Randy White - Night Vision

In Tula’s mind, as she posed by the fire, she envisioned a precise picture of herself the way she yearned to look. Her jeans and ragged shirt were armor molded to her body by firelight. The amulet and medallion that she clutched were now a glittering shield.

Yes, Tula decided. The adults saw that her body had been transformed. A few of them, anyway. It was in their eyes, both respect and wonder. She felt sure enough to say, “I’m only a child from the mountains, but I have been transformed by my patron saint. Don’t be uneasy, don’t be afraid of my strange dress. The Maiden speaks to me and she speaks through me. She provides me words for you that I believe are words from God.”

Voices around the fire muttered, asking about the Maiden-what did the name mean?-while Tula continued speaking.

“The Maiden has told me that this land will never be our home. Our home is in the cloud forests of the mountains. It is in the jungles where our ancestors built pyramids that rivaled the greatness of Egypt. She has told us to think back and remember our home. And the love we have for it. It is true that we do not have shiny red pickup trucks in our yards. Or televisions with large screens. But what good is a red truck when it cannot drive you to your family?”

Tula sensed emotion in the people her words touched just as she could also hear the whispered grumblings of those who did not see or believe-men mostly, but also a few women who got to their feet, speaking insults and a few whispered profanities.

The matron, however, was not among them. She had stared at Tula with glistening eyes.

“You speak to God?” the woman asked. “How do we know you are not lying?”

Jehanne had been asked this same question many times by her inquisitors, so Tula used the Maiden’s own words to answer.

“I do not speak to God. He speaks to me. Any other way would be improper. Who am I? I am a poor, stupid child. The voices that direct me come from Him. I believe this truly in my own heart. I am his instrument; only a messenger instructed by the words of my patron saint, the Maiden.”

The woman, near tears, replied, “I don’t know why I believe you, but I do. It must be true, for you looked into my heart and told me what I was feeling. I miss my children. I miss my village, and the cooking fires and the odors of my girlhood. What did you say to us about God being in us as children? I can’t remember your exact words-”

“I asked you to remember how you felt as a child. When you felt the goodness of God inside you. God is still there, alive in your heart. I asked, ‘Why do you fight Him so?’”

From the shadows beyond the fire, a man’s voice chided Tula, saying, “Next this boy will be telling us that he also speaks to the goats who bugger him! Why is he wasting our time. Go away, little turd, or I will bugger you myself!” Grinning, the man had stood and pretended to unsnap his belt.

Tula was surprised that only a few people laughed at the insult, and she was comforted by the realization that very few of these people would ever laugh at her again.

When Tula had finally left that fire circle, seven nights before, some of the adults had watched her in a silence that was a mixture of fear, awe and longing. On that very same night, someone placed a statuette of the Virgin Mary outside her trailer.

The next evening, after the day’s work was done, the matron and two neighbor women appeared at Tula’s trailer, seeking to speak privately.

The next night, a small line formed outside Tula’s door. Each night afterward, the line was longer. Some people came from as far as Indiantown, Miami and Immokalee to speak with the child who was said to be an emissary from God.

News of the unusual child traveled at lightning speed through the cheap cell phones of the Guatemalan community.

Sometimes, women and men wept as they asked for Tula’s guidance and advice. Many attempted to kneel and kiss her hand, but Tula refused their adulation, just as the Maiden had refused the worshipping gestures of her own followers six hundred years before.

“We are sisters?” Tula had questioned Jehanne, hoping desperately that it was true.

Even when you leave this life for the next, the Maiden had promised.

Tula was now more determined than ever to be equal to the honor of being chosen by Jehanne.

To every person who came to her, Tula challenged them with the same parting question: “Do you remember the goodness of God that was in you as a child? He is still there, in your heart. Why do you fight Him so?”

Much had changed since Tula had spoken to the fire circle a week before. The respect with which her neighbors treated her was beyond her experience, yet she handled it comfortably and exercised her new power only for good-to spread the word that she was searching for her family, and, tonight, to order the adults to help save her patron, Carlson, and also the landlord, Harris Squires.

Something else that had changed, Tula realized, was that she had lost her anonymity. The eyes of her neighbors followed her everywhere she went. Which is why she had waited long after the ambulance and police cars had left to finally climb down from the tree and retreat to her trailer.

She didn’t stay long, though, because the memory of Harris Squires’s words scared her. She knew the giant man would come looking for her soon. So she had gone to the public toilet, curled up in a stall and had tried to sleep.

Too much had happened, though, for Tula’s mind to relax. She fretted about Carlson-would he live?-and also regretted not speaking with the strange man, Tomlinson, who Tula barely knew but who she had immediately accepted as her second patron and protector.

Early that morning, still unable to sleep, Tula had returned to her tree to speak with the owls and watch the sunrise, she told herself. But it was really to invite that pulsing, trembling feeling into her body. As she straddled the limb, which Tula thought of as a saddle, the Maiden had floated into Tula’s body almost immediately, but only for a short time.

Suddenly, then, without farewell, the Maiden’s voice was gone. It was replaced by the distant inquiries of morning birds-the owls had remained silent-and then the sound of approaching footsteps.

Tula had been weeping, as she always did when the Maiden left her, yet she was crying softly enough to hear the crack of twigs and then a man’s voice say, “Lookee, lookee, what I see. It’s getting so I know where to find you. What do you think you are, chula? Some kind of bird?”

Tula looked down to see Harris Squires staring at her through the strange binoculars that allowed him to see in the night like an animal.

It wasn’t until the giant had grabbed Tula, clapping his hand over her mouth to silence her, that the Maiden’s words returned to comfort the girl, saying, Stop fighting, go with him. You are in God’s hands. God will show you the way.

Now, sitting beside Squires in his oversized truck, Tula said to the man, “What do you call these bracelets on my wrists? They’re hurting me. Will you please take them off?”

Squires made a noise of impatience as he drove. He had been trying to focus on his sex fantasy, but the girl kept talking.

“Why don’t you answer me?” the girl said, irritated. “I have every reason to be angry at you. Instead, I am speaking to you politely. You should at least answer when I ask you a polite question.”

Squires made another groaning sound.

She didn’t stop. “If I had wanted to run from you, God would have given me the strength. Instead, He told me to come with you. That’s why I am here. There’s no need for you to chain my hands.”

Squires was aggravated, but also surprised by the girl’s calm voice, her matter-of-fact manner.