EYE OF MALACHITE Novel-in-progress

Eye of Malachite is a literary adventure story which takes the form of a spiritual quest. Ealhhild, a ninth century abbess, has begun to resurrect inside her tomb at the ruins of Ladeham Monastery in England. Meanwhile on computer screens around the world new icons resembling forks of lightning appear on desktops or attach themselves to emails. With the click of a mouse Esme, an electrician, and Trude, a naturalist, begin a journey from Vancouver, through the flooded lowlands of East Anglia to the monastery hilltop where Ealhhild awaits them. On the way they make crucial detours into their own pasts and meet up with fellow pilgrims, their mission: to rescue the reconstituted abbess from her tomb. All the pilgrims dream of grandiose epiphanies which they are counting on the risen Ealhhild to deliver, but she confounds their expectations with the bestowal of gifts both humble and astonishing.

Excerpt

A few dead leaves still clinging to the branches of a young oak rustle in the cold breeze. Trude's fingers are red and stiff as she arranges deadwood into a compact steeple over the crumpled paper. Stan kneels down beside her, takes her hands and starts rubbing them between his. She becomes aware of a sound like the twitter of a flock of tiny birds, and she looks up to see what they are and where they've alighted, but the branches of the surrounding scrub are empty. What she's hearing are words, lively, thrilling words; they have wings and rapid heartbeats; they are news.

"It's Ealhhild. Hurry up! It's Ealhhild. She's awake. Come and see."

Stan and Trude's hands fall away from each other, they get up and start to follow this rumour of a wish come true. All the other people on the hilltop move with them, as one, like toy boats in a swift stream, like grass in a gust of wind. The fire remains unlit; a tent stands half-raised, its loose walls rippling in the breeze. Out of another tent a man and a woman emerge, faces sweaty, pulling up zippers, fastening buttons. A wallet lies open and untouched near a sleeping bag. Plates of stew steam untasted. A bottle of Glenfiddich stands abandoned beside a toppled enamel cup.
Ealhhild is real. Trude's excitement rises so fast the top of her head begins to lift. Her legs are heavy, her body throbs, she can't keep up with her own aspirations. Faint of heart, she thinks. She had dreamed of having Ealhhild all to herself, but now she knows that without the others and especially Stan running beside her, holding her arm, she couldn't go on. Everyone hurries towards a tumbled wall overgrown with brambles and ivy. When Stan and Trude reach it they stop, halted as easily by wonder as they would have been by catastrophe.

Esme stands before them, staring down into a stone box. She reaches out, and as she does, another hand reaches towards hers from the stone. At their first touch, Esme gasps, tries to pull free - stops - moves closer - lifts. A woman's head appears, her shoulders; dressed in rags she begins to rise. She'd sink down again if it weren't for Esme, whose eyes as much as her strong arms bring her to her feet. Supporting her elbow, Esme steadies her as she stumbles out of the stone box.

Trude sees the people in front of her recoil.

A sickening smell reaches her and she begins to retch. Stan whispers, "Are you all right?" and then she's seized by the same time-altering vision that afflicted her at the lode. Instead of flowing, time jump-cuts between expanses of the present. Moments stretch out so that Trude notices what she might otherwise have missed. The woman's rags are unfurling, or something is unfurling from beneath her rags. Not wings. A gauzy material covers her from head to toe. It's transparent and full of eyes. They gaze at Trude from the woman's arms, from her back and her legs. Trude remembers eyes like that: they criticized and judged. But these are different: there's no malice in them; they simply regard her; they're neutral, or rather, benign. The next moment she hears the sound of silk tearing. The gauzy covering shreds, disperses. The eyes remain for a second longer, then they too vanish. Trude's nausea diminishes, which makes her feel as if she's been blessed. Meanwhile the woman, looking even more ragged than when she first stood up, pulls her hand away from Esme's - and squats - and pees.

"This can't be Ealhhild!" Trude tells herself. The thought ripples through the crowd.

Ealhhild's last few moments in the tomb were agony. Her bladder may have resurrected last, but it also resurrected full. While she was dreaming the requiem mass she hadn't noticed it, but afterwards, in the silence, she felt a tightening in her lower belly. Later, as the lid was pulled off her coffin, the scraping of stone against stone became a weight on her abdomen. She stirred - felt the dappled sun on her eyelids, heard the chuckle of a fieldfare. She found herself compelled to yawn - and yawn again - seven times, and with each she felt more pressure - and more - so that by the time her eyes blinked open, her discomfort was absolute. A face was gazing down at her, a hand reached out and she took it. When Esme gasped Ealhhild became aware of the crowd: all around people watching - wanting - doubting - expecting - every one of them - when for eleven centuries, longer, there had been no one at all. Help me! Esme pulled. In spite of dizziness Ealhhild rose, and with Esme's support stepped free of her confinement, then sank again, letting go, listening gratefully to the trickle and plash of relief.

When Esme took hold of Ealhhild's hand she flinched at its odd coolness, the feel of it more like stone than flesh. But she wasn't revolted by the smell that emanated from the coffin. She recognized it for what it was, not putrefaction, but death, without which there could be no resurrection. Death with certain knowledges attached, and as the smell dispersed she heard a tearing sound - wisdom ripping away from ordinary human perception - and for a moment she thought she saw its frayed edge catch on a jagged piece of flint sticking up from the monastery foundation.

Esme sees the relief on Ealhhild's face, and feels a tension within her unknotting. She finds herself remembering a sound from long ago. It starts high and then descends, and it makes her think of her brother Cedric. She and Cedric, their bladders full, in the bushes on the opposite side of the yard from Trilling; "Hurry up or I'm gonna burst!" She and Cedric holding hands. "Ready." Esme squatted and Cedric held his cock. "Set." They took a deep breath, and instead of saying "Go", they sang out "Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...," starting on a high note and descending to as low as they could go for as long as their urine lasted. The trick was to end up out of breath and out of pee at the same moment.

"Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...," a gleeful noise, a sound that contains Cedric's laughter. It sings the end of grief, makes her feel light-headed, no, not light-headed, just light, and subtle enough to cross the barrier that has cut her off from her brother for so long.

Ealhhild has begun to shiver, and Esme, looking at her rags, becomes aware that the first thing she needs is clothes. Her outer garment is in tatters, but beneath it is a linen shift well-made and still intact. A metal fastener holds one of its sleeves tight around her wrist, but the other sleeve flops open. The fastener looks familiar. She takes a closer look and discovers that it's a metal hook and eye, the same as.... She puts her hand into her jacket pocket and touches the artefact she took from the pub windowsill, then lifts it out. Except that it's corroded, the artefact and the sleeve fastener are identical. Esme presents it to Ealhhild who appears not to understand, so she returns it to the pocket, takes her jacket off and puts it around Ealhhild's shoulders.

Ealhhild looks at Esme, she swallows, runs her tongue over her lips to moisten them, opens her mouth, but nothing comes out except a small expression of air. She moves her jaw up and down and tries again. This time she says, "Ezz...." It's the sound of bees humming around the blue hebe at Red House Farm. It's Esme's name the way Cedric used to say it. It's Ealhhild calling her to serve.

"Can you walk?" Esme asks, not sure that she will be understood, but Ealhhild rises and takes her first trembling steps over twenty-first century ground. Esme puts her arm around her waist, cares nothing for the peculiar circumstances, doesn't shrink from the resurrected flesh, senses only another human being in need. Together they shuffle forward, their fellowship persuasive, and the crowd parts to let them through.