“That you are.”
“Why don’t you make Santali come back if her being out there causes such sorrow?”
“I would if I could find her.”
My eyes widened in disbelief. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think something has happened to her?” I asked.
“It is unlikely, but not entirely impossible.” He shifted on his feet and looked away from me, seeming uncomfortable with this line of questioning. “Variel told me that you’ve been telling the other souls on the island that a new age was coming.”
I nodded. “Yes, I saw it in a dream, but that has nothing to do with Santali.”
“Your gift of visions makes you different from the others, but you must not share your visions with them. It only makes them feel unsettled.”
I’d heard this many times before, but the idea of keeping my vision to myself seemed so ridiculous. “What is a vision if it isn’t shared?”
“Visions are for you alone. You do not have the authority to share them with the others.”
“Only you do.”
He nodded again and smiled, pleased that I seemed to be understanding. “That is correct.”
“When will I have the authority to share mine?”
“You won’t.”
“Why would I be given them then?”
“Since you are the only one besides me who has ever been given visions, I don’t know. When the time to know why comes the reasons will show themselves to us.” He looked to the line of trees across the clearing. “We should get moving if we will reach the base of the mountain before nightfall.” He walked across the clearing to another trail with me following him closely. I still had so many questions. As we left the clearing I kept thinking about Santali. Why couldn’t Father located her with the seerstone? I couldn’t help but feel that her disappearance was a bad sign. Maybe she didn’t want to leave the island after all. For the first time I started to wonder if Santali really was kidnapped and not a willing participant in her disappearance.
Chapter 5
“Walking is a meditation,” Father said when we first left the clearing. “You must focus on each step.” At times I’d think to ask him a question, but my words never seemed to catch up with him. I spoke to his back, to the soles of his feet and these parts of him did not answer. So I spent the time we were walking in silent reflection. I analyzed our lunchtime conversation trying to figure out what would happen if the fabric of the world outside of this island was ever torn. Wondering how exactly the barrier rocks kept us in and if Father was not the first who was and where that very first soul originated. Could I meet him or her? They would probably know the answers to my questions.
Father caught a pheasant for our evening meal. I winced as he wrung the bird’s thin neck. Feathers fell to the ground as it flapped its wings in one last effort to escape its fate, but I could see that the hope had already left its eyes. I wandered off in search of plants to eat while he cleaned the bird for cooking. We roasted it over the fire. Witnessing the pheasant’s death made the meal less enjoyable. Normally I didn’t help with meal preparation. This was the first time I’d seen an animal slaughtered and while I knew it was our way it still made me feel disquieted.
We slept beneath the stars. Father seemed to sleep right away lying on his side on a pile of leaves close to me. I quietly looked at the night sky and wondered if it might look different to a mortal looking at it on the other side of the world. How much could my location change my perspective? How could one’s relationship with death or lack there of change the way one saw the world?
In the beginning when Father created us some rejected the safety of life here on the island. They wanted more experiences. They wanted emotions that ran so deep they could make them lose control. These early beings knew they needed to experience both the good and bad in life to truly live. They wanted pain because then they could feel pleasure. Many of them bonded together and were insistent that they didn’t want to continue on the island. They wanted to explore the wide open world to find out what was possible for them. After many years of fighting Father finally let them go. He told them they could leave, but in order to experience life full and ripe like the sweetest fruit they must too experience death. They would be subject to the slow decaying of their flesh and the degeneration of their minds until eventually they were no more. They all listened to him but still said they wanted to go. This was before the sea when the planet was covered with only rock, soil, and foliage as far as the eye could see. The early beings that Father created left him alone and to be sure they would never return he surrounded this place with molten rock. The sea, the barrier islands, and the storms all came later. Our first separation from the mortal world was fire.
He watched the mortals go and when they were out of sight he caused the earth to melt with such heat that it became a river of fire that would keep them out forever. Then he started creating again and he made us, the immortals. We were his companions who would stay on this island with him forever. Because we chose to stay we did not fear death for it would never come, but we also did not truly live.
When we got to the base of the mountain I was surprised by how steep it was. I shouldn’t have been. We could always see its imposing peak rising up over the trees, constantly watching us. I had walked around the base of the mountain many times, but climbing it was only done at certain times and only done with Father.
Looking up the steep, overgrown path we were about to climb I asked Father, “How long will it take?”
“As long as it needs to,” he said as he started to climb.
I followed knowing that we would probably only rest once we got to the top. Though the climb was strenuous I felt the steady rise of anticipation as we ascended the mountain. I wondered what great truth I would learn. Would it be more profound than the visions that had haunted my sleep ever since I could remember? This was to be a uniquely spiritual and enlightening experience and to be honest, I was not very prepared. I didn’t expect to be asked to join the journeying so soon. I didn’t expect to be asked at all. I hadn’t even considered what one might do to prepare.
The climb was difficult. My legs burned and I gasped for air the further we climbed, but Father continued upward with an even, unaffected stride.
“Do you think we might rest for a moment?” I asked.
He stopped and looked back at me. “There is no need, Amara. We are already there.”
A few long minutes later we were at the top. I hiked up my robes to get a proper footing and stepped up on a boulder near the peak. Sweat dripped down my face, stinging my eyes.
“Here,” Father said, reaching his hand down for me to take.
I grabbed hold and he pulled me up onto the boulder. Then I carefully followed him to the top putting my feet in each exact place he used to carry himself to the top. I stood for a moment panting.
Once I caught my breath I looked around at the sacred space I’d just entered. I didn’t know what exactly I expected, but I thought there would be something that would make this place different than any other place on the island. I’d heard about coming here from the ones who had made this journey with Father before and they always spoke of it in secretive language that made me expect more. I thought I’d feel special and different. I thought I’d reach the top of the mountain and a spirit of peace would enter into me. I wanted to see something here that would help me understand what it was all for. Instead I felt normal. I was tired and my legs ached but other than that I didn’t feel different. I told myself that my fatigue was probably clouding my spiritual intuition and that once I’d regained my strength I’d start to feel different.
It wasn’t only the way I felt that brought disappointment, it was what I saw which was pretty much nothing. There was nothing spectacular at the top of the mountain. No temple. No magical grove of trees. It was simply a flat piece of rocky ground. I wondered how long we would stay up here because I saw no way to build a
shelter and nothing we could eat or drink. Father turned looking off the edge where we’d just ascended.
“This is the perfect place to commune with the spirits,” he said.
I looked over the view. Even though I could see the clouds above us and knew logically that we were in no way as high as them, I felt like I could touch the sky. I’d never been this close to it in all my life. Looking down over the dense green foliage of the island I could see how blessed we were to be living in a place so full of life. Beyond the greenery lay the dark blue of the water stretching out seemingly endlessly before my eyes. I couldn’t help but wonder what lay beyond it.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” he asked.
“It depends on what you consider beautiful. I mean … it is good to see over the trees, but it only reminds me of how small the island really is. It makes me wonder what lies beyond and how I can see it.”
“You do not appreciate how privileged you are.”
“Is that what this is called … privilege?” I looked around this disappointingly barren piece of land we stood on. “What happens now?”
Father gave me a disappointed scowl and walked to the center of the small piece of land. “The communion happens here.” He used the toe of his sandal to draw a line in the dirt.
“How do we commune? Who are we communing with exactly? Is it the one who came before you?” I had more questions than it was appropriate to ask, but I stopped caring about being appropriate ages ago. Now I was more interested in finding answers.
“You do not commune. You watch.” He lowered himself to sit on the line he’d just drawn. He sat with his legs crossed in front of him his hands resting on his knees.
“What am I looking for?” I asked.
“I did not tell you to look for anything. I told you to watch … to observe. That is your purpose.”
“But why is it necessary?”
He looked off to the side as if he’d had enough of my questions. “That is how it is done.”
“That is not an answer.”
“You sit and observe. Do not sleep. Observe.” He closed his eyes.
“How long does it take?”
“As long as it takes.”
I looked around at the patch of land again. “But what will we eat?”
“We won’t.”
“Where will we sleep?”
“We won’t.”
I walked to the place where we’d climbed up and looked toward the sun, a bright disk already low in the sky. “It will get cold once the sun goes down.”
“We are immortal. We are designed to endure all things. Are you afraid of being hungry or tired or cold?”
I turned back around to face him. “I was just curious. I can endure more than any of the others who have accompanied you on this journey.”
“I know that, yet you complain more.”
“I was not complaining. I was simply asking. Knowing what will happen brings comfort.”
“You haven’t seen this already in a vision.” He smirked. “You have many visions, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “Not very many.” I sat in the dirt like he had with my back straight and my legs crossed.
“I will begin now,” he said. “You will observe.”
He closed his eyes and I sat there listening to the rush of the breeze in my ears. I watched him sway back and forth slightly as he sat like he was keeping time to a song that only he could hear. At first I observed just like he said I should. I watched him closely, studying the form of his face. His large hooked nose, his salt-and-pepper hair hanging around his shoulders in ringlets. The ridge of his eyebrows jutting out ever so slightly. The fine wrinkles in his light brown skin.
Before long my back grew tired and I lay on the ground and looked up at the clouds above us, white bursts of ocean foam in the sky. I tried to imagine another world, one with no mortals or immortals. The azure sky darkened as the sun sank. My stomach moaned with pangs of hunger, but still Father sat with his eyes closed, unaware of me or the world around him. I stood up and approached him slowly. His eye sockets were only dark shadows in the fading early evening light. His face was relaxed, peaceful. He no longer swayed but sat perfectly still. I waved my hand just inches in front of his face and he did not stir. I wondered if he could hear me.
“I’m hungry,” I said. “I’m going to look for food.” I watched his face closely for a response and there was none. I thought he might at least nod his head or smile to acknowledge what I’d said to him, but he didn’t move. He was as still as a rock.
I walked to the edge of the mountaintop and looked down at the rocky path. I wondered how safe it was for me to go down it alone to try to find food. It would be completely dark soon and there was the possibility that I would never find my way back. I would’ve packed at least one glowing rock if Father had let me pack anything. I had listened to him and now I was stuck woefully unprepared on a mountain top, my stomach aching with hunger. Was I allowed to leave? That I did not know. Finally I decided to ignore my hunger and go to sleep. With nothing to make a bed out of I curled up in the dirt pulling my legs up under my dress against my body. It didn’t take long for me to go to sleep. My physical exhaustion outweighed my hunger and soon I was swept up into a sleep full of visions.
I heard that mortals had visions nearly every night. They came with their acquaintance with death. Visions didn’t come to me every night and normally they didn’t come to me more than once a night, but this night on the mountain with Father my visions came fast. They were more like feelings than anything else I might be equipped to explain. Not all of them seemed to mean anything at all, but in hindsight I can share the one that is the most relevant to us and the island and eventually will be the most relevant to the entire world.
In this vision a large fish washed up on shore. It was living, but it was as if it were trying to die. I saw the fish and tried to convince it to swim back out to sea because it could not live on the land, but the fish refused. “You cannot tell me what I can and cannot do,” the fish said. The words fell from his puckered, ruby lips.
When I protested by telling him that I was trying to save his life, he said that I should worry about my own life first.
“But my life is not in danger,” I said.
His scaly cheeks rose up toward his eyes as he laughed. “Are you so naive as to think that we aren’t all in danger?” He arched his body, raising his flat head and tail in the air before letting them fall allowing him to hop a little farther out onto the sand. The tide only touched the back half of his plump body now each time it came out.
Up until this point I’d never once felt danger at all. I had never felt afraid or threatened. The most overriding emotions I’d felt were boredom, apathy, complacency, but the idea of danger seemed so impossible to imagine.
“You don’t have to believe me, but that would be your mistake,” the fish said. He hopped again farther away from the ocean.
“I see.” I looked out to the water and watched the foam-tipped waves hurry in to the sand. “What can I do to get away from the danger?” I asked.
The fish laughed heartily. “Sometimes it is best to walk right into danger. Steel your heart and stare into the mouth of the shark. Count the knife-like teeth and pray for mercy.”
“Is that what you’re doing here on the sand?”
The fish looked up at me with its eyes like dark beads. “I do not have to pray for mercy, I’ve already received it.” With that he raised his body and used all his might to make a few more hops, this time back toward the water. In only a few seconds a wave swept him back out to sea. I watched as he sped away from me like quicksilver.
I awoke to Father standing over me in the new morning light. His brown eyes were rimmed in red. “It is time to go,” he said, handing me a bright red fruit that I’d never seen before on the island.
“What’s this?” I took it in my hand. It was the size of a grapefruit, but slightly heavier than I’d initially expected.
“It’s good. Eat it and then we’ll go.”
The outer skin was waxy and thick and I assumed could not be eaten. I peeled it away to reveal the white spongy flesh inside. Once enough was peeled I bit into it. I didn’t waste any time. I was eager to eat anything I could. It was the sweetest fruit I’d ever eaten, tasting like what I only imagined pure joy to feel like. It was like sparks in my mouth. The juice dripped down my chin.
“You don’t have to rush. We are in no hurry,” Father said upon seeing me gobble down the fruit.
I was not trying to hurry though. I simply couldn’t resist its sweetness. “The communion is over?” I asked with a mouthful of sweet white fruit.
Father nodded.
“It went well?”
“It would’ve gone better if my companion had not slept.” He looked at me with accusing eyes.
“When one doesn’t explain why I would stay awake denying sleep is not compelling.” I took another bite of the fruit. “What did you learn from the communion?”
“The new age will come soon. Everything will change.”
I laughed. “Isn’t that what I saw in the vision I told Stellan about? Isn’t that the same as the secret you wanted me to keep?”
He said nothing, but crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me.
“When is soon?”
“I’m unsure. Maybe ten years or maybe one hundred, but a new age will bring what you are looking for … change.”
“Might it also bring danger?” I asked, thinking of my own vision the night before.
“It might, but would that deter you?”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t think so,” he said.
I descended the mountain with the sticky fruit juice on my hands and face. Bees flew around me wondering if I were some kind of strange moving flower. I wasn’t sure if I would come down from that mountain changed like everyone else told me I would, but I did because the vision that I had while Father was in communion wedged itself into my soul. I told no one about it. I just let it slosh around inside me. For years I thought about danger. Whenever I saw a fish I half expected it to jump from the water and talk to me. Of course none ever did, but I always remembered that fish and the danger he warned me about.
Isle of Gods II: Amara Page 3
