by Ky Lehman
“In these trying times, even more so,” he tenderly replied, his eyes wet with tears for his beloved nephew.
“But, without my other half beside me, how can that possibly be?” I asked again, having difficulty comprehending how two minus one can equal three.
He thoughtfully paused and said, “The sea is made up of salt and water, yes?” I nodded, remembering this lesson in Temple. “But, when seawater is heated with fire, what does it return to?” he asked.
“Salt,” I answered.
“And, so, my dear Rose, that is what we must return to.”
My father always spoke of how salt is the world’s greatest resource: how it has the power to preserve, heal and enhance, but how it also has the power to corrode, hurt and destroy. Everything is so far out of alignment, I thought, and so…“The power of three is needed to bring us back to one,” I gasped in realisation.
Pleased with my understanding, he nodded and kissed me on the forehead.
But, another of many things I was still yet to understand was why we hadn’t seen Micah since before noon the day before. Again, Uncle Ari patiently explained that when the sun was to present itself at the highest point in the sky, so would he.
Chapter 13
PRESENT DAY
“Thanks for the ride, Captain,” I say over my shoulder as I step from the gunwale of the Water Lily onto the Apple Isle foreshore’s one and only dock.
“My pleasure, Lady Rose,” Morgan reverently replies, no doubt with a low bow he knows embarrasses the hell out of me.
Using his claws and the creaky wood of the pier, Benni Dhoo wishes Morgan a safe trip, and adds that he’ll be looking out for him from his corner of the Clearing.
“‘Til then, old friend,” Morgan, now portside, calls out followed by a small splash you probably wouldn’t hear if you weren’t listening for it. “Oh, and Benni Dhoo, best you take a bath before you see others,” he hollers through the warm, breezy morning as he speeds away from his grandfather’s beloved sail boat.
Benni Dhoo growls and lets out two strong barks, and I can hear Morgan’s responding laugh fading into the distance.
With the Water Lily safely docked and Captain Junior swimming out to meet his kin, Benni Dhoo and I start the trek towards St. John’s Clearing: to where I’m told Mum is waiting for me.
We have only walked across the tide-smoothed shore, up and over two sand dunes, and through a small stretch of brush, and we’re about half way down the two kilometre track leading into the woods when Benni Dhoo tugs on the back of my shirt with his teeth.
He better have a damn good reason for wanting us to stop. “What?” I snap.
“SLOW DOWN!” he loudly taps on what sounds like a rock
“Oh, come on, it’s not that hot. And if I’m not tired, you surely can’t be,” I say.
“I’m thirsty,” he taps. I hear the brook babbling away on my right and smile. The other end of this brook is what borders the West corner of the Clearing.
I hear him leave the well-trodden path and saunter through the long grass towards the water, quickly followed by his tongue lapping up all it can of the crisp hillside stream.
I follow him, and after the time it takes to fill up my water bottle and scoff down an apple, I give him the hurry on. He is clearly in grumpy mood, so I let him bitch and moan for a minute or so, and when it seems that he has finally gotten it out of his system, I turn and stride up the embankment, back towards the path that will take us to the Clearing.
I remember that Benni Dhoo likes to take his time and smell the roses, and if my once dead-now alive mother wasn’t waiting for me and I could actually see my surroundings clearly, I would be more than happy to indulge him. But today is not the day to pay him back for all of the times he has indulged me.
As I step off the grass and take off down the path, from behind me I hear him groan.
I come to an abrupt stop and stamp my foot. “What is it now?” I shout, not turning around.
He taps out his question.
“Yes, I plan on going this pace the rest of the way. Especially when we are so close to the Clearing, and my mum,” I condescendingly remind him.
Benni Dhoo says that he needs to rest.
Annoyance immediately flares into full blown panic. I have never once heard him admit to being tired, let alone insisting that he needs to rest.
I hurry back to where he is sitting on the grass beside the path. “Are you alright?” I ask, as I kneel down beside him and stroke his fur. “What are you feeling? Are you sick? Are you hurt?” Scappling through lifetimes of our memories, I can’t think of an occurrence, so I have to ask him, “Can you be?”
He guffaws.
“Well, are you sick or hurt?” I nervously ask.
“Yes, I can be. But, right now I’m not either,” he says, instantly shooting down my hysterical assumptions with one of his no-nonsense answers.
“So, what is it then?” I ask. I wish I could see his face: the truth in his eyes. “Truth, now, Benni Dhoo,” I firmly say.
“Do you recall how many Midsummer’s I have been alive?” he asks.
“Yes. Lots.”
“Exactly,” he taps.
“But, you’re immortal. And after the thousands of times you have done it, you should be able to do this walk in your sleep,” I argue.
“True. But these old bones can still get weary. And, these days, it is getting harder and harder to hide that fact,” he taps.
“Fair enough,” I guiltily say, even though I don’t fully understand what he is getting at. The last time I checked ‘immortal’ means that you live forever, but I apologise anyway. “I’m sorry, Benni Dhoo. I didn’t think-” Then a terrifying thought does register, and I start to babble, “But, are you…no, no, you can’t be…you said…you can’t…no…”
I anxiously run my hand over his face, his limbs, his back, his sides, hoping my touch can sense what I can’t see. As I feel for any wiry grey hairs, old man lumps and bumps and saggy skin, I silently pray that his body remains as ageless as the last time I laid eyes on him, and him needing to rest is just a one off bout of tiredness.
He shifts to lie down. Still not done with my examination, I lie down next to him and place my ear to his chest. Each unhurried beat tells me that his young heart is slowing, but my old friend is still…happy…lub dub…warm…lub dub…strong…lub dub…and protective…lub dub…and wise…lub dub…and loving...lub dub…that he is still, and will forever be, by my side…lub dub…
As his torso rises and falls with each snore, the urgency of getting to where I need to go stills, erodes and partially falls away; realising that this moment, here with him in this enchanted place, is exactly where I need to be. A fleeting dread, I should have squashed the moment it raised its ugly head, proposes that this may be the last time I will be alone with him here in the land that forever changed us both, resting together on the cool, dew-kissed grass as cascading rays of morning sun break through the changing leaves rustling overhead, all brought into harmony by the steady beat of his ever faithful heart.
Benni Dhoo rouses me by wiggling his upper body/my pillow and sloppily licking me straight across the face.
“Was that necessary?” I whine, using my sleeve to wipe off his doggy drool. But, truth be told, I’m more annoyed that I allowed myself to drift off.
He sniggers and nods.
“You feeling better?” I ask.
He nods again and taps, “Are you?”
“Yeah, actually, I am,” I answer, surprised. “How long were we asleep?” I ask, my head once again consumed with thoughts of getting to Mum.
“Not long, just an hour or so.”
“Really? Is that all? Well, shit…” I sarcastically announce.
“We haven’t really lost that much time,” he taps, rolling his eyes.
“I know. I know. I’m just sick to death of worrying about it.”
He pulls a face, and after a brief moment, he latches on to my chain of thought and confirm
s, “About what? Time?”
“Yeah. When I want it to slow down, it whizzes by, and when it whizzes by, I want it to slow down. It isn’t very obedient,” I groan.
He snorts, “Time should only be used as a gauge. It should never be used as a measurement,” he says.
“So you keep telling me. But two thousand years is still not enough,” I grumble, burying my face into his fur.
“My aging is a good sign, Lady Rose. It means I’m coming close to finishing what I am here to do.”
I lift my head and accusingly say, “You said that you are immortal.”
“I am. But, as you well know, this body is not. And, besides, how many of me do you know that have lived on this earth for two millennia and counting?” Gingerly, he stands and shakes himself off. “You’ve kept your mother waiting long enough. We’d better go,” he taps with a grin.
Taken aback by his cheek, I stand and watch him walk from our spot on the grass over to the path.
I stand…
And watch him…
And I finally realise that…
I can see!
I look up, down, and all around me, at my hands, at my feet and then over at Benni Dhoo and his wide smile. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you,” he taps.
I jump up into the air, do a little jig, clap my hands and squeal.
“Sleeping helps,” he says.
“It sure as hell does!” I call out. I don’t think my sight has ever been clearer.
“Let’s go and see your mother,” he says as he turns and purposefully leads the way up the path. Even though the grey in his coat and the sway in his walk makes him look older, I now realise that that nap was more for me than for him. Yet again, my faithful companion has helped me to stop and see.
After striding it out for fifteen minutes beside a well-rested Benni-Dhoo, we breathlessly burst through the tall Spruce trees surrounding the Clearing. The familiar smell of recently cut grass, summer pollen on the breeze, and fresh sap oozing down tree trunks centuries old hits me head on, bringing me to my knees: the season’s cheerful colours and sounds reverberating with the pulse of this sacred place quickly engulfing every one of my senses.
Then, like a sparkling jewel at the heart of all this splendour, a tall, slim figure with long, free flowing silver and bronze hair, draped neck to knee in her favourite white linen summer dress, stands from her position on top of the grassy mound in the Clearing’s centre and raises her arm in an excited wave. Benni Dhoo sitting beside me barks once, and like his call has started a race, she lifts her skirt and sprints barefoot towards us.
As the beautiful apparition of my mother approaches with the sun glistening in her smile and the tears streaming down her cheeks, I stay kneeling before what I still believe is an angel. The summer angel falls to her knees, throws her arms around my neck and holds me tight. I can smell the rose water on her skin, and as she rains kisses all over my face, I feel the breath she has been holding since the day I thought her to be dead, carrying the three words I thought I would never hear my mother’s sweet voice say again. “I love you…I love you…I love you…”
“Mum?” I squeak.
“Yes, baby,” she whispers as she searches my face and softly strokes my hair.
I can see the light in her loving gaze, and her fast beating heart flushing her skin. She is here. It is her: moving, smiling, talking, breathing, living.
“Mum!”
I clutch onto her and the reality of this moment as tightly as I can, refusing to let either one go as ten months of heart-wrenching grief and one life-affirming moment of joy pours from my eyes and trickles down her shoulders.
As I sit in her lap, she gently rocks me and kisses my hair, saying nothing until I do.
“I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too, sweetheart.”
“Where have you been? Have you been alright?”
“Since the accident, I’ve been here, and I’ve been fine.”
“Accident?” I growl, lifting my head from her shoulder. “The car bomb that bastard planted was no accident.”
She doesn’t respond. She lets me yell. She lets me cry. For Nanna. For her. For my father, even though that oxygen thief doesn’t deserve any of my tears.
As my sobs eventually ebb into whimpers, Benni Dhoo nudges Mum’s elbow with his nose.
With her arm still around me, she turns towards Benni Dhoo and gives him a kiss on the head. “Let’s go back to the house and get the two of you and fed and freshened up,” she agrees, rustling both of our hair.
With the words, ‘bastard’ and ‘accident’ still wet on my face and at the forefront of my mind, before we leave this place of peace, I have to know. “Is he here?” I ask through gritted teeth.
Mum doesn’t seem at all alarmed by my question. “No, your father isn’t here yet,” she calmly answers.
“So, he will be?”
“Yes.”
I am quickly reminded of that frustrating conversation I had with Mike all of those hundreds of hours ago when my teenage life sort of made sense: about having a connection with a person I don’t want to acknowledge, but, who, if truth be told, I’d give my right arm to find out more about.
I hiss and go to speak loudly, but Benni Dhoo cuts me off with a bark.
“Benni Dhoo is right. Not here. Let’s go back to the house,” she says, helping me up and linking her arm with mine.
With Benni Dhoo flanking us, we leave the Clearing the way he and I came in, continuing our trek down the ancient path the three of us travelled many times before: the short but winding way from nature’s sanctuary to the lively heart of the village.
Once we reach higher ground with a clear view, Mum stops us so I can take it all in. So many centuries have passed, but I am not surprised to see that there isn’t much difference between the panorama of my earliest memories and the scenery I see before me now: contrasting yet harmonious patterns of rolling green hills and angled vegetable gardens, vineyards and neighbouring orchards filled with the grapes and fruits my palate knows all too well and longs for again, lush paddocks housing livestock of all shapes and sizes, manicured hedges bordering rose gardens and flower beds dotted with colour, the grand amphitheatre, the ancient temples and their majestic sculptures, and the age-old market place is still the pulse of the town. Some new and modernized homes and buildings have gone up and the fashions the people are wearing have changed, but to me, the Apple Isle is, as it always has been: simplicity in a constant state of renaissance.
And, at the heart of this perpetual, ever-changing land is Kuldey Castle, where I am relieved to hear Mum has been staying. Throughout the centuries, Kuldey Castle has been our family’s stronghold, and as three of its first residents walk around its high stone wall and past the huge iron front gates capable of turning it into a fortress, I think back to when Mike and his men built its beginnings, back in those dark days when we first arrived on these shores as Micah and Shoshanna.
Micah, and the skilful native men and women who volunteered to help him, originally designed and constructed a simple residence large enough to accommodate five families which consisted of a large communal bedroom for each family group, a central eating and food preparation area, a bathroom, advanced for its time, connected to the main house by a corridor, and around back, stables for the livestock. Over the generations, this modest structure has been added to and the town has gone up around it. To my knowledge, it is still the grandest building of living history on the Earth today where over two thousand years of truth has been forced to live in secret.
“Prince Dural and his knights built the beginnings of the Castle on the land the People of the Light gifted to the Rose and her kin. Over time, the North, East, South and West wings were built by the Prince’s descendants, and throughout the generations, the Castle was further extended by those who came after them,” I think of Nanna saying in her story telling voice.
I remember when we all lived in those small square rooms con
structed of wattle and daub complete with dirt floors and fire torches mounted into holes in the wall, that, over time, branched out into wood-boarded chambers warmed by central hearths and our ancestors stories, then through intricately moulded archways of plaster enclosed halls draped from their cathedral ceilings to their mosaic tiled floors with hand woven tapestries depicting momentous scenes from times past, and then onto the miracle of electricity and the soft warmth of carpeted floors, wood panelling, opaque glass and the gold-leaf framed portraits of family who came before and after us, all who have, at least once, lived in and added to this historic cluster of rooms.
Nanna’s voice grows even more animated. “This great Castle was testament to the Prince’s growing family, their knowledge, and their strength, but this was not the reason why the Luminaries from the Four Corners of the Earth decided to hide their most sacred treasures on the Apple Isle-”
“I’m staying in one of the guest houses,” Mum announces, snapping my favourite of Nanna’s bedtime stories shut as she gives the Castle the wide berth and leads us around back towards the little village of guest houses.
“Why aren’t you staying in the Castle?” I ask, unhappily surprised.
“I couldn’t bear to stay there without you, Mum or Romey with me,” she solemnly replies.
Her words remind me of how in every lifetime, except for this one, at least two of the Three Roses have arrived on the Isle together. This time, Nanna is gone and the rest of us are turning up here separately, and I can see that Mum is also scared of what that might mean.
She opens the front door of the newly built guest house she has called home for the past ten months, gestures for me and Benni Dhoo to enter and follows us in to the darkened room. She flicks on the lights and both of us stumble backwards when out of the shadows charges the man I fear most: my ancient husband and my biggest celebrity crush.
Chapter 14
More shocked than scared, Mum and I opt for flight, but it is clear that even before the lights went on, Benni Dhoo had chosen to fight. Already launching through the air towards a fast advancing Josh, Benni Dhoo pushes him from his purposeful stride straight onto the flat his back, pinning him down on the carpet with his huge front paws and a hundred or so kilos of his brawny wolf-like frame. Staring Josh down, he shows him the razor sharp teeth that have torn apart more live flesh than I care to remember, and for added effect, he gets a good spit going, foaming at the mouth and letting the drool fall where it may.
