Jonah

by Dana Redfield

  I shook my tambourine and cried.

  You'll never believe who showed up, Coral Kay….

  The mists swirled and there sat Thunderpaws, with all the pomposity and detachment of an Egyptian pharaoh. I felt foolish talking to him, as if it were a childish habit of men on Earth. “Thunder!”

  He didn't move.

  “Are you my eight-dancer guide?”

  I flashed on the afternoon I had left for Star Rock, Thunder dancing figure eights around my legs. He was trying to guide me then—trying to stop me from going to Star Rock.

  “I think it was something I had to do, Thunder.”

  I felt his disdain like sour breath across the mounds of pearls.

  “A man is called—he's got to go, or he doesn't become. I know how that sounds…I'm talking esoterics I don't begin to understand myself. But, Thunder? We Gaians are thick. That's what I needed to understand…reality, life is a lot more complex than I thought. You must have an inkling…you're a cat, a lot more advanced than me. Are you going to show me how to reach the Land of Doubles?”

  Thunderpaws yawned wide, like he does when he's provoked. Suddenly I remembered all the times I had been late in getting his food in the dish, and the times I had let the wet food run out, expecting him to be happy with dry food alone. I recalled guiltily the times he had sat patiently while I whined about my problems, and I felt chastised for my double standards, making fun of his pursuit of Tuxedo when I was a lustful schemer myself, preying on Miss Rose Veil….

  Thunder was impressing his thoughts on my mind! But I was hardly in a position to complain about emotional blackmail. He was a master at it at home, not counting the advantage he had here.

  “Please accept my humble, heartfelt apologies, Thunderpaws, for every slight and outright wrong. I'm just a man.”

  He crept gingerly over the pearls away from me. Clutching my tambourine, I followed him into the mists. Abruptly I came to a cliff. Thunder was nowhere in sight.

  Jump! I heard the command in my mind.

  “Get serious. This is a bottomless cliff….” I couldn't see a bottom. It was a swirling abyss of darkness down there.

  I heard a noise behind me, and whipped around. Thunder was in the air, a flying cat! He flew straight at me. A pile of stinking chicken guts could not have induced a bigger smile on his face. I ducked, but he clipped me on the shoulder. I lost my balance….

  Jonah curls, clutching the tambourine against his belly as he rolls down the steep, sandy incline.

  The sand at the bottom seems to be finely ground yellowed pearls. His sardine skin picks up the sand like a pickle rolling in corn meal.

  He wipes the slime off his eyes and blinks at scorched yellow light. For as far as he can see, the yellowish desertscape is populated by hundreds, maybe thousands, of sandstone monoliths…statues of people…but with no distinguishing features. Each is a faceless statue, as if abandoned by a sculptor impatient to carve still one more….

  Well, isn't this a fine mystery, he thinks. The Land of Doubles. Unfinished stone replicas. Faceless statues like dummies or window manikins. Rolphtaphearson said he was split like a clam, insinuating he would find his double here. One of those faceless statues is his double? And if he can identify which one, then what?

  Something catches his eye. Movement, and he hears a huffing sound. Fear's icy fingers play down his spine like piano keys. Wind hollows are the only words he can think of to describe them. Swirling around the statues, they twist like snakes, falling and rolling. Heavy breathers, huffing, minions from hell, rolling wind hollows.

  Now he is seeing something different, as if a camera dropped a colored filter, exposing the virgin lens. He blinks. He's hallucinating. Or were the sandstone statues a hallucination?

  His focus is fixed on a shimmering mirrored doorway.

  Wait a minute—that's him in the mirrored doorway! He screams, scuds back over the sand.

  “Take it easy,” he says to himself, keeping his head down. He's not ready to look again, not yet. Didn't Rolphtaphearson tell him he was split? Yes, but he didn't think it was literally, really, absolutely, truly true.

  He brings up his head slowly and looks again. Now he sees that all of the statues are people implicated in mind-boggling mirrored doorways. The Land of Doubles!

  “Okay, let's get this straight….” He points. “That's my double.” He taps his chest. “This is me.”

  The wind hollows swirl around the mirrored doorways, huffing. Jonah shakes his tambourine. That's his double, all right, front and center in a shimmering doorway. His double is wearing his overalls, his red long johns, he has the hair…and mustache and full beard! Have I been gone that long? he wonders, alarmed.

  His double is standing in the mirrored doorway just as he stood before the abduction at Star Rock. Yes, he can see the quartz knife in his double's hand. He was working the knife into the Star of David, making the point in the center. His double's legs are spread slightly, and his head is craned. His expression is shock. Yes, that's how it was the moment he saw the ship like a Ferris wheel spinning in the sky.

  What the hell happened? This is where human shell bodies repose while travelers journey out-of-body to other dimensions? But both bodies are substantial, so what does “out” mean? No one ever says how OBEs happen precisely. It just happens, and then the experiencer strives to explain, like the king of OBEs, RobertMonroe, did in his books. But Monroe died…made the Big Shift

  Zion said she traveled OBE to Uruguay. And he laughed, and she knew it. Maybe she put a hex on him to teach him a lesson. He shouldn't be here like this, stranded on a desert full of shell bodies caught in mirrored doorways. Is it because he has no song written on his heart?

  He shakes his tambourine. He's split? Maybe schizophrenia is like your mind unzipping, spilling out desultory thoughts like crazy people stumbling out of an insane asylum. Maybe that's the truth…he's crazy, loco, gone.

  Or this is a kind of chasm…this Land of Doubles. Not a philosophical, theoretical chasm—a real chasm….

  When he looks at his double again, he lurches. His double shifted—he—it—is staring at him! Not with recognition but definitely suspicion, like he senses he is not alone.

  “You're not alone!” he blurts. The sound of his voice shocks him. Faint and ringy like a distant echo.

  This is the moment, he can feel it. He must cross the chasm now—but how? He tries to pull up from the grimy pearlized sand, but he can't.

  “Oh, my God…” he cries. His body is dissolving into the sand. He legs are nothing but puddles. He's melting!

  Now his double is trying to step through the mirrored doorway! “NO!” Jonah yells, but his voice is so weak he's sure the sound did not carry. His double can't come here; he's sure that's wrong. That would be the ultimate mistake—who would be on Earth?

  Maybe he lost his place on Earth. He never did anything worth his keep on Earth because he never saw beyond his own petty concerns. Much less did he dream there were other worlds connected to Earth, interlocked in mysterious purposes.

  Jonah curls in on himself, weeping. “Oh, God, let me go home!” he cries, reaching out to his double, but his arm is nothing but an oozing roll of jelly.

  His life flashes before the eye in his mind, the man with the child's heart from birth to that fateful moment at Star Rock. He was a man not becoming yet, not even started. He made no mark on the scalp of the world. His tombstone will erode to powder, his pearl will be ground to dust.

  Light flashes like a camera snapping, an image captured in his mind's eye…Coral Kay's sweet face. He did leave a mark—a map in the DNA that courses in the rivers of her blood. He left a small impression on her…but God, wouldn't it be better if he could be there to guide her a little longer? Is a man no more than a bow that shoots an arrow and then dies?

  Such a look of forlornness mingled with love in his double's eyes…or is it just the pathetic glimmer of hope every man clings to before the door slams shut on his life?

  A
wind hollow is slinking across the sand toward him, twisting like a serpent, huffing.

  “JOQUIMAH!” A voice rumbles, shaking him. That was his voice, as if vocal cords vibrating in a giant's throat, thumped by the finger of God.

  The sound is liquid music heaving him up out of the womb of his misery. He is a vision beheld by two green eyes the size of lamps shining like liquid emeralds.

  Mustering the last of his strength, Jonah leaps, and is swept up in the arms of unfathomable love.

  No one crosses alone.

  PART IV

  The ART of INVISIBILITY

  The children of Earth have swivel bases…

  we will swing to the right,

  we will swing to the left,

  we will disappear from sight.

  Chapter T (20)

  At Dead Man's Curve, Zion slows the minivan to a crawl. The higher the elevation, the deeper the ruts in the dirt road, and today, coming to a spot that was barely passable around a rock slide, she thought she'd have to turn back. A road like life on Earth…

  It is Saturday, December 20; there are thirty-six rocks in the doll buggy. Coral insists her father will return by Christmas, and Triss encourages her to believe it. Zion's own faith seems a terrible shepherd who could lead to a bog of quicksand as well as an oasis. The rocks in the baby buggy will attest to her foolishness. And Coral and Triss will never forgive her. Triss's life philosophy is simple: right person, right time, right place, the Universe provides and there are no mistakes, only misinterpretations. But Jonah is a man out of time, not in place. And no one dictates another's journey.

  It is right she came alone to Star Rock today. There was no argument—Triss sensed her need. If Jonah is not coming home, she needs to face it. If Destiny returns him, this calls for preparation, too. Because everything is different now….

  The road that cuts over to Star Rock is so rutted and overgrown with weeds, it is hardly a path deer would choose. The higher the elevation, the fewer the signs of life—as defined by most Earthlings. But rocks are alive, Zion knows, and spirits run with the winds. It is easy to see why the spot was chosen by men seeking quietude, easy to understand why they do not improve the road, and why it is kept secret.

  She pulls the van up over the last knoll and parks behind Jonah's silver Ram pickup. The vehicle is coated with red dirt. In comparison, Triss's new metallic-blue van shines like a jewel. She sits a while, gazing out the windshield. Each time she comes, the site looks different. Today thick clouds hang in the sky like quilts dragged through soot. The Star Rock pillars are ochre-colored fingers pointing at a hawk in flight.

  As she steps out of the minivan, the wind swirls her hair. Save for errant gusts of wind, it's so quiet, her steps across the ground sound like hammers crushing glass.

  She climbs into the pickup with the sack of supplies she brought, sets the sack on the seat and starts the engine. It fires reluctantly but runs smoothly enough. Jonah's parka is smashed up against the passenger door like a kidnap victim. On previous trips, Zion and Triss had brought extra clothing and boots. The women didn't know what to expect, and Zion is no wiser today.

  After a while, she shuts off the engine and trades the containers on the seat for the refills she brought, a Thermos of hot coffee and a canteen of water. The cans of tuna and Power Bars are still good, and today she brought a Red Delicious apple. And she brought something else, a foolish thing. Especially if he does not return.

  Up here, the possibility that he might not come home is as stark as the terrain. Jonah's trip to Star Rock was an act of will, even if he had no conscious awareness of what he was choosing. She can't explain it to Triss or Coral. His vow to help her may have tagged him for removal! Maybe his presence in her life would have compromised her task. Fine—so let her live somewhere else! Why did Coral and Triss have to suffer? And who wants to be so important? She doesn't feel important at all, but she knows the axis of destiny turns on the acts of ordinary people.

  But her loneliness is sometimes extraordinary. Would he have loved her to the detriment of her task? Some can only fulfill their obligations when they are free of the complications of a relationship with the opposite sex. Raising a child alone was not equally complicated? Life on Earth is vexatious.

  She gets out of the truck and slams the door. She crunches across the rocky ground, kneels before the cedar tree, removes a long-stemmed rosebud from a roll of moistened plastic wrap. Tenderly she places the rose on the ground beneath the stylized tomb, crudely engraved with Jonah's birth name. A rock on the stem secures the flower from the wind.

  She looks at the sky. Will it rain tonight? She smiles. If she's worried about rain, she still hopes….

  A card is in her hand. She was going to slip it under the rose, but now she has a better idea. Standing, she inspects the ground for a flat smooth stone. If she carves her message on a stone, it will keep in the rain and the winds won't steal it. In search of the perfect stone, she bumps into the northern Star Rock pillar, rubs her shoulder, stares at the engraving again. Crudely, a Star of David. A recent carving—definitely not Anasazi. The six-pointed star is a common symbol. It's the mark in the center that sets it off, like a button snapping the two triangles together. It looks like Zalos esoterica. No one but her would think that….

  She spots a nice flat stone. Bending to pick it up, she notices a hole in the sand beneath the stone pillar. She reaches for a stick, scoots it inside the hole, and moves it around. Something is in there—a snake? She finds a longer, sturdier stick and employs it to fish out the contents.

  She laughs. A zipped plastic bag full of tiny green and red star glitter! For a moment she is lost in memory. Beyond the Royal Mountains in Geshlama is a land where magicians live. Few Geshlamans know of its existence. The magicians shield themselves. The old wise ones at Pali-uli know, of course, as do the migrants from Zalos. Did Jonah go there? Why would he journey to the land of magicians? Maybe there is a Celtic link between Gaia and Emray. Maybe her story about fairies is not far off. But anyone could have left this bag of glitter. Perhaps it was used as part of a ritual, like Lulu performed. Or maybe fairies did leave it. Did she invoke the sleagh maith, the Good People of Scottish folklore? Dare she believe? Coral would…

  Recklessly, she opens the bag and tosses a pinch of glitter to the winds. She runs over and sprinkles glitter on the tombstone. She sprinkles some on the hood of the truck, puts some in her hair, and twirls over the gravel. Laughing, she holds the bag in the air, offering it up to the sky fairies.

  A bird swoops down. Zion gasps. The bag is snatched out of her hand. Not a hawk—a golden eagle! It happened so quickly, for a moment she was frozen. Birds in the wild do not behave like this! Her heart jumps as the great bird flies the bag out over the rocky ledge, then drops it. The wind tosses the glitter like water spray. The bag tumbles as light as a feather.

  This is the second time she has seen a golden eagle; the first time, she was hiking with Jo near the Colorado River. This eagle's wingspan must be six feet wide. An omen. A good omen, she hopes.

  “How rude!” she shouts at the soaring bird to show she is not afraid.

  She'd better do what she came to do. The eagle may be a messenger of spirit, warning her: Enough of this fairy nonsense. She walks back to the minivan, opens the door, removes Coral's shawl, draping it over the seat. Then she undresses, all but her socks. Shivering, she drapes the shawl over her head and naked body. It covers her bottom and hangs to her knees. She reaches for the blanket she brought, a loud Scottish plaid she hopes will not offend the spirits.

  Blanket in hand, clad only in the shawl and socks, she walks gingerly over to Star Rock. She remembers her mother, and the other women of the Indigo Veil, their stately walk into the sacred libraries on Geshlama. A destiny snatched from her. Wrong. Not snatched. She was the one who instigated the journey to Earth. Though she did not consciously will the fall, she went to the cliff. And today she must go again.

  She is drawn to the northernmost rock with th
e Star of David etching. Leaning against it, she presses her ear to the stone. She can hear the winds inside. “Zynnwxatu…” she whispers, remembering an ancient name for the winds of change and all that the number seven represents. Six points on the Star of David and the mark in the center make seven. Whoever carved the star changed this rock. Maybe the vortex is cleansed and sanctified now. Maybe it is finally the light corridor she hoped to open so many years ago. Was Jonah the carver? Did he open the vortex? Does she live in a fairyland inside her own mind, seeing hidden signs of other realities in everything?

  She smoothes the dirt before laying down the plaid blanket, then sits atop it, crossing her legs, her back against Star Rock. The shawl covers her head and almost all of her body, but it is no more than a weave of crisscrossed yarn. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on a warm place deep within. The words she chants no longer hold meaning in her mind, but they feel right. Presently, she falls silent, and is still, meditating. The wind is gentle. She's feeling very warm now….

  She opens her eyes, and gasps. In an archway of golden light, an apparition fills the sky beyond the cliff.

  Wahyonihumaniel! She's beautiful beyond words. The image of the goddess shimmers pale blue within the golden arch of light. Her left leg is a mermaid's tail, her right arm, a wing raised to the sky. She is an eidolon, an archetype for the evolution of humankind, from the waters to the sky. Her appearance is as close as anyone embodied comes to the presence of our Mothers in Heaven. Wahyoni- means pure spirit; -humaniel, the highest human expression of spirit, achieved not through willful exertion but grace.

  As the vision fades, tears of joy flow from Zion's eyes.

  The eagle is circling the spot in the sky where Wahyonihumaniel appeared. Once again, the bird is flying toward her, wings spread as wide as a man is tall. She ducks; her arms fly up to shield her head. The force of the bird's powerful wings shudders the air. A claw plucks at the shawl, pulls her hair. Then, in a great whoosh of wind, the bird flies away.