Miracle of the White Leaves

CHAPTER ONE

A Dark Cloud and the First Miracle

The sun struggled to shine its light through the mist of an Irish morning. From a view of the dawn sky overlooking white cliffs that led to the ocean, a black cloud appeared. It broke into smaller pieces, separating and coming together again and again. The dark mass was composed of thousands upon thousands of smaller black dots. The huge cloud cast a massive shadow over the white cliffs of the island. As the cloud moved closer to the shore, individual spots revealed themselves as locusts. Though very clumsy and constantly bumping into each other, each insect was surprisingly polite.

“Pardon me,” said one locust. “Oh, no! Pardon me,” said another. “Oh, my bad, my bad! Pardon me,” said yet another. Again and again apologies spread across the swarm. “Pardon me, please excuse!” “Oh, no, no, no! Pardon me, my fault, all my bad.”

The lead locust spotted a village, motioned to the others, and the swarm began to descend. Beneath the cloud of locusts, a farm field appeared. The field was covered in yellow waving stalks of wheat and barley. The lead locust shouted, “Treats! Treats! Time to eat!” The others followed as their leader landed in the field which was quickly covered by the black locusts. Vertical columns of dust rose from the field, hundreds of feet high, as they began to eat. Like small tornadoes, the columns moved rapidly across the farm field. In a matter of moments, the locusts had devoured the entire crop. They lay on the field with their bellies now bulging, and began to burp.

“BURP! UURPP! BRRAPP!” and a chorus of other digestive sounds echoed across the now barren field. All the while, though voracious, the locusts continued to politely repeat “pardon-me.” After a brief rest, the leader of the locusts pulled his engorged body to his feet, and declared, “Legion! Forward!” Moments later, with a similar wave of apologies, they departed into the clouds headed inland.

Nearby, a small farming family, including mother, father, and several children, stood dressed in simple clothes barely more than rags. With mouths wide open, they stared into the sky as the locusts left the decimated field behind them.

Far across the island a young monk dressed in a simple robe with a hood walked in a field on a beautiful afternoon. The field was surrounded by Ash trees, forming a peaceful grove. A light breeze swayed the trees in a soothing rhythm. The sun was shining in the sky. The monk paused to enjoy the flowers and plants in the field. He held a leather flask filled with water and some cheese, and began to chew a few grapes he had set out. Next to his small picnic he had placed an ink well, quill pen, and dozens of white pieces of parchment. In his other arm he carried a book. The book contained ancient text on the pages along with a series of beautiful illustrations. Each illustration was colorful and very detailed. He dipped his quill into the ink and began to copy this illuminated manuscript.

On his shoulder sat his favorite pet, a young grasshopper. She was a vibrant green with long arcing antenna and white eyes. She watched the monk’s work, observing how he formed each letter with great concentration and curiosity.

“You see Morning,” began the monk calling the grasshopper by name, “we start our day with nothing but blank sheets. It is our job to fill these blank pages with the wisdom and knowledge of those who have gone before us. We must preserve that knowledge, even if it takes a lifetime.” The grasshopper looked intently at each word on the open page, almost as though she could read them. The monk looking on the grasshopper’s gaze smiled and said, “If I didn’t know better my pet, I’d think you were actually reading.”

As he spoke, a wind gust grabbed several of the loose pages the monk had brought for copying, tossing them in haphazard direction around the pair. The pages mixed with leaves that were blown from the nearby trees. Behind these trees, the branches were moving more than would be from just the wind. Through the trees, two young faces watched the monk. A young boy and smaller girl tried to lean through the branches to get a better look at the monk and his tiny friend.

The young monk lifted his head toward the sky as he watched the rising sheets mixing with the leaves. He remarked, “Our lives are like these leaves little Morning, rising and falling with the season. Yet, what we put on these pages—these white leaves—will last far longer than we. They can tell others, centuries from now, what was best in all of us.“ He paused in thought, staring into the distance as he said,

“That is something of a miracle. The Miracle of the White Leaves.”

The children watched from the trees and attempted to creep closer to hear the words of the monk. The monk went on, “This is why we labor each day and night. For each book we copy is in itself, a small miracle.”

He began to work in earnest, carefully copying the words from the existing text while Morning looked on. It was tedious work, moving back and forth from the original copy of the book, to the new pages. Each letter had to be copied exactly, demanding flawless attention to detail. Each letter was more drawn than simply written—an individual work of art. He used thinned ink and the nib of the quill to apply dark green, light green, dark pink, golden yellow, and blue for one particularly ornate letter at the beginning of a paragraph. Around this letter he drew swirling vines attaching dozens of leaves and flowers. The single letter “V” in the word “viriditas” took over an hour to emerge. The quill returned to the various ink wells hundreds of times in the process. Morning continued to watch his every move, as she had done all summer long. Like many grasshoppers, and humans, she was always inquisitive and ever curious.

As the morning faded, the sun rose higher into the noonday sky. The monk appeared to become drowsy as the sun blazed above. It was simply a gorgeous Irish day. The field was covered in purple flowers. The monk took a moment to pluck one of these and bring it to his nose. It was a small purple flower—the shape of an inverted bell—with a most soothing aroma to breathe in as it moved in the light breeze.

The monk’s expression revealed that he was exerting himself as he attempted to refocus on his work. His eyes closed, and then reopened. As his head nodded toward his chest he slowly drifted into a deep sleep. Morning jumped up and made her way toward the writing supplies. Although nervous, she felt as though she might be able to help her friend. After all, didn’t he feed her every night and keep her safe? Hadn’t she been studying his every move in copying the books for weeks on end? Surely, this work couldn’t be that hard to duplicate.

The young grasshopper dipped her hind legs into the black ink well. Her leg had many separate spikes on it, far more complicated than the single-tipped quill the monk used. She gazed at the manuscript, and back to the paper. With a great degree of concentration she moved the small spikes on her leg into a specific pattern. She then slapped her leg down on a blank sheet. To her delight, the entire word she was looking at in the original copy of the book appeared on the new sheet. She looked at another word, repositioned the spikes on her other leg, and copied several of the shorter words that followed. She repeated this movement faster and faster, moving back and forth between the original copy of the book and the blank pages—just as her master did each day. The wind increased, helping her to turn more and more pages as her speed increased.

Morning paused, as she heard rustling behind the nearby hedgerow of trees and bushes.

The older boy whispered to his younger sibling, “Quiet Aideen. They’ll hear us.”

“Did ‘ja see ‘dat Aidan?” replied the little girl. Da ‘hopper knows how to put words on da sheets! Dat one smart buggie!”

“Shush,” retorted Aidan. “I saw. Do not wake the good monk Faelan. He might not like us watching him work. We must not be seen.”

It was too late. While Morning did not let on, she had seen the children. Morning returned to her task, ignoring the children in the woods. The children continued to watch in amazement as the grasshopper’s movements increased in speed, so much so that she became a blur of moving color.

Over an hour later, Faelan started to stir. The monk woke to find Morning now napping on his shoulder.

The grasshopper’s tongue hung out of her mouth as she snored loudly from obvious exhaustion.

“Oh my,” said Faelan in a somewhat groggy voice. “I must have dozed.”

“The Abbot will not be happy with our work today little Morning. The sun is well past noon and I’ve but a few sheets completed.”

Faelan looked down to see what little progress he had made before his nap and saw dozens of pages scattered at his feet. Each one was filled completely with writing. He grabbed a few and compared them to the original copy of the book he brought to the field.

“What’s this?” he exclaimed.

Faelan began to stack the scattered papers, organizing them. When he had finished he saw a complete copy of the original manuscript.

“Am I going mad?” he asked the still napping Morning. “I know I brought only one copy of the manuscript. Yet, before me, there are two.” Faelan inspected the pages more closely.

“It cannot be. This is a complete copy of the original book. This would have taken months.” He paused looking across the grove of Ash trees and the field filled with purple flowers. Suddenly, he raised his hands high and shouted, “It’s a miracle!”

Faelan hurriedly put all his belongings into the leather satchel he carried. He placed the still snoring grasshopper into a small cage attached to the belt of his robe and ran from the field toward the outline of the monastery in the distance.

“Das nod a miracle Aidan. Twer da hopper. She got da skills!” cried the younger girl, still hidden within the hedgerow.

“Hush Aideen. Tell no one what you saw or da poor monk would be in big trouble,” replied Aidan as they too exited the field. Together, the two children ran back to their farm in the opposite direction of Faelan.

Faelan continued at a full run as he approached the great heavy wood doors at the entrance of the monastery. Like many monasteries of its time it was well fortified with tall, thick walls of stone rising around its boundary. The entire complex was perched high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It looked almost like a castle in its design. In its center, a simple courtyard of dirt connected several separate small buildings. Its dull color was a contrast to the many monks busy moving back and forth completing a variety of duties in the complex. An outside observer would immediately notice how oddly quite the monastery was for all the activity. Into this silent and productive setting stormed an elated Faelan.

“Abbot! Abbot Bressal! Come quickly. A miracle has happened! Abbot Bressal!” shouted Faelan.

Morning, finally awake, watched intently from her small cage as the scene unfolded. A portly man, dressed much like Faelan in a simple robe but wearing a white cap and folding white collar, emerged from the main building of the monastery. A small crowd of monks began to gather around Faelan and Abbot Bressal.

“It’s a miracle good Abbot, a real miracle!” Faelan stammered as he tried to catch his breath.

Bressal calmly said, “Brother Faelan, control yourself. While we have not taken a vow of silence in this abbey we do not lend ourselves to such excitement, lest it tempt our souls. Catch your breath and compose yourself, then speak of this miracle.”

“Today Abbot, in the field—Look! Two complete books! I brought only one. Yet I return today with a complete copy of the manuscript. An entire book copied in one afternoon is a miracle!” said Faelan.

“Brother Faelan, you have obviously forgotten the extent of your labor, and began this copy long ago. You know it takes months to copy even one book from our precious library,” said Bressal.

“I was only beginning my copy last week, Abbot. This I swear! Ask Brother Michael!” replied Faelan. Brother Michael in the now increasing crowd of monks nodded his head in agreement.

“I fell asleep in the field and when I woke, the copy was complete,” continued Faelan.

“I must confess,” replied Bressal as he inspected the original and the copy Faelan handed to him, “I know of only one copy of this work in our entire library. It is a rare Greek history, two of which I have never seen.”

As the other monks began to whisper among themselves a taller monk dressed in an all-black robe appeared from the rear of the crowd. While not as old as Bressal, his face was long and worn with lines of age. His robe was obviously made of better material than the others, topped with a white cowl. He carried a large wooden staff, intricately carved with symbols of planets, stars, and a series of geometric shapes. The group looked to the new arrival.

“Abbot, perhaps there is something of interest here,” he offered. He looked directly at Faelan, then at the books in question. “But, we cannot simply declare a miracle. It must be,” he paused, “substantiated.”

Bressal looked upon the skeptical expression of this monk. He looked back down at the work Faelan had presented and stroked his chin in thought. “As a former member of our great King Charlemagne’s court, Brother Ricard offers us wisdom as always.” Ricard smiled mischievously.

“I will sleep on this, and we will discuss the matter further in the morning,” declared Bressal. “Now everyone, please return to your duties.”

Along with the crowd of monks, Faelan headed toward the center building of the monastery and his room for rest. Ricard waited until the crowd dispersed, and quickly followed Faelan.

Faelan entered his small room, and untied the tiny cage with Morning in it. He placed Morning on a small barrel. The balance of the day had passed and the last fragments of light were peeking through a small window. Just as he lay down and began to close his eyes he heard a knock on his door.

“Brother Faelan, a moment of your time,” came Ricard’s voice through the door.

“Of course Brother,” replied Faelan rising from the bed and opening the door. What can I do for you this evening?”

Faelan opened the door. Upon entering, Ricard saw a unique room to be occupied by a monk. The typical room of a monk had almost nothing in it, save a bed. Faelan’s room was adorned with dried flowers and leaves, and a wide array of small cages made from twigs (each without a door). There were several tables made of overturned barrels, each topped with flowering plants and decorated with painted images of trees and seascapes. It was almost as if someone had taken the best of the world outdoors—and neatly arranged it inside.

Morning saw Ricard and scurried for her cage.

“I sincerely intend no offense,” began Ricard with the most skeptical of expressions on his face, “but how is it that an entire book copies itself in the middle of a field? Surely there is a logical explanation for this.”

“I only know what I saw, or didn’t see.

I did not copy that book. I woke, and there it was,” said Faelan in a series of staccato replies.

“Are you certain you did not make progress at some other time, and have forgotten the length of your efforts?” replied Ricard, leaning uncomfortably close to Faelan. “The very books we copy are the few remaining records of the wisdom of antiquity. The preservation of reason and logic is why we labor.”

“Like all Brothers my time and efforts are clearly accounted for,” replied Faelan. “I was just beginning that copy.”

“The declaration of a miracle is a serious event to us,” Ricard offered in a cautious voice.

“Again Brother, I only know what I saw. It is well known that you are a skeptic. Had you not held the favor of the King of our Holy Roman Empire himself, it is doubtful that you would be in our presence,” replied Faelan.

“Indeed, I still hold the favor of our King,” boasted Ricard. He stepped back from Faelan and looked through the window to the sea below. “Like me, he seeks truth in this world—wherever that leads him. In the years that I served within his palace, we discovered many rational explanations for what was once myth. The era of belief in dragons and sprites is drawing to a close.”

“There will always be a place for belief,” replied Faelan in a calm but defensive tone. “What one man deems a myth, another holds as his very reason for living. As you well know, the world has ever been thus.”

“And there will always be a place for reason, and logic,” said Ricard turning to face Faelan. “We shall see what time will tell of your —miracle.”

Ricard departed, his black robe flowing with the speed of his pace. His expression showed evident distaste for his younger brethren. As he exited, dozens of different insects emerged from hiding and entered the small open cages. Faelan hummed a Celtic tune, offering crumbs of bread to his many small friends, and went to bed.

Stay tuned for Chapter Two!