She often talked of the seedling leaves, if they perish, all they’ve created will die. Perhaps you carry with you the final seedlings of her Craft. Guard it well. We must go now.”

  They crossed back to the line of trees at the square’s edge. As soon as they stepped beneath the boughs, William caught sight of Albion Ravistelle leaning against one of the trunks.

  “Hello, William. Your father was worried,” he whispered. “But I had the feeling that you needed to see for yourself.”

  William lifted the leather pouch crowned with green. Albion smiled. “Ah, life from fire,” he says. “Another reason I would have spared your mother’s life, for as long as I would be allowed, that is. She had a way, it seems, of bringing beauty out of man’s violence and destructive habit.”

  William hugged the bag to his chest and stepped nearer to his father.

  “We should get back,” Albion said eyeing the surrounding fields. “Dawn is in the air, and your father is still wanted at the Tower. Come.”

  The Less You Care

  September 3, 1972

  Venice, Italy

  A pearl grey sky. Helen sat beside the railing overlooking the canal. She imagined Albion sitting there with her. Sharing a bottle of wine. Watching the boats. Holding hands as the Venetian traffic floated by.