The Healer of Harrow Point (6 page)

Early Saturday morning I dressed in a hurry and slipped quietly into my chair at the breakfast table. I know my parents thought there was something wrong. Breakfast was unusually quiet. My mother and father stole glances at each other, as I ate in hurried silence. I headed out the laundry door to the back deck, the yard, and the fields beyond, but not before I heard my mother's quiet comment to my father: “poor guy.”

For all the turmoil I was going through, I was still excited about the prospect of a birthday present from Emma. I felt certain that a gift from her would be something magical. Though I had spent many long hours with her since that first day, walking and talking and exploring, the only real marvels I had seen were those at the very beginning: the deer, and the cuts and scratches on my face. Occasionally she would tell me
about something she did. Once she found a doe, hung up in a barbed wire fence; it took her quite a while to get the deer untangled.

“And then?” I had asked her.

“Then I just shooed her away,” Emma said.

“But was she hurt?”

“A little. Nothing much to worry her. She was more afraid of the fence, confused by being caught, than hurt.”

“But you healed her?”

“I helped her a bit, yes.”

That was as much as I could get from her that day. I hungered for the kind of wonders I had seen the first afternoon Emma and I met. I wanted my birthday present to be something amazing. It was.

“Where are we going?” I asked, breathless from running most of the way to our meeting place.

“Would you like to see where I live?” she asked in return. “There's someone there I'd like you to meet.”

“Um, sure,” I said, a little hesitantly, thinking, in the back of my mind, that probably my present was back at her cabin. Maybe it was too big to bring. I couldn't imagine what it would be.

It was a long walk to her place. I hadn't realized how far away she lived. She seemed happier than the she had been the day before, and stronger. It was a cold, clear morning; the walking warmed us quickly. I felt happier too, now that we were walking, and less expectant about a possible present, about anything. I had stowed away a few biscuits from breakfast, and Emma
and I ate them early on. We fell in side by side, and for a long time neither of us spoke. I was enjoying the silence, and her company.

After a while, though, she began to talk. She seemed to be in a mood to teach again, which was fine with me.

As we walked she taught me more about deer, about their families. She told me how a young, strong buck might have two, three, or even more does as his mates. The deer traveled in small groups of perhaps six, ten, maybe twelve, that were a sort of loose family: the dominant buck, his does, a few young fawns, perhaps a weaker, submissive buck.

She said that the bucks fought for supremacy. They clashed with their heads lowered in charge, the violence of the collision sometimes so great as to snap their antlers. I could picture it; I slammed my hands together. She said that these battles, though, were usually tests of strength and will. The buck who lost was seldom seriously injured; he simply assumed a lower, submissive role in the family, or went to look for mates and supremacy elsewhere. When the deer battled in earnest, she told me, against wild dogs for instance, they lashed out with their front hooves, which are deadly sharp.

Emma said that the young fawns matured in a year or so, and might stay with the family or wander off to join another. Sometimes a young deer would rejoin its family after months, or even years, apart.

She said most bucks only lived to be two or three years old, they were hunted so. Her face tightened
only a little as she told me this. She shook her head, seemed to force herself to cheer up.

“Do you know that deer can run as fast as forty miles an hour?” she said, her voice bright again with enthusiasm.

Well, no, I didn't know, but I was learning.

She nodded, emphatic and proud and happy. “They can. Did you know that they can leap between the wires of a barbed wire fence, say a foot apart,” she showed with her hands, “at a full run, and not even brush the wires? I've seen it.”

She spoke quickly and eagerly. I remember she seemed increasingly on edge, her cheerfulness forced, her teaching more mechanical, almost so that it began to seem eerie, unsettling.

We walked on, mile after mile. The cold, crisp air made for good walking weather. I felt happy and strong, but it seemed to me that Emma's moods were shifting quickly—cheerful for a few moments, and then tense, and sometimes just tired.

“I didn't know you had to walk so far to meet me,” I said at one point. Emma's changeable mood was starting to make me edgy.

“These are all my woods, Thomas,” she said. “I walk all through here, every day. It doesn't seem that far.”

She gave me a brief, warm smile. It made me feel that I could ask a question I had been wondering about.

“What did you mean when you said that you couldn't leave here?”

“Hmm?” She seemed distracted.

“You said you were tied to the land, that you couldn't move away.”

She stopped, took a deep breath. We had been walking at a brisk pace.

“Come here, Thomas,” she said, and she knelt down.

I stepped over and knelt down too.

“Put your hand on the earth,” she said. She had placed her hand firmly, palm down on the ground, so I did likewise. “What do you feel?”

“It's cold,” I said, without really thinking. I looked into her eyes, a blue so bright it almost hurt. She was looking at me with such intensity that it frightened me.

“No, Thomas, it isn't,” she said at last, with sorrow in her voice, and pitched herself awkwardly to her feet.

I got up and scrambled after her. There was something going on in her mind, and I didn't have a clue what it was.

“Emma,” I said.

“Perhaps you are too young,” she said quietly.

“I can't help how old I am,” I said, rather curtly.

“Oh, Thomas, it's all right,” she said, and she even gave a quick, rough laugh, at her own expense it seemed. “There are so many things I want to tell you about, and have you see, but you can't take everything in all at once and on the first try, now can you?”

“I don't know,” I said.

Still smiling, she said, “Don't pay any attention to me.”

We were nearing a roadway. For a little while I had been able to hear the occasional car go by. I was sulking
a little. I didn't know what it was I was supposed to have felt or said back there, with my hand flat on the ground. It had felt cold to me.

All at once we were there. Just by the edge of the road was an old motor court, a winding crescent of small cottages tucked back in the trees. Emma took me firmly by the hand as we crossed the roadway. I remember that because it annoyed me. I was perfectly capable of crossing a road by myself, but I was too interested to see where she lived to be annoyed for long. The place gave the impression of age, but the cabins and grounds seemed well maintained. There was a gravel parking lot on the side of a big cabin that had a small hand-painted sign above the door: “Sleepy Hollow Motor Lodge.” A wide, moss-covered brick pathway led back to a dozen or so small cabins. Emma's was the last cabin on the end.

An old dog limped over to us as we came up to her door.

“Hello, Abigail,” Emma said warmly. “Ready for your treatment?”

Abigail's tail swished back and forth and up and down, the most lively part about her, it seemed. She looked to be terribly old.

“Is this your dog?” I asked.

“No, no. As much time as I spend away, I can't keep a dog,” Emma said. “Abigail lives with the woman who runs this place, a few doors down. But we're old friends.”

“What's her treatment?”

“She has an arthritic hip,” Emma said, rubbing Abigail's side, “don't you, old girl?”

Abigail wagged her tail in agreement.

I frowned. “Well, can't you just, you know, fix it?”

Emma smiled. “Let's go inside,” she said.

We entered her little cabin. There was one large room that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. A short hallway lead back to a bedroom and bathroom. The main room was not cluttered, but it was not sparse, either. There was a small sofa, an easy chair, a bookcase full of books, a little coffee table with pictures on it. There was nothing especially modern in the room; she didn't have a television or a radio that I could see. The room looked plain, homey. It seemed odd to me, almost, how unremarkable the cabin was. I thought of Emma as being magical. I don't know if I expected a palace or a cave or what. I looked over at her and frowned. She was petting Abigail.

“I mean, can't you just make her hip better?” I said again.

“I can make it better,” Emma said, “but I can't make it well. It's part of life that a body ages and doesn't hold up as well. Abigail's sixteen. She's entitled to a little arthritis.”

“Sixteen is pretty old for dog, isn't it?” I asked.

Emma nodded, but didn't speak. She wasn't so much petting Abigail now, as running her hands slowly, lightly over Abigail's coat.

“Now listen closely, Thomas,” Emma said quietly, and I stepped a bit closer. “Each particular body is different,
and so is each part of each body. Are you listening?”

“Yes ma'am,” I said. I called her ma'am sometimes now just to annoy her. A smile passed across her face for the briefest moment.

“It's important for you to understand that Abigail's hip is different from my hip, from yours, from a deer's, from another dog's hip, even one of the same size or breed. Her hip is hers. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Each part of a body, of your body, and mine, and Abigail's, has, oh, a rhythm, or frequency, a pattern ... I don't know how to say it, exactly. It has a right way for it to be, which you can sense, but, Thomas, you have to—Abigail, honey, now—” Abigail had become very still and was leaning, leaning into Emma such that she was about to topple over if Emma didn't hold her up. Emma pushed her upright and gave her a couple of little whacks on the fanny. Abigail's tail started wagging again.

“You have to be very clear, and empty,” she said, looking at me closely to see if I was understanding her.

“Empty,” I repeated, uncertain of what she meant.

“I don't know how to teach you this,” Emma said. “Come here. Put your hand here.”

I placed my hand on Abigail's back, and, with Emma's hand on top of mine, we gently stroked down the length of her coat.

“Each individual's body is unique,” Emma said quietly. “Unique, precious, the only one in the universe.
You have to understand that; you have to accept it. Do you understand?”

She looked at me. We were still stroking the dog together.

“Not really,” I said. I had to be honest.

“That's all right, Thomas. Dear Thomas. I'm sorry if I was cross with you earlier.”

“That's okay,” I said. I suddenly became very intent on stroking the dog. Then Emma's free hand rested lightly on the back of my neck. What happened next was so astonishing. It was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me, short of being born, I guess. I suddenly had, felt, saw—a new sense. It's difficult to describe that moment. It was like being given the gift of sight after having always been blind. How would that be? I don't know. But I think I do know.

I could feel, in my gut, in a confused rush of sense and nonsense, the being of Abigail, her structure, her presence. Words fail. It was like seeing her in my heart. I looked over at Emma, but she had her eyes closed, as if she were concentrating fiercely. Her hand rested on top of mine. My neck felt on fire. I sprang away from them, Emma and Abigail, and rolled backwards and bumped into her coffee table and just crouched there in an odd bundle on her living room floor. After what seemed an eternity she opened her eyes.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Do you want to try that again?” she asked.

Again I nodded, more slowly this time, and crawled
back over to them. Abigail was again quite still, almost in a trance it seemed, leaning against Emma's leg. I carefully put my hand upon her back left hip—I knew now that her greatest pain was there—and Emma's hand rested lightly on mine, and then her other hand gently touched my neck.

“It's like there are two images,” Emma whispered. “The one that is there and the one that should be there. But you have to be very careful. The one that should be there belongs to Abigail, exclusively to Abigail, not to you. It's not what you think should be there, but what truly should be there for Abigail. Can you feel it?”

I shook my head. “I don't know,” I said. I thought of getting a television picture to come in correctly, adjusting the tuning knob. I could feel Abigail stiffen under my touch. I felt that the image I wanted was just out of reach, somehow. I pressed, or tried harder; it is so difficult to explain clearly. Suddenly Abigail whimpered, and then shuddered with pain. Her pain rolled through me in waves. I pushed myself away from her.

“You have to be gentle,” Emma whispered sharply, her eyes tightly closed. “You have to be extremely careful. There's so much power in you, Thomas. You have to treat it with a tremendous respect.”

“I don't want to hurt her,” I said.

“I know. Tell her it's okay. You tell her.”

“I'm sorry, Abigail,” I said. I was near to crying. “I'm sorry.”

Abigail pushed herself against me again, but I was reluctant to touch her.

“I don't know if I can do this,” I said.

“Let's rest a minute,” Emma said. She looked suddenly, deeply tired.

I lay back flat on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. That second time, feeling, knowing Abigail's hip, had been much clearer for me. I had hurt her, though. There was pain there to begin with, but I had made it worse. It was unsettling to be confronted with such a new, and frightening, power. It frightened me to feel responsible for Abigail's well being, to know I could help her, but not know how or why I could help. For the briefest moment I had felt that I could have, quite accidentally, crushed her hip, her body, the way one might sneeze or hiccup without meaning to.