Adrianna, please understand that Woman who I loved was never Ella Bandita.
As I told you at the beginning, she didn’t become that monster until later.
Over the years, I’ve wondered what my life would have been like if I had made different choices on that fateful night.
Here, Adrianna, you’ve already asked me about this sketch of Woman with blood on her face and holding my littlest lamb.
That is the first of many I drew of her, of us, and of that time in my life.
But what might have been if I had chosen to move on through the night once I realized where I was, in the Abandoned Valley and Ancient Grove of the Sorcerer of the Caverns?
What if I had left rather than stay the night with my flock after I knew I was in dangerous territory? And what if I had stayed frozen when I woke up in the middle of that night to a young woman screaming from deep inside the Ancient Grove?
Or even if I had chosen to ignore that raging despair, rather than follow the wailing into the trees where I saw her for the first time?
But I didn’t make any of those choices. And the choices I made that night cast my fate for the rest of my life.
Everything about that scene was bizarre.
A highborn young lady, dressed in elegant finery, pounding her fists against a large granite boulder and screaming for the Sorcerer, as blood covered the lower half of her face and stained her beaded, pale blue gown.
She was so caught up in her anguish, she didn’t notice the Sorcerer floating across the clearing from the trees opposite me until he turned her around and slapped her face.
I did not grow up amongst violent people. I was so shocked I flinched.
But the girl with the bloody face spat at the Sorcerer.
Their ensuing argument made no sense to me at the time, yet I could tell that something between them had gone horribly wrong.
“Why did you bring my father into this?” the girl shouted.
“Because I can’t bring it back to life!” the Sorcerer snarled.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your heart. Don’t you remember the request you made about your heart?”
The bloody girl froze. Her fury suddenly gone as confusion shifted to understanding, and finally dismay.
“If you can bring my heart back to life, then you must, Sorcerer. Please! I’m begging you.”
Her pleading fell on deaf ears.
The Sorcerer of the Caverns laughed as he shook her off and turned his back.
But he had finally met his match in this one.
After centuries of preying on the hearts and dreams of young girls and virgin women so he would never die, the Sorcerer’s last conquest was this girl. I was there to witness his fall when she destroyed him.
The Sorcerer waved his hand over the giant boulder the girl had been pounding, which finally moved to reveal the entry to his underground Caverns.
The girl with the bloody face stood still, her expression eerily calm. Her hand slowly reached in her pocket, from which she pulled a small satchel.
Her bloody smile was grim when she looked to her hand.
She only needed a pinch of dust from that pouch.
“Slug!”
Thus the girl used the Sorcerer’s magic against him. The fearsome old man of legend disappeared, reduced to a common garden slug.
The girl didn’t hesitate. She stomped the Sorcerer of the Caverns to death.
I’ve wondered for many years what my life would have been if I had not seen any of that.
Would I have fallen in love with a robust, country girl with rosy cheeks and a cheerful laugh?
Would I have given up the roaming ways of a Shepherd and settled down to the hard-working farmer’s life?
Would I have had children?
Would I have been happy?
That night, I tried to flee the scene without being detected, but it was no use.
The girl with the bloody face heard me running through the trees, and followed. She caught up with me easily because my small flock had scattered during the night, and I lost precious time gathering them.
I tried to pass myself off as a Shepherd coming through on an overnight run, one who hadn’t seen anything extraordinary.
Of course, she didn’t believe me.
I could feel the tremor of fright in my throat every time I spoke, and my attempts to act casual failed pitifully. The sketch of her holding my lamb by the throat was the moment she accused me of lying.
I was only nineteen years old that night, still in the limbo between youth and manhood.
I couldn’t believe it when this girl, a stranger, grabbed me by the shirt, pulled me to her, and rested her head against my chest.
That was the first time I had ever been held by a woman. Her warmth and softness knocked the breath out of me.
Suddenly, this stranger girl with the bloody face was intoxicating.
Even though I knew I was in the most frightening peril of my life, I had never felt more alive.
