Hadrian's Wall (57 page)

So he finally decided to
make contact.
My hands trembled with
anticipation. How many times I had wondered about this moment—how
it would happen...when it would happen. I never anticipated that it
would happen in such a
virtual
manner!

As soon as I reached the safety of my
bedroom, I broke the seal of the envelope and began to read its
contents:

Dear Miss. Baker,

I’m very glad you have
accepted my offer to collaborate with me on my personal project.
For you, perhaps, it is the opportunity to find your way. For me,
however,
it is the last step to be trodden
on a journey of long duration.
Consider it
a liberating challenge for both of us, from which we will
emerge
different and
better people. I have no doubt about it.

Of course, you will
hear
extraordinary stories...even
unbelievable stories involving the Cahill clan and deep down,
that’s what they actually are. All I ask is that you open your mind
and your heart for what you’re about to read because my goal is
only to reach that moment...

I am entrusting to you one
of the
personal diaries
of our family. It belonged to
Chief
Cahill, who
led
the clan around 910
A.D. This is a codex, or a collection of documents written since
the Roman domination until the Middle Ages. Do not worry, it is not
the original. This is kept in our private library for security
reasons.

The copy now in your hands
is a translation, dated 1947. Therefore, it is nonetheless also a
historical treasure. The codex is divided into three chapters in
the original, respectively written in ogham, primitive Gaelic, and
Latin. The
Chief
ordered the first translation to be made in ancient Gaelic,
which for some reason could not be completed. Only a thousand years
later, my father would take this responsibility—and I after him, a
task that I take very seriously.

Throughout your research,
you will have access to
clippings
from our past. For example, you will
discover
that my more remote ancestor was
leader of a Pictish tribe, who mysteriously disappeared. For many
years, his people kept alive the hope that one day he would return
to rid them of the Romans invaders. The great warrior left a
message engraved on stone tablets using unknown symbols. Some
scribe had copied these inscriptions and tried to translate them,
constituting the first parchment to be catalogued by our
clan.

Unfortunately, both the Celts and the Picts
have not left us many records, since the oral tradition prevailed
over written. However, foreign scholars, especially the Greeks and
even the Roman invaders were interested in explaining their
culture. Thanks to them, we obtained information that aided us in
the development of our family’s chronology.

You will see, my dear,
that the narrative of this volume was designed in first person, as
a true diary. I venture to suggest that was the intention of my
strange ancestors to share with the readers their innermost
feeling, a tradition that would be followed by all the firstborn
males of our family
when compelled to do
the task of writing.

At some point you may come
to wonder if the story you are reading is a dream, reality, or
madness.
Who knows? You have to decide for
yourself ...
Anyway, I count on your
understanding and artistic
sensibility
to capture the
intentions of its several authors
and
hopefully the fantastic events described won’t disturb your will to
taken on this project and see it through.

I would like you to
outline a
few
illustrations for the passages that you deem most relevant because
I intend to add them to the family book.
Until then, we must keep the codices free of speculation or
conjecture by third parties. I
believe it
is unnecessary alert you about the confidentiality of the
information contained in these writings. Under no circumstances
should they be exposed to anyone outside of the family circle,
except you, of course.

In view of our informal
agreement, I think it’s fair to send you a document formalizing
your participation, as well as an advance for expenses
in any amount you deem necessary.
If you need something more, you can notify Ms.
McPherson, in whom I place my entire confidence.

I will contact you soon to see your
progress.

Best regards,

Adrian Cahill, Sr.

I allowed the letter to rest on my lap and
stared into space for a long time, until I suddenly realized that
the movements and sounds from the hallway had decreased
significantly and silence dominated my environment.

Again I looked down at the letter. The text
blurred in front my eyes, but I didn’t care. All I thought about
was the greatness which emanated from its contents. There was
something in that letter, some message between the lines that
afflicted my sense of wellbeing, which I didn’t understand. It was
such a weird feeling!

“Open your
heart
,” he said. People who lived in a
remote time struggled to pass down the stories contained in this
codex so that they would reach us in the present day. But
“
share their deepest feelings”
seemed to be a message with a hidden meaning. What
could this mean?
Forget it, girl! You will
go ‘round and ‘round and yet not be able to unravel the riddle. Be
content with what is within your reach
.

So Mr. Cahill decided to
entrust me with the history of his family, without ever meeting me.
Why? He was imparting a great responsibility to me. Moreover, the
contradiction became insulting! He took the risk to entrust me with
an important family document, yet will not allow me access to the
Cliff House. It’s difficult for me to understand.
Well, girl, you didn’t ask him if you could see
their home, did you? So don’t complain that he
didn’t
. After that whole rigmarole about
security protocols, my pride now demanded that Adrian—the son—crawl
on hands and knees, begging me to come see his house. I giggled
involuntarily... Adrian crawling for me...yeah sure! It was easier
to imagine me crawling to him.

Suddenly, I realized there
was a wad of bills in the envelope and held my breath.
Wow!
So much money! I sat
down on the bed so hard that the mattress springs creaked. I’d
never had so much money in my hands. Mr. Cahill must be mistaken. I
could imagine being paid so much money for some drawings! It had to
be a mistake.
Right?

I took the codex and ran my fingers over the
aged cover. The book was thick, with irregular borders. It
contained documents of different sizes, shapes, and type of
letters. I assumed that things had been added over the years. Some
of the leaves were torn with “donkey ears”—broken, bent. I
carefully unbuckled the cover and smoothed the pages.

At that moment, my PDA fell on the carpet
with a muffled sound. I stared it, experiencing one of those
moments of useless digressions. The PDA represents modern times,
technological advancement while the codex in my hands was a link to
the past—a time that will never return.

I reached out to retrieve
the PDA and at that moment, I realized I held both the past and the
future in my hands. Was it a sign? An epiphany?
I don’t want to know
. I set the PDA
on the nightstand and began leafing through the codex, stopping
here and there to read some passages. I was too tired to start my
study in depth right now, but curiosity compelled me to continue
reading.

The writing was done in elegant cursive,
definitely male. Moreover, all writings implied that all the texts
were written by the same person because the cursive style was the
same, which was natural since it was translated in 1947. For a
moment I was curious to know the styles used by the original
authors.

With a sigh, I went back to the beginning
and started to read.

Ille nihil
dubitat qui nullam scientiam habet

"For many years, I was
floating in a sea of blood...time and space,
moral
ity
and
clarity meant nothing to me. When I accepted the pain as my
companion
- when I
stopped fighting against it - the emptiness enveloped me
completely. It was the closest thing to peace that I could achieve
inside my personal hell.

Fascinated by
the cold and refined cruelty of my
peers
, I lived only for the addiction. I
was free from the control of consciousness, any trace of
humanity...or so I thought.

Even in the midst of
savagery, now I realize that to kill my prey, I still conduce
myself by some fragile criteria. Call them honor’s code, if you
like.

But the truth was more
primitive. Raw. The madness did not make me forget
everything...until your image engraved on fire prevailed over my
dull mind and in my dissatisfied body. Then I realized that there
were only two ways out for me
−
end it all...or fight.

The promise we made each
other prevented me from choosing the first. However, I had to admit
that I was not prepared to see you again. Considering the state of
madness dominating me, if destiny put us face to face, I could
easily kill you. This possibility kept me so desperate that
it
swept through my
numbness...

So,
I overcame it.
As a submerged
castaway for a long time and suddenly back to the surface to
breathe...finally,
I managed to get
my head above the vicious surface of the sea to
see beyond the blood for which my body craved.

I
returned
to the search for balance,
which became my biggest obsession, trying to drive myself as you
would expect from me. For you, I built a world. For you, I accepted
the mission to lead so many others. For you, I waited ...and
continue waiting.

You once told me that words empower us,
acting as a balm for the wounds of the soul; you said that through
them, I could sublimate my instincts... You gave me the greatest
gift that one so vile, so monstrous, never would deserve to
receive... You trusted in my nature, treated me with kindness, and
taught me the letters. Through your eyes, I learned to see the
world differently.

Now, I’m ready...not only
to complete these
depurative lines
which certainly will seem strange to you, but
also to meet you again.

As the pilgrim who runs his humble prayers
to the highest levels, I hope someday you receive my words.”

Agitated, I left
the
diary
on the
bed and got up. The text was not very easy to understand and I
could see that I would have to find a dictionary, but the appeal of
the author really touched me.

My obsessed eyes fell over
the Codex. When I realized that I was pacing back and forth, I
thought I should break that eye contact. I turned my back to the
bed and I realized that I was facing the television over the
rack.
Mmmm
...all
I need now is a good distraction to alleviate the feeling of
suffocation that threatened to
overwhelm
me.

I turned on the TV, muting
the volume so that the sound would not bother my neighbors. After
all, people were likely sleeping. Just thinking about it, I let out
a huge yawn, surrendering to my fatigue. I went to bed, crawled
under the duvet.
Start reading tomorrow,
silly, when you will be lucid!

Who said that I would
follow my own advice? I settled back against the pillows and
carefully picked up the
diary
. This time, I started flipping
through the contents, reading random passages.
Curiosity was struggling with the fear inside me.

Yes, I felt a kind of “horror” (for lack of
a better term) regarding those statements, as if the hand or hands
that wrote them could reach me any time. I was being ridiculous, of
course, but I couldn’t help it.

“On the eighteenth day of March, I witnessed
the sun rise as I have done every day for hundreds of years...
Nothing more touches me after so long. I need to move on, day after
day, because I was stuck to our promise.”

(...)

“My relentless search didn’t find many
truces like that...when the hunters approached me to resolve the
feud between clans.”

“Of course, the obligations were keeping me
sane; otherwise, maybe I might have gone crazy again.”

(...)

“Thinking about you is my salvation and
destruction at the same time. It’s what keeps me straight, but it
also threatens to break the chains that contain the terrible beast
that dwells inside of me. I had to be disciplined, find goals to
stave off the anxiety and hatred that could amplify my delight when
I would get to destroy one host.”

(...)

“... And I must confess to you that I
actually feel sorry for Ceredigion of the Helmm clan. He wanted to
marry Elona. He loved her without measuring consequences. For this,
he established seven jobs that Hunta went to execute, without
hesitation. Because he also loved Elona and didn’t give up easily,
but there was a very big difference between them. Ceredigion
carried the weight of the secret...and Hunta was only a human.”