Sacrilege

A barbecue party on the farm Taurinos to celebrate one more stage of survival overcome for the whole of the Taurinian community. The mayor does nothing for the town, but pays for the parties to celebrate it after, a gigantic party for the population. The farm chosen is always the farm Taurinos, for being so spacey. A stage for dramatic events when all of the city made here a campsite, a bit before my definitive return to Taurinos, giving the place a certain Woodstock-like atmosphere.

Through the crowd that passed to and fro, I saw Bruno sitting by himself his back turned on me, gazing into the distance. It was not frequent that he isolated himself from the others when they were all around. I walked up to him and had hardly taken two steps when I clearly heard Andrés' voice call my name from behind me. Bruno remained there, nonchalant, just gazing at the horizon. I turned to look and there was no Andrés calling me, felt a cool gust of wind sweeping the place briefly, turned around again and when I started walking again to meet him, there was no more Bruno either. I looked around and he couldn't be far, the place was a plain and gave me the view of a good area. He couldn't be far, but he was.

Went back to the porch and met master Danilo. Great moment for exchanging ideas and impressions about the madness of the past few days and what was better, without Tinnitus' buzz to torment us.

"I didn't attend the Police ritual. Now I see I should have gone", the countryman said, "everything that has been happening these days was directly related to the ritual, "sá" Stella. I would be one more to contribute ideas to this story of the bell"

"You didn't miss anything nice, master Danilo, to be perfectly honest to you", I told him, in a confessional tone how envious I was of him in his house drinking coffee while I had to be there in that horror. He laughed discreetly as it was his way. But said what I had just told him only made him more ashamed for not going.

"You know, your doubts about the work of the Police. I didn't attend the ritual because I had the same doubts as you until", he said with the same confessional tone, "on Basilisk Island, facing the well, I saw what it all was.All the madness in the world trapped in that well and in the waters of that lake. Thoughts, ideas that form basilisks all the time that invade the astral portion of the town and turn the place into sheer hell. I saw it all looking into those waters for a moment. Had I gazed any further, would be in the well with them too."

I told him the ritual and he listened to me attentively. Used to the things in town, still he never failed to feel astonished at what he heard. He remembered the moment the Sun went black; he knew what it was, he closed all of the house's doors and windows and went to bed. He related weird dreams at night. According to himself, the dreams were part of his obligation of attending the ritual. His account got me all astonished too. I thought of him and the ritual as such separated things, but I recalled Meire, Aparecida and Duílio telling me about the same weird sensations at the time.

Andrés appeared all by himself and called him to join us. I asked what he wanted from me. He was perplexed at my question, "but I didn't call you, Miss Grisam…"

I told him what happened when I was going to talk to Bruno. Andrés looked weird at me. Master Danilo looked even weirder at me. I hated it when they looked weird at me. I broke the silence in a way, I was going to find out soon, was the most devastating possible.

"Why did you and Renan take me to that place?"

"What place, "sá" Stella?", master Danilo got all interested in the story, already glancing at Andrés.

I described the place and saw astonishment growing in the man's eyes. I thought he was in awe for the beauty of the place I was describing, but didn't take long to find out the reason for his awe was completely different.

"But, "sêo" Andrés why take her to that place???", I saw Andrés cringe slightly.

"I don't think Bruno liked the invasion either. Yesterday and today he didn't even talk to me", I said, making the countryman put his hands on his head.

"Let us pray that the gardener is not angry, "sêo" Andrés, but how absurd an idea!"

Andrés tried to defend himself with the argument I had created everything in Taurinos, but master Danilo contradicted him vehemently, "it doesn't matter if she created everything here; the gardener knows she's from another place and might bring to the Sanctuary things that don't belong to it. For the King Star's sake, this is sacrilege, young man!"

It was the closest I saw of master Danilo getting angry, what worried the hell out of me. I reproached Andrés (that already had his ears burning with the heat of criticism) and made a mental note to talk to Renan. Andrés turned around and disappeared from view. Talking to master Danilo, I understood that the Sanctuary was a kind of genetic bank of Taurinos' fauna and flora and had chills up and down my spine at the very thought of altering anything so delicate as the balance of that ambient and in town.

Anderson came and joined us something unthinkable in the last few. He greeted me friendly as in the beginning and was astonished with the new of the day. The countryman stared at the boy attentively as if he assessed the difference in him from the last weeks to today and seemed astonished himself.

"But Renan and Andrés should get a beating", he criticized the two, "it's not your fault, Miss Grisam, you didn't know, but they had to!"

I defended the two kids. Thought they did what they did because they found I had been "naturalized" in town for being here that long.

"Naturalized? Nonsense! The material that makes up your body was created very far from here. If a string of your hair fell inside the Sanctuary, there is going to be hell in town again", the young policeman said at master Danilo's nod, "I understand nothing about ecology you know, but I know a bit about materials. If you had created Taurinos alike to Santos there would be no trouble, because their nature would be the same; we could enter anyhow, because we would be Santistas not Taurinians."

More trouble ahead of us and this time with a Gardener I have never seen but that must be mad at me only to begin with. How was I supposed to know?

"The Celestial Gardener lives in there where you went with the kids", told me Anderson, "he is all the wildlife in Taurinos in only one person. He makes the plants grow, the animals feed, hunt, creates all cycles of life, all the adaptations for the animal or plant to survive in the cerrado, in the altitude fields or in the riparian forest. He is what you, in your land of Santos, call Mother Nature. It's feminine there, masculine here. And he gets real mad at times. Like Mother Nature can get real mad at times."

He glanced at master Danilo in search of approval and got his nod. The countryman said there was no feeling of distrust for me entering the place, only my genetic material could interfere with the reservoir of life the Sanctuary was causing inexplicable aberrations to come to existence. Never been so much of a foreigner. I remember the indigenous tribes assailed by plagues brought by white settlers and make the parallel with my own situation. Judging by the facts, the Gardener seems not to have approved me.

Anderson, on the other side, is fine. He is the guy we all have known and loved once again. The playful and bright blacksmith that loves heavy metal and the works with metals too. I don't even think of telling him what came to pass during his time "absent", but won't hide anything if asked.

"The bell is wonderful", I said to him, "never seen anything like that the richness in details, the messages it engraved on itself."

"Yup, what saved the day was that the bell is intelligent. It speaks a bit confusing but it worked out in the end, eh?", he added, pulling out some laughter from master Danilo and me.

I asked him whether he had seen Bruno. He said he hadn't, maybe in the beginning of the party. Thought he had already gone away, "Bruno is very angry at this story with the Sanctuary, Arthur and Guilherme too. Even Adriano was mad when he heard about it."

The kids in permanent state of beligerance. Town against police, police against nature and so forth. Now this Celestial Gardener I had never heard of before. The perspective of having to ask two or three different people in Taurinos whether or not I can go to a certain place. The perspective of having altered a delicate genetic bank as that of the cerrado of this particular region in Minas Gerais. Few and good perspectives. We have hardly stepped out of the Tinnitus trouble and seem to be going into another.