Born of Earth: An Elemental Origins Novel

by A. L. Knorr

  I say it was easy, but that isn't giving you the true sensation. It was a very strange feeling - a bit like trying to suck a thick gel through a straw. But as I sucked, my body filled with a beautiful energy, and it felt as though my cells and my blood were dancing. The pain of my wounds and the throbbing of my bruises faded. I looked down at my arm, watching the torn skin stitch back together as though by unseen needle and thread. Small stones were expelled as the wound mended and closed itself. A sprinkling of dirt and bits of gravel fell into the grass.

  Understanding that the root of the plant was one of the most powerful parts, and under the impression that I needed to touch it, I knelt and began to dig, eager to see if the beautiful feeling changed or increased when my hands got tangled in the root. Mailís had written about the supercharged power of roots.

  As my fingers raked the soil and clumps of earth filled my palms, I was startled by movement in my periphery. There was no sound to warn me, and so you can imagine what it did to my heart to look up and see the ghostly forms of two people having an argument at the end of the Sarasborne driveway. It took me a moment to recognize Mailís because I was beginning to know her by her chevron dress, but here she was wearing a solid dress in a dark color. The images in a residual come in black and white, so maybe her dress was navy, or brown, but to my eyes it appeared black. She had a high-necked collar with a ring of lace at the top, and a ruffle on her chest in the shape of a V. I was so startled that it took me several moments to register what I was seeing. Mailís and Cormac were having some kind of confrontation, and speaking with great passion. It was like watching a silent movie - dramatic, overstated, only this had far more authenticity than any film I'd ever seen.

  I became a statue as I watched the scene play out before me - a still of a girl digging in the dirt in the ditch alongside the road. I came alive only when a residual horse came barreling into the scene from behind me and shocked me into movement. A man I didn't recognize rode into view on a workhorse with no saddle and a bridle made of rope. The man wore a dark jacket, and a black hat that hid his face. Everything about him spelled urgency. He pulled the horse up to where Cormac and Mailís stood. The animal tossed its head and reared low. The way the man was hunched made me realize it was raining the day this took place, and when I looked closer at Mailís and Cormac, I saw their hair was curly and damp, their skin shiny with wetness.

  The man on horseback spoke to Cormac, who listened, with an arm held out toward Mailís. She had a hand hooked around his elbow and her eyes were wide and frightened. As they listened to the rider, Cormac's face hardened and Mailís began to cry. She was shaking her head, even as Cormac used the rider’s arm to swing up behind him. As the horse wheeled, hoofs throwing clumps of dirt, Mailís collapsed to her knees. Neither of the men looked back as the horse galloped back the way it had come and disappeared from my view.

  Mailís covered her face with her hands and bent her forehead to the earth. As she splayed her hands out on the ground in front of her and her fingers curled into the mud, displaying an agony that even her face could not rival, the residual blinked out and the figures of Cormac and Mailís appeared once again. The scene began anew and I saw the beginning that I had missed.

  Cormac's face was away from me but it was clear the two were talking. As the conversation progressed, Mailís became more and more upset, shaking her head, her mouth pulled down. By the time the horseman appeared again, she was a piteous creature.

  I felt wrecked. I watched the residual a half-dozen times, tears streaming down my own face, hands still in the dirt. It wasn't difficult to make some sense of what I was seeing. Cormac had broken Mailís's heart, just like I had thought he might. He left her literally in the mud, weeping and broken and alone. What their words were to one another, and what news the rider came to deliver I couldn't tell, but her agony was as clear as a full moon on a cloudless night. I didn't know how long she lay there after he left her because the residual reset itself before she got up, but a big piece of the puzzle had found its way to me.

  Why did Cormac break Mailís’s heart? He'd had such love on his face, that day they kissed on the bridge. My mind only had a single, feeble clue - and that was the name of the girl in the diary. Aileen the Flirt.

  By the time I got to my feet and dusted my hands of soil, I had made up my mind to go back into town. I had another question to ask the librarian now. The residual faded away as the earth left my palms, and I mounted the bike, wheeled it around, and went back in the same direction the residual horse had carried Cormac and the other rider - back to Anacullough.

  Chapter 27

  If the librarian was surprised by my reappearance so shortly after I'd departed, she didn't show it. What a pro. I walked up to her desk, hair disheveled, hands still dirty from digging around in the ditch, fingernails black.

  "Are you alright?" She gave my grubby appearance a cursory once over. She had neither alarm nor judgement in her expression. I suppose when you get to a certain age, it takes more than filthy hands to elicit a reaction.

  "Apparently, I'm not finished," I said. "This time, I need the wedding indexes." I was physically tired and emotionally exhausted, but the need to know had sunk its hooks deep. There was no way I was going to stop now, not when my own fate might be tied to it.

  "I see." She took off her bifocals and propped them on her head. She got up and circled the desk. I followed her toward the stairs. "Whose wedding are we after?"

  "Aileen O'Sullivan. That would be the anglicized way to say it. I'm sorry I don't know how to pronounce it the Gaelic way." My hands were shaking as I grabbed the banister, whether from hunger or shock, I didn't know. Probably both.

  The librarian halted on the stairs and swung back to me, her mouth in an 'O'. "Ó Súilleabháin?" she said. "When would this wedding have taken place?"

  I frowned, thinking. "1935?"

  "My dear," she put a withered hand on my shoulder. "Aileen Ó Súilleabháin is still alive. She's as ancient as the hills, but for mental stamina she'd put any college kid to shame. If it's the story you want, there won't be a better source than the horse’s mouth, so to speak. She lives at the pensioners home and they're open for visitors all day most days."

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I opened my mouth to protest but I didn't know what to say first. That it was impossible that it was the same Aileen, that I wouldn't know what to say to her, that I didn't feel right disturbing an old lady's peace, that I might strangle her if she admitted to stealing Cormac away from Mailís. Mailís's anguished face rose to my mind, her body as it collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, her hooked fingers dragging in the dirt of the road.

  "Go on, dear. I don't know her well, but I know she's a kind lady. It would probably make her day to have a visit from a curious lass such as yourself. Besides," she looked at her watch, "we're closing up soon. Sunny Valley is only three blocks east of here."

  I found myself escorted brusquely but somehow kindly through the foyer and to the front doors. By the time I found my voice, I was standing outside and facing the right direction. "Sunny Valley has a public washroom just inside the front doors," the librarian added. "Maybe just a quick wash-up before you go to say hello." And with that, she disappeared back inside and I found myself closing the distance between me and one of Mailís's contemporaries.

  I left my bike in the bike rack and went on foot, which allowed me to cut down a pedestrian walkway that bikes weren't allowed on. A pattering of rain had begun again. I pulled my hood up over my head and bent against the raindrops.

  Sunny Valley was a low yellow brick building with a wheelchair-friendly ramp leading up to the door. I brushed my wet hood back and opened the swinging doors, stepping into the common room where a nurse was crossing the floor.

  "May help you?" she asked, hugging a clipboard to her chest and cocking her head. "You don't look like one of our regulars."

  "I'm not, I'm looking for Aileen O'Sullivan. Is it alright if I pop in and visit her
a minute?"

  "You must be here to say happy birthday," she said, smiling. "We've had a lot of visitors for her today. She's actually out at The Criterion Café right now, having a little birthday celebration. Everyone is welcome, so don't be afraid to go find her there."

  The Criterion was eight blocks away, and I was pooped. But I had come so far, I couldn't fathom giving up. I thanked the nurse and left.

  Just as I walked down the wheelchair ramp and onto the sidewalk, my phone rang. I picked it out of my bag and answered it without looking at the screen. "Hello?"

  "Poppet?”

  Liz was the last person that I wanted to be talking to at this point in time. I was tired, filthy, grumpy, scared, and just about at the end of my rope.

  "Hello, Liz," I said. I got a chill from my own voice.

  "You sound strange."

  Irritation flared. "So do you," I said, abruptly. I wasn't actually paying attention to how she sounded, I was too distracted by my own problems. "Now is not really a good time, Liz."

  Rain sprinkled into my face and I yanked my hood up again.

  "You said that last time," she answered.

  I couldn't exactly explain to my mother what was happening so I switched tactics. "I'm doing good. Is there something I can help you with?"

  "Well..." She took a long pause.

  I wasn't in the mood for long pauses. My feet were eating up the sidewalk between Sunny Valley Pensioners Home and The Criterion Café. I had a mission and speaking with Liz wasn't helping me accomplish it. I don't say that to excuse my behavior, just to gently remind you of my state of mind. So when Liz said, "I was wondering if you might like to come home early," I nearly went apoplectic.

  I stopped dead on the sidewalk, rain dripping from the edge of my hood and into my face, running shoes soaked through. "Excuse me?"

  She either didn't catch the fury in my tone, or she chose to ignore it. In either case, she barreled onward. "Yes. I was thinking that maybe it was a mistake to send you away for the entire summer. I've been so busy at work these past few months..."

  "You mean years..." I seethed.

  "Yes, years. Exactly. I've been thinking maybe it’s time that you and I spend a little one on one time together, before the summer is out."

  On another day, under a sunny sky, and maybe when I didn't have thoughts of broken hearts, a woman abandoned on the road, and my own doom hanging over my head, I would have reacted differently. But Liz had chosen the wrong moment, the wrong words, and the wrong daughter to do a 180 on. The conversation from that moment on went something like this:

  "Coming to Ireland was your idea."

  "I know, but..."

  "You couldn't wait to get rid of me." My voice was getting louder.

  "That's not true..."

  "You foisted me off on your sister." My consonants were getting sharper. I may have spat on the word 'foisted.'

  "I didn't foist—"

  "Whose letters you never even bothered to read."

  "I haven't had—"

  "Who adopted a boy, a nephew you haven't bothered to meet or even ask about."

  "Now hold on, that's not fair."

  "You have no idea what's going on here right now, what you're interrupting." I yelled this.

  "Well, if you’ll just tell me then I'll—"

  "You call up out of the blue, without any sensitivity or respect for what's happening in my life."

  "Georjayna... Poppet."

  It's only fair of me to report honestly that she never once raised her voice, or sounded defensive or angry. Too bad I was too furious to notice.

  "And expect me to drop everything, turn around, get on a plane..."

  "Well, yes but, no."

  "Because you've had an attack of conscience about having neglected your daughter since she was eleven, and you think now would be a good time to try and make up for it." These words I definitely spat, like rusty nails.

  The line was silent.

  "Do I have it about right, Liz?" All of the venom that had built up over the last six years since she’d made partner, all of the anger and frustration, came out on her name. It was pregnant to bursting with an ugly hurt-baby.

  There was an odd sort of wheeze on the other end of the phone, and some urgent talking in the background, the sounds of an office. I heard Liz's voice but I couldn't understand any of her words. It sounded like she had her hand over the mouthpiece. She hadn't even been listening to me.

  I glared at my cell, ground my teeth, hung up the phone, and kept walking.

  Chapter 28

  I pushed open the cafe door and the sound of a crowd buzzed in my ears. I beelined for their washroom and washed my filthy hands, scrubbing hard with the soap and digging under my nails.

  Once I was somewhat presentable, I went to the counter and ordered a cinnamon bun and a cup of tea. I ignored the snotty look of the young girl behind the counter. I must have still looked like a vagabond, but I didn't care.

  "Heated?" she asked, lifting her chin but dropping her eyes, looking down her nose.

  "No, thanks," I said.

  She put the bun on a napkin and pushed it toward me with her tongs.

  As I tore into the pastry like a starving person, a very loud off-key refrain of “Happy Birthday” startled me. Bingo. I craned my neck and spotted a crowd of gray-haired people, mostly women, at the very back of the cafe. A shiny red banner had been fixed in the corner - Happy 100th Birthday! A young woman holding a cake with a single sparkler on it lowered the concoction onto a table in the middle of a crowd of seniors.

  Aileen was turning one hundred years old.

  I chewed my way through my cinnamon bun and drank my tea. Both things tasted like ashes. I stole frequent glances toward the back of the cafe. Every few minutes, someone attending the party would leave. Sometimes they were a couple of old ladies, arms twined at the elbow, helping each other walk. Sometimes it was a single person, shuffling their way through the cafe and out the door. Felt hats, comfortable loafers, hose and skirts or wool slacks dominated the fashion choices. All of them looked old enough to be my grandparents, maybe even my great grandparents. The geriatric crowd was getting thinner and thinner.

  When there was almost no partiers left I screwed up the courage and made my way to the back of the café .

  When I saw her, I knew it was Aileen. She was by far the eldest of any of the people I'd seen here today. She sat in an advanced looking electric wheelchair. A much younger woman hovered nearby, the one who'd held the cake. Nurse? Daughter? Granddaughter? The last two partiers were pulling on cardigans with shaking hands, and finding their way to their feet.

  "Excuse me," I said to the younger woman. She walked away from the table and approached me. I smiled warmly, even though every nerve was twanging. I gestured to Aileen. "Is that the lady turning a century old today?"

  She smiled. "She is. Unbelievable, isn't it? I can't believe we let her out, but when a woman turns a hundred, you do whatever you can to grant her birthday wishes. She's still as spry as anyone, if you can believe it."

  "Let her out?" I echoed, picturing a cell.

  She laughed. "That sounds terrible, doesn't it? I just mean from the home. She wanted to come here to celebrate her birthday because she opened this cafe about sixty-five years ago. Course, it was a restaurant in those days."

  "Really? That's amazing. I was wondering if I could sit and chat with her. Wish her happy birthday? Would you mind? It's not every day I meet someone who’s lived one hundred years."

  "Be my guest. She loves young people." She stepped aside and made room for me to sit down next to Aileen. "I'm just going to run to the loo, I'll be right back," she half-whispered.

  As I sat, Aileen's head inclined in my direction. "Who's there?" she said in a dry, weak voice. Her eyes were filmy with white, her white hair a thin fluff around the crown of her head. Her nose was still straight and perfect, the only part of her face that looked untouched by the fingers of age.

  "My name is
Georjayna Sutherland," I said. "Happy birthday, Aileen."

  A smile tugged at one corner of her withered lips. "Thank you. You sound funny. Where are you from?"

  "I'm Canadian."

  "Ah," she said, turning her head even more in my direction, her unseeing eyes unmoving in their sockets. One eyelid drooped. "I have family who moved to Canada after the war, but I never made it there myself." Her accent was strong, and I had to work to understand. "Even if you live for a century, it seems there is never time enough."

  "I was wondering," I said, licking my lips, "if I might ask you something of a personal nature?"

  "I’d welcome it," she said. "No one asks me anything about myself these days. One time, a journalist came to talk to me on my ninety-fifth birthday. But since then, I haven't had much excitement. Ask away."

  I cleared my throat. "Are you married to a man named Cormac O'Brien?"

  She didn't respond. Not even a blink. I couldn't read any expression in her blind eyes. She'd turned into a wax figure. My heart began to pound. "Ma'am? Aileen?"

  "How do you know that name?" Her frail voice had gone so quiet, I had to lean in.

  "I...well, I stumbled across it in the diary of a relative. And I stumbled across the name Aileen, too. I thought the reference might be to you."

  "Which relative? Who are you related to?" Her voice wavered, but she didn't seem fearful.