Born of Earth: An Elemental Origins Novel

by A. L. Knorr

  I set the diary on the table and got up. Mailís was a Wise, I was a Wise. I should be able to do what she had described. I didn't bother pulling on a rain jacket. I opened the door and stepped outside. I walked down the stone path and onto the grass, my wet feet already sliding on my flip-flops. I felt neither cold nor hot, excited nor trepidatious. I had gone very quiet inside.

  I crossed the lawn and went to the garden where the earth was softest, and stood there looking down at the black soil. Closing my eyes, I thought of Mailís. Then I crouched and plunged my fingers into the garden, muck wedging under my fingernails. I stood, with the lump of earth in my palm. I scanned the backyard, and when the residual images of Mailís and Cormac appeared, I took a shallow breath and stepped back.

  They looked like figures on a television with bad reception; thin lines of disruption and pixelation blurred their edges. I was learning that a Wise was someone who knew nature like it was part of them, was able to draw the healing power of the earth into themselves, and now...

  Mailís had written that residuals were left behind when events had been left unresolved and they play over and over in perpetuity on a loop. A Wise can see them, if she chooses. And there they were, their shapes had risen from the ground. Not ghosts, but a simple imprint left behind by human energy. They had no consciousness, they couldn't hear or see me, they had no ability to respond. Just old energy stuck in replay.

  Mailís wore the chevron dress that I had come to associate with her. She was taller than I'd imagined, with long slender limbs and hands. She walked across the back of the yard, and at her side was the figure of a tall man with dark curly hair and broad shoulders. Cormac. They were talking, but the residual had no audio. I had to guess from their facial expressions and body language the topic of their discussion. They were walking close together, shoulder to shoulder, but not touching. Mailís’s shoulders were turned slightly toward Cormac and she was speaking with her hands. His head was inclined toward her, engrossed by her. I felt disconnected from my body as I watched the residuals cross the lawn and step up onto the small bridge.

  They stopped there, talking. They loved one another, that was clear. It was when they bent to lean their elbows on the railing of the bridge, that my heart began to pound. My fist closed around the soil in my hand and squeezed. They looked just like Jasher and I would have looked to an outsider only the day before. We had stood on the bridge and talked just like that, we had leaned with our elbows on the railing, just like them. To anyone who may have been watching, we would have looked identical to the residual that was in front of me now. I watched them until they turned toward each other and Cormac stepped closer to her, his arm snaking around her waist. He put a tender finger under her chin and tilted her face up. Maybe he had loved her? Maybe I was wrong about the conclusion I had jumped to when I saw his portrait. He leaned down, canting his head to the side. Mailís tilted her face up to be kissed, and closed her eyes.

  I dropped the soil, feeling like a voyeur, and the residual disappeared. I let the rain wash away the dirt on my hand as I stood there and processed the vision.

  I returned to the house. I took a break from reading the diary only long enough to shower and change. My mind was a whirlwind. It was good that Jasher had to work, and that Faith was away. I was in a sort of intellectual shock and needed time to absorb. My hands were steady as I toweled off and dressed in jeans and a cotton hoodie. I pulled on a thick pair of socks and tied my hair back as I went down the stairs. There, I snatched the diary off the counter and slid into the kitchen nook again.

  I am not one for wishing to go back and change the past, what's done is done. But oh how I could have benefited from more time with my grandfather before he passed on.

  I looked up, wracked my brains for the name, came up empty. I picked up my phone and opened the photo of the family tree I had taken, just to help with my memory. Liam Stiobhard - one of the artists.

  All I can recall is that a Wise is someone the ancient fae have gifted with the power to know nature intimately, and draw from it, in some cases to control it, although I've no idea how. This knowledge that I am acquiring is growing daily, but so far is limited to touch. How strong will these abilities become?

  My eyes skimmed over the next several entries, which were not about her powers, but about her falling in love with Cormac O'Brien. Weeks passed by without entry, then a random sketch of a plant would appear, always one with powerful effects on the human body. Finally, an entry professing her love for Cormac.

  Our passion seems boundless. At an age when most women are looking forward to grandchildren, God has finally seen fit to bless me.

  Mailís was only 31 when she wrote those words. You've got to have a little appreciation for how times have changed. Nowadays if a woman isn't married at 31, nobody so much as blinks.

  ...I have finally met my love. My match. I feel deep in my bones how much he loves me. The way I can read a plant with my fingertips, I can feel the authenticity of his love when I hold his hand. And oh, how I love him, too. My Cormac.

  "How sweet, Mailís," I said. I flipped past several more sketches, skimming the words.

  These are the happiest days of my life. We are engaged. When all hope was long lost that I would ever have a family of my own, sweet Cormac appears: a gift from God. I know there are young ladies in town who've been thwarted by our love. Young Miss Ó Súilleabháin, so called 'Aileen the Flirt' by Irene, still makes me uncomfortable in how she makes eyes at my Cormac, but God has shown he knows better. Now my only hope is that God finds in his heart enough generosity for me that I might bear children at so advanced an age.

  I flipped past more drawings. "Whoa," I said as I turned the page. The handwriting of this entry looked so different from the rest. Harder.

  I am betrayed. If the powers of a Wise lead her into deception, then why should anyone want such a blessing? Cormac has given a child to another, even before they are wed. Oh, how Ana will laugh. What good is all of my wisdom, when I am so utterly and terribly broken.

  "Oh no," I whispered. My vision blurred at the heartbreak pouring onto the page. She'd been cheated on by the only man she'd ever loved. She thought her life was saved, but instead, he'd stabbed her in the heart. He has given a child to another.

  The next few pages were empty. I flipped forward. "No," I breathed. That was it? No more about becoming a Wise? "No, no, no..." I peeled through the pages, but there was nothing. Something yellow caught my eye as I flipped and I went back. It was an article shoved into the book, an old newspaper clipping. After reading it, it was clear that it had not been put there by Mailís’s hand.

  4 March 1935. MISSING, Woman, aged 32, standing at 5 feet, 8 inches, fair of skin, slender build, grey eyes, black hair parted down the middle; seen wearing a black high-collared dress, felt hat, and brown leather shoes. Last seen walking down Molesly Street, Anacullough at midday on Thursday last. Information leading to discovery shall be handsomely rewarded. Apply to 4 Ballinlough St, Anacullough, EIRE.

  Isn't it funny how a partial answer just spawns more questions? There was nothing after this. Jasher wasn't home, Faith was gone, the house was quiet, and yet the silence after reading that clipping was deafening.

  I got up and took the stairs two and a time to the library. After spending another hour there, tearing through the same old journals, combing the walls and reading anything that looked like it came out of an old newspaper, I was beyond frustrated. I tucked the diary and the clipping into a bag, eyeballed the rain, which didn't seem to be slowing, grabbed my rain jacket from the mudroom, and biked into town.

  Chapter 25

  The library in Ana was an ancient construction compared to the library in Saltford, and the librarian looked as though she’d worked there since the day the stone building had been erected. At least she still had her own teeth, and displayed them frequently in a smile. Dressed in a tweed skirt and vest with a creamy blouse and billowy sleeves, she looked like a character in an old movie.

>   I peeled off my wet rain jacket and hung it on the coat rack inside the door. Shelves of books surrounded long tables equipped with green glass lamps. Three elderly men sat scattered along the tables, each absorbed in study. The librarian sat behind an oak desk that looked like it weighed more than a half-ton truck. I wiped my face with my sleeve and crossed the rippling wooden floor. I pulled the diary out of my bag.

  The name “Mrs. McMurtry” was written on a name-plate that faced outward on the desk. Her thin gray hair had been pulled up into a bun and a half dozen silver barrettes held everything in place. She looked up and smiled and a thousand wrinkles sprang to life as her kindly eyes took me in.

  "What can I do for you, Miss?" she said so quietly it was almost a whisper. She recognized me, I’d been in the library before, but this was the first time we'd spoken.

  "I was wondering if you kept records of old newspapers?"

  "Of course."

  "I'm trying to find out what happened to an ancestor of mine." I opened the diary to the page where the clipping was taped and showed it to her.

  She took it with arthritic fingers and held it low in front of her. She tilted her head to read it through her bifocals. Her mouth moved silently as she read the clipping’s contents. She gave me a sympathetic look and handed it back to me. "We might be able to help you," she said, slowly, thinking. "All of our microfilm is on the second floor. You can search the index by surname, that ought to turn something up."

  I followed her up the wide staircase and into a dark room with only two small pools of light from floor lamps. The room was a good ten degrees hotter than the first floor and sweat dampened my upper lip and forehead.

  The librarian led me into an alcove with three clunky looking metal jalopies with large square screens. They had to be from the sixties. "These are the readers. They're a little finicky so be gentle with them. We have new ones on order but they aren't due for another month. I'll show you where we store the microfilm."

  We passed through a set of double doors. She touched a switch beside the door and anemic fluorescent lighting flickered to life. Yards and yards of metal bureaus stretched out before us. I began to sweat in earnest, and not just from the heat.

  "Here is our microfilm storage," she began. She must have caught the look of panic on my face because she followed up with, "Don't worry, dear. We have more than one way of categorizing things. When looking for the result of a missing persons case, it might be easiest to start at the death indexes. What name was it?"

  Why hadn't I thought of that? This ancient well-dressed librarian had been down this road before. "Sheehan."

  "Okay, and what year was the disappearance, again?" She tilted her head down toward the diary where I'd stowed the clipping away, but I knew it from memory by now.

  "1935. In March."

  "Good." She beelined for a particular aisle. "Take heart, Miss. You've got more factual information to start with than most people who come in here looking for answers." She skimmed over the typed face-cards on the fronts of the drawers. "Some poor souls spend years in here," she mumbled, "searching for a needle in a stack of needles, going on nothing but a wing and a prayer. Here we are." She laid a hand on the top of the metal shelves. "Here are the death indexes beginning in January of 1935. Time ascends this way," she sliced a hand back toward the door. "And everything is alphabetical. If your ancestor turned up dead, you'll be able to find her name in the death notices or obits sometime after March 1935. Do you know how to use the micro-reader?"

  I nodded. "I think so." They couldn't be much different than the ones we had in our school library. I thanked her and she left me to it.

  I won't bore you with the searching part - it's enough to say that my eyes skimmed a whole lot of obituaries over the hour and a half it took me to find her. I had a bad moment when I remembered that Mailís wouldn't have been registered as a Sheehan, but a Stiobhard-Sheehan. I had to start over, focusing on the St's not the Sh's. Let me tell you I uttered more than one 'sh' word. It might make a better story to say that I didn't eat for days, and I endured a sore back and a wrist injury as I combed the vaults of history, but actually, thanks to the fine organization of the staff at the Ana County Library, I found her in less than two hours.

  6 April 1937 Missing Persons Case Unofficially Ruled Suicide.

  Two years after the disappearance of Miss Mailís Stiobhard-Sheehan, which has flummoxed the Garda, the case remains unsolved, the Sheehan family unsatisfied. "Miss Stiobhard-Sheehan experienced personal tragedy shortly before her disappearance," stated Police Inspector Murray Ó Cuinn. "Due to several character reports of Miss Stiobhard's emotional instability, it is our strong belief that she is most likely a suicide. Though we cannot officially mark the case as closed without producing material evidence, we motion to lay the investigation to rest. We've done all that could be done for her and her family. May Miss Stiobhard-Sheehan rest in peace." Family members have declined to comment beyond requesting privacy.

  I felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth. More than two years after she'd disappeared, they'd finally given up. Personal tragedy. Suicide. My heart broke for her. She'd been so excited and in love. It was worse than Romeo and Juliet, because at least they ended up together in the end, even if it was in death. Poor Mailís was dead and alone.

  A fuzzy black and white photograph of a woman accompanied the article. The image had no caption. The clarity was poor, and half the woman's face and all of her hair were concealed under a bonnet. It was the bump on the bridge of her nose that gave her away.

  I sat back in my chair, chin in hand, for I don't know how long. The residual I had seen didn't come with a caption announcing the date, but Mailís's diary was pretty clear. The last entry had come shortly before she'd been reported missing. It was more than unsettling, it was disturbing, not the least of which was my connection to her. She'd become a Wise, I was becoming a Wise. I'd walked the bridge with Jasher, and he'd kissed me. She'd walked the bridge with Cormac, and he'd kissed her. She disappeared. And I... I was still here, for now.

  She had been excited about life, about to get married, was madly in love, had been gifted by the fae. Had the papers gotten it wrong and she'd transformed fully into whatever it was she (and I) were becoming? They'd never found a body. Maybe she had morphed into a faerie and disappeared into the earth? I sighed, not really believing that. It didn’t look good.

  Nausea clenched at my stomach. On the outside, becoming a Wise seemed like a blessing - the ability to capture the healing forces of nature and channel them is pretty spectacular. But where did it end? Revelations had been happening regularly and frequently, each one more astounding than the last. I was on a runaway horse without bit or bridle. When and where he stopped was anyone's guess.

  My fingers had grown cold, and my heart felt small and wrung out. By the time I thanked the librarian for her help and found my way to my bike, I was sick with fear. Toward what kind of fate was I barreling?

  Chapter 26

  The rain had finally stopped by the time I left the library. Everything was wet and dripping. I wiped off the bike seat, threw a leg over, and headed in the direction of Sarasborne.

  My stomach grumbled, and my eyes felt heavy. My mind continued to roll around the possibilities that these things happening to me would continue to grow and change. The idea that Mailís had taken her own life was mind-boggling.

  As I pedaled, I realized I’d missed the turn-off for the bike path to the house. Shrugging, I took the gravel road instead. The cool wind rustled the leaves of the oaks lining the road, and whipped my hair into my mouth. I picked up the pace, eyeballing the gathering clouds on the horizon. The rain wasn't over, this was just an intermission. Just time enough to buy popcorn and licorice before the show started again. A flash of light flickered several times in the undersides of faraway clouds. The last hill before our driveway was within sight, so I stood and bore down on the pedals to get speed.

  What is it they say about most accidents happenin
g close to home? It certainly rang true for me that day. I was cresting that last hill when a farm truck going in the opposite direction (driving like he was an emergency vehicle on a mission instead of a rickety rig hauling a load of sheep) loomed abruptly, materializing from wisps of fog. The sight of the truck snapped me back into the present so hard I got mental whiplash. My scream was echoed by his horn blast as I swerved toward the ditch. The wind from his passing whipped my clothes and every loose particle of dirt on that road blew into my eyes. The bike wobbled and I knew I was going to fall - funny how that moment of realization is more terrifying than the actual event. I fought to keep my eyes open but they were so grit-filled that it was simply impossible. The handlebars turned, the front wheel slammed sideways, and over the bars I flew, landing in the mud in a tangle of limbs and metal. I skidded painfully along the gravel, sacrificing several inches of skin in the process.

  The driver of the truck yelled something in Gaelic but didn't stop. I lay there on my stomach, eyes stinging and watering. The right side of my jaw, my forearm, my right knee, and both palms burned like someone was holding a lighter to my skin. I'm not sure how long I lay there before I dragged myself upright. "Bloody hell," I swore. Okay, maybe my cursing was a little worse than that. It took me several minutes to get myself back on my feet, brushed off, and limping home. The entire right side of my body ached, and my abrasions stung. Adrenalin had flooded my body and made my legs feel weak and my hands shake. The pain sucked, as it always does. I won't go on about it, just know that there was blood. Maybe I had to bleed before I could learn what I had to learn, and isn't that always the way?

  I couldn't tell if I was more upset over Mailís's supposed suicide, or my fall, but it was the vegetation that cleared my head and made way for the residual I was about to see. As I passed a cluster of plants in the ditch, their healing properties clarified in my mind. Feeling compelled by some otherworldly power, I reached my fingers out and touched the leaves. Immediately, my mind was flooded with knowledge. Arnica had the power to diminish inflammation and bruising, and comfrey would knit together not only broken skin but also bones. The vegetation hummed under my fingertips and I could no more stop myself from drawing in their power than I could have prevented my fall. The nutrients within each plant condensed and entered my bloodstream, compounding many times over.