Destined to Fly: An Avalon Novel (14 page)

Early the following morning, a heavy pounding on the door awakens both women from their deep sleep. Soldiers enter their home and Evelyn is physically dragged out the front of their small house. Her hair is roughly held by large calloused hands at the back of her head, her face shining in the thin light of the dawn.

‘Is this she?’

A man standing off to one side nods his head, deliberately keeping his eyes away from Evelyn, who is staring directly at him. He slinks away in the shadows behind the gathering of the small crowd.

‘You are pronounced witch, woman. You shall be burned at the stake.’

Caitlin’s wails pierce the air as the mother is hauled away by the guardsmen. She lunges forward and grabs hold of the edge of her mother’s shift and screams with every ounce of energy in her body. Her fear for her mother soaks through to her bones. She has been the focal point of her young life and it’s as though the very essence of her heart is being ripped from her ribcage.

The soldiers, holding each of her mother’s limbs, roughly kick Caitlin away as another guard grabs her around the waist, preventing any further progress being made. Why is her mother not fighting back? Where is her magic to stop this from happening?

This is worse than any nightmare Caitlin has experienced and she shuts her eyes and quickly reopens them just in case this is all a horrible dream. But instead she watches her mother being shoved into a wooden cage with three other petrified woman with ashen faces. Evelyn’s eyes are filled with tears of sorrow and longing toward her daughter, but her physical presence remains calm, almost as though she knew this time would come.

Accepting this fate, the end of her life, she turns to her hysterical daughter and says clearly, ‘Be strong, my love, for this is our destiny, so long as men fear power in women.’

Caitlin falls, crushed and abandoned, to the ground. Her screams can be heard far in the hills, as she is left with a hole in her heart as round as the moon and she understands that she will never lay eyes on her mother again.

I, too, feel as though my own heart is being crushed. My feeling for Caitlin is so strong, I can only believe our connection is based on kinship somehow. I feel both the mother’s pain and the daughter’s anguish and fear, like two souls being brutally ripped apart.

I want to run to her, save her, help her and love her. I reach out, but heartbreakingly I know I can’t touch her. I want her to know that my love, like her mother’s, will always be with her. No physical separation will
ever be great enough to keep them apart and that one day, somehow, somewhere they will be reunited. But I can’t, I’m being pulled away from the scene as I desperately try to cling to the sobbing girl.

A
s soon as I awaken from my slumber, I grab my kit and make my way to Alexa at the lupuna tree to relieve one of the elders, Mapu, who is keeping watch over her. From afar, she seems to be resting in exactly the same position, looking content and relaxed. That is, until I am close enough to see the sheen on her skin and feel the heat from her forehead.

‘How long has she been like this?’ I ask, my panic rising.

‘Her okay.’

It’s still dark so she can’t be too warm from the heat of the sun. I grab a small camping deckchair and take out my tympanic thermometer to take her temperature. As I suspected, she has a slight fever at thirty-eight degrees Celsius, though she is lying peacefully. Actually, she looks like Sleeping Beauty, in the light of the half moon shimmering through the forest canopy
and I’d give anything to be the one to awaken her from the unknown of this deep sleep. Surely she should have experienced some form of coherent consciousness by now and what in god’s name could be causing her fever?

I take out my torch to examine her body for any sign of infection; something may have bitten her on our journey here. I go check her eyes for dilation but Mapu guides my hand away and rests his hands beneath his head to illustrate she is sleeping before clasping them together like bird’s wings to indicate she is far away or flying.

Feeling totally hamstrung, I’d give anything to wake Leo to discuss exactly how long he believes this process should last. Agitated by Mapu’s patience, I raise my water bottle to him and indicate I’d like to give some to Alexa. ‘
Água
?’

He shakes his head and instead picks up his own potion and hands it to me. I take a sniff and notice its sweetness, assuming there could be some honey in it. Even though I’m uncomfortable giving her things I don’t fully understand, I respect that I’m in their world and while she is in this state, I have to trust that they are better qualified to ensure she gets out of it, though I swear if she remains unconscious for the next twenty-four hours I will be flying her out of here to get her the medical attention she needs.

I moisten her lips with the liquid and carefully let some drops fall into her mouth. I wet my clean handkerchief with my water bottle and gently run it
over her limbs before laying it on her forehead to cool her. And then I wait because really that is all I can do.

At sunrise Leo appears and relieves Mapu. ‘Do you want some rest, Jaq? I can get Yaku if you’d like.’

‘No, I’ll be staying right here, thanks.’ If I could do thirty-hour shifts during my early career, I can certainly do them now.

‘How’s she been?’

‘She had a slight fever a couple of hours ago but that seems to have settled though I can’t explain why. She’s had some fluids, but otherwise she hasn’t budged.’

Just as I say the words, Alexa shoots up into a seated position and is gasping for air.

I’m so shocked I fall off my seat. ‘Shit!’

We’re both taken aback though Leo is more composed than I am. I move straight to her side.

‘Alexa, sweetheart, are you okay? Can you hear me?’

She looks around, startled, but then seems to recognise our faces.

She nods that she can hear us before saying urgently, ‘I need to go back, I need to know, I can’t wait. Where is Yaku? I need more …’

‘Slow down, slow down. Where have you been?’ In my peripheral vision, I notice Leo slipping away.

‘A different time, place, I don’t know, Jeremy, but I know it will help me understand everything. I need to go back before I lose them forever.’

I don’t have a clue who she is talking about, but she looks agitated until she sees Yaku return with Leo and
a cup in his hands. Only then does her face break into a smile and her hands reach out to take the cup. I feel a little panicked.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, sweetheart? I’m not sure it is safe for you to have any more, you’ve had a fever.’

‘A fever?’ This seems to divert her attention from drinking.

‘Yes, it’s gone now but —’

She interrupts me. ‘They burnt her, that’s why. They burnt Evelyn, they believed she was a witch but she wasn’t, she was a healer with special blood. She had magic but she was good, kind and had more compassion than any of them. I need to go back to check if her daughter is alright. They took her away.’ She is speaking like a madwoman, her eyes darting around the forest as though she is looking for these unknown people.

I look anxiously toward Leo, at a loss. He kneels down beside the stretcher and cradles her face gently in his palms. Without uttering a word, he looks deeply into her eyes. It is only then that I remember I’m not meant to speak to her. She inhales before her body shudders on her exhale, as though she is releasing tension and calming down. He nods without breaking eye contact and she raises the ayahuasca to her lips and swallows its potent contents. They remain that way until she finishes and Yaku takes the cup from her hands.

Their eyes remain locked until Alexa’s dilate like before and she slowly closes them as if her lids are too
heavy for her to control. Leo carefully lowers her body back onto the stretcher and she is gone again, to whatever world this Amazonian concoction is taking her to.

Leo turns to me. ‘Let’s take a walk, you need a break.’ He speaks to the elders in their native tongue and they nod their heads. I hesitate. ‘It’s okay, Jaq, they won’t let anything happen to her. They understand where she is better than we ever will.’

His outstretched hand rests on my shoulder as he senses my reluctance. I take another look at AB, who has once again returned to her Sleeping Beauty state and I fleetingly consider if I’m helping or hindering what she is going through with my anxiety about her wellbeing. She certainly appeared more agitated being here than wherever she was, so with this in mind I agree to go with Leo to clear my head and stretch my legs, knowing that he will have some words of wisdom to share, as always.

When we return, Yaku informs us it is time to go downriver. The shaman has sent a message letting them know that his moment to receive Alexa is close and she needs to spend time with the village women to prepare for this event. With no small degree of cynicism I ask how this message was received. Which animal or tree communicated this to the elders?

Leo asks them and points in the direction of our small camp. ‘Other members of the tribe, Jaq, they
travelled upriver this morning and will return to the village with us.’ A cheeky smile appears on his lips as though he can read my thoughts exactly.

‘Oh, right,’ I respond, a little embarrassed.

‘You know, my scientific friend, it’s not all voodoo and magic in the jungle.’ He laughs at me. ‘Let’s get organised.’

We stretcher Alexa’s body to the canoes waiting by the riverside. She isn’t fully unconscious but she’s not here with us with any awareness either. My heart is in a constant state of dulled anguish seeing her like this, but my head tells me to ignore the pain and focus on the greater good.

Leo told me on our walk together that his soul flight occurred over a five-day period and that the spiritual awareness reached climactic proportions when his physical body was at its weakest. Apparently, Alexa still has some way to go. Not the greatest news from my perspective, but at least he is trying to manage my expectations moving forward. As long as she continues to retain fluids, I’ve promised that I won’t interfere with the process. I hope I don’t regret it.

Floating down the river on the handmade wooden canoes is a serene experience. The Wai-Wai only use their small outboard motors if they need to go upstream, or against the tide. It’s surprising how fast the tributaries feeding into the main river system actually flow.

It is a joy to experience the vitality and noise of the Amazon basin in this way — the abundance of life here
is unimaginable. We pass people bathing in the river, washing both hair and dishes side by side. Men are fishing and women are weaving baskets and waving as we float past their tiny villages. Kids are playing and splashing on the river foreshore, their laughter tickling the air. Alexa would love to see all of this activity against the backdrop of the greenest, most intense rainforest in the world.

We leave the main river and head back toward one of the offshoot tributaries. Leo yells over the noise of the small motor from the canoe next to mine. ‘Not far to go now, maybe an hour or so.’

I nod in acknowledgement and marvel at how they find their way around this massive and intricate river system without the aid of any technology or jungle street directory. As I look toward Alexa, I notice she is again completely unconscious and wipe a few strands of hair from her face. In doing so, I notice two small dark stains on her white shirt and my heart immediately skips a beat. What now? If I didn’t know better I would say it looks like old blood.

A little alarmed, I unbutton her shirt to find that it appears to be coming from her breasts, having seeped through her bra.

‘What the hell?’ I mutter more to myself than anyone else. I glance around before I discreetly pull down her bra to find both of her nipples covered with dark, coagulated blood. Just as I’m attempting to stay calm and think of some diagnosis for this, I am distracted by shouts of excitement.

‘Jaq, look. River dolphins, pink dolphins, just behind us, playing in our wake,’ Leo calls over from one of the other canoes.

Under normal circumstances, this would be an amazing experience; under these circumstances I’m left staring perplexed at Alexa’s bloodied chest. Other than friction from running, or issues with breastfeeding, I can’t think of any medical condition that would cause this and even so, it would be fresh rather than this dark, coagulated blood.

‘Is everything okay over there?’ I hear Leo yelling again.

‘I’m not sure. There’s some kind of blood on Alexa’s nipples,’ I don’t mind yelling back in English, given the others’ understanding of our language is so limited.

‘Really?’ He sounds as shocked as I am. ‘Is she still bleeding now?’

‘No, not that I can tell.’

‘And it’s just on her nipples?’

I quickly scan the rest of her body. Other than her nipples and her inability to communicate with us, she seems perfectly fine. ‘Yeah, just there.’

‘Wow, that is weird. Do you think it could be some form of sexual stigmata?’

Only Leo would be quick enough to come up with a comment like that. I throw him a look from my canoe that seriously hopes he is joking.

‘Just sharing a thought …’

I shake my head in response. What the hell could cause this? Concerned but also intrigued, I reach for
my kit and take a swab for testing later and seal it in a bag. This journey gets weirder by the hour.

As I sit, baffled but unable to do much at this point, one of the pink dolphins rears up right beside where I’m sitting, with its mouth open as if it is smiling at me. I’m so caught off-guard, I can’t help but laugh in response to what looks like the cheekiest grin I’ve ever seen. It distracts me enough from my unsettled thoughts to fleetingly consider what Alexa would say about this if she were deciphering it from a psychological perspective, interpreting a dream.

Strangely enough, this thought lightens my emotional burdens and for the first time since she sipped the ayahuasca, I feel as though everything will somehow work out. As soon as I note this thought, the pod of endangered pink dolphins vanishes into the depths of the river and we don’t see them again.

I swear this jungle is messing with my head.