From the Beginning: The Old World (22 page)

“Ma-Ma, Ma-Ma!!” Jonathan’s voice penetrated my impaired dazed consciousness once I realized Cole’s malicious and horrifying plan. The little baby approached me crawling on all fours with a wide smile, once he recognized me, and started calling me as he did the first time I saw him in my dream.

“Jonathan,” I wanted to extend my arms to him so badly, but my hands were bound, and held by Cole’s guards. My eyes filled with tears, as helplessness took over me. I smiled at the little baby as tears rolled down my cheeks in a silent cry.

One of the black women came and took him back. Jonathan started resisting and crying, which intensified my sense of helplessness and incompetence even more. My awakening sense of guilt slowly penetrated my mind as I realized that I had run out of chances to bring him back to his mother and to the world he knew and loved.

The black witch picked Jonathan up and sat down to breastfeed him. To my joy, he accepted the invitation willingly and clung to her breasts, taking comfort in the familiar suckling motion, even though it wasn’t Jamila.

I looked at the familiar sight of a mother breastfeeding her baby and remembered that my Idan suckled with pleasure until a late age, and how I had enjoyed breastfeeding him. I remembered how it gave me such a maternal bliss. Suddenly I felt the weird dizziness returning to climb up my spine, sending currents to my own breasts as if I wanted to nurse again too.

“Don’t worry, Grace. Soon you too will be able to commit to breastfeeding when you give birth to our first son,” Cole saw my pining looks and recognized my maternal yearning in them.

As I heard his words the nice dizzy spell I felt gave way to horror and nausea, my stomach turned, and bile came up my throat—as I vomited what was left in my digestive system, because since the lunch I had twenty-four hours before then, I didn’t eat at all.

“Grace! It is not very nice of you to mess up my quarters like this,” he scolded me with a voice filled with fake empathy, joking at my expense.

The black witch signaled with her head to one of the young women, and she immediately fetched me water to drink and clean myself. I looked at her without saying anything, and she looked back at me with a gaze that was filled with pain and sadness. I suddenly realized that she was captive as well, a prisoner just like me. With her dark look, she told me of her baby that was held hostage in Cole’s cruel hands, and that she was forced to do rituals and pagan ceremonies to help him establish his rule of tyranny.

Cole noticed our eye contact and severed the connection between us, stopping the information that flowed from one woman to another. He approached the young woman holding the drinking vessel with which she had given me water and knocked it to the floor, spilling the water I barely had a chance to drink. But it was enough to revive me a little.

“Don’t you even think of trying to communicate with my priestess!” he roared at me in rage. “You despicable shameless woman! Subversive and rebellious! You are already trying to sway her mind and turn her against me? Not so fast my dear,” he took control of himself and stood towering above me, regaining his sense of power again. “And you—my black priestess,” he turned to her, “I’m reminding you, know your place! And what will be the fate of your son if you try to rebel or hurt me in any way!” He took hold of her little baby and gave him to one of the younger women who had followed Cole’s orders with a sad face, as they all had, scared and forced to comply with all his whims.

“Finish nursing the white baby and start preparing the fertilization ceremony!” he ordered her with supremacy, enjoying the terrified look in her eyes. “And don’t forget to make your special oil. I want no surprises or setbacks during the ceremony—is that clear?!” He raised his arm as if he was about to hit her, and she cringed in a protective position, ready to absorb the blow.

“Don’t touch her!!! You sick freak!!” I lashed out when I saw what he intended to do, stopping his raised arm. “If you touch her, me or any other woman, I swear your revenge will pale compared to what I will drop on you!!!” My body stretched the ropes that were binding my hands when I tried to fight that awful contemptible man.

“You are not a man, you are not even an animal! You are a low, disgusting vermin!! I should have crushed you and stepped on you when I had the chance! I won’t let you hurt another man or woman anymore, and especially not innocent babies who did you no wrong! Ever—Do you hear me??!! I will never carry your baby, and I shall never give birth to it—” The raised arm turned and slapped me over my face again, severing my angry oath in a thrust, knocking me to the floor again. I tasted blood as my lip tore.

“You will not threaten me! You are forgetting your place, you insignificant little woman! The only reason I am keeping you alive is the baby that you will carry in your womb! This is the prophesy of the black priestess: The most powerful man in the world will have and take the great priestess, and they shall bear a child that will rule the world with a strong and painful hand. You were right when you said that the past is wiped clean, and we now have the opportunity to create a new world. New as I see it. New as it should be—with one absolute ruler that is bowed to by all. This is the only way to lead the human race. People only understand force—and you know this Grace! ‘Only love shall sprout love’—ha!” He snorted with contempt, ruling out his most hated expression. “We’ve already seen how much love, love brings us. Besides pain—love has nothing to give. Look how all you loved was taken away from you. Lost. But, that will be nothing compared to the pain you will experience when I tear away your baby from your arms, seconds after you give birth to him, after he will grow inside of you for nine months, and you have developed your unconditional maternal love for him. I will not even let you breastfeed him—you will watch him being passed on to another woman’s arms, suckling from her breast milk that has no mother’s love in it. He will not get to feel your loving and comforting body. He will only feel the night’s chill in a little crib, and so he will harden, and grow up to be a man with no feelings or sensitivity. You, however, will die in agony, tormented by your love—because that is what love gave to the world, the twisted pain we are made to feel when our loved ones are taken away from us!” He took a breath and stood up, walking as if he was Julius Caesar himself, or Napoleon at least.

“Not only will you carry my son in your womb, but afterward you will be forced to become my slave, doomed to taste humiliation until you beg me on your hands and knees that I kill you and free you from your hellish fate!” he continued to lay down his horrifying vision of a black future for humanity and mine in particular. “I suggest you rest until the ceremony. I wouldn’t want you to completely exhaust yourself, otherwise where’s the pleasure in vanquishing and humiliating you?” He smiled his most vicious and snake-like smile. “You are about to be humiliated on this altar for everyone to see, and so they will all know that a new king is about to come into the world. It is not for me that I seek the monarchy. I am a humble man, Grace. I shall not be around for many more years, which is why I need to produce an heir that will be able to take on the difficult task of running the world. What did you think? That I will leave you to lead and quietly walk away? Ho – No! No way! I am here to stay, and my seed and the seeds of my sons after me will rule you, your children and your grandchildren with force! Prepare the altar and the temple ring! Come on! Get to it! You little low lives,” he commanded with mean yells on his subjects, then projected a humiliating spit that landed on my face, and left the place.

The black priestess got up from the spot she was cringed in during Cole’s shrieking speech and came up to me. In my surprise, Jonathan had fallen asleep in her arms despite the hateful yelling and looked very peaceful and sweet, unaware of the harsh tones around him. “He has a good character. He will be a strong and stable boy.” She spoke with a heavy accent and smiled at him when she saw me checking him. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt the baby,” she now smiled at me to explain and to prove to me we were in the same boat. She checked the wound on my lip and instructed one of the women in a foreign language to bring more water and something else I didn’t understand the meaning of, but when the woman came back I saw it was healing herbs, the medicinal use of which were probably known to her.

“Why are you helping him?” I asked with anger yet with gratitude, unable to understand why she was cooperating with this low life of a man, but at the same time, I knew she had no choice.

“You are correct,” she replied sadly. “But I wasn’t the one chosen to defeat him. Only you can. I don’t have the powers you do, which is why I waited for you to come, and yes, I also helped, against my will of course—kidnap the baby so you would follow him.” While she talked, her hands were busy tearing the herbs, crushing them with her fingers in the water, squeezing it and again placing in water, until the water changed their color into greenish brown. “This will sting now—” she prepared me for the contact with the solution she had made, “but this will heal you immediately, and you will not have a mark or swelling.” She placed a moist patch of herbal solution on my wound, and I flinched from the sting on my lips.

“Here, it will soon pass,” she reassured me and placed the patch again. This time I was ready, and indeed, the burn subsided, and seconds later I didn’t feel it at all.

“What did you mean when you said you waited for me?” I asked as I took off the patch, thanking her with an apologetic smile for my unjust attack.

“When the rains came, and the big flood destroyed the world, my people were ready. Not all of them survived, but a small group of us came here, to this mountain top. If you managed to get here, that means you found the maps transcribed by our ancestors. The prophecy told of the flood, the destruction and of the rising of humanity from the ashes. The elders also told that two forces will fight for the fate of the world, as usual—good and evil. When the black bird came wounded to our shores, we thought at first that our savior had arrived, and we took care of him with devotion. We gave him a free hand and complied with all his wishes and requests—mainly to keep him happy so he would stay with us. We were so blinded by his arrival and by the hope for a promised renewal—that without noticing we have been nurturing a monster. When two more boats of survivors arrived, he already ruled us with an iron fist, leading his policy of force, spreading fear, violence, suspicion and distrust with one another—between those who supported him and those who wished to go against him.

“As you probably noticed, my people are black. When more white survivors came, he immediately created a new camp of subjects. He elevated them to a higher position, and gave them privileges, as he forced us to serve them and treat them as our masters. He gave permission to the whites to punish all those who opposed him, gaining a pact of followers that were happy to be in this new position. After their fearful time when they wandered the seas, lost, they now found themselves a safe harbor. They enjoyed a new life of doing nothing, all the while being served by a small group of people. This is how he gained their trust in the beginning, making them more and more egoistic and lazy. When he realized that the hedonism and laziness had spread amongst them, he started treating them violently too, making it clear to them, that they were meant to serve him as well.

“He forced me to concoct special oils.” All of a sudden she choked and started crying. “Plants that I had to brew and make concoctions of drugs that were used to drug the women so he could rape them one by one. Some of them were already pregnant with his child, but with other oils I concocted, I made sure that any white woman who became pregnant miscarried her baby. When he realized that something wasn’t right, he began to rape the black women, and here he was successful. At this point, most of my tribe escaped. They ran for their lives to the forested part of the island—where Cole had no foothold. He didn’t dare go there out of fear that he would be ambushed and revenge would strike him. That is why he kept me and my son hostage for leverage. As long as he is holding me, my people will not dare go after him. They are afraid he will use my powers to hurt them. He kept the young women to himself as a pact of slaves at his mercy. I also stayed to watch over their pregnancies, and with the hope that someday I will get to meet the high priestess of the new world. The one with the rare turquoise eyes that the prophecy foretold of her arrival. She is the only one that can defeat and remove the black bird’s shadow from our future.” Her voice was elated, and her eyes sparkled as she shook my hand warmly. “I don’t know how you plan to beat him, but since you brought backup, you must have some sort of plan. I can now feel it in my heart that finally—we will see redemption!” She concluded her words for the time being, and I felt ashamed. Fixating my eyes on the ground.

“I have no plan, oh black priestess. I came with the intention of returning little Jonathan to his mother’s arms. It’s only in the last few hours that I realized I will have to fight Cole. I am so sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t got a clue as to how I will be able to turn the tables to my advantage.” The only thing I knew for certain was that I would not disclose my pregnancy to her. Even if she was on my side, she was still being controlled by Cole, and with my senses and instinct, I felt like I needed to keep this information hidden, even from her.

“Grace,” she addressed me by name, pronouncing it with a softness that was filled with love and faith. “I don’t know how you will do this and how I will be able to assist you either, but my heart is telling me that you didn’t come here in vain, and at the right time you will know what to do in order to triumph and to eradicate the evil from the world!” The twinkle in her eyes returned and sparked a slither of hope in me too. “I am asking your forgiveness in advance for the things I will be forced to do to you during the ceremony tonight, which is why I am turning to your compassionate heart that is filled with love, that you keep in mind I have to comply with Cole’s instructions so he will not become suspicious, to keep my son safe. If he knew that I had told you of my people’s prophecy, he might act on his threats.” Her voice was reduced to a trembling whisper when she wasn’t able to speak these horrible words.