Chapter Fifty

There was something incredible about this moment. Toby walked down the sand path of the garden, trying to identify what it was. This was a very ordinary morning, in an ordinary garden. The birds flitted from tree to tree in an ordinary way. What was extraordinary was how he witnessed the moment. He was fully present, maybe for the first time in his life. As it turned out, presence was the wonder drug he had been searching for his whole life. He had looked for this exact sensation at the bottom of whiskey bottles, down gold mines, and in the arms of many women. But nothing even came close.

He laughed. What I was searching for was within me all along. The problem was, he didn’t know how he stumbled upon this presence of mind, and was uncertain if he would be able to replicate it at a later date. Perhaps it was the environment in which he found himself.

He stopped in front of a stone plaque at the entrance of the gated garden. Earth Citizen School, it read. He contemplated the meaning of the phrase. What, exactly, is an Earth Citizen?

A group of children, ranging from five to fifteen, sat at a table under a tree. They held tablets, touching the screens with quick fingers, as if they were in a contest to see who could tap the fastest. The most proficient, and perhaps the cutest, was an African American boy with a big forehead and black plastic-rimmed glasses. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old, but he possessed an unusual confidence. Toby could have sworn that he was looking at the seven-year-old version of Noah, the future heart surgeon.

Another group performed a martial art on the lakeshore. It looked like Tai Chi, but with stronger movements. They were older, well-muscled boys and girls who wielded swords that sliced through the air as their bodies glided with acrobatic precision.

Everywhere Toby looked, there was a harmonious gathering of varied activities. There was order, and yet the children moved organically, as if they were free to do anything they chose, and what they chose was to move together as one. The children spoke to each other telepathically, which exceeded Toby’s gift of reading minds. They mostly spoke about taking care of the bird of their soul, and communed with the flowers and animals as if they were sentient beings. Suna’s otherworldly demeanor made sense. Having been reared in this environment, she moved through the often chaotic world as if she had never left. You can take the girl out of the Earth Citizen School, but you can’t take the Earth Citizen out of the girl. He laughed.

He saw a teenage boy who seemed to be in a rush. The boy had unkempt dishwater curls. He held his tablet under his arm and stepped quickly, which looked out of place in this serene environment. Toby was intrigued. He followed him.

Toby walked lightly, attempting not to break any brush under the weight of his feet as he followed the boy into the forest. The boy stopped in a clearing, retrieved a picnic pad from a wooden box hidden under a low-hanging tree and laid it on the ground. He tapped the screen of his tablet and a slow and melodic symphony filled the forest, accompanied by the song of the birds. Toby knew where this was going. He, himself, had played this scene out many times when he was a teenager.

As if on cue, a girl with long dark locks and porcelain skin emerged from the trees. Her lips were plumped and looked like she had been eating cherries. She was a beautiful teenager who, he would bet, would mature into a classic beauty.

“Hi,” she said timidly to the boy.

“Hi,” he beamed. “Are you ready?”

She nodded her head, biting her lip. The young boy rushed forward and took her hands reassuringly. Toby resolved to give them their privacy, but something kept his feet from moving. His heart was moved, feeling as if he were witnessing the fruition of the slowest, sweetest, love story of all time. They were so innocent, cheeks blushing with ripe anticipation.

“Lie down here,” he said, motioning to the blanket. He held her hands as she sunk to the blanket. He touched her cheek lightly and looked into her eyes. “We’ll take this slow,” he assured her. She nodded her head and closed her eyes.

He moved to sit next to her side, rested one palm on her abdomen, the other on her chest. Toby leaned forward. The placement of his hands was not erotic, as he had anticipated, but holy.

“Spirit of the Earth,” the boy said quietly. “I ask to draw upon your energy. Callie’s body needs to be filled with your restorative energies.”

Tears fell down the side of Callie’s face. She breathed deeply, as if pulling in every particle of life from the ether.

“If she truly is a child of the Earth, and we truly are children of heaven, as we have been taught, I beg for your help,” he prayed. “Please, help her.”

It was as if Toby were watching a scene of a younger version of himself and Angeline in the forest after the crash. Toby cried. This young girl with the timid smile and cherry-stained lips was sick. The boy hadn’t called her to the forest to experience her body; he had called her here to heal it because he loved her.

Toby sunk to his knees and joined the prayer. Though he had never met her, he desperately wanted her to live. He resolved himself to introduce the two to Angeline, who would easily be able to help the girl.