The Orchard of Hope (31 page)

Kelsey gently placed both her hands
on the injured leg. She put aside her own pain and focused on
making Maggie well again. She recalled the bird she had healed and
followed the same instructions, but she put a lot more of her heart
into the task. She concentrated on the idea of Maggie being healthy
and walking with legs that were strong and fully capable of
walking, running and jumping.

This was much more difficult than
healing the bird’s swollen tongue, and it took far longer. The
results weren’t even as great as Kelsey had hoped, but Kelsey had
put a lot more effort into the work. When she was finished,
Maggie’s injury was scabbed over with dried blood, and the skin was
closing. It would probably leave a scar, but at least Maggie no
longer had an open wound. She wouldn’t get an infection or become
ill from the injury, and that was important.

“That’s not very pretty,” Kelsey
said as she turned her head sideways and stared at her work. She
wished she had done a better job. She felt that Maggie deserved
more for bravely attempting to negotiate with the wolves, but
Kelsey was already tired from the small amount of healing she had
done. She wasn’t even sure if she had enough energy to heal
herself.

“It’ll work,” Maggie replied in a
tired voice. “Some things take time. At least this will take less
time than it would if we had left it on its own.” She gave Kelsey a
weak but grateful smile as Kelsey stood up. Kelsey staggered
momentarily in a wave of dizziness, but then she steadied herself
and reached for Maggie with her uninjured hand. She kept her
wounded limb pulled tightly into her side and protected.

“Is there another healer here?”
Kelsey asked Roland.

“No,” he answered. “The Brothers
of Discipline and Sisters of Mercy are farmers. They live simply,
and their talents are little more than devotion to hard work.” He
looked over both Kelsey’s injured hand and the working one with the
mark on the forearm. “There may be a nurse who can set the bones in
your broken hand. I’ll inquire about it.”

Kelsey glanced down at her hand.
She took a deep breath as she looked through the orchard trees at
the rows of wolves lined up on the other side.

“Can you heal at all? Maybe just a
little?” she asked Roland.

“No. But I can contact Megan for
some guidance,” he offered.

“Thank you,” Kelsey said as she
turned her attention back to Maggie. It would be a long journey
home if she had to deal with a broken hand along the way. It would
also leave them somewhat unprotected, and this worried
her.

Maggie cautiously tested her
damaged leg and put her weight on it briefly as she took a step
forward. She could walk, but she moved slowly, and she
limped.

“How do you feel?” Kelsey asked
with concern.

“A little dizzy, but I’ll be
fine.”

Kelsey nodded with empathy. She was
feeling light-headed herself.

“I think Bardou is ready to
negotiate,” Kelsey said as they took a few steps. “Do you feel up
to talking with him?”

“I always feel like having a
conversation,” Maggie replied. She smiled again.

“Good. I’ll help you get
there.”

Maggie put her arm around Kelsey
and slowly made her way out to where Bardou was still waiting. On
their way through the orchard, they passed several bodies, both
human and wolf. When Maggie saw Sister Clementine’s lifeless body
resting on the ground, she turned her head away.

“She didn’t have a chance,” Kelsey
said. “She didn’t understand what she was up against, and she
wouldn’t listen to anyone.”

“I know.” Maggie’s tear glistened
briefly in the sunlight before she wiped it away. She focused her
eyes on Bardou as they made their way slowly near him. As they
approached, the wolf took several steps forward from the pack so
that he could talk more privately.

“I’m sorry that the situation has
come to what it is, and I appreciate your patience,” Maggie said to
the wolf. “I’d like to resolve this issue. There should be no
fighting where hope is involved.”

“I’m done fighting,” Bardou
replied. He repeated what he had told Kelsey earlier.

“What’s changed your mind?” Maggie
asked.

“I was fighting with
determination. I thought I needed the hope, no matter how much it
cost the pack or me. If I didn’t get the hope to pay off my debt,
it would be the end of the world for me. But then it was as if my
mind had suddenly cleared, and now I don’t believe there was a
debt.” He paused to lick his nose. “We wolves are being threatened.
We were told that if we didn’t repay a large debt with hope,
something terrible would happen. Our lives depend upon providing
hope to someone else, but wolves are scavengers and have no hope to
spare. We’ve been forced to steal. We know this is wrong, but now
that I don’t believe in the debt, I don’t think this should
continue.”

“Are the consequences real?”
Maggie asked. “What will happen if you don’t keep supplying hope to
the person who wants it?”

“I don’t know,” Bardou replied.
“But it makes me angry that I’ve been used in this manner. I don’t
like someone bullying my pack for selfish gain. Wolves have enough
problems with survival.”

“Can’t you just call off the
pack?” Kelsey asked. In her mind, it appeared to be a simple matter
of troops obeying a commander.

“It won’t work. The others don’t
believe as I do. If I walk away, they’ll elect a new leader and
come back to finish the job.”

“How are your lives in danger?”
Maggie said. “And who is this person who’s been threatening
you?”

“I don’t know much about him, and
I’ve never seen his face, but he goes by the name of Crane. I have
no memory of exactly how our lives were in danger. It doesn’t even
make sense now. I think Mr. Crane has been lying to us. He only
wanted to use us to steal hope for him.”

“What does this person want with
so much hope? After all, it’s not something that can be stored and
saved up for later.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes he would
tell us to eat the hope so that we had the strength to continue
these missions to steal from you.” Bardou looked over his shoulder
and saw that the pack was still sitting in formation, panting
heavily as they waited for their next instruction. “I’m sorry, but
I don’t even know how he convinced us that we should steal it for
him or that our lives would be in danger if we didn’t
obey.”

Bardou shook his head slowly and
then licked an open wound on his front leg a few times. “All I know
is that we were told to continue stealing the hope until our debt
was paid. I kept having a dream about choking, and in my dream a
bird saved me, but I don’t know how. It seems silly now when I
think about it. I’m pretty sure it was just a dream and it never
happened.”

“We need a solution,” Maggie
said.

“It could be a spell,” Kelsey
interjected when everyone else was silently lost in thought over
the perplexing situation. “The sorcerer must be behind
this!”

“I agree. I’m sure he is,” Maggie
replied. “But knowing who’s to blame doesn’t solve our current
problem.”

“The immediate need is to stop the
fighting,” Kelsey stated. Then she turned to Bardou and asked, “How
can we convince the other wolves to stop fighting? Can we negotiate
with them?”

“No,” Bardou replied. “There are
too many of them, and most of them won’t trust you. They’ll start
the battle again.” He looked at the sheathed knife strapped to
Kelsey’s hip. “When you cut me, I saw through the lie. That’s when
I knew we didn’t owe anyone anything, and we certainly didn’t need
to steal anyone else’s hope.”

“Well … should I cut every member
of the pack?” Kelsey offered as if she were handing out cookies and
milk. Maggie chuckled briefly at the thought.

“They won’t understand. It will
only incite the ones you haven’t cut to begin fighting again. We
need a better solution.”

“I have a suggestion,” Maggie
announced after a short period of thought. “And I’m certain it will
work.”

“What is it?” Kelsey
asked.

“Sister Clementine wanted to give
the wolves the trees,” Maggie said.

“We can’t give away the king’s
hope,” Kelsey replied.

“No,” Maggie said as she nodded.
“But we can share it.” She turned to Bardou. “Your pack needs a
continual supply of hope, so you’re stealing from others. But what
if you could grow your own supply? We could make cuttings from
these trees so that you could plant your own orchard. After a bit
of time, you’ll be able to grow your own hope.”

“That won’t help at all. It could
take years for them to cultivate trees that are large enough to
produce hope!’ Kelsey exclaimed.

“If an ordinary person is growing
the hope,” Maggie agreed with a knowing smile. “But if we had
someone who’s very good with plants, it won’t take as
long.”

“The Brothers and Sisters here at
the abbey are regular farmers,” Kelsey said. “They don’t have any
special skills or fertilizers to speed up the growth process. Even
if they do everything perfectly for the trees, it will still take
years before the new cuttings produce hope. There’s no one here who
can speed up the process.”

“I didn’t say he was
here.”

“Who’s going to help?” Kelsey
asked. She felt a wave of dizziness, but it quickly passed, and she
asked the question again.

“Nicholas,” Maggie answered with
confidence. “And he doesn’t need to be here.”

Chapter

22

The Path of Discernment

“Our next lesson is on
discernment,” Moss announced.

“How to tell right from wrong?”
Nicholas asked.

“Discernment is more complex than
a simple right-and-wrong issue. When you have discernment, it means
that you can separate things that are different — reality and
illusion, for example.”

“Or white chocolate and vanilla,”
Newton interjected. “They’re not the same at all, but they can look
exactly alike.”

“Food is irrelevant, Newton,” Moss
said.

“Speak for yourself, Moss. But if
you had a chocolate allergy, then I’d bet you’d care a whole lot
more.”

“No one is allergic to chocolate
here.”

“So,” Nicholas said, interrupting
the exchange between Moss and Newton before it became an argument,
“as we discussed in the lesson with the clock hands, part of
discernment is examining all the potential realities to figure out
which one is true?”

“Yes,” Moss said as he raised one
of his fingers in the air to make a point. Nicholas could see that
the hair on Moss’ arm was thicker than he remembered. Moss
continued speaking, “Reality and unreality are complex. Some people
see what they want, while others see what they
’
re told to see. Very few learn to see clearly for
themselves.”

“When people see what’s real, do
they recognize it as being real? Do they know the difference?”
Nicholas asked. He was thinking about all of Mos
s'
strange ways and wondered if Moss could actually
see reality, since he appeared to live in a world all his
own.

“To some extent, but not always.
That’s why we all need discernment, but it’s a particularly
important lesson for you.” Nicholas nodded that he understood, and
Moss continued. “Now, what’s the difference between a ceiling and a
wall?”

Nicholas immediately looked at
Newton for guidance in answering this odd question. The gargoyle
motioned with his paw in a circular manner, indicating that
Nicholas should go ahead and answer, so Nicholas did.

“One is over our heads, and one
isn’t,” Nicholas said with a hint of a question in his
voice.

“Good. What else?” Moss stood up
and paced. As he moved about shuffling his feet, Nicholas noticed
that he was barefoot, and the hair on his legs had grown unusually
long and thick. There was also hair on the bottoms of Moss’
feet.

“Are you OK?” Nicholas asked,
pointing to Mos
s'
ankles. Moss paused in
stride and followed the direction of Nichola
s'
finger until his eyes rested on his own exposed
lower leg.