The Book, the Key and the Crown (Secrets of the Emerald Tablet Book 1)
Page 30
There is no trick to communicating with animals. There is no practice, no method, no theory. There is only an opening of the spirit. My spirit has opened wide.
And then he speaks.
“Lone Bull. The waiting is done. In the treehouse she sleeps. It is time to awaken her. It is time to tell your story.”
What a trembling is stirred within me when I hear the message of the eagle.
It calls to memory words of my father before he died. I have never spoken of my father to anyone. To anyone. I will tell it to you, but you must swear secrecy. What I give you is more precious than gold.
Before my grandfather died he told me this: The time is coming, Lone Bull. It is upon us. When the buffalo will return. The people will awake in the night to the pounding of their hooves. To the earth shaking. The ornaments they have collected for themselves will come crashing down to the floors and shatter. The windowpanes will break.
The dead will rise that day. I will rise son. When the buffalo come, do not hide under your bed. Do not run to the oaks, to the bushes. Tear your garments from your body and run to them, naked as the day you were born. Run to them. And do not fear. For in their midst you will see me, your father who loves, you. Out of the very earth, you will see me rise.
At the death of dusk she finally stirs. She rolls on her side and moans, then her eyes open. She blinks. Then she blinks again. I don’t move so as not to startle her. She needs to find me on her own.
She picks herself up on one elbow and looks down to her sack. “Ma,” she croaks and places the satchel to her middle, under the covers. Then she turns her head and our eyes meet. If she is scared she does not show it. “What happened to me?”
“You were running from wolves. You fell down a cliff. You have been sleeping ever since.”
She looks up to the window and sees the deep green boughs shadowing the coming of night. “Where am I?” she asks.
“You are in the Canopy. Welcome to your new home.”
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