Spirit Guides

Disclaimer: I do not own Koudelka or Shadow Hearts. All characters in this work are fictional, and those that were living I hope I have treated gently. According to Koudelka's creator, she studied with Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society. You can find it on the Web.

I never looked for this, how could I? Alone, penniless, destitute – I'm a dirty ignorant woman... hmph. I said that once while in my cups, to a man who, oddly, attracted me. And sitting here now, with a smirk on my face, I think of that adventurer with little more than a warm smile, maybe a fond remembrance. We spent a night together, in a haunted monastery, surrounded by death and suffering on such a level as only man can visit upon man. A monastery, a house of God – but such a god that these men believe in could only be their devil in disguise. I hated them. I grew up hating them. And even my teacher could not dissuade me of my disliking for their hypocrite god.

As a child, growing up in Dolgellau, along the banks of the Thuliesian river, I often saw the priest at the local vicarage scowling over the stone fence at me as I walked by. Why he thought that I, a mere ragged, ill fed child, should be such a menace that he would give me such looks... at least he didn't throw holy water. I laugh now, looking back at that, but it's only the passage of time that allows me such leeway.

After my father died, my mother abandoned me: old story, as old as time. Even my own people disowned me. Reviled me. Feared me. But what can one expect from superstitious fools. I did what I could to survive, and took my punishment for being a poor, dirty, ignorant whore. Until I met my teacher.

I was barely ten when my father died and my mother sent me forth to whore for my survival. I was ten going on fifty when I found my teacher. Alone, hungry and soaking wet, I had curled up in a back alley, using someone's dirty brown stoop as shelter. I'd actually found a friend for a while, a wet kitten – together we kept each other company until the downpour stopped. Then I went back out and explored this town I was in; the next street over I ran into my teacher, literally, as I tried to skim a little money from her companion's handily dangling purse. Just my luck she saw me coming.

Helena taught me so much about the world, the spirit and myself. She taught me to control the power that was given to me, not be controlled by it. She taught me that there is more to life than suffering, but that most of us would suffer; and that I, oh yes, most especially I, would suffer greatly. She took me in off the street, a hungry whore begging for a meal, a night off the cold streets of poverty hating London. She took me by my grubby hand and led me inside her home, not a wealthy home, not a mansion, but a practical home, with light, food, and comfort. And she put me down to bed that night with a full belly, clean sheets and a body stinging with the abrasive scrubbing of two Jamaica maids. And the next day she began to teach me.

I balked at those lessons. I wanted none of it. My power, my gift, was a curse, a sentence from God on a poor gypsy child and I wanted none of it! Oh, how I fought her. I refused to listen, I refused to learn and she threatened to turn me out onto the streets again, and I screamed at her how little I cared for her kindness!

And she knew, as I knew, that I was lying.

She locked me in the room, bolting the door from without and instructed the maids to leave me be – to leave me alone with my falsehood and my pride. My pride! As if I had any! But I screamed, and I cursed, and I kicked at that door until my feet were sore, my knees were bruised and my hands bleeding from beating on the solid wooden frame. I finally collapsed on the floor, spent in my fury. And as I sat there, breathing in the cold still air in the room, I heard voices. And I listened.

The voices were all around me. Down the hall - in the storey below - in the attic above - I opened my eyes and saw a miracle. Wispy shadows of forms like light whispering in and out of the walls - walking, gliding, and floating lighter than gossamer on the cold winter air. And their words were soft, ghostly, and incredibly captivating. These were not the ghosts and spirits of my little village, or the haunting souls of the graveyards. These were not dead things creeping in the woods. What were they? I felt no fear in them, only ambivalence or at best, benevolence. I leaned against the door frame and listened as voices floated in my mind, telling me of things I never knew, never wanted to know, but now were my calling.

I sat thus until the light of dawn when the turning of the key in the lock awoke me to my condition. I was freezing cold, sitting on the floor with neither wrap nor blanket for the whole night. No fire had been laid for me, and the room was as chilled as the outside. The maid pushed open the door, moving me aside as, in my confusion I tried to understand what was happening. She smiled at me; a big white-toothed smile and she took a wrap from the end of the bed and draped it around my shoulders, telling me to go see Lady Helena.

With the shawl around my narrow shoulders, I went downstairs to the sitting room. There, in a chair by the fireplace, sat Lady Helena. She was an older woman, her hair once dark now more steel grey, was tucked into tight braids worn around her head, and soft scarf was wrapped around that, trailing like a veil over her shoulders. She had piercing eyes that looked not only at me but through me, and I felt a shuddering in my soul when she turned her hawk-like glance my way.

I took the offered chair opposite her and, trying to control my sudden nerves, listened as she spoke to me. Her voice was mild, matter-of-fact, but brooking no nonsense. She told me I was her new student for as long as I chose, but needed to behave myself and do as instructed. I sat with slack jaw at that, wondering what kind of loon she was, when three men entered the room and stood behind her chair, looking at me with kindly eyes. She made no mention of them and after a minute, I pointed at one, asking who he was.

Lady Helena stopped speaking and smiled, her face warming and a radiant light seemed to glow all around her. From that moment on I was her student and, in an odd way, her daughter. She later told me those men where her spirit guides, ascended masters. I didn't understand what that meant, but I accepted it, because she accepted me.

A/N

This is part of a series of vignettes dealing with Koudelka. Do not expect them to make sense until the final curtain has fallen.