VIII
Jess Bethel naturally cared for the
woods and river as well as all the critters of the forest with unswerving
felicity. He loved the sprites of the Valley too, especially Honeysuckle
Sycamore. He even adored Grit, for he could see past the bitter hurt and
distorted pain that made her continuously weep and gnash her teeth. He saw in
her a soul bound by ropes of grief. To Jess, all manner of creation was part of
the great miracle.
His
gentle nature, though an inherent thing among most creatures, was imprinted on
him more so by the kindness that was shown him during his earlier years, a
kindness that began when he was a newborn child. His origins were unknown to
the individual who eventually found him floating like a bible story hero
upriver in a shoddy wicker basket. Brother Patricio Bethel was a very old man.
He had outlived anyone that anybody in the valley had ever known. He was
thinner than a cattail cane and his long robes hung from him like linens out on
the line set to dry. The children of the valley found him particularly strange
and could not help but stare on the odd occasion that they saw him. Brother
Patricio walked on all fours. This was due to a bone disease he had developed
in early life which had never been corrected. The truth is, however, he had
never thought about it too much. It never seemed much of a malady to him. His
soul had a greater purpose.
When
the old monk found the lost baby floating among the reeds as quiet and calm as
if the river itself were its mother, he at once took charge of the child. He
cradled and fed it, and as the boy grew, taught him the ways of the valley.
Young Jess Bethel was ever the dutiful son and was content in his world of the
stone chapel with Brother Patricio. They made their bread and wine, they tended
to the forest and its inhabitants, and they comforted the people of the valley
when the people needed comforting. They never wandered too far from the
chapel’s crumbling walls.
Even
the Passions of the valley found the chapel a wonderful playground, and Brother
Patricio always enjoyed watching his adopted son play among them. Jess seemed
more inclined to the wonders of the sprites than the growing cynicism of the valley
children.
Things
continued blissfully until Jess Bethel was a young man. One day, while mixing
dough for a wheat bread, the old monk fell over and died. It was as simple as
that. There were no long illnesses or deathbed farewells. Jess buried Patricio
beneath the roots of an oak tree near the chapel, and continued to look after
the old place even when the valley folk had long since forgotten it was there.
And so that is where he remained until that day when a curious sprite in
mourning followed him home.
Peat
Moss stared steadily into the dark of the cave. If there remained a brave soul
left in the valley and they chanced past the opening, they would have seen the
Passion hunched and as stoic as a statue, peering glassy-eyed at the cave wall.
But Peat Moss saw something there no passer-by could have seen. His grief had
overcome him. The ghost of Buford Longpost, the only being for which Peat Moss
had ever felt any affection for, glared back at him. He was an unmoving spirit;
as fixed to his spot as Peat Moss.
The
Passion’s defeated eyes almost cried true tears. He almost wept bitterly at the
memory of Buford’s demise. But then something transpired that prevented that.
One by one, ghost by ghost, the whisper had spun through the afterworld that
the angry Passion’s eyes were open and he could see spirits. Those beings that
Peat Moss had massacred and murdered began to trickle slowly into the cave out
of curiosity and a taste of vengeance. It was only a small stream of lost
consciousness at first. But it soon became a deluge. It wasn’t long before the
sprite saw around him the glaring, angry faces of everything he had ever
killed. And they were not as quiet as the silent woodsman’s ghost. No, they
were bitter and resentful, shouting and moaning. They tried their best to reach
out from the eternal divider and drag him into their world so that they might
each in their turn rip him asunder.
This
cavalcade of anger brought Peat Moss back to himself. He felt the hate and ire
that was his life’s purpose return to him. At once, he rose and clamored after
the spirits, wanting to kill them all over again. But he could not reach into
their world either. Yet, the angry calls of the ghosts still harassed him.
Exasperated,
Peat Moss ran from the cave. He realized he could not defend himself from the
calls of ghosts. But still, the victims of his malevolence followed him,
torturing him through the woods; an army of the dead searching for bloody
closure.
In
his flight from the cave, Peat Moss had unknowingly exposed his whereabouts to
an investigatory Grit. Still perturbed by the sense of unease that wrapped
around her heart, she had gone wandering through the forest yet again. Her
intent was to find the source of her mysterious restiveness and put an end to
it. Though, how that was to happen was a mystery to her.
Grit
heard the ruckus, and determinedly made her way in the direction of the cave.
It took some doing. She fell more than once. But eventually she found it. And
while Peat Moss was long gone, his mind slowly being chipped away by the voices
of the dead, she felt his essence of hate. She ran her fingers over the cave
walls, picking up his scent. It was then she realized what she had to do. She
understood who this abhorrent creature was; what he meant to her. So, she walked
from the cave and slowly felt her way back to the chapel.
No comments:
Post a Comment