Sacrifices

by Alan D Jones

  Chapter 26 - Revelation

  September, 2001 - Atlanta, GA

  Every day we call into the abyss, but one day it will answer.

  The day of Aunt Cil’s funeral was a particularly sad day. She had not died in battle as many who truly knew her had expected. According to the coroner, she died of natural causes. Since she was only fifty-one years old when she died, the coroner’s conclusion was hard to accept. Cil relinquished the gift of not aging when she accepted the role of Gatekeeper. Still, such and early death of natural causes sounded dubious to all.

  The various branches of the Few family from New Orleans to Atlanta gathered like seldom seen before. Many of the older women in the family business gathered in the kitchen to prepare the dishes for the repast. The young people conversed outside the window in the backyard. Sarah, Deborah and Ruth walked into the kitchen to thank each of the women for their efforts during their time of grief. Only women who were a part of this calling worked the kitchen during the repast of a fallen warrior.

  One of the older women, Samantha from New Orleans, picked up a clean towel to dry the dishes she’d just washed.

  She asked Sarah, “So, I take it since Cil is gone now, you’re going to pack up your son and move to the west coast?”

  “No, not right away, I want him to finish school first and I want to make sure that my sisters are okay before I go. But, how did you know that? Can you read minds and just haven’t told anyone yet?”

  “Child, please, I don’t have to be able to read minds to know what’s on your mind and in your spirit. Everyone has known since you were sixteen that you’d leave this life as soon as you got a chance. And, this is a good breaking point, a good time get away from this… all of this, isn’t it?” Sam glanced over her shoulder towards Deborah and Ruth.

  Taking Sarah’s silence as acceptance, Sam peaked out through the thin white cotton drapes at the young folks basking in the fading summer warmth.

  “Besides Reggie, none of them really have full understanding of what we do, do they, much less the burden of it all?”

  “No, Auntie Sam, they don’t and my son, Michael, knows nothing, at all.”

  Samantha was Sarah’s great aunt. She was over four hundred years old although she didn’t look a day over seventy and was the de-facto family historian. She wasn’t gifted in the same way as the sisters, but she definitely had a gift. She had an insight that few could match. Some call this the gift of discernment.

  “Yes, we are all sometimes kept blissfully unaware, aren’t we?” Sam said as she washed out another bowl. Then she continued, “I been meaning to ask you something since the viewing yesterday. I noticed that the little steel cross you gave Cil was missing, the one that she always wore around her neck under her clothing. I know her husband doesn’t have it.”

  A shocked Sarah replied, “How did you know about that?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I know it was supposed to be a secret between you and Cil, but for some reason she told me about it back in eighty-one, right before y’all took on Matasis and his lot. Anyhow, you don’t think the mortuary staff took it, do you?”

  “No, they didn’t bother her watch or her wedding set, so I can’t see why they’d take just the cross. It was a simple thing that I made for her when I was a child.”

  “But she treasured it, didn’t she? It meant so much to her. I can’t imagine her taking it off.”

  Sam shook out the dish rag she’d been using and laid it out on the counter to dry before turning to assist the other ladies in placing the leftovers in the refrigerator for Cil’s husband, Joe.

  Sarah stood there at the sink processing what Sam had just shared with her. Then, she lowered her eyes and thought about the clues she’d missed. Still, she needed to be sure. Sarah walked over to her sisters who were still chatting with the other women.

  Sarah was brief, “Hey, I need to run an errand. Ruth, can you make sure that Michael gets home safely? He’s outside with the other young folks.”

  “Sure,” Ruth said. She wondered what was driving Sarah into the street at this moment.

  Deborah, who was lost in her own thoughts, simply grabbed a quick hug from Sarah and continuing sobbing.

  Sarah quickly drove into the countryside. She found the secluded patch of woods where she occasionally hid her car. She quickly changed into her flame-resistant flying/battle outfit. Then, she took to the northern sky. She headed back to where they’d had their first great battle. The sensor-covered island appeared otherwise to be just as it was before that fateful day nearly twenty years earlier. Sarah landed on the shore beneath the high bluff wall where Cil and Deborah had battled Chase.

  Sarah paced back and forth until she was sure of where she wanted to dig. She unleashed a steady stream of heat and microwave energies to melt away the ice that had built up over the years. Aided by her unique powers of perception, she saw Chase’s body as she had expected. But, beneath his body was another.

  Sarah rushed over and began melting away the ice from this body with her hands. She was ever so careful. Sarah kneeled in the snow and ice and pulled the body into her lap. When she turned the body over, she saw Cil’s face and the cross she’d given her over thirty years earlier. Sarah leaned back and let out a loud cry. She caressed Cil’s cold face as she rocked back and forth and the pieces came together in her own mind. Cil had not been resurrected or even healed by Deborah. Rather, she had been spontaneously recreated.

  Cil had spent so much time counseling Deborah and sharing insights with her all those years prior to the battle. Cil was filling Deborah with her own spirit so that Deborah would know completely who she was. But, there was one thing about Cil that Deborah did not know about – the cross. The little comments people had made about Cil since their time on the island now made perfect sense. Sarah realized that all those years prior to her death here, Cil could, indeed, see the future. The new Cil had been more like Chase. She could assimilate numerous factors and weigh them fairly to predict an outcome. That is not the same as actually seeing the future.

  Sarah remembered the story Deborah told about the day she tried to kill herself. She claimed that a woman who looked just like Cil, older and slightly taller, had rescued her; but, Cil had been with Sarah all day.

  “What if Deborah was right? That would mean that Cil had been in two places at the same time,” Sarah whispered to herself.

  In an instant, she knew. Cil had traveled back in time to save Deborah. And, she knew that, in doing so, she would change history and forfeit her own life. Cil had found a way to move the very stars in heaven.

  As the pieces fell together, a terrible reality fell upon Sarah. Her beloved sister Cil had been stabbed and tossed from the bluff to die alone in a powdery snow drift. She thought that they could have at least been there during her transition if not saved her life by rushing Mavis over to heal her.

  As she wept, a calm came over Sarah.

  She said to herself what Cil would have said to her in that moment, “It’s time, Sarah.”

  Sarah removed the cross from Cil’s neck and placed it on her own. She stood up, held the cross in her hand, looked towards the heavens, and said, “Yes, yes, yes, I will follow.”