There was one little girl who literally ran into me that first morning, knocking me backwards as she rushed wildly around the corner of a tent. She shrank back immediately, and cast her head down.
“It’s OK, don’t worry. I’m…”
I stopped short as she raised her face to me, catching me with her eyes. I knew that look. She had haunted eyes, wide and deep, that had seen too much, survived something unimaginable. She quickly averted her gaze, but the jolt stayed with me, as deeply as if she had just burned a brand on to my mind with that brief glance.
She stood in front of me, her shoulders hunched over, head down, small frame braced. So still. No one stands that still unless they have been taught by life to survive that way. No one stands that still when they are at peace. The tension in her body ran down to her fingertips and her ankles, and I could imagine her toes clawing down into the earth within her boots, like a corpse in rigor mortis. Her hair, mousy and matted, sat on her head like a moth-eaten felt hat.
“It’s OK, Sula. It’s OK, love.” Lara had appeared close behind the little girl, from around the side of the tent, and spoke to her gently. She kept her voice low and calm, and after waiting for a few moments, she came closer and tenderly stroked her on the back.
“Come on, Little Bear. It’s OK. This is Eve, and she is very kind. She won’t have minded –will you?”
Lara smiled at me, and I smiled down at the little head bowed in front of me. Such a small head, weighed down with a heavy burden.
“Of course I don’t mind, Sula – is it? Are you Sula?”
She didn’t answer in any form, not even an inclination of the head. Lara stepped forward and began to gently lead her away. As she turned to go, Sula raised her eyes to me once more. Her gaze then shifted to the side slightly as she caught sight of the bandages peeking out the top of my jacket, just between my shoulder and my neck.
“This? These?” I asked as my hand went up to the bandages and I instinctively crouched lower to allow her a better view. With her eyes never leaving them, she walked the few steps between us, and reached out with a hesitant hand.
“It’s OK – you can touch them. They are just covering up a cut I had, but it is feeling so much better. Here…” I crouched lower as her hand sought out the rough fabric, taking it between her thumb and two fingers, and rubbing it slowly. As she did so, she turned her face right towards mine and looked directly into my eyes. She must have seen something there that provoked it, as before I could catch my breath with the intimacy of the moment, her small hand touched my cheek. It didn’t move, she just rested it there on my cheek – the lightest of touches, as if she knew that any movement was just an adult’s misguided way of shushing away the fear, of rocking away the pain of the moment. This was far purer than that. Sometimes stillness is the most moving expression of all. It just lets you be.
And then she was gone, running off around the backs of the tents again.
“Is she mute?” was the first question for Lara that came to mind.
“Yes,” sighed Lara. “She can’t even tell us her real name and I don’t think she can write, either. I started to call her Little Bear, which she seemed to like, which eventually became Sula, as she needed a proper name. It suited her, and more importantly, she seemed to be pleased, so it sort of stuck. She…”
We were interrupted by three people coming out of the forest, calling for Lara. Two of them I recognised as part of the band that had found me in the cave; a woman named Sorcha, and a very tall man, Arno. These two were supporting a man in the middle, letting him rest his weight on them as he stumbled into camp. His right leg was hanging limply, and he screwed up his face with each jarring step.
“Might be broken, Lara. Stupid idiot stepped in a rabbit hole, didn’t you Breven?”
“Bloody big rabbit, then,” Breven managed to get out, with an attempt at a grin. “I could have made a comfortable home in that!”
Lara rose to her feet immediately.
“My tent. No, don’t worry Eve, you stay here – I’m OK.” And she led the way.
I stayed there for maybe an hour or so, allowing thoughts to flow through my mind. That luxury of time allows a different form of stillness to descend. Not the stillness of fear, but a stillness of the mind, after a maelstrom of thoughts has been given the proper space to whirl and ferment.
In London I had found this release occasionally after a run, or a walk; the perpetual rhythmic motion of my body somehow allowing my thoughts to be jostled and sieved, until they were able to sift down like the gentle rain of falling flour, creating a still mound. I’d never found it from stillness itself before. Life in London didn’t really allow for that.
I had always been tired in London, I realised now. Well before the dreams began again. So much effort required to keep my mask up all the time. It was an excruciating life I had constructed for myself. Still, at least I had constructed it. I’d made it through another day.
I’d never really considered the cost of this until now. It had never been about that; only the fact that I had survived another day, another month, another year. I had zipped myself into those suits, churned out those briefs, painted my face, chased those accolades – all so that no one would see me struggle, and ask: ‘What happened to her? Why can’t she do that?’ I knew enough about psychology to know that the tactic worked: if you don’t want a pack of dogs to sense your fear and attack, you present them with a lack of fear.
Enanti: the present
Exposure
I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t want to come out of hiding. I’d always been fascinated by the idea that you ‘take people as they are’ – at face value – leaving any judgement of their past firmly out of the reckoning. But it disturbed me as much as I also yearned for that anonymity and acceptance of just who I am now; me, here, in this time and this place. Because I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that to take people for how they present themselves can be a terrible misjudgement. It always was in my case. The Eve that people saw – even my friends – was one I could edit, adapt endlessly, perfect and then present. So I loved the fact that my friends accepted me simply for ‘who I am’ (what does that even mean?), but I also knew they couldn’t possibly know me unless they knew my past, my life. Make of that dilemma what you will! I wanted them really to know me, but I was so glad they didn’t.
I understood hiding. Somewhere in my psyche was a filing cabinet where ‘hiding’ had been filed under ‘good’. It was what kept us alive all those years ago, kept us a family – a unit – alive, at least for a while. My last memories of my family were of our weeks in hiding, before we were blown apart. We were all together. And now I am alone.
I thought back to the trip to Crackington Haven I had taken after the storms had thrashed the coastline down there last winter. It was the only time I had come away from the sea feeling worse.
I had stared out over the beach I knew so well, and felt sick. The golden sands of last year were gone. The beach was hollowed out, scraped back to the jumble of bedrock and boulders that had lain hidden for so many years, now exposed. Dark and dripping from the waves. So dark. It was a profound image; this covering carved away. I had felt suddenly revealed myself. I took it so personally. The sight of so many tiny figures scrambling all over the rocks, metres lower than they would have been last year, had been deeply disturbing. As if they had been picking over my own internal landscapes, digging and searching through the cracks and rock pools. I‘d wrapped my scarf more securely around my neck, and hugged myself. The wind had had a chill to it then, and I hadn’t wanted to be there.
Is this what happens to us all in the end? I wondered. The thought was challenging. Stripped bare, laid out for others to examine and judge? One storm and all that camouflage is stripped away, one storm and everything is different. Things long buried were feeling the air.
Dream
Escaping
We lived in thi
s sort of school, set in large grounds. Something was wrong here. We were closely watched, and there was a perimeter that we could not travel beyond. There were certain things at the limits, that, once touched, sent you instantly back to the centre of this strange place. We were trapped.
The teachers said it was all for our benefit, our protection and safety. Here, we were comfortable, well-fed and looked after. Just trapped.
But our safety was unimportant to me. I spoke passionately to my group of friends. I wanted freedom – the ability to make choices, take up a hobby, travel, live in my own way.
We started to plan our escape. We knew that touching certain things would send us straight back – a lot of these things were food, and items we really needed. But we discovered that if we painted them, in whatever colour each thing was, we were safe from this instant recall. The layer of paint offered us protection.
I painted some red grapes red, and lay them in the sun to dry. A teacher walked by, and we quickly hid the paints. She noticed nothing unusual about the red grapes beside us.
We went to a door, in the middle of the wilderness edge. It was a standard white house door, in the middle of the trees. We opened it, and there was another one exactly the same beyond it.
Suddenly we heard a teacher searching through the undergrowth for us, getting closer and closer. Terrified, we quickly opened the second door, and another, and then the next one was opened for us. We stepped into a new reality.
It felt strange for a while. We needed time to adjust. It was odd to be free. We started off by camping out in the open.
There was a protective force-field that protected us only from things from above. We saw a strange branch just hanging in the sky above us – levitating in mid air, an enigma. We realised that it had come from our old world, and that this new world was directly beneath our last one. In an attempt to trap us into returning, the teacher was dropping things down, unpainted. Once touched, we would be instantly transported back. It was a dangerous portal between these two worlds.
The forcefield kept us safe. But as the days went by, the forcefield began to ebb, and little sticks, gently, so gently, were let down to almost ground level. I wasn’t overly concerned because it all happened so slowly that we had time to avoid them.
I took the train with one of my friends to London, to see life. We found a stray dog, and put it on the train back to our camp, while we continued in London for a few more hours. When we returned, our friends told us about this dog that had arrived alone on the train, so they had sent it back on the next one. I felt an intense sadness, and pity for that dog.
Man is two men;
one is awake in darkness,
the other is asleep in light.
Kahlil Gibran
Enanti: the present
The things that fall in war
“What is this place?” I leaned forward to refill my cup from the pitcher – I was parched after a full day of helping with chores around the camp. It was good finally to sit around the campfire and stop.
“You are in Enanti,” Lara replied.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think that this was somewhere I could find on my globe at home, that my usually diligent geography teachers had failed to mention.
“It seems so different to what I’m used to. Where are all the towns and cities?”
Lara smiled. “You don’t like living outdoors?” She grinned. “It’s not for everyone – at least, not at first. But Raul has kept us safe. He did what he promised. And here we live as the Free. We move our camp on frequently, to try to stay safe, but at least we are free.”
“Safe from what?”
“We do – did – have many towns here, and a beautiful city, Albedo. That was where I came from.”
As Lara paused, I realised I was surprised that she had come from another life than this; she seemed so natural in this environment.
“Some of us here came from Albedo, others from elsewhere, but now this is home. One day I would love to go back, to walk its streets again, to sit by its fountains and drink sherbet with my friends under the full moon. It was so beautiful, Eve. It was built from copper-stone, so it glowed in the sunshine. The citadel at the top of the hill was always festooned with flags, which caught the wind, and called our hunters home from miles around. We had festivals and fêtes; life felt like one long summer.”
“Why can’t you go back now?” I asked.
“The towns have been lost to us, and Albedo has also fallen. They are nothing but empty shells now. The buildings are the same, but vacant. Albedo still stands but its soul has gone. Death walks there. The Craven came, the vanguard forces of the Shadow Beast. He seeks to control all of this land. They came in their thousands, and ransacked the towns. No one was spared. So many were lost – even the young.”
I winced at her words, stabbed through.
“I’m sorry Lara. I’m so sorry.” I said quietly. I reached for her hand, and held it tightly.
Haltingly, I told her of my own version of Albedo, and she told me more of hers. Her parent had died already some time before the fall of Albedo, but she lost her husband and many of her friends when the city fell.
“I felt so useless. I was a healer, but I could do nothing for them. It was too late,” she said. “But coming here saved me – and now I am the healer here.”
“Is Sula from Albedo too? Did she come with you?” I asked.
“We think she is from Albedo, but she came here later.” Lara paused and closed her eyes before continuing. “I can’t imagine what happened to her in the meantime. I think she was hiding out for some time before The Craven captured her. I can’t bear to think what she went through, but she managed to escape, and she made her way across country, completely alone. Raul found her one morning in the forest, and brought her here. ”
My heart ached for her, this little girl who had seen too much. Her face was too thin, her eyes too old. I wanted to take that look out of her eyes.
“She hasn’t said a word since arriving here. But she is settling in, starting to respond to some of the other children, and she certainly seems to like you!” Lara beamed at me. “That’s the best healing; right there! And apparently I’m meant to be the healer here!”
She was being deliberately flippant, of course, but it still made me smile. Feeling that I was doing anything at all for Sula made me feel happy.
“Have you always been at war here?” I asked.
“No. There is a story, handed down the generations that speaks of our past.”
And she began to weave a story about the Golden Age of Enanti – when everything was in balance, Albedo was a glorious city, famous throughout other lands – and Enanti was ruled by a man called Eferon and his council.
I listened intently as the story unfolded, as the shadows crept in and fractured the land. Clove it right in two.
Lara continued: “For many generations, the people of Enanti tried to calm their shock and return to as normal a life as possible, but with a feeling of unease creeping into our northern borderlands. A feeling of something dark coming and going from across the seas – reaching over to us from the Shadow Realm – too intangible to put a finger on. People began to disappear. Not many – but enough for stories to start to be woven about the Hinterlands, the far far north of Enanti. Albedo, in the south, tried to carry on as before, but began to sever its dealings with the northern Hinterlands, turning a deaf ear to the darkness that moved there, just under the surface. We had been living in denial in Albedo. With the capital’s back turned, the forces of the Shadow Beast were able to take a firmer and firmer foothold in the northern Hinterlands – secretly gathering strength and increasing their numbers. And then with growing boldness – many generations after the cleaving of Enanti – The Shadow Beast launched his full-on assault for the whole of our land.”
Lara stopped, her throat dry. “I’m meant to be the cam
p healer, not the storyteller,” she joked. “Those are the stories passed down. Every child in Enanti knows that story, but make of it what you will… All we really know for sure is that Enanti is no longer at peace. We are a country at war.”
Raul and Esker came over to join us, carrying steaming bowls of food.
Lara continued: “There is a little girl of this land, who has been captured by the Shadow Beast; Alette – that’s her name. She is young, not into her teens, and she was taken a while ago. We believe she is still alive. She was taken to the Shadow Realm, and is being kept in exile, in the Hall of the Shadow Beast. She is vital, she is a beacon here – of hope, of possibility. Enanti needs her. She has the pure heart of childhood, but she is more than that. The Ancient Ones speak of her as a salve to our divided lands – not a leader as such, but a hope to bring things back into balance. A talisman. There have been years of war, of lost lives. She is the key to restoring Enanti. We’ve fought for years to bring her back here, where she belongs, but we have heard that only one person is capable of doing that. You. You hold the key to all this, Eve, and I’m asking you to use it. There is something about your coming that was meant. We don’t really understand it, but the Oracle was clear on this, and others of us have also felt it.”
“Where is the Oracle?”
“Well, she is everywhere, and nowhere,” Raul said.
His hands apologised for him, and he continued. “In Enanti, we don’t believe in keeping information like that within one individual. We do have Minerva, a talented oracle who can see many things. She is safe; she is with another group of the Free who managed to get her out of Albedo in time. But she is not the only one. We believe that all of us have the potential to operate as the oracle; it is all to do with tuning into the world around you. In just the same way as I can tell if a deer I am tracking is about to bolt, or about to dip its head down and continue to eat the grass. That is the skill of an oracle – reading all the sensory information around you. And we also rely on dreams, on the signs we are given, and who is the carrier of those signs. All these things are filtered and analysed, usually unconsciously, but it means we know more than we think we do. In practising those arts, we are simply bringing more of that into our conscious world.”
The Shifting Pools Page 9