The Curious Road: Chapter 4
The Truth Revealed
A cave grew from the path in front of me. The yawning mouth sought to swallow me and my mortal fears. I stopped walking, the unknown filling me with terror. Through the dark entrance, ice blue eyes watched me. I could feel their malice stabbing into me, seeing no bravery within my heart.
I walked toward those eyes. I entered the cave and the air chilled me, wrapping around me like strands of gossamer spider silk. My feet grew heavy as I trudged through the thick, muggy space. I grew tired. I sat petulantly in the middle of the cave.
“I can’t go farther. I need to go back to her,” I wailed, my broken cry filling the aching void.
The cave walls glared at me in disappointment. Stalactites pointed their crystal fingers at me in mockery. “You give up so easily,” the stones cracked and crumbled their distaste at me. The dirt floor lifted under me, pushing me to stand again.
The cave bats squeaked and laughed at my weakness. They flew together out of the cave, leaving me to face my judgement alone.
Silver light pulsated through the cracks in the wall. I peaked through the space. In the light, I saw us as children. We played in the forest and swam in the lake. We lay in the daisies and watched the owl as it sat on the skeletal branches above us. Nora reached for me, placing her hand in mine. Trails of blood dripped from between our fingers. She looked at me in horror and pulled her hand back.
“I did this?” No answer came and the silence sat heavy on my shoulders. I shouted to the eyes in the cave, “Did I do this? Did I steal her glow?” Those glassy eyes stared at me reproachfully, but didn’t speak.
The light pulsated. “Hmmm,” it said. “Why do you think so?”
I didn’t answer. I watched it take place, I knew the moment it happened.
She sat in the tree above me, I lay on the ground. Her dark hair hung in waves from the branch. The sun shone behind her, surrounding her in a warm glow. I reached up and pulled her glow into myself and watched as she grew dark.
In that moment, I stole her light. I wanted to glow like she did and so I pulled her light into me.
I stained her fair skin with the blood from my selfish hands.
The ice blue cave eyes became a face with full lavender lips. The lips pulled back to show ragged, sharp, knife-teeth. “Nothing so lost that you can’t give it back,” the face said, the words echoing through the empty cave. “The directions hide in the path.”
I nodded. I touched the laughing lavender lips with the tips of my fingers. The knife-teeth bit down and blood flowed from the cut. The shock went through my body, and I felt the ice blue eyes look through me into the back of my head. The cave fingers scratched inside my skull and I screamed. They unwound the strings of my brain, searching for the answers I hid there.
“She belongs in the light and you live in the dark. Give her back her light and she will live. What belongs to another can never make you whole.”
I nodded, as empty as those eyes in the darkness.
I found myself pulled into the water again, yanked into the cold. The water that had parted like water now became viscous. It filled my lungs and I screamed in silent agony.
I burst through the surface and gasped for air. I dropped into the sky that somehow pooled below me. The air felt thick with clouds and they wove together to catch me before I hit the ground. I was standing on the cloud bank, an owl with cinnamon wings circled me. She radiated light of all colors. Slowly, she became something else. Legs grew from her taloned feet and arms replaced her wings. Cinnamon colored hair flowed in waves around her beautiful face, her golden eyes glowing brightly as she watched me.
“Will you return and take the place that belongs to you? Will you give back what was never yours?” Her silky voice caressed the aching insides of my skull. Her warmth covered me like a heavy blanket.
I nodded. No words came to me, and I cried in the presence of her blinding brilliance.
“The instructions waited for you, and now you will receive what you earned,” she said. “Now, you know what to do.”
I wept. My tears ran hot, cleansing me of my guilt. They drenched my face, my hands, my clothes. I closed my eyes and felt my heartbeat inside of me. I reached for that rhythm with my mind and wrapped my hands around the brightness I found there. I pulled the strings of light from me and they gathered in an orb in my hand. I handed the orb to the woman and she took it from me, smiling gently. My tears became a curtain of droplets surrounding me.
“I never knew it could rain purple,” I whispered in awe. I watched the drops land in the pink lake. Gold light rippled from the center of each drop. The drops poured until they enveloped the surface in golden ripples. They collided with each other, pushing the darkness up and up into the forest. The trees disappeared in that wild darkness. The beasts within the trees howled in grief I knew, but their voices now soothed me.
Once again, the smells of illness reached me. I lay on the bed, watching weakly as the girl turned away from the window, her health emanating from her in richly colored waves. The light came in behind her, surrounding her in the glow. Her dark ringlets caught the light, shimmering in a halo around her head. She came to stand beside me and brushed my drab golden curls away from my sweat slicked forehead. Grief glistened in her ice blue eyes.
“Yes,” her sweet voice reverberated through me and I felt comforted. “The sky can cry purple.”
I nodded weakly. She touched my arm gently and left the room, the smell of daisies following her out.
On the windowsill outside of the room, the giant cinnamon colored owl watched me with her wise, golden eyes.
She hooted softly, calling me away from the mortal world. Pain and relief mingled inside of me and I floated from the sweat-soaked bed. Before I followed her into eternal darkness, I heard her voice whisper in my head. “You have given back what never belonged to you, now you can rest peacefully.”
I followed behind the wise bird into the night. Behind me I heard Nora’s mournful cry. I felt the forgiveness in her tears and gratitude filled me. She lived; I had saved her. I flew toward my next incarnation, scolding myself ruefully, knowing that I caused all of my own suffering. My jealousy had almost destroyed my innocent sister. The path had led me to the truth, to my destiny. I was free.
This writing is on a whole other level..