Well in Time

by SUZAN STILL

  Javier nodded. “Yes. Somehow, it all sounds familiar to me, too. Even the part about Sa Tahuti trading bodies. The shamans talk about things like that, too.”

  The men looked at Calypso expectantly. She adjusted her reading glasses on her nose.

  “Ready?”

  Without waiting for a response, she began.

  §

  The Story of Blanche de Muret Continues

  Let the readers of my affidavit be sure, this long story told by Allia taxed my credulity, as it must certainly tax that of those who read it. I was in fear that I had fallen in with the most hardened devil worshippers and witches, who traded souls as some people trade lemons for bread.

  Yet, the community of the Ammonites—for that is what they call themselves—was as gentle, mannerly, and generous with Christian charity as any one might encounter. Also, I had the assurance of Caspar, King of Nubia, with his Christian cross blazoned upon his forehead, that I was quite safe from demonic forces. Indeed, he soothed my fears by saying that the Egyptians’ spiritual development was of such a level that even Christians might envy it.

  Still, as the reader may well imagine, I was dubious especially of the one called Sa Tahuti, for such magic as she practiced was completely beyond my understanding. I am ashamed to say that my own ignorance became a sort of prejudice against this person, well in advance of actually meeting her. I prepared myself as best I could to confront one who seemed to me at best a bald-faced liar and charlatan, or possibly one demented and delusional, and at worst, demonical.

  None of these objections did I raise with Allia, for she clearly was bent on seeing this introduction into being. The next day, she and several attendants—new women whose faces I had never before seen, just as Allia had predicted—bathed and clothed me and arranged my hair according to the simple and fastidious ways of their community. Dressed in a long white linen gown rather than a tunic, I was led by Allia by a way I had never before been, far into the recesses of the cave.

  At last, we came to an anteroom where Allia, with one last flounce of my skirt as her eyes swept me head to toe, departed, leaving me alone. Again, I was in a room that had been plastered and painted with the lively, elongated figures of everyday Egyptians at work. These were harvesting grain beside the river, where hunters in boats were aiming their arrows at a flock of geese.

  Charming as these scenes were, however, I could not subdue my nervousness. How was I to deport myself with this ancient woman I was about to meet? About what could we possibly converse? And what would I do, should I mistrust or even hate her on sight? Nothing in my upbringing as a highborn lady, careful as it was, had prepared me for such an encounter.

  §

  Therefore, it was a great relief to me when a girl about my own age came to fetch me into the inner chamber. Like the others, she was clad in a simple white linen gown, with the exception that her hair hung loose in a black cascade, clear to her waist. She greeted me with an engaging smile and motioned me to follow her, saying, “There is no need to be afraid, Blanche de Muret. Sa Tahuti has only love for you.”

  The apartment to which she delivered me was much like Allia’s, appointed with fine ebony and gold furniture, while the walls were covered in hieroglyphics and figures of gods and goddesses. It was, withal, a cozy room, for many candles were burning, bouquets of fresh flowers, and plates of luscious fruits were set about, and the divans were covered in beautifully embroidered coverlets.

  “Please sit,” the girl said, indicating a divan covered in a field of stitched flowers. “I understand from our good Caspar,” she began immediately that I was seated, “that you have certain apprehensions about this meeting?”

  I was torn between twin desires to be truthful about my misgivings and to give no offense. “I have nothing in my experience to prepare me for an encounter with a being such as Sa Tahuti,” I managed to stammer.

  The girl smiled sweetly and said, “I understand,” and then sat gazing at me expectantly. I grew restless under her gaze and said, rather crossly I regret to report, “When shall my audience begin?”

  The girl smiled again, this time with a real twinkle in her eye and said, “Why, it already has!”

  I stared at her dully, not in the least comprehending. Was it possible the old crone was spying on us to see what manner of person I was? Finally, I shook my head and with knitted brows said, “I don’t understand. I’m sorry.”

  She regarded me cheerfully and responded, “But here we are! We are talking. The audience has begun.”

  A bolt of shock ran through me. I stared at her, aghast.

  “But surely…” I faltered. “No. It cannot be…”

  I stared at her some more and she, as composed as she could possibly be, gazed back. At last I managed to gasp, “You are Sa Tahuti?”

  A delightful, impish grin flashed across her face. She didn’t say a word, but only nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.

  “But…I thought…” I stammered. I could not finish but collapsed in confusion and mortification, my head hanging low.

  In a flash, she had crossed the space between us and with her hand beneath my chin, raised my head up, so that our eyes met and held. I had a strange sensation of a tremor, hot and intense, running from her hand to my head and this feeling soon expanded, coursing down my arms and legs and prickling along my entire torso, front and back. At this close range, the eyes I stared into were infinite as the night sky and older than time itself, and so filled with wisdom and compassion that I dropped my own eyes in humility.

  “Do not resist me, Blanche de Muret,” she whispered. “You have come far and suffered many hardships and terrible losses to be by my side again.”

  “Again?!” I shrieked. I felt oddly light-headed and terribly confused and unsure whether I would burst into tears or run screaming from this uncanny child-who-was-not-a-child. The very walls around me seemed to warp and waver, as insubstantial as heat waves.

  Finally, the accumulated griefs of these many months of pilgrimage, captivity and death were a bursting dam. Tears and wailing consumed me and I collapsed into the arms of Sa Tahuti!

  §

  How long she held me, rocking and whispering comforts in a strange tongue, I do not know. It seemed my tears would go on forever and just when I thought I might regain my composure, a fresh bout would overtake me.

  Images of my homeland in Languedoc, green with spring and white with blossoming fruit trees, were followed by intensely real imaginings of my beloved parents. I saw their faces, looked into their eyes, felt their love. And my darling brother Godfrey cavorted across my sight, running happily in fields of new green wheat, dotted with red poppies. With each of these visions, a fresh stab of grief and pain reduced me once again to helpless sobs.

  When at last I came to myself, I lay upon the divan with a flowered coverlet over me. Sa Tahuti sat beside me, hand upon my brow, softly singing a sweet, soothing, monotonous chant, over and over. I lay beneath her touch like a piece of boiled laundry—limp and unresisting.

  “You have been long away, Blanche,” she said quietly. Regarding me tenderly, she continued, “It is necessary to have this great cleansing upheaval, Blanche, so that these difficult events and beloved persons do not come to live in your bones as disease. Those things that are not brought to consciousness can turn to poison. I see that now your aura is cleared of much dark and brooding energy.”

  I looked at her in incomprehension, without the smallest notion of what she meant by her words. I began to ask for clarification but Sa Tahuti laid her finger across my lips.

  “Shhhhhh, now. You must sleep. You have worked very, very hard today. Tomorrow we will talk and I will answer all your questions—even the ones to which there is no answer.” She smiled mysteriously, laid her hand across my eyes, and in an instant, I slept.

  In the night, I had a strange, disturbing dream. I seemed to be in the body of a boy child and I was wandering in the dark, frightened and weary. All around me, voices echoed but I could make o
ut only the barest shadows of moving beings, and the language these shadow people spoke was unknown to me. Lights flared and flashed randomly and nowhere in this dream could I find comfort.

  I awoke in tears to find Sa Tahuti sitting beside my bed. I told her the dream, sobbing, “I have a terrible feeling that I am witnessing my poor Godfrey in Hell!”

  Sa Tahuti soothed me with gentle words and kindly strokes along my brow, saying, “No, no, dear Blanche. It is nothing of the kind. You are beginning to remember, that is all. Quiet yourself, now, and as soon as you have broken your fast, I will explain to you what you have seen in the night.”

  §

  Then began a part of my adventure that to this day astonishes me, although I doubt not that it is true, so vivid were my memories and so cogent were the explanations of Sa Tahuti regarding them. For she explained to me that, in her presence and guided by her great power, I was beginning to recall a life in which I had known her before—in the person of the older son of the very Pharaoh who had fled from Philae, so many centuries before!

  That day, Sa Tahuti invoked in me a trance and, with her voice as guide, I wandered again in the darkness of the cave. I felt the loving presence of my parents and their servants and experienced again the terrible grief of losing my baby brother—only to have him live again as an uncanny child, the infant Sau Tahuti.

  “Your brother is one of those valiant souls who incarnates again and again, with the sole purpose of bringing the souls of those he loves to fuller spiritual awareness. When he dives back into the Other World, he is as confident as you are when passing through a simple doorway,” Sa Tahuti told me. “Although you grieve for him, there is really no need to do so. He has agreed, before he ever entered life, to come to your aid and then depart.”

  “Which brother, in which life?” I asked, confused.

  “In both.”

  “Are you telling me,” I asked in astonishment, “that Godfrey is the same soul as the Pharaoh’s baby?”

  Sa Tahuti smiled. “Yes, Blanche. That is what I am telling you.”

  But why would his death, and the grief with which it had harrowed me, serve me? I could not understand how such suffering would be beneficial, nor why my beloved brother would choose to put me through such anguish. Sa Tahuti was patient with my protestations and answered them calmly.

  “Such grief as you have known is like the blow to an egg against the side of a bowl. Until the hard shell of total identification with the ego is broken, one can never truly love, any more than one can cook with an unbroken egg.

  “And sometimes it happens that the most effective way to accomplish this access to love is to lose it. Fierce as was your devotion to Godfrey on the pilgrimage and sea voyage, you did not truly love him until you saw him naked upon the slave block. Then your heart broke and with that breaking, love flooded in.”

  As much as I desired to resist this line of reasoning, I knew in my heart that Sa Tahuti spoke the truth. I had been bound to Godfrey by bonds of duty and honor, until the instant of his ultimate helplessness in the slave market. The rush of grief and loss which swept over me then was a great wave of love, against the power of which I was completely helpless.

  Sa Tahuti continued gently, “Was it not the same with the one you call your Savior? When he was most helpless upon the cross, was he not most powerful? In breaking the hearts of his followers, did he not open the floodgates of their deepest love and longing?”

  I had to yield, then, to Sa Tahuti’s superior understanding. All that day and for many to follow, she spoke to me of the laws of life by which the whole universe is governed. Much that she imparted was lost to my child’s understanding, but much remains with me to this day, and indeed, will do so until my dying breath. Most vividly do I remember her closing remarks.

  “Always remember and never forget, dear Blanche, that the universe turns upon the axle of love. Love is the horse that draws it and love is the wheel. And love is the road upon which the great wheel of the universe travels. All is love. Nothing exists but by the power of love. To attain the ability to love is worth any hardship, any suffering, any grief. Every tear you shed lubricates the great, cycling wheel of being that is love and love only. Never, ever forget this.”

  With these words our long and rich audience drew to a close. By this time, Sa Tahuti, despite her physical appearance, was transformed in my eyes. I knew her with my heart to be a being of infinite age, wisdom, and power. I was in awe of her and yet also felt her to be my dearest and most intimate friend. How this can be cannot be explained by human discourse. Sa Tahuti was and is a miracle for which there are no words. It seemed there could be no further gift that she could give me, and yet, that is what now transpired.

  “I have something that I will pass into your keeping, Blanche de Muret,” she said solemnly. “It is an object of great antiquity. Two thousand years before the birth of the one you call the Christ, it was made by hands that knew the magic from the beginning of the world.”

  She rose from her divan and went to a table where sat a small chest inlaid with ivory and precious stones. Raising the lid, she withdrew something, which she clasped in her palm and then raised to her lips in a reverential kiss. Then, turning to me, she spoke in a voice that shocked me with the power of its command.

  “Rise, Blanche de Muret! Receive your due. I place this jewel upon you as a token of the esteem and holy love of the Great Mother.”

  So saying, she slipped over my head and around my neck a chain of gold, upon which depended a locket of wondrous beauty. I began to stammer my thanks but Sa Tahuti silenced me.

  “Be still! You have no idea what has been entrusted to you. No thanks of yours can encompass the magnitude of this gift.”

  I was taken aback, for the sweetness of Sa Tahuti’s demeanor had transformed, in those instants, to something terrible and stern. I felt a huge presence fill the room, pulsing against the walls, invisible but entirely palpable. Whatever it was, it seemed to be using Sa Tahuti as its voice. Her entire body shuddered with the force of the words that spoke through her.

  “I lay upon you today both a gift and a burden, Blanche de Muret. This locket, small and cunningly made as it is, contains the seed power of the universe; a tear of the Great Mother; the Egg of Fate. You will keep it with you always. You will wear it daily. You will learn from it as you have learned at the knee of Sa Tahuti. And when your time comes to cross over to the next world, you will pass it on to your descendants and they to theirs, through an unbroken lineage.”

  My entire body began to stream with sweat, and I shook like a dry leaf in the first wind of autumn. I felt both deepest, most humble gratitude and a crushing weight that descended upon my heart like a millstone. The locket burned against the skin of my breast like a coal.

  “There will be times when the gift must pass to a male heir. He is never to wear the locket, only to keep it safe until it can be passed to one who is worthy. The locket itself will choose. Never fret. The locket knows its own course. It was set at the beginning of the world and nothing can alter its trajectory through time and space. You are one blessed by the Great Mother, Blanche de Muret. Go in peace.”

  With that, the voice ceased. The immense pressure of living energy diminished and then faded from the room, leaving me weak and shaken. Even Sa Tahuti seemed momentarily overcome.

  We stood for many minutes in silence, each, I am sure, collecting herself again after so shattering a visitation. I thought, then, of Moses and the burning bush; of Mary at the Annunciation; and of Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Savior in the garden. It seemed not possible that one such as I, a mere girl and a lost one at that, might receive direct commune with God and yet, so it seemed to have happened.

  §

  At last Sa Tahuti spoke, her voice returned to its usual sweetness, but not without a tremor trembling through it.

  “You have received an incalculable blessing today, Blanche de Muret. And an incalculable burden. From this day forward you are an emissary of the
Great Mother. She has spoken.”

  I do not know what moved me to argue philosophy with Sa Tahuti at that moment. It was as if the locket itself demanded that I speak my truth, difficult as it was.

  “But Sa Tahuti,” I exclaimed, “in Christian thought, all are beings of free will! If this task is imposed on me, how then can it be other than that my free will is violated?”

  Sa Tahuti nodded with complete understanding.

  “You have spoken well, Blanche. What you must understand is that time is much greater than you imagine, as are the dimensions of reality. You have agreed to take on this task in this life, but you have forgotten because you made this contract in the world between worlds, where souls go between earthly incarnations.”

  Then I understood that she spoke the truth. I felt in the depths of my being that this locket and its fate were inextricably intertwined with my life, and that this was a situation in which my heart and soul were completely complicit.

  I gazed at Sa Tahuti with this dawning understanding. Our eyes met and held, and I knew that our time together had come to an end.

  Gently, Sa Tahuti embraced me and I her, and it shocked me to feel how slender and small was her body. Why, I was taller than she! I felt I held a younger child than I in my arms, and it was not until I stepped back and again met her gaze that I felt the renewal of awe at her very being. She smiled then, graciously and with perfect understanding.

  “I am as is the Great Mother, Blanche—ever ancient, ever young.”

  So saying, she took me by my elbow and steered me toward the door. I went unresistingly, but with great sadness pouring into my heart, like water into a vessel. Beyond the linen curtain of the doorway, Allia stood in the antechamber, waiting patiently.

  “Here is our sister, fresh from her initiation,” Sa Tahuti said to her.

  Sa Tahuti took both my hands in hers, looked deep into my eyes and said, “Do not be sad, child. We are never far parted and when we are, we must hold the hope ever green in our hearts of our coming together once more. We shall meet again. Over and over again, we consecrate ourselves to the work.”