CHAPTER LV: HAIL

  ─ "Antares is a red firefly in the midst of the breathtaking starry night sky – Mistress Oakes told Kirsten at James’-, a light bulb which illuminates the solemn black of the south. But according to what John told me, now it is the sun the great flashlight that overshadows it. This month we Scorpions celebrate it, but it is the powerful rays of our star which hide it and that’s why now it is not visible. We have to wait for the spring, almost summer."

─ "We will wait a few months to see it again."

─ "No, sweetheart. I will not see it again. I will go soon."

   And seeing that Kirsten could not stand it and she was taken in tears of fear, she said:

─ "Let’s go to the balcony, my darling. I don't want your brother to see you cry. You know that he is very impressionable. And from there we will see Knights Hill and the elm where your names are. If the days are bitter, it is best to look at the sun."

   Already in the balcony, Kirsten had red eyes, but they could not pour her load of salt water.

─ "Watch its brightness. Everything is a cycle. Also our star will die one day. We fulfill a function and we leave. I believe that we go to the third life, Wisdom, but in order to get there, we have something to learn in the second life, Horror. You still have many years to live and you may not understand at the beginning the periods of life. Just look at one day when Antares will wink at you. It will be me who will try to convey to you my affection. I trust in you and dad Nike because you also have his strength. That’s why I tell you all this and I know that I am overwhelming you. But your father told me that one day he said to your grandfather Herbert that you were Ra, a solar goddess, and that’s why I have brought you to the sun. And like Ra, your brightness does not fade at any season."

─ "I will miss you, Grandma -Kirsten always called her great-grandmother Madeleine.

   Those days of early November, and while Luke recovered, Nike spent afternoons alone. One of these days he decided to sit on the small steps of St Mary to do his job. There was a moment in which the intense sun overwhelmed him and he decided to enter the temple and he found an unexpected scene. Olivia and Gerald were there, surely as godparents of Mistress Oakes, who incredibly seemed to be being baptized. He took a seat and waited. The ceremony was emotional, but it did not last long. While Olivia stayed a while talking with her brother, Mistress Oakes, who had seen him, approached Nike.

─ Hello, my fellow mate."

─ "It has been spectacular, Madeleine. But I can't believe that in the end you've become a Catholic."

─ "I have always respected all faiths. I was born a Presbyterian and after all I will be until I die - and winking at him, she asked-, do you think I need a spiritual solace at the last minute?"

─ "I cannot imagine you needing some. I think you have another theology."

─ "I don't know if everything has been a beautiful dream, like life, or there is really the third life, but it is beautiful to believe that there is Wisdom and that there I will continue my path with other beings-gods, until my new cycle ends and I can continue going on pilgrimage to the fourth house, Dignity."

─ "Then, what sense does it have? Because I know that you have done so with a purpose."

─ "Gerald knows what will happen very soon. I'm afraid that Olivia too, but she could not stand knowing that it is imminent. Nike, all the important events in my family have happened in November, and it will be also now. But I want to rest next to you. The Outskirt of the Torn Hand has been a splendid home and I desire to follow in spirit in your bonfires. I've become a Catholic so I can be buried in St. Alban. Gerald will take care of everything. And so when you are telling your day every night, I will be so close that I will even hear your new tales."

   Nike realized that abundant tears watered him, but suddenly said:

─ "Enough crying. After all I see you happy. You go as you have lived. And you need the mate that can really say goodbye to you to increase your happiness."

─ "It has been a real pleasure to meet you, my mate. I've been able to love the seven children who together with me have formed the eight motifs by Verôme. And the eighth was a river from which new bloods have sprouted so when I am dying, I know I have had a huge family."

   The next day, already November 6, Nike found her strolling through the stones of Meander Bridge.

─ "Hi, Nike. I wanted to see all around for the last time. Sorry to tell you, my mate, it will be tonight. Do not look at the landfill, but there you can see Ted’s corpse. And that's the signal. I need you very happy now. The others must not know anything. I'll be at the bonfire until after midnight. I will be 79 and then I'll go to sleep... to not wake up."

─ "Let me cry now – he told her completely downcast – so as not to cry tonight. Let your last hours with us be fertile and happy and let the others believe that we are only celebrating your birthday."

─ "You know, Nike? Everyone would like to die in bed. They say that it is a very sweet death, but for years I rebelled. I wanted to die anyway, but being conscious. But at the end, and after all, I am conscious. Now I know that I will fade tonight. I will go to sleep and I will not wake up again. I will go as happy as I have lived. Embrace me, my mate. And cry now so as not to cry later. Think that in life there must be a large number of bitter experiences so all the road can make sense. I will go happily. Goodbye, Nike."

   And they embraced tightly. Nike intended to take from inside him the strength his mate said he had. He should make her feel happy in her last bonfire. Before the bonfire, he wanted to walk to be able to show tonight a big smile.

   The deep red night was a fancy dress in that November almost of summer, and the trees were buttons which fastened up that piece of fantasy and the river had a murmur of calm. Under any excuse, Mistress Oakes had convinced them to leave late that day to beg so they could stay longer in the bonfire and celebrate that she would be 79. Nike had spent two hours begging too. He needed to reflect and give her mate one of the happiest nights of her life. And finally the eight of them, who were ten with the two children, sat placidly to eat.

    The moon covered the stars but the tongues of the bonfire put the glitter and the fog would not arise. Madeleine began talkative telling an experience when she was still alone in the Umbra Terrae Boulevard.

─ "A gardener told me one day that there are male trees, female trees and hermaphrodite trees. But it is not easy to know. Do not ask me what sex the elms, ash trees or alders that surround us have."

   The conversation continued one little longer talking about trees and Madeleine Oakes told stories of her youth, of her early years in the street. Nike watched Olivia’s eyes, noticing that something told her that they would not be celebrating the day when her mistress reached 80. Nike accompanied Madeleine in her liveliness. It was true joy and he felt some envy. Hopefully when my time comes, I can go like that.

   12 o’clock. All agreed to warmly congratulate Mistress Oakes, who smiling repeated that she was actually 56, the years that she had been on the street. At a quarter past 12 she said goodbye to everyone and went to bed, looked at Nike with a last look of beauty and she withdrew to her tent.

   That night Nike slept with Lucy and Luke went to his brother's house. Under the excuse of a strong headache, he managed his wife and him to be a couple of hours talking and the food of the conversation were the night, the moon, fires, trees and their dear Madeleine’s bliss. Nike was afraid to fall asleep and later wake up. Surely some sleep he had when at 8 in the morning a strong terrible cry startled him. It was Olivia. Lucy and he got up immediately, while Nike’s eyes, which knew what had happened, were full of tears. Lucy looked at him.

─ "Do you know anything?"

─ "I'm afraid I do, my heart. Let's get out."

   They were all up and Olivia scared them saying that she had found her dead. They began to cry their eyes out. Olivia suddenly went crazy in the direction of the slope, that wrist of a hand now truly torn, where miraculously she found climbing the slope her brother Gerald.

─ "She is dead, Gerald"

    And he, also crying, sheltered his sister on his chest and with pain in his heartbeat, they whimpered together. He kissed her and said:

─ "Then for this she made me come. She knew that I get up at 7 and she told me that she needed to tell me something at 8 today so I should come and see her and she would tell me. You know that we have been for some weeks speaking in secret, my dear, and she told me what was going to happen, but she did not mention a day. Now I must take care of the formalities. Already she became a Catholic because she wanted to lie in St. Alban, next to you. Now I must take care of everything."

─ "But you won't be the only one, Gerald - suddenly said Nigel, who arrived in that moment surprisingly, startling him-. She also called me at this hour. I will lend you a hand"

   His son Peter had got up that day very early, and suddenly he saw a lot of people crying, including his beloved Kirsten, his girlfriend, sitting on a rock, with a drizzle in her eyes. He walked towards her, sat at her side and gave her a kiss. Kirsten told him. Paul was crying desperately at her side.

─ "Let's go to the river awhile, Regulus - his sister called him thus very often and he called her Elased - to Menhir Bridge."

   And they were three because Peter accompanied them to the river.

─ "Great-Grandma told me one day that we are water. Still, as the river here, we are beginning our course. But one day our water will pour into the sea. Hence it will go to the clouds, which will rain, falling again into the river and back to the sea, to the clouds... the rain. As her eleven rooms. She has flown into a different sea, but her road, her soul, her water, continue. Now we cannot see her, Regulus, but Mistress Oakes is not gone, she is still sailing, but where we cannot see her."

   Paul hugged his sister and slowly his tears were pacifying. Peter, who had said nothing, accompanied them back. Kirsten was decided to talk to her grandmother, who almost bumped her head against the trees, sitting in the hat-rock.

─ "Give me a kiss, Grandma. She did not leave me her blood, and neither to you, but she left you her road. You have the route now. Now you have to walk without her, but with many people who can accompany you. I'll give a kiss to mum but I will spend all day with you."

   First she embraced her father Nike and in their eyes both saw they had to be strong to relieve the tears of all. He had just come from Nigel's House to call Joan Weissmann, who took the reins of the Thuban while Anne-Marie was off work, and inform her of what had happened. And as he expected that day he wouldn’t have to go to work. She would tell her father, Anne-Marie and Richard. Nike looked at his daughter again and watched the sun burning on her hair, so small and so enormous, as Ra in all his glory.

  Lucy cried sitting on the ground, as still as a statue in a photo, weeping bitter waters and saw her daughter coming to her and giving her a kiss.

─ "If you learned a lot with her, remember that Paul and I, mum, now want to learn with you. And tell us many stories and if there is a teacher, call her Mistress Oakes."

   And Lucy felt she needed that hug from her daughter in order to have strength and accompany her mother all that day. She thanked Kirsten and went in search of Olivia.

   Then Luke came, his face bathed in tears while climbing the slope. Paul and Kirsten, seeing him, went to him. His daughter said:

─ "Dad, think about all the things that we do not know about her and that you are going to tell us and soon the days will come when remembering her will make you beautify her and you will refer to her as golden, happy and free."

   Gerald paused a second to ask his sister what they were going to do with her tent.

─ "Keep it – said Olivia -. It is a good tent and the next time I sleep in the outskirt – she had just accepted Nigel’s invitation to spend that night in his house - if no one dares, I will go to sleep here. And if one day - she said looking at Nike, who approached with affection – a new snake bit someone, he will already have a tent where he could recover."

   But Nike, intending to talk a while with Olivia, saw Bruce coming back from the river almost staggering, and approached him.

─ "When I met her, the moment I saw her I knew that I would like to be with her, with the three of them. She rejoiced when she knew I was Joe Scully’s son, but I have always felt that she had liked me not because I came from him, but for being Bruce. And so many times we talked about the love that I felt for her girl. Without her tenderness, I will feel misunderstood, but I still have people like you, Nike."

─ "My fellow mate, my friend, dear Bruce. Today is a day for crying but also, as you have just shown me, to feel how much we love one another those who are still here."

   He couldn’t see Miguel and John, but soon he heard a shuddered cry among the ash trees. He didn't know whether he should approach or leave them alone. But John had seen him and motioned him to join them. Miguel was a pillar of salt, but weak at the end, realizing that any wind would blow him from there if it were not for John’s solid branches, and he was holding him strongly. He was crying with the security that Antares would give him strength to keep his withered balance and that of his partner.

─ "She left us, my fellow mate - Nike said to Miguel- but in the middle of my tired sleep I stop to think that I would never have been the eighth without her, without her trust in what our fate would be. And the last three have simply followed the road that you showed us, Miguel. She left us but her Liberty will still be with us. And now you must have strength from your sign and all of us must find our Greatness. And the Clarity of your twin will make you see light in this darkness."

─ "Thank you Nike." - And they embraced strongly.

   Gerald took care of all the formalities and had enough energy to make Mistress Oakes’ body spend that night in his home in Chamberlain Street. Everyone slept at Nigel's House, but Olivia, who did not sleep talking with her mistress in his brother’s house. He even offered to accompany her on the street in the evenings, when out of work, but she said that she would go with Lucy, as long as she was getting used to walking alone after so many years. Her daughter would speak with Amanda Cohen to return to her primitive schedule of three hours in the afternoon and would be with her mother almost all day.

  The morning of November 8 was radiant. A perennial sun with fire of summer flowers that still resisted in St Alban as a bouquet of hope, as a tribute to her glory. Gerald told them all that she wanted to rest on the earth, where she had always lived, and was there, in the fertile ground, on the northeast. Nike said she had to be of course there, in the north, close to her fellow mates, and in the east, where stars always rose. While the priest dedicated her his last words, the seven were placed in circle around her tomb, Gerald very close to Olivia until finally he left her alone so she could lie on Lucy’s chest, Nike on her other side, with Luke next to him in such a way that they were placed in chronological order. The circle could start at Olivia and on her right Lucy, Bruce, Miguel, John, Luke, and Nike.

    But next to them were Paul and Kirsten, who wanted to be there to accompany their great-grandmother on her last trip. With both of them was Gerald Rivers, all afternoon attentive to his sister, who occasionally came to kiss him, and meanwhile was busy taking care of her nephew and niece. At his side, James Prancitt, without Rosa de Lima, who had stayed at home with the flu and had words for everyone and a string of memories about their missing fellow mate. Also there was Nigel Matts, breath of the eight in their last years, who always felt he was supported by Madeleine Oakes to create symbolic worlds. Richard Protch was also there, while his wife stayed at home taking care of Armand and Crystelle, whom Mistress Oakes seemed to always tell to take care of Nike, Luke and Lucy and of whom she spoke as if she suspected that one day he would be one of them. Always with him was his former boss, now a friend, Samuel Weissmann, who many times had laughed with her. Heartbroken and withered was Anne-Marie Beaulière, in their last days a real friend and who could not abandon her dears John and Nike, nor any of their five fellow mates. Brandon had to work and had not been able to go. Maude Protch was further, lost in her thoughts, maybe whispering pagan prayers with her husband. Herbert Protch, closing the procession, weeping and recalling how at the end he had been a grandfather without having had any children.

   The solemn funeral finally concluded but still they were there, the seven in circle, when they heard the sound they had not been able to listen all day, Olivia’s voice without tears, which in a last effort to make visible the sound caverns of her soul, shook everyone with a few words as a tribute.

─ "Hail, Madeleine, Mistress Oakes. 29 years beside you and like you one day I will rest on the earth, but before I go I will continue with you, walk every street, every square, sidewalk, corner, temple or river. And every night I will tell you how my day has been and I will still listen to your advice on each new beggar I meet, on every new human being on the "other side", each fountain, each new landscape, each starry night. How hard everything without you, but how beautiful that we will always be together."

   All of them burst with those words, but then in Lucy entered serenity and crying but without the river of her eyes, she also wanted to say something:

─ "Hail, Mistress Oakes, my grandmother. In every corner of my life you were talking to me of the forks that my road could take and always understanding me seated on the sidewalk of Luke and Nike, with my mother, your eternal mate; with my children, your great-grandchildren, with the strength with which you reminded me that my motif by Verôme was fair and my journey had enough sense. And it had a sense for me, because there you were always, helping me to appreciate my road."

   Beside them Bruce was weeping, pouring, sobbing, hiccupping, but finally he understood that all of them had to talk and in his pain he found the most beautiful noun to accompany her name.

─ "Hail, Mistress Oakes, our mate. So much you have taught me... and with you I have always revered number eight until now, in this bitter moment, shadows during the day, lights during the night, we are the useless seven again. I also learned with you that the Universe is a woman. And you, a woman and a mate, have been, are and will always be our Universe."

    He thought that he could not find words but when they all heard them they were a fountain.

   He could hardly be standing, but when it was his turn, Miguel made efforts to find some new words.

─ "Hail, Mistress Oakes, mother of all and a friend. Woe to those twilights of fire when you used to lend me your shoulders because my disoriented heart had not found his twin yet. You matriarch who always made me stop in a bend and see the lights that were still visible before I returned to the sidewalks. Hail, Mistress Oakes, mother of all and a friend."

   And John at his side hardly could hold him, because he knew he now had to speak. What more could he say? A ray of sunshine among the trees shone to make him remember those other lights of the sky.

─ "Hail, Mistress Oakes, Antares. We are still here as all the stars of the south and as they we have always lived without an earth that belongs to us. And as best we can we must follow you Spica, Algieba, Aldebaran, Castor, Pollux, Denebola and Zosma, with your stars great-grandchildren Regulus and Elased. But you've been sailing in the south and in the north and from Umbra Terrae to Wrathfall Bridge, from Knights Hill up to your last house, this Outskirt of the Torn Hand that was always in the ecliptic but with you became circumpolar".

   Luke knew he should stop crying and lying on Nike’s shoulders, seeing a warm glint in Lucy’s eyes, said. 

─ "Hail, Mistress Oakes, Liberty. That was your gift and from you we inherited it. And you taught me that in order to take it we should leave somewhere along the road the backpack of unnecessary things and carry the load of a different backpack which had the overwhelming burden of loneliness, because only with it we can find our own strength, see who we are and how we are in order to finally receive the friends who wish to warm up in our hearts, our bonfires."

   And Nike had to complete that circle of fellow voices and at last he said:

─ "Hail, Mistress Oakes, Lady of Shade. With what lucid darkness you've always seen our seven roads and even the last stones of yours. Now you are going to Wisdom, but little you will have to stay in the third room because you won’t have much to understand that you have not learned here, in this second abode, Horror, where the seven of us remain trying to assimilate what life teaches us. But even if you are there for a short time, wait for us, Madeleine, so the eight can walk together again and go, like erratic beings-gods, to the fourth room, Dignity. Meanwhile here we are, as seven lights without an Earth."

  The circle began to be undone but Paul, who had a wheat ear on his hand, suddenly realized that he could leave his heart crying while his eyes were resting and able to find his way, again threw that wheat ear to the earth where Mistress Oakes was resting and said:

─ "Hail, great-grandmother Madeleine. So long."

   And Kirsten, who had cut a rose red as Antares, also threw it and spoke with her last tear.

─ "Hail, great-grandmother Madeleine. Until we meet again. Hail."

   And then the circle was undone and the seven, as best they could, tried to talk to the other eight attendees at the funeral, who had understood that they had to be there, but silent, leaving only the hearts of the seven mates to have a voice. That night and some other nights they would all sleep at Nigel's and there they went.

   Olivia, with frosted heart, sometimes resurrected and with her daughter, now only half of her, she continued. And in January she dared finally to rest one night in the circumpolar tent, which they had not taken away.

   Spring came colder and the bonfires went on until May was becoming June. One night Paul could not sleep and when he got up he saw his father Luke secluded in his soul with a small fire looking east.

-"Last night I saw it. Antares is again among us. Today I also wanted to get up in the morning twilight to see it. Your mother also has woken up and will soon come. Look at it, Paul, and at the whole Scorpion."

   As he was looking at the constellation, he felt at the same time his mother getting up while his father Nike came from the palace with his sister. At that moment he realized that magic appears when you don't expect it and addressing his father Luke, urgently, he pointed to the south-east.

─ "I don't know if it is my senses which have seen it turning on and turning off in a shocking flash. Not only twinkles now Antares - and those words were also heard by Kirsten, who smiled-. It has been a wink, I'm sure, dad."