WIM Week 4: The Self-Edited Draft

He came to me on a midnight clear. An old man in a broken boat, rusted and screaming of tetanus. There was something odd about him—the way he seemed to light up from within, the way he floated across the splintered hull—as if he’d come from another time and place.

His crimson cloak fluttered in the salty breeze as he approached, silent like the moon, bare feet soft on the sand.

“Bonjour,” he said with perfect inflection. His voice was a pleasing accompaniment to the waves.

I scanned the shores for a glimpse of partying spring breakers, but all was deathly still. Never was a thing there when you needed it most. I flipped the neck of my book light back and aimed it up at him, my breathing erratic, my butt glued to the sand. He seemed harmless enough, but didn’t they all?

“Bonjour,” I replied, praying he wouldn’t carry on. Here in this New England beach town, French was a rarity found only in Madame Simone’s class, and a few more phrases would’ve exhausted my C average repertoire.

He didn’t, thank God. Instead, he stood staring at me with bottomless eyes—an unnatural gaze which should’ve creeped me out, raised the hairs on my skin. It was midnight on a deserted beach after all, and I had nothing but a cheap IKEA lamp and Jane Austen paperback for defense. Mum and Dad were snug in their Holiday Lettings bed, a sand dune away, too far to hear me scream.

But I was not afraid.

Fear cannot besiege the faithful. For through Him, I am protected.

I clutched the golden crucifix at my throat and looked the stranger clear in the eyes. I didn’t know this man. Yet somehow, I recognized him.

“You must go back, Joan,” he said.

I blinked at his peculiar accent, the familiar way he addressed me. “How do you know my name?”

The sudden beam of his smile pierced the dark. “You have always been Joan.”

Snapping my book shut, I stumbled to my feet, bare toes gripping the cool sand grains. I lifted my face into the dim circle of light and deepened my forehead wrinkles. “Go back where?”

“Là où tout a commencé,” he said, unaffected. “To where it all begins.” He reached a hand inside his cloak and pulled out a glowing sword, the silver of its blade so fluid, it lit up the night like twelve moons. Powerful grey wings burst forth from beneath heavy folds as he pointed the sword’s tip at me, and in that instant, I was bestowed with knowledge. Divine remembrance.

Centuries reeled before my eyes like credits at a movie’s end. All the lives of my past. The hundreds of strings of cause and effect.

And in each and every one, I was Joan. Jehanne d’Arc. A poor farmer’s daughter called to march an army to victory in a bloody centennial war. An innocent damned to rot in cells until the end of my days. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. For if it was, the angel I knew then as Michael wouldn’t be here, summoning me to launch yet another sequence of events.

“Once more, you shall convince the Dauphin of France to grant you his army,” Michael said. “You shall liberate the city of Orlèans, chase the English from the Loire valley, and deliver Reims so that Charles may be crowned king.” His hand seized my shoulder. “But this time, when they capture you at Compiègne, you must not recant. You must burn in martyrdom and light France’s flames into victory. For without France, the new nation cannot rise.”

I staggered under the weight of his grasp, under the toll of his proclamation.

Yet how many more times must I relive death, my Lord? Yet how many more times must I wield the banner of war, watch the massacre of innocents, condone the tortures of men?

I clenched the book in my fist and swallowed hard, sliding my doubts down my throat. The answers were not for me to know. I was but the hand to do God’s will.

Yet still, my voice trembled. “And by what sin must I burn?”

Michael released me to sheath his sword, a rueful twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Cross dressing.”

“Cross dressing?” I laughed nervously at the ridiculous sin prosecuted still to this day. To die as a woman shamed for putting on a man’s clothes—that was to be my fate! But who was I to question His design? Perhaps my sacrifice would somehow produce a string to challenge that notion, allow its acceptance in the new nation to rise.

“Man will find reason to suit his agenda, however ludicrous,” Michael said, as matter of fact.

The sad truth, if my past was any indication. I stared at the black waters crashing against the rusty boat that would take me back through time to the banks of the River Vienne and ruminated on my inevitable roasting at the stake. Maybe for the last time.

 I released my breath until the last drop depleted from my lungs, and unto Him I gave my soul.

“Then let His will be mine.”

The angel folded his wings and vanished into heaven’s stars, leaving me alone with old Tetanus. I laid my book upon the sand and set my light atop its cover. I could not take these items where I was going. I could take nothing but my faith and conviction. Yet already I longed to return to this idyllic beach, where I could finish a quiet life beyond nineteen and be allowed to rest in peace.

If it were God’s will.

Until then, I refuse to be afraid. I am Jehanne d’Arc. I was born to do this.