The Healer's Secret

by Helen Pryke

  “Really?” Mum looked relieved, and I couldn’t blame her.

  “Agnese told me all about it and promised me it’s only fruit juice. We couldn’t find the recipe in the book, though. It was just before Luisa died, she probably didn’t have time to write it down.”

  “The book.” Mum spoke in awed tones. I almost laughed but managed to stop myself in time.

  “Here.” I got the recipe book from the cupboard and put it on the table. Mum looked at it as if she were afraid to touch it.

  I poured us a glass of juice while Mum leant over, holding her hand to her mouth. I knew how she must have felt, finally setting eyes on this ancient heirloom. “Can I?” she said breathlessly. I nodded. She slowly turned the pages with the same reverence that everyone else showed.

  “Look here,” I said, pointing to the list of names at the front of the book.

  “Wow, the first one was written in the 1300s,” Mum exclaimed. “Agnes… do you know anything about her?”

  “No, unfortunately, but I’d like to find out who she was,” I replied.

  “And here’s you,” she said, sniffing loudly.

  “Mum?”

  “No, it’s OK. I’m just so proud of you, I knew you’d find your way sooner or later. And at least I can go back to England knowing you’re in good hands.” She winked at me. “I’m pretty sure Liliana is going to be keeping an eye on you.”

  “And you’ll be the first to know everything. She’ll be straight on the phone to you.” I handed Mum her glass. “Here, taste it, it’s pretty good.”

  She sipped carefully, then smiled. “Incredible, it tastes exactly like wine. You even get that warm feeling in your tummy as it goes down.” She drank again.

  “See, Mum, this is the magic I was telling you about,” I said, sipping from my own glass. “The wine… juice… it opens you up to certain… things. I don’t know what they are, maybe they’re memories, imprints left behind by the others, but I saw… things.” I stopped, not knowing how to explain what had happened to me.

  “Tell me,” Mum said.

  “Shall we go out into the garden?” I suggested. She nodded. I whistled to Bella, who obediently trotted behind us.

  There was a cool breeze outside, making the leaves of the trees rustle. The full moon lit up the night sky, bathing the garden in its silvery glow. As we made our way through the garden, the dragonfly appeared and flitted around our heads, flying in a figure of eight, its wings humming. We stopped and watched as it settled on the rim of my glass, its streamlined body outlined in the moonlight. Neither of us said anything and even Bella stayed as still as a statue. The familiar, dreamlike sensation filled me once again. Even my breathing seemed to slow down, as if an eternity passed between one breath and another, the Earth changing as eons flowed by, mountains rising and falling, oceans covering the land and receding once more… and then the dragonfly fluttered its wings and sped off into the night. Time returned to normal, but I felt different somehow, as if I’d really lived for all those millennia instead of my brief thirty-one years. I turned to Mum and saw that she was affected as well.

  “Jennifer,” she whispered, her eyes glistening with tears.

  “It’s OK, Mum. I felt it too. It was so…” I couldn’t find the words.

  “Magical,” she finished for me, finding the perfect description.

  “Come, I want to show you something,” I said, taking hold of her arm. I led her down to the Grove and opened the gate. It looked different in the moonlight; the bushes and trees stood out in stark contrast to the darkness around them as the cold light reflected off their leaves. Everything seemed to be carved out of marble, a black and white representation of this garden that was normally a riot of colours during the daytime. I thought back to how it had looked when I first arrived, the fruit trees covered in pretty blossom that blew around my head.

  Mum stopped just inside the gate. “I remember helping Luisa here. She had a huge wicker basket, and would point out exactly what she needed. I’d pick the berries and leaves she needed for her remedies. The only plant I wasn’t allowed to touch was…” she turned around, searching until she found it, “that one.”

  “Ah, good old belladonna,” I said knowledgeably. “That’s deadly nightshade to you and me,” I added.

  “Yes, I remember her saying it was poisonous. She used it in her potions?”

  “Oh yes, it’s got quite a few uses, in small doses, though. Come, do you remember this?” I led her to the grave in the middle of the garden.

  “Vaguely,” she said. “Wasn’t it someone from the family buried here? I did ask Luisa about it, but she tried to change the subject.”

  I took a deep breath. “There’s a three-day-old baby buried here. Malva. She was Bruna’s daughter.”

  Mum gasped. “Daughter? She had another daughter?”

  I nodded. “Yes. A couple of years before she moved to England. They said she killed her. Except she didn’t.”

  “What?” Mum whispered, her face pale.

  I sat down on the ground next to the grave and patted the space beside me. Mum lowered herself down, gingerly touching the ground to see if it was damp. Feeling it was dry, she sat down with a bump. Bella ran over and lay down behind us, giving a deep sigh.

  “OK, tell me everything,” she said.

  So I told her the healer’s secret.

  Incredibly, she believed me. Never once did she make a face, or try to interrupt me, or say anything. She listened. And when I finished, she cried. We sat there together, beside Malva’s grave, hugging each other while she wept on my shoulder. Then it was my turn to listen.

  “Wh-what Luisa did may seem unforgiveable to someone from my generation, and in particular yours,” Mum began, still sniffing every now and then. “But we must remember how hard things were back then for women. It was practically impossible to get out of a bad marriage. ‘You’ve made your bed, now you lie in it,’” she said, mimicking an old woman’s voice. “I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for her, especially when she found out about what Ernesto was doing to Bruna. It must have been bad enough knowing he was sleeping with other women from the village, and having to endure their taunts, but sleeping with his own daughter?” She shuddered. “That would have driven anyone crazy, even a strong woman like Luisa. And losing Antonio to measles, when she was able to cure every other child in the village. That must have broken her heart. Losing a child is so…” she stopped and looked at me.

  My heart started thumping wildly in my chest, I was sure she must be able to hear it. The way she was looking at me; with pity, yes, and understanding, but with something else, something deeper… with pain, she was looking at me with a profound pain in her eyes. I gasped.

  “Y-you never wanted to talk about my babies…”

  “Because I lost my own,” she finished, tears pouring down her cheeks once more. “Three. One before you, and two after. At three months.”

  “Just like me,” I sobbed.

  “Just like you. I didn’t know if they were boys or girls, I never saw them, I couldn’t say goodbye. One minute I was pregnant, the next I wasn’t. They were gone, as if they’d never existed. Just me in my hospital gown, waiting for the doctors to say I could go home and try again. After the third one, I gave up. I couldn’t face it any more, I didn’t want to feel that pain ever again.”

  I started crying too. All the hurt, all those times she’d stopped me from talking about my miscarriages, I’d thought it was because she didn’t care. Now I realised that it was because she cared too much.

  “I’m so sorry, Jennifer,” Mum murmured, as if reading my mind. “I-I couldn’t bear it, seeing you suffer like that, but I couldn’t comfort you because the pain was too raw. I-I never got over my own losses. Your grandmother, sh-she wasn’t able to help me… I guess it brought back too many memories for her as well. I had to carry on, regardless, and I did the same to you. Can you forgive me?”

  “I-I think so,” I stammered, overcome with emo
tions at this point. I felt the old anger resurfacing, and I tried to stop it, but it was too late. “But why did you push me away that first time, Mum? My heart was breaking and I needed you to tell me it would all be all right. Instead you told me to go home and have a hot bath, and try to forget about it.” My voice got louder as I spoke, and I could feel my blood surging through my veins, threatening to burst out in a fountain of hate and pain. “Do you know what I did when I left your house?”

  She shook her head, looking utterly miserable.

  “I went to the nearest pub and drowned my sorrows. I forget what I drank that night, a bit of everything, I think. I remember the men crowding around me, egging me on, laughing and pointing at me… and I just kept on drinking, swearing at them and even hitting a couple of them. Paul found me, I don’t know how, and dragged me out of there. I was still screeching like a madwoman and grabbing at people’s drinks, trying to get a last few sips. I don’t remember any of this, he kindly told me everything later. The day after, I felt so ill, my head was pounding and I was vomiting. I couldn’t face eating anything, but I discovered that it stopped me thinking about the baby. So I carried on, and each time I lost another baby, it got worse. I found ways to hide the bottles, hide the effects, carry on as if I was completely normal, but the only time I didn’t drink were the few hours I slept every night.”

  “Oh, Christ, Jennifer, I didn’t know,” Mum exclaimed, trying to take hold of my hands. I pulled away from her, all the pain still pouring out of me. I was like a wounded animal, afraid that her touch would hurt me even more. I wanted to keep my pain to myself but hurt her at the same time, make her feel exactly how she’d made me feel.

  “I thought drinking was the answer,” I screamed, half-crazy with all the emotions running through me that had been trapped through years of angst. “I didn’t want to feel any more pain, I just wanted to escape from the world. Paul had his important job that kept him busy, so he didn’t have to think about our babies. What did I have? A mind-numbingly, boring secretarial job that I could do with my eyes closed, that’s what. There was no escape for me, nothing to distract me. After the last time, I had to type up a report for Mr Pennington. He burst out of his office, asked what the hell I was playing at and threw it back on my desk. I’d written the names we’d given to each baby, over and over again, instead of writing up his precious report.” I stopped, breathing heavily as I relived the scene once more in my mind.

  “Jennifer, I am so, so sorry,” Mum said, her voice heavy with emotion. “I will have to live with what I did to you for the rest of my life. I-I can’t change the past, but I want you to know that I’m here for you now. I’m ready to listen to you, and to cry with you, for everything you’ve lost.”

  And just like that the anger left my body, leaving me feeling like a deflated balloon. “Oh Mum, I feel so lost,” I wept. She took me in her arms and this time I didn’t resist. Her love washed over me and began to heal some of those wounds I’d thought were too deep to ever be reached.

  We stayed for a while like that, enveloped in each other’s arms, truly mother and daughter for perhaps the first time in our lives. I reluctantly let go, the pins and needles in my legs too painful to remain in that position. I sat back, leaning on my arms, and smiled weakly at her.

  “Sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to explode like that,” I said.

  “It was about time you did,” she replied. “Feel better now?”

  I nodded. I searched for something to say, not wanting to finish like this. “What about Dad? Did he help you?”

  She brushed the hair out of my eyes, smoothing it against my head. “Your dad was fantastic. He gave me all the time I needed to get over each one. He took over looking after you without complaining, and he let me cry in his arms. I-I presumed you were getting the same support from Paul. And by the time I realised you weren’t, it was too late. You’d already turned to drink, and he was divorcing you. If only I’d known how bad it was…” She squeezed my hand.

  “Mum, it’s OK, honestly. I could have come to you for help, but I was too proud. I wanted to show you that I could do it all by myself. Only I couldn’t.”

  “This wine… juice… is pretty good,” Mum said, holding up her empty glass. “How about we go back inside and have another?”

  “Good idea,” I said. “Although I’d prefer a cup of tea right now.”

  We stood up and Mum ran her hand over the headstone, then kissed her fingertips and touched the inscription. “Rest in peace, Malva,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I woke up the next morning feeling a sense of peace that I’d been missing for so long. I stretched lazily, smiling as I caught the aroma of coffee drifting up the stairs. My mouth watering, I quickly got dressed and made my way downstairs, meeting Agnese on the landing.

  “Hmm, smell that coffee,” she murmured, yawning widely. Then her face turned pale. “Uh oh, I don’t think little one likes coffee too much,” she exclaimed and ran to the bathroom.

  I carried on downstairs and found Mum in the kitchen, standing over the bubbling percolator. There was a plate of croissants in the middle of the table, and three places were set.

  “Ooh, how posh,” I said, giggling. “You’re spoiling us, Mum.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I was awake at the crack of dawn, so I went down to the village. Luckily the bakery was already open, and those croissants looked so inviting… et voila.”

  I reached over to grab one, but she smacked my hand. “Let’s wait for Agnese, at least,” she scolded.

  “I don’t think Agnese is going to want anything this morning.” I winked. “The smell of coffee didn’t go down too well.”

  Mum grimaced. “Ah, the joys of early pregnancy,” she said. “Now that I did experience. It was garlic for me, though. I’d start to feel queasy even standing next to someone who’d been eating it.”

  “I couldn’t stand certain washing powders, soaps or perfumes. I drove Paul mad. I kept sending him out to buy new ones until I found one that didn’t make me feel sick.” We looked at each other for a moment, lost in our pasts.

  “I think you should probably turn that off, otherwise it’ll boil dry,” I said, nodding at the percolator that was still gurgling away. It was our usual tactic whenever we talked about babies: change the subject before it got too deep and painful. But this time it was different, this time we had both acknowledged our memories, and our losses. It would take time, but I was positive we would get through this and come out stronger.

  Agnese joined us a few minutes later, looking a bit pasty but otherwise in good spirits. Mum patted her hand.

  “I’ve made you a herbal tea, do you think you can manage a croissant?”

  Agnese looked at me, and I brushed away the sugary residue around my mouth. She shook her head. “I think I’ll just stick with the tea for now. Thanks anyway.”

  “We’ll save you one for later,” Mum said, picking up a croissant and putting it in a paper bag. “Before greedy guts here eats them all.”

  “Oi!” I tried to say, but my mouth was full. We all burst out laughing.

  “Speaking of later,” Mum said. “I bumped into Liliana at the bakery. I’ve invited everyone over for lunch on Saturday. Hope that’s OK with you.”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” I replied, finally swallowing my mouthful of croissant. “It’s about time I paid them back for all their hospitality.”

  Mum and I spent the next few days together, precious time that we would hold in our hearts forever. Agnese refused to join us on our walks in the surrounding countryside, saying that she wanted to try out some recipes for salves that Giulia could use after the birth. I was grateful to her for giving us those days. We walked for miles, leaving early in the morning with the autumn mist still hanging low over the ground, slowly dissipating as the sun’s rays warmed the earth. And we talked about everything. Mum told me all about her life, from growing up with Bruna to being married to Dad, and her grief at losing him when I was little
. I could hardly remember either of them, so it was like getting to know them all over again. We also talked about the babies we’d lost, bringing up emotions that we thought we’d buried years ago. We cried, we hugged, we even managed to laugh every now and then… but most of all, we listened to each other.

  Saturday there was a hive of activity in the cottage. Mum and I spent all morning cooking and preparing, while Agnese tidied the cottage and sorted out the seating arrangements. I imagined it had been a long time since the old place had seen so much going on. When everything was well under way, I took a five-minute break and walked down to the Grove.

  Some of the bushes had already finished their productivity and were starting to slow down in preparation for their long winter sleep. Others still had the last of their berries on the branches, and I made a mental note to pick them all before the first frosts set in. I stopped in front of the belladonna plant that I’d trimmed back just a few days earlier, and tried to imagine how Luisa must have felt the day she’d planned to kill Ernesto. I shuddered and turned away. The garden looked pretty, the sun-baked earth now softer after the first autumn rains, the bushes and trees a healthy green. The tomb shone in the morning sun. I cleaned the white marble regularly every week, and kept the invading ivy at bay.

  I felt proud of what I’d achieved in the few months I’d been at the cottage. I would miss England, but my heart belonged in this place. My family was here – both present and past. It was my destiny to become a healer, I couldn’t fight it even if I wanted to. As if to confirm my thoughts, the dragonfly appeared from nowhere and hovered above Malva’s tomb. I held out my hand and it flew over to settle on my fingertips, its tiny legs tickling as its wings vibrated.

  “Are you real?” I whispered, feeling that dreamlike state come over me once more. But before I could immerse myself in that other, in-between world, it flitted off and disappeared into the sky. As I came to, I could hear a voice calling my name. For a moment, I thought it was Luisa.