by Tom Crockett
“It’s also possible she dreamed the whole thing.” Corrine had not said much during their conversation and now she seemed annoyed. “Let’s get real here,” she said in the manner Marina associated with abrupt and to-the-point New Yorkers. “The Goellers say she came on the Blue Pearl several weeks ago. They say she’s been staying in one of their cabins for the past three weeks. She says she drowned and washed ashore on the other side of the island. She can’t have done both. I mean what about her suitcases, her things. Do you think the ship would have just dropped them off if she’d really jumped overboard.”
Corrine had been speaking to the others as if Marina didn’t exist, but she turned to her afterward and said, “I’m sorry. It’s not personal, you know. Believe me, I’d give anything to think your story really happened, but . . .” She didn’t finish. Even in the fading light Marina could see tears in the woman’s eyes, sense some unspoken pain.
She put her hand out and touched Corrine’s arm. “It’s okay. Now that I’ve told it, I’m not sure I even believe it.” She laughed, but something about her hand on Corrine’s arm bothered her. She felt as if she knew more than she should about the woman, like she was eavesdropping on a private conversation. She pulled her hand back, trying not to make the gesture seem abrupt.
“You have to admit it is pretty far-fetched,” Corrine said to the others. Jack nodded, but Dr. Arenbough matched her gaze and said nothing. She looked back at Marina. “Well, I just had to say that. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings. You seem like a nice person.” Corrine seemed to be assuming or forcing a consensus on the group.
“Well, I could sure use a beer,” Jack said. Marina was almost grateful for his changing the subject.
“Corrine,” Dr. Arenbough asked, “how would you know if you were dreaming right now?”
“Come on, Nigel, not that again. I’m not dreaming right now. I’m wide awake.”
“But when you dream you don’t know you’re dreaming. You wake up screaming. Sometimes you walk in your sleep. When you dream it seems as real as this.” Dr. Arenbough seemed to be talking about something other than idle speculation. He’d heard Corrine wake screaming from some nightmare. He’d seen her walk in her sleep. Marina was certain of this. She also noticed that Corrine was suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation.
“That’s different. I may not know when I’m dreaming, but afterward I know that I was dreaming. Just like I know I’m awake now.” She lit another cigarette nervously.
“Have you ever heard of the Tibetan Book of the Dead?” Corrine didn’t answer. Dr. Arenbough looked at Marina.
“I’ve heard of it, but I can’t say I know much about it.”
“Well,” Dr. Arenbough continued, “it’s not really about death at all, at least not in the way that we think of it in the West. I mean on some level it is connected with their rites and rituals of death, but on a deeper level it’s a kind of training manual for passing over from one reality to another. It describes the stages one goes through after death. They are a series of dreamlike illusions, some terrifying, some serene and peaceful, but all, in some sense, both lessons and traps. The reason for the manual is to prepare the dying person for the nature of these illusions.”
Marina noticed that Corrine was fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat. “And how is this connected with dreams?” Marina asked.
Dr. Arenbough smiled. “The realm of dreams and the place you go after death are both the same place. Even the waking world is just a kind of dream realm with specific attributes. I mention it as a possibility for you to think about.”
“What do you mean?” Marina asked.
“It might explain the discrepancies Corrine pointed out. Perhaps what happened to you really happened and yet was also merely a dream.”
“Give me a break, Nigel. . . .” Corrine was near to exploding. Marina could feel pent-up tension in her voice.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Marina interrupted, hoping to defuse the tension, but realizing too late that she was only adding to it.
“Maybe you did dream all of your story. You said that you’d been feverish and sick for the past several days. Perhaps it was the dream of a sick woman. But what if it was no less real for having been a dream? What if you lived it on some level of what the Tibetans call the Bardo? It could have been as real as any of this. If you had not done the things you did, made the choices you made, perhaps you would have succumbed to that fever. If you had died in your sleep, in the middle of your dream, who’s to say what that would have been like. You may indeed have gone back to your Turtle Woman. None of us can say for certain how true your experience was.”
“Speak for yourself, Nigel.” Corrine pushed her chair back abruptly and stood up. “And you can keep your Book of the Dead. I’m not dreaming now. I’m wide awake. And I’m not dying, either.”
Marina knew this was not true. She couldn’t say how she knew or that she had known before that very moment, but she knew that Corrine was dying. There was some shadow in her chest, a little wisp of what had chased Marina off the summit of the volcano. She’d felt it when she touched Corrine’s arm, though she had not identified it until that moment.
“When you die, you die. There’s nothing after that. It’s . . . it’s . . .” She couldn’t finish her sentence. Marina could almost read her mind, though. She knew the fears Corrine could not voice.
Corrine turned then and walked briskly away. Marina stood quickly and started to follow her, but Ingrid intercepted her at the door.
“It’s best to let her go, dear,” she said softly. “Corrine is just beginning her stay with us. Nothing you could say now would change what she is feeling or what she has to discover within herself. You were the same when you first came here. Give her time. She’ll either heal or she won’t, but it’s out of our hands.”
Then, as an afterthought, she added, “When people first come here they seem to bring all their problems with them, but when they leave, well, they’re different somehow, though I can’t say Turtle Island did much for the DeVries.” She seemed a little frustrated by this, as if she had somehow failed.
“Perhaps it was the child, Gracie, that Turtle Island was supposed to help,” Marina offered.
“I’d like to believe that we helped some member of that family. It’s just that Turtle Island usually has a rather profound effect on people.”
“Well, I must confess that I don’t feel like the same person anymore,” Marina admitted.
Then, as if remembering her role as hostess, Ingrid added, “Dinner will be served in about an hour. You have time to shower and change. Do you need for me to show you to your room?” Marina sensed that Ingrid was still being cautious with her.
“I’m afraid you will.”
Ingrid led her through a large, comfortable room with couches and chairs. There were a few people about, but none that Marina recognized. They went down two hallways before Ingrid stopped at one of the doors. The little brass plaque on the door read GARDEN ROOM II. Marina waited, realizing she had no key. After an awkward moment, Ingrid turned the handle for her and opened the unlocked door.
The room was simple but beautiful. The furniture was hardwood and looked as if it had been made by a true craftsman. There was a table with two chairs, a comfortable-looking chaise longue, a dresser, and a wardrobe cabinet. The floor was smooth, polished wood partially covered with a tatami rice mat. There was a ceiling fan spinning slowly and a lacy mosquito net hanging over a large bed. There were no windows on three sides, but the forth wall had French doors that opened onto what looked to be a garden courtyard.
Ingrid had stepped into the room with Marina and watched as she wandered around it. She stuck her head through one door and found a bathroom. Cosmetics she recognized were arranged on the counter. She never traveled with much, but this was exactly what she usually had with her: shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, perfume, hair brush, moisturizer, sunscreen.
She opened the wardrobe cabinet. There were clot
hes in the cabinet that she recognized. She’d bought these dresses for her cruise, but had never unpacked them. They’d also been the clothes she’d found waiting for her in the cabin on the beach, though she had not recognized them at the time. She saw her shoes neatly arranged on the floor of the wardrobe: several pairs of comfortable sandals, a dressier pair of heels, and a pair of low-top hiking shoes.
Her two small but well-worn suitcases were stored between the dressers. She opened one of the drawers and found more things she recognized. With a sigh she closed the drawer. Her adventure was rapidly collapsing into a dream, and it saddened her. She looked around the room, wanting to find something she now doubted the very existence of.
“Did you say everything of mine had been moved up from the cabin?”
“Yes. Why? Are you missing something?” Marina thought about her altar: the anklet, the pendulum, the little branch in its wooden base, the essential oils, Mai-Ling’s bowl, Gracie’s flowers. All of it a dream? she thought.
“No. No, I guess not. I’m still adjusting, I suppose.”
She found her camera bag next to the chaise longue. She hefted it and, by its weight, knew everything would still be inside it. She noticed a letter sticking out of one of the back pockets and drew it out. It was addressed to Erin. It was her suicide note.
She sat heavily on the chaise longue and sighed.
“It never really happened, did it? I dreamed it all, didn’t I?”
Ingrid sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know, dear. It’s a wonderful story, though, maybe more important than the truth. But let me tell you a different story. A woman takes a cruise to a resort island. She’s deeply tired inside, disappointed with life, unhappy. She can’t feel. She has a fog about her and can’t see more than a little way at a time. She comes to Turtle Island almost in a walking coma. She spends several days drifting in and out of conversations, never engaging anyone, never fully present. She overhears the theories of an eccentric anthropologist. Perhaps she catches a glimpse of his tattoo. She hears about sea turtles from a research scientist. She absorbs who knows what from the conversations of visitors passing through, all without really processing any of it.
“Then she goes into isolation. She lives alone for several weeks with no distractions, nothing to occupy her time but her own state of mind. She’s overwhelmed, lethargic, she sleeps a lot and dreams. Her dreams run together. She develops a fever of some kind that intensifies the reality of her dreams. She wakes, confused, still half in the dream, and returns to the place she started. Only now she doesn’t recognize it. She doesn’t remember it because she never really saw it when she was there before.
“Slowly she comes out of the dream. She is changed by the dream, changed for the better, perhaps. Still the dream seems more real for her than the waking.
“So, what will she do?”
Marina had no answer.
“Dinner in about forty-five minutes,” Ingrid said, standing and slipping out the door, pulling it closed behind her.
* * *
Later, after her shower and dinner with Dr. Arenbough, Jack, and several other guests, Marina found herself back in her room. She’d worn a little black dress that she liked because it packed well and was still flattering. She’d even put on the dressier black heels, but had slipped them off during dinner and carried them back to her room. She took the dress off and found her silk robe laying across the bed. I was wearing this robe when . . .
She let this thought trail off. She put the robe on and walked to the French doors. She found that they were designed so that she could open up almost the whole wall. Gauzy white curtains hung in front of the doors. They now blew around her legs in the lightest of breezes.
She lay down on the bed, pulling the mosquito netting around the mattress. From inside she felt like she was seeing the world through a mist. She closed her eyes and drifted.
“So, what did you think it would be like?” A high-pitched, musical voice woke her.
“What?” Marina sat up in bed. She heard laughter, familiar laughter.
“Did you think you would just go back?”
Marina strained to see in the dark. There was moonlight coming in through the French doors, creating a silhouette of the person seated on the chaise longue. “What?” Marina asked again.
“Stop saying what, you silly child.” Marina thought she recognized the outline of a small old woman, wild hair cascading around her shoulders.
Turtle Mother? Marina thought.
“Well, did you think there would be no way back? Just because you did not see the path that led you here, doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. And just because you did not imagine this path, doesn’t mean you aren’t walking on it.” Marina’s head spun.
“Turtle Mother!” she called out, batting the mosquito netting out of the way and standing up.
There was no one there. No one was sitting on her chaise longue. No one was in her room.
Marina ran to the French doors, pushed through the filmy curtains, and stepped out into a little garden. It, too, was empty. There was a little fountain and the moonlight sparkled on the water. The garden was surrounded by a low bamboo wall, but she could see palm trees above the wall that made the garden feel much bigger.
She stood for a while looking into the jungle. She imagined she could see through it to the high plateau, over the volcano, down to Adytum Wood, past the mirror pool, around Rafael’s hut, to the beach where she had first found herself. Or where I dreamed I found myself, she corrected.
She turned, suddenly sleepy, to go back inside. To the side of the garden was a low stone slab. Something familiar attracted her to it.
She caught her breath!
My altar.
She crossed and knelt in front of it. She smelled Gracie’s coral and pink blossoms. They seemed as fresh as she remembered them. She handled and lifted her shells, stones, feathers, and bones. She caressed Mai-Ling’s bowl, turning it in her hand like the cup from a Japanese tea ceremony. She opened the two blue bottles and smelled the essential oils. She lifted the branch from its box and replaced it carefully. She dangled the pendulum between her fingers and felt it dance lightly. She caressed Rafael’s circular stone pendant and Atana’s stone from the mirror pool.
The coral and black pearl anklet was suspended from the branches of the little tree. She lifted it and fingered each bead like a rosary. She tied it loosely around her wrist.
There was a candle on the altar, a tall ivory one with matches in a little dish beside it. She lit the candle. She felt something stiff in the pocket of her silk robe.
It was a letter, the note she’d left for Erin. It seemed like such a long time ago.
She held the letter to her lips for a moment, then passed it into the candle’s flame. It caught and burned. She held it as long as she could, watching little cinders take to the night like fireflies, before dropping it into the bowl Mai-Ling had carved for her.
EPILOGUE
A woman walks out onto the deck of a ship. It is a cruise ship famous for its level of luxury. It is filled with happy couples, people escaping, people paying for an illusion of the exotic, but it is early morning and still, and she passes no one as she pads softly on bare feet from her stateroom to the lowest of the outer decks—the one that offers no obstructions between the railing and the sea.
She is calm, perhaps more tranquil than she has been in a very long time. Her stateroom is in order. There is a little space she has cleared on her dresser. It contains an odd assortment of treasures, things found in her travels, things she travels with. They are carefully, purposefully arranged, telling some story through their positions and relationships.
She finds a point along the railing more in shadow than the rest. She looks out across the moon-sparkled night sea. It is warm, and the only breeze seems to come from the ship’s forward motion. It is barely enough to lift her dark curly hair from her shoulders. Except for the humming vibration of the ship’s engines, all is quiet. She breathes in the
salt scent. She is still, her mind totally clear.
She unties the belt of her silk robe and lets it fall open. She stands as if bathing her body in moonlight reflected from the sea. From the pocket of the robe she pulls a handcarved wooden bowl inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She has wrapped a silk scarf around it to keep the contents from spilling. She unties it. There is in the bowl a strange potpourri of dried orchid petals and ashes. She extends the bowl out over the sea with her left hand and pours the mixture into her right. She slowly crushes the petals and the ash into a fine powder that slips between her fingers into the sea.
She checks the compass she carries inside her heart. With subtle adjustments in position she finds the point on the horizon where an island should be. If it is there, if it was ever there, it is beyond sight now, but that doesn’t matter. She carries it with her. It is her past and also her future.
* * *
A sea turtle’s head breaks the surface of the water among a powder of sweet flowers and ash. It pauses for a moment, tasting the water. It is a beautiful creature, rare and magical, with markings of a whole world upon its back in green and blue, deep red and yellow. It does not stay long on the surface, but dives once again with eyes closed, dreaming a woman, dreaming an island, dreaming a story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Crockett is a writer, an artist, an educator, and a shamanic practitioner. After spending four years as an award-winning photojournalist in the United States Navy, Tom pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine art. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. His Master of Fine Arts, with an emphasis in photography, is from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
Tom is the author of The Artist Inside: A Spiritual Guide to Cultivating Your Creative Self. This book is a guide and manifesto for a spiritually awakened approach to artistic expression and creativity. It draws on the work Tom has done both as an art teacher and a shamanic practitioner. Helping people find “The Artist Inside” has become a passion for Tom—a kind of shamanic retrieval for the creative soul.