by Michelle Lee
Onida grabbed my wrist that had my cancer ribbon tattoo on it and ran her thumb over it. “It is said that your kind, being a gift to the world, you aren’t allowed to have children. They can be taken, corrupted and turned to the other side. But your blood has the power to heal anything, it is how you share your gift. Not through birth do you give life, you give it in other ways.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” I sobbed, my heart torn open and bleeding at the loss of the dreams I once had.
“You do,” Tama said, lifting my chin to make me look at her. “You just have to let go of your own shadow.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I spat out.
“The pain you hold inside is a shadow. Darkness cannot exist without light, nor can light exist without darkness. It is not a stain on your soul as you think it is, it is a testament of your soul that you still exist and are stronger than what tried to take you down. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, and it is okay to feel sad. You need to know it is okay to heal yourself, not just others. Life itself is a balance, good and bad will always exist. If you didn’t suffer, how would you know when something is wonderful?” Tama pointed out.
The sisters looked at each other and nodded. I wasn’t sure what to do when they both started stripping down out of their clothes in the freezing cold Colorado air. Suddenly both began to shift, their limbs changing shapes right before my eyes.
My self-pity and tears forgotten as I witnessed something I hadn’t known was possible. Before me sat a cougar and a hawk. I was halfway terrified and rooted to the ground when the cougar advanced towards me. I thought for sure I was about to become dinner for this magnificent creature, but she just butted my hand with her head, and I stroked her fur with my fingers, amazed.
I dropped my walls and felt for the women in both animals and found their energy and happiness easily enough. I was in awe. Tama’s feline grace made sense to me now. I looked over at Onida and reached out tentatively to brush a finger over her feathers. She stretched her wings out to make it easier, her wing span impressive.
Several things happened simultaneously then. With my senses opened I felt an atmospheric shift again. I also felt that same blank energy I felt with Degataga very near me. Onida let out a chilling screech as she launched into the air, the feathers of her wings brushing my face. Tama roared ferociously sending ice through my veins and leaped behind me knocking me flat to the ground as tree bark exploded behind where my head had been. I never even heard the crack of the rifle. The first time or the second time.
But I heard the wounded cry of a cat, the sound gutting me as I rolled to my feet to see her step falter, a chunk torn out of one of her hind legs. Time stood still for me then. Every aspect of everything around me in sharp focus, something inside me woke up and called out, a scream tearing out of my lips. I raised my arms to the sky like I could physically grab the electricity I could feel building. I pulled that energy as hard as I could, furious that something injured Tama, and I threw it all at the space I felt the void.
Lightning struck, the force throwing me off my feet and sending me flying backwards into a tree, the area illuminating in a flash charged with my anger crackling the air, the scent of burned ozone permeating my nose. Ten seconds later the biggest eagle I had ever seen flew in screaming a deadly call that had me scrambling to get away followed by deafening thunder that left me shaking.
The scorched earth where lightning hit was left with a very burned body and melted rifle. Suddenly a naked Taklishim, Onida and Tama were in front of me. Tama bleeding as Degataga ran into our no longer peaceful spot and started applying a poultice on Tama’s leg.
My ears were ringing, I couldn’t hear anything, my body shaking so bad I couldn’t stand, so I just dropped. My eyes were going in and out of focus, my back felt like it was bleeding. I passed out.
My eyes opened to see Onida standing over me. “What happened?”
“In a word, you.”
“Me?” I wasn’t following.
“It isn’t the world that shapes your thoughts, it’s your thoughts that shape the world.”
“Philosophy?” I shouted at her. “You are going to spout philosophy right now?”
“Ariella,” Onida said calmly, “when everything happened, what was your intention?”
“To keep you both safe,” I replied numbly, “obviously that didn’t work.”
“To the contrary. We are both alive, and whatever was after us is not. I’d call that successful.”
“Are you saying I killed it?” I was stunned. “It was hit by lightning.”
“Lightning that you called,” she told me gently.
“I don’t understand,” my voice weak and shaky.
“What I saw in the spirit world was for lack of a better word, a black hole. Bad energy was pooling on the other side to fill that spot. If you hadn’t done what you did, we would still be fighting,” Onida explained.
“You saw it from the other side? For me, I just felt a void, like a blank spot,” I puzzled.
“Your intention was to save us, the divine light that fills you, you manifested it and used it to create your intention. It was actually pretty incredible,” Onida breathed.
“I agree,” said Tama, limping over. Blood soaking through her pants.
“Oh my God! Are you okay? I saw you get shot and flipped out,” I admitted in a rush.
“It hurts,” Tama told me softly, “but I am alive because of you.”
“I have so many more questions,” I muttered.
“I bet. But for now, I think Taklishim is going to take over and finish the day. I need to go sit down for a bit,” Tama said and Degataga walked over and helped her up and head back to the house.
“We will answer any remaining questions before the process is through, I promise you,” Onida said, touching my forehead with two of her fingers. She followed and took up the other side of Tama.
Well, time to face the music I guess, I thought to myself. Taklishim was the only one left. Coincidently he was also the one that intimidated me the most. I’m just ready for this to be over with. I needed to process all this, and I didn’t know where to start.
Chapter Nineteen
I walked over to Taklishim who was squatting over in front of the scorched earth. I suppressed a violent shudder that ran through me and told myself to suck it up and go over there. His hand was stretched out over a spot as I approached, and he pulled it back to look at me.
“This is an impressive display you managed,” he said calmly.
“I wasn’t even aware that it was me that did it, or how it happened,” the words rushed out of my mouth.
“He wasn’t human,” Taklishim said carefully, using his finger to poke at a pile of ash. “No bones here.” He then pointed to the warped and twisted pile of metal and plastic that used to be a gun. “Not sure how he got that, but only your kind of light can do this,” he pointed back to the ash.
“But how?” I whispered, condemning myself for having killed something.
“My guess is extreme emotional response from you called it.”
“What does that even mean?” I cried, dropping down from my squatting position to sit on the ground I burnt.
“I don’t know Raven,” he admitted, sitting back next to me. “When this happened, what were you doing?”
“It’s all a jumble, everything happened so fast,” I closed my eyes trying to remember the sequence of events. “I think we all realized something was here at the same time. Tama knocked me down, I’m guessing to keep me out of harm’s way, and she ended up shot. I didn’t hear either shot, or maybe I did and didn’t recognize what it was. But I remember seeing she was hit and knowing it was a shot and I got really angry that someone would shoot such a beautiful animal. I wanted to save them. Onida had flown up and was circling. I know I screamed because my throat hurts again. I think I tried to pull the energy from what I assumed was a man, but I couldn’t find any to pull and I grabbed whatever energy I could and foc
used it on this,” I gestured before me.
“You couldn’t find the energy to pull because there wasn’t any, it was gathering on the other side. If you had waited, there would have been a large amount, but it is also my understanding that pulling it comes at a great cost to you. What you pulled was your light.”
“I killed something,” I choked, my eyes once again filling with tears.
“No Raven, you can’t kill something that isn’t really alive. You instead protected life with a heart of pure intention. You carried the message that whatever that energy is, it has no place here. It’s what you are made to do. You protect with love. Tama is my mate, I would have lost everything if she had died. Do you understand?” he asked me, his eyes sharp.
I nodded warily, taking him in. He wasn’t as old as I thought, but the color of his hair threw me off. “I take it that the gigantic eagle that came swooping in was you?”
He nodded at me. “I heard Onida’s cry and felt the pain Tama felt. I also had been feeling something growing on the other side for a couple of days now. None of us know what it is, just that it is intelligent in its actions, and has bad intentions. It’s not something we have ever seen before.”
“Because Tama is your mate you can feel her?” I asked curious.
“Yes. You have bonds, correct?”
“I don’t know, but I am starting to suspect I do,” I replied.
“Do you feel something pulling at you?” he asked.
“Yes, so far with five different people. Is that even possible?”
“It is rare, but then again, so are you. Their seed will cement the bond, making it unbreakable in life. Death will break it, but you lose a part of yourself. The bond will also make you stronger,” he explained.
“By seed, do you mean…” I trailed off, embarrassed.
“Sex, Raven.”
“Well shit,” I mumbled. “I have to sleep with five different people?”
“You don’t have to, but in order to feed that bond and keep that strength you need contact. Sex will cement it in, make it a viable living thing that can heal you, or him, ease pain, bring comfort. Without sex, it’s still there, but it doesn’t help as much. It takes constant work and energy to keep it viable.”
“I was baptized Catholic, and while I don’t follow or practice the religion, it’s ingrained in us since children that sex before marriage is a sin. I’m not saying that I didn’t do it anyway, but it doesn’t make sense to me how I could be an angel given that. It means I am not pure. I can’t wrap my head around this.”
“Being pure doesn’t mean you haven’t taken part in pleasure of the flesh,” he coughed. “It more means that you are pure of heart, your intentions are pure, not selfish, not harmful. You act out of love, not hate. Every belief system has a different opinion of sex. It’s a part of nature, it’s natural. Have you taken someone by force?”
“What?” I asked, stunned by the question.
“I am unused to having these conversations, I apologize. Have you raped someone?” he reworded the question.
“Of course not!” I replied hotly. Then more quietly, “But it’s been done to me.”
“I’m going to give you my perspective on this, and remember, this is just a perspective Raven. If your creator wanted you to be here as a divine light, someone to win through love and fight the imbalance the bad has created, he might make you go through things that are bad so that you can understand it when you see it others. If you go through it, you can help them through it, you’d be walking on ground you’ve already navigated. I don’t like to call it a test you go through, because it leaves marks in here,” he tapped his chest, “but the premise is the same.”
Damn these tears. “I understand what you are saying on a logical level, but emotionally it’s harder for me to accept that a benevolent god willingly puts someone through these things.”
Taklishim nodded at me and stood up, reaching his hand down to me and helped me to my feet. “My name, Taklishim, means gray one. When I was born, my parents said I was gray, that I straddled the line between this world and the spirit world. I was taught from birth that I am a spirit warrior. The Medicine Man taught me his ways, the greatest warrior of our tribe taught me his ways. I was told I was destined to be both. It’s hard to understand as a child that you are meant to heal, be magical, spiritual and good, while at the same time being taught to kill and hurt.”
I listened closely, picking up the caustic tone in his words. “My father was chief in my village, I was being groomed to be the next chief when he died. No one ever asked me if that was what I wanted, if they had, I would have said no. I’ve always had to straddle that line between life and death. I can look in the spirit world and see what is happening around me, and I can fight in the spirit world. I’m the highest skilled warrior alive right now. But I didn’t ask for that.”
“I can heal almost anything, save children and appreciate every breath the living takes. And while I may value that skill more than the other, I am wise enough to know that it has given me a balance. When I was a teenager, my younger sister was taken. We had been close, she followed me everywhere and copied all the things I was learning to do. In her own right, she was a good fighter, but she couldn’t save herself. I couldn’t save her either. When she died, my hair turned this gray color, to match my spirit.”
I held my breath as tears fell unchecked down my cheeks. “The spirit world denied me access that day, and I had to fight my way in, and I searched for her. I searched until I was almost permanently a part of that world as well. I too felt the way you did, that a benevolent god wouldn’t take such an innocent and pure life. That was a turning point for me. I continued my lessons, learned both trades as a warrior, and a Medicine Man and when the time came for me to take my place in the tribe, I left.”
“You left?”
He nodded, “I couldn’t stay there, the loss of my sister, of one so close to my soul had damaged me too much. I wandered from tribe to tribe, visiting and helping where needed and eventually made my way to where Tama was. My soul had pulled me in that direction, I followed not knowing why, but did so anyway because it took me farther and farther away from where my sister had died.”
“Did it work?” I quietly asked.
“No, running never works. The pain of losing her is with me every day. Distance allows me to not see the grief in my parent’s faces, but it doesn’t go away. However, in this case, leaving all that was known to me allowed me to see the ways of life of others, both good and bad. It allowed me to see with eyes that have experienced my own grief. And it brought me to Tama.”
“So you found your silver lining,” I said.
“Not just in Tama but in all that I learned from leaving my comfort zone. I was in my eagle form when I first saw her. Her animal is dangerous, but beautiful in a way I’d never experienced. I felt her every move while I soared above her. Her sister was flying too and thought I was after her prey and kept trying to keep me away. I finally had to settle on a low branch and just watch. I didn’t think my heart had the capacity for that kind of love anymore, but my animal recognized it for what it was. Hers did too.”
“Love at first sight?” I asked, skeptical.
“In a way yes. Animals know their bonds, their mates instinctively. My eagle was following his instincts leading me to her. There’s a tug that comes from your soul when you are around them. You are pulled to them, and the closer you get, the stronger it is. When you touch skin to skin, there is a spark of current that tells you it’s right. The heart bond grows stronger over time, but the mate bond is there. Those of us who spend a lot of time in our animal form understand it for what it is.”
“You are telling me that my soul knows I am supposed to be around these five people?”
“Kind of, yes. It doesn’t mean that you must have a mating relationship with all of them, but if you make the connection with them permanent at least once, they will always be your family. You don’t even have to have sex, just remain
ing in close contact with them will work, it will just be harder. I say this because I think those five are the chosen ones to help you with your mission here on this world. They each play a part. I can’t say what that is, but if you feel that way with them, it’s for a reason. That is what my own pain has taught me. I’ve learned to listen, even when I don’t understand.”
“I hear you,” I said thoughtfully. “You don’t know what my purpose here is?”
“If I had to guess, it’s to restore balance and teach the world to love again,” Taklishim said honestly.
“You make it sound so easy,” I snorted in laughter.
“Make no mistake Raven, your task is anything but easy. There is growing unease and tension in the spirit world. Hate is breeding faster than anything here on this world. People are uneducated in ways of keeping their own balance between heart, body and mind. Religion is bringing a divisiveness that is unparalleled. Violence is making its way to be the leading answer to disagreements. The light that surrounds you, it encompasses those that are around you, filling them with hope bright enough to fight back the despair. Your capacity to love is a powerful weapon.”
“What about these powers of mine everyone keeps referring to?” I asked.
“They are tools for you to use to restore balance,” was his blunt answer.
“But if I don’t know what they are, how do I use them?” I replied in frustration.
“You need to heal in here,” he tapped my chest. “You carry the same pain I carried. Plus, you don’t fully believe yet.” He walked some more, “Degataga said he was making you a tea to help you heal,” he looked at me, “I suggest you use it.”
“He said it wouldn’t be easy,” I hedged.
“No, healing never is, but it’s always worth it in the end. You are a raven. You have abilities beyond your wildest imagination, as your very being is magic. There is not one person here who is stronger than you are. Even combined, we could not defeat you.”