The Great Goddess Tree Tale

XXIV - The moving to the South Coast Village and Holver's birt

Mat's first resolution when he heard the big news was to move out of the Isle and get back to the Continent. That wouldn't be the appropriate place to raise a child, mainly now with the latter damages of the Tree.

He tried many times to convince Kalima to move out, but she was determined to stay. She wanted to have a child on the Isle. She felt that need, maybe because of the bonds she had created with the charming nature, maybe because of the people she had met. After many discussions, they brought it to a common term. They would move on to South Coast Village. And it should be immediate:

"Mat, we still have time... I don't want to leave the Inn like that... We still have seven months until the birth..."

"No, Kalima! Seven months, yes, but you will need medical care that we don't have here in the local hospital. And I don't like leaving everything for the last minute. What if the baby decides to come before its time, and we can't save him, with the birth taking place here, at the Inn? Kalima! Please, listen to me! It's our son! All care is little right now!"

Kalima ended up agreeing with Mat's worrying and they prepared themselves to move out.

At the hospital, Mat talked to Johann Marcein and he comprehended the young father's concerns:

"Yes, Mat, my boy! I respect your decision, even though the hospital would be losing a good doctor; do whatever it's best for you... Well, thinking straightforwardly maybe it wouldn't be necessary to move into the Continent. I know the hospitals from South Coast Village, and they are pretty similar to the Continent. Stay calm. Everything is going to be fine and Kalima will be very well-treated there. Well... Now talking about your departure, when do you want to move out?"

"I intend to go soon, so I'd like to settle my accounts I can stay for a few more days and then go..."

"Yes, sir, Mat Salans! It's everything alright between the two of us! Look for our assistant, she will have your things settled... It was nice to have you during this time. We'll miss you. Hope to see you soon."

"Thank you very much for the opportunity, Mr. Marcein! I enjoyed my time here as well. I'm not sure if we will meet soon but I will be back someday."

Mat felt his heart twinging when he unwittingly said "...I will be back someday...", it was like a mix of anguish, fear, and nostalgia too; besides the recent tragedy, he could not avoid taking with him some memories of that now forbidden love, and that he maybe won't forget anymore.

Talking about the tragedy, the sailor's incident didn't have a notorious, "tragic" outcome. Their vanishing was considered by their acquaintances like a departure towards the sea, like they always did, without warning. Also, nobody found any trace or clue of their bodies massacre. No one knows for sure what the Goddesses did, but a few moments after the incident, the road has shown itself intact. No blood stains on boulders, no severed body parts exposed, nothing.

All pieces of evidence of what had happened, died away in a magical and gloomy way, as the dark tale of the Great Goddess Tree. Not to say that nothing remained on the crime scene, there were little waves in the boulders on the road, like someone has plowed it, only that. That minor fact, however, didn't prove anything and soon the fear of the Great Tree became asleep since she didn't arise again on the outskirts of the village. The people had already stopped talking about it and the tale was maintained only on the older hearts.

But for Mat, the Tree, the Goddesses and all the craziness reunited weren't a tale, not even stories to tell between rounds of wine in taverns. Also, for him, the marks in his being would not disappear like the intriguing magical Tree did.

Maybe he was one of the only creatures that lived with the Tree, with the Goddesses, and had a romantic relationship with it; that some moments were enthusiastically Dionysian, and on others, was disturbing. And the final pages of this supermundane novel were stained with the sailors' blood. The same sailor that Mat had attended on Hospital now was a ghost that's haunting him. Mat was an accomplice of those deaths and he could have stopped them with a simple warning shout. But he didn't do that. He made himself quiet towards the massacre and now he would have to bear that burden until his last days.