The Dunes Saga

by Kate Everson

Chapter 4: Lost in the Dunes

  The wind had been horrendous the night before. Big trees had been crashing down, their roots ripped up. Torrents of rain had flooded the land and washed out the fields. Lightning and thunder frightened the creatures as they scurried for cover.

  It was with this in mind, that I came to the Dunes that morning. I wondered if everything was okay. Was my Goddess of the Dunes still alive and well? Was she watching over her domain ensuring its safety?

  I had no uneasiness in these thoughts. I felt that everything, as always, would be the same in the Dunes.

  I was so wrong.

  When I looked up at the tree that she claimed as hers, I gasped. Her head was gone! The wind had snapped it off. There it lay in the sand, broken, the splinters pointing outward as a last defence. She was gone!

  After all my visits, I found it hard to believe. What were the Dunes to me without her? She was my Goddess, the one I bowed to in deep respect. She commanded all, including me. But now… what?

  The tree was still there, its limbs flailing an empty sky. But there was no head. Her dragon-like nose was gone. The eye that watched me wherever I moved, had fallen off. Even the neck, that elegant swan-like neck, had snapped like a toothpick in the wind.

  In shock, I walked around the sand beneath her. I checked to see if the snapping turtles I had seen just days before had laid their eggs safely. But there was a hole where something had dug them out. Everyone just trying to survive.

  So where did all this leave me? I felt bereft. Abandoned. Confused.

  I wandered around the dunes, hopelessly. I wore my rain boots this time, after the heavy storm, so I could walk through the marsh and get a sense of its coolness, its depth.

  There in the pond was an alligator. A log, really, that looked like a creature of the swamps. Its long snout and rugged back could have been alligator. I smiled. There was no emptiness here. All was in its right place.

  But who was I? Was I able to adapt so easily? Was there hope for me, without my Goddess?

  I walked the wet Dunes, in my boots, barely feeling the sand beneath my feet. This was not the sensory walk of a barefoot girl, feeling every grain between her toes. No, this was a hardened tale, one about getting old and realizing things that had to be. About death. About the way things are in life. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

  Oh, but I longed for her!

  I wanted her back. I needed her to be there for me. I had to have that security, that surety that Someone was always watching me and taking care of me, no matter what.

  What would I do now? How could I go on?

  I leaned down and touched a small green plant, full of ripe berries, bursting out of the sand. It seemed oblivious to my sad story. In fact, it rejoiced. Its roots were happy to have found sustenance in this bare land, and sunshine enough to make it grow and glow.

  How could it be so insensitive? The plant was thriving, despite everything. In fact, it seemed stronger. Was this the key?

  Did we have to become strong, against all odds? Full battle armour, swords thrust out at the world, ready for anything? I felt so weak. I had become dependent on my Goddess. My Queen. My Dragon of the Dunes.

  Where now could I turn for help? I looked all around me at the towering pines, the marsh with its ripples in the wind, the soaring seagulls and the harsh cries of a bluejay piercing the air. The pines struggled through the clouds that day, but once the sun tore through and made a halo on the top of the tallest one before the wind whipped it away. Brief solace. Sudden glory. Then gone.

  But had it been enough? Was there hope in that?

  The plant finds one drop of moisture and grows straight up through the sand. The pine searches the sky for sun and takes it, even for a brief second, and stands triumphant.

  Yes! It had to be.

  I could go on, knowing there was hope, even in emptiness. Because nothing was ever really gone. It would return in some form or other. Everything recycles. Nothing ever goes away forever.

  With death there is always a rebirth. With me, it had to be the same.

  And suddenly I knew this was my message. My revelation. My blessing.

  The top of the Goddess blew off because, in all her love, she sacrificed herself to show me something precious.

  She wanted me to be strong, able to survive on my own. To tough it out. To find solace in all things, and especially in my own strong Self.

  Her top was replaced by the Crown she placed on my head.

  I was the Goddess, after all.

  And in all things, as in me, there is unlimited strength.