The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales Read Online Free Page B

said.

    No, no, no.
    I want to stay here.
    Here, where the neversleeping sea is my heavenly bridegroom, where the yellow flames of the gorse speak in tongues in my ear. I have found the garden of Eden, and you want to banish me from it, lead me into a world that is full of serpents.

    â€˜We have been chosen!’ she declared, almost gloating. I remembered how she had said, yesterday, ‘I was hoping for a miracle. And now I’ve got one. ’ This was why she’d come here. Blatantly. Going to a holy place looking for a miracle. Taking a short cut. Not preparing herself, waiting in patience and humility until it pleased God to elect her; but pushing, rushing forward until she was in the front row.
    Buddhist retreats.
    Goddess worship.
    A miracle hunter. She probably put her visions on the internet.
    The fact that I shun the world does not mean that I am unworldly.
    She won’t get far, I thought. Then remembered that she had already got exactly where she wanted.
    I was exhausted. I felt as though I was fighting her for my life on the island.

    I started climbing the mountain. My feet stumbled. I looked down.
    I was walking, not on coarse short grass, but on a smooth, black surface. A tarmac road. A great wind came rushing down from the hills, bringing with it land smells of wet earth and leaves and grass.
    The wind was humming and sighing and singing in my ears, lifting up my heart.
    I do not want to go back into the World.
    I felt as though with each step I made, I covered a mile.
    The World is full of noise and distraction, destruction and falsehood.
    A bird sang from somewhere, hidden in a tree. A dog barked.
    I want to stay on this island. Everything I want is here.
    I had left the island. I was walking on the road that He had laid down for me. Clouds moved across the sky. I was being propelled towards the mountains at great speed. Fine rain touched the skin of my face, my arms. On the island, I had been walking in hot sunshine.
    The mountains drew closer together. A valley opened in front of me. Long, dried-up grass stalks in yellows and browns, green leaves; beyond that, grey and purple peaks.
    Build my church here.
    Stones appeared from nowhere. Great blocks of rock, the colour of the mountains. A tidy stack of slates, the colour of the sky. I heard the whine of a cement mixer, saw figures run to and fro. Scaffolding appeared. The sun was hot on my arms and back.
    I was sitting on the mountain outside the Saint’s cave. On the far horizon, a ragged bank of peaks stood grey and purple against the sky.
    Now I knew where. I still did not know why.
    Because it is the will of God, I told myself. That should have been enough for anybody. It should have been more than enough for me.
    Who was I to question the will of God?
    Who was Jacob to question the will of God? I was Jacob. I was in the desert at night, alone. It was cold. The wind whistled and sighed. A shadow rose up next to me, and I clasped it and fought it and finally overcame it. I forced the struggling form down onto the sand, and in the orange light of the rising sun examined its face.
    It was my own face that looked back at me. I was looking up at my own face.

    â€˜I’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow,’ she said as we were walking away from the chapel that evening after service.
    Sunlight lay on the water like a wide, shining road that appeared to connect us with the mainland.
    We reached the fork in the road. She stopped and turned towards me.
    â€˜What will you do?’
    It was quiet, so quiet. The evening breeze whistled all around us. The waves sighed. From far away, I heard the call of a seagull.
    I thought of the voice that I had heard.
    I thought of the visions I had been given to see.
    I thought of green and golden stalks of grass, purple mountain peaks.
    A great noise filled my ears. It was the sound of my blood rushing through me, of my heart beating.

Melangell
    Died c 590

    Melangell was an Irish princess who