Discovering Abilities
Finally, they banished me. I was too much of a liability, they said. I would hurt the crops, hurt the livestock, hurt the children, even. I told them a little breeze never hurt anyone. And then there was the storm.
“This, Lorelei,” they said to me, “is what we are talking about. You cannot control your emotions – no one blames you for that – but when you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control the wind.”
“Perhaps the two have nothing in common!” I protested. The wind blew harder, disproving me wickedly. “Perhaps there is no connection at all!”
“I think you ought to go, Lorelei,” the medicine woman said to me. She put her hand on my upper back, though she could barely reach. Her long gray hair blew violently around her face, hiding her wrinkled expression from me. I was almost sure there were tears in her cloudy white eyes, but I could not be entirely certain.
I decided to leave, stumbling through the fields and tripping on anything and everything in my anger. The wind only pushed me further and the more it pushed me, the angrier I became, and the harder the wind blew.
So I stood on a cliff side for a long time, howling with my sister, the wind. She pushed the water of the ocean against the rocky bottom of the cliff, like dust brushing up in the skirts of a woman out for a walk in the desert. I cradled my face in my hands and cried tears and so the rain fell. Through my tears I could see the fish below splash against the rocks. I wonder if they ever snapped their spines in so doing. The thought terrified me, clutching at my lips and crying out in near disgust and horror.
It was not for another seven hours that the sun finally showed any signs of existing. It was hardly visible behind the dark, brooding clouds. Eventually, I crawled to the nearest tree and rested beneath it, curling myself in the mold of its bark, as if it were my mother. It was scarred from hunters’ arrows and knives, and possibly children misunderstanding the importance of a tree in our world. I held my hand over its wounds and they were freshly mended.
So this was how I learned of my control of earthly substances. I tested it on the grass on which I sat, urging it to grow taller, to reach for the branches in the tree above. It obeyed, sprouting up and shaking off the dirt as it grew. For a moment, I smiled, brushing my palm over the tickling grass. I knew already of my control over the weather and its elements. It occurred to me that night, still sitting under the tree, that I may also be the master of fire.
Out of instinct, I snapped my fingers. Then between my thumb and my forefinger appeared a small flame, flickering in the slight breeze. I still sniffled from my earlier tears, but I did not sob as I had before. I thought I heard a whisper of something but, figuring it to be the wind, I ignored it. I broke a twig from the tree, excusing myself as I did. The tree did not seem to mind. It shivered its leaves in the wind and went on being silent.
Then I touched the twig to the flame. It took quickly and I laid it on the ground on a spread of grass-barren dirt. As the flame flickered, it seemed to whisper my name in a lullaby, “Lorelei, Lorelei, Lorelei” all night long. I had been right earlier: I had heard something.
I heard it even in my dreams.
When I woke in the morning, there was a terrible pain in my side. I ached and it only worsened as a stretched. For a moment, I looked up into the branches of the tree, half expecting it to offer some sort of remedy. It was still silent.
Crawling around quite like an animal, I searched for herbal remedies to my pain. The feeling had crawled up to my neck at this point. Finally exhausted, I fell back against the tree. The sun was high and I had been searching for hours. The medicine woman would know how to heal me, but my knowledge of the medicines were limited to almost nothing. With so few resources, I had no idea what might help me.
Then I thought. If I have the power over weather and earth and fire, why should I not also have power over flesh?
I wanted to test my tentative ability on a mouse or some other small animal desperately, afraid of what it might do to myself. However, there were none in sight. Even if there had been, I knew I would not be able to bring myself to touch the animal. Especially if it had no ailment – I did not know how I would test such a thing in that case anyway.
Gingerly I reached around to my back where it was sore and pressed my fingers down. There was no difference so I stripped myself of my clothes, hoping the direct contact would help. They were dirty anyhow and needed a rinse in the river. I tried to promise to remind myself of this later. For a moment I watched them on the ground. They were still, and their purple hues matched the purple clouds in the sky. They had since dried since the rain the previous night, but were still cold from the water. I combed my hair back from my face and sighed, worrying about disappointing myself.
I lied on the ground and took a deep breath as I reached around for the second time, the pain worsening as I stretched my unwilling body. As my fingers brushed against my back, however, I felt an immediate sense of relief.
I decided then to bathe in the river while washing my dressings. Perhaps then I would return to the village.
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