WHILE I SLEPT dreamlessly in the cabin on Earth, oblivious to Other Earth, I was finding myself in terrible misery in the desert with Talya.
Talya, who’d become my tormentor more than my savior.
During my quest for the first three seals, my dreaming between worlds had followed a linear pattern, which had supported me. Each time I fell asleep in one reality, I woke up in the other and was able to apply what I’d learned.
But that progression was now gone. I was independent in each world. Part of me wondered if this too was part of a large conspiracy to blind me further. More, I wondered if Talya was actually a part of that conspiracy.
Why would he turn me Horde, knowing full well how blind I was on Earth?
In that reality, I was clueless about anything happening in Other Earth; clueless even that I was on a quest to find five seals; clueless that I had to find them before the Realm of Mystics was destroyed; clueless that I would have to find the Fourth Seal there, on Earth.
Here in Other Earth I was once again dreaming of Earth, but those dreams only filled me with dread. I was utterly lost and destitute in both realities, suffocating in a blindness so deep that I would have gladly traded my eyesight for a release from that blindness.
I assumed that being taken from Jacob would be painful, but I was only partially right. It proved to be devastating, and more so with each mile as the scabbing disease took more of my mind. The onset of the disease was worse than living with it. Much worse.
The disease was repulsive. My revulsion of the putrid pus hidden in the cracks of my skin and the sickening odor of rotten eggs wafting from my flesh deepened with each passing minute.
Without my consent, I had been cursed. The 49th was supposed to show everyone how treasured they were, not become nobody herself. I was supposed to walk on water, not bathe in the sewer. I was supposed to be gloriously mounted on a horse, leading the world into a new age of stunning beauty—the light of the world, not a wretched gray Scab!
On that mount being led toward the Great Divide, I felt like a prisoner. The cage was my disease, which not even Jacob could love. I certainly couldn’t. Who could?
That’s the way I saw it, and a part of me hated Talya for taking me away from Jacob. I knew I had to find the Fourth Seal, but did that mean I had to be subjected to such abuse?
The whole of both worlds had become my enemy!
You are your own enemy, dear daughter. You are tearing you down. Tell me, what is seeing beyond what you think should be?
I heard the voice, but in my misery I forgot it almost immediately because I was sure I should be Albino, not Scab, and I was afraid to see beyond that.
For the first few hours trudging north, I knew better than to demand any answers from Talya. He was the wise one, and bitter though I was, I had no choice but to trust him. I was the daughter of Elyon, and I tried to remind myself of what the first three seals had shown me about who he was and who I was. But I might as well have been reminding a brick wall.
I finally broke my silence as the sun began to set. We were on the last stretch of rocky sand at the base of the mountains when I halted, glaring at Talya’s back as he continued onward, seemingly oblivious to me, his slave in tow.
“I don’t like this!” I yelled.
He kept going. Not even Judah, who was trotting up to the trees, paid me any mind.
“Did you hear me?” The cracks on my cheeks and lips hurt when I opened my mouth to yell. I didn’t even have any of the morst paste the Horde used to ease the pain and stench of the disease.
“I don’t like this one bit! My skin hurts, my body aches, and I smell like a cesspool!”
“Oh, it’s much worse than that, 49th,” he said without turning. “The disease is also fogging your mind.”
“You didn’t have to take Jacob from me!”
“I needed him out of your way.”
I stared at the back of his head, aghast. “That’s why you sent him? That’s absurd! You brought us together! The armies are gathering, I’m lost in the other world, this world is coming to an end, and all you can think about is teaching me some lesson?”
“So you don’t like this part of your story, is that it?”
“I need to get back! We’re not doing anything out here!”
“We’re doing you, 49th. Your transformation is the story. You are the story.”
I ignored his dismissal of my concerns and nudged my mount to draw closer, because Talya was pulling away. “Why would you make me Horde if the drowning heals us from the disease? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s cruel!”
He still didn’t turn, so I screamed at him. “Do you even care how I’m feeling? Have some compassion!”
“I have great compassion for you, but I don’t join your suffering. Perhaps you could practice metanoia, and do so in silence if you don’t mind.”
I had no desire to change my cognitive perception of the world while I suffered. A sick joke.
I stopped my horse again. “I’m not going to follow—”
“Silence!” he thundered, twisting back in his saddle. He said it with such force that I could almost feel his words strike my chest. Even in that state, I couldn’t ignore his authority.
But I could stew in misery as I reluctantly followed.
We started up the mountain, but I hung back twenty paces, fuming.
Somewhere along the way I thought about being born blind. Why had the man been born blind? the people in the story asked Yeshua. Was it his sin or the sins of those who came before his birth? Neither, but so that the Father’s glory could be revealed inside of him.1
Yeshua had turned that story into a larger lesson that revealed why mankind was on earth, Talya said. We were all born blind to discover Elyon’s glory inside of us while in a world of darkness.
But the truth of that teaching felt distant and quickly vanished. I only wanted to be healed of the scabbing disease.
“And so you make your body your god,” Talya said ahead of me.
That was the other thing I didn’t like: his knowing my thoughts. I didn’t bother reacting, at least visibly. Inside, my frustration only deepened.
It softened that night as I watched him practice his metanoia. I was drawn to his singing, that one long, pure note he often sang into the dusk air. But even by showing his joy and starting the fire and going about his business as if nothing was wrong, Talya continued to reinforce my frustration with him.
I barely had the good sense to keep my mouth shut, but I did, maybe thinking my silence would finally get him to ask if I was okay.
He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He was undoubtedly trying to make a point. Elyon corrected those he loved, right? I was being chastised in that way and I hated it.
“Correction,” Talya said, laying out his blanket. “Your earthen vessel Scab self hates it. Tomorrow we stop to check on two souls who are precious to me. Please try to at least pretend you’re sane.”
I ignored his biting comment and rolled over.
It took me a long time to fall asleep in that painful condition. When I finally did, I dreamed, and in that dream I was in a cabin with Steve, learning about consciousness, rebuilding an identity, fighting for survival, a victim of the whole world, being blamed for something I had nothing to do with. I was lost, with no grasp of who I really was.
The sun was already blazing. I twisted my head, looking for Talya, but there was no sign of him. Smoke from a spent fire coiled slowly into the air. We’d camped on a wide sandy ledge on the east side of the Divide. That’s all I knew, because in protesting with silence, I’d refused to ask Talya where we were going.
I scrambled to my feet, only distantly aware of my pain. His blanket, his pack, his horse . . . all gone.
“Talya?”
My voice echoed off the trees and cliffs. There was only one path leaving the camp, but he didn’t emerge from that way, or any other.
I decided to wait, but after sitting in silence on a boulder for ten minutes I began to wonder if he really had left, intending for me to catch up. He’d spoken of stopping in to check on someone—maybe he’d left me behind because he didn’t want me around them. I was an embarrassment to him.
Setting my jaw, I quickly stuffed my blanket into my saddlebag, mounted, and took the horse up the path.
“Talya!”
No one but me. So I urged my mare to a full run, not sure if I should be outraged or frightened.
I’d ridden for ten minutes—calling out his name, pushing my mare faster, wondering if I’d made a mistake in leaving the camp—when I broke from the trees and saw the small camp. A canvas lean-to faced away from me. Smoke rose from a fire I couldn’t see.
I pulled up, blinking. “Talya?”
A head popped out from behind the canvas. A child with gray eyes. A small Horde girl staring at me with great excitement, as if holding a secret. “Mama!”
She ducked back behind the lean-to, and a woman stepped out. A small woman with long braided locks, wearing a simple brown knee-length dress. She too was Horde. What were they doing here, beyond the Great Divide?
The woman welcomed me with a graceful wave. “Come.”
The little girl popped out from behind the lean-to again. “Come, come!”
Compelled by such an eager reception, I slipped off my horse and walked up to the camp. The girl grabbed my hand and led me around the side, grinning ear to ear as if presenting a great trophy.
There on the ground by a small fire sat Talya, nursing a clay mug of herbal tea. He chuckled at the girl before lifting his soft eyes to me.
“Good morning, 49th. So nice of you to join us. This is Soromi.” He motioned with his mug to the woman. “And her daughter, Maya. Say hello to Rachelle, Maya.”
“Hello, Miss Rachelle.”
Thoughts of scolding Talya for leaving me took a back seat to the sight of such a delighted girl. “Hello, Maya.”
“Talya says you are very special.”
I glanced at him. “He does?”
“But that you can’t be special until you see that you aren’t special because you aren’t any more special than me.”
They all smiled at me.
“Well, if Talya said that, it must be true,” I said with a slight bite in my tone.
“Now, now, 49th, they’ve come a long way to help a poor Scab in distress, so be nice.” Talya motioned to a small boulder opposite him. “Time for a little course correction, my dear.”
The mother, Soromi, settled to the ground and leaned on one arm. Her daughter sat beside the boulder Talya wanted me to sit on. I lowered myself to the rock and the girl scooted closer, smiling up at me. Half her teeth were missing, as any young child’s would be.
Talya cleared his throat. “I was just sharing some wonderful news with Soromi and Maya, but first you should know what’s happening.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“We will see.” He shoved his chin at the tree line fifty paces away. “Just beyond the ridge lies the Marrudo plateau. On that plateau camps the Circle, the Albinos who’ve come with Thomas Hunter, just an hour’s ride from here.”
I stared at the trees. Thomas, the one who’d dreamed of the other world like I did. “He’s there?”
“No, but his son is. And in desperate want of some guidance. You’re needed, 49th. We leave as soon as we finish our tea, fair enough?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Samuel’s there?”
“In the flesh. The one who’s smitten with you and refuses to admit it. That Samuel. But I’m afraid you’ll only make a fool of yourself in your current state of being, so I’ve asked Soromi and Maya to share the good news that might help you out.” He winked at the little girl. “Maya, tell Rachelle what you’ve learned.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Talya says that before we came into these . . .” She glanced at her mother, who helped her out.
“Earthen vessels. But you can use your own term.”
Maya turned back to me. “Before we were in these clay bodies, we knew Elyon, who made us. And we still know him, but our clay brains don’t know it.” She beamed proudly at her mother.
Soromi nodded. “Well done, Maya.” She lifted her gray eyes to me. Kind eyes despite her diseased skin. “Talya tells me you need to be reminded that we were foreknown by Elyon before this world, as written. To be foreknown is to have had experience with, not knowledge about. You were in union with Elyon before this world, you understand this?”2
Did I? Of course I did.
“Yes.”
“Also that all who were foreknown have been glorified. This is also written in your Scriptures. And yet most are still blind to themselves as that glorified light.”
She said it with such grace that I wondered if this really was news she’d just heard. But if she’d known Talya from before, why was she still Horde?
“If everyone who’s foreknown is glorified, are all foreknown?” I asked, feeling anything but.
“That isn’t our business or within our comprehension. Only know that you were and are.”
Still, it sounded totally foreign to me now.
“To see ourselves as light in the darkness so we can be that light,” she announced, clearly reciting what had been taught to her. “Justin made us light, like him!”
“Excellent! Now tell Rachelle why we experience so much darkness in this world.”
“Because we wear masks that blind us to the light.” Maya beamed. She promptly stood and pretended to rip a mask off her face. “We must take them off!”
Talya chuckled, completely taken with her. “Such a smart little girl!”
And I had to admit, in that moment I didn’t see her as Horde but as . . . well . . . a delighted little girl.
“When you grow up, Maya,” Talya said, “the whole world will listen to you. You’re so very good with words.”
Maya grinned and squatted back down, suddenly a little shy.
Talya stared at the small fire and spoke gently. “Now tell her the rest of the good news, Soromi.”
She lifted her kind gray eyes. “We all put our faith in something.” The words slipped from her mouth easily, surely long known. “Those beliefs have more power than we can possibly imagine. With our thoughts—our perceptions—we create our lives. Everyone is doing this all the time, in every moment. It’s called binding, which is another word for faith. You know this, daughter?”
It was Talya’s teaching when he walked on water. I glanced at him. “Yes.”
“What we bind on earth is bound in heaven. In the same way, what we loose on earth is loosed in heaven, Yeshua taught.3 To bind is to attach or align to. To loose is to let go of or to forgive. The power of forgiveness is yours. What you forgive is forgiven, and what you don’t is not forgiven and masters you still.4 Binding and forgiving are your greatest powers, experienced in every moment of life. They create your experience of life on earth.”
“Your earthen vessel is bound to this world of judgment. It has many special relationships with itself and with this world, and it searches for love and approval in those relationships. All these are the gods it has deep attachments to. These are all the things your earthen vessel thinks should be based upon what it has been imprinted with over many generations. So it seeks meaning and salvation in those things. The earthen vessel is like a bird born into a room, blind to the great sky beyond the room, knowing itself only by what it sees within the walls. Do you follow, child?”
Her words reached into me, and for a moment I wondered if she was Justin, coming to me as a woman. If not, her words could be his, I thought.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. Then you’ll understand when I tell you that your great inheritance in this life is the kingdom beyond the room. But to enter it, you have to leave the room, yes? You can’t know your risen, glorified self unless you surrender your need for approval and significance in that small room that you think defines you. It’s the cost of freedom, yes?”5
“Talya says most Albinos only talk of the sky but don’t know how to fly,” Maya interjected, excited again. “We are free to fly in the sky like a bird!”
Soromi smiled at her daughter. “Like a bird. In the perspective beyond the room, everything will look very different. New sight is found. All things are new. But to enter the door that opens to freedom, you have to leave behind your attachment to the room and embrace your true identity as the one who can fly in the sky.”
Emotions clogged my throat because I felt like that poor tethered bird, flapping hopelessly in its small, dark prison. A diseased bird. I looked at Talya.
“But I’m . . .” I stopped, not wanting to offend little Maya with complaints of my condition.
“You’re Horde,” Soromi said. “And in your judgment of yourself as Horde—your binding—you make for yourself a prison. But if you let go of your judgment of your flesh—if you forgive yourself—you will be free to see that you’re neither Horde nor Albino. You’re the daughter of Elyon and you love who you are, made in his likeness.”
“That’s why you made me Horde?” I bit off, looking at Talya. “So that I would have one more thing to let go of?”
“Not one more thing, 49th,” Talya said. “The whole room.”
He held my gaze for a long time, and I felt frightened, wondering if he was losing faith in me.
“I’m sorry,” I began. “I just—”
“No need to condemn yourself for the fear you feel, child,” Soromi said in her soft voice. “Condemnation is only trying to fight fear with fear.”
She picked up a stick and poked the fire.
“Among my people, I’m an outcast. My husband was a great warrior. Cruel. He threw me out three years ago because I found love in the arms of a more gentle man. I was desperate, you know. Talya found us in the Elong desert and brought us food. Even more, he showed us truth over the years. He asked us to remain Horde.” Her eyes lifted. “I see now that it was for you.”
Talya had known even then that this would happen? And to what end?
“Don’t you want to be healed?” I asked.
She smiled. “Am I diseased? You mean my body. But you must see, being in this body of pain has allowed me to know myself beyond it. I may very well be Albino one day, but my life is happening now. And in this moment, my practice is to align my sight to love. This is how my binding to the world of judgment falls away on its own. I think that’s wonderful, don’t you?”
Maya looked up at me and grinned. “You can see too,” she said. “Don’t be sad, I have gray skin and I still love you.”
Hearing those words, I hung my head as tears slipped from my eyes. For a long time no one spoke. It was just me feeling sorry for myself and Maya holding my hand. And for those few minutes, hers was the hand of Justin to me.
I finally lifted my head, sniffing, and I chuckled to cover my embarrassment.
Maya jumped up and brought me a yellow fruit from a bag in the corner. “Nanka! It will make you strong!”
“Thank you, Maya.”
“You’ll have to bring it with you,” Talya said, setting his mug down. “Duty calls. The worlds await.”
Maya immediately ran to Talya’s stallion, grabbed the reins and tugged the beast toward us. “I go with you!” she announced.
“Yes, Maya has generously agreed to lend assistance in the event you run into trouble,” Talya said. “I’ve assured them both that only you will face danger.”
“You aren’t coming with me?”
“I’ll take you, but I think it’s best if I stay back, don’t you? Maya can be your guide.” He swung into his saddle, reached for Maya’s outstretched arm, and gracefully pulled her up in front of him.
I looked at Soromi. “You’re not coming?”
“This is Maya’s adventure,” she said, hurrying up to her child. She took Maya’s hand. “Now remember, do as Talya says. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I’m a big girl, Mama.”
Talya clicked and Judah stepped out of the trees. “Come along, 49th. An opportunity for salvation calls you forth.”