Lilah (2 page)

As I intimated, I had already dabbled in the
weakened hearts and tattered wings of birds, sometimes curing them as the life
within had faded to nothing, as well as the sores, grazes and other surface
wounds of children. And even more recently, I had extended my skill to cats and
small forest animals in need of attention, some badly broken. But internal
human conditions were quite a new idea altogether and I was both exhilarated
and frightened at the thought. Still drowsy from sleep and unclear of her
expectations, I did not question Arianne’s plea but simply nodded to follow
her.

Claude had been brought in from the streets the
previous winter with his two brothers. At six years he had been the elder of
the three until his siblings had died through malnutrition and infections.

‘Please hurry,’ she pleaded, pulling me gently
by my arm. ‘I fear it may already be too late but I must believe that you were
sent here for a special purpose.’

I could hear Claude’s wheezes before we arrived
at his bedside. Several others shared this room sleeping on mattresses not with
straw, but with feathers donated by patrons of the Church. They were well cared
for with warm broths and shelter
;
though the limestone
walls could not shield the children from the extreme cold when there was no
wood to burn.

Arianne held her candle above the sick child.
His face was grey and speckled with red spots, some of which had turned to
scabs. Weak lungs – caused from working with his father in the tanneries
from the moment he could walk – had shortened his years. His father had
died from this very ailment leaving the boys to fend for themselves on the
streets. By then the damage had most likely been done to his underdeveloped body.
Claude could not remember his mother who had abandoned her children years
earlier.

Behind me, I could hear Arianne suppressing her
sobs. She had grown fond of Claude. He was an intelligent boy and Arianne said
that he was diligent and quick to learn. She felt he had been destined for an
intellectual life of some kind; his ability to count and divide was well ahead
of many of us.

His hand was cool to touch but his brow was hot
and damp. He smiled when he saw us both, and muttered that he was seeing angels.
I could not help but wonder at the sweetness of him for someone so young who
had started his life with setbacks and loss. Claude was delirious just as I had
seen others prior to their deaths.

With animals it had been more objective, more
experimental, but with Claude it was too close and there were many doubts. What
if I somehow made him worse? Would God punish me for this?

Arianne saw my hesitancy and touched my
shoulder. ‘Please,’ she whispered.

‘Arianne…’ It did not seem right somehow. I was
interfering with the decisions of God.  But I had no time to consider any
consequences. Arianne’s eyes were puffy. She had given this a lot of thought
already and I had to trust her. After all, she could do no wrong in my eyes.

I placed my hands firmly on Claude’s shoulders
and closed my eyes. Through my hands I could feel and hear the slow drumming of
his heart, the sound drowning out everything else around me. I felt my warmth
pass through his body until it reached his heart. Like a gentle wind this heat circulated
through him clearing out the milky substances that consumed his insides. As I
released the pressure and withdrew the heat, dark clouds seemed to follow my
withdrawal, some of which passed through my hands and breaking apart until
there was nothing. However, a small portion of this infection clung to my
retreating forces – that part of my essence I had used for curing –
leaving me with nausea and experiencing the pain that Claude had been enduring.

After I released Claude, his body convulsed and
he screamed. Arianne pressed his now limp form against her breast briefly
before laying him back down.

At first I thought I had killed him, and felt
intense chest pain from the effort of curing, the lingering infection inside of
me, and from the guilt of my deed. I was bone-weary and my legs were ready to
give way beneath me. Tears filled my eyes.  The thought of Arianne’s
sadness was nearly as bad as my own.

I sat with closed eyes at the end of Claude’s
bed and listened to Arianne fuss with his sheets. Then she startled me by
kissing my cheek. ‘You are indeed an angel in human form,’ she said. ‘What I
wouldn’t do to have your gift.’

Claude was sleeping and very much alive. His
rasping breath was gone and he was healed. I put my ear close to his mouth so I
could feel his breath.

We left Claude
sleeping and as I turned to go I thought I heard him say
thank you.
But
his chest had the steady rhythm of sleep.

I would like to say that this act of healing
humans would be my first and last, and only the right of God to perform at
will. But it wasn’t.

After Claude other curings were conducted
secretly in the dead of night. Only Arianne had unlimited access to the
infirmary, which allowed for our forbidden deeds. It became an obsession for
both of us – to beat the illness before it wasted the child.

We cured two children in one night and a week
later healed a nine-year old gypsy girl with rotting flesh disease. The sisters
had been expecting her to die before the end of the week and had taken her in
to make her last days comfortable and warm. When she skipped into the meals
room at breakfast the next day one sister was said to have thrown herself on
the ground and given praise. Others were pleased but more skeptical. Some
believed the girl had put on her illness – creating wounds to her own
flesh with hot irons – to be fed in the monastery. I was sad to hear that
the abbess had told the girl to leave the following day. Arianne had argued
with her senior only to be sent to prayer for several days and reflect on her
outburst. But not before she had wrapped up large pieces of cheese and half a
loaf of bread in a shawl of her own and passed these to the girl at the back
entrance.

Sister Gertrude said, at an assembly in the
chapel, that miracles were happening: that our Heavenly Father was indeed
watching them. From the pews, I had stolen a look at Arianne who had her head
bent in secret smile and when she winked at me I had to suppress a giggle.
Gertrude looked directly at me then, just as quickly, turned elsewhere drawing
the attention away from us. Something about that look had tightened my chest
but noting Arianne’s beaming profile, her head titled towards the heavens, such
feelings of dread dissipated.

Over time, the healing of the sick caused
another problem. Word was spreading that such events were taking place. It drew
attention to our establishment and a steady flow of people came bringing poorly
loved ones; believing that the air within the monastery was so pure it would
restore their good health. Once, we discovered a simple-minded boy inside the
chapel who knew neither his name nor address. He had been left behind in the
hopes that he could be healed. Try as I did afflictions of the mind could not
be cured. Eventually though, a whole wing would be dedicated to such cases and
a local surgeon, recently retired from his royal duties, volunteered his time.

The place was full and sometimes people were
turned away. And many who were healed had to be put back on the streets
immediately. It was difficult to see people leave and know that some may not be
heading into happy futures even though their bellies were temporarily full.

As I have suggested, it was indeed an
obsession. As well as the children, we sometimes cured beggars on the street.
Arianne always made excuses why I was to travel with her on errands. Those
lying in the cold – some nearly frozen to death – were moved to
warmer places and we placed healing into their bodies so that they would last
the winter. I say ‘we’ when I refer to healing as it was a team effort and without
Arianne I would not have been so bold.

There was a downside to our cause as I began to
dread curing during the day, especially visiting those on the street. Arianne
would not want to leave anyone untouched by this magic and in her determination
to cure she failed to consider the effects on me. Though she knew
I was physically weakened by such healing
, I would not let
her know the worst of it. Some diseases made me incredibly ill and she did not
witness the severe stomach cramps and night sweats in the privacy of my room,
which left me sleeping late into the morning to replenish my strength.

It was this affliction that would later fuel
suspicion and, ultimately, be my undoing.

Gabriel

Sometimes I liked to watch from the
tops of the trees and peer into the grounds of the monastery.
No-one
could see me. They might think it was a trick of the
light, the sight of a man silhouetted against the sun framed in fringes of
conifer leaves, but if they stepped forward for a closer look I would have
vanished in a blink of an eye. It was a popular perch for me to contemplate the
insignificant lives of the peasants who sold their paltry means at stalls in
the town, the visiting arrogant merchants wrapped in their furs, and the
superfluous visits by royals to the monastery to pray for an end to their
current round of bloodshed, but only if they were the victors themselves.

I had watched the place of prayer rise from the
dirt where men bent for hours crushing lime with sand and water to seal between
the large squares of white granite carried on their shoulders and those of
their sons, and sometimes daughters barely half their height. Piece by piece
from pale coloured stone, the building was born, full of light with high arched
windows. Inside were wooden structures of Jesus on the
Cross
and
Mary, and the polished oak benches and floors shone even on a dull
day. The plaster was gilded in places, and stone columns reaching the two
storey high ceilings of the entry were etched with crosses. Squares of framed
wood panels lined the arched ceiling, each with a representation of Christian
worship depicted in intricate detail such as the coloured irises of the angels,
the ethereal faces of the apostles, and the baby Jesus in his crib of straw.
Several times I had crept inside long after the bell for sleep had tolled so I
could get a closer look, to remind myself what humans were capable of and how
fruitless was their devotion since their souls could be extinguished at any
moment by the likes of myself.

The whole structure was a modern marvel, a rare
exercise of teamwork for a common goal and, I should add, a small amount of
cheap coin deposited in the calloused hands of the workers. Though it was more
a token for desperate job seekers than a wage or a labour of love. This place,
the first I had seen completely run by women, was originally commissioned to be
a castle for the last remaining son of a wealthy nobleman. When the son passed
away before it was completed, the nobleman then offered the building to the
Papacy in what he hoped would return him the promise of riches in heaven
– an afterlife swimming in jewels and continuous wealth to squander
rather than eternal hellfire as he, like many of his kind, probably feared, and
deserved.

Most of the royals and nobles I can safely say
would not have made it to heaven with any amount of coin, so barbaric were
their vain quests for dominance over their own family members and dominions.
But the building, a gift to the holy orders, became a haven to those children
who would grow to be nuns or brothers or leave at least with skin on their
bones and memories of charity. And, for the more cynical but perhaps realistic:
those who would leave to work tirelessly in trades, continuing the tradition of
being too poor to feed their own children.

Then there were others who would undoubtedly
grow and turn to thuggery
;
some performing only minor
misdemeanours. These were untainted as far as I was concerned, and not cut from
the same
cloth
of those who were just given to
sinfulness. It was the blood, and sometimes souls of the latter, that satisfied
my cravings.

It was a peaceful pastime to doze in this tree.
The sight of the nuns going about their dreary chores gave me moments of
tranquility to reflect on those other women I had seduced in times gone by. However
these peaceful reflections ended the day something new caught my eye.

For several years I had travelled across land
in search of new company and adventures. Lewis, my elder, did not like my
leaving, and though I expressed some loyalty to our circle, I belonged to
no-one
. Our coven was nice to come back to, to be among
family, but it was just a question of time before I felt the burning desire for
more exploring.

Once again, I found myself back at my favourite
haunts and hiding places watching the locals go about their pointless deeds.

It was on one such day from my spot in the tree
that my eyes rested on a girl who immediately took my interest. Though humans
might look at me as an abomination, compassion was something I felt towards
particular earthly creatures. And I had on occasion enjoyed the company of a
human girl often more pleasurable than my own kind
;
more eager to please.

I cannot say that I sought the companionship of
male humans as a general rule but I had met many over the centuries
who
I had grown particularly fond of in one way or another.
Some of my best workers and scouts were humans and like any working
relationship it was not hard to form a bond.