Sacred Sierra (34 page)

And yet still the water seemed to enchant us, coming after such a long time without it; it was as if we ourselves were soaking up something of its life and energy along with the soil and rock. The house was made of porous sandstone, and although the walls were almost a metre thick, I was curious rather than concerned to see whether the water would eventually soak through to the inside. In the older part of the house they were held together with nothing more than mud: heavy rain could damage the very fabric of the building. But even still I felt wonderment more than worry.

By the fourth day the rain seemed to ease a little, but still it fell: less persistent, but a drizzle kept the process of rehydration continuing between the heavier bursts. We started contemplating a temporary evacuation, but decided to see how things were in the morning.

We awoke to birdsong, and the streaming light of dawn breaking through the window. I got up and looked out: everywhere there was water, pools and puddles of it shining up like mirrors from the garden, the patio. The drip, drip of the leaks that had kept us company through the nights had stopped. We walked down to the kitchen and opened up the doors and windows on to the new wet world. Beyond the patio
the
bees were already buzzing merrily away from flower to flower while beads of light shone from every leaf of every bush and tree. I put on some boots and went out to explore, happy to feel the sun on my face after so many days trapped inside. The sky was clear and blue, the air almost still, with just a slight cooling breeze. I looked down towards the village in the far distance; the valley appeared to have changed its tone: greener, darker, denser. Tree trunks were sodden and almost black against the brilliant sunlight. The ground was soft underfoot, sinking in a way I had never known it to here, water oozing out at the sides where my feet pressed down. I had never loved water so much as now, had never longed so deeply for rain and been so entranced by it once it came. The sun could shine ceaselessly now for months: I didn’t care. The odd shower over the past weeks had done little to break the drought. But now our mountain was sitting like a sponge, and life on the land could continue. There would be plenty of water in the spring, water in the river in the valley, water for everything and everyone.

I climbed up the slope to the
era
and over to the old oak tree. The drops falling from its budding leaves and the sound they made as they splashed on to the ground below made it seem as though it were moving, shaking itself dry like a cat after an accidental soaking. But there was another sound: something new. At first I thought it might be the wind blowing through the pine trees further down the slope, but it didn’t make sense: the breeze that morning was very slight. No, it wasn’t wind, but water. With a start, I looked up: over in the gorge, up above the Duende Stone that Marina had identified for us, cascading down the rocks, was a roaring white waterfall.

Half an hour later, with proper boots and some supplies in a rucksack, I set off to investigate. The waterfall was flushing down the gulley that split our land in two: a sharp fold in the mountainside covered in thick bush and tall oak trees that had been spared in the forest fire of several years before. At the bottom, where the track crossed over it, sat the Duende Stone. But I had never explored up there, despite meaning to do so at some point: there was always some other job or activity taking up my time. Now the moment had come. I felt compelled to head up
and
see the waterfall from up close, find where this river now coursing through our land was coming from.

A water mountain now soared up ahead of me as I trod along the muddy path. The sound of the trickling, gurgling, gushing stream echoed to the accompaniment of birdsong streaming from tree to tree. Small clouds of steam were forming and rising as the sunlight hit the surface and slowly warmed the sodden earth. Looking over at some of the terraces I had yet to work on, it was clear the showers had once again sent one or two of the stone walls tumbling as it dissolved the mud that held them together. But no matter: that morning belonged to the rain.

I climbed up the side of the enormous bulk of the Duende Stone and found a tiny path running up the side of the gorge. No one had been up here for years, though: it seemed the wild boar and the ibex trod this slope, forging a barely visible route through the gorse bushes and thick brambles. At times it was hard to see where it led, and I had to push through the dense web of needles to get past. It was quickly disorienting, with only the direction of the slope and the sound of the new-born river to one side to tell me roughly where I was.

The thick covering of the trees overhead filtered out much of the sunlight, and I soon entered a different world, one I had no idea existed so close to the farmhouse. Used as I was to the parched, sunburnt, rocky world that seemed to surround us, it felt strange to be transported so quickly to this dark, cold, protected corner. That morning everywhere felt damp, but this area gave the sense that here it was less unusual: lichens grew in yellow and grey splashes on the stones, while moss – something I hadn’t seen in years, it felt; something I had never expected to see anywhere on our mountain – was growing in thick bunches up the northern sides of the tree trunks.

Halfway up the gorge I pushed my way through to catch a glimpse of the river. Pools waist-deep had formed in hollows, filled by smaller waterfalls splashing down and foaming before tipping over the edge to another, and then another, like an elaborate staircase. Insects darted about the surface, catching the odd ray of sunlight as it pushed its way through the leaves and branches above. This gorge had long been like this, had borne water from higher up the mountains down to the river
below
for thousands and thousands of years. I had grown so used to seeing it dry I thought the day would never come when it would revert to its older self. Water, I had told myself, hadn’t flowed down here for years, and would never do so again, so dry did the land feel, so scarce the rain. Yet suddenly it began to make sense as a feature in the landscape: before, I had only been able to imagine this; now I was actually seeing and experiencing it. Life was surging from the rocks and from the land. If the fairies and earth-spirits of Marina’s – and my grandmother’s – world existed, I thought, this would be a place to look for them.

I carried on up the gorge, the climb getting steeper and more difficult the higher I went. Pulling myself up a small rockface by my hands and feet, I was able, finally, to claw myself out from the thick undergrowth and stand on a promontory. Far below sat the farmhouse, shining white in the sunlight. But just a few yards to the side was the waterfall, hurtling down from a lip of rock before crashing into a pool some way below. Great globs of water splashed over the area around, the water seeming to flow according to an irregular pattern. It felt young, new-born, flailing around in its new-found existence: vital and still unformed. The sound it made was tremendous, and I stood for a while soaking it in, the pounding roar resonating inside me as I stared and smiled.

To carry on further up the mountainside I would have to move away from the gulley and the waterfall to follow what seemed to be the only route up to the top. I wanted to see now where this water was coming from. For the first time I was finally close actually to climbing our mountain, and a driving curiosity was pushing me to see what lay on the other side. Once again I found myself fighting through the thick gorse as I tried to make out possible pathways. There were no terraces up here, no flattened stretches of land to make the climb easier, and I had to hang on to whatever shrubs and bushes I could to stop myself from sliding down the slope. Above, there seemed to be a section of the cliff-face that might just be climbable. Slipping and crawling over loose stones I headed towards it as best I could, hauling myself up by my fingertips, kicking at the rock as I tried to find footholds. The farmhouse was now little more than a speck below me.

Ten minutes later I pulled myself up the final few feet and stood to catch my first view of the world that existed beyond the top of the mountain. Stretching ahead, sloping down for about half a mile before rising up again as it soared towards the peak of Penyagolosa, was a great pine forest, a deep, dark green, red trunks surging like pillars from the ground. This was Scots pine, unsuited to the warmer climate just over the edge of the cliff I had climbed: it was a boundary between one ecosystem and another. I started to move in, enchanted by this new world. To the left I caught sight of a stream that must be feeding the waterfall. My feet squelched on the earth below as I walked towards it. Somewhere up here, I felt sure, there was a spring from which all this was flowing.

I pushed through sodden bracken and fern bushes and into the forest. The stream flashed as it flowed down a small incision in the land, sometimes spilling over its banks and creating a glassy sheen at the foot of the trees. I followed it as best I could, unable to see its course clearly from the density of the wood around me. Needles and cones were soft underfoot.

I got closer to the stream and began walking along a narrow ridge that ran along its side, too high for the water to reach. I was thankful there was no gorse up here, and it was a relief not to have to force my way through a prickly, uninviting shrubland.

Something lay across the path ahead and my legs seemed to stop instinctively before I even had time to register what it was. Everything froze as I looked down and saw a snake stretched out, barring my way, soaking up the sun where a break in the canopy allowed the light to shine through. It was a dull yellow, perhaps a metre long. It faced the stream, but one eye was watching me. Its tongue quickly spat out of its mouth and then sucked back in again. I felt an uncontrollable shaking begin to develop in my knees and started looking for ways to get past it, but the stream here was too wide to jump, while the undergrowth on the other side was too thick to get through. This was the only way forward, but the snake showed little sign of wanting to move. For a second I thought about leaping over it, but, although it was probably not poisonous, I didn’t like the idea of it lashing out at me as I sailed over its head. Snakes: I tried to search my memory for some idea of
how
to deal with them that I might have picked up in the past. Arcadio had said something about burning rubber to make them go away: they didn’t like the smell. But there was little chance of doing that up here in the middle of a very damp forest.

The snake was now starting to curl up, as though making a spiral out of its body, slithering into a tight coil, like a reflection of the knot growing in my mind as I tried to work out what to do. Something caught my eye to the side: a straight branch sticking out of the trunk of one of the nearby pine trees. I made a grab for it and broke it off: perhaps with a gentle push I might persuade the serpent to move out of the way. But the snake seemed to be one step ahead of me: as I hesitantly stretched out the stick, it whipped out of the coil it had made and darted towards the stream, where it disappeared into the grass on the bank. I waited for a moment to see if it would return, the stick still in hand, then cautiously walked over the spot where it had lain, ankles twitching lest it should dart out at me from the undergrowth.

I carried on up the slope, the stream still gurgling to one side. It was difficult to say for sure, but I had the impression of walking along a proper path now, widening and clearing as if it had still been in use within living memory. The air was damp and cooler up here, and tiny droplets of evaporating water were suspended in the still air, sometimes moving in waves like shoals of fish as they were caught by the occasional breeze, up and through gaps between the tight-packed trees.

And there, up ahead, I saw what looked like the beginning of a clearing. The stream, narrower now, the current gentler as the land began to flatten out, curled away to the right and was lost in the undergrowth; it had brought me this far: it was time to see what lay in this opening. The trees gradually thinned out as I approached until finally I found myself in a wide space, the sunlight a relief from the darkness of the forest. A track lay off to one side, while in front stood a
mas
: three or four low stone buildings with greying whitewash peeling from the walls. One of them was already a ruin, the roof lying in a pile of rubble at the foot of the walls, splintered wooden beams poking up at odd angles from the wreckage. Broken pieces of pottery lay scattered around the floor, canes tied together to form sheets for roofing sprawled in shattered shapes under lumps of masonry or plaster. It was a sight I
had
seen dozens of times now: an abandoned farmhouse left to rot and slowly be recaptured by nature. Something about this one seemed vaguely familiar, but I dismissed the thought: they were all so similar it was easy to confuse them.

I moved closer to the buildings, crunching stones and mud underfoot: the sound seemed to be blanketed by the enclosing, embracing forest. The peak of Penyagolosa must be visible from round here, but the only thing I could see above was clear blue sky. I felt as though I had entered some kind of bubble, part of, yet strangely removed from the ordinary world.

A rusted shell of a car – an old Renault 4 – was sitting by the side of one of the houses. The doors and windows were gone and the seats removed. One red plastic brake light remained at the back like an eye, somehow defying the relentless decay that surrounded it.

There was a sound, like a hoof beating the ground. I turned to look: a donkey was tethered to an iron ring bolted to a stone wall. Its head was bent and it was eating out of the hands of a very thin man with long, grey hair tied back into a ponytail.

‘Hello,’ he said.

He showed no sign of surprise that I was there: perhaps he had heard my footsteps.

‘Come inside.’

Like a bolt, the memory hit me: I had been here before.

A flash of forgotten images, buried away where I had tried to hide them, a moment of madness, years – how many years? – before. A daytrip to the country, away from the city, and a village near the foot of a mountain. And a story – a story that somewhere up there was a man who lived alone in a
mas
. A crazy man, the villagers had said. Yet he knew the Secrets of the Earth, according to some.