The source

The place is called after her, Alba’s Source. She never leaves it now, and she still whispers to those who come to ask a request of her, those who come with generosity and humility. But then, the arrogant and the violent have no notion that she is still there. She is thin now, faded, so thin and faded as to be invisible to all but those who come searching for her, but she has no regrets. The journey to the source had been long and wearisome, and her feet had been a mass of sores. But she found it, the source of bright, sparkling waters that flowed from the earth’s heart. Not blood, but crystalline, life-giving water. Smell and taste, and at the end, hearing had guided her steps, for she was blind.

They had blinded her as soon as the visions started when she was a child, thinking she had no need of eyes since she saw with the eyes of her soul. Earthly sight would cloud the visions, they said, and visions were more valuable to the chief than the beauty of any young girl. Her mother had tried to stop them, but her father had made her be still. It was for the good of the clan, he said. Afterwards, the visions had grown more vivid, more real. She truly did have no need of earthly eyes and lived increasingly in a world of vague, golden people they told her were gods, in soft winds and warm sunlight. But she was not a god, only a woman. Perhaps that was where the trouble lay.

Her life was comfortable. She did no field work, was not burdened with children and domestic work. Her hut was kept swept clean for her, and her food was prepared and brought to her. She had a comfortable life, they all said, and in return, she heard their requests. She laid her hand on young girls’ bellies and told them if they carried a child. She told them when the child had ceased to be, or if it was growing strong. She predicted the passage of game, of wolves, of sickness. She told people what they wanted to hear and what they did not. She told the truth, because it was told to her by the gods. She was the people’s channel to the intentions of the gods, and as such, she was revered. Holy.

Then, one day, she heard a voice, different to the others, a voice that did not ask a boon. The voice was a lover’s voice, soft and low, and it asked only for her. The man who spoke with a lover’s voice came to her every day, and over the weeks and months, she learnt the contours of his face, his smell, the taste of his breath. Only sometimes did he ask her about tides and winds and which merchants were on their way with what cargo. She gave him the answers willingly and in her lonely hut, never heard about such things as shipwrecks and sudden unexpected wealth.

Over the weeks and months she learnt the touch of his hands, and kept no secrets from him. She thought she could not be happier, but when she had learnt everything about him, she realised what she wanted more than anything in the world was to see his face, and for him to look into her eyes. What she wanted was to renounce her sacred mission and regain her sight.

When she murmured her desire to her lover, she heard the sharp intake of breath, felt the muscles beneath her hand tighten. She smelled a different smell on his skin.

‘Such a desire is a crime,’ he said, ‘even to think it.’

She smiled and touched his face. ‘But isn’t this too against the law? Is the oracle not forbidden to know a man, so as to keep the channel of her thoughts always open to the gods?’

‘A minor crime. And who would know, anyway?’

His voice was taut as his muscles, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask, and who would know that I wished for my eyes again, unless someone were to tell them?

But it was a thought so unwelcome she pushed it into the back of her mind beneath the whispering pile of prayers and pleadings.

‘No one,’ she replied, laughing again, though the laughter was anxious, forced. ‘No more than they would know that I had recovered my sight. I see the future clear enough without the need for eyes. There is a way to see the present too, and I know where to find it.’

‘Heresy,’ he murmured. ‘You are the Oracle. With common sight, you will lose the gift!’

She stopped his words with a finger to his lips. ‘How can it be heresy to love?’

His hand removed her finger, but gently and she felt his breath on her face before his lips crushed hers.

They spoke no more of heresy and desire, and every day her lover came to the hut at the edge of the village, sometimes just to sit, sometimes for more, sometimes to talk of mundane things like which would be a good day to take out the fishing boats, where the fish were shoaling, if there was a sea storm brewing. But all the time, the idea that had taken root in her head grew until it filled even the open way to the gods.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said once, when he asked her where and when the storm would strike, ‘the vision is too dark. I see the ocean, the sky, but there are no signs.’

‘You can’t see where the storm will break, nor which ships will be on the sea?’

She heard the tension in his voice and shook her head. ‘Perhaps it only means the sky will darken, but there will be no storm. I see no signs of one.’

Her lover though did. He could see the sky, the lowering clouds, the trees bending in the freshening wind. There would be a storm, and perhaps there was a merchantman out among the dark waves, a merchantman looking out for a sight of land who would see a beacon lit on the cliff. He would make for the sign of a safe harbour, not seeing the broken water of the reefs. He said nothing, but he was afraid his Oracle was losing her powers.

The desire to see again devoured her. Her life was only half a life, she told herself, a life of shadows and images seen reflected in a dull mirror. If only she could see her lover’s face as other women did. He would never know. There would be nothing to see, and that was the sense that guided him. No healing could replace the jelly that had been burned from their orbits, but there was a way to restore her mortal sight, to let her see into the world as well as out of it. There was a source, a fount of purity, and in her heart she knew where to find it. It was her feet she did not trust. Without eyes to guide them, she feared they would take her astray. But greater than her fear was the desire that burned like a fever to see the beloved face. Her fingers knew it’s hollows and ridges, the soft skin and the rough, but she longed to see it with her eyes. She resolved to try. Desire was eating away at her gift, and without it, her life was worthless.

She told no one, not even her lover, and taking nothing but her staff, set off on the road to the mountains. She heard the wind and the cry of eagles; she left behind the smell of salt from the sea and her senses filled with the scent of ling on the mountainside. Her feet kept to the track, following a faint scent, and when she stumbled, they found the right path again. The scent grew stronger, sweet and russet and blue, and she knew it for the source. When the sound of bubbling water filled her ears, she smiled to herself and stopped where a shadow hung between her face and the light of the sky.

She reached out a hand and plucked seven rowan berries from the tree that overhung the pool. She popped them one by one into her mouth and chewed. As she chewed, she walked around the source, her feet brushing through ferny plants, still damp though the sun was high, and stopped where a thicket barred her way. She smelled hazel and smiled again. Again, she raised her hand and found the green-crowned hazelnuts among the leaves, plucked seven and dropped them into the pool.

With trembling heart she bent to the stone basin, that caught the bubbling magical water, and bathed her eyes. Light exploded all about her. Beneath the quivering pool water, the seven hazel nuts shone sleek as squirrels, the ferny plants so bright a green she could scarce look upon them. When the ripples on the pool settled, she stared into the water. Her face. She saw the contour, the smooth girlish oval framed in dark hair, and in the orbits of her eyes, the intense silver-blue glitter of her mortal sight restored. She was sure that only her inward sight could see that glitter, not the villagers, not even her lover!

Suddenly, a man’s face appeared behind her, reflected in the water. Had he guessed and followed her? Her heart pounded with joy. She swung around, recognising his familiar smell, the face her fingers knew by heart, and wild smile lit up her face. Then over his shoulder she saw, waiting at the foot of the hill, their feet bathed in the rill from the spring, the village headman and his bodyguard. Bewildered, her gaze flitted back to the man before her, so familiar in everything but the eyes, hard and pitiless that she had imagined so tender and full of love.

The stranger stepped towards her and took her arm, clasped it talon-tight with fingers once so gentle. She had barely time to whisper her lover’s name before the knife forced its way between two ribs and found her love-swollen heart.