Everlasting Love

The Village

Love came to a village that was undamaged by war. As she passed through it, she was surprised by how peaceful and quiet it was. The peasants were welcoming and kind to her, an elderly villager asked her: 
"Who are you and where are you going?" 
"I am a traveler and I am going wherever God guides me." She said honestly. 
"You must be tired dear, rest awhile in our home.” Said the old woman who came out of the hut. Love saw that the woman was very frail and ill, and right away Love said: 
"I know what can heal you." 
"What dear?" Love reached out and put her hands over the woman’s head while praying.
The old woman felt healed immediately by the Spirit. 
“Are you a saint?" asked the old woman.
"No, but God gave me the gift of healing” replied Love. 
“I see you are no ordinary healer, because I already feel better just by talking to you."
There were other villagers gathered, who greeted Love and they were all impressed by this miracle, saying: 
"You must stay with us; we need a wonderworker like you." 
Among the people observing the scene was the local medicine woman, Jeanette, a woman who questioned what happened by telling her mother, Beatrice. 
"How do they know to trust this stranger?" Beatrice looked at how charmed everyone was by the visitor and became suspicious.
“Yes, they are being far too gullible" Replied Beatrice. Jeanette saw how enamoured the young men were by Love.
 “What a flaunt!” Jeanette smirked with jealousy, but she disguised her feeling well. Instead of outrightly despising Love, Jeanette approached her and appeared openhearted. 
“We do need more healers in our village, welcome!" she said cunningly.

When Ethan awoke, he was alarmed to see that Love was gone. He was still in pain and unable to search for her himself, he sent messengers to look for her and they returned without any news of her. Ethan was hopeless, how could he lose the person who saved him twice from death, he remembered her beautiful eyes and kind gaze, and said to himself: 
"I will find her!"

In the quiet village there was a church and a pious deacon worshipped there alone. A stranger came into the parish and stood in the shadows. 
“Welcome friend,” the deacon greeted him, “what is your name?”
“I am Denar, I was sent here by the Bishop of Anjou.” 
“What about Marcel, our priest?” asked the deacon in surprise.
“He left for the monastery, on orders of the Bishop.” The stranger drew out a parchment and read the order from it. The deacon was silent for a moment, then he asked: 
“So you are the new priest?” 
“Yes, I have come to watch over this village.” 
“Thank God!” Said the deacon excitedly, “we are blessed to have you here!” The visitor said to him: 
“The Bishop requests that you leave this church for the monastery as well.” 
“Me? To the monastery?” Wondered the pious deacon, “how mysterious are the ways of Lord...” 
“You must depart immediately, it is His will. There's no need to notify the villagers, I will explain everything to them.” Said the false priest. 
“I shall do so,'' agreed the deacon and went to prepare for the journey, “peace be with you!” Said the deacon as he left the village.

In the morning the first person to see the sorcerer in disguise was the farm boy Thomas.  He just got out of the haystack where he was sleeping and was wandering lazily in the field beside the church. Then, he saw an unfamiliar face watching him from the yard.
“Who are you?” The youth asked the stranger. 
“I am Denar, the Lord of the town. I came to visit one of my villages. By the way, the priest has gone away on orders of the Bishop, until his return I will stay in the parish.” 
The youth was a mischievous and cunning fellow, who liked nothing more in life than to get drunk in the local pub with the bums and ruffians of the town.
“It's news worthy of celebration,” said Thomas, “come, you must meet with the local folk, do you drink beer?” 
“There's no reason not to,'' said the magus in disguise; And Thomas introduced the impostor lord to his circle of defunct scoundrels.

On the edge of the village stood an inn. At the tavern there were gathered some of the most respected people in the village. Anthony, the owner was a cheerful pot bellied man who loved his profitable business. The miller, a brawny man with a limitless tolerance for alcohol was sipping his third bottle, while Jacques the farmer, had already exhausted his pint and snored loudly on the bench. In the corner, a rowdy company of peasants discussed events in their small village. They were talking about the mysterious young lady who came to their village. The younger men were especially enthralled by her.
"She is a saint, and so much more beautiful than Jeanette," said Stephen, a peasant's son who was considered to be the best of the village youths. His sickly cousin Clarence, agreed with Stephen, his innocent blue eyes shone with admiration and respect for Love. 
"She is so kind, she told me I can be cured.” 
“Don’t forget boys, she’s a foreigner and a stranger, we must make her feel at home here.” 
“Who is a foreigner?” Asked the man who was quietly sitting in the corner, listening to the conversation.” 
“Love - the traveling healer." Replied the naive youth. The bandit wondered at this.
 “Don’t be so quick to trust strangers, how do you know if she means well, for all you know she may be a fraud or a witch in disguise.”
“How do we know to trust you? asked Stephen. 
“Yes, what if you’re some criminal in disguise.” Asked Clarence.
“I am the lord of the town and I need to know who is who in this town.” Said Denar with authority. The youths were in shock: 
"But she's innocent!" said Stephen. 
“You are obviously too blinded by her appearance, be careful, you might be fooled by her!” Said the bandit. 
“How do we know you are not fooling us?” Interfered Mark the miller: “For all we know of you, you may be a bandit!" 
“Yes prove to us you are the lord and not some person off the side of the road.” Stated Stephen. 
“I am the lord of the town!” said Denar the magus. He stood up and showed them a bag of money: “Now, we will see about that saint of yours...” 

In the morning, Love woke up with the first ray of light. She went outside to breathe the fresh air and saw a stranger walking by in a hurry towards the church parish, she called out to him:
“Good morning!” But when the stranger turned around, Love was shocked to see the bandit in disguise. She saw that he recognized her as well.
“You again!” Denar said: “our paths have crossed for a reason, I need a scapegoat like you. If you tell anybody who I really am you and that person will die, in the meantime, know that I am in charge of this place, and if you follow my lead, I'll spare your life.” Love listened to the ultimatum in silence, and then she said: 
“Don't harm anyone here sorcerer, let them live in peace.”
“Only if you keep silent!” With that the sorcerer went away to the parish.
Love shuddered at the thought that the murderer invaded the village. But for the moment she didn't know what to do. She went back inside the house. Love didn’t see that Jeanette was peeking through a slit in the wall and overheard the conversation. She had a cunning grimace on her face. Jeanette quietly crept out of the house and approached the sorcerer. They had an interesting interchange. Denar immediately recognized a fellow witch. They whispered in the shadows and became allies of the secret cult.
A crowd of people had just met the imposter whom everyone assumed was the town’s lord. Jeanette joined the crowd in welcoming him. She said to Denar: 
“You must meet our new healer, she is a wonderworker.” 
“Is she the one everyone's talking about, like she’s some kind of saint?”
“Yes she is.” Replied Jeanette.
The fake lord smirked. “I'm not so sure about that.” 
“Why?” Asked one of the villagers.
“Because I've seen her do witchcraft the night before.” He lied. 
The people were alarmed.
“What? How can it be, she is so kind and pious!” 
“The devil comes in many forms,” said the sorcerer in disguise, "what do you know about this woman to trust her, she is a traveller, maybe she's as wicked and false as the devil.
“No, she's a saint!” objected a young woman named Elise.
“We must not be deceived, we live in a world of the devil and it is a time when his servants, the antichrists are overtaking the earth. How do we know she is not one of them, a servant of evil.” Said Jeanette. The crowd was too aghast by this suggestion to respond, they just shook their heads at her.
“She may be a wolf in sheep's clothing” Jeanette persisted. Beatrice was worried about that as well.
“We must test her to see if she truly is trustworthy.” Said Beatrice.
“But how?” asked Julie the milkmaid. 
“I know,” said the impostor, “soon, it will be harvest time, and you will see that while we are preparing a feast she will be celebrating the witch’s Sabbath.” Jeanette smiled at that. After all, if anyone was practicing witchcraft here it was her. She knew Love was no witch. After the crowd dispersed to their homes, Jeanette approached Love and told her: 
“It’s almost harvest time, we will be celebrating, and we invite you to the feast. Will you come and help us prepare the feast?” 
“Of course,” responded Love cheerfully. She was oblivious to Jeanette’s evil scheme.

Two hooded men were rushing through the woods, the sickle moon shone in the sky as they whispered in the darkness. 
“The monks found priest Marcel’s dead body not far from these woods.” Said the elder monk.
“Who would do such a thing?” asked the younger monk. 
“I don’t know, perhaps it was a petty thief who killed him.” 
“This is terrible, poor Marcel.” 
“Yes, God rest his soul.” Suddenly they heard howls in the moonlight. “Hear that? It's the wolves, a foul sign. Something is not right about this place, I can feel it. We must hurry and get to the village as soon as possible, they need to know that their priest has been murdered.” Then, out of the trees, the old monk was attacked by the wolf.
“Run, save yourself,” The old monk shouted to the young one. 
“No, I can’t leave you!” Said the young monk. Just then, he was also ravaged by a pack of wolves.
In the village, Jeanette was doing sorcery by the moonlight; there was a Satanist star on the ground as she worshipped her own god - the devil, in a pagan ritual. Dancing an ecstatic dance, she spread evil demonic curses upon the world.