The Clarion Call - BELLA, DO NOT READ

The Clarion Call

Marjoram blinked her heavy eyes as the monkey failed to answer. Marjoram had expected her to take the news, maybe not well, but better than this. The monkey had straightened in surprised and had frozen, save for a slight twitch in her tail. She must be hurt that she wasn’t there, thought Marjoram.

Marjoram put a hand on the monkey’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Anita. It’s always hard to lose someone. But we did well. The healer did well, you did well, and everyone else. It was just her time.”

“You’re-you’re right,” Anita managed to say. For a moment, Marjoram thought her friend looked a bit frightened. Then the monkey looked her right in the eyes. “Marge, I want to volunteer to stand vigil over her tonight. Her grandniece has young children. I can prepare her for burial instead.”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” replied Marjoram kindly. Anita blinked for a moment, as if digesting her own idea. Then she smiled widely.

“She didn’t have any family beyond her grandniece,” Marjoram continued. “We will probably be the only ones keeping vigil for her tonight. Let’s go. We should be there when the wise women come.” She put an arm around Anita and steered her back toward the Healer’s hut.

“You’re going to keep vigil too?” Anita stammered.

“You shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

“But… didn’t you stay with a patient last night?”

“The woodsman. He’s doing much better. I was just there in case he needed me. I fell asleep in the chair in the corner.”

“And… are you sure he’s well enough to be alone tonight?”

“I think so. We had a long talk about resting when you’re supposed to.”

They walked in silence for a long moment.

“Can you describe to me how it happened?” asked Anita. Marjoram’s cheeks blushed a little at being put on the spot. Anita was the best healer in the village after the actual healer and Marjoram wasn’t sure her own observations wouldn’t be found lacking.

She took a deep breath. “Well, her heartrate was normal. Her breathing was belabored, but that was why we were doing the surgery. The healer gave her two purple spines and she fell asleep in fourteen drum beats.” She told Anita every detail of the surgery the best she could remember it. Anita listened carefully, wincing sometimes but never interrupting.

“What does the healer think went wrong?” Anita asked when Marjoram was finished.
“He thinks it was her heart,” Marge told her. “He said the blood was too thick and heavy for it and it got tired. It just didn’t want to pump anymore.”

“Blood consistency. Such a simple problem. If we had had the right medicines… Lotus blossoms for example…”

“If only we had. But there’s no telling if that was just a symptom of some deeper problem...” Marjoram rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she spoke and caught Anita’s sharp light eyes following the motion of her fist. Marjoram laughed to prove that another sleepless night was going to be alright. The operation studio appeared along the jungle lined road.


The night was warmer than the day had been. Fireflies blinked from the treetops. The oil lamp flickered steadily in the window. Anita sat cross legged just inside the threshold of the operating studio, tail draped over her knees. Marjoram had evaded all of her good natured attempts to get rid of her for the night. She sat on the other side of the room, drawing humid air into her lungs and feeling heavier with every slow breath.

Between them lay the patient from the morning. They had done, now, all that could be done for her. Anita had stitched up the wound in her chest while Marjoram had visited her hut and found her best clothes. They had washed her and dressed her, plaited her long white hair and placed pristine seashells over her closed her eyes. They had laid her frail limbs out peacefully and offered her flowers which spilled out of several small bowls around the room. Most importantly they kept the lamp burning brightly.

The old woman’s spirit would stay near her body in the day after passing, watching over her grandniece or maybe accompanying Marjoram and Anita as they worked. But when night fell she would be able to pass over the dark as if it were water, drawn to the light that beckoned spirits, that only they could see. The lamp would mark her starting point, helping her navigate a straight line, indicating how far she still had to go. Marjoram and Anita would be the last mortals to bid her farewell on behalf of the village.

“Are you alright sitting alone for a while?” asked Anita. “I still have to wash and refill the cleaning buckets.”

“I’ll take them,” Marjoram’s words came out more as mumbles then as words. She was more tired than she had realized. “You did all the cleaning. I should wash the buckets.”

“Listen to you,” said Anita shortly. “I’ll do them. Just don’t fall asleep. Keep the lamp burning until I get back.”
Marjoram nodded and watched Anita rise silently and leave the operation studio. She could just hear the sounds of Anita’s feet as she staggered away, carrying the buckets that she would dump far away in the forest. Marge pictured the woman’s spirit, no longer old and yet not young, sailing across the darkened jungle as if on a boat.

Marjoram lost track of time but she stayed awake enough to watch the flickering of the lamp. She had to make sure it didn’t get dark. Slowly, she became aware of a low note, almost musical, that broke the quiet sounds of the night. It was the spirit boat, in trouble. It was snagged on a tree in the dark. Marjoram needed to wade out and free it.
A sudden fear rose up in Marjoram, a fear of seeing the old woman in the boat and knowing that she was also on the floor in the operating studio. The darkness seemed heavier than mere night now, it carried other things in its currents that Marjoram could not know.

Marjoram thought of the old woman calling for help all night, of no one coming to her aid, of the sun rising on her and stranding her and stranding the spirit in the forest forever, perhaps.

Marjoram checked the lamp as she rose. The thought flickered across her mind that she must be dreaming, but the light in the window still burned brightly, so she wasn’t worried. The note rang out again through the forest and Marjoram followed.

It may have been a couple moments that she stumbled through the forest. It may have been an hour. But soon enough she twisted her foot and a twig scratched her arm and she knew she was awake and not dreaming. She knew she was alive and wouldn’t be able to see a spirit on its journey home. But when she turned around to see how far she had slept walked she could see the lamp flickering in the window of the surgery. Somehow, she had moved in a straight line, like the spirit had. The strange sound came again. Marge looked for the source of it and saw the cold glimmer of a torch through the jungle leaves. She put her hands in front of her face to block against more stray branches and continued forward.

“Anita?” she asked when she reached it.