THE SEA had turned to glass, green but transparent, so when I looked down I could see what looked like a thousand miles of never-ending water. There was no wind that I could feel—the old boat seemed propelled by some other power as it slipped through the water. I stood beside Talya, caught up in a transcendent awe that robbed me of breath.
After the storm’s sudden passing we’d traveled far, but I had no way of telling how far, because there was no shore either ahead or behind. The sky had turned from blue to a majestic painting of green and orange and lavender, flowing with long tendrils of blue light.
I could feel a slight vibration through the boat’s wooden panels, like an electric current. And when I dared dip my hand in the water, that same hum rode up my arm and filled my mind with amazement. I jerked my arm back, gasping, and Talya chuckled.
He dug a small shell from his pocket, leaned over the bow, scooped the seawater into it, and stood up. He pointed to the outer shell.
“Your earthen vessel. Rachelle.”
Then he showed me the water inside the shell.
“You. Inchristi.”
“Me,” I said, smiling.
He emptied the water from the shell back over the edge of the boat, where it was swallowed up in the sea. Then he pointed at it. “You!”
“Me!”
And he dropped the shell into the bottom of the boat, grinning wide like a child.
We didn’t speak again as we moved east, always east. Every time I thought of something I should ask or say, it immediately became unimportant and forgotten. Like lost fireflies, those thoughts blinked on and off again, until I paid them no mind.
I couldn’t, because my mind was being swallowed by unquestioning wonder.
I knew I was on a quest to find five seals and that the next two would be found in another dimension called Earth, but that didn’t concern me on those waters.
I knew that on Earth I was lost and destitute, but this was hardly more distressing than a child getting lost in a maze while her mother looked on. In fact, an entire life was like that, I thought—getting lost in a dark maze for the wonder of finding the light. But my mother was smiling on me there, daring me forward.
I knew that in a valley beyond the Great Divide, a million warriors had entered into an agreement to slay one another’s earthen vessels in a silly game called war, waged to defend sacred beliefs. That war was no different than exchanging bitter words or thoughts of judgment and grievance.
I knew that only I could stop that war. That I would be shown the way. That I was experiencing that way now, drawn to some far shore I couldn’t yet see.
But mostly I knew that I was light, and that everything else was only a matter of perception. I felt born again, and I was seeing the kingdom of heaven. In this experience, there were no problems except those I chose to see with distorted vision.
I didn’t choose that because I’d surrendered my attachment to who I thought I should be and accepted myself as the light in the storm.
All of this I knew intimately, without Talya having to say a word.
Hours had passed, surely—or only minutes, I couldn’t tell—when Talya stood, leaning forward with one hand on the mast.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
I stood and stared and saw a sandy white beach in the distance. And beyond the beach, a colored forest. My heart caught in my throat. Now I could see how fast we were traveling, because the shore was silently rushing toward us, far faster than our wake would suggest.
As we came closer, I saw a boy on the beach. A young boy of maybe twelve or thirteen, dressed in only a white loincloth, arms crossed and at ease, watching us.
By his side, a lion. Judah.
And then we were there, suddenly slowing to within twenty paces of the shore and its gently lapping waters.
Talya lurched to his right, nearly tripping over the bow as he took to the water. He splashed, then was on his feet knee-deep, sloshing forward. I watched with amazement as he clambered from the water, rushed up the beach, robes flapping, and fell to his knees before the boy. Hands unsteady, he reached for the boy’s feet and kissed them lightly.
The boy’s eyes, bright green like emeralds and smiling in amusement, remained on me. He giggled once, barely more than a hiccup, and only then slowly looked down.
Talya wrapped his arms around the boy’s waist and clung to him tightly, shoulders shaking as he wept with gratitude. The boy draped one arm over Talya’s shoulders and lifted his eyes back up to me.
“Come,” he said, motioning me forward with his free hand.
To this point I’d been rooted to the boat’s floorboards, but that single word exploded in my mind like a fireball and I leaped from the boat, desperate to reach him.
All I could think was, Me too! Me too! Silly and simple, but on that shore more profound than all the words found in a thousand books.
I splashed through the water and hurried forward but pulled up three feet from him, suddenly aware of a crackling power that sent a buzz through my bones.
I knew then without the slightest doubt who he was. I dropped to my knees, unable to stand.
The boy stepped up to me, searching my eyes.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said. His voice was youthful but carried an unmistakable authority. He leaned forward, kissed the top of my head, and nodded once, looking between Talya and me.
Then Talya was chuckling as the boy grinned.
Without any announcement, the boy turned and walked down the beach, leaving light footprints in the wave-washed sand. The lion was gone. Talya jumped to his feet and bade me follow like a frantic mother. Go, go, go! So I hurried forward with Talya at my heels.
It was surreal, Talya and I following a boy who wasn’t a boy at all.
He was Elyon. I could feel his power when my feet touched his footprints, as if there was energy in the sand itself, rising up through the soles of my bare feet.
By showing himself to me as a boy, he was stripping away any preconceived notion I had of what I thought he should be, just like taking off the clay mask had stripped away my preconceived notions of what I thought I should be. My journey was to become like a child so I could see beyond what my programmed perception showed me.
We walked in silence, me behind the boy, Talya behind me, and each step felt like a lifetime of wonder. After days of struggle, the deep rest I felt in following him was utterly intoxicating. In that space, I couldn’t imagine even thinking of a question, much less asking one. I had none.
I didn’t know how far we’d walked when the boy turned, smiling, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. A light breeze lifted his bangs.
“Do you want to see something?”
Again, I glanced at Talya, who dipped his head. Yes, yes, of course you do.
“I would love to,” I said.
“Watch.” The boy leaped one long stride up the beach where the sand was darker, almost brown. He squatted and began drawing some words into the sand with his forefinger.
Love. Light. Kingdom. Son. Daughter.
Each word he etched into that dark sand filled with glowing light. I glanced at Talya, who watched eagerly.
The boy drew a circle around the words and jumped back. “See?”
“Beautiful,” I managed, watching the light flow like molten metal in each word.
Like a conductor with a wand, he motioned to the circle. Immediately, the sand gathered and quickly formed a small human figure made of sand. The light was covered up by the dark sand.
I stepped back, bumping into Talya, who gently placed his hand on my shoulder.
The boy waved at the figure and it collapsed into the words written in light. Love. Light. Kingdom. Son. Daughter.
He was showing me a story that symbolized his creation. In that place I understood the story implicitly.
“Watch.” He jumped over to another bare patch of sand and quickly drew more words made of light.
Lamb. God. Elyon. Boy. Father. Mother. Origin.
This time he drew a square around the words.
“Who do you say I am?” he asked, standing.
I started to say the words he’d written, but I stopped. All of them were right and all of them were wrong at the same time.
“That’s because language creates boxes of understanding in time. The infinite can’t fit into any of your small boxes called words, see?”
“You’re the Word without words,” I said.
“I am.”
“You are infinite.”
“I am.”
“We cannot put you in a box.”
“No.” And the square around the words vanished.
“Yes!” Talya cried, pumping his fist.
The boy grinned at him. “Talya is so easily excited.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Me too,” the boy said. “Watch this.” He swept his hand over the words at his feet, and the sand leaped into his palm as a ball of white light.
He jumped over to the words love, light, kingdom, son, daughter and swept his hand over the circle. The sand swirled into a second ball of light, which leaped into his other hand. Now he had two balls of light, one in each hand.
He brought them together to form one ball, which he held out. I blinked, delighted by his play. The orb of light hummed with power.
He drew the ball back and hurled it over my head toward the sea. I spun and saw it meet the water. Instantly the endless sea turned white, blazing and humming with light under a blood-red sky.
A wave of hot energy hit me, and I staggered back as the light rose from the sea and scattered into a canopy of countless tiny white lights against that red sky.
“Wow!”
Talya chuckled.
The boy lifted his hand toward the sky and beckoned the lights with his finger. Come. One of the pinpricks streaked toward us and stopped ten feet away, a small glowing orb that then shifted into the form of a human made of light.
As I watched, a layer of dark sand began to wrap itself around the light-man until it looked like a gingerbread man made of sand. Blinded by the sand, the walking figure slowed, faltered, then fell from the air and plopped on the sand at our feet, where it lay on its back. There was a frown on its face.
That’s like the Fall, I thought.
The boy grinned. Then took a deep breath and blew toward the fallen figure. His breath whipped around the figure and blew the sand off, revealing the light it was. It leaped back into the air and began to walk again.
And that’s like the wrath, I thought. It seemed to be the kindest thing in the whole world to me. How incredible was that?
The boy motioned with the back of his hand, and the figure of light flew back into the sky to join the others, glowing once more.
“The whole earth groans for the revealing of the sons of God,”1 he said, grinning. He crossed his arms and scanned the sky, beaming. “Amazing?”
“Amazing,” I breathed.
The sky shifted to hues of orange and green and bright blue. Everything was back to the way it was before he showed me how it all worked.
“It’s all still unfolding, exactly as I always knew it would.” He turned and winked at me. “I don’t do oopses.”
His choice of words offered in such common language delighted me, and I laughed. “No oopses!”
He hesitated for a moment, then looked up at the tree line.
“Which brings us to the reason for your coming here today. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. His name is Thomas.”
There beside a tall tree with a golden trunk stood a man dressed in a white tunic and black pants. His hair was dark, flowing to his shoulders. Judah sat on his haunches a few feet away, tongue lolling from his mouth, panting.
“Hello, Thomas,” the boy said.
Thomas stepped down the bank, eyes on me. Then on Talya.
“I’ve been showing Thomas a few things so he’ll be ready,” the boy said.
Ready for what? But I was distracted by the sight of this legend who’d come from Earth as I had. I knew his face—everyone on Earth knew it. He’d saved Earth from the Raison Strain years earlier. Even in Project Eden we knew that.
And yet here he was, in the flesh.
He stepped up to me and dipped his head. “It’s an honor to finally meet you, 49th. I think I was expecting a giant.”
He took my hand and kissed my knuckles, and I liked him immediately.
He turned to Talya. “And so we meet again. Forgive me for my reluctance.”
Talya winked. “Aren’t we all hesitant at first? And yet here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“Good,” the boy said. “There’s no time like the present. Talya, old friend, tell them what you’ve cooked up.”
With that, the boy hurried up the beach to Judah, ruffled the lion’s ears, and sat down beside him, legs crossed. Like a boy on a beach looking over his sandcastle. And what a magnificent creation the world of earthen vessels was.
“Come.” Talya walked back down the shore to the water’s edge. We followed quickly, keeping up with his long strides. Now I saw the Talya I knew, walking in authority. I glanced back and saw the boy scratching the underside of Judah’s belly.
“Focus, 49th.” He winked at me. “Show Thomas your shoulder.”
I pulled up my sleeve to expose the three seals.
Thomas reached for my arm and ran his thumb over the tattoos. “They . . . I’ve never seen markings like this. They’re set into your arm.”
“Like a holographic tattoo,” I said. “From Earth. Neat, huh?”
His eyes darted up to meet mine. “So you really are from there.”
“And so are you, right?”
He took a deep breath. “It’s been so long since I dreamed, I was beginning to wonder.”
“Wonder no longer,” Talya said. “You won’t be dreaming this time. You’ll be going in the flesh. The Fourth and Fifth Seals will be found there, but the 49th seems to have lost her way in that world. Her blinding is deep and you’ll have to work quickly.”
“Work how? You mean to say I’m . . . What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you’ll enter this thin place, which has no boundaries,” he said, staring at the sea. “At the bottom you’ll find yourself in another dimension called Earth, which is a mystery because this sea has no bottom. There, you’ll find Rachelle. Everything you need to know to help her, you’ll learn in the waters. That’s what I’m saying.”
A quiver had taken to Thomas’s fingers. He stared at the crystal-green waters. “I can go in the lake?”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes! Yes, I want to.”
“You’ve been in before?” I asked.
“Not here, no. But I’ve been in another lake, before the Fall into darkness. I . . . Maybe it was this one, but smaller. Yes, I want to go. Yes, I most definitely want to go.”
“Good,” Talya said. “By my reckoning, you’ll have two days at most.”
“What happens in two days?”
“Even now the armies gather to crush the Realm of Mystics. But that’s Rachelle’s concern here. Her concern there is to find the last two seals before they succeed. Your concern is to help her see so that she can. Her way will be treacherous with the seals, impossible without them. Am I clear?”
“What’s my way?” I asked, wondering what he meant by treacherous. “What’s happening with Jacob?”
“He returns as promised.” Talya looked out over the water. Then bent and scooped some up, letting it trickle through his fingers. Light swirled through the water as it caressed his hand and slipped back to the sand. “The Fourth Seal will give you strength.”
“Strength for what?”
“You’ll know when you find the Fourth Seal, assuming you find it soon enough.” He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Which is why you must go now, my son. Dive. Dive in, dive deep. Breathe. Follow your heart. Bring her sight!”
Thomas glanced at me, then Talya, eyes wide.
“Now, Thomas.”
He needed no further encouragement. In the space of only a few seconds he’d stripped out of his tunic and torn his boots off. It reminded me of Jacob running for the red lake.
Bare-chested and wearing only his black slacks, Thomas plowed into the waters. He stopped and twisted back, water to his knees.
“Go on,” Talya said, flipping his hand at the water. “Dive deep.”
With that Thomas turned and dove into the clear green waters.
The moment he slipped beneath the surface, the sandy bottom vanished. A current snatched his body and pulled him deep with breathtaking speed. His torso arched and I could see his jaw spread in a scream. It wasn’t fear. It was love.
And then Thomas Hunter was gone.
Gone to me.