“Still, there were some who feared her, who whispered among themselves that Hans had fallen victim to one of her spells and so could not see her magic for the devil’s work that it was. But no one ever said this to Hans.
“For many years Lillian cared for the people on the mountain, sometimes traveling for hours on horseback through the night to relieve a young girl of fever with the magic of Pennyroyal and Clove; or with the power of Rosemary, Magnolia, and Goldenseal, to mend the leg of man who had been injured while working his fields; or to cure a newborn of colic with a pinch of Asafetida and Basil; or to heal an old widow of melancholy merely by brewing a tea with ground Linden Flower. Those who received her help were always grateful, and quick to defend her to those who swore her powers were evil. Then came the day that the Preacher fell ill and lay close to death. Prayer did not help, nor did the medicines brought from the city a hundred miles away. At last, with hope dwindling, everyone agreed it best to send for Lillian.
“Standing at the Preacher’s bedside, Lillian mixed a potion from her stock of roots and herbs, then lighted her candles, drew her sigils upon the wall, and uttered her prayers as she spooned the potion into the Preacher’s mouth.
“Come the dawn the Preacher was healed and decreed that Lillian’s powers were, indeed, sent from Heaven Above. Everyone praised her openly, but in secret there were still those who believed her to be a handmaiden of Lucifer. One man made the mistake of saying this in front of Hans, who quickly struck down the man and warned him, ‘Never again say such foul things of my Lilly!’
“‘You cannot see her for what she truly is, Hans Bathelt,’ snarled this man, wiping the blood from his mouth, ‘for she has bewitched you as surely as Christ shed His blood for our sins.’
“Hans said nothing to this accusation; instead, he walked away, vowing to never speak with this man again. But who among us could hear such a thing and not wonder, if even for a moment, if it were true? Hans tried to forget what he had heard but could not. Lillian sensed that something was wrong and asked her husband what was troubling him.
“‘They say that you are in league with Lucifer,’ he told her, ‘and that I cannot see this because you have placed me under your evil spell.’
“Lillian laughed, then took her husband’s hand in hers and placed it upon her belly. ‘My dear husband,’ she said. ‘Would the Good Lord have finally granted our prayers for a child if I were a servant of the Light-Bearer?’
“So overjoyed was Hans that his Lilly had at last, after so many years of trying and so many disappointments, conceived a child that he immediately forgot the ugly rumors and dedicated himself to her care.
“Lillian was very careful throughout her expectant months to not tempt Fate or do anything that would cause people to question her spiritual allegiance; she never admired her swelling figure in a mirror; she never touched a horse; she would not allow her photograph to be taken, nor did she spin any wool; she never removed her wedding ring, even though her swollen fingers caused her much discomfort; she did not eat fish, nor tubers of any kind; never once did she cross a stream of running water or, most importantly, walk through a cemetery.
“Hans too paid close mind to his duties; he never referred to the child as ‘it,’ only ‘her’ because they both wished for a baby girl; he never ate a potato after sunset, nor did he spit in the house or allow a black snake to cross his path. Both he and Lillian were careful not to make clothing for the child until after the seventh month of Lillian’s pregnancy and asked their friends who wished to make a gift of clothing to do the same, as well as wait until after the child was born to make caps or bonnets, so that it would not be born with an enlarged head.
“The next spring, Lillian bore Hans a daughter, born with a caul that her mother dried and preserved so that the child could burn it upon reaching her thirteenth birthday and fully accept her magickal powers. They named her Joanna, a name chosen by Hans from the Bible, and a lovelier, healthier, happier newborn you never did see! People—even those who secretly believed Lillian to be evil—came from all over the mountain to see the child, and all were moved by her innocence. The Preacher baptized Joanna in the Lord’s house a fortnight later, and the community resumed its everyday existence, miles away from the crowded, dirty, dangerous city. Hans and Lillian made their home a good and loving place for their child, a clean place, and happy.
“But as Joanna grew it became apparent to everyone on the mountain that she not only possessed her mother’s gift for healing and other forms of magick, but was gifted with divining, as well. As she grew, Joanna claimed to be able to speak with the spirits of the dead, to project her soul outside her body during sleep, to hear the approach of a storm days away, to smell an evil or unkind thought, and to communicate with beings from other realms, legendary creatures such as Hoopsticks and Stark-Eye, the Lovers of Black Hand Gorge, the Burning Man; and, most unsettling to all, she once claimed to have spoken to Ol’ Scratch himself.
“‘I spit right in the Devil’s eye,’ she said, ‘and told him that he wasn’t wanted here!’
“The people of the mountain loved her; those who didn’t love her feared her.
“Joanna grew into young-womanhood, and on her thirteenth birthday took her dried caul to the graveyard and burned it. From that night on, it was Joanna who the mountain folk called upon for healing and magick. Lillian took pride in her daughter’s achievement and abilities that now far surpassed her own, and eventually became Joanna’s assistant, a position she was more than happy to assume.
“One day a stranger wandered onto the Bathelt Farm and asked if he might spend the night in their barn, for he was weary from his travels and wished shelter on this winter’s night.
“‘You’ll not sleep with animals on my farm,’ said Hans, opening wide his door. ‘But you are welcome to spend the night in our house. We have a spare room in the attic. It’s small, but comfortable.’
“The stranger thanked Hans and entered his house. Lillian insisted on fixing the stranger a meal to warm his belly after so cold a journey, and he gladly accepted. After finishing his meal—and what a feast it seemed to him, what with how little he’d had to eat recently—the stranger asked if there were any chores he might perform for the family to repay their kindness. Hans thought about this, then told the stranger that, in the morning, he could help repair a broken plow so it would be ready for next planting season.
“The stranger did as he promised the next morning, rising before anyone else in the house. By the time Hans was awake and seated at the breakfast table, the stranger had repaired not only the plow, but a hole in roof of the barn, a loose board on the Bathelt’s front step, and stacked enough wood and brought in enough coal so that Hans would not have to trouble himself with those tasks for the remainder of the winter.
“‘Do you have a name?’ asked Hans.
“‘Yessir,’ replied the stranger. ‘I am called Rael.’
“‘Well, Rael, may I ask you a question?’
“‘As you wish, sir.’
“‘Do you have anywhere to go, any family waiting for your return?’
“‘No, sir,’ replied Rael. ‘I was a foundling. I have neither family nor home such as yours to speak of.’
“This was not quite the truth, as all of you know, for Rael did have a home, here in Chirascuro, with many of you, and was journeying forth to find more of your brothers and sisters to bring back with him; but for some reason that he couldn’t name, he had to find the Bathelt farm and stay there for a while.
“And that is how he came to be the family’s handyman.
“Rael lived with them for several months, and a more loving family beyond these walls he never found. But during the months he lived with them, Joanna began to take midnight walks that she would not allow anyone to accompany her on. This worried Hans and Lilly deeply, even though Joanna was always sleeping in her bed the next morning.
“Then, one morning, Joanna’s bed was empty. She hadn’t come back from her midnig
ht walk. Hans and Rael set out to look for her, but before they were too far away from the farm Rael convinced Hans to go back and stay with Lilly. ‘This is no time to leave her alone,’ Rael said to him. ‘Don’t worry, my friend—I will find Joanna for you.’
“Hans went back to stay with his wife and Rael continued his search alone. It’s hard to say how long he wandered through the snow and thick forests looking for the young woman he’d come to think of as his sister; a few days, at least, possibly a week. He lived off what little food he had packed to take with him, and when that ran out, he used Hans’s rifle to shoot whatever small forest creature was foolish enough to show itself.
“Eventually, he found a sign of Joanna; her footprints in the snow. Rael pulled his cap over his ears, gave his gloves a tug, slung his rifle by its strap over his shoulder, and began the long trudge uphill along the path made by Joanna’s footprints. As he ascended, the trees became shorter and more twisted, looking in patches as if they had been seared by fire from overhead. The stench of burnt wood hung heavy in the air. For a while he could see patches of gray sky above, but soon the trees were not much higher than his head, briary Scotch pine and dwarfed and gnarled spruce, and when he looked down he could no longer see Joanna’s footprints, for by then the snow had begun falling heavily again, erasing not only Joanna’s footprint’s but Rael’s own behind him. Still, he went on, confident that he would not get lost because he had walked this way many times before with Hans when the two went hunting; besides, it seemed to him that if Joanna had climbed this far up the mountain, she must have done so for a reason, so Rael concluded that she must have kept going.
“He continued his climb. It became more difficult, for once he was out of the trees, the way became rougher, steeper, winding around huge boulders and skirting short but dangerous drops. The new snow on the old, hardened snow below made his footing less sure. Several times he slipped and almost fell, and once saved himself from tumbling off a difficult ledge only by grabbing hold of some old roots that jutted from a jagged outcropping in the wall of the mountain. The wind was high, whipping the snow against him in wet sheets, plastering against his hat and coat and face. He could not see more than a dozen feet in front of him and then only when the wind momentarily hitched and shifted direction, blowing the snow from behind him. His progress was slow, but he knew from previous journeys that he didn’t have much farther to go. Soon he reached the crown, where the path abruptly steepened for the last hundred feet before leveling off at the top. Despite the cold and the icy wind, Rael was sweating underneath his coat, but he forced himself to make the rest of the climb, scrambling inch by inch to the top where he came to rest on a table-sized ring of flat stone. He could see nothing that he could reach out and touch. The snow had covered his entire body and had turned all except the red sun of his sweating face as white as the whirling white space that surrounded him. If there had been another human face near that high flat tabletop of stone that lay only a few steps away from the edge of the mountain, he would have seen it, but there was none. He pulled his snow-frozen coat tight around him and waited for the whiteness to dim. The wind died down for a few blessed moments, and Rael was able to see that, if Joanna had come this far during the last snow storm, she would not have been able to see that only a few steps beyond this point the mountain disappeared under foot and dropped off into an abyss of stone, ice, and snow.
“He sat there for a few more minutes on the altar of stone and wept for her loss. How was he ever going to be able to tell Hans and Lilly about this? How was he going to be able to live with himself after breaking their hearts with news of his failure? He lay back on the flat stone and closed his eyes—and it was then that he felt the presence of...of something all around him, something ancient and powerful, and wondered if Joanna’s talk of Hoopsticks and Stark-Eye and all the other creatures of myth was more than just a young girl’s flights of fancy. Though he never doubted her magickal abilities, Rael often thought her talk of leaving her body and speaking with the dead and all the rest of it was just wishful thinking, maybe even a sign of madness. But now, in this place above all places, he could feel the lingering essence of something that was beyond his understanding, something that had walked the Earth even longer than he, something that would cause his mind to crumble if he were to ever face it...and yet there was a sense that if he were to face it, he might somehow recognize it, and it him.
“But intermingled with this essence that charged the air like the electric blast of a vanished lightning bolt he felt something of Joanna, and hoped beyond hope that she was alive, after all, that she hadn’t stepped off into the abyss a few steps beyond the stone altar. It was this hope alone that enabled him to pull himself up from the stone, turn coldly around, and begin the descent.
“When he finally reached the Bathelt farm he was weak and sick and feverish and hungry and frozen nearly to the bone. He collapsed in the snow a few feet away from their front step. How long he lay there before Hans came out he did not know, but he was aware of Hans crying out his name, of Lilly’s tears falling upon his cheek...and of Joanna’s healing hands on his face and chest.
“He was delirious for days, registering only Hans’s voice and Lilly’s tears and Joanna’s potions, prayers, and hands. I don’t wish to die, not now, he thought. There are children waiting for my return.
“Darkness and light became one and the same for him, his flesh a fiery prison, his bones the edge of razors twisting inside his muscles. But Joanna ministered well, and within the week he was better; weak, still slightly feverish, some of his limbs frostbitten, his mind a whorl of confusion, but alive.
“He awoke one night and realized that he was lying on his attic bed, which had been moved downstairs and placed in front of the fire. He stared for a while into the crackling flames and remembered the seared treetops he had encountered on his way up the mountain. Then a hand gently touched his cheek and turned to see Joanna’s luminous face smiling down at him.
“‘I am so very glad that you found your way back, Rael. I thank you for your efforts, but the truth is, I was never lost.’
“‘I’m just happy...happy to see that you are safe,’ he whispered. His throat was swollen and raw with pain. Joanna held a cup to his lips and he sipped at the healing tea she had brewed for him. When at last his throat felt better, he took hold of her hand and asked, ‘Where were you?’
“‘If I answer you, Rael, then you must promise me that you’ll not tell Mother or Father. I wish to tell them in my own way, in my own time.’
“‘I promise,’ he whispered.
“Joanna then leaned forward and kissed his forehead. ‘Very well—but remember, we have a secret, you and I.’
“‘I’ll remember.’
“‘Good.’ She looked around to make sure that they were alone—both Hans and Lilly were known to rise during the night for a drink of water—then moved closer to Rael and said, ‘I have taken a husband, and he has taken me. We declared our love before God by the stone altar at the mountain’s top. Don’t speak, Rael, just listen.
“‘My husband is none other than the Burning Man, whose name I now know: Siempre. Oh, my Rael, my sweet Rael, how I love him! I cannot tell you how thrilling it was to leave here on my midnight walks, knowing that he waited for me at the end. He has wooed me for many months now. I first saw him in a vision, where he called my name and held out his hand, whispering, “Come to me, my love.” The night I did not return from my walk was the night we were married. So cold, it was, that night, but the heat from his body protected me from the wind and snow. And after he accepted me and I him, he touched a hand to the frozen stone altar and the ice and snow melted away, leaving the flattened stone as warm as this bed in which you now rest.
“‘We lay down together on the stone and joined our bodies as husband and wife; afterward, as I rested in the safety of his arms, he kissed my cheek and asked, “I’d like to tell you a favorite story of mine. Would you like to hear it?”
“‘O
h, yes, my love,’ I said. ‘Say to me, tell me anything you wish!’
“‘He kissed two of his fingers, then placed them against my lips and said: “Listen:
“‘“On the morning of the eighth day after Creation, God called for Raziel, the Angel of Mysteries, to bring his quill. Raziel listened as God spoke, and wrote down in a book all that he was told. It was a daunting task and took many, many years to complete. This book, the Sefer Raziel, contained all celestial and earthly knowledge. It was from this book that the angels were to instruct the children of men. To assist him, Raziel called upon the Grigori, an order of High Angels whose understanding of the Mysteries was said to nearly equal his own. Their ranks, it has been said, were drawn from the Intelligences, Sephiroth, Archons, and Hayyoth. Raziel chose them carefully, for such was the nature of knowledge in this book that only the most judicious of his brethren could be trusted with its dispensation. And their names, given to them by the Four Angels of Judgment, their glorious names!—Crown, Wisdom, Splendour, Beauty, Foundation, Kingdom, Strength, Victory, Understanding, Mercy, and thousands more which would sear a human tongue were it to try and speak all of them.
“‘“They were to help Raziel in bestowing Knowledge upon mankind—but only certain knowledge, for some of what was contained in the Sefer Raziel was Forbidden to the human race. On this point God was most clear and firm.
“‘“Raziel descended from Heaven and gave the book to Adam, who looked upon the pages and was greatly confused; though most of the passages were easily understood, some of the writings contained within—the Forbidden Knowledge—were indecipherable to him, as they were intended to be. One of the Grigori, the Angel Gash, out of innocent curiosity, peered over Adam’s shoulder as he read through the book and discovered that a portion of the Forbidden Knowledge was of so secret a nature that not even they, the Grigori—among the holiest and most trustworthy of angels—could interpret the language and sigils used by Raziel. When they confronted the Angel of Mysteries about this, Raziel said to them, ‘Only God and the Four Angels of Judgment know the meaning behind those passages. It is not up to us to question Their reasons.’
In Silent Graves Page 23