Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 37

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 37

     Pathera's touch was light as she gently applied the creamy salve onto Chezwe's skin; it had already begun to bubble where the fire had rained down on him from the exploding thatch. The back of his hands had saved his bloodshot eyes, but they had taken the brunt of Sampanga's burning madness in the night.

Pathera had scoured the surrounding area, finding the necessary herbs to help heal his wounds. All their medicines had been burned away in the fire aimed at killing Majura. The precious collection would have to be rebuilt, some of it never to be replaced. Rare herbs that had come from the high mountains of the Shungwaya in Southern Somalia, the Shaba region in Congo and the Cameroon, from the slopes between Mount Kilimanjaro and the seacoasts. Dried flowers and fragrant herbs that came with the rarest rains from the sand hills and windswept deserts, to the highlands of Lake Tanganyika. Some herbs came from places not remembered or known by the oldest elders, these valleys and streams had no names and were only known by Majura who had come to these places in her own lifetime.

Pathera turned to look at Etona who lay resting by the side of Mother. Beside him, the white boy lay in the cool sand, his golden hair shimmering in the light of the morning. They had slept much of the morning, waking briefly to drink warm healing broths, then slipping away into the warm embrace of running dreams that healed their minds from the ravages of their fevers.

Etona had woken earlier with a start and stared straight at Majura, his eyes white and fixed to hers. The ancestors had come in the darkness of his dreams and walked him through to a field of grasses and trees.

Under the broad wings of a single tree, his father lay silent under the last embrace of a lion. A spear had split its heart just before its own roar had torn away his father's throat.

They both lay silent, victors in their own final battles.

Etona could see the footprints of the Holy One walking in the winds that came with the morning sun. The sky seemed to fill with the radiance of countless stars and the form of Ngai emerged from the living air, walking towards him and the quiet shores of his morning dream.

Ngai held out his hand and gave Etona a string of words that He had carried to this place. While Etona held them in the morning light as he stood trembling before Ngai, he could hear his father's whispered voice speaking clearly to his heart and as clearly, the silent words that had never come, blown away in the morning winds and a ravaged throat.

Ngai smiled warmly and nodded his greeting to Etona, then gently returned to the rolling sky and the blue light that stretched across the morning heavens. The musical notes of a thousand kudu horns lingered in the air until they too faded and became lost in the voices of the living.

Majura stared at Etona with her Milk Eye.

She had seen the Great One come and give Etona the words of his dying father under the tree.

"He too is gone!" Etona whispered, afraid his words would carry the trembling of his breaking heart.

"Yes, he has gone." she said quietly.

Their eyes held each other as Etona fought to find the words that now filled his heart. Until finally, like all young men, the surging words became forever silent in his breast. There were too many to be spoken and not enough sounds in the universe to form the correct words of his tears.

Pathera came over to bring him his morning healing broth. Without looking up, his hand found the round gourd offered to him. It lay cooling beside him in the river sand before the next healing dream carried him away from the trembling pain of remembering.

Majura sat and watched the sun as it rose to find its place in the day. The twins were busy making their soothing salves. Fires were being tendered to cook the next meals, strengthening the young warriors for their final journeys home.

She peered up at the bright sky above, the falcon feather in her hand rose in a slow arc before her as her Milk Eye found the vision.

The blue gum trees danced gently beside the white washed veranda as love and tears battled to mend broken bones and lost dreams.

The late morning light found surgical steel that rose again and again, as tight stitches finally closed the yellow laughter and great roars that lay trapped within the terrible wounds that had returned home.

There was no time to celebrate their home coming. What could live would never be the same. The blue skies would return and bathe them all in daily wonder but torn and crippled bodies would not laugh in the burning sun, the long shadows would find them and keep their trembling.

Jeremy lay in the silence of his dreams.

There he still ran like a boy and smiled at the sun.