Tomorrows Child (29 page)

Today I stood
where our garden met the forest, beneath the largest of the ancient
guardians and I found my quiet place. That simple space in my mind
where peace existed, the same place I found with Phoenix on my
first visit to the forest all those months ago.

“I thank you
for this gift and will use it wisely, but today I return this
energy as my gift to the earth.” It was a simple statement, but I
felt the energy seep slowly back into the earth, crackle from my
fingers and return to the air. Finally, in the shadow of the
forest, I had found a way to live with my magick.

All I had to do
now was work out what on earth, I was supposed to do with this
amazing gift!

Accepting that
magick was part of my life, part of me, was a relief. Resisting had
made everything far worse and more dramatic than it needed to be.
The heavy load of opposition I once carried was lifted. There
remained many unanswered questions and the future was clouded by a
prophecy that I hadn’t yet received. And there were more
secrets.

Secrets I
needed to learn if I were to unravel the mysteries of my gift.
There was a lot of discussion and much conjecture, but no one
really knew what to expect. My conversation with the goddess didn’t
provide the answers, and I knew that I had to figure this out on my
own. While everyone argued about the nature of the gift, I spent
time alone, reading the Darnell “Book of Family Secrets,” which I’d
renamed to reflect what it really was. A book of secrets.

The book began
with the Darnell family prophecy, which named me as the ninth
daughter, the last daughter. Scattered throughout, however, were
prophecies to the other daughters. Prophecies that other Darnell
women received to direct their personal journeys. Some had gotten
just one, while others had received many. Each one represented a
small step toward a common goal, although still unknown, and all
were preparing for the arrival of the ninth daughter. Me.

Setting up life
in this remote northern town had been part of the prophecy. Each
daughter set the stage for the one who followed her. Each daughter
continued to obey the words written in the book of secrets. My plan
was to read all of their prophecies, for if I knew what they knew,
I might learn what was expected of me. And knowing this, I could
work out how to use the magick. At least that was my theory.

The first
daughter who was given the prophecy wrote it down. This was
challenging in a time when people were uneducated and books were
only for the rich. Although the persecution of witches had
officially ended, it didn’t mean that it was actually over.
Religious zealots were everywhere and all too ready to execute
their own form of punishment in the name of God.

Mary Catherine,
the first daughter, learned to read and write, while memorising the
prophecy. She acquired the book and hid it until she could pass it
on to her own daughter. But after the book was found by her
husband, Mary Catherine was shunned by the community.

She lived the
life of a hedge witch on the outskirts of the town. Here, she had
the time and the resources to hone her skills and acquire a working
knowledge of herbs. So Mary Catherine passed her knowledge of herbs
and other skills down to her daughter.

Her daughter,
repentant of her mother’s sins, attended church regularly and ran
Sunday school for the local children. She was the true pretender.
Her prophecy required her to raise the third daughter with the
knowledge of the lore of the herb. Many of Libby’s remedies come
from this information, which was recorded faithfully by the second
daughter.

“Seventeenth
century herbal lore is like reading a foreign language,” I
complained to Libby one day. Even with Libby’s insightful
instruction, I couldn’t link this to my magick.

“I believe it’s
all about surviving. I think it was written so that we would retain
this knowledge and survive these times.”

“It didn’t save
Mum.”

“No it didn’t.
But you are alive and at the moment, that is the most important
thing.”

It was during
this conversation that I made a discovery, my first since learning
to release energy. Libby was still talking about how the first
daughter overcame amazing odds to record the prophecy, but her
voice faded in the distance and I found myself standing in an old,
unfamiliar forest. It was nothing like the rainforest that
surrounded our house.

The cold was
intense and I noticed that snow lay in drifts on the ground. A
young woman walked toward me and I beckoned her to enter the house.
I knew immediately what was troubling her, yet I asked her anyway.
The foundation of the house was circular with only one room. A fire
burned in the centre and smoke rose through an opening in the roof.
Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling and lay in baskets scattered
on the floor. There were no conveniences of any kind, but a small
bed of straw and blankets, which occupied one side of the room.

It could have
been a scene from a fairytale, but the cold was too bitter and the
smells too intense for any fairytale. A mirror hung from the wall,
the only thing reminiscent of a previous life. Glancing in the
mirror, I saw a face that wasn’t mine.

“I’m sorry
Libby, what did you say?”

“I was saying
how horrible it would be to be shunned by your own family and
living like that… Did you know that Hansel and Gretel were
kidnapped by a hedge witch? Snow White’s stepmother was also a
hedge witch. It’s no wonder people feared the likes of Mary
Catherine.”

I was back in
the room with Libby. “So?” Libby looked at me and waited. I
realised she knew that something had just happened, or perhaps she
thought I wasn’t listening.

“Oh, I’ve gotta
go,” I said as I dashed out the door. No one questioned me when I
dashed from the room anymore. I released the energy several times a
day so it was now normal behaviour for me to run away with no
notice. But I didn’t run because I had an urgent need to release
the energy. I ran because something was different. The vision was
different; no, it was more than a vision, it almost seemed real. It
was as if I possessed Mary Catherine. The girl who visited the
cottage was pregnant and came to me because she was unwed. I knew
this before she even spoke. I gave her bayberries and angelica tea.
I knew this. Then I gave her a pouch of powdered herbs that would
prevent this happening again. “Just a pinch in the morning,” I
said.

There was no
need to release any energy because I had used the chaotic energy
during the vision. I felt normal, my heart beat normally, my
temperature, which had been feverish, was normal. I felt good. A
rush of joy washed over me. I had just discovered another way to
make constructive use of the energy.

As I raced back
to the house, I considered whether I should tell Libby, but I
quickly pushed this thought away. Secrets were the Darnell way, I
guess, but the old Darnell way. The new Darnell way would have no
secrets.

I revealed the
unusual vision to Libby and told her of the unexpected result. She
placed her hand on my forehead, checking for the feverish
temperature. “Amazing, just amazing,” she said, reaching for my
wrist and counting my pulse. “I would love to see this. To see one
of the Darnell women receiving her prophecies.”

“I don’t really
know how it happened. It could have been because I was reading
about Mary Catherine, or maybe it was to teach me something. But it
uses a lot of energy, so I have to wait for a while before I try it
again.”

“There is
nothing about bayberries or angelica being used for this purpose,
so it didn’t come directly from the book. You were reading the
prophecies so it’s obviously connected in some way.”

I thought it
was connected too, but it would have to wait, for now.

Memories of the
vision played in my mind. I remembered every herb used in the
remedy, I could smell them as if I held them in my hand and taste
the bitterness on my lips. I don’t know why the vision remained in
my mind, replaying like a memory of my own life, or if it was
important for another reason. I really hadn’t thought what I would
do with this knowledge until I found myself standing at the gate of
the herb garden, staring at the catch that held the gate closed.
Libby had never banned me from the garden, just warned me that it
was dangerous.

The catch was
well oiled and slipped free with a gentle touch. The gate swung
open on silent hinges, inviting me in. I hesitated for just a
moment. What harm could come from this? Inside the fenced garden
was a new assortment of herbs: golden flowers as big as saucers,
blood red flowers as tiny as a thimble and everything in between. I
recognised many, not because I knew them or because Libby had
taught me their names, but because the vision had left them
imprinted in my mind. Without thinking, I began collecting the
plants for the remedy. Not all were here; some were common herbs
from the garden that grew beside the vegetables and under fruit
trees. When I finished, I shut the gate, surprised that everything
I needed grew so happily in Libby’s garden, and headed toward the
house.

In my room, I
hung the leaves to dry, laid the flowers on a wire rack and placed
berries in a china bowl. It wasn’t a secret, I would tell Libby I
had been in her garden. She would know anyway, but I knew that many
of these herbs shouldn’t be stored in the kitchen.

I watched the
herbs dry and their leaves grow brittle. The flowers lost their
petals and the berries shrivelled. It was perfect, exactly as I
remembered. As the days passed, I wondered why I was making a
remedy to prevent a pregnancy. It wasn’t something I would need
anytime soon and probably wouldn’t use when the time came, but I
seemed possessed by the vision and needed to complete what I had
begun. Finally, after several days had passed, I ground the herbs
into a fine powder and stored them in a calico bag. The smell was
familiar and the taste of them on my tongue was bitter, but there
was no way to know if they would work. There was a grim
satisfaction, however, and feeling of accomplishment. Potentially,
it could take a life, but still, I had done this on my own, and
that was enough.

Everything
changes, day changes into night, winter changes into spring and the
moon waxes and wanes. We accept these changes without question
because that’s the way things are and we have no control over them
anyway. Nevertheless, it is harder to accept when the changes are
more personal, when the extraordinary becomes a part of you and
amazing things happen daily. It’s even harder accepting that you
have no control over the changes.

Questions about
the visions would have to wait because, by the end of the day, I
would receive the first of the prophecies that would change my
life’s path.

Libby and I
took our tea into the garden under the shade of a jacaranda tree
that must have been over a hundred years old. Phoenix and Tahinah
arrived within minutes and immediately began discussing the
vision.

“This is
wonderful news.”

“At least she’s
making progress.”

Their words
blurred into one long monotonous sound with no meaning and I fell
asleep.

Dreamer of
dreams hear our call… time nears...
Over and over the words
repeated. They made no sense, but images flashed and faded. I
reached for them, but they were gone. Over and over, words I
couldn’t understand and images I couldn’t hold. I was panicking,
rushing toward the images, yelling at the voice. I screamed, “Just
stop!” And the images suddenly stopped. Then the words changed and
flowed into sounds I could understand. This time the words were
spoken in English…

The images came
again too, slower this time, trees and hills, rivers and rocks. The
sun rose and set and rose and set and the moon waxed and waned...
the passing of days… how many days? But the sun rose again and
hundreds of children emerged from a misty water hole. They were
laughing and running, happy children running toward something,
something I couldn’t see. Abruptly, the laughter stopped, the
children vanished and thunderclouds rushed toward me, no toward us.
Girls just like me stood looking toward the sky and then we noticed
something. But what? I looked to the girls around me. Some nodded
and walked off, others stood with me, confused. Then they too left
and I was alone.

When I woke up,
I was by myself, still under the jacaranda tree, but covered by a
thin, fluffy throw. The sun was low in the sky, but there were
still a few hours before it set. I understood the theory that I
needed to be sleeping to receive the prophecy, but this was extreme
even for Libby. As the dreamer of dreams, I was expected to dream
the prophecy, but if this were the prophecy, then I was in trouble.
I felt sure there would be disappointment because I had no idea
what the dream was about.

A deep, sinking
feeling filled me; I had failed before I’d even begun. I would
break the news to Libby in the only way I knew how… by telling her
the truth.

Libby and
Tahinah were busy in the kitchen and two pots boiled furiously on
the stove. My book sat on the table beside the Book of Secrets,
exactly where I had left them hours before. I fell into the chair
and caused the legs to grate against the cold stone floor.

“Oh my! What
has happened?” Tahinah rushed to my side and sat in the nearest
chair. Libby hurried to my room and returned with Phoenix in tow.
Phoenix had been sent to my room to see if he could sleep too.
Insurance, I guess, in case I got it wrong. Wrong was not the
problem.

I felt the
energy coursing through my veins. I had spent too long lying on the
earth and not enough time releasing the energy. The energy from the
earth was pure; it was my emotions that caused the chaos. I had no
idea what would happen when the energy was this pure and my
emotions this chaotic. Tahinah felt it first and took a step back
and then another. By the time Phoenix and Libby felt the chaos, it
was too late.