Daphne never found Haiku.
She’d heard he went back to Japan and that was the all she knew.
She wondered what he was doing.
She wondered if he’d ever thought of her.
Then one day she finally got her answer.
Nearly a year after he left for Japan, she arrived home from her job as a waitress to find a package on the doorstep.
Tampons! The box was full of tampons.
She turned around grinning ear to ear to see Haiku parked by the roadside, leaning up against a black Bugatti and wearing designer shades.
Finally, she experienced one of those moments that was even better than a dream.
“You should have known I’d come back for you.”
“I did,” she lied.
She really didn’t. She thought she’d never see him again.
Haiku sauntered up – relaxed – a man of leisure.
He wasn’t a little boy anymore.
His forehead wasn’t covered in sweat.
His heart wasn’t beating in his ears.
He wasn’t stuttering over his words.
But, he was still sporting his infamous involuntary boner.
Daphne pretended not to notice.
He pulled her to him and planted a kiss straight on her lips without a single moment of hesitation.
He was so different.
“What happened to you in Japan?”
Now Daphne’s heart was beating in her ears.
“I never made it to Japan.”
“Where have you been all this time?”
He leaned back against the shiny black door and pushed his shades up onto his head.
“It’s a long story, but we’ve got plenty of time to catch up on the way.”
“On the way to where?”
“Florida. I’ve got to find my brother Sam. Both his parents are dead. Now I’m all he’s got.”
“You never mentioned a brother.”
“I never knew. So are you in?”
“Yeah, I’m totally in. There’s just one more person I have to say goodbye to.”
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Brinley left the porch light on.
She watched every car that passed, thinking it was the one, and she would have continued, but her mother finally protested.
“She’ll be here soon. Go lie in bed, and arrange your teddy bears.”
Brinley sharply exhaled, dragging her feet down the narrow hallway.
What was taking her so long?
She had already arranged the bears, turned on the lamp and pulled back the covers. Now every second felt like an eternity.
She couldn’t resist the urge to look out the window and watch the cars again, and she had counted 32 exactly when finally she heard the soft knock at the door.
She never understood why Daphne knocked.
Now, as she opened the door to see her standing there for the last time, she looked so different.
She looked taller.
She was standing straighter, more confident.
And, she was wearing a beautiful string of sparkling pearls that Brinley had never seen before.
“Finally you’re here!”
“What are you talking about? I’m twenty minutes early.”
Daphne was embarrassed to admit it, but she was excited, too.
“Finally, Brinley, the last chapter. This time I want you to read it to me.”
Daphne and Brinley curled up in a little ball on the soft pink bed as Brinley opened the book with hands as careful as a surgeon.
“Chapter Seven: Daria Dolphincakes …”
CHAPTER SEVEN: DARIA DOLPHINCAKES
Ever since their untimely departure from the throne, Daria Dolphincakes and King Loch Ness had been up late every night drinking coffee in their eclectic new monster cave at the bottom of the ocean. The cave had a vintage feel, with various broken treasures from sunken ships lying around in piles. Loch Ness loved to rejuvenate the musical sea horns and play the pianos that Medusa’s Mer Dogs were always dropping to the bottom of the sea.
Daria had never before seen a real Mer Dog. She imagined it must be the most hideous looking creature on earth. Half mermaid and half dog? How could Medusa dream up something so atrocious? And why was Loch Ness obsessed with restoring all of their rickety leftovers?
Now he was tinkering with the needle on a record player. Lately he’d been focused on one challenge in particular - fixing small devices with his new gigantic monster hands. It wasn’t easy, but he was determined.
Daria felt he had bigger fish to fry.
“Aren’t you worried about our ocean? Every day, more junk floats down to the very bottom, even to where we’re at. Can you even imagine how much more these crazy dog creatures have trashed the shores?”
Loch Ness had a way of completely changing the course of every conversation midstream. At first it got under Daria’s dolphin skin, but in time she learned to flow with his streams of imagination even when they were flowing uphill and in many different directions.
“So are we just going to sit back and let this snake wench destroy our entire ocean?”
She knew it was coming. Loch Ness stopped tinkering with his device and reclined backwards in his cushiony monster chair. He lit up his seaweed pipe. Here it comes, she thought. He’s changing seahorses midstream as usual.
“Daria, I could tell you my plan, but there is no way you will understand it unless you go below the glass sea.”
“O.K. Let’s go. We can lower down through your rainbow and …”
“No, you have to go alone. You have to become a human. Humans are below the glass sea. They just don’t realize it.”
“I am NOT swimming through Medusa’s weird mating pearl to become a dirty Mer Dog, or human, or whatever you call it! Don’t you know she will lay snake eggs in my soul from her dirty snake-infested head? They will hatch in my mind! Eww!”
“Daria, as my wife you will follow the path I’ve already made, killing every snake that hatches in your soul. Medusa will despise you because you’re her replacement. She will do everything she can to make you curse my name. She will even murder our son, Rio.”
“Please Loch Ness, don’t make me be a human. I’m not Mer Dog material. If there’s any other way, let’s pass on this plan.”
Surely there had to be another way. There was always another way. That was King Loch Ness – a Renaissance man. He made a way out of no way.
“I didn’t sign up for this Loch Ness.”
“You’re taking this too seriously. It’s all a big magic trick.”
Now Daria was cramming dolphincake after dolphincake into her mouth. Loch Ness’ plan was getting more stressful by the minute.
“Magic, huh?”
“Just one big magic trick. I’m allowing Medusa to kill Rio on earth, to make a flood of righteous tears from your royal eyes. Humans don’t know it, but there is magic in tears. Your tears mate with my hands to make immortal life – the water becomes alive. It is living water, and whoever drinks it will never go thirsty again. It is the water of eternal life. Now that is the real secret to creating life – not humans and their dirty little dog dance.
I will save every tear you cry and hold them in my monster hands until they become a mighty river of living water that will flow from my throne for eternity. This is how I turn mourning into gladness.
I am the father, you are the mother, and the tears of the saints will give us more offspring than the sands of the seas. And in the end, we will all be one.
Medusa is too stupid to realize she is being tricked. She kills Rio before he has a chance to sin, making him completely innocent, which is an important ingredient to make living water. I will snatch him back up to my throne before he feels even one second of pain.
She’ll think he’s dead, but she has no power to destroy any life I create. She only tricks humans into thinking she does so they will become angry with me, get discouraged, and give up the fight.
Don’t w
orry; Rio is more alive than ever.
But you won’t know that as a human. Medusa’s mating pearl will erase your memory of everything I’ve just told you. After you lose Rio, you won’t know he’s alive. You’ll have to trust me.
That’s part of going below the glass sea and into the sea of fire. You’ll walk through the floods, but the water won’t sweep you away. You’ll walk through the fire, but not be burned.”
“I don’t know Loch Ness …”
“Oh, it’ll be fun. You’ll have a blast, and in the end, we’ll have one big laugh. Really, it’ll all be over before you know it, my queen … and you’ll be wearing the crown.”
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE LADY AND THE DRAGON
Medusa stood out on the shore of the sea fuming with frustration. She couldn’t find the new queen anywhere. She’d done everything to hurt her, even murdered her baby, but now she’d disappeared without a trace.
From the day she’d been robbed of her pearls, her powers to transform had continued to dwindle. After two decades without even one night of sleep and a constant barrage of snake bites, her once beautiful skin was now scaly and red with inflammation.
Filled with fury, the red dragon Medusa realized she’d been duped.
She called out to Daphne’s snakes, but not a single one answered.
They were dead and gone.
That’s where Loch Ness was fighting the battle – in the ocean of dreams. Sleep. It was a place she could never go, and he knew that.
She could now clearly see the possibility of burning forever in the Icarus after all, and the only revenge she had left was to take as many souls with her as possible. Medusa began to gnaw at her dragon talons until a cloud of blood filled the water around her.
She swung her scaly red head, filled with fury because she knew her time was short.
Warn the town. The beast is loose.
REVELATIONS 12:17
“Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.”
THE END
Daphne closed the book.
Brinley sharply exhaled.
“Didn’t I tell you, Daphne?”
“Tell me what?”
“That the magic book. It is about you.”
“I disagree.”
“How can argue with this? It even knows you named your baby Rio! How can this NOT be about you?”
“It’s not about me. It’s about everybody, and how we fit together. We all have different roles, but in the end we all become one. That’s why I’m going to be leaving for awhile. I have to find a boy named Sam. I don’t know why, but he needs my help.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’ll be back.”
“Don’t leave.”
Daphne turned off her night lamp.
“It’s past your bed time.”
“Daphne?”
“Yeah?”
“Is the dragon coming after me?”
“Oh yeah. But no matter how much she harms our bodies, these are just temporary shells that will soon be discarded when we take our true form.
We are living in the ocean of fire- a testing ground where nothing is real. She can’t touch the real you. She’s just mad because it won’t be long before she and her human followers will be tossed into the Icarus. Their eternal suffering will be the street lights that illuminate the new city forever. Once you understand that, it’s just like King Loch Ness says: Our human experience will actually be fun. It’ll all be over before you know it, and in the end we’ll all have one big laugh.”
Soul Snake: Two Thrones, One Queen Page 9
