The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky

by David Litwack

  After a week, Helena intervened, insisting Sebastian give him time off. He’d earned a break and the chance to do something with her and Kailani. She asked Sebastian for a suggestion, some surprise they’d yet to encounter.

  He’d recommended a spot on the farm’s high point of land, a place called the Spirit Hill. From the top they’d be able to look out over the valley and watch the sun set before dinner.

  About a twenty-minute walk from the cabins, she found exactly what Sebastian had described—a side path, narrower and not as well maintained as the others, its entrance marked only by two knee-high boulders. Without Sebastian’s directions, she’d have wandered right past it.

  “Over here, Jason.” She tightened her grip on Kailani to keep her from racing ahead, and let Jason take the lead.

  Fifty yards in, the trail dropped into a hollow where rain had pooled, leaving the ground mossy and moist. Across from them, where the soil firmed again, stood a knee-high statue of a man stripped to the waist, holding his arms outstretched to the heavens. As Kailani mimicked the pose, Helena guessed why Sebastian had placed the artwork far from the main path—too much like a man praying.

  Just past the statue, the trail turned into a series of switchbacks, winding back and forth but still steep enough to challenge their breathing. Helena plodded along behind Kailani, while Jason led the way.

  After fifteen minutes, the scrub pine thinned and the sky broke through the branches. A minute later, they reached the summit.

  Their attention was immediately drawn to a massive stone bench carved into a boulder that dominated the rear of a clearing. Some artisan had chiseled seats for three into a recessed center, surrounded by broad arms fashioned into ornate scrolls. The crest of the boulder arched overhead, topped by the sculpted face of a lion, who seemed to lord over the clearing like its protector. The overall effect was more cradle than bench.

  Kailani knelt in the center and gazed into the lion’s eyes, until she noticed a trough tapering across the back of the bench. Inside the trough she found a smattering of odds and ends, a hairpin, a locket and other items, but mostly a collection of stones.

  “What are those?” she said, fingering the more interesting pieces.

  “Sebastian explained it to me,” Helena said, glad at last to have a straightforward answer to one of the girl’s endless questions. “It’s a tradition for people to leave a token to mark their journey.”

  “Why would they do that? The climb wasn’t so hard.”

  “Not that kind of journey. The journey that brought them to the farm.”

  Kailani considered a moment. “Oh. You mean a journey of the Spirit, like at the Reflection shelter or the labyrinth.”

  “Sort of,” Helena said. “According to Sebastian, people go to Reflection to express their problem and to the labyrinth to contemplate it. They come to the Spirit Hill when they’ve overcome it. Once the bench was finished, they began placing whatever they had with them in the trough, but the high winds up here kept blowing things away. After a while, they started to secure them with stones. Later on, the tradition became to leave just a single stone.”

  Kailani replaced the pieces she’d taken, careful to lay them where she’d found them. Then she hopped off the bench and combed through the dirt until she found three stones, two large and one small. She placed them on a clear spot at the center of the trough, stepped back, and studied them. Finally, she shook her head and scooped them back up.

  “What was that all about?” Helena said.

  “I thought....”

  “It’s okay, Kailani. Go ahead.”

  “That I’d leave a stone for myself and the sea and the sky, but it’s not yet time. My journey isn’t complete.” She knelt to return the stones to the ground.

  “Wait,” Helena said. “Give them to me.”

  “Why?”

  “What if I place one for each of us instead, for you and me and Jason?”

  She reached out for them, but Kailani pulled back. After weighing the stones in the palm of her hand, she tossed them away.

  Before Helena could question her further, Kailani turned, drew in a sharp breath and pointed to the west. “Look.”

  All three had been preoccupied with the stones and hadn’t noticed the sight behind them. At the front of the clearing, the land dropped off so sharply the tops of the trees lay below their feet. The notch in the woods exposed a layered vista, with bright green foothills close by, darker mountains beyond, and even greater mountains fading into a vague horizon, and then distant clouds that might be another range, merging into the sky.

  As they nestled together on the bench to admire the view, Jason turned to Kailani, who was seated between him and Helena. “Bet you can see as much sky here as you can at the ocean.”

  “Nearly as much. It is a place of the Spirit.” She turned to Jason. “Where have you been? We hardly see you anymore.”

  “I’ve been working to help Sebastian. I hear you’ve been working too.”

  “Not work, Jason. We’ve been making jewelry with Miz Martha.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I like it a lot, but I don’t think Helena does.”

  “She’s exaggerating,” Helena said, wondering how she could have considered placing a stone in the trough. She’d overcome nothing so far. “I love learning from... Miz Martha.”

  Kailani turned to face Jason. “You spend too much time with your work. You need to spend more time with Helena. She smiles more when you’re around.”

  Blood rushed to Helena’s face as Jason laughed.

  “Well, you’re right, and that’s what I’ll try to do—find time for you and Helena.” He reached across and took Helena’s hand.

  The orb of the sun had swelled, demanding their attention. As they watched it drift toward the horizon, the sound of footsteps crunching along the path startled them. They turned to the opening in the trees where the trail cut through.

  An out-of-breath group of climbers burst into the clearing, relieved to have reached the top. All but one wore white robes that hung loosely over their clothing and down to their ankles. Diaphanous white shawls covered the tops of their heads and flowed down their shoulders, and each carried a pink blossom cradled at the waist.

  The exception was a small figure who seemed to be their leader. He wore a brown robe and carried a bamboo flute, hung from a leather cord slung around his shoulder. A hood covered his head and nearly obscured his face, but his dusty boots and pointy-toothed sneer gave him away.

  It was Benjamin.

  The others organized themselves in two rows behind him at the edge of the overlook—shorter ones in front, taller in back. Helena recognized most of them, farm members she’d seen before, but an odd one, the slightest of the group, hung back in the glare of the setting sun. Helena was unable to make out the face.

  “Hello, Benjamin,” Jason said. “Have you come to join us to watch the sunset?”

  “We’re not tourists,” he said. “We don’t come here for the view.”

  “So why do you come?”

  Benjamin scowled. “Someone like you would never understand.”

  To Helena’s surprise, Kailani hopped off the bench and approached him. “Then you can tell me, Mister Benjamin, and Jason and Helena can listen.”

  Benjamin beheld the eager child, and his eyes softened. “Yes, of course. You’d know.”

  He came forward, closing the distance between them by half, then signaled for two of the others to join him. They took positions at either side.

  “It’s the call at twilight,” Benjamin said. “A tradition from the Blessed Lands. We sound it in the evening to summon the spirit of the wind.”

  Helena heard an intake of air and noticed Kailani’s shoulders quiver.

  Benjamin waited for her to speak.

  “I’ve heard of this,” the girl said. “Summoning the spirit of the wind, though whenever I’ve tried, I failed. Perhaps you could teach me.”

  Benjamin’s face turne
d ashen, and he looked like he might drop to his knees. “It’s an old tradition, maybe different from what you’ve seen. We... may not perform it right. It almost never brings the wind.”

  “This farm is special,” Kailani said. “I can feel the Spirit in this place. Maybe your summons will succeed when we’re all together.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Benjamin turned to the sun, now fat and orange, a half disk sinking into the horizon, and signaled for the others to turn as well. He swung the flute around and steadied his fingers, then covered three of the five holes, brought the slant-cut blowing edge to his lips, and began to play. The flute possessed a haunting sound, surprisingly rich for so simple an instrument.

  Helena felt a tug on her hand as Jason pulled her back, separating them from the odd ritual. Benjamin’s pilgrims gazed out at the reddening sky as if expecting to see music floating on the air.

  When Benjamin finished, the acolyte to his right took a bell from his pocket and rang it three times. Helena recognized the scalloped handle and strange markings—Lizzie’s bell. When the clapper struck, the tone reverberated across the hillside and lingered.

  As it began to dissipate, a squawk rang out overhead. Skree. Skree.

  Kailani looked up and pointed to two eagles gliding on the wind.

  Benjamin lowered the flute and gaped at the child. “Do you know these ancient ways because you come from the Blessed Lands?”

  “Oh no,” she said. “I know them because I’m the daughter of the sea and the sky.” She glanced back at Helena, a smile of satisfaction on her face.

  As Helena nodded in approval, she caught the figure at the rear of the formation peek around to get a better look, and stifled a gasp.

  The slight form behind the others was her mother.

  Chapter 18 – The Daughter’s Tale

  Benjamin settled in front of the new device, still warm from use, and stroked its plastic sides. He’d crouched outside in the trees for hours, waiting for Jason to turn off the office light and go to bed, and it was now well past midnight.

  Leaving the office dark, he toggled the switch on and the apparatus came alive, with the glow from its screen and the hum of its fan, so much like his text processor but so different. This one could send words and photograms in a way Sebastian would never see.

  Once the welcome message came into focus, he typed “Jason-Adams.” The prompt to enter the password challenged him in the dark. His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he strained to recall the code. Jason always darkened the screen when he logged on, but Benjamin had been able to decipher the start of the password by observing the keystrokes. Of the eleven letters, he’d caught only the first three: TAK. Were they the beginning of a phrase or a random sequence? He fumbled with combinations well into the night. At the darkest hour, when the moon was down and no shred of the dawn had yet appeared, he gave up.

  He’d have to send a mailing the old-fashioned way, a risky choice, but this message was sent from the Lord, and he was compelled to obey. He turned off the device, making sure to leave no sign it had been touched, and went back to the text processor.

  Half an hour later, he’d composed a draft. He was poised to print but hesitated; best to review.

  The title read: “A Refugee from the Blessed Lands Summons the Wind.”

  He drummed the desktop with his fingers, dragged the pointer across the first words, turning them blue, and typed. It now read: “Kailani Summons the Wind.” He gnawed on his fingernails, then deleted the word “Kailani.”

  Did he dare?

  He began typing again, and nodded with satisfaction when he was done. The title now read: “The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky Summons the Wind.”

  After skimming the new draft for errors and double-checking the spelling, he printed the newsletter, loaded the hand-cranked copier with paper, and ran off two hundred and fifty seven copies—one missive for each friend of the farm.

  Then, lest Jason discover him there, he fled the office before dawn.

  ***

  The next morning, a bleary-eyed Benjamin staggered into the office with a stack of papers under his arm and found his young assistant glaring at him.

  He slapped the stack on the desk, printed side down. “What are you staring at?”

  “What’s the matter, Benjamin? Rough night after your party on the hill?”

  Jason was a fool. What did he know of the passion that drove a believer to go without sleep? “Don’t concern yourself with things you don’t understand. Here on the farm we have more freedom than in the city to live and believe as we choose. And we have lots of work to do. Today, we send out a newsletter.”

  Benjamin handed him a stack of envelopes, a pen, and a list of names.

  “Address these. I’ll fold the newsletters, stuff the envelopes, and seal them.”

  He hoped Jason would find the task tedious. Sure enough, after scrawling an address on the first several envelopes, Jason set down the pen and flexed his fingers.

  “You do this every month?”

  “Sometimes more often.”

  “I have a better way.”

  “How?” Benjamin forced his tired mind to stay alert. He didn’t want to miss a detail.

  “Lots of these people are affiliated with universities and would be on the network. We could enter most of the list once and cut the work way down.”

  Benjamin shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “Show me.”

  His cocky assistant turned to the enhanced communicator and logged on, as usual careful to conceal the password. Once connected, he brought up a list of names, picked a few from Benjamin’s roster, and searched.

  He found a match within seconds. “Here’s one. And another. We could create a broadcast list, cross them off your paper, and never have to send them mailings again.”

  Buoyed by his faith and encouraged by Jason’s pride, Benjamin decided to take a chance. “But what if you’re not here? I’d need to know the password.”

  He saw at once he’d pushed too far.

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Just what’s in these newsletters?”

  Benjamin turned away in a huff. “If you don’t think I can be trusted, then I’ll do the rest myself. Go earn Sebastian’s food. The flower bed in front of the great house needs weeding.”

  As he resumed his folding, Jason surprised him by grabbing for a newsletter. Benjamin pulled the stack away.

  Jason snatched one of the sealed envelopes instead, ripped it open, and pulled out its contents. As he read, his face flushed. “Kailani! You can’t send this out.”

  Benjamin flicked out his hand to take back the newsletter, but the younger man was quicker. “Give it back, Jason. Sebastian said to do as you’re told.”

  Jason stood, towering over him. “We’ll see about that.”

  He spun on his heels and raced out the door.

  ***

  Sebastian sat in his high-backed chair and listened while Jason and Benjamin argued.

  “Such a story,” Benjamin said. “A girl from the Blessed Lands seeking refuge at the farm.”

  “She’s on probation,” Jason countered. “A story like this could land her in a correctional facility.”

  “Because of a few friends of the farm? You’re being unreasonable.”

  “She’s none of their business.”

  “Her summoning the wind would inspire them.”

  “Kailani needs kindness, not the glare of strangers. Don’t use her to promote the farm.”

  Benjamin shoved in front of Jason. “You see her through your own lens. You may be seeing too little.”

  “Don’t tell me what Kailani is. I know her better than you.”

  Sebastian glanced from one to the other and back again. Jason was sensible and well balanced, whereas Benjamin was unpredictable—he’d tried to sneak through reckless newsletters before. As a good manager, Sebastian’s first priority had always been to shield the farm from harm, but this time, most of all, he needed to protect the little girl wi
th the sad eyes.

  He smiled at Jason. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Now please, go on about your chores. Benjamin and I need to talk.”

  ***

  The chill in the craft studio cut Helena deep. Kailani hummed as she worked, but Helena said not a word. After an hour of listening to the echo of tools clattering on the workbench, she set down the half-formed necklace she’d been fumbling with.

  “I need a break,” she said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “Where are we going?” Kailani asked.

  “Not you, just me and Miz Martha. How about you go visit the glassblower?”

  “You mean the unicorn lady?”

  “That’s right.” Helena turned to her mother and spoke in clipped tones. “I’ll take her. You meet me outside.”

  Kailani didn’t need to be asked twice. At the glassblowing studio, she gave Helena a hug and went to see her new friend.

  Once back outside, Helena lingered in the doorway of the barn. On the path ahead, her mother gazed up at the tree tops with the expression of a woman trying to think pleasant thoughts but failing.

  “We need to talk,” Helena said.

  Her mother turned to her with her newfound look of serenity. “What is it, dear? Tired of jewelry making already?”

  Helena clomped down the stairs and along the dirt path until she stood two paces away. “Don’t pretend. I know you’re not that obtuse.”

  “I don’t—”

  “What were you doing on the Spirit Hill last night?”

  “Oh that,” she said. “It’s just a few harmless rituals.”

  “A few? What else do they do?”

  “Only a couple, actually.” Her mother fiddled with her hair, trying to stuff the ragged ends behind her ears. “There’s the evening call to the wind that you saw, and a brief morning prayer at Grandmother Storyteller. I don’t always go, but I try to join them a few times a week.” When Helena continued to glare, she added, “It doesn’t mean anything, just a few symbols that make me feel better.”