Randy White - Night Vision

Tula knew that imitating the Maiden’s style of speaking caused some people to look at her strangely, but she took it as an affirmation of her devotion. The book had been a great comfort to Tula on the journey from the mountains to this modern land of cars and asphalt by the sea.

Tula had memorized several favorite passages. There were many that applied to her own life:

When I was thirteen, a voice from God came to help me govern myself. The first time I heard it, I was terrified. The voice came to me about noon; it was summer, and I was in my father’s garden. I had not fasted the day before. I heard the voice on my right. There was a great light all about.

Soon afterward, I vowed to keep my virginity for as long as it should please God…

Tula had not been in her father’s garden, of course, when the Maiden’s voice first came. Her father had been murdered by the revolucionarios as Tula, age eight, watched from the bushes. The memory of what she had seen, heard and smelled was so shocking-her father’s screams, the odor of petrol and flesh-that her brain had walled the memory away in a dark place.

Little more than a year later, when Tula began to feel at home at the convent, the dark space in her soul had opened slowly to embrace the Maiden’s light.

Another favorite line from the book was: I would rather die than to do what I know to be a sin.

When Tula whispered those words, she could feel the meaning burn in her heart. She had whispered the phrase aloud many times, always sincerely, as an oath to God. The words were clean and unwavering, like the Maiden’s spirit. Tula could speak the phrase silently in the time it took her to inhale, then exhale, one long breath.

I would rather die than to do…

… what I know to be a sin.

Tula longed for the same life of purity, for it was the Maiden’s writing that had first sent her into the trees to seek her own visions. The Maiden, Tula had read, had often sought God’s voice in a place called the Polled Wood, in France, where she had sat in the branches of a tree known as the Fairy Tree.

Tula doubted if she would ever see France, but Florida had to be more like Orleans than the jungles of Quintana Roo.

It was strange, now, to sit in a Florida banyan tree so far from home, watching the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles. The Maiden’s visions, Tula remembered, were always accompanied by bright light, which caused the girl to concentrate even harder on what she was seeing.

The lights pulsed blue and red, exploding off the clouds, then sparking downward, rainlike, through the leaves. The lights were brighter than any Tula had ever seen, lights so piercing, so rhythmic, that they invited the girl to stare until she felt her body loosen as her thoughts purified and became tunneled.

Soon, Tula slipped into a world that was silent, all but for the Maiden’s voice-Jehanne, her childhood friends had called the young saint. Jehanne’s voice was so sure and clear, it was as if her moist lips touched Tula’s ear as she delivered a message.

It was a message Tula had heard several times in the last week.

You are sent by God to rally your people. The clothing of a boy is your armor. The amulets you wear are your shields…

Fear not. I speak as a girl who knew nothing of riding and warfare until God took my hand. We drove the foreigners away because it was His will. He provided the way.

You, too, are God’s instrument. You will gather your family in this foreign land, and free them from their greed. You will lead them home again, where they can live as a people, not slaves, because it is His will.

Trust Him always. He will provide the way for you.

Tula loved the solitude of trees. She loved the intimacy of this muscled branch that was contoured like a saddle between her legs. Once, as the saint’s voice paused in reflection, Tula found the nerve to whisper a question with a familiarity that she had never risked before.

“Jehanne? Holy Maiden? I think of you as my loving sister. Is this wrong? I have to ask.”

I am the God-light that lives within you, the Maiden’s voice replied. We are one. Like twins with a one soul.

Sisters? Tula hazarded, thinking the word but not speaking it.

Forever sisters, the Maiden replied. Even when you leave this life for the next.

For more than two hours, Tula had sat motionless in the tree as the Maiden spoke to her, providing comfort and the governing voice of God. She was only vaguely aware when her patron, Tomlinson, walked beneath the tree, calling her name, followed by the large man with eyeglasses. Whose name, she had learned, was Dr. Ford.

There was something unusual about her patron ’s friend, she realized vaguely, as the two hurried past. Something solid and safe about Dr. Ford… But the man was cold, too. His spirit filled Tula with an unsettling sensation, like an unfamiliar darkness that was beyond her experience.

The girl didn’t allow her mind to linger on the subject, and she was not tempted to call out a reply because she was so deliciously safe. Her body and heart were encased by the Maiden. The Maiden’s lips never left her ear.

Even when the flashing lights vanished from the tree canopy, Tula continued sitting because Jehanne continued to speak, whispering strong thoughts into Tula’s head.

The Maiden’s words were so glory filled and righteous that Tula thought she might burst from the swelling energy that filled her body. It caused blood to pulse in her chest, and in her thighs, until her body trembled. It was a throbbing sensation so strong that she felt as if she might explode if the pressure within didn’t find release.

You are sent to rally your people. You are sent by God…

The first time Tula had heard those words was only seven days ago, her first night in Florida. She had been sitting on this same thick branch, new to the large banyan tree.

Those words had been a revelation.

Tula had come to El Norte to find her mother and family, yes. But in her heart she knew there was a greater cause for which God had chosen her. Why else would the Maiden risk guiding her to El Norte, the direction of death?

On that night one week ago, Tula had been so moved by the revelation that, as she returned to her trailer, she had stopped to address adults who, every evening, collected around a fire to drink beer and laugh.

It offended Tula the way the adults were behaving because she feared her mother had behaved similarly after she had abandoned her own family. Even so, the girl had stood silently, feeling the heat of fire light on her face, listening and watching.

Gradually, Tula became angry. The Maiden had ordered her soldiers and pages not to drink alcohol or to sin with loose women and dice. She had counseled her followers to pray every day, and to never swear.

These adults weren’t soldiers, but they were all members of the same mountain people. They were Maya, they were Indigena, like her. And Tula knew it was wrong for them to be living drunken, modern lives so removed from the families they had left behind in the cloud forests.

Tula stepped closer to the fire. She cleared her throat and waited for the adults to notice her. Soon, as voices around her went silent, Tula let the French Maiden guide her Mayan words.

“If your children could see you now,” the girl asked in a strong voice, “what would they think? What would your wives and husbands think? I am speaking of the families you left behind in the mountains. Your real families. Do you think they are consorting with drunken neighbors, lusting after money and flesh? No. They are asleep in their palapas. Their hearts are broken and lonely from missing you.”

Tula was surprised by her own confidence, but more surprised by the angry reaction of the adults. Men sat in a moody silence for a moment, then began to jeer and wave her away as if Tula’s opinion meant nothing. The women were indignant, then furious. They swore at her in Spanish, calling her a stupid boy who had sex with animals. And the matron of the group-a squat, loud woman-picked up a stick and threatened to thrash Tula unless she ran away.