Rick Chiantaretto
Text Copyright ©2013 by Rick Chiantaretto
Crossing Death, Death of the Body, characters, names, and related property (physical and intellectual) are trademarks and © Rick Chiantaretto
Crossing Death publishing rights © Rick Chiantaretto
Death of the Body publishing rights © Rick Chiantaretto
All Rights Reserved.
License Notes
No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without written permission of the publisher. For more information regarding permission, write to:
Rick Chiantaretto
[email protected]
Published by Orenda Press
Copyediting by Bev Sninchak and Kathryn Star Heart
Formatted by Willow’s Formatting
Cover Design by Eden Crane Design
Production Management by Orenda Press
ISBN 978-1-940748-02-3
Printed in the USA
This Edition, December 2013
What if all religions were stories,
and all stories were true?
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty one
Twenty two
Dedication
For Mike, who knows what goes on in my head
and sleeps next to me in the dark anyway.
Prologue
I watched in disbelief as blood seeped through my fingers and dripped, thick as syrup, to the ground. I heard each drop thud against the ground beneath me. The echo in my ears beat louder than any drum. For the first time in my ten years of life, I cursed the connection I had with the planet. I cursed it for its betrayal. I cursed it because, with every drop of blood that spilled, the planet felt my pain and mimicked my screams with its own bleating sound that bounced around inside my already spinning head.
My legs were weak and my knees buckled but I didn’t dare let my hands loosen from around the wound in my stomach. I caught the weight of my fall with my face. I rolled onto my side in order to breathe. Pain surged as the ragged edges of my wound rubbed together. I felt every last severed nerve. They were all on fire.
Blood poured quickly. Worse than seeing it, I could feel it, hot and sticky in a pool beneath me. My stomach retched but it would hurt to throw up so I tried to force down the feeling. Bile came up anyway. I turned my head and choked it out. The rusty taste left in my mouth was so sour it made my eyes water. I cried uncontrollably, feeling ashamed of myself.
I wished for the comfort of my mother and father. I longed for the company of my two best friends. It was ironic that I’d just had a conversation about death with them a day ago.
As I lay sobbing on the ground, the thought that I was going to die became more and more real. Already my blood was soaking back into the earth that I loved so much. I thought of the lessons that taught me not to fear death. I had been taught that death was a return to the larger conscious mind that is nature. This awareness made my people who they were and gave us our unique gifts.
I was afraid anyway. The thought of dying was much more terrifying now than when it was taught to me by the Elders.
The Elders. The Elders who were either dead or enslaved. The Elder who betrayed us all and who did this to me.
Rage: pure, blazing, and blinding in its fury. I was too enraged to even notice that I could feel anything besides pain. Rage boiled inside me as blood boiled from my stomach and I realized it was based in two other emotions: hate and disbelief.
Then something cold and wet hit me between the eyes. I rolled onto my back and stared into the dark and threatening clouds. Another something hit the back of my hand, and I lifted it (was my arm always this heavy?). A drop of rain mingled with my blood.
I had never experienced rain before. It never rained here—at least not in my lifetime. Rain was for when the world was angry, when its powers had been abused and the balance of life had been disrupted.
But wasn’t I angry? And wasn’t I connected to the planet? Didn’t I understand its moods and feelings? Why wouldn’t it then understand me? In my delirium this seemed to make sense, and the large flash of lightning that then split the sky seemed to confirm my thoughts. The flash was blinding, and I didn’t have enough energy to be startled by the fact that my vision remained nothing but the same bright white light.
I shivered as cold crept into me; it didn’t help that I was lying in a chilling pool of blood. The rain picked up. I was nearly soaked through, but was too weak and numb to move. At least the pain was starting to slip away. I could only imagine how blue my fingertips must have looked. They felt like ice.
After the pain was gone, the fear began to fade. All the tension in my body went with it. Cold as I was, I started to feel strangely comfortable. I could feel the earth beneath me, supporting me, soft and gentle. My mom used to hold me like this.
When I realized the rage was slipping, I cried out. I wanted to keep it alive within me. I wanted to be angry and upset. I wanted to be angry because feeling an emotion—any emotion—was better than accepting death.
As the rage faded further, I thought I heard distant laughter. How could anyone be happy now? How could they laugh as I lay here, a mangled mess? It took me a minute to remember that just because the earth could feel my pain didn’t mean everyone else could too—especially not the outsiders.
Their voices were getting louder and nearer. When they suddenly stopped, I heard a gasp. Mustering the last of my strength, I reached toward the voices.
“Please,” I tried to say, but it came out as barely more than a groan.
“Get a doctor!” a woman’s voice commanded. I felt slight vibrations through the earth as somebody ran away. The woman who spoke came over and kneeled next to me. I wasn’t too far gone to feel surprise. I imagined I was a frightening sight. I expected her to keep her distance, so my eyes widened when she took my hand in hers. She was warm, but trembling.
“What did this to you, child?” Her voice shook but was full of compassion and concern.
“Magic.” I couldn’t tell if I actually said the word or just thought it.
As I repeated the word over and over in my mind, the rage dissipated and the light began to dim. A part of me was upset that I’d let the rage go but I was too exhausted to call it back. I welcomed the darkness now. The woman at my side was saying something but her words made no sense to me. Far easier to hear was the heartbeat of the earth. I wanted to soothe the earth’s tremors caused by the pain and fear it felt for me, but I couldn’t. As my breathing slowed, memories of the past day flashed into my mind. They were of the events that led up to my death, when all this started. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Who would have known it would only be one long day that would lead me here, lying on the ground, spilling blood?
One
The bright sun was centered in the sky and was hot enough that I unbuttoned my shirt. I was lying on my back, face tilted toward the sun, hands and fingers weaving a comfortable pillow under my head. The small, coverless wagon only needed to be pulled by one horse and swayed back and forth beneath me in time with the regular beat of the horse’s stride. A long blade of grass was between my lips. I che
wed on the end of it occasionally because I hadn’t eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours and the chewing motion slaked my hunger.
“Hey Edmund, aren’t you supposed to be steering?”
I must’ve been close to sleep, because the sound of my name made me jump. I forced myself upright, watching a figure bound toward the wagon with a handful of alfalfa.
I wasn’t alone in the wagon; the other person was my best friend Hailey and she was kind enough to answer for me.
“The horse knows where it’s going, Ralph.” I loved it when she used that get-over-yourself tone and rolled her eyes—except when she did it to me. Naturally, a large grin crossed my face.
Ralph, Hailey, and I had been best friends from the time we could walk. Even though all the children in our town grow up together until the age of twelve—and there were plenty of other kids our age—we had gravitated toward each other early on. Most of the adults in town treated us like siblings instead of just friends. Now that we were ten, we were each responsible for gathering food. Instead of each of us going alone, we decided it would be more fun to go together. I was responsible for blackberries, which, inconveniently, grew only in a vast forest a day’s travel away from town. Ralph, of course, gathered alfalfa, which was in abundance in the stretching fields that grew for miles on the horizon. Hailey was responsible for mushrooms that were found anywhere, but grew large and earthy on the dark, damp ground sheltered by the forest.
We became accustomed to taking one day at the beginning of the moon cycle to travel to the forest, gather berries, and stuff ourselves with mushrooms. We always fell fast asleep against a wayward pine before making the journey back the following morning. On this trip the mushroom harvest had been scarce and there were hardly enough blackberries to fill the required quota for the town.
Ralph sprang over the side of the wagon and landed loudly enough that I knew he purposely tried to startle us. Hailey shrieked as the unexpected weight caused the wagon to sway, but I remained impassive to his attempt to scare us.
“Wow, Edmund. What are you daydreaming about?” his voice sounded playful. He playfully snapped his fingers in front of my face to get my attention. They buzzed with electric magic.
My gaze met his. His ragged auburn hair fell unkempt over his golden eyes. He looked at me with an odd expression of anticipation.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
Blackberry pie—but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “Something on the horizon caught my attention,” I lied.
Both he and Hailey turned their backs to peer deep toward the west. “I don’t see anything,” Ralph said. “What was it?”
I could tell he wasn’t going to leave it alone. It was sad that the prospect of something on the horizon was enough to intrigue him, but I supposed we were all that bored. I’m sure Ralph hoped it was something shiny.
“I’m not sure,” I said, shrugging. “Whatever it was is gone now.”
My stomach growled and I heard Hailey snort. When she turned back to me, her face was lit with a smile that stretched so far over her teeth it must have hurt.
“Hungry, Edmund?”
“Starved. We didn’t get enough mushrooms for the trip. I’ve been staring at the blackberries the entire time Ralph gathered alfalfa,” I admitted.
“Well it’s my mom’s turn to cook tonight, so you know it’s going to be good.”
Visions of the town hall tables lined with plates piled high with vegetables, meat, tarts, and pies filled my head. Hailey’s mom always worked especially hard on town feasts. My mouth watered, so I reached out and snagged another blade of grass to chew on.
“How long, do you reckon?” Ralph asked. I knew exactly what he was referring to: how long until we were home.
I stood up and gazed south as we traveled through the long stretches of fields that touched the sky. I couldn’t see the slender trails of chimney smoke rising yet. Then I looked at the sun, which had traveled almost halfway between the center point of the sky and the western hills. “Two hours at best,” I said, slumping back down into the wagon. “We’d better stop and let the horse eat before too long.”
“I don’t see why she should get to eat before us,” Ralph complained.
Hailey shot him a disgusted look. “Because she’s the one that is going to get us home.”
Home. I saw Ralph’s face fall at the word. “What did you say?” he asked, not because of misunderstanding, but because of the way the word resonated through the air, caught the wind, and floated across the grass until it echoed from somewhere behind us. It was as if the world had echoed the word.
Hailey’s eyes grew large. In the pale sunlight they glowed hot ochre.
“Home,” she whispered again. To our ears, the word hung in the air like the tone from a tuning fork.
They both looked at me. Ralph was the first to attempt to speak, although the words got caught in his throat and sounded more like a croak.
“Edmund, is something wrong?”
My connection to the planet was the strongest. While Ralph’s abilities centered on things of the spirit and Hailey gravitated toward science and physical magic, my abilities were planet-centric and emotional. I concentrated on the blades of grass that bowed towards us to the rhythm of a new westerly wind. Home, home, home, was all they pulsed.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted, although my head swam with a feeling that told me something was lurking, not wanting to be revealed by the wind. I couldn’t ask the grass what was wrong, it was just repeating the wind. Grass didn’t have deep enough roots to make a strong connection to Orenda. “I need to find something with deeper roots.”
There was a line of trees just a few hills away in the direction from which the wind had come. “Feed the horse,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
Ralph didn’t say anything and hesitated only slightly before grabbing a handful of alfalfa and tossing himself over the side of the cart. Hailey sat motionless, absently stroking her arms as if the temperature had dropped. I considered saying something to comfort her but instead jumped to the ground and headed for the trees.
It didn’t take long to get there at full sprint although my chest heaved with breathlessness. The muscles in my thighs ached when I finally stood among the branches. The run helped work out my tension, but the emotions didn’t dissipate until I was standing grounded in the small grove. The planet had an odd effect on my emotions—they felt heightened and overwhelming when the earth needed something from me, but when I needed to keep a cool head, I could drain them through my feet into the soil beneath me where they would be absorbed by the world around me.
When my emotions were in control, logic would assert itself and my mind could solve larger problems, problems that even the average ten-year-old mage wouldn’t be able to solve.
I thanked the earth for my ability, and searched, not for anything I could see, but for something I could feel. I made my way through the thick undergrowth until I found a tree that called to me. Its bark was gnarled and split with age but its dark green leaves boasted of health and fertility. It wasn’t the massive expression of the powerful and twisted limbs that struck me, it was the unconditional kindness that seemed to sprout up from deep within the trunk and through the tips of the smallest twig. The tree was inviting. Had I had a moment to spare, I would have liked nothing more than to curl underneath its shade and rest my head against its roots. Yes. This was the oldest tree here, the mother of the rest, and she was aware of my presence.
I reached out and gently stroked the rough bark. “Hello, Mother Tree,” I whispered. It wasn’t the words, but the feeling I needed her to hear.
A shudder went through me as the tree spoke back. Hello, young one. Your heart is troubled and I sense you have come to make a request, the wind hissed between her branches.
“I am from the town of Orenda.” Emotion overwhelmed me as I spoke, my connection to the tree and the earth now flooding back into me. I had to fight back the tears that tried to spill
from my eyes. This tree had a powerful, kind, and overwhelming spirit. “I feel there is something this land wishes me to know about my hometown. Is there a line of roots that might happen to stretch all the way there?”
My roots are deep.
“Might I use them, please, Mother Tree, to see? In return I shall grant you any favor you wish.”
A favor indeed. Pluck an acorn from within my branches and take it with you on your journey home. Plant it in Orenda so that I may spread my seed across this land. If this you so promise, I will allow you to see.
I didn’t have to answer. Instead, I grabbed hold of the lowest branch and swung myself up into the tree. The ripe acorns were high but I was a decent climber. It didn’t take me long to reach a branch that was weighed down with large dark nuts. I plucked one gently and slid it into my pocket.
When my feet were back on the ground, I tenderly placed my hand against the trunk again. I caught my breath as emotion washed over me like an ocean, so large and deep it could have covered the entire surface of the planet. If every natural creature and element were connected to the ocean, and if I could see the beauty of the sea as it heaved and rolled, the resulting feeling that rose in me felt like someone was reaching inside my chest and holding my breastbone. That pressure, just above my heart, was where the feeling settled. That is what it felt like to be connected to the world as I was.
I surfaced somewhere in the middle of the town square, seeing through the perspective of one of the rose bushes that lined a trellis. The air around me was heavy. There was a smell I couldn’t recognize because it mixed so oddly with the sweet smell of the flowers. The atmosphere was filled with fog. My eyes must have been either tainted by the color of the rose or maladjusted, because I was only able to see through a reddish hue. I couldn’t make out the four walls that surrounded the square but the grass beneath me seemed normal enough.
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