Elixa, page 10
part #0.50 of The Torcal Trilogy Series
With the lake at her back and the wolf at her front, she was trapped.
Wolves could swim. She couldn’t.
Breathing heavily, she backed further into the lake. A rock stabbed into her bare foot, but she ignored the sharp point.
The wolf’s eyes were fixed on her, yellow but with a strange, defocused insanity glazing them. A steady, evil stare. Waiting for her to run so he could hunt her down. His jaws had great strength; a bite would break her bones and render her useless for flight.
Elixa wanted to scream for help, but that would only vex the wolf into pouncing. The bellowing voice from earlier echoed around the crevices again. The hunters were searching for the wolf. They must have seen him hanging around the abbey grounds.
The wolf, fluid and powerful, came forward to stand beside Elixa’s boots at the lake’s edge. She moved further backwards, waist deep into the water. Her arms flared out to balance her. The tattered tunic soaked up the water.
Fear possessed her.
Suddenly the pebbles crunched with the sound of skidding boots. A large shadow floated above her. There was an abrupt thud as someone jumped up onto the rock above the wolf.
The wolf’s head spun around.
Elixa’s eyes followed his.
19
Enrique stood just a few feet away from the wolf. His shoulder length, almond-coloured hair was tousled around his face and rested on his broad shoulders.
He swayed on flexed knees, not looking at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the wolf. The creature snarled, baring his bloodied teeth. For a second, he gathered his strength, then he leapt into the air, his jaw opening wide as he lunged at Enrique.
At the same time, Enrique drew a sword out of the scabbard hanging on his belt and swung it at the yellowed fangs.
The animal shrieked as the blade entered his flesh. But, driven by his madness, the wolf did not give up. Heedless of the blade carving through his flesh, his jaws bit down into Enrique’s thigh. Blood gushed out, spraying over his tunic and leather breeches and running down his knee-length boots and onto the rock.
Enrique stumbled backwards, his sword skittering across the rocks. His long hair tangled around his face. He steadied himself on the boulder behind him. Grabbed at a dagger sheathed across his chest. His hand arched high in the air, and just as the wolf, now maimed and staggering, opened his jaws to bite again, Enrique stabbed the broad blade deep into its neck.
The wolf gurgled for a moment and then fell sideways and was still.
Enrique’s gaze darted to Elixa. ‘He did not attack you! Praise be to God!’ His wide forehead did not wrinkle often, but now it did, showing the depth of his concern.
He braced himself against the rock and tried to kick the wolf off the boulder. Its head flopped to one side with an ugly grimace on its face.
‘You arrived just in time,’ Elixa shuddered, hoping its evil spirit would not come back to harm them.
With a pained scowl, Enrique lowered himself from the boulder and down onto the flat rock that bordered the lake.
Coming to her senses, Elixa waded out of the water. For a moment, she crossed her arms over her chest in an awkward motion. Glancing down, she realised that her tunic was not soaked through, nor clinging to her body.
Muttering at herself for wasting even such a brief moment worrying about modesty, she knelt beside Enrique and examined his wound. Blood pulsed out of a long gash. She looked into his almond coloured eyes and whispered, ‘The bone?’
He shook his head. ‘No, the beast’s teeth only pierced the flesh.’ He tried to stand, but wobbled and fell against her.
Elixa held him for a moment. For all that they saw each other around the place most days, this must have been the first time he had actually touched her since he had held her after Rosa had disappeared, and it was like lightning passing through her body. She wanted the pleasure of his warmth to go on forever, but she helped him to the ground. ‘Stay there. I will clean the wound.’
Glancing around, she saw that in the minutes of the standoff with the wolf, the moon had risen up over the horizon. Although the daylight still endured, its silver brilliance lent an odd dimension to the light.
A thought came to her. Crouched again at Enrique’s side, Elixa turned her head to look at the moon and retrieved the stone from her tunic’s herb pouch. The stone glowed in her hand like a hot coal from Mamá’s hearth.
Perched on the boulder at the lake’s edge, she scooped the leather water costrel that she now secretly carried to fill it from the lake.
As she was about to pour it over Enrique’s torn flesh, he held up his hand and cried out, ‘Wait! Is this water not cursed?’
‘No!’
He pushed her hands away to stop her pouring the water on his wound. ‘But Brother Grigori said―’
‘Enrique, will you place your trust in me?’
He blinked and hesitated before mastering himself and saying ‘Yes, Elixa. Always.’
She squatted at his side and poured the water over his torn flesh.
He grunted and clenched his jaw as his will fought off the fears Grigori had drummed into all of the community about the water.
‘What do you feel?’ She asked as she repeated the action with another full costrel from the lake.
He stammered, ‘It is warm…and…and I am not sure what I feel. Only warmth.’
‘Then, enjoy the warmth a moment, before you make any judgements.’
He grimaced and muttered, ‘The bite may carry a high risk of infection. It could leave me lame…or even dead.’
‘I do not believe that will happen. So strongly do I believe in these stones, Enrique, please bide your time and see what will happen.’
Elixa prayed silently to God and his angel, her own secret Luna Moon Goddess, that they heal his leg and not leave her to become a fool in Enrique’s eyes.
Elixa scooped more water into the pouch. This time, she placed one of the stones on his thigh, across the gaping wound, and poured the water over it. It sizzled in the stone’s heat, seeped down into the crystalline X shaped crack, and flowed out to fall into Enrique’s gash.
She said in a soft voice, ‘Enrique, surely you know that I would never wish you dead. I would never see you harmed in any way.’
From inside her chemise pouch, she pulled out another of the palm-sized stones that she had clutched all night in the cave. Placing it alongside the other she poured more bubbling water over it and then, using both hands, she rubbed the two stones up and down on either side of the wound’s edges.
Enrique muttered, ‘It’s grown even hotter…but somehow it is comforting.’
She nodded and continued stroking the stones alongside the gash.
‘Is it some sort of? …’
‘Sort of what?’ She held his gaze. However firmly he held it at bay, his eyes also contained a mixture of suspicion and confusion.
He blew out the side of his mouth but still did not say anything.
‘Enrique, this is a blessing, not witchcraft or heresy, or anything else that Brother Grigori wants people to believe.’
He was silent for a long moment while she poured more water on the wound. It looked cleaner and less angry, but it was not healing, so she again placed the stones over his open flesh.
Enrique watched her with brooding eyes.
She could see that only his affirmed trust in her was keeping suspicion at bay, and that even that would not hold indefinitely. ‘Lie back and give thanks to the moon,’ she ordered him. She understood now that this, too, was an essential part of the healing; the acceptance of the gift.
Obeying her, he closed his eyes and muttered. ‘The moon? Not God? Brother Grigori will not be pleased at that!’
‘I care not what Brother Grigori or any other will think of me. Give thanks to God or the moon, whichever you wish.’ A surge of anger flashed through Elixa, not at Enrique but at how he had been poisoned to be so suspicious. Breathing deeply, she calmed herself and repeated her prayer to God and the Luna goddess. Under the stones the wound began to draw closed.
After a few minutes of placing the stone on different parts of his wound, Enrique’s thigh had only a long purple scar. No bloodied wolf bite. Just bruised flesh.
He opened his eyes and exclaimed, ‘The wound. It’s…it’s healing!’
Sure and calm now, Elixa watched the livid bruises grow fainter.
The stone was healing his wound. Like it had healed her ankle. It must really be a sacred stone sent from God.
All day, she had been wondering if what had happened in the cave had in fact been a dream. Could she have picked a Belladonna berry and started hallucinating? Or, in her disorientated state, perhaps she had imagined the swollen, twisted ankle and the glowing stones.
But now it was happening all over again.
She held up the stone and whispered, ‘You are truly a sacred stone sent from the Moon Goddess.’
Enrique’s gaze was on her now, round eyed and in awe. ‘Elixa, is it the water or the stones doing the healing? Or you?’
How could she tell him that she had not yet worked that out? She thought for a moment. Then started speaking, slowly as her mind worked through her thoughts. ‘Enrique I do not yet understand this. All I can do is share with you those parts of the story that I know.’
‘I am listening,’ he murmured with his eyes fixed on her.
‘Two weeks ago there was a great fire on the moon. Some days after this a huge boulder came out of the sky, from that same direction and fell to the earth, here where this lake now lies. It sunk deep down into the earth and behind it came a mighty rainstorm that created the lake in the hollow where the boulder had passed. Ten days have passed since then, each one hot and cloudless under the summer sun, and yet the water has neither drained away nor misted into the air, as it normally would have. This is why I believe this constant source of water than can transform our lives here, to be a gift from God sent from his Luna goddess angel’.
She then told Enrique about falling into the cave and how she had slept on a bed of glowing stones, only to wake up and find her ankle healed.
He listened with respect at her explanation.
She hesitated for a moment. ‘Of course, I cannot tell the abbot or Mamá about how the strange glowing stones inside the cave healed my twisted ankle. That would make Mamá worry even more. And she would think I have gone mad or been possessed.’
He laughed, ‘Does she still worry about you as she always used to, even though you are full grown now?’
She smiled. ‘Perhaps she worries about me more than she needs to.’
He frowned in thought now and ran his finger across where, just minutes before, his flesh had been ripped to the bone. She could see his mind trying to assemble the pieces, as it had the stones to build the walls in the pen. ‘That still does not explain if it is the sacred stones or the holy water?’
Elixa smiled inwardly. The trust in her that he had willed had broken Grigori’s spell and when talking about the stones he now used the same words she did.
Bringing her own mind to bear on the problem, she clarified, ‘In the cave, the sacred stones healed my ankle, but there was no water, so they must possess the power of healing. I am sure the Luna stones give the lake water some kind of holiness, perhaps as a carrier, a way to enhance the healing, or to convey it seamlessly. But…’ she started seeing the light of understanding, ‘I am convinced the Luna stones hold the power, I just do not understand how it is released.’
Thinking hard, she gazed at the moon, and a sudden arrow of insight shot through her. ‘I think it is the moon lighting the crystals.’ Her thoughts were clicking together now. ‘That must be it! The stone is joining forces with the moon. That is where it is getting its power!’
Enrique scratched his bearded jaw. Then, rubbing his thumb absently on his dagger, he cocked his head and raised a single eyebrow at her. ‘I’m still not sure I can believe it! Did I really just see my flesh seal up or…am I dreaming or…dead?’
She gazed at him with wide eyes, giving a slow, disbelieving shake of the head.
Elixa smiled, and as she did another revelation came to her. ‘Your healing didn’t really start until you closed your eyes to give thanks to the Luna goddess. For this gift to endure and to heal we must accept it, of this I am sure. So I believe that we should hold a festival of moonlight to show God and the Moon Goddess how grateful we are.’
He snorted, ‘Brother Grigori would never accept that!’ But now his face became concerned. ‘Is it true that there is trouble in the abbey? That the monks fear the water’s sudden appearance marks it as the work of the devil? They denounce calling the lake’s appearance a miracle as heresy.’
‘No!’ For a moment she wondered if she should tell Enrique all she had heard about heresy. And, worse still, that she feared she herself could be accused of it.
Deciding against that for now, she said in a soft voice, ‘I believe God sent us this lake when the stones fell from Heaven as the gift of the Luna goddess. I think the abbot may agree with me, silently, but he fears to cause disquiet and unease amongst the monks, at least until he has had time to study and understand this for himself.’
Enrique gazed out over the small lake. ‘That sounds honourable.’
Elixa sighed. ‘Sometimes Brother Luis reminds me of the stubborn old mule. But I admire how he has opened his mind to what happened that night.’
Elixa continued, ‘But when he saw the lake, he was the only one who listened to me and acknowledged that it was a miracle. Brother Grigori does not believe. He has strange opinions. But his teaching of hell and damnation has never put the fear of God in me, like the others at school. It only made me question God.’
‘How?’
‘Well,’ she swallowed hard, not wanting to reveal her conversations with the Almighty. ‘I sometimes look into my own heart to ask God about things, instead of accepting that everything that the monks tell us is His Will and His Divine Judgement.’
Enrique looked puzzled.’
‘For example, when the abbot and I saw the moon on fire, he said perhaps God was giving us a sign. So, I prayed to the Lord that if it was a sign He should show me something to help me believe it. Then, a few days later, when everyone was in service, God sent the stones down, here, exactly where I was and even where there was a shelter for me to run into. You see,’ she smiled, ‘He answered me and showed me it was a sign from Him. Instead of fearing God’s power, as Brother Grigori has always wanted us to do, I am now searching for a meaning behind what happened to the moon and the falling of the sacred stones, and I do it so that I may better serve Him.’
When Enrique stared at her, she could not make out if he was still suspicious or slowly coming around to her way of thinking.
As if he was uncomfortable under her scrutiny, he turned and gazed at the water. ‘You are right that the sun has not dried up the lake, as it does many rivers.’
‘That is another reason why I believe it is a miracle. I think it is holy water.’
‘And, whether it was the stone or the water, I can be in no doubt that I was healed.’
She nodded.
‘What does Brother Luis say?’ A smile tugged the corner of Enrique’s mouth, but he suppressed it. ‘I have heard him being called…the wayward monk.’
‘Yes, the brethren sometimes mutter that behind his back.’ A sudden fierce loyalty to the old abbot gripped her. ‘Who are they to think they know any more than he does? They all argue about it. Some of them have said the stones from Heaven foretell of the wrath of God.’ Elixa turned the stone over in her palm, studying it closely. ‘But I think a few other monks secretly believe that the moonstones may indeed be manna from Heaven, because they gave birth to the lake. I saw how quickly they went to drink the water, even though Brother Grigori forbade them to do it. At least the abbot has agreed to study the scriptures to learn about the stones.’
‘Did he tell you this?’
How could she tell her beloved that she had found this out by eavesdropping? Instead of lying to him, she whispered, ‘He is doing it secretly.’
She had not lied. Nor told the truth.
‘Is that the reason for all the letters the abbot has asked me to take down the valley?’
She nodded. ‘Brother Luis is sending letters to other monasteries asking if they had seen the miracle of the moon, and the falling stones. ‘
‘And what do you think, Elixa?’ Enrique stared at her with a steady gaze. His almond eyes absorbed her deep into him.
She shrugged, almost a gesture of helplessness. ‘I think I must learn everything I can about this miracle and the healing powers of the stones.’
‘Elixa, it is hard to understand why you feel so compelled to be the only protector of the Lunar stones and the only person for this responsibility to fall solely upon. Whilst you may not think your mother or the abbot will fully understand, you do need their support. Do you not at least agree with that,’ Enrique’s gentle tone probed.
She nodded her head slowly as she sought the correct answer. Gradually, the words came to her, ‘The night, when the Luna Goddess spoke to me in that extraordinary way, it filled me with a physical aura…almost like a religious calling to be the protector of the stones. I have never had the calling that a monk would receive from God to follow Him into the service of the church or a nun for that matter, but I can only imagine that what I am describing to you now would be similar, yet different, because it is a calling from another majestic being on high. As I am saying this, I can also see how confusing my words sound, even to me, but this is how I see what happened that puzzling night.’
‘Okay,’ Enrique looked pensive, ‘I think I can understand that more readily.’
‘And I will gain their support, Enrique, just not at this very moment. I must find the right time to explain all this. For the very reason that I just mentioned, even to me this is perplexing, so for them it will be more so. When that time comes, I promise you that I shall ask for their support. As I ask for yours.’
He did not hesitate. ‘You have mine.’
‘Thank you, Enrique. I know this is all very troubling, but I believe it shall soon become clear to us all.’
