by Lynn Mann
You see the truth. Your fellow humans yet do not. You will need to relate to them in terms of their reality in order to be of help, Infinity advised.
As you and the other horses have been doing for us, all this time.
Not for much longer.
If we can do what needs to be done, then not for much longer, I agreed.
We arrived at my family’s stone cottage. My mother had been busy in the garden, judging by the mass of flowers that waved in the breeze, the freshly stained picket fence and the newly weeded cobble path. The upstairs windows were all ajar and their curtains danced as the spring breeze buffeted past them. The front door stood open and beyond it I could see the red rug that warmed the flagstones within. I drank in every detail of the family home about which I had dreamt so often and within which, when I had been missing them all most keenly, I had pictured my family chatting and laughing as they shared meals and went about their daily routines.
Aunt Jasmine touched my arm. ‘Wait here and I’ll fetch them all out,’ she said.
As she disappeared into Nixonhouse, I turned around to see that my companions all waited at a respectful distance and a crowd of people stood peering around from behind them. Marvel winked at me and Rowena gave me a reassuring smile and nod. I put an arm under Infinity’s neck and leaned into her warmth as I hugged her. She sent a burst of love through my being by way of a reply.
There was the sound of running feet and then Katonia appeared in the doorway. Her eyes widened and both of her hands went to her mouth as she took in the sight of me, Infinity and all of our companions. I just had time to move away from Infinity before my sister hurled herself at me, nearly knocking me off my feet. She was crying and laughing as she hugged me, then held me away from herself while she looked at me, before pulling me close and hugging me again.
Another pair of arms enfolded us both as Con’s voice said shakily in my ear, ‘welcome home, Am, welcome home.’ I reached an arm around him and hung on to my brother and sister for all I was worth. Eventually, they released their hold and moved to either side of me so that I could see my mother and father standing in the doorway. My father was smiling as tears ran unashamedly down his cheeks. He had his arm around my mother, supporting her as she clung to him, sobbing.
I was Aware of it all. I felt their pain when my belongings were discovered in the woods with no sign of me. I felt their anguish as the days went by with no word of my fate or whereabouts. I felt their utter relief on eventually hearing from Rowena where I was, what had happened to me and that I was safe. I felt my father’s pride and my mother’s sense of loss as they came to terms with whom I had become. I felt their constant hope that they would hear news of me and my horse – how we were, what we doing, when we might visit. I felt their spikes of joy when news, however brief, arrived, followed by their helplessness at being so far away from me, both physically and in terms of how my life now differed from theirs. I felt their wonder at the sight of Infinity standing at their gate, radiating beauty and power along with a gentleness they struggled to reconcile. I felt their amazement at the sight of the young woman in front of them who bore all the hallmarks of the daughter they had lost, but whose bearing almost removed the possibility that she could be that person. I felt my father’s love and pride at the sight of me and I felt the conflict within my mother; she wanted to give in to the overwhelming emotions with which she battled constantly and have one of her characteristic meltdowns, but she also wanted to find the strength to overcome them so that she could welcome the daughter whom she had missed so much that at times, she’d wanted to pack a bag and run somewhere – anywhere – in the hope of finding her. I felt it all.
Their challenges are not yours. Do not adopt them as such. Infinity’s mind nudged mine firmly. You know how best to help them.
Help them. I could help them. Instantly, I felt my love for them. For all of my family. Light burst out of me and settled in a haze around my parents. Katonia and Con shifted beside me, looking from me to my parents.
‘Am, what’s happening? Mum and Dad look hazy but brighter at the same time... and so do you. Is it you doing that? What are you doing to them?’ Katonia said.
‘Loving them,’ I said simply, and then cocooned my brother and sister in light as they stood alongside me. ‘Loving you all.’
I felt the intensity of my parents’ suffering subside. My father was looking from my mother to me and my brother and sister in confusion. My mother was smiling. She let go of my father and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. I ran to her and threw my arms around her neck. She embraced me warmly but softly. Gone was the desperation to keep her little girl close that had given her hugs a firmness in the past. I felt her pure joy at seeing me and her wonder at how she seemed to be able to feel her emotions one at a time now, instead of all at once. My father’s arms enveloped us both and cheering erupted from my friends and the crowd out on the street.
Rowena sat down beside me on the sofa with a bump. ‘Everything alright?’ she asked.
I nodded as I watched Katonia and Robbie flicking soap suds at one another as they washed the last of the dishes. My homecoming party had been wonderful – friends and family had pulled together to whip up a buffet, the lounge furniture had been cleared to the edges and there had been music and dancing on the flagstones. I had been hugged and kissed so much that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be just me, in my own skin, by myself.
‘I’m fine thanks, just tired. I’m getting better at holding other people’s feelings and thoughts away from me when they get overwhelming, but with as many people in one place as there were this evening, it’s a bit of a struggle, lovely as it’s been to see everyone.’ I drew closer to her and whispered, ‘in many ways, it feels as if I never left, but you were right about how much I’ve changed, I can see it in how everyone is reacting to me.’
‘And you don’t think enveloping your parents in light on their own doorstep had anything to do with it?’ she grinned. ‘I get why you did it, I do, but it was enough of a shock when we all saw you do it to Feryl that first time at The Gathering, and we had our horses to help us understand what we were witnessing. I’d have been surprised if everyone wasn’t acting differently towards you after seeing your parents and then Kat and Con go all ethereal like that, and you seemingly the cause of it. You just have to remember that it’s all good. Everything that has happened, all the changes that you and Fin have set in motion, it’s all good. Okay?’ She put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me. ‘If it’ll help, I’ll tell Marvel and the others to spread a bit of light around as well and then people will be looking at all of us as if we’ve just landed from the sky and not just you!’
I laughed. ‘Thanks Ro. Is everyone happy with where they’re staying?’
‘We’re all fine. Your aunt and uncle’s cottage is lovely. Marvel, Sonja, Aleks and I will be very comfortable there and our horses are more than happy with their paddock out at the back, there’s plenty of grass for them and your Aunt Jasmine’s donkeys. Jack and Vic are staying at Holly’s. Her Mum was expecting her to arrive any day so when we showed up, she thought Holly would be with us. She was so disappointed when she wasn’t that she insisted some of us stay with her instead and I don’t think she’s going to let Jack and Vic go until Holly turns up! She’s put the word around that Jack and Vickery are here to help people to multiskill and they’ve been inundated, hence why they didn’t make it to the party, but don’t worry, he and Vic will be fine.’
I nodded and yawned.
‘I know you need time with your family over the next few days, but if you need to talk about anything, come and find me, okay?’ Rowena said quietly.
I nodded and smiled as she got up and went over to say goodnight to my family before leaving with Marvel. I checked in with Infinity, to find that she was grazing contentedly alongside my family’s two donkeys.
I can hardly believe that I’m home. I’m finally home, I told her.
You
attempt to convince yourself.
Well physically, I’m home. It doesn’t feel like it used to though, I admitted.
You have changed much. You realise who you now are through the eyes of your loved ones. A useful experience. Infinity turned her attention back to her grazing.
Four
Rockwood
I stirred as the first few voices of the dawn chorus began to chirp, questioningly. As other birds began to twitter in response, I felt confused as to why their voices seemed so far away, why I was so warm and comfortable and why I couldn’t smell smoke from the campfire or hear Marvel snoring. I was in a bed. I was at home. I was at my family’s home, I corrected myself and then felt a pang. Of what? Not sadness and definitely not regret. No, of recognising that I was in a home that I had loved but that no longer felt like my home. I checked in with Infinity and then remembered with a smile that home wasn’t anywhere physical.
My bedroom door creaked open and soft footsteps padded in. ‘Am? Are you awake?’ Katonia whispered.
‘Yep, come on in,’ I said and sat up, yawning.
My sister took a running jump and landed on my bed, the way she used to do when we were children. We hugged one another, giggling.
‘I can’t tell you how good it is to have you home,’ she said. ‘How long are you staying?’
‘A week or so I should think. It’s good to be here. Good and...’
‘...weird?’ Katonia finished for me.
‘Yes. Good and weird. But now we’re on our own, tell me how everything is with you? Are you still feeling restless?’
As soon as I asked the question, I was Aware of the answer. My sister radiated her restlessness, along with her frustration at not knowing the cause of it and her desire to find something, anything, that would ease it. Conflict raged within her; a part of her still wanted what she’d always wanted – a home and family of her own – but her restlessness pushed that to one side and confused her.
As she opened her mouth to tell me of her feelings, I said, ‘never mind, I know.’
‘And do you also know why I’m this way? Why it started all of a sudden? What it is that I need to do to make it stop?’
Infinity increased her presence in my mind, interested, but content just to observe.
‘With a bit of effort, I can know. But if I go looking, nothing you think or feel will be private from me. Are you okay with that? Do you want some time to think about it?’
She shook her head, frantically. ‘No. Do it now. Please.’
I allowed Kat’s restlessness to take up more space in my mind and immediately, I knew when it started, why it started and what it was that her soul felt was so important that it prodded her consciousness so relentlessly.
You will need to proceed with caution, Infinity warned me.
How much do I tell her? Flaming lanterns, Fin, how do I know which bits to tell her and which bits not to? If I tell her too much, she’s going to be overwhelmed and frightened. If I don’t tell her enough, her restlessness will get worse and I’ll have been no help whatsoever.
Trust yourself.
Trust myself. I took a deep breath and made my sister and my physical surroundings my focus once more.
‘Is it something awful?’ Katonia peered into my eyes.
My brain sifted frantically through all the information I had gleaned. Trust myself. ‘No, not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s something amazing, actually, and it’s my fault.’
‘Your fault?’ Katonia said.
‘Yes, in the same way that it was Infinity’s fault that I spent the better part of my childhood feeling as you do now. I felt that way because of an agreement I made with Infinity in another lifetime. When circumstances in this lifetime caused me to remember her, my soul spoke to me of the agreement we had made in the only way I could hear it.’
Katonia’s blue eyes flicked back and forth between my own. I looked back at her and waited.
Finally, she said, ‘you’re saying that I’m feeling restless because my soul is speaking to me about an agreement I made? With you? In another lifetime? How is that even possible?’
‘It’s hard for us humans to understand,’ I told her. ‘I found it hard to begin with, even though Infinity showed me the life we lived together before. Our souls never die, Kat. They live over and over in different bodies, in different lifetimes. They remember all of the experiences they’ve had in all of the lives they’ve lived and when something affects them deeply enough, they carry it with them from one lifetime into the next. My agreement with Infinity was an example of that, my agreement with you is another.’
Katonia stared at me. ‘As much as my brain is saying that what you’re telling me is impossible, something deep down is telling me that it’s true.’ She cleared her throat and then breathed deeply and slowly. ‘What agreement did we make?’
Trust myself. I rubbed my face with my hands. ‘Do you trust me?’ I asked my sister.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then will you accept what I’m about to say, knowing that I’m not going to tell you everything, but trusting me that when the time is right, you’ll know the rest for yourself?’
‘Will you tell me enough for this restlessness to stop?’
‘I doubt it’ll stop completely, but what I’ll tell you should help you to live with it more easily.’
‘Then I’ll accept what you tell me,’ Katonia said.
I took a deep breath. ‘There’s no need to feel torn between wanting a family and doing what your restlessness, your soul, is nudging you to do. In fact, it’s unlikely that one will happen without the other. Find the partner you’ve always dreamt of Kat, but as you’ve already learnt from your relationship with Greg, the person you’re looking for isn’t someone who wants a quiet, predictable life. The man you’re looking for will need to be open to new possibilities, to change. He’ll need to be your equal in terms of the roles you’ll both play in the future of humanity. Because that’s what you agreed to help me with, Kat. Just as I made an agreement with Infinity to help horses and humans to evolve further when the time was right, you agreed to help me.
‘I awoke your soul to the memory of our agreement by nudging your mind, night after night, whilst my plans to find and help the Woeful – sorry, the Kindred, as we call them now – were at the forefront of my mind. There will come a time in the future when I’ll need your help. Only you will be able to do what is necessary, with the support of the man you will find.’
Katonia frowned as she stared at me. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her breathing was rapid as she digested what I’d told her.
Your trust in yourself was well placed, Infinity told me.
That wasn’t easy. And you’ve done it time after time for me, Fin, telling me just enough to keep me on the right track but not so much as to be more than I could handle – horses have been doing it for us for centuries.
It is more difficult for you than for us since you are attached to the outcome.
You don’t fear that you’ll get it wrong. You just know you’ll say as much as is needed and if humans don’t do as you had hoped with the information you give them, you just wait and try again, I observed. The human fear of failure has a lot to answer for.
Only if you allow it a voice.
I grinned. I loved receiving counsel from Infinity now that I tended to know what it meant.
I saw Katonia’s mouth twitch with the beginnings of a smile. ‘There is a man out there for me? I can have a family? And my restlessness is to do with an agreement I have made to help you?’
I nodded and then was flung flat on my back amongst my pillows as my sister threw herself at me, hugging me for all she was worth. ‘Then everything’s okay! I don’t really understand all of what you’ve told me, but the bits I get, I’m soooooo happy about!’ She sat up suddenly. ‘Mum can’t know about this. She’ll home in on the fact that I’m looking for a man again and I’ll never hear the end of it. Promise me Amarilla, you won’t breathe a word of this to he
r? To anyone?’
I laughed as I promised her, knowing that it was a secret I wasn’t going to have to keep for long.
I spent most of that day on my family’s sofa. I’d been informed at breakfast that with the exception of a couple of breaks to go and see Infinity, I was going nowhere until each and every one of my family’s questions had been answered as to what I’d been up to in the eighteen months since I had disappeared.
I was awarded frequent and emotional hugs from each of my family as I recounted my tale. I neglected to mention my out-of-body experience and the decision I had made to continue inhabiting my current body in order to go on a mission to find the Kindred, and I was grateful when Katonia asked a question relating to something completely different as soon as I reached that time in my story, allowing me to rejoin it at a later, safer – as far as my parents were concerned – stage.
‘So you are now a qualified Herbalist, you can multiskill, you are perfectly balanced at all times and you’re what you call “Aware” as a result and you teach other Horse-Bonded how to ride as well as you can?’ my mother said with tears in her eyes. ‘And now you’re travelling around to the villages, spreading word of your experiences, opening people up to be able to multiskill, and helping your fellow Horse-Bonded as you go!’