The Healer’s Touch — “The Soothing of Hope”
Chapter V/XIV
Read Chapters I, II, III, and IV
“I can still feel him,” said the Killer, standing at the cave’s entrance, staring into the resumed snowfall.
The Healer had remained silent while she had been sharing those memories with him. Now that she had fallen into silence, he dared to ask, “Did you find help?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I survived, but rather through luck, or however you want to call it, than through the aid of a charitable soul. The result is the same — I survived.”
“In what …,” he started, hesitated, kept going, “… direction did you head that night?”
It was the first time she turned her head towards him since starting the story. For a moment, he saw the pain of that night flashing in her eyes and — a glimpse of a younger face appeared under the wrinkles of her hardened self. A long-lost softness became visible, a faint memory of the woman she once had been. Now he saw the strains of grey starting to run through her hair, although she couldn’t be much older than thirty.
“I went after them.” A darkness clouded her again as she saw images in her mind’s eye he could only imagine. “I found them once I was stronger.”
The Healer waited, not daring to ask. She was staring at him, yet the focus of her eyes was not in the cave but beyond.
“I had them, right in front of me. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t move. I had tied them down. They had been drunk, passed out. I thought about torturing them, slowly. But I didn’t find pleasure in it.”
Her eyes cleared as she returned her attention to the room. “I took from my violator what he had been so eager to put in me. I made him eat it. I left them there, bound until someone would find them. I never saw them again. I found no healing in revenge, but was incapable of forgiveness. His touch never left me.”
Suddenly, a tear ran down her face.
The Killer felt like she awoke from a long sleep. The pain rushing through her was like meeting an old, long forgotten friend. She put her hand to her face, felt the warm line of a tear on her cheek as if it were the rushing floods of a broken dam.
For how many years had she denied her heart to open to any sense of feeling? And now, after all this war, death and the resulting escape into apathy, it was in the presence of this stranger that she remembered the touch of pain.
At first, she tried to wipe the tear away, afraid of what this meant, afraid of the pain returning, of this darkness again gripping her soul. But the tears kept flowing. And as she allowed the sorrow to return, the Healer took the creeping shadows away.
Outside, the day faded and a cold night was approaching. The Healer stretched out his hand toward her. She hesitated, still standing at the entrance, but then made her first step towards healing. She crossed the distance to his bedside and took his hand.
When was the last time someone had touched her? Not to hurt, violate or kill, but out of kindness and care. She didn’t remember. His fingertips felt warm, soft even. Suddenly she did remember those times.
She felt the hug of her small daughter around her waist, playful, innocent. Soft like a breath, the gentle hand of her husband caressed her cheek. She pressed the side of her head into her mother’s shoulder, a comfort so warm and assuring she hadn’t even remembered it existed, not even dared to believe. In this moment, it all came back.
There was healing for the scars of abuse and the wounds that still lay open in her soul, deep rips that bled out the strength of her spirit. They had lain in stasis, but now, again gushing open, she felt a renewed hope. They would heal. Somehow, they could. Someway, they would. In the presence of this stranger, life looked different.
How? How can you muster so much trust in life?
“You were seeking death in war,” he said.
Her tears welled up once more when she answered, “I don’t know. I wanted to end lives, spare the men and women more suffering. And yes, I think I hoped to find my end as well.”
“Now that you allow pain again, how does it feel?”
“Like waking.”
He nodded. “Pain is not a reason to end life, but just a symptom of being alive.”
“It is the symptom of life! Maybe even the very essence. But if so, I do not understand it. I do not want it!.”
The Healer pressed his lips together. “I have felt and suffered the pain of many soldiers — not only the physical damage that I healed, but also their fears and sorrows, their regrets and their guilt.”
“It is the price you pay for your power, isn’t it?”
He looked away, but still held on to her hand. “Pain shows us where we need to focus our attention so we can get healed.”
“But some pains are so immense! Some wounds so deep they seem to never go away.”
“I have felt those as well. I have seen the crushing torture of not being able to heal mortally wounded men and women. But even they often find hope in death.”
“Do you believe death reliefs us of suffering?”
For a second, he hesitated, then shook his head. “Even God feels pain. But he has a resource in his pain we often forget.”
She waited for him to continue.
“Hope,” he said. “The most severe pains I have felt in the people I tried to heal, was the lack of hope. They thought they couldn’t turn things around, that relationships were forever broken, that their mistakes would haunt them until their very last day.
“Those were people I struggled to heal,” he continued, “for they resisted my powers, didn’t believe that there was hope, healing or a future.”
“Is there — ” she asked, “ — is there always hope?
“I believe so, yes. It is the truth that underlies everything. Don’t get me wrong, I understand how it is to have no hope. Through all this slaughter, I have found myself in moments where I wanted to give up, sit down and cease to fight for life. Hope is nothing we find, like water running down from the mountains, but it is something we plant, nurture and grow. On my travels, I have come across men and women whose tree of hope was so strong, no storm of darkness, pain or sorrow was able to topple it.”
“I remember once having trust like you do,” she said, “but this tree has long been chopped down and burned.”
He squeezed her hand and the movement of his muscles caused pain in his shoulder. “There was once a time I had lost all hope, but I will show you that hope can resurrect, no matter how long it lies dead.”
She let the words seep in for a long moment. Then she said, “You need to rest. As soon as you are strong enough, we have to move on. Otherwise the winter will trap us in here.”
“You want to leave before dawn,” he realized.
“I will hunt us some game, maybe set a snare or two in the area, but as soon as day breaks, we need to get up this mountain pass. Let’s hope the snow will grant us passage.”
He nodded. As eager as he had seemed to tell her the story of how he regained hope, she saw his exhaustion written all over his face. His body needed all the strength it could get to heal this nasty wound.
She helped him drink out of the cup. He thanked her and she aided him in lying down. She saw him close his eyes soon and drift away into an uneasy sleep.
They needed food, so there wouldn’t be much sleep for her, but she wouldn’t be able to find rest right now.
The walls and gates that had kept her emotions at bay had broken. The Healer’s touch had torn them open with the gentleness of his empathy.
The pain of the past was back, but it was subsiding. Somehow, he had managed to soothe it and help her discard the shame that accompanied the memories of that day at the old road. But with those feelings, came back deeper pain. She dried her tears and tried to push the memories back, but it was like trying to stop a river with bare hands. It was to no avail.
Her throat seemed to be so tight she couldn’t even swallow the lump that had risen in it. She threw a coat over her shoulders, grabbed her bow and arrows, and stormed into the night.
He felt every step he took move the torn flesh in his shoulder. Who would have thought that one uses his shoulder so much while walking? He gritted his teeth and moved on. He had laid his right arm around her shoulders and she supported him as much as she could on their strenuous way up the mountain.
Their progress was painstakingly slow. Often, the wind had heaped up dunes of snow so deep she had to cut a path through it with feet and sword while he waited below and rested. Then she would come down again and help him on.
After they had battled through yet another mound of high snow, she asked “You can’t heal the mountains from the winter, can you?”
He wanted to chuckle at the thought, but all he managed was a groan of pain. He took a deep breath and tried to stand without her aid. The cold was both numbing and hurting. “I wish, but I fear we will have to battle nature with our ordinary strength.”
He saw her glance to the sky. He followed her gaze, but could see nothing. The day was gray after they had entered a layer of clouds. The haze barred them from seeing further than a few dozen steps before everything faded to a milky mist. Some lost snowflakes stirred aimlessly in the cold air.
“If there is another storm coming, we won’t have any warning,” she said and went to him, ready to help him along.
But he put up his hand to stop her. “I will try to walk on my own. As long as you cut a trail in the snow, I will be able to follow. You shot my shoulder, not my knee.”
She didn’t seem convinced. “I will lead, but at least keep your right hand on my shoulder, so I can feel if you need to slow down.”
He nodded in agreement and checked on the knots of the sling in which his left arm was secured. And so they continued on, one painful step after another.
After a while, he needed to halt once more. He had hoped the monotonous walking would get him used to the pain, but it rather felt as if every sting of pain was a drop filling a barrel of torment, always rising.
Her strict face denied her gentle words of motivation. “I cannot take away your pain, but I know you can conquer it. Isn’t that what you do when you heal people?”
He grinned faintly. “I’ve gotten too used to have a strong body that’s never wavering.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.” He grabbed her shoulder from the back as she guided the way.
“If it helps,” she said, “tell me where your … ability comes from. Never have I heard of anything like it. Usually, people don’t just develop healing powers like yours overnight, or do they in your country?”
He smiled again. “No,” he admitted, “they don’t. I wasn’t born like this.”
He gathered his thoughts to gauge where he should start and soon he found that telling his past distracted him from the pain and exhaustion.
