by Chris Speyer
The Edura worked stripped to the waist, his old skin, like creased leather, moving over the protruding bones of his arms and ribs as he shaped an image in wax or fanned the coals to a white heat to melt metals for casting. From time to time he would pause and point a finger at one of the masks, cackling as he recounted the ways in which he had outwitted this or that demon.
Best of all was to watch as the Edura cast a new god or goddess; the hot, smoking wax pouring out; the molten metal pouring like liquid fire from the crucible into the mould and then the miracle of the moment when the lithe, beautiful, dancing body of the god broke from its clay shell. What chance had my father’s dry sermons and crucified God against this astonishing marriage of heaven and hell?
Some days when we went to the Edura’s hut we would find him beneath his favourite tree, legs crossed, face serene, deep in meditation. We would settle ourselves on either side of him, copy his pose and see which of us could sit for the longest. Una always won. I would begin to yawn, then to fidget, and soon I would run off to find something else to do.
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Who knows how long we would have remained in Ceylon had we not fallen ill? Always doing everything together, Una and I succumbed to fever on the same day. My mother nursed, my father prayed, but our condition rapidly worsened. Our bodies seemed on fire one moment and frozen the next; one moment the sweat poured from us, soaking the bed sheets, the next we were seized by such shivering that our teeth rattled in our heads. We could eat nothing and soon we sank into delirium. Our father, fearing the worst, set out on the three-day overland journey to the coast in the hope of finding a doctor, but each day he was away we grew weaker until finally, in desperation, our mother turned to the Edura. The old man came and stood at our bedside. He bent low over each of us and smelt our breaths, then nodded; he knew this devil well – one of the worst, Riri Yakka, Demon of Blood. This devil drove a hard bargain; the price would be high. My mother cried that she would give anything, anything if our lives could be spared. The Edura said he would do his best. We must be brought that night to the clearing behind his hut; he would go and make the necessary preparations.
When darkness fell, we were carried out and laid in the clearing. Flaming torches were lit and the drumming began; slow at first, a single drum with a beat like a pounding heart. Then the rhythm quickened, other drums joined and the circle of drummers closed in around us, hands and sticks beating faster, whipping the air until it throbbed with a pulse that deafened our ears and convulsed our bodies.
Suddenly there was silence and the circle broke. There stood the Edura, his back to us, his face hidden. The old man’s body was transformed: bronze and silver bracelets encircled his arms and legs; muscles swelled where the skin had once sagged; his back was straight as a rod of iron; from our position on the ground, he seemed twice his previous height. Then, quick as a cat, as all the drums roared into life, he spun round and leapt towards us, his face hideously disfigured by the Yakka mask. As we watched, terrified, the mask was no longer a thing carved in wood, but alive and moving, a devil incarnate. The Edura had become the Yakka and he was about to devour us!
Shaking and screaming, we clung to each other on the ground as the monster descended. Saliva poured from its jaws. Its eyes flashed and flamed. Clawed hands plunged through our flesh and tore dark, smoking forms from each of our bodies. We lay twitching in the dirt, emptied like gutted fish, as the drums pounded and the battle of the demons raged above us in the resin-filled, smoky torchlight. Then it was over. The demons fled. The drummers vanished. All was silent except for the sputtering of the dying torches.
We sat up and looked at each other. The fever had gone. The warm night air enfolded us. The smoke cleared and the stars glittered. A little breeze sprang up and rattled the palm fronds. And then our mother was helping us to our feet, supporting us, guiding us home and repeating over and over, ‘Thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God,’ as the tears streamed down her face.
Of course, after that, my father’s mission could not continue – the local gods and demons had triumphed. All knew that the missionary’s wife had begged the help of the Edura. All could see that the Edura had succeeded where my father had failed. What could my father do but pack up his family and return to Wales?
In the days before we left, my sister and I were forbidden to visit the Edura, but we could think of doing nothing else; it was as if an invisible cord tugged at something deep within us, drawing us towards his hut. We fidgeted through our morning lessons, sulked on the veranda in the sweltering heat of the afternoons or plucked peevishly at the luxuriant plants that grew in the garden. But when we were certain no one was observing us we scuttled to that forbidden place. Furtively, we crept to the rear of the building, where a hole in the thatched wall afforded us a view of the Edura bent over his crucible, into which he was dropping small fragments of copper and other metals. He turned and lifted something small, wrapped in a piece of cloth, from the low table by the wall. He carefully unwrapped the little parcel and lifted up a fine silver chain from which dangled the simple silver cross that always hung around our mother’s neck. We both gasped and then, fearful that he would detect us, held our breaths. What was he doing with our mother’s precious cross? Had he stolen it? Had she given it to him? If she had, what could this possibly mean? Gently, he lowered the cross and then the chain into the molten metal in the crucible. We pressed our faces closer to the hole, eager to see what would happen next, but we were suddenly seized from behind by two strong hands that dragged us from the wall. We found ourselves, in the next instant, confronting our father, whose face was purple with rage.
We were only to see the Edura one more time and that was on the day that we departed for the coast. Our father had gone ahead and we were preparing to follow with our mother on the ox cart with all our possessions. As the cart began to move, the Edura emerged from the shadows and pressed something into our mother’s hands with an instruction that I could not overhear. She quickly hid whatever he had given her in a bag that she kept with her for the rest of the journey.
Five days later we boarded the barque Persephone and set sail for England. As the palm-fringed shores dropped away, I felt as Eve must have felt when the angel of the Lord drove her from the garden of Eden; I was losing my paradise, but I was not to know that this ill-omened ship was carrying us into Hell!
For us children, the passage home was long, the monotony of the many weeks at sea only broken occasionally by the sight of dolphins that came to leap and play about our ship. Some sixth sense seemed to tell my sister, Una, when the dolphins were coming and she would hurry us all on deck to watch them.
The weather was, on the whole, fair and, although we encountered large seas when rounding the Cape of Good Hope, there were no serious storms until we had crossed the Bay of Biscay. Then, as we approached the English coast, the skies darkened, the seas rose and the ship was struck by a sudden and violent squall. Our first sight of England was just before nightfall when a headland, that the ship’s master took to be Lizard Point, was briefly visible through the driving rain. As the sun set, the storm increased in ferocity. Now each black wave that rushed upon our ship was crowned with a crest of foaming white and towered like a toppling mountain above the deck. Each wave seemed certain to overwhelm us. The motion of the ship grew ever more extreme and the sound of the storm rose to a deafening crescendo.
Now the waves swept across the decks. The longboat was carried away into the blackness of the night together with the unfortunate crewmen who bravely threw themselves in its path in a desperate attempt to save it. With a terrible splintering crash a hatch cover was breached and a dark, freezing torrent cascaded into the cabin where we two girls clung to our mother, believing that every moment would be our last. All hands above ran to man the pumps while our father exalted us to fall to our knees and pray to the Lord for our deliverance. It was clear to all that if we could not reach shelter soon the ship would surely founder.
A shout went up,
‘Lights! Lights ashore! Lights off the port bow!’
‘God be praised!’ my father cried. ‘Salvation is at hand!’
Despite the ever-present danger of being washed overboard, all who were not too sick to stand clambered on deck. Only those who have been in such mortal peril could understand the comfort that we gained from those glimmers of light. To know that safety, warmth and comfort were within our reach; surely these lights were lit to guide poor mariners home!
‘’Tis Plymouth,’ the boatswain yelled, ‘’Tis Plymouth! I know the lights!’ And all believed him because that is what we all wished to believe – safe harbour and an easy entrance.
How cruelly we were deceived! Too late we heard the roar of breakers on the rocks. Too late we saw the plumes of spray that burst against the cliffs and leapt a hundred feet into the air. Too late the master saw the trap that had been set. In a panic he ordered the ship about and four seamen threw themselves upon the wheel, but she would not come round. The seas drove us on; the wind drove us on; the sails were blown to rags and tatters but still we were driven on. Then a great black wave rolled out of the night, lifted the ship like it were a toy, rushed with it on its shoulders and flung it down on the waiting reef. The ship’s back was broken; the mainmast snapped and crashed with its yardarms and tangled rigging to the deck; many were flung into the sea.
Our family, clinging to each other and to the stern rail, managed to keep from sliding from the sloping deck. But each breaking wave pounded the shattered hull of the doomed ship, driving her ever further across the jagged reef, tearing fresh holes in her belly.
The ship lifted for the last time, struggled to right herself like a dying animal, then, with an awful groan, fell back upon the rocks. Our father ordered us to remain where we were and went to find the master, but our mother, seizing us by the arms, dragged us back down the companionway. Below deck it was so dark we could see almost nothing and everything was awash. Spouts of water exploded through splintered holes in the hull. Wading knee-deep in the icy water, we at last gained our cabin, where our frenzied mother searched frantically among the floating debris until she found her holdall. From it she took two bracelets, which she thrust on to our arms. Then she fell to her knees in the water and hugged us to her. ‘These will protect you. Whatever happens, my darlings, don’t take them off. Do you understand?’ We nodded. We were children. She was our mother. She must know best.
‘Father will be looking for us,’ she said. She took my hand and I took my sister’s and we plunged back through the flooded hull and out into the mayhem of the night.
As we reached the deck, we looked up to see a curving wall of water that seemed to hang above our heads, blotting out the sky. With a roar, the wave collapsed, engulfing us. Rolling and struggling, we were carried over the side of the ship and dragged down by the powerful current. I felt my mother’s grip on my arm and then it was slipping, slipping. Desperately, I tried to entwine my fingers in hers but the current prised us apart. I stretched out, reaching for her hand, but she was gone!
It was Una who managed to get her arm over a piece of floating wreckage and dragged us both on to it. All around us was the turmoil of broken water and the howling of the wind. We screamed and screamed for help and for our mother, but no answer came. At last, exhausted, we could only cling to each other and to the wreckage.
In this nightmare, I imagined, or thought I imagined, that we were suddenly propelled through the water. I thought there were creatures surrounding us, their dark, smooth backs visible when they broke the surface and blew spume into the air. Had I not been half drowned, I would have been afraid, but the creatures did not attack us and I found myself thinking that I must tell Mother about them when I woke up. But it was my sister who was shaking me and begging me to let go of the wreckage and drag myself up the beach that we had somehow reached. Bewildered, I did as I was told.
We lay in the wet sand, just beyond the reach of the waves. How long we lay there I do not know. It was the sound of voices that roused us, and when we sat up, we saw that there were lights coming along the beach. A rescue party! Our hearts lifted and as they drew nearer we were about to call out when a dreadful sight choked the cries in our throats. They paused by the water’s edge and, while some held up the lanterns, others dragged a poor seaman from the water. The sailor tried to raise himself from the sand but, as he did so, one of the party, a giant of a man whose face was disfigured by a great, white scar, drew a long knife and plunged it into the sailor’s body. What kind of people were these? Returning to our homeland, had we fallen among savages? Supporting each other, we stumbled across the beach and hid behind some boulders at the foot of a small cliff. From here we watched the awful proceedings on the beach. Following the advance party came horses drawing carts. On to one of these the bodies of the drowned were loaded. If any still showed signs of life, they were swiftly dispatched. A second cart was loaded with anything of value that washed ashore. A third cart carried a boat that was launched in the sheltered water, where the rocks of the reef provided protection from the breaking waves, and rowed out to the stricken ship. Clearly, the intention was to plunder the wreck before she broke up in the storm.
Sickened and terrified we huddled in our hiding place but it was clear that if we remained where we were we would eventually be discovered. Fear gave us new strength and when the wreckers moved further away we fled into the trees behind the beach. Finding a rough path that led up the steep hillside we decided to follow it, hoping that it might lead us to a place of safety. As we climbed the hill we saw the two beacons still burning that had lured our ship on to the rocks; the first on the pinnacle of a great, black rock, the second on the headland behind the rock, and so arranged to give the appearance of a harbour’s leading lights.
The sound of a horse’s hooves on the rocky path sent us darting into the gorse and bracken. As we lay peering through the undergrowth, we were surprised to see that the rider, judging by his manner of dress, was a gentleman. I was about to hail him when my sister pulled me firmly back down. ‘How do we know that he isn’t one of them?’ I heard her ask but her lips did not appear to move, and it occurred to me that neither of us had spoken since we had hidden on the beach but we had somehow managed to converse.
We lay still until the rider had passed.
Further on, we came to a settlement of roughly built hovels, some of undressed stone, the rest made from driftwood, broken spars, timbers and canvas scavenged from wrecks. Dogs barked as we approached. These were obviously the habitations of the wreckers, so we made a wide detour through the surrounding woodland and rejoined the track further on. The track now became no more than a footpath that wound its way out on to a headland. Should we continue? It led, no doubt, to a lookout at the cliff-edge.
Far out along the headland a lone cottage perched above the sea. A light in one of the windows drew us to it. At what point I fainted I can’t say. Did I reach the cottage, or was I carried? I awoke to find that we lay on a bed of straw in a simple room. An old woman dressed in black sat by the smouldering fire.
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And so began our life in the Orme Valley. Of the wreck of the Persephone we were the only survivors. Our poor parents and most of the ship’s company were drowned. Had old Mrs Ball not taken us in, we would certainly have met the same fate as the other unfortunates who reached the shore alive, only to die at the hands of that murderous gang. By hiding us at first and then declaring us to be the children of distant cousins, who had come to care for her in her old age, Mrs Ball ensured our survival. The old lady enjoyed a unique position in the local community, having been the childhood nurse of the landowner Robert Stapleton, the ‘gentleman’ whom we had seen riding down to the shore, no doubt to oversee the plundering of the Persephone. Moreover, she was the midwife and known to be skilled in the use of medicinal herbs.
With the help of these herbs, our physical injuries healed soon enough. But what could heal our hearts? Our parents had been taken from us and we now mus
t live among those who lured them to their deaths. Una, who had shown such strength on the night of the storm, lapsed into a state of melancholy from which nothing but the sight of dolphins would rouse her. She spent every day on the rocks below the cliffs watching for them, learning to call for them so that they would come to her.
I knew what she was doing and I knew I was losing her. Una and I had been together from the moment we were conceived. We were born within minutes of each other, spent every day of our lives together, learnt to walk together and run together. Our very first words had been to each other, and now I was losing her, losing her to the sea and to the dolphins. For we had learnt now the power of the bracelets and Una was using these powers to become one with the creatures of the sea.
I do not know what ancient sorcery the Edura employed when he cast those bracelets, what demonic powers he called up and trapped within their sacred alloy. It seemed to us that he had breathed life itself into those metal bands. They often felt as though they pulsed upon our wrists and became inflamed like living things. When Una and I wore the bracelets we could hear every thought in the other’s head, and we could slide from our own bodies into each other’s and into the bodies of birds and animals. Even when we removed the bracelets, some of their powers remained with us, as though we had absorbed a little of the potency instilled in them. At first, we had little control over those powers and our waking lives became like dreams, but gradually we became adept at manipulating them so that we could inhabit our own bodies when we wished to and move into others whenever we chose. Then we discovered we could create phantasms, creatures that seemed completely real but owed their existence to our imaginations. These phantasms would only exist for as long as we held their images in our minds; as soon as we ceased thinking about them they vanished. We could see through their eyes, hear with their ears, feel what they touched. Una had little interest in creating them, preferring instead to flee her own body as often as she could to share the bodies of dolphins, but I spent many hours perfecting a phantom grey cat that I could send wherever I wished in order that I could spy on our murderous neighbours.
