Against The Odds (15 page)

Nana watched as Rebecca left and the sadness of the girl’s
future brought tears to her eyes.
What will happen to the poor
child?

Rebecca went home filled
with fear and
understanding. She told her parents what Nana had told her and her
mother wept.

“Oh Rebecca, you always ask why we never had any other
children. That is the reason. We were too afraid and we could not
even imagine putting anyone else through
the trauma. My
baby, we had decided we would not have children, but by some
miracle, you were conceived. We never understood it and worried so
much about you. What did it mean that you were conceived? The
doctors told us that my contraception had failed, but we knew
better. We had tried to cheat the curse and could not. Once you
were born, we were so grateful for the gift of you that we had
denied the trauma that was inevitable in your life. We lied to
ourselves that this time could be different. Your father and I just
deluded ourselves with false hope and fantasy. Oh, my dear Rebecca,
we are so sorry.”

She held
her daughter and continued to weep, tears of frustration, fear and
helplessness. Rebecca was still bewildered by these revelations and
asked.

“Mum, what was
it like, the years before you met
Dad?”

“
Oh baby, it is so horrible. You have to be strong, all the
time. You need so much patience and it is painful.”

Her
father, who had been silent, said softy.

“Sweetpea, at least you will be truly loved. The good
thin
g that comes out of this is that one man will love you
so much he will be prepared to die for you. The Curse was not based
on love and they never thought about love. Sweetpea, you will know
true love one day. Your mother has given me that. A chance to truly
love a woman. Your Protector will be privileged to be the one. You
must talk to us about it, anytime. Do not be afraid, because you
have the power of love.”

“
But, Dad, what if I don’t ever meet this Protector? What
happens to me?”

Her father was appalled
by this question. It had
never occurred to him that the Protector might fail.
What would
happen to my daughter? Would she just die slowly, the way Portia
had done, tortured by her desires and not being able to fulfill
them? Both Felicia and Portia had died within a few years of the
casting of the curse. Felicia from the sheer hatred or guilt and
Portia from longing. They had destroyed each other in their bid to
win. What would happen? Would my daughter die from longing?
He
shuddered at the thought and knew he would never tell his daughter
these fears.

“Darling, Sweetpea, there has never been a time when the
Protector did not come. I spent many years searching for something,
not knowing what it was. He will not be able to resist his calling
to you. He will find
you. That is how the Universe works. It
is about balance. Just as The Darkness is born, so too is a
Protector. You must believe this, for it will give you hope and
strength to endure the injustice you will feel over the years. In
any case, you might be lucky and he might find you sooner, rather
than later.”

He
said these words with such conviction that he was starting to
believe them himself. But the dark nagging thought loomed at the
back of his mind. Nothing had been constant.
She might meet him when she
is
eighty years old or twenty years old. There is no way
of telling.

The next morning, Nana spoke long and hard to her parents
over the phone. They spoke in hushed tones and as
much as she tried, she could
not to hear the conversation. Her parents took her to Nana that
evening, warning her that her symbol would be revealed. When they
arrived, there was an old woman, with long white hair sitting on
the couch. She had sharp brown eyes and she stared openly at
Rebecca.

“
Yes, she must keep the symbol on her tail. That is where she
will receive the greatest protection.”

Rebecca
clung to her mother, suddenly afraid. While
she had grown up in a family filled with magic, potions and talking
to dead ancestors, she had never heard anyone talk about a tail
before. Was she now an animal? Had her family gone mad?

“Theresa, please, you
are frightening the child.
What do you mean by her tail?”

“Your daughter resembles the green dragon and her tail, at
her root chakra, is where her power to fight is strongest. She must
also learn to use breath. Yes, she must use words, like chants and
affirmations
to conquer her enemies. Yes, she looks like a
green dragon. See how her eyes sparkle with emotion.”

The old woman chatted and said many other things to her
parents, but she was still reeling from the description of her as a
dragon. These words did
not comfort Rebecca. She was more
horrified at being called a green dragon that anything
else.

“The symbol for the girl is a butterfly. It is known for
its power as a messenger to the soul and the blessing of happiness
and pleasure. She needs a butterfly
which will complement
the Protector. I see blue and white around him and much pain and
passion. The butterfly shall be blue.”

Rebecca’s fourteen-year-old brain could not absorb it all.
She ran out of the house and into the garden. She sat on
the
swing in the corner of the garden, surrounded by yellow daisies and
red carnations. Her grandmother was an aggressive gardener, where
all her plants and herbs were arranged in the order of balance and
harmony with the Universe.
I want to go home. I don’t want to
hear about dragons and Protectors and tails. I want to go home. I
just want to be like all the other girls
at school,
worrying about growing breasts and boys. Why can’t I be like all
the other girls at school?
She started to cry and saw her
father approaching her.

“Dad. Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear about dragons
and things. I am just a kid. I want to be like the other kids. Why
can’t I just go to the Mall and shop and talk about boys? Why am I
talking about a tail? Dad, please, take
me home. I want to
go to my room.”

He
went to her and held his daughter
. Tears rolled down his face for his
Sweetpea.
She has done nothing to deserve this.
He listened to her angry, frightened tears
and could not disagree with
her.
Why such a burden for my precious
daughter? Why, oh why?
They cried together on the swing and were comforted by
their tears.

“Oh my baby, I would die to have it different for you. I
would do anything to save you from this pain. I know this is
frightening for you. It is so for me too. You are my baby, my
precious miracle baby. I would do anything to save you from this
curse.”

He wiped
his eyes.

“Oh Sweetpea, you must do whatever is necessary to protect
yourself from The Darkness. It is vicious
and can kill you
slowly. We must try to weaken its power. Please, baby, you must be
strong for you and me and your mother. We need your strength now,
okay?”

His urgent tone soothed her frightened nerves and soon they
were talking generally about life
and magic and dragons. She
asked many questions about them and he told her all he knew. He
tried to make her realize the importance of their symbolism as the
guardian and protector of the precious, but she, so young, had
vivid images of spitting fire and red eyes.

Theresa
the crone, as Rebecca called her, was waiting patiently inside the
house. She seemed completely unaware of the fear and trauma of the
girl, or the intimacy she had shared with her father.

“Rebecca, I have discussed with your mother and Nana
what we shall do. We think it best that your butterfly remains part
of you, as flesh and blood, so it cannot be taken from you. We will
arrange for you to have a tattoo on your tai.. ur, sorry, back.
This way you will not lose it. I know someone who
will do it just right for you. There is
very little pain my dear and your Nana will be there. Is that
alright with you?”

Rebecca
simply nodded. There was no point in arguing about it. The crone
had spoken, so it would be.

Despite her fears about it, the tattoo-making process was
not too frightening. She had been initially shocked by the shearing
pain when she felt her skin was being carefully stripped off her.
But her body succumbed to the pain and she was cleverly distracted.
The crone’s granddaughter
, a young woman with many rings on
her face, was pleasant and funny. She treated the tattoo like it
was a work of art and Rebecca as her most precious canvass. She
played heavy metal music as she worked and it distracted Rebecca
from the tingling pain of the needles of the machine. They chatted
about many silly things and it took almost three hours on that
morning before the young woman announced that her art was done.
Rebecca was surprisingly excited. She rushed home and looked at it
in the mirror and did so for many days to come. She felt the pain
occasionally when she was in bed, but she loved the idea that she
was the only one in her school who had a tattoo. The butterfly had
calmed her fear and it made her feel special and beautiful. She had
a beautiful secret on her back and she loved it.

Her parents were relieved with her response, because they
had feared the permanent presence of the butterfly on her body
would remind the girl every day of the burden of the curse.
They
talked about her obsession with butterflies when she
was five years old, how she spent hours trying to catch them so
that she could whisper to them. Nana had told her that if you
whisper your wish to a butterfly, it would come true. The girl
spent a great deal of time trying to talk to the butterflies. Her
parents, experienced in these matters, should have seen the
connection between the girl and butterflies and the comfort and joy
they brought her. However, when she was five, they had convinced
themselves that their daughter had escaped the curse. It had been a
selfish and ridiculous fantasy, they agreed.

And so it began the war of love and hate, their daughter
armed with her new-found power and protection, her war against The
Darkness. No amount of rationali
zing and magic could allay their fears, that perhaps, this
time, love would not be the victor.

*****

Clayton
did not look surprised, shocked or even horrified. He sat in the
same spot as she paced and spoke.

“
The butterfly was my protection. It was made for me Clayton.
That is why I was upset when you asked me about it. Clayton, how
did you know about my butterfly?”

And he
told her, about his wife and what had happened.

“
So, it is also your butterfly, it protected you
too?”

“Yes, I think so. I understand what you are saying, about
the curse. But last night, you kept calling me a white
tiger
. Jono said I was a lion. Tell me what that
means.”

“I
asked Nana who was my protector. I was starting to feel that there
was no such a thing. In my dreams, she showed me a white tiger,
pacing around me, in a large building. She said his power
was
in his hands. I never understood it. I never understood
why she spoke about a tiger, but now I see. Clayton your eyes, that
was the thing about you that was so weird. I should have known.
Okay, if we are being honest, I think I knew that first time we
met. I just couldn’t bear this moment, when I would have to tell
you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being involved, of having
to deal with all this. I wanted things with you to be pure, you
know? I think I knew the first time, but I desperately needed to
deny it. I wanted to believe that you would want
me,
not the job of protecting me, does this make
sense?”

“
No, it was not your choice to make. You did not decide who I
would be and neither did I. Why did you think you could control me
or the events?”

“I
just wanted the time to.... for you to be with
me, Clayton, plain, simple. I wanted this weekend to be that time,
two people, having fun together, do you understand?”

“
You were going to deceive me? Pretend nothing else
mattered?”

“Yes, and I was going to deceive
me, so I could have
the sheer pleasure of knowing what it was like to be loved by a
man, not a tiger, or anything. I was doing a good job of it, too. I
wanted to know what it is to be loved, like any other
girl.”

Tears were starting in her
eyes.

“Was
that so wrong, Clayton, to want to be loved,
without Protectors, Darkness, or anything else?”

“Oh Rebecca, you are a terrible liar. You thought you could
keep it from me and hopefully, it would go away. You would never
have told me. You never trusted me, you
never felt protected
by me. Come here, let me hold you. Don’t cry and don’t lie to
yourself or to me. It will not help. It will just piss me off and
that will be no help at all.”