Pure Healing (16 page)

For lunch, they had a picnic beneath the Leifeng Pagoda. Midway through the meal, however, the Healer rose to greet a long line of children who approached, strung together with some sort of silk rope around each of their waists. At the end of the snake-like procession was an elderly woman in a Buddhist nun habit who smiled in greeting. She and Rain conversed quietly in Chinese while Wan’er also finished up her
boazi
and went to join them.
“It is the day for the children’s annual check-up,” Ayelet explained to Sophia and Valerius, who watched the proceedings curiously. “Wan’er told me that every year on this day, the orphans in the surrounding villages travel here to see Rain so that she can give their health a boost and rid them of any ailments. They cannot afford to go to the clinics in town, nor do they have time to wait sometimes for days to be seen by a physician. So they come to the Sanctuary to see Lady Rain who doles out magical kisses that make them all better.”
Valerius looked at her disbelievingly at the “magical kisses” remark, but Ayelet only smiled. “To children, a mother’s kiss is imbued with magical powers. To these orphans, Rain is like their fairytale mother for the kindness and affection she brings into their lives. And coincidentally, her kisses do indeed heal, if she harnesses her Gift to transfer energy through it.”
Valerius could relate to that. He could use a billion, trillion magical kisses himself.
While the children lined up in an orderly fashion before the pagoda, Rain and Wan’er set up their “clinic” within. Valerius watched the Healer do her duty with loving care, as generous with her time and patience as she was with the magical kisses she smothered the children with, making many giggle with delight.
And for the first time since his human boyhood, the warrior found his heart clench with yearning. What he’d give to be smothered in Rain’s tender kisses. Hell, what he
wouldn’t
give just to get one kiss.
Tiny, sticky fingers pulling at the fabric of his trousers pulled his attention away from the beautiful Healer. Sitting on the grass beside the pagoda, long legs stretched before him, elbows on his slightly bent knees, he was eye level with a thumb-sucking little girl with what looked to be a disproportionately large head atop a bone-thin body. She popped her thumb out of her mouth with a wet noise and held both arms toward him expectantly.
Valerius stared at her motionlessly, uncertain what he should do.
She tilted her head sideways as if in thought, then seemed to make a decision. If the mountain wouldn’t come to her, she was going to take herself to the mountain. She waddled bravely between the warrior’s spread legs and crawled unceremoniously into his lap. She grabbed one of his forearms with both little hands, surprisingly strong in their sticky grip, yanking a few of his hairs in the process, and pulled his arm around to hold her securely in his lap, where she wriggled around to find a comfortable position and promptly stuck a thumb back into her mouth.
Once in a while she would look up at him to see if he paid attention to her, briefly meeting his consternated eyes. Satisfied that he was focused on her, she would pat his forearm with wet little smacks as if petting a well-behaved dog.
Before Valerius knew it, two more pint-sized kids joined her in his lap, and then two more, sitting by his booted feet, seemingly fascinated with his utilitarian footwear. Pretty soon, he was crawling with children, like a hill conquered by an army of ants.
“I see the children, too, have fallen under your spell,” came the teasingly warm voice of the Healer.
Valerius avoided her gaze to hide his
embarrassment. Some mighty warrior Pure-male he must have looked.
“You must like them too,” she said, her voice growing softer, “for you let them touch you freely.”
Valerius flicked his eyes to her in surprise and was nearly bowled over by her next words –
“How I envy them.”
Without waiting to see his response, she went back to the makeshift clinic within the pagoda.
Yes, Valerius thought with some amazement at himself, he liked children very much. He’d always liked children, and they seemed to be naturally drawn to him in return. Perhaps they viewed him as just another child, albeit a hell of a lot bigger. They represented to him the innocence he’d lost. They represented all the good and pure things in life.
The laughter of children was what he fought to protect.
And protect them he did, literally later that evening, when his group of four Pure Ones chaperoned Sophia and the twenty odd orphans along with the elderly nun to the street festival in an old part of Hangzhou city.
The festivities were in full swing by the time they arrived, thousands of lanterns lighting up the approaching night. Lanterns on towers, outside every window of every house, strung up on telephone poles and wires so that they appeared to be floating in the darkening sky. Every man, woman and child carried a lantern of their own, Valerius’ entourage carrying lanterns shaped like animals. As they strolled down the crowded night market streets, all that could be seen was a meandering parade of happy turtles, rabbits, birds, pandas, and other more mythical creatures of old.
Valerius felt particularly proud that he’d helped Rain and Wan’er make these lanterns by hand for most of the afternoon. He ended up gluing more of his thick fingers than the delicate rice paper the lanterns were made out of, but the children didn’t seem to mind if the animals he made were missing an ear or tail. They accepted his awkward creations with effervescent joy, hugging him and kissing him in eagerness and gratitude.
It was by far the best day of his existence.
As the children ran around to browse the multitude of shops and stands, and sample the treats that were cooked right before their eyes, Valerius lagged behind to gain a better view of their surroundings and position. He took in each and every face and form with practiced skill, gauging potential threats and danger with unparalleled experience.
As if the human residents and visitors sensed the powerful and lethal energy around the warrior, they inadvertently gave him wider berth so that despite the rush and the throngs of people, Valerius stood almost alone, untouched, unbothered, against the side wall of a candy shop.
Until the Healer decided to join him.
“Have you a celebration like this where you hail from?” Rain asked him as she came to stand beside him, forcing him to take a step back to keep at least three feet of distance between them.
“No,” he replied with some awe, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Wait until you see the fire dragon dance,” she told him, sounding as if the display was more than worth the wait.
“What is the festival about?” he asked, more to distract himself from her nearness than out of sheer curiosity.
“Oh, many things,” she answered. “It’s a
celebration of a fruitful harvest, a time to be with one’s family and thank the gods for our fortunes. A time of reunion and love-making.”
“What?” Valerius startled at her last words and almost lost his footing.
She kept her gaze on the children and smiled. “There’s a legend behind the Moon Festival, as it is sometimes called, hence all the
yuebing
you see, the moon-shaped cakes with red bean filling and a salted duck egg yolk inside.” She gestured to the very shop they stood beside, and Valerius saw what she meant by the rows of golden moon cakes on tantalizing display.
“Legend says that over four thousand years ago, there was a young couple who served the Emperor of Heaven. The husband, Houyi, was an archer of unrivaled skill, and his wife, Chang’e, was a lady of surpassing beauty. The earth at the time thrived on the heat from ten suns in the form of three-legged birds that resided in a mulberry tree in the eastern sea. Each day, one bird would run across the sky, bathing the earth with its warmth and light. But one day all ten birds ran across the sky, surrounding the earth in a ring of fire. To end the devastating drought that ensued, the Emperor of Heaven commanded Houyi to shoot down all of the birds save one, and the archer carried out his task successfully.”
No longer listening just to distract himself, Valerius found that he was entranced by her story, by her soft lilting voice. Unconsciously, he moved a step closer, until she could feel the heat of his body in the chilly night.
Rain leaned ever so slightly toward him, though careful not to touch. She didn’t want to scare away this lonely lost child in the guise of a mighty warrior. She’d seen him play joyfully with the children in the afternoon, seen the mesmerizing light of his rare smiles and even heard the sound of a rarer laugh. If she could have, she would have been content to watch him all day long.
“As a reward for his service, the Emperor granted him a palace on the sun and a magical pill,” Rain continued with the story, “which he hid beneath his rafters that night. But when he was on duty the next day, the light from the magical pill beckoned to his wife, who swallowed it by mistake. The pill made her spread wings and fly, and to her fright and panic, the wings took her to the distant moon. Houyi returned that night to find her gone, he tried to go after her but strong winds knocked him down. And thus Chang’e remained on the moon, longing every day and night for her beloved mate.”
Valerius vaguely wondered that Houyi wasn’t angry with his wife for devouring the magical pill that he had won, but he thought he understood the archer’s perspective, for if he had been the husband, and Rain the wife, he would have given every gift, every reward, everything he had to his mate. And he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to let her fly away from him.
“There was a hare that lived on the moon, a hare who could make magical potions from the herbs that thrived there. Chang’e bid the hare to pound the herbs into a pill for her husband so that he could fly too and visit her. The hare succeeded in making such a potion, but the magical powers only lasted for one night out of each year. So on the Moon Festival every year, Houyi flies from his palace on the Sun to visit his wife’s tower on the Moon, and in anticipation of her husband’s arrival, the moon puts on her most beguiling dress, shimmering in fullness and light.”
At that Valerius raised his eyes to the night sky and gazed upon the low-hanging bright full moon. Indeed it seemed to shimmer with unusual brilliance, like a beautiful woman glowing with love.
He then glanced down at the woman beside him, the exquisite profile of her face etched forever in his mind. The story of Chang’e reminded him of the Healer, who glowed resplendently this night with renewed strength and vitality. Her Houyi was her Consort, who visited her for thirty days during the Phoenix Cycle once every decade.
He suddenly wished he could break her free of this never ending chain, somehow ensure that strength and vitality resided within her always, that her beauty ever shone like it did tonight, never waning, never dim.
He’d do anything to be her strength.
Almost.
He didn’t dare show her his true self, didn’t dare expose his demons.
They stood in silence for a while, watching the beginning of the fire dragon dance together as a parade of men wearing brightly colored trousers painted to look like dragon scales wound their way through the crowd, their bodies and heads covered in a long, flowing canopy made to resemble the body of a Chinese dragon.
The men dipped and rose, twisted and turned in sync, following the beat of an ancient drum, mesmerizing in their meandering dance, like a giant fire-breathing dragon floating leisurely through the sea of people, looking this way and that, the giant, elaborately decorated head with its wide-eyed stare taking in its surroundings like a deity descended from the heavens.
The children, escorted by Ayelet, Wan’er and the nun, followed Sophia’s lead and skipped merrily alongside the dancing dragon with their animal lantern in one hand and long sticks of incense in the other. The incense was for the Moon Goddess, Chang’e, wishing her a happy reunion with her husband Houyi so that they would bless the earth with continued bounty and good fortune.
Rain grasped the sleeve of Valerius’ shirt and tugged him along as they followed the children’s progress through the crowds, keeping them within view. Along the way she procured two sticks of candied cranberries and gave one to Valerius, gesturing for him to take a bite. He did so and savored the distinctive combination of crunchy sugary coating and tangy sour fruit within. He looked at her small hand gripping his sleeve and had the inexplicable urge to take her hand in his own, to weave their fingers together.
They wound their way through the crowded streets, passing houses, shops and stands with strings of colorful lanterns hanging from bamboo poles at their highest points, from roofs and terraces, rafters and antennas. The lanterns waved and floated like giant fireflies in the breeze, illuminating the night with multi-colored radiance.
They stopped beneath a makeshift tower, constructed with long, heavy wooden beams and bamboo stilts for the explicit purpose of hanging lanterns. The fire dragon had started its ceremonial dance, circling its tail and twitching its long, curly whiskers in the middle of the crowd that had formed a wide ring around the performers. Sophia and the children were in the front lines of the crowd, getting an up-close and personal view of the spectacular display.
Though they were now standing still, Rain kept her loose grip on Valerius’ sleeve, not wanting their connection to break. She tried to focus on the festivities before her, instead of the warrior standing beside her, but she had very little success. She wanted to scoot closer to the heat his large body radiated in comforting waves, wanted to wrap an arm about his lean waist and lay her head on his chest. Despite having had hundreds of Consorts over her existence as a Pure One, she had never been so drawn to one particular male.
Not for the first time she wished he was hers. And to keep him with her beyond just one Phoenix Cycle. It was pure madness that particular wish. She knew full well she couldn’t afford to risk attachment.
On that thought, she slowly let go of Valerius’ sleeve, letting her hand dangle empty by her side. This warrior should never be hers. It would be too dangerous, especially for him. She knew herself and her own desires and limits. She would quickly become addicted to his Nourishment and strength and crave him like a female starved. And she’d be tempted to break her own cardinal rule – to never take the same Consort twice.