Water's Threshold

by Jillian Jacobs

  Nodin stood barefoot in snow up to his ankles, apparently immune to the cold.

  Perhaps Terran had been led here by Nodin as food for those marauding vampires, recently loosed in the mountains. At this point, that seemed a plausible explanation.

  Nodin lifted his arms and face to the sky—like an ancient Indian in the throes of sun worship.

  He laughed. “Sun worship? Really? You study the earth and everything it’s composed of, yet there is much you do not comprehend. Maya needs you. She may reach an end without you. Are you willing to go to her?”

  “Why did you mention sun worship? Wait…end? What end?” Terran grabbed Nodin’s arm. “When will you start making sense?”

  Nodin just shrugged.

  “Of course, I want to go to her.” He released his hold on Nodin and kicked the snow at his feet. “What are we doing up here? She’s not here and the hospital is back that way.” Terran jerked his thumb toward his parked truck.

  “No, Earthman, she isn’t here. But this path we’ve begun will lead you to discover truths that will not correlate with your narrow-minded understanding of the world and current scientific fact. If you choose to stand beside me, know your life will change in ways you’ve never imagined.”

  Earthman? What the hell is he talking about?

  This whole scenario hit a new level of insanity. Odd did not even begin to describe Nodin’s behavior. The vampire theory was actually looking reasonable at this point.

  “Terran, if I were a vampire, how could I be out during the day? Maya is attempting to heal from damage done by a very dark evil. A real evil. Little time remains. Mother believes you’re the only one capable of healing her. Choose.”

  A gentle breeze spun around Terran’s body. The draft calmed his confusion and created a link with Nodin—a kinship, a core of trust. He closed his eyes, and the vision of the pool came to him. The film on the pool’s surface cleared. He now saw beneath and knew what he had to do. “Take me to her.”

  Nodin shuffled a little and rocked back on his feet, still buried in snow. “We need to hug.”

  “What?” Terran lifted a hand, warding him off.

  Nodin cursed, grumbling something about his Mother, but spread open his arms and gestured for Terran to step forward.

  “I’m doing this for Maya.” Terran wrapped his arms around Nodin in an awkward bear hug. If Nodin asked him for a kiss, he was heading back down the mountain. Alone.

  “Ah, Terran, I’m hurt. I’ve been told I’m a very good kisser.” A hearty laugh shook Nodin’s chest, rumbling against Terran’s body.

  Strange, how does he know what I’m thinking? Terran started to draw back, a few choice words on his tongue, when a strong wind beat against their bodies. The brisk breeze stirred through his hair and whipped against his clothes then he held nothing but air. Nodin had disappeared.

  What the hell?

  An air funnel stirred the snow at his feet and circled around him. Once the current reached his head, only a stir brushed upon his skin before he was lifted off the ground. Disoriented, he tried to scramble back to earth, but the vortex tightened around his body. A great fog enveloped him and cool air blasted against his face. His body went horizontal, and his muscles locked tight as he jetted across the sky.

  How is this possible? Did I ingest a hallucinogen at the lab?

  Frozen in place, he traveled through the upper atmosphere. The earth flew by in a blur of greens and browns.

  Where has Nodin gone?

  Terran bit his lip to determine if he could still feel the pain. Very real. The smell of the ocean cleared his senses. How far has this wind tunnel travelled if I’m near an ocean? The air temperature went frigid, and an icy mist formed on his skin. The faint squawk of seagulls further alerted him to water’s presence.

  His body flipped. Vertically. Diving headfirst—a perpendicular plunge. Terran tried to lift his arms over his head in order to ease into the water. The whirlwind refused any movement as he sped through the air, like an arrow straight toward the sea.

  Braced for contact, Terran held his breath as the ocean waved in welcome. He tensed and closed his eyes, but the impact was minimal. His natural instincts, however, struck with maximum force, and he scissor kicked toward the water’s surface. A futile fight. The air cyclone swirled his body deeper and deeper.

  Panic engulfed him and he struggled against invisible bonds. Gasping for air, surrounded by water, and continuing the plunge, his survival reflex hit red alert at the unnatural state of his body.

  A voice reverberated in his head. Nodin’s voice. “I will not let you drown. Breathe. Relax your body, my brother.”

  Lips locked against his mouth, and he was finally able to breathe. Terran had always wondered what he would do in a life-or-death situation. Apparently, kissing a man fell in the “do” category. If, in fact, he was locking lips with a man, he’d left all rational thought back on the mountaintop.

  Ears popping, his body a human popsicle, he traveled farther into the sea’s sapphire depths. Water pressure started compressing his body. Sure death was imminent, he relaxed and let it come. But then, his body shifted direction. No longer heading straight down, he leveled out, and then shot vertical. He surfaced like a rocket and erupted onto a rocky, moss-covered platform. Gasping for air, he filled his lungs—more a natural reaction to an unnatural submersion than out of any true loss of breath. He rolled onto his back and observed his surroundings. Above him, bright light shined down, making him blink against the glare. Somehow, his glasses had remained on his face. Somehow, he was alive.

  His body trembled from the cold, and he scrunched into a fetal position, trying to get warm. He glanced around, noting this cave was similar to the one in his dreams. Or the same cave.

  A shimmery light crossed the floor and stopped right before his eyes. The beam continued its trail over his body, heating him from the inside out. Only the tip of his nose retained its chill when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in attention.

  Someone stood behind him.

  Heart pounding, he sat up and turned around.

  A woman, with a hazy golden glow surrounding her, watched him from her stance in the rocky cave. Otherworldly. Not human. Standing over eight feet tall, her auburn hair branched out as if she were an ancient redwood hidden deep in the forest. Her amber skin glimmered when she knelt beside him. Her eyes were the color of a blade of grass in spring.

  Mother Nature.

  Calmness swept through him, as if he’d been hypnotized by her beauty. How he knew who and what she was, he could not say. But in that moment, he understood exactly—awareness exploded in his mind. Awed by her, he bent his head.

  He felt his body warm in her presence, and his connection to his current environment became magnified by an intense degree. The bond to the earth, and an understanding of how he fit, clicked like a final puzzle piece in his mind. And yet, is this real? Can this truly be Mother Nature? Doubt prickled as he regained his senses.

  Mother held something in her arms. Protectively, cradling the figure. She brushed her chin across the wet clumps of blonde hair—Maya’s hair.

  As the shot of recognition rocked him, he noted Maya’s pale skin. His nightmares of the past week were now very real. Maya’s body trembled in Mother’s arms.

  A sweet song echoed through the cave but did not ease her shudders.

  Maya jerked and screamed his name. Her intense cry struck him with a vision of her bound to a stake that had been lit on fire, and the flames were devouring her body.

  Terran stood, intent on soothing her pain.

  Mother raised a hand, and her stick fingers beckoned him closer.

  Maya’s raspy breathing filled the silence.

  Mother stroked her face tenderly as he stood beside them. Then the woman’s golden hand reached out and she brushed a stray hair from his forehead—a mother’s touch, the kind given to a child after they’ve fallen and scraped their knee.

  A breeze ruffled Mother’s red lo
cks. Nodin appeared at her side.

  The presence of someone from an existence Terran understood brought reality front and center. “I don’t understand. This woman, she is… and Maya she…she needs medical attention. Take her, please. Just like you took me, however, whatever, you did, take her now. She needs a hospital.”

  Again, a voice reverberated in his mind. A musical lilt accompanied the words when a soft feminine accent spoke in a comforting whisper. “Terran, you are Earth. You are the thread that binds us all. We are all connected through your unifying force. You are the great accommodator. Without the earth, the air would not flow freely. The fire would have no foundational spark. And Maya, she is the spring rain making your blossoms grow. She chips away at your shores and you yield to her, letting her sway against you.”

  Mother bent and handed him the shivering bundle. Maya was weightless, like some fairy waif this golden woman had conjured from another plane of existence.

  “Lie beside her.” Mother spoke out loud this time, and the lyrical splendor of her voice almost brought tears to his eyes. “She must find refuge in your strength. Water does not exist without the earth. Let her anchor at your shore. She must grab the thread of your stabilizing connection, and once that ties into place, her fight to follow your link to the surface begins. Give her the will to join with the living. Call to her. You are the only one who can lead her home. Her mortality begins and ends with you—the blessed earth.”

  Nodin dropped to his knees next to Terran, fear obvious in his glassy blue gaze. “I know you have questions, but now is not the time. Lie beside her. Let your spirit envelop her. Please.”

  Terran’s mind refused to accept this empty shell in his arms was really Maya. She couldn’t be this close to death. This whole situation was incomprehensible. “I don’t believe in spirits or souls. I believe in hospitals and doctors. Those are what she needs. I cannot heal her.”

  “You must believe in your connection with her, Earthman, or she will die—a final death. The perpetual rebirth she experiences will no longer occur.” Nodin tugged on his pant leg. “Please, undress.”

  His arms tensed around the cold body in his arms. “Why do you keep referring to me as Earthman? And why in the hell would I undress? What happens then? How is that supposed to heal her? I don’t believe in ancient medicine man bullshit. Spirits do not commune with each other. Look. At. Her.” He knelt with Maya in his arms. “She needs a hospital. Belief in healing by nature does not work. Medicine works. Now get her out of here. Wherever here is.”

  Mother moved beside him, the smell of freshly tilled earth circulated through the air. She bent and pressed her hands to his cheeks. “Become one with your nature.”

  A series of pictures flashed through his mind—a seed sprouting, corn stalks standing tall, piglets rolling in the mud, and a field of green lily pads floating upon a lake, their yellow blossoms straining in his direction.

  Mother brushed a hand over his head. Her eyes seemed to shimmer as they gazed into his. Hypnotizing him into serenity. “Do not fight your new reality. Cast aside all doubts. Free your mind to absorb the truth. Love is not a fact. It is a belief. The question now becomes, do you love her enough to believe?”

  Do I love her? How could he when he had no idea who or what she was? Still, what choice did he have? He couldn’t very well let her die. Terran handed Maya back to Mother and undressed to his boxer briefs. If someone didn’t show up with reality show cameras soon, he’d start to question his sanity. He couldn’t escape this cave alone, so he’d play along with their little theatric production. “What now?”

  Mother gently nudged his shoulder. “Lie on your side.”

  As Terran did, he watched as Nodin stripped off his clothes as well, which took all of a second since the man didn’t grasp the concept of proper outwear.

  “I understand it, Terran. I just choose to live unencumbered.”

  Terran narrowed his eyes at Nodin, unsure how he’d picked up on his thoughts. Again. Actually if Nodin could read his mind right now, he’d get a very clear picture of how he felt about all this. Feelings he would refrain from revealing in front of a lady. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but who are you?” He knew, but sanity was returning, bringing reason laced with apprehension.

  “Terran, you know who I am.” Her voice echoed through the cave. “The clarity before you is blurred by your rational mind. Now is not the time to focus on your internal war.” Mother laid Maya beside him. “Focus instead on healing.”

  Nervous laughter erupted from him. Right, empty my mind. Perhaps next she’d give him a yellow-haired voodoo doll and tell him to pet it every day. Where are the chickens and toadstools?

  “Terran, wrap your arms around her,” Mother’s lyrical voice commanded. “She is not a doll, but flesh and water.”

  Nodin gripped his hand. “Do it, brother. The only chicken here is you.”

  Apparently, reading his mind was another inexplicable item of the day. Sure that his brain was unable to handle any further discoveries, he followed their directive, spread out on his side, and drew Maya close. Her body shivered so, what the hell, he closed his eyes and envisioned the sun generating heat through nuclear fusion. Regardless of his current alternate reality, energy radiating as heat from the sun remained a fact. He clung to that one iota of normalcy.

  What was not normal was what he held tight in his arms. If not for the short intermittent puffs of breath against his chest, he would believe her dead. Death, what had Nodin nattered on about a final death and perpetual rebirth? She was no doubt suffering from hypothermia from this dank cave and her soaked skin. How had she lost so much weight since he’d last seen her? Would she ever recover from this wasting disease? Maya’s bones protruded from under her skin. A wilted petal was all that remained of his bright yellow lily.

  Blonde tufts of her semi-dry hair stuck out all around her head. Racked with occasional shudders from the cold, she whimpered out soft cries. Her lips and skin were an unnatural hue of blue.

  Nodin sank next to them and wrapped his body around her back. At his ease, he began a native tribal chant.

  Mother stood behind Nodin and stared down at their entwined bodies.

  A vision of Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound, rose in Terran’s mind. With their three heads together, he imagined they resembled the beast.

  Mother laughed. The musical sound flowed through the chamber, and her voice was like soft velvet when she spoke, “Do not worry, my son, I do not have the power to transform you into such a creature.”

  An understanding smile lit her ethereal face and reassured him somehow. As if he was a child and she was pleased he had learned a lesson.

  Her skin gleamed with gold and green sparkles before her entire body shimmered and disappeared to whatever plane of fairyland existence she lived on—perhaps she was a magician. His mind had left the building. Nothing in his knowledge base explained anything that had happened.

  Nodin had warned him at the top of the mountain.

  Quite an inadequate preparation for this particular scenario.

  If they thought he had questions before, they’d be overwhelmed by the overflow in his mind now.

  Maya shivered again, immediately diverting his attention. Her appearance was like a golden raisin dried too long in the sun, and then left overnight in the rain. He ran his hands over her body, accidentally brushing Nodin’s arms. The contact did not, however, distract the native from his trance-like murmur.

  This moment remained surreal. Terran refused to consider how the only thing separating him from a naked man was a naked wisp of a woman.

  He’d been instructed to heal her—how was that possible? Only thoughts of hospital beds, nurses, and doctors came to mind. Needles and medicine were instruments his mind understood.

  A play-by-play of moments spent with her flipped through his thoughts—the first time at the stream, leather boots at the strip club, her smile across the crowded bar. All lies. A mask to cover what she really was. Which was what
? What kind of game were these people playing?

  He had almost lost his heart to her and she…was she even human? Anger and denial at these irrational thoughts smothered his softer sentiments, like an avalanche pouring down a mountain.

  He was freezing his balls off next to a corpse and a mind-reading Indian. No doubt, they’d both had their laugh keeping secrets from him. Whether or not this situation or these people, were real—he was done.

  Joke over.

  Chapter 26

  Nodin finally quieted.

  In the silence, Terran tried to rationalize, which brought about the return of his headache, so he started talking—rambling in a one-sided conversation. All the questions lined up in bullet points in his mind flowed out, yet remained unanswered. The sound of his voice helped maintain a modicum of sanity in this insane situation. Perhaps Nodin and Maya were some organic-living-based cult or live-action role players and had somehow used magic to create this illusion.

  How much longer am I supposed to lie here?

  He pulled back and studied Maya’s face.

  What is she doing with these people? What is wrong with her body?

  A medical explanation for her condition had to exist. He turned that thought over in his mind.

  Is she contagious?

  The rocky bed was not meant for comfortable naps, but eventually, the heat their entwined bodies created relaxed him, and he drifted off.

  At the bottom of a small wooden boat, he rocked back and forth. Waves threatened to topple him over.

  A blast of air against his face had him gasping for breath.

  “Terran, time to wake up.” Nodin jostled his shoulder.

  Terran stretched and yawned as he emerged from his dream. A filmy sheen of perspiration covered his skin. Heat remained from where his body rested next to Maya. Her skin was still pale, but he noted a subtle change. Her face appeared less wrinkled. Her bones were no longer like piercing shards under her skin.

  “We must take her to water now.” Nodin lifted her off the ground and carried her toward the back of the cave, indicating with a jerk of his head for Terran to follow.