Notes from the Future: Henrietta's Tale, Part VIII

"We hit them hard, we hit them fast. Rachels, use the Neurovascular Dynamics at close range. Non-force, non lethal where possible. Firearms are a last resort. I repeat, firearms are a last resort. Now move out!"

Everyone is moving around me and I feel like I'm in a dream, unable to run or move. Then Mother Henrietta is at my side, her arm through mine, smiling, grim but cheerful.

"Come along, dear: you're with us," she sings out, and my mood changes from lost and scared to bright, happy, purposeful. I feel like I'm part of something, like we're doing something. Even the smell of the smoke and the sound of the burning houses farther down the slope are brighter, better and inspiring. 

We move off to the northwest, down a trail below the garden and below the Tor. I haven't been up there since the day Nice Rachel showed it to me. I haven't seen Nice Rachel since the day Tad disappeared and I attacked Torvald Mayberry. A question comes into my head, and I can't stop it from hitting my lips:

"Where is Torvald Mayberry, Mother Henrietta?" Even as I say this, I realize it's something I've been shoving down underneath other thoughts and activity in the days since I attacked him. I've been afraid to find out if I killed him. Or worse, if I will have to do it again. Why do I feel like it's my job to kill this fucker? "If he's alive, how can he even function? I'm pretty sure I broke his jaw." I find it incredibly satisfying to say this.

"That's exactly what we're going to find out, dear," she says, putting her right arm around me and briefly squeezing my shoulders. "Now listen closely, and stay by my side, because there's a lot I have to tell you before we reach our destination."

The night is cool, the air is smoky but growing clearer as we walk, and though I can see and sense the light of the fires over my right shoulder, we have moved into a forest of Oak and California Bay Laurel; I feel protected, somehow. A fresh breeze blows clean air from the West and Mother Henrietta begins:

"Friar Rudel stood in the snow-whispered darkness with Hannibal the Talkative and the the two pack animals carrying his gravely wounded friend Father Robert and the mysterious girl who was chased through fire and time by the same beast that now pursued them from below. He was at a loss. He couldn't see a thing, the night was unnaturally black. Usually snow would make some things more visible, but tonight it was as though they were enveloped in a dark mist.

"'I can't see a rutting thing, Hannibal, can you?' he asked the former mute.

"'No, indeed, Friar Rudel. But --' There followed the sound of a smack on fur-covered flesh and a grunting bray from Abelard the Donkey, and Friar Rudel felt himself rudely pushed aside by Abelard who trotted past him up the steep, icebound trail, followed closely by Bluebell the mule.

"'Ah! The animals can see our path clearly! Well done, young Hannibal!' So saying, Friar Rudel grabbed hold of a pack on Bluebell's back and felt Hannibal grab hold of his tattered old cloak. Thus, donkey, mule, Friar and former mute made their slow progress up the steep, icebound trail. Somehow the animals' hooves never slipped and though both men slipped and fell at times, the animals simply pulled them along over ice and snow until they reached rock or rare bare earth and could right themselves.

"Still the howling grew closer, still the darkness knew no end and the cold bit deeply into their bones. Friar Rudel began to lose feeling in his feet. Hannibal the Talkative hardly said a word. They stumbled and slipped and fell and were dragged, but they never seemed to go anywhere. 

"Friar Rudel was losing his grip on the loose leather strap to which he clung, dragged over snow and ice that had already soaked through his cloak and robe; he could not get his hands to move easily. He called out, but could muster barely a croak. He took a deep breath, licked his lips and felt the icicles break away from around his moustache and beard. He called out again, and again it was weak. He took a third deep breath, gathered his strength to call to Hannibal and Abelard and Bluebell.

"What came instead was a burp. A loud, resonant, sonorous burp that, moments later, echoed around them, rebounding between the walls of the bowl of rock in which they now found themselves. 

"With a start, Friar Rudel realized he could see more clearly, and that the dark fog which had shrouded them was either gone or dissipated enough that he could see that they were in a long, deep bowl of stone edged by high, ragged, sharp peaks. Their path continued forward but was quickly disappearing beneath snow which fell fast and thick and heavy here. 

"'Light! We need light!' he bellowed.

"Turning, he saw Hannibal and the two pack animals staring at him.

"'Friar Rudel, that was quite a burp,' said Hannibal.

"'Yes it was, wasn't it. Did I offend the Donkey? I'll make it up to him when I wash his cock at the Abbey. Now get any wood we have, anything at all. I have oil, I know Father Robert has oil. We need a torch. We need our own light. Now, Hannibal!' Friar Rudel heard his shout echoing back from the high, thin, sharp peaks around them as he began tearing strips from his ragged cloak. These mountains did not look like the mountains they'd been in ... what was it, just a few hours ago? It felt like weeks.

"Hannibal the Talkative brought a clay jar. Then he handed Friar Rudel the one piece of wood they still carried: Father Robert's staff. It was old, dark hardwood. Burnished through years of use, carved with phrases in Latin and their native tongue. One phrase, carved around the upper end of Father Robert's staff, struck Friar Rudel as particularly appropriate. It read, in Latin, 'Ne transieris luminis orbes sto.' Friar Rudel began muttering it under his breath as he began wrapping the shreds of his cloak tightly around those words. At each layer, he gestured for Hannibal the Talkative to sprinkle the oil on the cloth. It was scented oil, smelling of cloves and cinnamon. Each man found it a comfort in the cold, dark night.

"The howling had stopped. Friar Rudel looked up. There, farther away than he'd realized at the edge of this great jagged stone bowl, the flaming beast crested the rise. How he could see anything so clearly at his age and this distance, through snow and dark night, was a wonder. Yet he had been able to see the sigils without the round stone. So this place, he reflected, was special.

"Then the time for reflection was at an end. Friar Rudel stood, shaky but sound, and planted the staff in the snow before him.

"'Hannibal the Talkative, this is where we make our final stand. Our friend may be dead of his wounds and exposure. It matters not. The girl who stepped through fire and time may be a trick meant to lure us here to our doom. It matters not.' Friar Rudel had the sense that the beast was listening to him. He began dragging the staff in a large circle in the snow, surrounding the animals with their injured friend and the mysterious girl, until he reached the point where he'd begun, then readied his flint and steel in his old, cold, numb hands and continued, 'That beast of rape and rage may devour our flesh and break our bones to pick sheeps' ass from the barb of his monstrous prick. It matters not! Because here and now, finally and together, we make our stand. And unlike that shitchunk spawn of Satan's cumrag,' -- Friar Rudel was pleased to hear a sharper growl erupt from the beast -- 'Ne transieris quicquid lucis in orbem!'

"With that, Friar Rudel struck flint to steel to send a shower of sparks to light the oil-soaked rags tightly bound to the top of Father Robert's staff.

"Only nothing happened. No sparks.

"'My Latin may be rusty, but my steel is sharp!' Friar Rudel was laughing as he said this, giddy in the face of doom.

"The beast began to come for them, then, chuckling its contemptuous, growling chuckle. Friar Rudel struck steel to flint again, harder, proclaiming, 'Ne transieris quicquid lucis in orbem!'

"Still nothing. The beast had closed half the distance in seconds. 

"'Great Fucking Mother of us All, help me!?' Friar Rudel cried, giving one last monumental strike of steel to flint and bellowing into the face of the beast, 'We stand in circles of light that none may cross!'"

Mother Henrietta gives the signal to halt, and the line of Rachels and Ezekiels behind us goes silent and still. Then she signals them to rest, a silent low hand gesture that reminds me of Tad training Max, and everyone sinks to a crouch or a sitting stance -- relaxed but always ready, focused, poised.

From cloth pouches people withdraw jerky, trail mix and other high-energy hiking foods. Tad really would love this place. I kind of hope I can get him away shortly after he wakes up ... 

Oh, wait. I'd forgotten. He's gone. Blinked out in an instant. Where are you, Edward Hightower? Where are you when all I need is a hug?

"You're missing your boys," says Mother H., handing me some jerky. I sigh, feeling a tear fall and quickly wiping my eyes.

"No," I say. Then I laugh. "Yes." More tears. Fuck, I hate crying. Crying is weak. I need to be strong.

"You know, there is strength in letting go," says Mother H., apparently reading the open book of my mind.

"I just ... I feel like if I let go," I breathe, trying to keep from crying.

"You won't ever be able to hold on again?" she asks, finishing the thought I didn't know how to complete. I look at her, kind of awestruck.

"Mother Henrietta --" I begin.

"Henrietta, please," she says.

"I know you want me to just call you by your first name, but to me you will always be Mother Henrietta. It just feels right. Is that okay?"

"Of course, dear."

"Thank you. Okay. So. What you just said. Is exactly. How I -- how it is for me. Exactly. You put it perfectly, better than I ever could, because I didn't know until you said it that that is what I worry about. How can I let go and cry, Mother H.? I feel like I'll never stop if I let myself start."

"Sometimes, Veronica, we work so hard to hold our tears inside and never let them out that they damage us. If we let them out we have a brief storm, maybe some flooding. But the waters recede and we feel better. If we keep them locked up inside, their unexpressed energy slowly fills us until we are drowning in our own unshed tears. That's a lot of salt. Too much to be healthy. We get sick and die from unexpressed emotion, dear." She pauses, looking out at the night. I focus on my breathing. "Better to lose a little control in the here and now than make an early departure to the sweet hereafter."

I look at her. She's gazing at me with her kind, wise eyes. Tad's mom, if Tad's mom were an Abbess. 

"So many people have died around me of late," I say, barely above a whisper. "I wonder sometimes if it would be better to give up, let go and go with them."

She's quiet for a time. Then:

"We all have such a short time here. Even if it's spread thin between time and events, any human life is still so very short. I've had more than my share of lifetime in this world, and I know that when I leave it will be the right time and the right place. I know it as surely as I smell the bay leaves from the tree above us and the sweet clear air mixed with the smoke from the fires. This knowledge doesn't come until much later in life. Your time is nowhere near us. I am as certain of this as I am that it is time, at last, to move on. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I say that I do, but I'm not sure. It felt like there was something underneath her words, but I don't know what. A lesson of some kind. 

Mother Henrietta gives the signal, and we stand silently, stowing whatever gear we've used in this break. We move out.

The night is clear, silent and bright with stars. Mother Henrietta continues her tale.