by Ava D. Dohn
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Summer was waxing delightful, filling the valleys west of the Silent tombs with a lazy, warm breeze and the cheerful music of countless songbirds. The orchards of fruit trees hung pregnant with a rich bounty of their still unripe delights. In a few weeks, a rewarding harvest would fill the larders of Palace City, providing a tasty reward to please the palate during the coming cold winter months.
Lowenah lifted a hand, lovingly stroking a green fruit as though it was darling child. “There, there, my little one. Grow for me and I will reward you with a royal seat at my banquet table.”
The sound of footfall stepping through the tall grasses drew Lowenah’s attention away from the fruit and toward the person approaching. Lowenah grinned. “My Tolohe, I feared you would not make it. So much I’ve wished for your company this day, and for so many other days.”
Tolohe took Lowenah’s hand. “My Meter, could your child ever forget you? My heart pines whenever I am away from you. So close you are to me that you and I are one.” She raised an eyebrow. “Still, I do not believe your wistful fears at all. Do not play the innocent child with me. As I said, are we not one?”
Lowenah laughed. “True, true, I did not doubt your arrival, but I still longed for it, like one does for the light of day during a dark winter night.”
After giving each other a tender kiss and warm embrace, the two began to wander through the endless orchards. At length, Tolohe took Lowenah’s hand. Looking her deeply in the eyes, she remarked, “You speak of lighthearted and frivolous matters. Others may be fooled by such casual speech, but not I. You heart sings not the melody of a bright summer day, but that of distress and remorse. Tell, please, to your daughter, what weighs so heavily upon you.”
Lowenah looked down sadly, playing with her fingers. “Never could I keep a secret from you, could I? Yet easy was it for you to hide your own pain from me. Foolish thing I was, wasn’t I? You deserved better, you know. Your father I refused to listen to. Had I…? Well, I guess we’ll never know.”
“It is all in the past, my Meter.” Tolohe replied. “Innocent we all were in those days. So I ask again, what weighs so heavily upon my Meter’s heart?”
Reaching up and fondling a nearby green apple, Lowenah sighed. “This will be the last harvest from these orchards. Already the axe lies beside the tree. Soon there will come another war, this one bigger than any before it. All the land for as far as your eye can see will become a home for so many of my children. Ever grows the tentacles of the Silent Tombs until EdenEsonbar will become known only as the ‘land of the dead’.”
Tolohe sadly nodded. “It is worth the cost, for I see that through their death shall the rebirth of this universe arrive.”
Lowenah looked up into Tolohe’s face, asking, “Do you count same the value of your own life, for I have seen its demise should Shiloh succeed to glory.”
Frowning, Tolohe replied, “Already the crow calls my name. It is as you have confessed to me: better by the sword stroke than the ever-growing cancer. By the blade have I been weaned, come to womanhood, given birth, and seen my children die. Better my lover to strike my soul into death than the siren’s fatal music.”
Lowenah could only smile weakly.
Squeezing her mother’s hand, smiling sweetly, Tolohe continued. “Not even the Maker of all Things can stop the chiming of Gradian’s Clock. Shall we pander to sadness and remorse while the sun floats high in the sky, and summer’s love songs waft upon the breeze?”
Agreeing, Lowenah pulled a green fruit from a tree. “Can you come visit me when the harvest is in its full? It would be so grand to have you by my side in that hour of celebration.”
Frowning, Tolohe patted Lowenah’s hand. “The fall… the fall… where shall we be when the hour of summer ends? How can one promise something when even the Cherubs know not what the future will bring? The fall may as well be on the other side of the universe. Soon I shall step through the looking glass, and then my returning will be so uncertain.”
“Well, if that should be the case…” Lowenah held the green fruit high in opened hand. “Then we must celebrate the fall harvest now.” In moments, there was a fat, red, luscious delight sitting upon Lowenah’s palm.
Splitting the fruit in two, she gave half to Tolohe. “There!” She then happily declared, “We shall enjoy the first fruits of fall, just you and me together.”
It was such a beautiful day - too beautiful to have it wasted upon sullen and morose feelings. Lowenah and Tolohe became little children again, playing and frolicking through the tree-filled fields, chasing dragonflies and catching grasshoppers. So much fun it was to be forgetfully carefree, even if it could only be for an hour or a day.
As the sun settled into the western sky, the two found themselves far from Palace City, near the very edge of the fruited orchards. Off in the distance, the dark, foreboding, evergreen wood cast its shadowy gloom ever outward, warning any who approached that it did not care for casual visitors.
Before the Third Age, EdenEsonbar was sparsely populated, most of the children having chosen long ago to wander the surrounding star systems in search of homes for themselves. Palace City was often little more than a way station for wanderers tiring of the chase in the wild lands, or those seeking a temporary respite in the refined wonders EdenEsonbar offered. Before the Rebel Wars, less than ten million of Lowenah’s children called this planet their home.
For this reason, there still remained vast territories on EdenEsonbar that were uninhabited, save a very few of Lowenah’s more wild children who chose to live with flint and fire, the jungles of EthoHule one such place. The dark forests to the west were another such place, but even more so, Lowenah having long ago cast a spell upon those lands. The forests of oak, hickory, maple, cedar, beech, and other less friendly vegetation - some said made by Mother’s witchery to keep the uninvited out - stretched for a thousand leagues west until reaching the cliffs of a great inland sea. Only the wildest of the wild ventured into those forests, and few lingered.
Lowenah looked to the western hills, asking, “Do you remember our last visit there?”
Her eyes twinkling, Tolohe nodded, answering, “A haunted, spooky land filled with necromancy and witchery it is, scarier than the HootinSmokers! Such a wonderful fun place to be, especially when you are by my side...”
Taking Tolohe’s hand, Lowenah asked, her eyes pleading, “Does my darling daughter have an hour or two to spend with her Meter in that haunted forest?”
Tolohe laughed uproariously, “Do you believe I have crossed star systems to spend only an hour or two with my dear sweet lover? No, I do not believe you do.” She cupped Lowenah’s hands in hers, touching noses. “Tomorrow or the next day I must step through the looking glass again. When I return, I do not know, in this world or the next. That answer lies hidden in hands of the Fates. So today, and the next, and the next - for as long as you desire - I am come to play in your gardens.”
Lowenah grinned. “Should I have my will done, we would hide ourselves away in those forests until time comes to an end.” She pouted like an unhappy child. “But that is not to be...”
Both women stared off toward the shadowy forest, pondering the past, present, and possible future. Lowenah finally broke the silence. “Other secrets are hidden in that wood my daughter has not yet witnessed. Frighteningly scary they may be. Not for the faint-hearted they are. I don’t know... I don’t know...”
Tolohe pulled on Lowenah’s hand, laughing. “The better for it... The better for it! Quickly, Meter, there is little time to waste. If we hurry, we will make the forest by the witching hour of evening - such a scary time to arrive.”
Together, the two children were off in a rush, the spooky forest silently observing the approaching adventurers.
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