One night he could not sleep. He leaned on the window sill and looked at the beach. A slender shape was moving quickly on the sand. He winked and recognized Rosemary. Where was she going in the middle of the night?
It was pitch dark.
He quickly put on his shirt and jeans and went after her. He decided he would not call her: he would just follow. She headed north, beyond the familiar beach, across the meadows. Ashley followed her from afar, but he had to be careful not to be seen, nor to lose her. They climbed up a steep hill, all the way to the other side, and they reached the edges of a conifer wood.
At that point she stopped, and turned around. Some people gathered and greeted one another with signs and words spoken too low to be heard. She let go of her coat and drew near to the fire the others had been making. She wore an embroidered, long tunic that looked ancient and put a crescent moon diadem on her forehead. Her hair flickered in the fire light, as if it were ablaze.
Men and women, some with musical instruments, such as drums and flutes, stood in a circle around her. They also wore unusual costumes. Ashley recognized some people from the village: the baker and his wife were there, and even the owner of that restaurant on the Victorian promenade, what was its name? – and a few others. He crouched behind a trunk. It looked like some kind of celebration. As Rosemary lifted her arms towards the moonlit sky, a few young men began drumming and chanting.
“Tonight, our Lord Manannan is answering our prayers, and we offer dances and chants to his power…” Rosemary’s voice hovered in the starry night.
A few more people joined the circle, carrying baskets of flowers and leaves, which Rosemary would scatter around, blessing everyone. Swirling around in an ever-increasing rhythm, while the drummers hit their instruments faster, she seized a man’s hand and pulled him into that spiralling dance.
People were swinging like sea waves, without breaking the circle: the man had a green-blue cloak and a familiar look. He raised his axe and walked around Rosemary, who stood motionless beside the fire, three times. Ashley was startled. He knew the man. No, he must be wrong, it was impossible… he could hardly breathe. He should leave at once unnoticed. How come was that man there?
That very moment their eyes met, and Ashley jumped out, when the man disrupted the circle to run towards him. It was the green-eyed man from the tholtan. Others followed the man, yelling and singing aloud, carrying torches. They soon overtook Ashley, who did not know the area and found himself surrounded by expressionless faces.
“I am innocent,” he said with a wavering voice.
The green-eyed man gave him a defiant stare and said:
“If you are, then you have nothing to fear. But if you fear, then you are guilty.”
He nodded, and two men fetched Ashley by his arms, while everybody else was following in silence. They took him back to the fire and to Rosemary, who had been waiting all along.
“You know me,” Ashley said, “say something to these madmen.”
But Rosemary only lifted her arms and said:
“This stranger wants a test of innocence. Manannan himself will judge him.”
The green-eyed man fetched his axe and circled around the victim. A young girl brought him a cup full of a bad smelling liquid, and Rosemary poured it in his mouth, while the green-eyed man was standing with his axe upon his head. Then, Rosemary bade him crawl like a sea serpent, circling the fire. He had no choice but to comply. Tears gathered thickly in his eyes, while he felt he could neither speak nor shout. His vision grew blurred. It must have been poison.
As the music rhythm increased, and he kept going, he was dazed and disbelieving. Little by little, he stopped thinking. It must have been an hour or longer, when the energy went out of his body and he lay motionless, knowing that the end was near. It was then that a last cry came out of him, when he saw a frozen stream: the stream that does not flow. Helen was walking on the frozen surface and, although she was not speaking, he could make out her silent words: she was condemning him. That was his living grave, his grief and, maybe, his ultimate end.
“Yes, I deserve to die. You would still be alive… Helen,” he shouted as if she could hear him.
Whirlwinds of whispers and fallen leaves, faces with bitter expressions staring at him, circling around him, and blackbirds perching on tree-tops, vultures waiting for his end, hands that came over him, touching his body to tear it apart. His soul swooned. This was hell, the place where he belonged. He fell and felt death approaching. He could not see the people around him now. He was gone. The night spread its cloak on the valley, and the people scattered around in silence, in the wood, along the path leading back to the village.
Rosemary came and covered him with a blanket.
“Now, you can finally sleep, free of your shame and guilt. Tomorrow, you will be born again.”
She knew he had followed her and had wanted him to take part in the ritual, and drink of that hallucinogenic substance: it was the only way he could overcome his shock. The green-eyed man, her friend Count Stanley Junior, stood still looking at the stranger. She had told him everything about Ashley, but he had recognized him only at the very last, when he was pleading his innocence on his knees. He remembered they had met that afternoon in the tholtan. It was almost uncanny. He knew he could be scary at times, but it was beyond his powers to stop himself when he was having one of those moments… He told everything to Rosemary.
“That must have scared him to death,” she said with reproach in her voice.
“I know, but that was my tholtan, I always go there when I have, well… you know what I mean, when I go into that state.”
***
At the breaking of dawn, Ashley opened his eyes, only to see the broad green valley all around and Rosemary and the green-eyed man conversing amiably nearby. He remembered at once and was confused about the meaning of all that he had experienced. The two came towards him smiling, the green-eyed man thrusted his right hand forward and said:
“I am aware I must have scared you in the tholtan the other day; sorry for that. My name is George Stanley; Rosemary has told me you work for my father.”
Ashley, still dazed, sat up, and gaped in amazement.
“But, why on earth did you threaten me? What about last night? I need a plausible explanation now.”
Rosemary sat down in front of him and asked George Stanley to leave them by themselves, she would explain everything:
“George suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and intermittently, he takes on a mythical personality, the Green Knight from a medieval poem…”
“I know the poem; the Count gave it to me and now I begin to understand why…”
“Well, Count Stanley used to read it aloud to George, when he was a child and it caught his imagination. Years later, when he developed the illness, he started to behave as if he were him… fitfully, of course. He says he is two people at the same time and cannot help himself.”
“Has he ever been cured?”
“They have tried, but it seems that the only way for him to deal with it is to spend time alone in his tholtan.”
“And what about what happened yesterday? What was the purpose of it all and why did you tie me hands and feet and made me crawl and gave me that drink? What was it?”
“I know, you are baffled now, but it was a healing ceremony, and you were the person to be healed. I had seen that you were following me, so I decided we would perform the healing during the seasonal festival in honour of our sea god Manannan. I spoke to George about it as soon as we met… the drink was meant to make you release your sense of guilt for Helen’s death. We wanted to help you, and the only way for you to recover was a ritual death.”
Ashley could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“So, I should say thank you: I guess this is what you are expecting.”
“No, that’s not what I expect. I just ask you to wait for a few hours, before judging what happened last night."
She stood up and left.
***
Ashley went back to the family house and withdrew in his room, asking Mary to be left alone for the whole day. He would have something to eat upstairs. He lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and remembered his vision of Helen in the night. He fell asleep while crying. Shafts of sunlight came in through the blinds, playing on his eye lashes and his brow, while he recovered from the intense night.
At one Mary knocked on his door, asking what he would like to have for lunch, but no answer came, and she guessed he must be sleeping. He could not hear her voice, as he wandered in a shady dimension.
When he opened his eyes again, his resentment was gone. He stared at the ceiling and went over last night’s events, then he remembered the Count’s words:
“Find the stream that does not flow, hear the silent words, and learn to live in the grave.”
All those years he had been going against the flow, trying hard to keep afloat on the surface of his life, never still, never at peace: “being busy” was his motto and going always out of himself for distraction was a necessity. Certainly, he had not known it until that very moment, while lying on a bed on a remote island, after a bewildering night.
With his job, and with Helen, it had been the same: he always had to prove something, his worth, or his love, or both. And now, he was his own stream, self-contained in the stillness, listening to the healing whispers of silence. His limbs quivered with life. He lay motionless, while in the shaded room his new consciousness was coming forth.
The old weighty stone on his chest had been removed. Fresh tears were coming to his eyes, as he said:
“Rest in peace, Helen. And with you, so may I be at peace too.”
***
A few nights later, he saw Helen. She was smiling and playing with dolphins in the sea. When he woke up, he put on his clothes and went down to the beach. Rosemary was there, waiting for him.
“Are you still cross with me about that night?” – she asked.
“To be honest, I am relieved and grateful now. Thank you.”
She smiled. They looked at each other with shyness. Ashley felt a burning, wordless passion. He reached out for her arm. He drew her to his chest. To his own amazement, he was asking her to be his love.
“Maybe you don’t know what you are doing.”
She freed herself from his arms.
“Maybe it’s just that: gratefulness,” she said with some bitterness.
It dawned upon him that she had been in love with him all the time. He felt blessed now. He whispered in her ears.
“No, I know what I feel. I am going to stay.”
She turned towards him and searched his eyes for truth. What she found was enough. They were there, at the seashore, between dream and reality; fear was fading away, and courage was taking them by the hand.