Page 154 of The Moon Sister
Angelina weaved her way through the trees until we reached a clearing. I saw it was full of graves, the ground covered in roughly hewn wooden crosses. Angelina led me along the rows until she found what she was looking for.
She pointed to three crosses in turn. ‘María, yourbisabuela– great-grandmother – Lucía, yourabuela– grandmother – and Isadora, yourmadre.’
Then she waited as I knelt in front of my mother’s grave, searching for the date of her death, but only her name was inscribed on the simple cross.
‘How did she die?’
‘Another time, Erizo. For now, say hello to her.’
‘Hello,’ I whispered to the mound of grass-covered earth. ‘I wish I could have known you.’
‘She was too good for the earth,’ Angelina sighed. ‘Gentle and kind, like you.’
I stayed for a while, thinking I should feel more emotional than I did because this was a seminal moment, but maybe my brain was still processing the information, as all I felt was a strange numbness.
Eventually I stood up and we continued along the line of crosses. I saw the names of the babies María had lost, then those of her three sons, and her grandchildren.
‘Eduardo and Carlos, their bodies not here, but Ramón made the crosses in remembrance.’
Angelina swept me along another two or three rows, repeating, ‘Amaya, Amaya, Amaya . . .’
The crosses were endless – my whole family on my great-grandmother’s side seemed to be buried or remembered here.
We then moved on to the Albaycíns – my greatgrandfather José’s family – which were equally plentiful. And at last, with the thought of my roots extending back over five hundred years, something stirred in my heart, as I began to feel the unbroken invisible thread that connected us all.
Angelina continued walking through the sea of crosses until we had left the clearing and were in a dense patch of forest.
She was looking down, using her feet to tap the ground. ‘Okay,’ she nodded, ‘first lesson. Lie down, Erizo.’
I turned to look at Angelina and saw she was already kneeling. Then she lay flat on her back on the rich, earthy ground and I followed suit.
‘Listen, Erizo.’ Angelina cupped one of her ears exaggeratedly, nodding to me.
I watched as Angelina put her small hands behind her head as a pillow, then closed her eyes. I did the same, although I wasn’t sure what it was I was meant to be listening to.
‘Feel the earth,’ she whispered, which didn’t help much, but I closed my eyes and breathed slowly in and out, hoping to feel and hear whatever it was I was supposed to. For a long time, I only heard the birds calling goodnight to each other, the buzzing of insects and the rustle of small animals in the undergrowth. I focused on that sound – the sound of nature – and eventually the noise became louder until it was a cacophony in my ears. Then I felt the strangest sensation – it was like a pulse from beneath me, beating softly at first, then stronger and stronger. Finally, the earth’s heartbeat became one with my own and I could feel I was in perfect harmony with it . . .
I don’t know how long I lay there, but the more I let myself go with the flow rather than being frightened, the more I began to hear, feel and see: the sound of the river far below us felt as if it was pouring its fresh, purifying water over me, then I saw the gorgeous colours of all the fish that swam through it. I opened my eyes and the tree above me metamorphosed into an old man whose branch-arms waved slowly in the breeze, the long white hair and beard made up of thousands of tiny spider webs scattered along the moss-covered trunk of his body. His twig-hands crossed over the smaller branches as if the tree-man was protecting his children.
And the stars . . . never had I seen so many of them or known them shine so brightly . . . As I stared up, the sky above me began to move and shift until I realised that it was made up of billions of tiny spirits – each with its own energy – and I realised with a shock that in fact, the skies were far more densely populated than the earth . . .
Then I saw what I first thought was a shooting star, but as it hovered above the treetops, I realised it couldn’t be one, because, after pausing for a few seconds, it suddenly shotupwardsand hung directly above me, having found its place in the heavens.
I was immediately transported to Chilly’s cabin and saw him lying in his bed, or at least, the body that had once housed him, skin and bones lying discarded like an old set of clothes in his freezing cold cabin. I knew what it meant.
‘Our cousin, Chilly . . .’ said a voice next to me. I sat up with a start and looked into Angelina’s eyes.
‘He’s dead, Angelina.’
‘He just move on to the Upperworld.’
A tear plopped down my cheek and Angelina reached over to wipe it away gently. ‘No, no, no. No cry, Erizo.’ She pointed upwards. ‘Chilly is happy. You feel it. Here.’ She put her hand to my heart before pulling me into a hug.
‘I saw his soul, his . . . energy fly upwards too,’ I told her, still shell-shocked from everything I had seen and felt.
‘We send him our love and we pray for his soul now.’
I bent my head like Angelina had, thinking how strange it was that Spanishgitanosheld such a strong Catholic faith alongside their own spiritual ways. I supposed that – despite their different earthly practices – neither faith contradicted the other because they were both about belief in a higher power; a belief that there was a greater force than us in the universe. Humans had simply interpreted it from their different cultural points of view.Gitanoslived amongst nature and therefore the spirits they worshipped were part of that. Hindus saw cows and elephants as sacred, and Christianity celebrated the divine in human form . . .
