The Gospel of Emely S'Anna

Genesis

Chapter One

This isn’t a story for the weak or the faint of heart.  This is a tale of a woman who has lived if you can call it living, many lives. This isn’t just another love song, this isn’t a ballad that the town bard will sing.  This is Emely’s story.

      Emely’s natural birth happened over eight centuries ago, at a time when the church ruled with an iron fist. If you were against their teachings you were cast out for heresy. The Catholic church had most kingdoms by the balls, many fell into the control of the Crusaders.

 Before the plague, before England was brought to its knees from war and famine, lived a poor family on the edge of town. A young girl with long blonde hair and chubby cheeks would play out in the woods.  Her name was Edith. She was the youngest child of ten. Her father calls her a gift, her mother said she was more like a curse. She wasn’t planned, her mother should have been well past her breeding years by the time that she came along. Her birth nearly killed her mother. 

Edith’s other brothers and sisters were much older than her and lived in other parts of the town.  She would only see them a handful of times a year. Edith would be raised as if she was an only child. The only child left in this small village, that consisted of four farms. Four, old, wise farmers. 

As she aged into her early teens, the drought began. The spring had run dry, so had the creek. The only water source the village had was the well at the center of the four farms.  Her father would walk with her through the cornfield and the wilted crop hung low to the ground. He would hang his head. He knew if he didn’t have crops to trade his family would surely starve to death.  At night she could hear her father pray for rain. 

The summer was unrelenting with dry heat, every breath felt like all the moisture inside was being pulled out.  The farmers had been defeated by the long dry season. They didn’t know how they would survive the cold season. 

Edith’s mother wasn’t a fool, she didn’t believe in prayer, or the one God, as the church forced on people. She knew that no god worth being worshiped would tithe their flock to the brink of death. She also knew that in matters like this it was best to keep your mouth shut, least risk being labeled a heretic. She quietly would try to teach Edith her way, it didn’t seem to take, she had been brainwashed by the Church and their rederick. She showed Edith where she kept her books, and tools, in a hidden compartment behind the wall in the kitchen, should she ever want to study on her own. 

The leaves would fall early that year, and the cold winds would blow. Edith’s father would be the first victim that old man winter would claim. Edith didn’t know this, but her father had starved himself to ensure that her mother and she would not go without. Her mother was heartbroken, the other villager would say that’s what killed her. Some would say she just fell to the cruelties of the winter. 

Edith watched as one by one all of the people in her village fell sick. She thought of her father often and the things the church had taught her. She prayed for survival, she prayed for food. Her prayers were left unanswered. She turned her back on God, just as he had turned his back on her.  She pulled her mother’s books out of the secret hiding spot. The crude images drawn in the book terrified her. The words Demon and Devil repeated. She was almost too afraid to continue. 

Days would turn to nights, nights to weeks, she was up all hours reading, studying, and planning. She knew deep in her soul that if she wanted to survive this would be the only way. She worked up her courage, took her mother’s jeweled dagger, book,  and walked off into the woods that she had been through many times as a child. She found a clearing with a large enough space to perform her ritual.

She laid the worn leather-bound book on a dry stump, her hand shook as she opened to the page. She took a deep breath, as she picked up a stick to draw the summoning circle. She followed the instructions in the book carefully, as the book had warned that one misstep could be catastrophic. Her heart raced as she pulled the dagger from her belt, the cool metal against her skin, she placed the blade in her other hand. She pulled the blade across her palm, it began to burn as her blood spilled. She dripped her blood at the five points as the book instructed.