H.E.A.R.T. Saga: The Children

by Linna Drehmel

  He shut the door with an aggravated thud.

  “Wow,” said DraDevon. “I don’t think he took a breath during that whole speech.”

  DraDonna giggled a little and said somewhat jokingly, “Don’t be disrespectful DraDevon. He’s letting us go on a couples’ solace!” Their jovial spirit continued as he draped his arm across her shoulders and they began walking down the road to their home. “Well, young lady, we’d better get going. We have a lot to do.”

  DraDonna stopped and turned to look at DraDevon’s face. “I really feel like I should go back and check with Ambassador Symon about who our work will be rerouted to. I would hate to be accused of being job disrespectful again.”

  DraDevon chuckled a little bit, and called to her as she jogged back up the street, “Don’t worry about that. I would worry about him. He looked like he was going to mind-wipe First Councilor Jude.”

  When DraDonna approached the tiny office building, she saw that the door was closed but could hear raised voices inside. She raised her hand to knock, but stopped, mesmerized by the sound of the Ambassador and the First Councilor having a heated argument.

  Councilor Jude’s voice was muffled with the sound of her tears as she said, “Symon, You can’t kiss me like that again and just pretend that it didn’t mean anything, because it does!”

  DraDonna carefully peeked around at the window by the door and saw Councilor Jude lovingly reach up and caress Ambassador Symon’s face. At first he smiled and closed his eyes as he relished her soft touch, but then he reached up in a firm yet gentle manner, pushing her hand away.

  “Jude,” he said, “we are servants of the HEART, so you know that we cannot let this go any further. We should have never have kissed in the first place, and what just happened a few minutes ago was wrong. It was just taking us down a road that you and I know we cannot travel together!”

  “But I love you, Symon.” Jude sobbed. “I have loved you all my life and I know that you love me too.” He opened his mouth to say something but she stopped him. “Please hear me out Symon. You know that I learned the truth last year, and I have come up with a plan so that we can be together. It’s so simple…” She let the sentence drop at the tormented look on his face.

  “Jude, I do love you. I have always loved you. That’s why I have been avoiding you for the last few months. It hurts me to be near you and not be able to express my love for you. There have been many generations… other Ambassadors… before me. They managed to keep everything on this world running smoothly, without being married. I will not let it all fall apart on my watch.”

  “But I have a plan,” Jude said with desperation in her voice.

  “I told you before I don’t want to hear it, Jude!” he said with firmness in his voice. He turned his back on her and walked over to his desk. “You’d better get back to your community now, and tell them about the special gathering tomorrow just after daybreak.” He dismissed her. “If you will excuse me, I have to make my own preparations so I can properly handle this… Dra situation.”

  DraDonna was horrified at what she had just witnessed, terrified of being discovered. She quietly backed away, and then ran as fast as she could down the road toward her home.

  Understand

  5

  DraDevon did not look up from his EDUstone as his wife rushed through the front door, slammed it behind her, and then leaned up against it so she could catch her breath. She pushed herself off the door and leaned over the window, looking out.

  “DraDonna, you missed the midday meal.” He looked up at her and asked, “What happened? Did Ambassador Symon snap at you again?”

  DraDonna looked out the window as she tried to catch her breath, ignoring his question. After she managed to get her breathing under control, she walked on shaky legs to where DraDevon was in the main living area. “What are you looking at?” DraDonna asked, looking at the EDUstone in his hands.

  “DraDonna, please tell me what happened. You look like he told you he was going to mind wipe you.”

  “No, no. It was nothing like that. I umm, will tell you about it later,” she stammered. “So is this a map of all the solace cabins?”

  “Yes,” he said as he handed her the EDUstone.

  On this stone was the image of their world with all the cabins marked by little red triangles. In each of the three lands there was a mountain range and large lake. There were two cabins in each of the mountain ranges and two by each of the lakes.

  “DraDevon, would you think I was energy mad if I said that it would be fun for us to visit each of the cabins?”

  “No,” he replied in a teasing manner. “Not if we go by energy travel.”

  At this she handed the EDUstone back to him. She pulled the notebooks and the pencils out from their hiding place in the belt line of her skirt and began writing down where each of the cabins was on the map.

  “But DraDonna, why would we need to go to all of them?” he asked her as he spied the small treasure in her hands. “Wait, where did you get those?”

  “Well my husband, a few days after my birth, Ambassador Tatiana came to visit my mother and me. She brought a gift, as Ambassadors or Councilors usually do at the birth of a child. But she had heard of my umm, special hair. The gift that she brought my mother was different. It was a small wood box and inside was notebooks and pencils. She also told my mother that a special child deserves a special gift.”

  DraDonna looked up at him and said in an anxious voice, “Almost every one I have ever known has said that I was wrong in some way, but Ambassador Tatiana maintained that I really was exceptional. It has always been hard for me to believe that I’m anything other than a mistake made by the HEART…”

  DraDevon was worried by her emotional story. He stood from his chair and dropped the EDUstone on the seat. He walked the few paces to where she stood and put his arms around her and pulled her into a tender embrace. “My beautiful wife, Tatiana is not the only one who believes you are special. I also understand how you feel. People in the community bullied my mother quite a bit because of the pre name that the HEART gave her when she married my Dad.”

  He tenderly slid his hand up her back, stopping for a moment on the back of her neck, then cupping both hands on either side of her face. “I know how fantastic you are. I always have.” He gently pulled her face to him and tenderly kissed her.

  The sweetness of his lips moving on hers sparked a growing heat inside her soul. DraDonna matched his kiss with her own growing passion. She twined her arms around his waist so she could pull herself closer to the man who made her feel like her soul was on fire.

  His kiss grew even more intense as he slid his hands down to the small of her back, pressing her body even closer to his own.

  “I love you so much, my beautiful wife,” he said, his lips leaving hers. He then left a hot trail of kisses on the side of her face, down to her neck, causing her to her gasp with the tingling pleasure of his heated lips on her skin.

  The young lovers’ intimate embrace was interrupted by a quick decisive knock at the door.

  “DraDonna, DraDevon! Open up!” said a sharply pitched voice. “The HEART’s daylight is waning.”

  Both of them laughed a little as DraDevon walked to the door. He opened it with a smile. “HEART’s greeting, MayEdna! What brings you to our home?”

  The thin older seamstress smiled brightly and walked right in. “HEART’s greeting DraDevon. HEART’s greeting DraDonna. I heard the news. You two are going on a couples’ solace, and you will need travel packs. So, I need you to tell me if you will be doing any traveling on foot, or if you will be doing all of your traveling by HEART’s energy?”

  DraDonna wondered if MayEdna was going to fit any more words in that one breath. “HEART’s greeting to you too, MayEdna,” she said with amusement in her voice. “I’m surprised you know. I didn’t think anyone had been told yet.”

  “Oh, my dear,” MayEdna laughed a little. “You know, I have my ways of finding things out.”
<
br />   DraDonna smiled at the kindly older lady. “I think we’re going to do most all of our travels by energy, but if it’s not too much trouble we could use some special packs that would hang at our belts for carrying some of our tools.”

  “Why in the HEART of the planet would you need tools? Judging by what I saw the two of you doing when I knocked on your door, I am sure you two will find better things to do than to fix things with your tools,” she said with a little wink. “Nevertheless, MayJordan and I will have the packs ready for you before the evening’s energy.”

  With a nod and a smile to each of them, MayEdna turned and briskly walked out the door, leaving a lighter mood in her wake.

  After hearing the door close, DraDevon burst out laughing. “She is so wise, DraDonna. We will have plenty of other things to do.” His tone was playful. “Why don’t we leave these tools behind and…?” DraDevon let the sentence drop and smiled at her in a suggestive way.

  “DraDevon,” DraDonna said, feeling the heat of a blush in her face, “You and I being alone with nothing else to do but make love sounds so wonderful, but we did promise Ambassador Symon that we would fix up the cabins. Therefore we will need our tools, so we had better start packing them.”

  They spent the next several hours in their stuffy dusty shop going over what they needed and did not need on such a trip. DraDonna went through all of their tools with nervous energy, not sure what they would need.

  Each of her carpentry tools just didn’t seem right to her. She knew none of them would help her with what she needed to do. But with the reason that DraDonna had been giving everyone, she knew that she needed to choose some of them.

  She grew more nervous about what she was going to tell DraDevon at the evening’s energy time, but she was getting very hungry and wanted to go back to the house and have the evening meal. She struggled with the idea of having to tell her husband that she wasn’t going to take the evening energy with him.

  “DraDevon,” she called out across the shop.

  “Yes, my wife?”

  “It’s getting close to evening meal. I think we should finish up.”

  “You’re right, I’m hungry.” DraDevon stood up with a large wooden box in his hands and grunted under the weight of it. “I’m not sure how much of this we’ll need, so I’m going to take all of it up to the house. I’ll choose what I’m going to take when I see what packs the May’s give us.”

  “Why don’t you set it on my work bench?” she suggested. “I need to add some of my own tools to that box and then I’ll help you carry it to the house.”

  “Good idea,” he said, grunting as he set the heavy box down with a thud.

  DraDonna stood up from where she had been kneeling on the floor next to her workbench, trying to choose the tools she would need to bring. She looked in the box and then dropped the few of her own tools that she picked out into the box with a chorus of metal clangs.

  “Is this the box that Tatiana gave your mother?” he asked, reaching across the top of her workbench and picking up the ornately carved wood.

  “Yes,” she said with a hint of melancholy in her voice.

  “That reminds me, DraDevon. I don’t know why I haven’t shared this with you before, but…” DraDonna reached into the belt line of her skirt and pulled out one of the notebooks and pencils, then handed them to her husband. “I want you to have these.”

  “I don’t…”

  “No, DraDevon, I should have told you that I had these when we were married. I’m sorry.”

  “DraDonna, you don’t need to apologize to me, you were right to hide them. The HEART hasn’t made paper and pencils in a long time, so they’re a rare gift. I don’t know what I would do with them.”

  “You’re a smart man,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. “After all, you married me, didn’t you?”

  Matching her playful tone he said, “Yes. Well, I didn’t have much of a choice, now did I?’

  She laughed, “Put it someplace safe, welder man, and help me get this box to the house.”

  Amongst a lot of grunting, groaning, and sweat, they managed to get the box across the yard to their house and just inside the front door where they dropped it with a loud clang of tools. Before either of them had a chance to complain about how hard the box was to carry to the house, they heard MayEdna’s distinct rap on the door.

  With a little bit of a sigh, DraDevon pulled the door open for the cheerful seamstress. “HEART’s greetings once again!” She called brightly as she crossed the threshold, extending the bundle in her left arm to DraDonna. “I hope that they’re all to your liking. We did have to rush things a bit,” she said, as if she was excusing shoddy workmanship.

  The packs were anything but shoddy. They were beautifully made out of a strong woolen weave that had been dyed light brown and had been monogrammed with a vivid blue DD on each bag. There were two large knapsacks with drawstring tops, two medium sized packs with straps that tied around the waist, and a smaller bag that also tied around the waist.

  “Thank you MayEdna! These are fine packs!” DraDevon exclaimed.

  “We are just doing the HEART’s work DraDevon. You two have a nice trip and don’t work too much.” MayEdna turned on her heel and bounded back out the front door and down the path to the road.

  DraDevon closed the door and suggested that they have their evening meal. So, DraDonna deposited the bundle of packs on one of the chairs in the main living area. They both walked into the kitchen and got their meal out of the MDC. DraDonna questioned if they should take some other working supplies, but DraDevon just shrugged his shoulder and said, “No, the HEART will provide.”

  “Speaking of the HEART,” he said as he stood from the table. “It’s almost energy time; I think I hear the first toll now.” Proving him right, they both heard the decisive toll announcing that it was almost time for the evening’s energy.

  Having no thought of what she was going to tell him and feeling a little flustered, she stood quickly and said, “Excuse me for a moment.” She quickly walked to their room and retrieved a sprig of Traveler’s Joy from the folded up towel on her nightstand and began to eat it.

  Not knowing that DraDevon had followed her into the room, he startled her when he said, “You’d better hurry, it’s almost time.”

  She whipped around in surprise, too disconcerted to say anything.

  “What are you eating?” He asked in confusion.

  DraDonna swallowed and started to say, “I don’t…”

  “Come on,” he said, interrupting her and grabbing her by the wrist. He quickly pulled her with him to the HEART stone altar.

  “DraDevon, I can’t.” She told him.

  “You can’t? Do you mean you can’t take the energy?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand, come on and kneel with me. We can talk about this after the energy.”

  “I just can’t, DraDevon.” She said with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  The second toll rang, announcing that it was now time for the HEART’s energy. DraDevon hurriedly knelt down and placed his hand on the HEART stone, quickly saying the ritual words just in time to receive the special strong evening’s intake of the energy. After about 30 seconds of blue light running through his body, he stood up, looking calm and even a little sleepy. He saw that she was still standing where she was before the energy time. He looked at closely and saw that tears were running down her face.

  “Please tell me what’s going on. Did Ambassador Symon revoke your right to take in the HEART’s energy?”

  Without saying a word, she motioned for him to sit on one of the chairs in the living area. She quietly followed him and then moved the packs from the seat of the chair to the floor before taking the remaining seat.

  She took a shaky breath, wiped her face with the back of her hand for the third time that day and began to explain. “My oddly colored hair has always been trouble for me. Because of it, I have been marked all my life as a troublemaker
in the community whether I was one or not. But my family and Ambassador Tatiana always told me not to listen to anyone. They said that The HEART our Mother loves me the way I am, and that I was made special for a reason. In fact, just this morning, JorMelony lectured me on this. I don’t know that I have ever truly believed any of them. It seemed that their voices were outnumbered by everyone else who continued to treat me as though I was some kind of blasphemous mistake that the HEART had made. But after you and I were married last year, I saw that you did love me. Not because you had to, but because in your eyes I was perfect the way I am. I started to think that if you could see me this way, then maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with me.”

  “Of course there isn’t…” DraDevon started to say, but DraDonna interrupted him.

  “Please, let me finish.” She went on. “Last night I was working really hard on that MDC for the Sol family. I know that they don’t like me, and I was trying so hard to impress them, not so much for my sake as it was for yours. I didn’t want them to think badly of you if we didn’t deliver the MDC on time. I was also trying to hurry because I didn’t want to miss the evening’s energy with you. So I used up all my energy reserves, and I still didn’t make it in time.

  The peculiar thing is that when I got in bed, I had this dream. I can remember all of it, even now. In the dream I saw Ambassador Tatiana’s soul. She told me that my mind was free of the energy’s clouding effects and that was why she was able to contact me. She showed me a plant called Traveler’s Joy and said that I should eat it, to help my mind get over the energy. She also told me that I was a scientist in my soul—not a carpenter. She told me that there was something wrong with the world and that it was in the ground and that I had to find it in order set free all the souls of those who have died.” Another tear trickled down her face.