The Sorcerers' Crossing: Chapter 17.

The Sorcerers' Crossing - A Woman's Journey ©1992 by Taisha Abelar.

Chapter 17.

I was dreaming that I was digging the ground in the garden when a sharp pain in my neck awoke me.

Without opening my eyes, I groped for the pillows in order to ease my neck into their soft comfortable folds.

But my hands searched in vain. I could not find the pillows, and I could not even feel the mattress.

I began swaying as if I had eaten or drunk too much the night before, and I was feeling the unsettling effects of indigestion.

Gradually I opened my eyes. Instead of seeing the ceiling or walls, I saw branches and green leaves. When I tried to rise up, everything around me began moving.

I realized that I was not in my bed. I was suspended in midair in some sort of leather harness and it was I who was swaying, not the world around me.

I knew beyond a doubt that this was not a dream.

As my senses tried to make order out of chaos, I saw that I was hoisted with pulleys into the highest branch of a tree.

The sensation of unexpectedly waking up restrained, coupled with the realization that there was nothing beneath me, created in one instant a physical terror of heights. I had never been up in a tree in my life.

I began to scream for help. No one came to my rescue so I continued screaming until I lost my voice.

Exhausted, I hung there like a limp carcass. Being physically terrified had made me lose control of my excretory functions. I was a mess.

But screaming had drained me of my fears. I looked around and slowly began to assess my situation.

I noticed that my arms and hands were free, and when I turned my head downward, I saw what was suspending me.

Thick brown leather belts were buckled around my waist, chest and legs.

Around the trunk of the tree was another belt, which I could reach if I stretched my arms. That belt had the end of a rope and a pulley attached to it.

I saw then that all I bad to do to free myself was to release the rope and let myself down.

It took an excruciating effort to reach the rope and then lower myself because my arms and hands were trembling.

But once I was lying on the ground, I was able to painstakingly unbuckle the straps from around my body and slip out of the harness.

I ran into the house calling for Clara.

I had a vague recollection that I would not be able to find her, but it was more of a feeling than a conscious certainty.

Automatically, I began searching for her but Clara was nowhere to be found and neither was Manfred.

I became aware then that somehow everything had changed, but I did not know what or when or even why things were different from the way they used to be. All I knew was that something had been irreparably broken.

I lapsed into a long inner monologue.

I said to myself how I wished that Clara had not gone off on one of her mysterious trips precisely when I needed her most.

Then I reasoned that there might be other explanations for her absence. She might be deliberately avoiding me or visiting with her relatives in the left side of the house.

Then I remembered meeting Nelida and I rushed to the door of the left side hallway and tried to open it, ignoring Clara's warning never to tamper with that door.

I found it was locked. I called out to her through the door a few times, then kicked it in anger and went to my bedroom.

To my dismay, that door was locked too.

Frantically I tried opening the doors to the other bedrooms in the hallway. All of them were locked except one which was a sort of storage room or den.

I had never before entered it as I had obeyed Clara's specific instructions to keep out of it.

But that door had always remained ajar, and every time I had passed by, I had peeked inside.

This time I went in, calling out for Clara and Nelida to show themselves.

The room was dark but filled to capacity with the most bizarre collection of objects I had ever seen.

In fact, it was so crammed with grotesque sculptures, boxes and trunks that there was hardly any room to move around.

Some light came in from a beautiful stained-glass bay window along the back wall. It was a mellow glow that cast eerie shadows on all the objects in the room.

The room made me think that this was the way storage rooms of elegant but no longer in-service ocean liners that have cruised the world over must look like.

The floor underneath me suddenly began to sway and creak and the objects around me also seemed to shift.

I let out an involuntary shriek and rushed out of the room.

My heart was pounding so fast and loud that it took several minutes and quite a few deep breaths to quiet it.

In the hallway, I noticed that the large walk-in closet opposite to that storage room was open and all my clothes were there, neatly placed on hangers or folded on shelves.

Pinned to the sleeve of the jacket that Clara had given me the first day I came to the house was a note addressed to me.

It read, 'Taisha, the fact that you are reading this note tells me that you have let yourself down from the tree. Please follow my instructions to the letter. Do not go back to your old room, for it is locked. From now on, you will sleep in your harness, or in the tree house. We have all gone on an extended trip. The whole house is in your care. Do your best!'

It was signed 'Nelida.'

Stunned, I stared at the note for a long time, reading it again and again.

What did Nelida mean that the house was in my care? What was I supposed to do there all alone? The thought of sleeping in that horrible harness, hung like a side of beef, gave me the eeriest feeling of all.

I wanted tears to flood my eyes. I wanted to feel sorry for myself because they had left me alone. I wanted to be angry with them for leaving without warning me first. But I could not do any of these things.

I stomped around trying to work up momentum for a tantrum. Again, I failed miserably.

It was as if something inside me had been turned off making me indifferent and incapable of expressing my familiar emotions.

But I did feel abandoned. My body began to shiver as it always had just before I burst out weeping.

However, what gushed out next was not a deluge of tears, but a stream of memories and dreamlike visions.

I had been hanging in that harness, looking down. Below, people were standing at the foot of the tree laughing and clapping.

They were shouting up at me trying to get my attention.

Then all of them made a sound in unison like a lion's roar, and left.

I knew that had been a dream.

But, I knew meeting Nelida had definitely not been a dream. I had her note in my hand to prove it.

What I was not certain of was why and how long I had been hanging from the tree.

Judging from the state of my clothes and how famished I was, I might have been there for days. But how did I get up there?

I grabbed some of my clothes from the closet and went to the outhouse to wash and change.

When I was clean again, it dawned on me that I had not looked in the kitchen.

I had a persistent hope that maybe Clara was there eating and had not heard me calling.

I pushed the door open, but the kitchen was deserted.

I poked around for food. I found a pot of my favorite stew on the stove and wanted desperately to believe that Clara had left it for me.

I tasted it and gasped with a tearless sob.

The vegetables were finely sliced, not diced, and there was hardly any meat.

I knew that Clara had not made it and that she was gone.

At first I did not want to eat the stew, but I was terribly hungry.

I took my bowl from the shelf, and filled it to the brim.

It was only after I had eaten and was assessing my present situation that it occurred to me there was one other place I had forgotten to look.

I hurried to the cave with the vague hope of finding Clara or the nagual there.

But I found no one; not even Manfred.

The solitude of the cave and the hills gave me such a feeling of sadness that I would have given anything in the world to be able to weep.

I crawled inside the cave feeling the despair of a mute that only yesterday knew how to talk.

I wanted to die there on the spot, but instead I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I returned to the house.

Now that everyone was gone, I thought, I may as well leave too.

I walked to the place where my car was parked.

Clara had driven it constantly and serviced it in a garage in the city.

I started it to charge the battery, and to my relief, it worked perfectly.

After stuffing some of my things into an overnight bag, I got as far as the back door when a strong pang of guilt stopped me.

I reread Nelida's note.

In it she had asked me to take care of the house. I could not just abandon it.

She had said to do my best. I felt that they had entrusted me with a particular task, and that I had to stay even if it was only to find out what that task was.

I put my things back in the closet, and lay down on the couch to take stock of myself.

All the screaming I had done had definitely irritated my vocal cords. My throat was terribly sore, but other than that, I seemed to be in good physical condition.

Shock, fear and self-pity had passed, and all that was left was the certainty that something monumental had happened to me in that left hallway.

But try as I did, I could not remember what happened after I had stepped over the threshold.

Aside from these fundamental concerns, I also had one serious immediate problem. I was not certain how to start the wood-burning stove.

Clara had demonstrated over and over how to do it, but I just could not get the knack of it; perhaps because I never expected that I would have to start it myself.

One solution that occurred to me was to keep the fire burning by feeding it all night. I rushed to the kitchen to place more wood on the fire before it went out.

I also boiled more water and washed my bowl with some of it.

The rest of the water I poured into the limestone filter, which looked like a thick, inverted cone.

The huge receptacle sat on a sturdy wrought-iron stand and, drop by drop, filtered the boiled water.

From the receptacle where the water collected under the filter, I poured a couple of ladles into my mug.

I drank my fill of the cool, delicious water, then decided to go back to the house.

Perhaps Clara or Nelida had left me other notes telling me more specifically what I had to do.

I looked for keys to the bedroom doors.

In a hall cabinet, I found a set that were marked with different names.

I picked one out that had Nelida's name on it. I was surprised to find that that key fit my bedroom.

Then I picked out Clara's key, and tried it in different doors until I found the lock that it fit.

I turned the key and the door opened, but when it came to going inside her room and snooping around, I could not do it.

I felt that even if she was gone, she was still entitled to her privacy.

I closed the door again, locked it and put the keys back where I had found them.

I returned to the living room and sat on the floor, leaning my back against the sofa the way Nelida had suggested I do when I was tense.

It definitely helped to calm my nerves. I thought of getting in my car again and leaving.

But I really had no desire to leave. I decided to accept the challenge and house-sit for as long as they were gone; even if it was forever.

Since I had nothing else in particular to do, it occurred to me that I could try reading.

I had recapitulated my early negative experiences with books, and I thought I would test myself to see if my attitude toward them had changed.

I went to browse through the bookshelves. I found that most of the books were in German, some were in English and a few were in Spanish.

I made a quick survey and saw that the majority of the German books were on botany; there were also some on zoology, geology, geography and oceanography.

On a different shelf, hidden from view, was a collection of astronomy books in English.

The Spanish books, on a separate bookshelf, were literature, novels and poetry.

I decided that I would first read the books on astronomy, since the subject had always fascinated me.

I picked out a thin book with plenty of pictures and began to leaf through it, but soon it put me to sleep.

When I woke up, it was pitch black in the house and I had to grope my way in total darkness to the back door.

On my way to the shed where the generator was housed, I noticed light coming from the kitchen.

I realized that someone must have already turned the generator on.

Elated that perhaps Clara had come back, I rushed toward the kitchen.

As I approached, I heard soft singing in Spanish.

It was a male voice, but not the nagual's.

I continued with great trepidation.

But before I reached the door, a man poked his head out, and upon seeing me he let out a loud scream.

I screamed at the same time.

Apparently I had frightened him as much as he had scared me.

He came out the door, and for a moment, we just stood there staring at each other.

He was slim but not skinny; wiry yet muscular. He was my height or perhaps an inch taller than I, about five eight. He was wearing blue mechanic's coveralls, like those worn by gas station attendants. He had a light pinkish complexion. His hair was gray. He had a pointed nose and chin, prominent cheek bones and a small mouth.

His eyes were like those of a bird, dark and round yet shining and animated. I could hardly see the whites of his eyes.

As I stared at him, I had the impression that I was not looking at an old man, but at a boy that had wrinkled due to an exotic disease.

There was something about him that was at once old and young; winning yet unsettling.

I managed to ask him in my best high school Spanish to please tell me who he was, and to explain his presence in this house.

He stared at me curiously, and with hardly an accent, said, "I speak English. I have lived for years in Arizona with Clara's relatives.

My name is Emilito. I am the caretaker. And you must be the tree dweller."

"I beg your pardon?"

Emilito moved with ease and agility as he took a few steps toward me, and said, "You are Taisha, are you not?"

"Yes, I am. But what was that you said about me being a tree dweller?"

"Nelida told me that you live in the big tree by the front door of the main house. Is that true?"

I nodded automatically, and it was only then that I became aware of something so obvious that only a thick-headed ape could have missed it.

The tree was on the forbidden front part of the house, the east; the part of the grounds that I could only see from my observation post in the hills.

That revelation sent a surge of excitement through me because I realized then that I was now free to explore terrain that had always been denied me.

My delight was cut short when Emilito shook his head as if he felt sorry for me. He patted my shoulder gently, and asked, "What did you do, you poor girl?"

The clear implication was that I had done something wrong for which I had been strung up in the tree as a form of punishment.

I took a step back, and said, "I did not do anything."

Emilito smiled, and said, "Now, now, I did not mean to pry.

"You do not have to fight with me. I am nobody important. I am merely the caretaker; a hired hand. I am not one of them."

I snapped, "I do not care who you are. I am telling you, I did not do anything."

Emilito turned his back to me, and as he reentered the kitchen, he said, "Well, if you do not want to talk about it, that is all right with me."

I wanted to get in the last word, so I yelled, "There is nothing to talk about."

Although I would not have dared to yell at him if he had been young and handsome, I seemed to have no problem yelling at him.

I surprised myself again by shouting, "Do not give me a hard time. I am the boss. Nelida asked me to take care of this house. She said so in her note."

He jumped as if struck by lightning, and muttered, "You are a weird one."

Then Emilito cleared his throat, and shouted at me, "Do not dare to come any closer. I might be old, but I am plenty tough. To work here does not include risking my neck, or being insulted by idiots. I will quit."

I did not know what had come over me.

I said apologetically, "Wait a minute. I did not mean to raise my voice, but I am extremely nervous. Clara and Nelida left me here without any warning or explanation."

Emilito used the same apologetic tone I had as he said, "Well, I did not mean to shout either. I was only trying to figure out why they strung you up before they left.

"That is the reason I asked if you had done something wrong. I did not mean to pry."

"But I assure you, sir, I did not do anything; believe me."

"Why are you a tree dweller, then? These people are very serious. They would not do this to you just for the hell of it.

"Besides, it is obvious that you are one of them. If Nelida leaves you notes saying to take care of the house, you have to be buddy-buddy with her. She does not give the time of the day to anyone."

"The truth is," I said, "that I do not know why they left me in the tree.

"I was with Nelida in the left side of the house, and then the next thing I knew, I woke up with my neck bent all out of shape as I was hanging from that tree. I was terrified."

I remembered my anguish upon finding myself alone, and I could not help becoming agitated again.

I began to shake and sweat right in front of this strange man.

Emilito's eyes widened, and the surprise on his face seemed genuine as he said, "You were in the left side of the house?"

I replied, "For an instant I was there, but then everything went black."

"And what did you see?"

"I saw people in the hallway. Lots of them."

"How many, would you say?"

"The hallway was full of people. Maybe twenty or thirty."

"That many, huh? How strange!"

"Why is that strange, sir?"

"Because there were not that many people in the whole house. There were only ten people here at that time. I know, because I am the caretaker."

"What does this all mean?"

"I will be damned if I know! But to me, it seems that there is something very wrong with you."

My stomach knotted as a familiar cloud of doom settled over me.

It was the exact sensation I had had as a child in the doctor's office when they found out I had mononucleosis.

I had no idea what that was, but I knew I was done for; and from the grim looks on everyone's face, they seemed to know it too.

When they were going to give me a shot of penicillin, I screamed so hard that I fainted.

Emilito said gently, "Now, now. There is no use in being so upset.

"I did not mean to hurt your feelings.

"Let me tell you what I know about that harness. Maybe it will make things clear for you.

"They use it when the person they are treating is... well... a bit off his or her rocker, if you know what I mean."

"What do you mean, sir?"

Smiling, he said, "You can call me Emilito, but please do not call me 'sir.'

"Or you can refer to me as the caretaker, just as everyone refers to John Michael Abelar as the nagual.

"Now, let us go into the kitchen, and sit at the table where we can talk more comfortably."

I followed him into the kitchen, and sat down.

He poured warm water he had heated on the stove into my mug and brought it to me.

Emilito sat down on the bench opposite me, and began, "Now, about the harness.

"It is supposed to cure mental maladies, and they usually put people in it after they have gone off the deep end."

I protested, "But I am not crazy. If you or anyone else is going to insinuate that I am, then I am leaving."

Emilito reasoned, "But you must be crazy."

"That does it. I am going back to the house. I stood up to leave.

Emilito stopped me by saying, "Wait, Taisha. I did not mean to say that you are crazy.

He said, in a conciliatory tone, "There may be another explanation. These people mean very well.

"They probably thought that you should reinforce your mental power while they are away; not cure you from a mental disease.

"That is why they put you in the harness. It is my fault for jumping to the wrong conclusion. Please accept my apologies."

I was more than willing to let bygones be bygones, and sat down at the table again.

Besides, I needed to be on good terms with the caretaker because he obviously knew how to light the stove.

Also, I did not have the energy to continue feeling offended.

And besides, I felt he was right. I was crazy. I just did not want the caretaker to know it.

I tried to sound at ease as I asked, "Do you live nearby, Emilito?".

"No. I live here in the house. My room is across the hall from your closet."

"You mean you live in that storage room full of sculptures and things?" I gasped. "And how do you know where my closet is?"

Emilito replied with a grin, "Clara told me."

"But if you live here, how come I have never seen you around?"

"Ah, that is because you and I obviously keep different hours. To tell you the truth, I have never seen you either."

"How is that possible, Emilito? I have been here for over a year."

"And I have been here for forty years, on and off."

We both laughed out loud at the absurdity of what we were saying.

What I found unsettling was that at a very deep level I knew that it was this person's presence I had so often sensed in the house.

I said bluntly, "I know, Emilito, that you have been watching me. Do not deny it, and do not ask me how I know it.

"What is more, I also know that you knew who I was when you saw me outside the kitchen door. Is that not so?"

Emilito sighed, nodded, and said, "You are right, Taisha. I did recognize you.

"But you still gave me a genuine fright."

"But how did you recognize me?"

"I have been watching you from my room.

"But do not get angry. I never thought that you would feel me watching you. My humble apologies if I made you feel uncomfortable."

I wanted to ask him why he had been watching me. I hoped that he would say that he found me beautiful or at least interesting, but Emilito cut our conversation short and said that since it was dark, he felt obliged to help me hoist myself up into the tree.

Emilito said, "Let me make a suggestion. Sleep in the tree house instead of the harness. It is a thrilling experience.

"Although it was quite a long time ago, I too was an occupant of that tree house for an extended stay."

Before we left the kitchen, Emilito served me a bowl of delicious soup and a stack of flour tortillas.

We ate in complete silence.

I had tried to talk to him, but he said that conversing while eating was bad for the digestion.

I told him that Clara and I always chatted endlessly during our meals.

Emilito muttered, "Her body and mine are not even remotely alike.

"She is made of iron, so she can do anything she wants to her body.

"I, on the other hand, can not take any chances with my puny little body. And neither can you."

I liked him for including me among the little bodies, although I had hoped what he meant was that I was frail rather than puny.

After dinner, Emilito walked me very solicitously through the main house to the front door.

I had never been in that section of the house, and I deliberately slowed my pace, trying to take in as much of it as I could.

I saw an enormous dining room with a long banquet table and a china cabinet full of crystal goblets, champagne glasses and dishes.

Next to the dining room was a study. As I passed, I got a glimpse of a massive mahogany desk and bookcases filled with books lining one wall.

Another room had electric lights on but I could not see inside because its door was only slightly ajar. I heard muffled voices coming from inside.

"Who is in there, Emilito?" I asked excitedly.

"Nobody," he said. "That whispering you heard is the wind. It plays strange tricks on the ears as it blows through the shutters."

I gave him a who-are-you-kidding stare, and he gallantly opened the door for me to look inside.

He was right. The room was empty. It was just another living room, similar to the one on the right side of the house.

However, when I looked closer I noticed something odd in the shadows cast on the floor.

A shudder went through me, for I knew the shadows were wrong. I could have sworn that they were agitated, shimmering, dancing, but there was no wind or movement in the room.

In a whisper, I told Emilito what I noticed.

He laughed and patted me on the back as he said, "You sound exactly like Clara. But that is good.

"I would be worried if you sounded like Nelida. Do you know that she has power in her pussy?"

The way he said that with his tone of voice and the curious birdlike wonder in his eyes struck me as so funny that I began to laugh, nearly to the point of tears.

Suddenly my laughter vanished as quickly as it had begun; as if a switch inside me had been turned off.

That worried me. And it worried Emilito too, for he looked at me warily as if questioning my mental stability.

He unlatched the main door, and led me out front where the tree was.

He helped me put on the harness and showed me how to use the pulleys to hoist myself up in a sitting position.

He gave me a small flashlight and I pulled myself up.

From the top branches, I could vaguely see a wooden tree house.

It was close to the place where I had first awakened in the harness, but I had not seen the tree house then because of my extreme fright, and because of all the foliage that surrounded it.

From the ground, the caretaker beamed his flashlight directly onto the structure and yelled up after me, "There is a maritime flashlight inside, Taisha, but do not use it too long. And in the morning before you come down, be sure to disconnect its batteries."

He held his flashlight in place until I crawled onto a small landing in front of the tree house and finished unhooking the harness.

Emilito called up, "Good night. I am leaving now. Pleasant dreams."

I thought I heard him chuckling as he moved his beam of light away, and headed for the main house.

I entered the tree house using my own weak flashlight and I searched for what he called the maritime flashlight.

It was a huge light that was fixed to a shelf. On the floor there was a large square battery in a casing nailed to the boards. I connected it to the light and turned it on.

The tree house was one tiny room with a small raised platform that served as both a bed and a low table. It had a sleeping bag rolled up on top of it.

The structure had windows all around, with hinged shutters that could be propped open by thick sticks that lay on the floor.

In the corner of the room was a chamber pot that fit inside a basket that had a lid attached to one side.

After this cursory examination of the room, I disconnected the big flashlight and crawled into the sleeping bag.

It was absolutely dark.

I could hear the crickets, and the hum of the stream in the distance.

Nearby, the wind rustled the leaves and gently rocked the whole house.

As I listened to the sounds, unknown fears began to enter my awareness and I fell prey to physical sensations I had never felt before.

Total darkness distorted and masked the sounds and movements so thoroughly that I felt them as if they were coming from inside my body.

Every time the house shook, the soles of my feet tingled.

Whenever the house creaked, the inner part of my knees twitched.

The back of my neck popped whenever a branch snapped.

Then fear entered my body as a tremor in my toes.

The vibration rose to my feet and then to my legs, until my entire lower body shook out of control.

I became drowsy and disoriented. I did not know where the door or the flashlight were.

I began to feel the house tilting. It was barely perceptible at first, but it became more noticeable until it seemed that the floor was inclined at a forty-five degree angle.

I let out a scream as I felt the platform tilt even more.

The thought of having to hoist myself down petrified me. I was certain I would die by falling from the tree.

On the other hand, the sensation of being tilted was so dramatic that I was sure I would slide off the platform and out the door.

At one point the incline was so acute that I felt as if I were actually standing up instead of lying down.

I screamed at every sudden movement, holding on to one of the beams on the side to keep from sliding.

The whole tree house seemed to be coming apart.

I became nauseous from the motion. The swaying and creaking grew so intense that I knew this would be my last night on earth.

Just when I had completely given up all hope of pulling through, something inconceivable came to my rescue.

A light spilled out from within me. It poured out through all the openings of my body.

The light was a heavy luminous fluid that fixed me to the platform by covering me like a shiny armor.

It constricted my larynx and subdued my screams, but it also opened my chest area so I could breathe easier.

The light soothed my nervous stomach and stopped the shaking of my legs.

It illuminated the entire room so I could see the door a few feet in front of me.

As I basked in its glow, I grew calm. All my fears and concerns vanished so that nothing mattered anymore.

I lay perfectly still and tranquil until the dawn broke.

Totally refreshed, I hoisted myself down and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.