“That is why they never discovered Salome,” Sophia said. “What do you mean?” Ochi asked.
“This rock extends out into the sea, but we have to walk around it. We must stay close to this wall and slowly navigate through the water to get to the other side,” Sophia explained.
Ochi smiled and shook his head, this time rubbing his forehead.
“And how do you know this exactly?” he asked.
“Look behind you. The last cairn has led us to this place. Follow me,” Sophia said.
The old woman walked next to the wall and into the water, using her walking stick for balance. Ochi watched the water with every ebb and flow. It would rise and fall above and below her waist as if she was dancing to a song he could not hear. But trusting her lead, he joined her in the dance, mirroring her every movement, until they reached the end of the angular wall.
Despite the water becoming too deep for Sophia to stand without fully submerging, the old woman suddenly went under and navigated to the other side of the wall with unparalleled determination. Again, following her lead and shaking his head, which remained above water because of his height, Ochi navigated the moss-covered wall with his hands for balance to join Sophia on the other side.
For Ochi, the rock wall was a rite of passage, even though there was nothing remarkable or necessarily poignant about that exact moment. Following his mother through the water felt as if he had left one world behind and gradually entered another. Ochi’s axis was slowly turning to reveal possibilities, but he was unsure what that meant practically for himself or how any of it would help him find the peace he desired.
Turning inland, Ochi and Sophia saw an exceptionally straight and heavily traveled dirt trail ascending the rock wall’s backside under tree cover. Although unobstructed, the path appeared to climb gradually up the hillside at least a couple hundred feet over a mile or so, which meant this portion of their journey would be slow and gradual for Sophia.
Ochi stopped momentarily to examine his sandal, which he had only worn a couple of times before. The friction of leather rubbing his ankle had created an open blister that began to bleed. As he adjusted the straps, he thought about how he had been gradually changing on this journey. But he quickly tempered his thoughts with how the people of Salome would receive him, many of whom he had personally driven out during the Great Liberation.
“What is Salome like?” Ochi asked without looking up, pretending to examine his minimal injury.
“I have never been there, of course, but I spoke to Odigo briefly about it when we were together. I suppose you are nervous about what they will think of you,” Sophia said.
“I am,” Ochi said as he stood up and walked along the dirt path toward Sophia. “But I’m even more nervous about seeing Thura for the first time.”
“Like you and me, she is on her own journey as well, Ochi,” Sophia said. “She is a remarkable young woman, and I would be surprised if she did not run up to you and give you a huge hug when she sees you.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Ochi.
“I think you will find that there is a deep well of goodness in Salome from which each person there drinks. No wrong you have done to them is greater than the love they have for all things, and that includes you. I can promise you that,” Sophia responded.
Ochi moved ahead of the old woman but walked only a few paces in front of her. His eagerness appeared to outpace any lingering trepidation that remained. For her part, Sophia seemed to welcome her son’s lead. Each step in silence was a meditation carrying Ochi back to when his mother first approached him in the forest a few days prior. He laughed as he thought about how she drew circles around him and taught him how to see everything differently, including himself.
Looking over his shoulder with gratitude, Ochi watched his mother walk steadily behind him. He could not help but think about how lost and confused he had been when she first called out his name among the pines. He thought about how he had followed her throughout that day and how desperate he had been for direction.
Sophia had guided him from the first moment they began journeying together. But now, she was content with letting her son take the lead the rest of the way to Salome. Whether it was intentional on Sophia’s part or not, Ochi wholeheartedly believed this was her final lesson for him. She taught him that only he could discover peace and no one else could help him find it. This path was his alone to walk.
A kaleidoscope of light filtering through needles and leaves into thousands of colors danced before Ochi on the trail. But they could hardly outnumber the myriad emotions welling up within him. Each step forward to that point had been increasingly difficult, but the gravelly ascent appeared steeper than when he took his first step out of the water only moments before.
“Why is this so difficult for me?” Ochi said under his breath, referring not only to the arduous climb but to the seeming impossibility of facing the guilt and shame he had tried to hide away.
Breathing in and out more deeply, his shirt dampened with sweat, Ochi knew there was one last floorboard to remove to get at what he had hidden below the surface. However, even with the floorboard removed, he could hardly bear to look into that dark space. Trying not to be noticed by Sophia, Ochi rubbed his red eyes discreetly and continued walking.
“Why is this so painful?” he mouthed, placing both hands on his head in grief. “Why can’t I face him?”
Ochi stopped walking and, with blurry eyes, stood staring ahead.
“The only way you will ever forgive yourself, Ochi, is to hear your father’s last words to you and receive them,” Sophia said, placing her hand on his shoulder.
Ochi turned and faced his mother.
“You will never be able to forgive yourself if you continue to bury your father’s words,” she said.
“I can’t do it,” Ochi said. “I was only able to seek your forgiveness because you’re here standing in front of me. You’re still alive. Knowing he died by my hands is a pain I just can’t face. I can’t go back to that day. I can’t look at him. I can’t even hear his words. I know this is the one thing that’s keeping me from finding peace, but I don’t deserve it.”
Ochi turned away from his mother and pulled his leather satchel back over his shoulder. He wanted to go back down the hill. Despite how far he had journeyed away from Patrida, Ochi carried a burden that would not leave him. What he did not realize, however, was that he was only steps away from Salome. The bend at the ridge above opened to their destination, but neither knew how close it truly was. Sophia hobbled up next to Ochi, breathing more heavily than she had the entire journey, and encouraged him to take the last few steps with her to the top.
Before they even had a chance to share a small celebration for their accomplishment, Sophia and Ochi heard the sudden movement and shuffle of people only a couple of hundred feet to their right. As the mother and son pirouetted toward the gentle buzz and hum of people gathering on the path, they saw the entire community at once erupt in celebration. Sophia reached over with her wrinkled right hand and grabbed Ochi’s calloused hand. With all of her strength, she squeezed it as firmly as she could to let him know that she loved him and was with him every step.
Small children jumped up and down with the kind of excitement that could only come from stories they had grown up hearing. Men and women beamed with smiles and cheers, some with arms raised triumphantly in the air while others clapping in wild ovation. Even the two dogs chased each other around and yipped excitedly as if they understood exactly what was happening. To the people of Salome, this was the singular most significant moment in their short history.
Still holding her son’s hand, Sophia led him toward the exuberant crowd. Ochi closed his eyes and immediately flashed back to the gallows and the rough, thick rope that was about to be placed around his neck. He thought about the crowd roaring venomously to hang him. His mind raced as he heard the boos and jeers of the townspeople at Sanctuary when he stood before them and announced they would not b
e immediately executing Odigo. He thought about his dream and how cloaked men chased through the forest. He again heard them yelling at him for abandoning his faith, community, and family.
Opening his eyes, Ochi saw everyone still cheering and applauding. They were not just looking at his mother, either. They were looking directly at him. He could see on their faces that the reception was not a formality but that they were genuinely glad he was with her. Sophia, moved by her friends’ overwhelming love toward her son, raised his hand in the air to louder cheers.
The crowd consumed Sophia and Ochi in greetings and hugs. While their joy and elation were infectious, and Ochi felt them deep within his bones, he had not seen Thura among them. Almost as if they could sense Ochi’s concern, the townspeople grew quiet. They slowly began to move away from him and Sophia, standing on both sides to form a path. Standing in the back by herself was Thura. The quiet of all who gathered, including the small children, was palpable. Neither father nor daughter knew what the other was thinking or what their first move should be.
Thura looked into her father’s eyes and saw the gaze of a broken man being patiently and lovingly pieced back together. While she was still unsure why he had left Patrida by himself and was now standing in Salome with Sophia, Thura could see something had changed with him. The young woman took one hesitant step forward and saw a single tear run down her father’s cheek. One step suddenly became two, and Thura began to run without inhibition toward her father’s open arms.
“I am speechless,” Thura said, squeezing her father. “I just don’t understand how you are here with Sophia.”
After seeing that Ochi and Thura needed some time together, Sophia moved with the crowd toward the village.
“I thought you would be angry that I ran away and took Sophia and Odigo with me,” Thura continued, now looking at her father and wiping away his tears with her thumb. “I was standing outside of Tyran’s house, looking through the side window when I heard you say that you were going to execute them.”
Ochi looked at his daughter with confusion.
“Thura, I’m not sure what you thought you heard, but you misunderstood my conversation with Tyran,” Ochi said. “I went to his house to tell him that Father Prodido is the problem with Patrida and that I regretted ever allowing him to come to the island in the first place.”
Thura stared at the ground as the pieces began to slowly come together in her mind.
“What we had before Patrida was good,” Ochi said. “There was something about this island that was whole and complete. But I didn’t see it at the time. That’s my fault. But all Father Prodido has done from the beginning is make us see everything and everyone through a distorted lens. And over time, this way of seeing each other has turned us against one other and caused division. Not just within Patrida, but within our family.”
“And you went to Tyran’s to help him see all this,” Thura said.
“That’s the part you misunderstood,” Ochi said. “I pleaded with him to come to his senses. I told him this madness had to stop and there was going to be an execution.”
“But it was Father Prodido,” Thura said under her breath.
“I was desperate,” Ochi continued. “I had lost my son to him. And I was willing to do anything to save your brother at that moment. I pleaded with him. I told him all the ways Father Prodido had lied and tried to manipulate him. But Thura, Tyran is too far gone. I’m afraid he can’t see how Prodido has brainwashed him.”
Ochi turned and put his hand in front of his face, shielding his grief from his daughter. While Thura had seen a man walking toward Salome who had been changing, the man in front of her still had open wounds. Thura removed the satchel from his shoulder and placed her hand where the strap had been resting.
“If there is anything I have learned from Sophia,” Thura said, “it is that the possibility of wholeness in every person requires grace and patience from us. I know it may be difficult, but we can’t give up on Tyran.”
Ochi wiped his eyes and placed his hand on top of his daughter’s hand.
“When I left Patrida, I left it as a lost cause,” Thura continued. “All I saw was the darkness around me and everyone stumbling without a light to guide their path. That is the way I saw you. I saw you as too far gone. I saw you as someone who could never be saved. In the letter I wrote to you, which I am sure you found and I now regret writing, I even told you that you are the problem. That you are hopeless and lost.”
Ochi put his hand back over his eyes, realizing that he believed the same thing about Tyran. Yet, as he looked at himself, he also knew he was the evidence of a person who could change. Is a person ever too far gone? Ochi thought. Do we ever really know what another person is thinking? What they have experienced, or what they are dealing with? What they have suffered that brought them to this point? What if all we see is their blemished exterior and miss what could be happening on the inside? The pain they carry within them each day. The struggles they fight through from the time they wake up in the morning until the time they go to bed each night. And the wounds that have never had a chance to heal because they keep getting torn back open. What if they are standing on the other side of the door, like me, desperately wanting to open it, desperately wanting to change?
“How did you change your mind about me, Thura?” Ochi finally asked a question out loud.
“It was Sophia,” she said. “She told me what I see is not nearly as important as how I see. We tend to only see things from the outside. But she taught me that there is something hidden below the surface of everything, something within each of us, that is divine. It is what connects us and gives us life. And when we see it in each other, everything on the outside fades away. All that is left is divine love. That is what binds us together. If that kind of love is within you, how could I turn away from it? How could we turn away from Tyran or mother or even Father Prodido? No matter what we see on the outside of them, there is divine love within them. If they can’t see it for themselves right now, we can at least try to see for them.”
“She taught you all of this in a couple of days?” Ochi asked rhetorically with a skeptical but good-hearted smile.
“She is something, isn’t she?” Thura responded. “We had no idea where she was going when she left us in the woods. One moment she was talking to me and Odigo, and the next moment she walked off through the trees. We were like, ‘Where are you going?’ She did not even turn around. She just said, ‘Where I belong.’”
Ochi laughed as he envisioned her hobbling away from them and into the woods. But as the moment subsided, he knew he had to tell Thura one more thing before they walked into the village.
“While we’re being so honest,” Ochi said, “there’s something I’ve never told you because I tried to bury it away. But you deserve to know the truth.”
Thura looked intently at Ochi, trying to discern what he was about to tell her.
“When you were a little girl, the people of Salome used to live in Patrida,” Ochi began. “As you also know, Sophia and her husband were a part of the group we attacked and drove out.”
“Yes, Sophia told me that you killed her husband,” Thura said.
“I did,” Ochi responded. “And it still haunts me to this day.”
Thura waited for her father’s next words.
“His name was Numa, and he was my father,” Ochi said. “Sophia is my mother, and she is your grandmother.”
Thura tried to respond, but she could not speak.
“Thura, listen,” Ochi said. “There will be time to answer your questions soon enough, I promise. I know this is difficult for you to comprehend, but when she left you and Odigo, she came to me despite everything I had done in the past. Even after killing my father. Even after imprisoning her all those years. She never gave up on me, Thura. Everything she taught you is how she lives her life. She pursued me in hopes that I would change and that we could heal our relationship.”
“Everyone in Patrida knew this, bu
t me?” Thura asked.
“Not everyone,” Ochi said. “But as you know, if anyone mentioned her name, it was punishable by death. And everyone knew that. My regret kept me from killing her like I did my father. My shame caused me to hide her and try to forget about her. But your courage, Thura, and your determination to pursue what was good opened the door, not only for me to begin my journey to find peace, but to heal my relationship with my mother.”
Thura hugged her father one last time, although every word he had spoken was dizzying and difficult to comprehend. She began to reexamine and reinterpret every visit and conversation with Sophia over the years. It was as if she had discovered an entirely new depth to their relationship. Sophia was not a hidden relic who had spent years imparting her wise words to an impressionable teenager turned young woman. She was her flesh and blood and the woman after whom Thura wanted to pattern her own life.
Putting her arm around her father, Thura walked with him toward the village.
“If my grandmother is capable of forgiving you,” Thura said, “then who am I not to do the same.”
CHAPTER 19
Talking and laughter emanated from the lively village. Movement and excitement abounded within. The people of Salome worked together in making their final preparations for the evening. The men tidied up their huts, repaired tables and chairs, and prepared the food. The women filled water basins, organized the plates and utensils, and prepared the wine. Even the young children set their table and chairs before running around to play.
Salome was the antithesis of Patrida. The differences were evident in how they organized their community and how they lived their lives. Everything they believed about their world was apparent in how they cared for the land, the animals, and each other. Everything was holy and sacred, created in divine love, and worthy of honor and respect. They understood each person was on their own journey to discover ultimate truth, and that they must walk patiently together toward that center. Salome was a place of deep wisdom, profound peace, and humble love.
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