Willow Bloom and the Dream Keepers

by E. V. Farrell

  “Believe me, Atlas,” Hugo murmured in his ear, “the art of our exchanges on Earth, particularly with girls, can be very complex.”

  “So I don’t know why we’re here, exactly,” Willow said, “but I was drawn to come to the square.” She took hold of her pendant and waited. “Let’s see …” She didn’t even need to close her eyes this time. Immediately, one of the gold speckled stone pavers to her right began to glow. “That couldn’t be any more obvious.”

  “What do you see?” Avari asked.

  “There’s a stone slab glowing just over there,” she pointed.

  “A good place to start then,” Jessie said.

  Willow bent down for a closer look. “There are two symbols glowing right in the middle. Can you see them too?” They all shook their heads.

  “Looks like you’re the only one,” Hugo said.

  “Describe them to me, please,” Atlas said.

  “One of them is like the lower case letter ‘a’, and the other one looks like a small ‘w’,” she told them. “Hang on – I know these symbols. They’re from Earth. They mean alpha and omega.”

  “Someone knows their Greek history,” Jessie said.

  Atlas nodded in agreement. “Individually, they represent the beginning and the end. However, when they are combined, they represent ‘oneness’.”

  Willow straightened back up. “Okay, so how does that help us?”

  “It is referring to the ‘oneness’ of space and time,” Avari said. “The beginning and the end, contained within every moment. Being fully aware of that gives you access to it.”

  Willow frowned. “I still don’t get it.”

  “It is similar to what you have been doing with the pendant, Willow. Being still and quiet long enough to allow the situation to unfold before you take action – even when you do not understand it,” she said. “Your action then comes from a deeper knowing and not from a response to fear alone. Willow, you have been able to bypass the filter in your mind, enabling you to see glowing symbols and to see through objects. It is not a case of mind over matter but is more accurately the recognition of this ‘oneness’ in space and time before the mind even thinks.”

  “Whoah. That’s a bit deep for two symbols,” Jessie commented.

  Willow stood silent for a few moments. “Oron said that my mind was what got in the way.”

  Avari smiled. “The Ancients are teaching Willow how to harness her inner power more effectively. So that it is not – how would you say it – ‘hit and miss’?” She gazed at her human friends. “You have people on your planet who can access this ‘oneness’, but mostly without any true realisation accompanying it. Your artists, dancers, writers, inventors – all create from a place that is more than what their body and mind alone are capable of,” she explained. “They tap into something much deeper and vaster then the sum of their parts.”

  “I think I get what you’re saying,” Willow said. “The Ancients sure don’t miss an opportunity, even in times of pending doom.” She clasped her pendant and waited for the warm radiance to fill her hands. It wasn’t long when another paver began to glow near the edge of the square next to the park. “Follow me.”

  She walked over to the paver and shook her head. “Huh! They’ve obviously got a sense of humour.”

  “Why? What do you see?” Jessie asked.

  “It’s an arrow – pointing to the pillar over there.”

  The pillar at the edge of square was carved in symbols from the base to the top.

  Jessie stood back from the pillar. “I’ve never really stopped to take a look at this pillar before. I’d say the Ancients are having a bit of fun with us. How are we supposed to know which symbol to follow now?”

  Once again Willow took hold of her pendant, but after some time had passed, she let it go. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “Willow, perhaps this is not a time to use your pendant but more, your intuition,” Avari proposed.

  “Really? Okay.” Willow took in several slow breaths. Focus – then act, she told herself. She leaned in to study the symbols up and down the pillar, and each time she did so, her eyes were drawn back to the symbol of a hand at shoulder height. She reached up and placed her hand over the symbol; they fit together perfectly. She gasped.

  “What?” Hugo said.

  “Wow. I can see heaps of passages below the square. And some of them are glowing,” she said.

  “I am certain that we travelled a number of those passages earlier,” Avari pointed out. “However, the Ancients are directing you to the passages that you see glowing.”

  Willow scanned the passages more intently. “The glowing passages seem to weave in between the others.”

  “Maybe they’re secret passages,” Hugo said. “Just like the glowing symbols on the pavers that we couldn’t see.”

  “Hugo is correct,” Atlas added. “Avari and I are unable to access what Willow is seeing. It seems it is not only the Book that has been hidden within the human visual spectrum.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Willow reasoned. “But I’ve got no idea how to get down there.” She removed her hand from the pillar and instantly three pavers, just feet away, lowered and slid away on either side. “Well, I guess that answers that one.”

  The Final Stretch

  For the second time, Willow led her friends down a staircase beneath the city. “There’d better not be any Vraag down here.”

  “They would have been detected by the security field,” Atlas assured her.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a small chamber with three passages. They were different to the other passages they’d been in; these were made of the same stone as the buildings in the square but only the crystal veins lit up the darkness.

  “Here goes.” Willow touched her pendant, and a fourth passage magically appeared, tightly squeezed between the first two. “I’m guessing you guys can only see three passages?”

  “Where’s the fourth?” Hugo asked.

  “In between the first two. But if I can see it and you can’t, that means there’s still a solid wall here.”

  “Remember what Oron said about solid objects,” Avari said. “And the symbols in the square – the ‘oneness’.”

  “Huh? You want me to combine the ‘oneness’ principle and the ‘nothing is really solid’ principle together? Right now?” Willow’s head turned to mush.

  Jessie folded her arms across her chest and gave a smirk. “Well, there’s only one thing for it. As Yoda would say: ‘Use the force, Willow, use the force’.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Hugo chuckled. “Much simpler if you ask me.”

  Willow rolled her eyes at them. “Thanks, oh wise ones.”

  “Willow, if you are finding it difficult to know what to do, close your eyes,” Avari suggested. “Listen to your breathing. Let the next step of the Quest come to you.”

  Willow did as Avari instructed and slowed her breathing down. It didn’t take long for the feeling of calm to envelop her. She opened her eyes and touched her pendant again. The secret passage was still glowing, but this time to the side of the entrance, and just behind the seemingly solid stone was an imprint of a luminous hand. “I know what I have to do. I just have to get my head around it first.”

  “It is not your head, Willow that needs to ‘get around it’. More specifically, ‘you need to get around your head’,” Avari told her.

  “O-kay. Any tips on how I get around my head? It’s kind of been with me my whole life.”

  “By this phrase, I mean that your mind does not need to understand the principles in their entirety,” she said. “The principles exist with or without your understanding or agreement of them. The matter is more to do with what you would call ‘a leap of faith’ on your part.”

  “Even Yoda would approve of that,” Jessie said.

  Willow remembered another of Oron’s comments – about how he loved a curious mind when it was used properly. Maybe not letting her mind get in
the way, as Avari was suggesting, was a clue on how to use her mind properly.

  Willow stood there wondering, chewing the inside of her lip. A leap of faith, she told herself.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” she said and scrunched her face up, pointing her hand towards the wall. Breathe, Willow. Breathe. Focus, she told herself. She waited for the calmness to return. Gradually her focus sharpened until it was pinpoint-precise. “Here goes.” She moved her hand slowly forward.

  Willow let out a gasp as her hand passed straight through the stone wall of the secret passage. This was insane! Everything that she knew about how life worked told her that this was impossible. Yet here she was, doing the impossible, and her mind didn’t have to agree with it. Willow didn’t dare stop. She stretched her hand out further and her fingers touched the hand symbol. As soon as she made full contact, the entrance to the passage fully appeared.

  She turned to the others. “Can you guys all see this?”

  “Oh yes we can,” Hugo said. “And I thought Dynamo was good.”

  “Dynamo?” Atlas queried.

  “A really cool magician on Earth,” Jessie explained.

  Willow gave her arm a shake. “My arm feels really weird.”

  “It is your body adjusting its cellular vibrations again,” Avari explained.

  A narrow passage had opened out before them, glowing in a pale blue light. “Guess we start here,” Willow said.

  The passage twisted and turned like a maze. They came around a bend and were halted by a transparent silver force field blocking off the entire passage.

  “Great. What do I do with that?” Willow asked.

  “Probably another test,” Hugo said.

  Jessie peered through the force field. “Yep. There’s another hand symbol on the other side.”

  Willow pretended to crack her knuckles. “Okay, I can do this.” She moved her hand towards the force field. “Ouch!” she said, her hand springing back. “That hurt.” She turned to Avari. “Why didn’t it work?”

  “Recall how you did it the first time,” Avari told her.

  She stared at the silver force field and then closed her eyes. This time she paid real attention to everything that was happening to her. Willow listened to her breathing again. A gentle pulse began to spread through her body, as if every cell had its own tiny heartbeat. The calmness she felt was much deeper than before. She opened her eyes and moved her hand towards the force field. This time she penetrated the shield easily. With her hand over the symbol, the shield came down. Willow breathed out. “Two down.”

  “Good going,” Jessie said.

  The passage very quickly narrowed and they were forced to walk in single file.

  “There’s an opening up ahead,” Willow said.

  They reached a small chamber and Willow’s heart skipped more than a single beat when she realised that it was another dead end. The chamber was covered in symbols.

  Hugo looked around the chamber. “Well it looks like we’re meant to be here.”

  “I am sure the Ancients have left a clue,” Avari commented.

  “Yeah,” Jessie added. “It’s gotta be another test, knowing them.”

  Willow scanned the chamber for several moments. “You mean like this one?” She walked over to another hand symbol engraved into the wall.

  “That’ll do it,” Hugo said.

  “This test seems a bit easy,” she said. Willow placed her hand over the symbol, expecting a new passage to appear.

  To the left of the hand symbol a new force field emerged in a haze of opaque silver that gave no clues as to what lay behind it.

  Willow pressed her hand against the symbol again hoping that the force field would disappear or at least reveal another clue. But nothing happened. After half a dozen attempts of placing her hand over the symbol, she said, “I don’t get it. Why get us all the way to this point and then leave us stuck out here?”

  They stood in the chamber pondering the Ancients’ intentions.

  “That’s it!” Hugo exclaimed. That’s the clue.”

  “Huh? What’s the clue?” Willow asked.

  “What you just said. ‘Leaving us out here’,” he told her. “You got us all to this point. So maybe you have to leave us out here and you go in there,” he said pointing at the silver shield.

  “Yes. Hugo has theorised accurately,” Avari said. “I also conclude that that is the intention of the Ancients.”

  “So the last part has to be done by Willow on her own?” Jessie said. “I guess it makes sense.”

  “That means I have to get my whole body – not just my hand – through this very serious-looking force field.” Willow looked at each of them. “You really think that’s what the Ancients want me to do?”

  “This is for you alone,” Avari told her.

  “I guess I can’t back out now. It’s not like the fate of the world isn’t hanging in the balance or anything.”

  “Hey,” Jessie said, offering her fist. “Give me knuckles. You can do this.”

  “Thanks.” Willow faced the force field, her heart, pounding. Getting her head out of the way to align her body with principles she didn’t understand was no easy task. And on top of that, she had no idea what to expect behind that force field. She closed her eyes and listened. In and out, in and out, each breath calming the rhythm of her heart. The gentle pulse of her cells decreased until she could barely feel her body anymore, not unlike the feeling she has when making Light Streams. Now was the time. With her eyes still closed, Willow stepped forward without the slightest hesitation, and walked straight through the force field.

  “She did it!” Hugo cried, punching the air.

  Willow opened her eyes and saw a pillar of crystal no higher than her waist in the middle of a much smaller chamber. She instinctively glanced back to the force field she had just stepped through, and in that instant the force field was replaced with the stone wall.

  “What just happened?” she heard Hugo asking in alarm.

  “She will be fine,” Avari assured him, her voice slightly muffled by the wall.

  “The Ancients do not do anything without a reason behind it,” Atlas added.

  “You okay in there, Willow?” Jessie called.

  “Fine,” she said, then focused her attention back to the crystal column. She was here because the Ancients had led her here. Whether it was another test was anyone’s guess. She stepped towards the crystal and smiled at the handprint embedded on the surface. At least the clue was obvious. She pressed her hand down into the symbol and immediately, the crystal stand radiated a bright gold. Willow took a step back.

  A vortex of colours began to gather just above the crystal stand. Moments later it shifted away from the stand to spin gently close by.

  Willow could see something forming inside the vortex. Her heart raced. She wished the others were with her, even though she knew, deep down, that she wasn’t in any danger. The vortex dissipated and an elderly man adorned in white and gold stood before her.

  Willow instantly felt an overwhelming calmness and serenity emanating from him. Oh my God, she thought, this has to be an Ancient. His eyes were the colour of soft violet and his skin shimmered like gold dust, just like Peonie’s. A golden sash draped across his front was imprinted with galaxies and symbols.

  “The time has arrived to finally meet, young one,” the old man said. “I have been expecting you for a very long time. I am Soto.”

  Willow was utterly tongue-tied. She was standing next a real Ancient! This was no holograph! She gazed into his soft violet eyes. “I’m Willow,” she said.

  Soto’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, you are. To get here, Willow, you have come far. Well done.”

  “Earth is a long way from here,” she agreed.

  “I do not refer to the distance you have travelled, Willow,” he said. “Rather, the journey within.”

  “Oh,” she said. She could have kicked herself. Of course that’s what he meant! He was an Ancient – Earth w
ould hardly be far for him! He probably travelled a dozen galaxies before breakfast.

  Soto raised his hand towards the crystal stand. As if he had lifted some kind of cloaking device, a silver book suddenly appeared.

  Willow stood there, breathless. The Book!

  “The Book contains all you will require for the journey ahead,” Soto told her. “Take it, Willow. You are its Guardian and Keeper in this time. The Sceptre, once constructed, is not only an antidote to the toxins of the Vraag but has the capability to carry your world through the dark times that are unfolding and to anchor the lessons and wisdom of your continuing Quest on your planet.”

  Willow gazed at the Book’s silver cover and then up to Soto’s violet eyes. “Thank you, Soto. I will do whatever I can.”

  “The spark of light within you will guide your way. It is no more than pulling aside the curtain of limiting beliefs. That is what conceals the light and the truth. Stay alert and your journey will reveal all that you require,” Soto counselled.

  “But how will I know if I’m doing the right thing?” she asked. “There is so much I don’t understand.”

  Soto opened out his arms. “Look where you are, Willow. How have you arrived at this point of your journey? In every moment that has arisen, you have interacted with space and time in the only way that you knew. And in every moment the opportunity is available for that interaction to deepen. That is the true journey. You will only ever have the present moment. Everything else is dissipation or anticipation. Perhaps it is in not understanding everything that you will come closer to the truth.”

  Soto offered his hand to Willow.

  She lay the palm of her hand onto Soto’s palm and looked into his eyes. Without warning, tears began to fill her eyes and roll down her cheeks. Willow’s entire being was enveloped by the most profound joy and contentment she had ever known. Her body was strangely light – like a tuning fork in perfect harmony with everything. She was sure that her heart had stopped beating and that every molecule contained within her being was suddenly frozen into one single timeless moment. It was the most unique feeling of her whole life.