Ah, there.”
As the bandage fell away, so did my questions about how we had come to be here. A new question crowded out all the rest. For although my eyes were no longer covered, I still could not see.
“Why is it so dark?”
Branwen did not answer.
“Didn’t you bring a candle?”
Again she did not answer.
“Is it nighttime?”
Still she did not answer. Yet she did not need to, for the answer came from a cuckoo, alive with song, somewhere nearby.
The fingers of my unbandaged hand quivered as I touched the tender area around my eyes. I winced, feeling the blotches
of scabs, the still-burning skin underneath. No hair on my eyebrows. No eyelashes, either. Blinking back the pain, I traced the edges of my eyelids, crusted and scarred.
I knew my eyes were wide open. I knew I could see nothing. And, with a shiver, I knew one thing more.
I was blind.
In anguish, I bellowed. Suddenly, hearing again the sound of the cuckoo, I flung off my blanket. Despite the weakness of my legs, I forced myself to rise from the pallet, pushing away Branwen’s hand as she tried to stop me. I staggered across the stones, following the sound.
I tripped on something and crashed to the floor, landing on my shoulder. Stretching out my arms, I could feel nothing but the surface of the stones beneath me. They felt hard and cold, like a tomb.
My head spun. I could feel Branwen helping me to my feet, even as I could hear her muffled sobs. Again I pushed her away. Staggering forward, my hands hit a wall of solid rock. The sound of the cuckoo drew me to the left. The groping fingers of my unbandaged hand caught the edge of a window.
Grasping the sill, I pulled myself closer. Cool air stung my face, The cuckoo sang, so close to me that I might have reached out and touched its wing. For the first time, it seemed, in weeks, I felt the splash of sunshine on my face. Yet as hard as I tried to find the sun, I could not see it.
Hidden. The whole world is hidden.
My legs buckled beneath me. I fell to the floor, my head upon the stones. And I wept.
8: T HE G IFT
During the weeks stretching into months that followed, my torment filled the halls of the Church of Saint Peter. The nuns residing there, moved both by the strength of Branwen’s piety and the severity of my burns, had opened the gates of their sanctuary. They must have found it difficult to feel anything but sympathy for this woman who did little else but pray all day and tend to her wounded boy. As to the boy himself, they mostly avoided me, which suited me just fine.
For me, every day was dark—in mood as well as sight. I felt like an infant, barely able to crawl around the cold stone chamber that I shared with Branwen. My fingers came to know well its four rigid corners, its uneven lines of mortar between the stones, its lone window where I sometimes stood for hours, straining to see. Instead of lighting me, though, the window only tortured me with the jovial call of the cuckoo and the distant bustle of Caer Myrddin’s marketplace. Occasionally the smell of someone’s cooking pot or a flowering tree might waft to me, mingling with the scents of thyme and beech root that rose from Branwen’s low table by her pallet. But I could not go out to find such things. I was a prisoner, confined in the dungeon of my blindness.
Two or three times, I summoned the courage to walk, feeling with my hands past the heavy wooden door and into the maze of corridors and chambers beyond. By listening carefully to the echoes of my footsteps, I discovered that I could judge the length and height of passageways and the size of rooms.
One day I found a stairway whose stone steps had been worn into shallow bowls over the years. Feeling the wall carefully as I descended, I pushed open a door at the bottom and found myself in a fragrant courtyard. Wet grass touched my feet; warm wind breathed on my face. I remembered, all at once, how good it felt to be outdoors, on the grass, in the sun. Then I heard the
As the bandage fell away, so did my questions about how we had come to be here. A new question crowded out all the rest. For although my eyes were no longer covered, I still could not see.
“Why is it so dark?”
Branwen did not answer.
“Didn’t you bring a candle?”
Again she did not answer.
“Is it nighttime?”
Still she did not answer. Yet she did not need to, for the answer came from a cuckoo, alive with song, somewhere nearby.
The fingers of my unbandaged hand quivered as I touched the tender area around my eyes. I winced, feeling the blotches
of scabs, the still-burning skin underneath. No hair on my eyebrows. No eyelashes, either. Blinking back the pain, I traced the edges of my eyelids, crusted and scarred.
I knew my eyes were wide open. I knew I could see nothing. And, with a shiver, I knew one thing more.
I was blind.
In anguish, I bellowed. Suddenly, hearing again the sound of the cuckoo, I flung off my blanket. Despite the weakness of my legs, I forced myself to rise from the pallet, pushing away Branwen’s hand as she tried to stop me. I staggered across the stones, following the sound.
I tripped on something and crashed to the floor, landing on my shoulder. Stretching out my arms, I could feel nothing but the surface of the stones beneath me. They felt hard and cold, like a tomb.
My head spun. I could feel Branwen helping me to my feet, even as I could hear her muffled sobs. Again I pushed her away. Staggering forward, my hands hit a wall of solid rock. The sound of the cuckoo drew me to the left. The groping fingers of my unbandaged hand caught the edge of a window.
Grasping the sill, I pulled myself closer. Cool air stung my face, The cuckoo sang, so close to me that I might have reached out and touched its wing. For the first time, it seemed, in weeks, I felt the splash of sunshine on my face. Yet as hard as I tried to find the sun, I could not see it.
Hidden. The whole world is hidden.
My legs buckled beneath me. I fell to the floor, my head upon the stones. And I wept.
8: T HE G IFT
During the weeks stretching into months that followed, my torment filled the halls of the Church of Saint Peter. The nuns residing there, moved both by the strength of Branwen’s piety and the severity of my burns, had opened the gates of their sanctuary. They must have found it difficult to feel anything but sympathy for this woman who did little else but pray all day and tend to her wounded boy. As to the boy himself, they mostly avoided me, which suited me just fine.
For me, every day was dark—in mood as well as sight. I felt like an infant, barely able to crawl around the cold stone chamber that I shared with Branwen. My fingers came to know well its four rigid corners, its uneven lines of mortar between the stones, its lone window where I sometimes stood for hours, straining to see. Instead of lighting me, though, the window only tortured me with the jovial call of the cuckoo and the distant bustle of Caer Myrddin’s marketplace. Occasionally the smell of someone’s cooking pot or a flowering tree might waft to me, mingling with the scents of thyme and beech root that rose from Branwen’s low table by her pallet. But I could not go out to find such things. I was a prisoner, confined in the dungeon of my blindness.
Two or three times, I summoned the courage to walk, feeling with my hands past the heavy wooden door and into the maze of corridors and chambers beyond. By listening carefully to the echoes of my footsteps, I discovered that I could judge the length and height of passageways and the size of rooms.
One day I found a stairway whose stone steps had been worn into shallow bowls over the years. Feeling the wall carefully as I descended, I pushed open a door at the bottom and found myself in a fragrant courtyard. Wet grass touched my feet; warm wind breathed on my face. I remembered, all at once, how good it felt to be outdoors, on the grass, in the sun. Then I heard the
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