Mathilde looked from Dash to Seb and back again. This felt like it was more than just a decision about which way to go. Closing her eyes Mathilde tried to clear her head and think what to do. Both of them still tugged equally at her heart. She couldn’t make a decision based on what she felt so she turned to the only certain way to make a decision in battle. What would Jean Louis do? Mathilde opened her eyes and an air of calm determination settled about her.
“I can’t go with you Dash. It is bad planning – you can’t win. We need to go back and make new plans. We will fight them again in a group. We have succeeded once and we can do it again. This time just for Suzanna – we owe it to you.”
“You owe it to me now,” spat Dash. “They are already moving further and further from us. If we don’t follow now we may never find them again.”
“We will. Fleur and Violette can help. We can trace Suzanna somehow. There must be a way we can use the spirit world to find them.”
“No, we go now. Either you come with me or I go alone.” Dash’s determination matched Mathilde’s and she knew that he would not be swayed.
“Then you have to go without me,” she said and she felt her heart breaking even as she spoke.
As if seeing that her resolve may waver, Seb pulled her hands gently from Dash’s and said urgently, “Come on Mathilde, we need to go now.”
Mathilde nodded and allowed herself to slowly be pulled down the tunnel back towards the main chamber. Dash stared at her for just a moment before he disappeared into the hole. From this distance and in the dark Mathilde could not even start to work out what expression had been on his face as he left. As he had disappeared an almost overwhelming urge to run after him had come over Mathilde and she wasn’t sure if she would have followed it had Seb not been holding her hands and dragging her gently away.
“Tilly, snap out of it. We need to go,” said Seb. Mathilde nodded then pulled her hands from his and set off down the tunnel at a faster speed. Seb followed in her wake and they were soon through the chamber, empty now but for a littering of wendigo bodies which had been piled up and set on fire to ensure that the wendigo spirits could not return to the spirit realm to await new , unsuspecting hosts.
The journey back up the tunnel in the muted light cast by Mathilde’s torch was done in silence. Mathilde felt a horrible squirming of guilt inside, knowing that she had made the right decision but feeling like she had let Dash down horribly. They made the journey in silence and, after what felt like an eternity, they eventually reached the end of the tunnel and the dazzling white light of the mid afternoon sun which bounced off the snow. The Protectors, Brotherhood and captives awaited them. In total they were almost one hundred strong. The captives looked well fed and hopeful but they were quiet and most of them squinted, as if the sun burnt their eyes. It was no wonder, thought Mathilde. She didn’t know how long they had been underground but she imagined that there was not one of them who had been outside of those caves for at least a couple of months.
Mathilde mustered up a friendly and, she hoped, confident smile then spoke to the group, most of who had turned to look at her.
“I can’t imagine what you have all been through since you were taken underground,” she said, her voice strong and carrying well in the dip of the mountains. “You are free now. We will travel to Polovragi monastery. There you will be taken care of until you decide what to do next.”
The captives stared at her for a while without speaking. Some looked shell shocked, some were crying. On the faces of some there were glimmers of happiness. Still no-one spoke, though, and Mathilde began to feel uncomfortable.
“Erm...ok let’s get going then. We will travel in groups of ten; Protectors and Brotherhood please separate and take charge of each group.”
The groups split up as she had directed and began the walk back to the monastery. Mathilde stood and looked back at the caves for a moment but Seb gave her arm a jolt. “He’ll be fine, you can’t wait for him. These people need you more. He won’t be fast enough to catch up with the wendigo and he knows the way back. He will meet us at the monastery.”
Mathilde hesitated for a second then nodded and allowed Seb to usher her after the departing groups. Though her heart tugged her to stay, her mind kept flitting between her options so much that she was thankful for someone ordering her into action. As they walked Mathilde looked back at the caves and kept looking back until they were no longer in sight.
By the time the travellers reached the safety of the monastery Mathilde had lost all hope of seeing Dash again.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Mathilde sat in the dining hall and stared at her food. It had been quite nice when she first sat down - potatoes, meat and a thick sauce - but now it resembled a muddy lump of unidentifiable gunk having been mushed around by Mathilde for the past ten minutes.
"Hey Mathilde, have you been listening?" Jewel lowered her head down to Mathilde's eye-line and interrupted her thoughts. Mathilde looked up blankly then snapped herself out of her daydreams.
"Sorry... what were you saying?"
"We were saying that maybe it is time we set off home. It’s a week since we brought the captives back and most of them have started to make their way back to their settlements. Maybe we should too," Jewel said.
"I agree," said Alan. "We have been away for months now. We’re ready to see our friends and families again."
Seb stared at Mathilde but didn't speak. It took Louisa to say out loud what Seb was probably holding back.
"Mathilde, I don't think he’s coming back. You can't keep waiting for him." Louisa spoke gently but Mathilde felt like she had been slapped in the face. She had fought hard not to seem like she was waiting for Dash, even kidding herself, but she couldn't deny it any longer just as she couldn't deny that Louisa was right. Dash wasn't coming back.
“You’re right, we need to make preparations and get back to Bucharest. Succeava calls for Seb and I too. They have been deprived of their Protector Superior for too long.”
Mathilde forced a smile and tried to gulp away the large lump in her throat which was threatening to make her cry.
“All go and pack. The six of us will set off this afternoon,” Mathilde said, trying not to dwell on the fact that when they had arrived there had been seven not six of them. Mathilde looked around the group. They were all avoiding her eye. Louisa and Alan concentrated on their food and Seb picked at a non-existent bit of skin next to his thumbnail. Jewel eventually looked at Mathilde and gave an apologetic smile.
“Oh,” said Mathilde as the penny finally dropped. “You’re already packed aren’t you? I’m sorry, you probably expected to be gone days ago.” Mathilde’s stomach sank even lower. It was nice, and unusual, to have new friends but the guilt she felt at the sacrifices they had made for her made her feel uneasy and sick.
“It’s ok Mathilde. We had to give it a go, just in case he came back,” said Jewel with a soft smile.
“But he isn’t coming. You need to give up on him Tilly... just like he gave up on us,” Seb suddenly said gruffly, before pushing his chair back and storming from the room. Mathilde gasped in surprise. He had never spoken so angrily to her before.
“He’s just hurting too,” Louisa said, trying to explain. “He thinks a lot of you. I don’t think he likes it that you are sad and he can’t make it better for you.”
Mathilde nodded. She couldn’t figure out how Seb’s outburst had made her feel. Her heart, head and stomach were a jumbled mix of emotions; anger, sadness, guilt and confusion all fought for attention.
“I will meet you by the gates in two hours. It will give us chance to say our goodbyes,” she said as she stood up and left to go and pack.
By the time she got back to the dorm she had never felt so alone and she couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. Burying her face in a pillow as she lay on a camp bed, Mathilde began to sob and, once she had started, she couldn’t stop. All of the heartache and tears that she had held back for fourteen years
flooded out and soon she didn’t know which loss she was crying for. Finally her sobs subsided and she just lay with her face still in the pillow. She wondered if anyone would mind if she just lay there forever, until she was old then dead. Mathilde felt exhausted - so much so that she hardly noticed when someone started to stroke her back. It took all of her energy to turn her face on the pillow to see who it was. Looking up she was surprised to see the face of Jean Louis and, for the first time, Mathilde saw her own pain reflected in his eyes.
“It is hard to lose your soul mate,” he said in his deep, low voice.
Mathilde looked at him with a sudden realisation. She had spent fourteen years feeling angry at him for the life he had pushed her into and fourteen years wallowing in her grief at losing her mother. She had never stopped to think that her father had lost his wife, the woman he had loved for many years. Mathilde felt overwhelmingly ashamed at her childish assumption that she was the only who had been suffering. She sat up and threw her arms around her father. As she did a memory tugged at the back of her brain. A memory of the last time her father had hugged her – the day after her mother’s death.
Jean Louis didn’t hug Mathilde back for a few seconds but then he put his arms around her and hugged her hard. Mathilde stayed there for an eternity, trying to absorb the love she realised that she had desperately been wanting for all of these years, mistaken in her belief that it was his pride she had been fighting for. For a moment all thoughts of Dash left her head and she began to feel happy and safe. It was Jean Louis that broke off the hug and he gently pushed Mathilde back by the shoulders so that he could speak to her.
“My daughter... I know I push you hard. I wanted to be the father you longed for... the father that your mother would have wanted me to be, but I couldn’t. I had to choose between my own selfish desires and the good of our species. I would have loved to take you and your sisters and hide out for the rest of our lives. To live normal lives, see you grow and find loves of your own, perhaps give me grandchildren.” Jean Louis let go of Mathilde’s shoulders and shook his head sadly.
“I’m sorry that this is the life that I pushed you into and perhaps I made the wrong choice, but I had to make the choice alone, without your mother to help me, and I was grieving. Yet now the choice has been made and perhaps it was the right one after all. My heart longs for you to have a normal life but my head knows that the prophecy must be fulfilled if the human race is ever to have a chance at a normal existence again.”
Jean Louis paused and Mathilde sat up properly, putting her feet on the floor and slipping her hand into her father’s huge paw of a fist.
“I want to be what you expect me to be but I don’t know what that is Father,” said Mathilde, for once finding the courage to speak her mind to him. Jean Louis gave a heavy sigh.
“I know Mathilde, I know. I have expected too much of you. I have expected you to blindly follow the fate I have told you of without telling you the full consequences.”
Mathilde looked at her father but did not interrupt. The emotions all seemed dulled now, including the pain over Dash. It was as if the tears had released all of her emotions and she could again feel levelled and calm. There was only a slight prickle in her mind about her father’s choice of words about the “consequences” of her fate.
“Mathilde, it was foretold that the first born of the family of Nizhoni would lead us to victory over the wendigo so that we could claim our world back for our own. When you and your sisters were born you became the eldest descendant of Nizhoni, even though you were only minutes old. You were born two minutes before Violette and a full four minutes before Fleur. Perhaps not much time but enough to make it clear that you were the first born.”
Mathilde nodded and kept her hand in her father’s. She knew this story well enough but didn’t want to interrupt. Instead she concentrated on making the most of this first shared moment of closeness and physical contact with Jean Louis since she was a child. Inside Mathilde felt both like a little girl again and also like an adult who was finally getting the respect from Jean Louis that she had thought she craved. Interestingly Mathilde was enjoying the feeling of safety brought about by giving in to her inner three year old more than she was the respect and honesty which was accompanying it. She felt strange to being so heartened by something which she never realised she had been missing.
“So the prophecy passed on to you. You know that it is prophesied that you will bring about the fall of the wendigo, allowing the human race to take back our planet. I thank you that you have taken that from me as the truth without pushing me to tell you more. I know how it has annoyed you and your sisters that I have not been fully honest with you. I think you need to know now what is at stake. I have seen you in action and have seen the decisions you have made – the right decisions. I trust that, once you know of the full prophecy, you will have the clear headedness and good judgement to make a choice. I know now that it is your choice to make – whether to give in fully to the prophecy or whether to follow your heart.”
Mathilde looked at Jean Louis in confusion. “My heart sings for Dash but he’s gone now. There is no decision to be made,” she said, feeling a jolt of pain intruding into the calm she had felt moments before.
Jean Louis smiled. “Mathilde, do you think that because I lost Nizhoni I lost my one chance of love?”
Mathilde stared at her father in confusion. “Well... yes. You lost her fourteen years ago and have never remarried. Of the people who have lost loved ones I have never seen anyone choose another to take their place. There is one soul mate for each of us. Just one.”
Jean Louis chuckled and gave Mathilde a one armed hug around the shoulder. “My dear daughter, I forget that you are still young – that you know so much of battle but so little of life.”
Mathilde’s brow wrinkled in irritation. She was not used to being laughed at and it turned out it wasn’t much fun. “But you have never remarried,” she said.
Jean Louis sighed. “Yes you are right but that has been my choice. We have many soul mates in this world Mathilde, not just one. I could have found another to share my life with and I don’t doubt that, had I let myself, I could have loved her just as much as I still love your mother.”
“So why haven’t you?”
“Because I chose not to. This is what I am trying to tell you Mathilde. There may be a prophecy but life is all about choice. You can choose to find another soul mate, in fact I think one may be closer than you realise, or you can choose to follow the prophecy. The prophecy will come to be, you must have faith in that, but it will only come to be if you choose to follow that path.”
Father and daughter sat in silence for a while as Mathilde tried to digest what her father had said. She still wasn’t completely convinced that there was more than one soul mate for each person. With Dash gone the chance of love had fled and so the choice seemed clear – the prophecy.
“So I will follow the prophecy,” Mathilde said out loud – not sure if her sudden proclamation made sense without vocalising the thoughts which had spun through her mind about Dash.
“No Mathilde. You cannot know that you choose that path yet. You must think about it and give your heart a chance to heal. You need to know the full prophecy before you make this choice. To ignore the prophecy damns the human race to live this life forever but if you follow the prophecy you will suffer heartache of your own.”
“Ok, I will give myself time to think about it before I make my choice,” said Mathilde, though she remained convinced that she had more chance of ridding the world of wendigo than she did of falling in love again. “But the choice seems clear to me – I win this war, rid the world of wendigo, then if there really is such a thing as more than one soul mate I will search for them then. Our family can begin to live a normal life; me, you, Fleur and Violette.”
“I am sorry my darling but it may not be that easy. The prophecy... it was clear. The first born would rid the world of the wendigo but along the way they would su
ffer loss. They would lose three of their loved ones before the war was won.”
“That doesn’t have to happen,” cried Mathilde. “Who says it has to happen. You say we have a choice – well I choose not to lose anyone.”
“It doesn’t work like that Mathilde. You do have a choice but if you choose to believe that you can rid the world of the wendigo then you have to also believe the rest of the prophecy will come to be. That is why you shouldn’t choose now. You must think this through. There is too much at stake to make the choice so quickly. You can choose to save the humans from this misery and sacrifice three of your loved ones or you can choose to ignore the prophecy, save those you love and perhaps find a new soul mate but in doing so you choose to let the world carry on as it is. Think carefully Mathilde.”
“But how can I decide? To lose three people I love... that means you, Violette and Fleur. How can I give up my family?” Mathilde felt the overwhelming selfish urge to choose not to follow the prophecy but the sense of duty which had been drummed into her since the age of three tugged at her conscience.
“Not necessarily Mathilde. The prophecy may be played out over many years for all we know. Who knows what loves will pass through your life. You cannot always choose not to love, even if you do follow the prophecy. You must only choose which will take priority in all of your decisions and actions; love or duty. Besides...” Jean Louis stopped talking.
“Besides what?”
“Well... you have already lost two people. You have lost your mother and it seems that whatever has happened to Dash he is lost to you. It may be that he was the second sacrifice for the prophecy – perhaps you have already made the choice. Perhaps you made the choice about the path to follow when you chose to help your fellow man instead of following Dash.
Mathilde and Jean Louis sat in silence, deep in thought about the impossible choice and the even scarier thought that perhaps the choice had already been made.
Wendigo Wars Page 18
