17
I so wanted to just sleep after my ordeal in the water but I felt it wise to move Mia while she was still sleeping deeply, and create some distance between mother and daughter. I thought of many things as I also made distance from my pursuers. My strength was gone and I was starving. So too was Mia and when she roused from her slumber this would be of great concern. I knew not where I was or where I was going but wished for the shortest and easiest way to get there. I will confess here and now, that I weighed heavily whether I should have left Mia sleeping with her mother but I hadn’t. And since I hadn’t, I now considered the wisdom of leaving her somewhere safe and warm and with others so that I might add better speed to my escape and a less taxing load. But leaving a child with others would be a noteworthy event and remembered by those present, the kind of occurrence that is offered up to those making inquiries.
Most of the time I could walk where a wave would wash away my footprints and where I couldn’t I tried to imagine myself having the job of tracking me down. I used that as a guide for the trail I hoped wouldn’t be discovered and the tracks I hoped would not be found. Somewhere as I made my way, I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I awoke to voices nearby. I didn’t remember deciding to lie down. Nor did I recall placing Mia gently beside me. More than anything though, this place reeked with the scent of death,. I must be lying near a rotting body, most likely another victim of the storm. Ah, but where was I lying? My movements were constricted, and as my fingers explored, I discovered I was in dark and cramped quarters. Given my recent captivity, I nearly cried out but recognized one of the voices speaking outside as belonging to the Great Milan and stifled my impulse. I was inside a wooden container with weight on top of me, crushing me in some places but softer in others. The scent of cloves was thick in the air that I breathed. Unfortunately, I was experienced at being confined to small places in the dark, but before I made a ruckus I focused on the discussion outside my box.
“Why did you not stop when we called out to you?” The great Milan said.
I got the impression he was on horseback and others were with him.
“The sun is going down. The shadows grow longer especially in the trees and you call out to me from within the blanket of many riders. Would you have stopped if I had shouted out for you to do so? No. You are here on your own business and I am here on mine. Let us both get about it.” This was apparently the driver of the wagon carrying me in the back.
“But your business is my business. I’ll know what you are carrying in your wagon.” The Great Milan said. Then he dispatched two riders who were along with him, because I heard them coming along both sides slow enough to indicate they were looking the wagon over as they came to the back.
“So this is a robbery then?” asked the driver.
“It is what I say it is.” answered the Great Milan.
“Then say what it is. State your business.” The driver said.
“You are out here miles from nowhere, yet your mouth speaks with insolence when your very life hangs in the balance. We will check your wagon, and if we see something we like it will be taken, including the wagon.” The Great Milan was irritated with this exchange.
“And you speak to me of insolence? This is robbery; going over what I carry and taking what you want. What you call insolence is really me protesting. What respect would you have for me if I just said ‘sure, just take whatever you like’?”
“You might live longer if you did.” The Great Milan said cryptically.
I could feel the wagon shift as the driver stepped down, but the jostling might have been those who sent to check the wagonload stepping on board.
The Great Milan spoke out a warning. “I said nothing about climbing down from your wagon. Get back up where I can see you.”
The driver continued to dismount until he sprang to the ground. With both of his men occupied in back, and Milan on his horse in front of the team there was a loose area in an otherwise tightly controlled stop and search. For the Great Milan to come to the side to attend to the wagon driver would be a mistake because the road in front would no longer be blocked. But I heard him urge his mount closer anyway.
“I can’t very well give you the horses unless I uncouple them.” The driver said, sounding as if he was once again moving.
My eavesdropping of this encounter had to be abandoned suddenly because I was hearing the riders now up in the back end of the wagon searching through things and edging nearer to where I had been stowed. The wagon tilted and shook with the weight and efforts of those who were looking for me. As my concern grew over my safety, I was also awake enough now to wonder what had happened to Mia, and this made me want to spring from where I was hidden in concern. This distress ran through me and built as the seconds ticked by.
Outside I again heard a brief exchange.
“You stupid man, come away from your team. You’ll be trampled as you stand there in the middle. If I want your horses I’ll take your wagon too. There’s no use in freeing your team. Come out and stand before me!”
Frustration was building within the Great Milan. I enjoyed Milan’s misery but this man who was taunting him surely didn’t know the danger. Then I heard the quickened poundings of a horse’s hooves as it moved free of the harness and at nearly the same moment a lid was lifted above me bringing light into my dark confines. Even before I could react the lid dropped down again and the one who’d been looking groaned in disgust as he and his partner went to the back of the wagon and jumped down. At least one did not immediately remount. I heard him walk by the wagon bringing his horse along behind.
“There’s some valuables in there.” He said to Milan. “Probably all his stuff, don’t think he’s been scavenging. There’s a dead one in there in a box, from the storm I expect.”
“…dead one, eh? Did you feel around, his pockets and underneath?”
“That’s enough.” The wagon driver said. “You’ve had your look, now go.”
“Fetch that man out from those horses. We’ll have his wagon, the horses and a pound o’ flesh too.”
I knew now what was on top of me as I lay there hidden away, and fought the need to wretch. Although I felt concern over what was happening outside, the opportunity to escape my close quarters and perhaps the entire wagon was before me. They were coming back to take a closer look at the crude coffin just as soon as things were settled. I was on my stomach and under the weight of another body, but I pushed my sore muscles and rose to my knees. What lay upon me slid to one side, and I pressed myself to the opposite and then rolled on top of this human no longer alive. I was certainly squeamish but tried to focus on my silent escape. As I had pushed on the floor of my container so I pushed upwards against the lid and slid it noiselessly to one side. I rose to a sitting position to get my bearings. Seeing that I was in a coffin made me shudder but also increased my resolve to get out of it. The casket had been placed onto the floor of the wagon and was stable so I awkwardly stood and stepped out. Quickly I arranged the body, that of a man, so as to appear at rest and reset the lid. Moving toward the rear of the wagon, I listened once more to what was going on up by the horses.
“Stay where you are!” I expected this instruction to have been given by the Great Milan but it had been uttered by the wagon driver.
“But this is not a horse. What manner of beast is this that you have freed from your team?” This was the Great Milan speaking.
“This is a horse, a steed you would be wise to avoid all together or to see at great distance. The hounds of hell would be better company. Be gone now and consider yourself fortunate. Stay any longer and you will know the fury of long kept and unbridled hatred.”
The horse snorted and slashed the ground with a swipe of its hoof.
Aghast, one of the riders asked. “Is that blue flame coming from its nose?”
“I will say this one last time. Leave now while you still can or feel the rage of iron hooves upon your heads.”
I heard th
e nervous, angry trod of the freed horse as it bristled and lurched in place. This was like a signal to those still attached to the wagon and they also began to snort and paw. Then came the turn and retreat of the three riders. The driver yelled after them. “This one will remain free to ensure you don’t return.”
The not-so-Great Milan and his men started slow and in silence but they picked up speed. The driver called after them. “I will bring him with me when I come to search your wagons.”
The terrible steed danced in its anger and circled to the rear of the wagon where I was about to make a run for it. The fire in its eyes burned red and I did not meet them in long engagement with my own. I felt myself being weighed and measured and was not confident of the final tally. From the wagon’s front came the driver who regarded me right away and with no surprise to see me out of my confines.
“Hello Veria. There is no need to run. You are safe for now, but you can leave when you want. I am Getagin.”
I would not let myself escape from one cage only to be tricked into another, yet I remained poised to step off.
“Yes, of course. There is the haunted steed to consider and I’m afraid I cannot give you perfectly safe counsel, because I am never really certain whether he does my bidding or I do his. He is part of a team fated to belong currently to my employer; don Lucido Del Rio. I think though, he would let you pass if that is your inclination.”
“Gilligan?” I asked with a word.
“Get again.” He said. “I have a history of being forgetful. It’s no longer a problem since don Lucido solved it, but the name stuck and I’ve grown into it. Call me Getagin. I now know it as my name and so should you. Truly, you might travel with us for a day or two. They are making quite an effort to find you. It would be difficult for a seasoned woodsman to escape their search let alone a young woman…and her daughter.”
“Mia! Where is she?”
I looked out to the ghostly horse once more, and near where it was standing, a woman appeared from behind a thick tree. In her arms she held Mia. I went to jump down and run to her but Getagin stayed me with a quick warning. “Just because the riders have left doesn’t mean they aren’t looking over their backs or for that matter they could have been three out of a larger party, though I doubt it. Stay under cover. Don’t betray the escape you worked so hard to have.”
I barely regained my balance from putting my desire to rush to Mia on hold, and while I weaved forward and back she was brought to me. I searched the face of the woman carrying her that it might tell me something of the last few hours or even days. I did not know how long I had been deeply sleeping. I searched Mia’s face and when her eyes met mine she reacted with excitement and reached for me, even trying to leap from her carrier’s arms. I knew the reality was I hadn’t known her very long, but we had held each other for hours under rather dire circumstances.
“Pull back into the cover of the wagon, young mother, lest we be watched. Your daughter is fine and you’ll hold her in a moment,” said the woman. I moved back and she stepped up paying me no attention until she was well inside, and then Mia was in my arms and I don’t remember breathing for a long time. When at last I was aware of the wagon moving, Getagin was driving the team, with one horse doing wide circles around us. He and the woman rode in the front and Mia and I were directly in back of them, but in the wagon,
Thank you,” I said, “for your rescue and your kindness. Why have you done this?”
Getagin continued to look forward as a driver would appear when handling his team. “Don Lucido Del Rio has bid me to look for you. He even lent one of the hellish horses to the effort. You have been lost to us since the time you parted company. Some vampires recently saw you and told don Lucido.”
“Vampires…? I do not remember spending time with this man. How does he know me? What does he want?
“He is the man who saved you from the wolves many seasons ago. Do you know him now?
Again I caught my breath. “I do. I have looked for him often, thought of him often. Why does he look for me?”
“Because young one, you bear his mark which has saved you more than once, and…you carry with you The Beating Heart.”
18
I had the feeling we were being watched or followed beyond the free roaming steed recently loosed from harness by Getagin. The other two must have felt that too, for they encouraged me to remain under the cover of the wagon even when I could have helped with the camp set up or food preparation when we stopped. I had not talked with them much during the day but trusted them enough to sleep, still recovering from the demands of my taxing ocean swim. Mia snuggled next to me and looked to me for her needs without inquiries about her mother. As the wagon was being unloaded for the evening supper, the woman, who I had barely talked with, stepped up into the wagon.
I am sorry I have been of little help this long day.” I said. “I am so tired.”
“Some of this is fatigue from your battle in the water and some is from elixirs I have given you. But most, Veria, is from your own beating heart. Your health and your daughter’s health have been challenged. I know this is not your fault. My name is Hessa, I am a healer.”
“You…you have been tending to me and Mia? Is she alright?”
“You are both weakened by your recent trials but you and your daughter are both stout people. If you allow it, you can both step into another path in your lives.”
I held Mia in my arms as she slept, still recovering from her recent few days’ demands. I glanced at her though, to check her sleep before I spoke.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know many things about you.”
“Can you see into my soul?”
“With almost perfect clarity when the need is there. I know of your journey since you left your village as it was eaten by the flames. Your future though, cannot be read as easily. So many choices we make as our time weaves with others. So many lives are affected by what we choose or choose not.” When Hessa said this she found me staring intently at her. When our eyes met, neither of us turned away.
“You are different. You come from far away.”
“Well, listen to you, Veria. What you see is only a glimmer of what you will learn about seeing.
“Mia is not my daughter.” It was a strange thing for me to say. It felt like a confession. “But you must know this if you have seen inside me as you say.”
“Of course, she is, Veria.”
“No. I didn’t give birth to her.”
“Yes, you certainly have. She remembers little of what went before she leapt to your arms. It will fade even more. And do not tell me your blood doesn’t run through her veins. I see into you because part of me has walked through you and through Mia as well. I brought into her some of you. Believe me, you are her mother in a very real sense, the sense of going forward.”
“Is this magic? Walking through me…knowing my journeys…knowing my name?”
“It is the magic of intent and slow painful learning passed down through the ages.” Hessa replied. “The healing I have done with you comes from other worlds, across an unbelievably vast ocean.”
I looked toward the blue waters “Out there?”
Hessa pointed into the sky. “Out there!”
“…and you’ve been searching for me?”
“Not like desperately rummaging through town and country but searching as in keeping an eye out for you.”
Getagin appeared at the back of the wagon and bade us to come out and gather for dinner. “Though I believe we were watched and followed for a while this morning, I don’t believe they could spare the rider to follow us all day and the threat of the shadow steed would weigh heavily. Now, it makes sense to avoid eyes of others we might pass, who might remark about seeing a wagon and the people with it but I don’t think we need to be so careful as to keep mother and daughter as prisoners. Come out now and eat…breathe.”
And so we did gladly come out into the twilight and stretched and walked and at
e. I was glad to face Getagin and Hessa and see their expressions rather than looking at the back of their heads. Mia was thrilled to get down and explore. My two surprising companions were the right portions of firmness and relaxed watchfulness which made it easier to invest the trust I needed for their help in keeping watch on Mia. They were watchful of me too. I was a very young mother.
After dinner, Hessa strategically took Mia on a walk leaving Getagin and me together.
He wasted little time. “You are full of questions, I can tell. Go on, ask.”
I launched right in. “How did you find me, and where?”
“The haunted steed found you. His lot can pretty much find whatever they look for. And let me tell you, most of the time that’s not a good thing. You were on the beach and holding your little one, both of you in deep sleep. The horse just stood near you until we came.”
“But I have been gone from the wolves and this man…Del Rio for so long. Surely you haven’t been searching for me all this time?”
“No, we kept our eyes and ears opened and finally began to know where we might ask questions that could lead to you. Don Lucido had been following another trail and it led to you also. That is when our search intensified.”
Inside, I felt my thoughts racing. “The Beating Heart, you’re talking about the Beating Heart aren’t you?”
Getagin said nothing.
I continued. “I didn’t ask for it. I wasn’t seeking it. I didn’t know what it was…don’t know what it is now. You said I’m not your prisoner.”
The Blood In Between Page 9
