by Lynn Mann
A loud thump came from behind me and Infinity spun around. A Kindred youngling had dropped from a tree at the far edge of the clearing. I could feel Aleks’s terror escalate.
‘Love, Aleks,’ Rowena said, gently. ‘Choose love.’
‘Aleks, we need you. Please, choose love,’ said Holly.
Thump. Another Kindred dropped to the ground.
‘Aleks, they are like me, just like me,’ rasped Fitt, ‘and they need your help. You’re strong. You can do this. Please, choose love.’
I could feel Aleks trying desperately to get a hold of himself.
‘That’s it, Aleks, you’re doing it, now find your light and give it to them. They need you. We need you. That’s it!! Well done Aleks, strengthen your light as much as you can now and keep sending it,’ said Sonja.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Kindred were dropping from the trees all around us. Aleks’s light winked out.
‘Aleks, we owe it to our friends to do this,’ said Vickery. ‘We owe it to our horses and we owe it to the Kindred. You forgave yourself for what you did in your past life, now you need to help us heal the wounds that you helped to create.’
Aleks’s light flickered back and strengthened. He directed it towards the nearest Kindred.
‘Good man,’ said Marvel. ‘Now keep it up. Whatever happens, keep it up.’
More and more Kindred younglings landed on the ground around us, all hungry and all intent on killing. Their fangs dripped with saliva as they regarded us, waiting for... something.
We all strengthened our light flows and directed them all around us, bathing the younglings in our love and assurance. Our horses infused the atmosphere with their calm love of ages. None of us were afraid. We all chose love. The younglings began to look about themselves in confusion.
You don’t need to let her use you this way, Fitt told them. She has chosen you for this because she is too frightened to approach us herself. She is angry and afraid and she would let you all taint yourselves by killing those who offer you love and the chance for our kind to have a better life. We never eat bonded horses and we never kill humans if we want to live with ourselves. You’re hungry. Go and hunt and let the Elder face what she tries to avoid.
‘DON’T MOVE!’ rasped a Kindred voice, full of authority. The younglings at the far edge of the clearing parted and the Kindred Elder moved into view. She was huge, hunched and her brown pelt was flecked with white. Her fangs were yellow with age but her green eyes flashed and glittered with the strength of her fear and her fury.
The thread that had tied us since we had incarnated together as mother and daughter flared into life and when she hit me full force with all that she felt, her emotions floored me, literally.
‘KEEP SENDING YOUR LIGHT,’ shouted Rowena. ‘I’VE GOT HER. ALEKS! CONCENTRATE! CHOOSE LOVE, REMEMBER WHO YOU WANT TO BE!’
Dazed, I realised that I was sitting on the ground. Infinity snuffled my ear. Remain centred, was all she offered before redirecting all of her energy back to the Kindred.
‘Am, why on earth didn’t you let us know who she is to you? We could have talked this through, prepared for this,’ Rowena whispered in my ear. ‘Can you stand?’
I nodded. ‘I think so. Thanks, I’m okay. I can handle this.’
Rowena heaved me to my feet until I leaned on Infinity and then she remounted Oak, her light at full strength and directed fully at the Kindred Elder.
Still feeling the full strength of the Elder’s emotions as she continued to fling them at me, I remembered who I was. I was Infinity. My light burned within me like a raging bonfire. I hurled it towards the Elder, determined to love her and determined that my love would break through to her, that she would remember who I had been to her and what we had agreed to do in this lifetime. But I hadn’t reckoned on the strength of the collective. The Elder’s fear and anger were not just her own, they were the sum total of all of the Kindred who had lived before her. She hurled it all down the thread that linked us with full force, her determination to hurt me equal to mine to love her. She floored me again.
Your centre... Infinity reminded me again. It was all that she could do. I had to do this by myself, otherwise the Kindred wouldn’t believe that humans could truly change, could truly choose love of their own volition.
I could feel the Kindred younglings’ drive to kill being fuelled by the behaviour of their Elder. My friends – including Vickery and Aleks – and our horses were giving everything that they had in order to hold them at bay. My love for them all gave me new strength and my light burned within me once more. I sent it back, full strength, towards the Elder.
I loved her. I remembered the agreement that she and I had made to work together to help two races to find peace, even if she refused to. We had known we could work together. From the moment she had given birth to me, she knew me inside out. She knew how to quieten me when I was sore or afraid. She knew when to step back and let me learn for myself. She knew when to step in and deal with a situation beyond my ability to handle. She knew when to hug me and when to leave me alone. As I matured and became adult, we found that we were kindred spirits. We loved the simple things in life – walking in the woods while autumn leaves crunched underfoot, sharing a pot of tea at the end of a busy day, reading in companionable silence – and we loved to discover new things, especially phenomena that were on the fringes of the norm, not recognised or accepted by the world at large. We loved horses – being with them, learning from them, even just the smell of them. We loved each other in the way that only a mother and daughter can. We were fierce friends and we were there for each other through the happy and the hard times.
When it was time for her to leave her body, we both knew that she wasn’t really leaving me, we knew that a thread connected us and always would. That thread drew our souls together once it was time for me to leave the body that she had created, birthed and protected. We revelled in our reunion and we agreed that our time together in the dream was not over. Two souls who resonated as easily as ours could achieve much in another lifetime, and we would remember that when the time came.
The time had come. I loved her as the mother she had been to me and as the Elder she was now, still trying desperately to protect those for whom she was responsible, those whom she loved. I felt her falter. She remembered. Briefly, her love for me threaded its way through her fear and anger. But then the weight of her responsibility to the Kindred crushed her personal feelings and she pushed back at me once more. I refused to brace myself for the storm of emotion that would floor me for the third time. I wouldn’t fight her. She could floor me as many times as she wanted to and I would just carry on loving her.
And then Justin’s light joined mine. For a moment, I thought he was sending it to the Elder through me, but then there was a shuffling, a grunt and a loud thump on the forest floor and Justin and Gas appeared by my side.
‘They’re here!’ Rowena’s voice was incredulous.
‘Gas only flipping well jumped those Kindred!’ Vickery said.
‘Better late than never mate,’ Marvel’s voice couldn’t hide his affection and his relief.
Justin’s warm hand enveloped mine. ‘Together, Am,’ he said. His light burned ferociously as he directed it towards me. I funnelled it down the thread that joined me to the Elder, along with my own. My light held my love for the Elder. Justin’s held his love for me. He showed the Elder the shy, self-doubting young girl he had met two years previously. He showed her my determination to do the best for my horse and all of the conventions I was prepared to go against in order to do it. He showed her how I had healed Infinity after she was attacked and how I had subsequently stood up for her attackers, insisting that we help them. He showed her the day that I had my out-of-body experience and the decision I had made to continue in the dream purely in order to help the Kindred. He showed her all that he knew of me, all that the one who had been her daughter had grown to be. She knew it all from her delvings into my mind, he knew she did, but she nee
ded to remember it. For her own sake and for that of the Kindred, she needed to admit that I was all she had hoped I would be. She needed to remember me and she needed to remember herself.
Finally, our love reached her. The mother I had known and loved so dearly held out her arms to me, as she had so many times before. Justin let go of my hand and pushed me, gently, to go to her. I saw the confusion and disappointment on the faces of the younglings that I passed before I was embraced, firmly but tenderly, by the huge, brown Kindred Elder. It was as if we had never parted. Her embrace awoke memories from the life we had lived together, of feeling that nothing could hurt me, nothing could even come close as long as she held me tight.
I felt the presence of more Kindred who could only be Elders. Stepping reluctantly away from Mother Elder, as I realised I now thought of her, I saw that a grey-pelted Kindred stood behind her, along with five others. The younglings all sank into a crouch, their expressions avid as they felt the atmosphere within the clearing shift yet again. They awaited the order to kill.
My friends and I all included the Elders in our light flows.
‘You would turn traitor, Elder Hobday?’ rasped the grey Kindred. ‘We adhere to the plan. Younglings, you are hungry. You may attack. Kill the humans, feed on their horses and take Lacejoy prisoner.’
‘NO!’ Elder Hobday rasped. She put herself in front of me and pushed me backwards until we both stood in front of my friends and our horses. ‘Elder Frankson, this is no longer necessary. There is another way forward.’
She was ignored. The younglings began to advance. We all sent them as much light as we could possibly find within ourselves, even Aleks, but it wasn’t enough. There was only one thing that possibly could be. I turned to my friends. Those who were Aware picked up on my intention before I had a chance to speak. Holly turned ashen, then ground her teeth together and nodded. Sonja put her arm around Bright’s neck and gave a short nod, her green eyes flashing. Rowena and Marvel put a hand each on their horses’ necks and an arm around one another.
It is the only way, agreed Fitt. I will come with you all.
‘We need to leave,’ I told Aleks and Vickery.
‘Well finally,’ said Aleks, his voice shaking. ‘We’ll head for the ones Gas clonked when he jumped them. We can break through them easily and then hopefully the horses can outrun them.’
‘We’re not leaving the clearing, Aleks, we’re leaving our bodies,’ I said.
‘We’re... what?’ Aleks said, his eyes flicking over my shoulder to where the younglings moved in slow, crouching steps towards us.
‘The Kindred want us to fight them or run. They want us to prove to ourselves and to them that eventually, we will always act out of fear. Instead, we’ll act out of love. If they want our bodies, they can have them. We’ll leave them willingly and we’ll continue to love the Kindred as we leave.’
‘But...’ Aleks said.
‘No time for buts, Aleks,’ said Justin. ‘We’re all leaving. The horses will help us to do it. Are you both coming with us?’ He looked from Aleks to Vickery.
‘I am,’ said Vickery.
‘But I... Adam!’ Aleks exclaimed, his eyes widening.
Adam and Peace stood just to the side of us, silvery-white and almost transparent. Adam was smiling. The younglings stopped in their tracks as a profound peace stole across the clearing.
‘He’s giving us more time, but we don’t have long,’ I said. ‘We need to leave before they attack. Aleks, will you come with us? If even one of us resists them, then they will have the proof that they expect to find.’
Aleks looked desperately from me to Adam, who nodded encouragingly at him. I felt something break inside of Aleks and then something else very definitely strengthen. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘The horses will leave and take us with them. Concentrate on the part of your mind that you share with Nexus. Put all of yourself there and when she draws you into herself, go with her. Don’t hold back anything of yourself, just go with her and she’ll take you. Okay?’
Aleks nodded.
‘Vic?’
‘Already going,’ Vickery said, faintly.
‘Everyone, please remember, keep sending your light to the Kindred as you leave. They can be in no doubt that we do this out of love,’ I said.
‘I will make sure that there is no misunderstanding,’ rasped Elder Hobday. ‘I am more sorry than I can say for my part in this.’
You have nothing to be sorry for. Everything finds a balance. Everything is as it should be, I thought to her. And then Infinity and I willingly, lovingly, left our bodies behind.
Twenty-Two
Sacrifice
The vast greyness in which we floated was familiar and blissful. Since thought was all there was, our ecstatic celebrations at what Aleks and Vickery had achieved were all-consuming. In choosing to relinquish all control over what happened to his body and that of his horse, Aleks had broken the pattern that had blocked him from being all he could be. He had realised the potential he saw for himself when he bonded with Nexus and if he returned to his body, he would find himself in perfect balance with his horse the moment he sat on her back, as would Vickery. She had given everything of herself when it mattered most and if she were able to ride her horse again, she would feel the proof of that which she had achieved. It was as if all of the joy that any of us had ever felt were magnified a thousand-fold as we revelled in their success and then in our shared euphoria at having arrived where we were. Justin and I – the only ones who had been here before whilst still incarnate – were required to hold firm to our sense of who we were, and to our mission.
Remember what we do, we thought to our friends. If the Kindred will not take the chance we offer them, if they kill our bodies, then we can celebrate our return to All That Is. But for now, we must concentrate.
Our physical bodies had collapsed to the ground. Each of us was attached to our body by the thinnest of cords that yet pulsed with life, but could be retrieved into our energy bodies at any time, permanently severing us from the lives we had been living.
The younglings stopped in their tracks, suspicious to begin with that we attempted some sort of trick. Their Awareness told them that we were no longer within our bodies, yet their physical senses told them that our bodies were not quite devoid of life. We all continued to send them our light, bathing the clearing in a white haze.
They give their bodies freely to you all if you wish them, Mother Elder told the younglings and the other Elders. If you truly want them dead, then they offer no argument.
‘They would rather die than fight?’ One of the Elders scratched her head as she rasped her bewilderment to herself.
They will live in love or not at all, replied Mother Elder. Allow yourselves to feel what it is that they are sending to us all. They have evolved and, with the exception of Lacejoy, we have not. We hold to the fear and shame of our ancestors when we should be embracing those who would help us to find a better way to live.
‘Lacejoy is a traitor,’ growled one of the younglings.
Lacejoy has set an example for us all to follow, corrected Mother Elder. When we send you younglings out on your year’s Findself, the hope is that you will turn away from our inherited tendency to find it easier to obey than to think for ourselves. Those of you who have had friends fail to return from their Findself will know, whether you admit it to yourselves or not, that they either failed to find a way to think for themselves and therefore perished, or were only able to make decisions by giving up all that we are. Those, too, will have perished, eventually. Lacejoy has achieved all that she has by making her choices based purely on what she saw and felt in each moment. She has not only achieved Findself, she has trusted it at every step of her journey and has made her decisions according to its influence. She has accepted help and friendship from these humans. She has become one with a horse whose courage matches her own and she has allowed her horse to influence her. As a result, she is
healed of what ails us all and she now walks tall.
Mother Elder allowed thoughts of Lacejoy’s process of forgiveness to permeate throughout the Elders and younglings.
‘That’s... not... possible,’ rasped a smaller, completely white Elder. ‘How did she find the strength?’
Feel it from her as she sends her love to you now. Feel the trust she has in her horse and the strength that trust gives her. And she’s had the support of her human friends. Those who now lie at our feet alongside her.
‘One of them was your daughter,’ the grey-pelted Elder rasped, accusingly.
She still is in the ways that matter, replied Mother Elder. And now she is willing, happy even, to give up her life for us all, as are they all. Here is your test, younglings, for if you pass it, none of you will need to go on your Findself, in fact no other youngling will need to go, ever again. You are all hungry. Will you take the bodies offered to you and keep our race as it is – afraid, struggling? Or will you emulate the strength and courage that Lacejoy has demonstrated and call our friends back to their bodies, humans and horses both, and accept the help that they would give us?