Brida Page 17
She was back. She remembered everything now: the noise, the clapping, the dancing, the trance. She remembered having taken off her clothes in front of all these people, and now she felt rather awkward. But she also remembered her meeting with the Teacher. She tried to master her feelings of shame and fear and anxiety—they would always be with her, and she must get used to them.
Wicca asked the three Initiates to stand in the very middle of the semicircle formed by the women. The witches joined hands and made a ring.
They sang songs that no one now dared to accompany; the sounds flowed from their barely open lips, creating a strange vibration, which grew ever shriller until it resembled the cry of some crazed bird. At some point in the future, she would learn how to make those sounds. She would learn many more things, until she became a Teacher, too. Then other men and women would be initiated by her into the Tradition of the Moon.
All of this, however, would happen at the appointed moment. She had all the time in the world, now that she had found her destiny again, and had someone to help her. Eternity was hers.
Everyone appeared to have strange colors around them, and Brida felt slightly bewildered. She liked the world as it had been before.
The witches stopped singing.
“The Initiation of the Moon is finished and complete,” said Wicca. “The world is now a field, and you will work to make sure that there is a good harvest.”
“I feel strange,” said one of the Initiates. “Everything’s blurred.”
“What you’re seeing is the energy field that surrounds each individual, their aura, as we call it. That is the first step along the path of the Great Mysteries. The sensation will soon fade, and later I will teach you how to awaken it again.”
With one swift, agile movement, she flung her ritual dagger to the ground. It stuck fast, the handle still trembling with the force of the impact.
“The ceremony is over,” she said.
Brida went over to Lorens. His eyes were shining, and she felt how very proud he was of her and how much he loved her. They could grow together, create a new way of living, discover a whole Universe that lay before them, just waiting for people of courage like them.
But there was another man, too. While she was talking to Wicca’s Teacher, she had made her choice, because that other man would be able to take her hand during difficult moments, and lead her with experience and love through the Dark Night of Faith. She would learn to love him, and her love for him would be as great as her respect. They were both walking the same road to knowledge, and because of him she had reached the point where she was now. With him, she would one day learn the Tradition of the Sun.
Now she knew that she was a witch. She had learned the art of witchcraft over many centuries and was back where she should be. From that night on, Wisdom and knowledge would be the most important things in her life.
“We can leave now,” she said to Lorens. He was gazing with admiration at this woman dressed all in black; Brida, however, knew that the Magus would be seeing her dressed all in blue.
She held out the bag containing her other clothes.
“You go ahead and see if you can get us a lift. I need to speak to someone.”
Lorens took the bag but only went a little way toward the path through the forest. The ritual was over and they were back in the world of men, with their loves, their jealousies, and their wars of conquest.
Fear had come back, too. Brida was behaving oddly.
“I don’t know if God exists,” he said to the trees around him.
“And yet I can’t think about that now, because I, too, am face-to-face with the mystery.”
He felt he was talking in a different way, with a strange confidence he had never known he possessed. But, at that moment, he believed that the trees were listening to him.
“The people here may not understand me; they may despise my efforts, but I know that I’m as brave as they are, because I seek God even though I don’t believe in Him. If He exists, He is the God of the Brave.”
Lorens noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. The night had passed, and he had understood nothing of what went on. He knew that he had entered into a trance state, but that was all. However, the fact that his hands were shaking had nothing to do with that plunge into the Dark Night, as Brida called it.
He looked up at the sky, still full of low clouds. God was the God of the Brave. And He would understand him, because the brave are those who make decisions despite their fear, who are tormented by the Devil every step of the way and gripped by anxiety about their every action, wondering if they are right or wrong. And yet nevertheless, they act. They do so because they also believe in miracles, like the witches who had danced around the fire that night.
God might be trying to return to him through that woman who was now walking away toward another man. If she left, perhaps God would leave forever. She was his opportunity, because she knew that the best way to immerse oneself in God was through love. He didn’t want to lose the chance of getting her back.
He took a deep breath, feeling the cold, pure air of the forest in his lungs, and he made a sacred promise to himself.
God was the God of the Brave.
Brida walked over to the Magus. They met by the fire. Words came only with difficulty.
She was the one to break the silence.
“We are on the same path.”
He nodded.
“So let us follow it together.”
“But you don’t love me,” said the Magus.
“I do love you. I don’t yet know my love for you, but I do love you. You’re my Soul Mate.”
The Magus still had a distant look in his eye. He was thinking about the Tradition of the Sun, and how one of the most important lessons of the Tradition of the Sun was Love. Love was the only bridge between the visible and the invisible known to everyone. It was the only effective language for translating the lessons that the Universe taught to human beings every day.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m staying with you.”
“Your boyfriend is waiting,” replied the Magus. “I will bless your love.”
Brida looked at him, puzzled.
“No one can possess a sunset like the one we saw that evening,” he went on. “Just as no one can possess an afternoon of rain beating against the window, or the serenity of a sleeping child, or the magical moment when the waves break on the rocks. No one can possess the beautiful things of this Earth, but we can know them and love them. It is through such moments that God reveals himself to mankind.
“We are not the masters of the sun or of the afternoon or of the waves or even of the vision of God, because we cannot possess ourselves.”
The Magus held out his hand to Brida and gave her a flower.
“When we first met—although it seems to me that I’ve always known you, because I can’t remember the world before that—I showed you the Dark Night. I wanted to see how you would face up to your own limitations. I knew that you were my Soul Mate, and that you would teach me everything I needed to learn—that is why God divided man and woman.”
Brida touched the flower. It seemed to her that it was the first flower she had seen in months. Spring had arrived.
“People give flowers as presents because flowers contain the true meaning of Love. Anyone who tries to possess a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower in a field, you will keep it forever, because the flower is part of the evening and the sunset and the smell of damp earth and the clouds on the horizon.”
Brida was looking at the flower. The Magus took it from her and returned it to the forest.
Brida’s eyes filled with tears. She was proud of her Soul Mate.
“That is what the forest taught me. That you will never be mine, and that is why I will never lose you. You were my hope during my days of loneliness, my anxiety during moments of doubt, my certainty during moments of faith.
“Knowing that my
Soul Mate would come one day, I devoted myself to learning the Tradition of the Sun. Knowing that you existed was my one reason for continuing to live.”
Brida could no longer conceal her tears.
“Then you came, and I understood all of this. You came to free me from the slavery I myself had created, to tell me that I was free to return to the world and to the things of the world. I understood everything I needed to know, and I love you more than all the women I have ever known, more than I loved the woman who, quite unwittingly, exiled me to the forest. I will always remember now that love is liberty. That was the lesson it took me so many years to learn. That is the lesson that sent me into exile and now sets me free again.”
The flames crackled in the fire, and a few latecomers were beginning to say their good-byes. But Brida wasn’t listening to anything that was going on around her.
“Brida!” she heard a distant voice call.
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” said the Magus. It was a line from an old film he had seen once. He felt happy because he had turned another important page in the Tradition of the Sun. He felt the presence of his Teacher, who had chosen that night for his new Initiation.
“I will always remember you, and you will remember me, just as we will remember the evening, the rain on the windows, and all the things we’ll always have because we cannot possess them.”
“Brida!” Lorens called again.
“Go in peace,” said the Magus. “And dry those tears, or tell him that the smoke from the fire got in your eyes. Never forget me.”
He knew he didn’t need to say this, but he said it anyway.
Wicca noticed that some people had left a few of their belongings behind. She would have to phone them and tell them to come and fetch them.
“The fire will have burned down soon,” she said.
He remained silent. There were still a few flames, and he still had his eyes fixed on them.
“I don’t regret that I once fell in love with you,” Wicca went on.
“Nor do I,” replied the Magus.
She felt an enormous desire to talk about Brida, but she said nothing. The eyes of the man beside her inspired respect and wisdom.
“It’s a shame I’m not your Soul Mate,” she added. “We would have made a good couple.”
But the Magus wasn’t listening to what Wicca was saying. There was a vast world before him and many things to do. He had to help plant God’s garden, he had to teach people to teach themselves. He would meet other women, fall in love, and live this incarnation as intensely as he could. That night completed one stage of his existence, and a new Dark Night lay ahead, but the next stage would be much more enjoyable and joyful, much closer to what he had dreamed. He knew this because of the flowers and the forests and because of young women who arrive one day led by God’s hand, not knowing that they are there in order for destiny to be fulfilled. He knew this because of the Tradition of the Moon and the Tradition of the Sun.
About the Author
PAULO COELHO is one of the most beloved and successful writers of our time. With sales of more than 100 million copies worldwide, his books have been translated into 66 languages and published in 150 countries. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards and was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 2002. In 2007 he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Mr. Coelho also writes a weekly column syndicated throughout the world.
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Also by Paulo Coelho
THE ALCHEMIST
THE PILGRIMAGE
THE VALKYRIES
BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN AND WEPT
THE FIFTH MOUNTAIN
VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE
THE DEVIL AND MISS PRYM
MANUAL OF THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT
ELEVEN MINUTES
THE ZAHIR
LIKE THE FLOWING RIVER
THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO
Credits
Jacket photograph © Maria Taglienti/Getty Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BRIDA. Copyright © 2008 by Paulo Coelho. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2008 ISBN: 9780061807459
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
Warning
Prologue
Ireland
Winter and Spring
About the Author
Other Books by Paulo Coelho
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher