Page 230 of The Moon Sister
‘How is he?’ Cal asked.
‘Just perfect, but very fragile. I don’t know whether he’ll make it, but . . .’
You have to save him, Tiggy. . . said my inner voice.
‘Okay, I’m going to try.’ I closed my eyes, then asked for the help I needed.
As Angelina had taught me, I imagined all the life-giving energy from the universe flowing into my hands as I swept them up and down the calf’s body. I repeated this process perhaps five or six times, drawing the bad energy out of him and shaking it away into the ether. I couldn’t say how long I sat there, but when I came to, I found his eyes were open and he was gazing up at me with interest.
‘Hello,’ I said.
In response, the calf stretched out his legs away from his mother, so that his head rested against my knees.
‘Aren’t you a handsome boy,’ I said as I bent over to plant a kiss on his newly minted white coat.
I saw his mother struggle to lift her head from the straw. She opened her huge shy eyes again and stared at me.
‘You’re beautiful too,’ I murmured, looking at her long eyelashes, and the white star in the centre of her forehead. ‘Pegasus chose you especially, didn’t he?’
I put my other hand on her head and one of her skinny legs lifted towards me, as if she was trying to touch me. I could see that she had little strength – or time – left.
‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered as I stroked her head, then leant down to kiss it. ‘You’ll be safe where you’re going and you mustn’t worry about your little one. I swear I’ll make sure he’s taken care of.’
It seemed to me that a tear formed in one of the hind’s eyes, before she lay back down on the straw and closed them for the last time.
My own tears dripped all over her orphaned son’s warm coat, the parallel of my own birth being played out in animal form not lost on me. I sat in that barn with the baby stag resting against my knee, and together we mourned the mothers we’d both lost before we’d ever known them.
‘You okay, Tig?’ Cal said eventually.
‘Yes. Sad that the mother’s gone, but I think her calf will survive. Look!’
The stag was nuzzling at my hand, obviously in search of milk.
‘Shit, Tig,’ Cal sighed. ‘It means we’re going tae have tae hand rear him.’
‘Do you have any bottles up in the sheds?’
‘I’ll go an’ get a couple and some milk, though he’ll probably reject it. I’ll bring the portable gas heater down as well. You’re going tae catch your death down here.’
‘Thanks, Cal,’ I said, although it was only when he mentioned it that I realised I was shivering, but that was probably more to do with emotion than cold.
‘What will we do with you?’ I whispered to try and calm the baby stag, who was fully awake now and frantic with hunger. ‘Perhaps we could paint you brown so no one but us would know . . .’
Cal arrived back twenty minutes later, by which time I was very pleased to see the gas heater. I saw Lochie and Zara were with him and I waved them over to look at Pegasus’s son.
‘I found these two smoking outside the Lodge,’ Cal said, throwing Zara a stern glance. ‘Thought they’d like to say hello.’
‘Oh Tiggy,’ Zara breathed, coming over to me. ‘He’s adorable.’
‘I cannae believe it, Tiggy,’ Lochie said as he knelt down next to Zara. ‘Who woulda thought it? Can I touch him?’
‘Yes, he needs to get used to being handled by humans if he’s going to survive,’ I said, and watched as Lochie and Zara gingerly stroked the newborn.
‘Cal says you breathed life back intae him, Tiggy. You have a way with animals, like Mum,’ Lochie commented as he rested a hand tentatively on the pale fur.
‘Here’s the bottle, Tig,’ Cal said, handing it to me before pushing the heater across the uneven floor towards us.
Very gently, I eased the teat of the bottle between the calf’s lips, but he refused to unclamp his jaw. Then I tried squirting a little warm milk on his gums, praying he would accept it.
