Fire Tending

1010 A.D.
The Realm of Wyn Avuqua

“Dad?”

A fingernail grazes along Loche’s forehead. With a swinging pull of vertigo, Loche’s consciousness surfaces from a deep sleep to see the face of Edwin. Joy gushes through his senses and he grabs the little boy and pulls him down hugging him tight. Edwin giggles and hugs his father back.

“How do you feel?” Loche asks.

“I’m hungry.”

“I bet you are.” Loche studies the boy. He searches for the God hiding somewhere behind Edwin’s eyes. For the moment he senses nothing save the wide awake and curious face of his son.

“Dad,” his little voice whispers as if in secret, “where do we go when we die?”

“We go…” Loche starts, “we go to another place. Some call it Heaven.” There is a lilt in his answer—as if it were a question.

“Will you be at Heaven when I go there?” Edwin asks.

“Yes,” Loche says, “Yes, I will find you there.”

“How do you know? How do you know you’ll find me?”

“Because I am your Dad. I will always find you.”

“I don’t want to go, Dad. I want to stay with you. With you and Mom.”

“I know, Bug.”

“If I go, will you come and find me?”

“I will always come to find you.” Edwin’s questions roll stones into his stomach. A sudden fear drags like a nail down his back. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Bug. I’ve got you.”

Loche sits up and looks around. A flat ashen light is seeping through the mouth of the cave. The fire has been cared for and it crackles, sending up long yellow flames. Outside, William, Vincale and Corey prepare the horses. The trees are indigo. The stream whispers. Julia and Lornensha are kneeling a few feet away, preparing what looks to be a much needed feast of dried meat, cheese and a cracker-like bread.

Julia twists to Loche and says brightly, “How do you feel?” She hands Edwin an energy bar. Gratefully, he gnaws into it.

There is no pain stabbing in Loche’s ear. His fingers search for the dried blood but they find only a ridge of a cut that is dry and already healing. The concoction Lornensha had him drink must have done its work in the night. He remembers little after he took a few sips.

“I’m—” he starts, double checking, “I’m good, I think.”

“Where are we, Dad?” Edwin asks.

He looks at Edwin’s deep brown eyes and says, “I don’t know if I can really tell you for sure. We’re—”

William’s voice sings out, “The realm of Wyn Avuqua, young Edwin! You have come to the land of Immortals with your father, your grandfather and—” he casts a quick look to Lornensha, pauses a beat as a desire to say more crosses his face, then adds, “and with very good friends.” Edwin leaps up and runs to William. As he holds the boy he says, “And with you, also, young master, I sense you bring behind your awareness something well beyond my ability to describe. The One accompanies you, it is true.” Edwin’s head raises up with a slightly confused expression while his jaw works a dense and juicy bite of a blueberry energy bar. The immortal levels his eyes with Edwin’s, just as George had at the Orathom Wis council in the Azores on the other side of the world, seemingly months ago. After a few seconds, William sighs and his broad grin breaks open. “But never mind that now. Are you quite ready for your sword lesson?”

“Yes!” Edwin cries.

“Breakfast first,” Julia says. Lornensha sets food on a plate woven from cedar boughs beside the fire. Edwin runs to it, sits and begins to carefully inspect the offering. He tastes the cheese. He thinks deeply about the flavors. His stare is ensconced in the fire. Julia sits beside Loche and offers similar fare.

The meat is surprisingly tender, but salty. Gamey, too. The cheese is sharp, but light as a cloud. Loche tastes brine, citrus and cream. There is an instantaneous surge of energy as the food arrives in his belly. He hears himself quietly moan with pleasure. Lifting another chunk to his lips, he watches Lornensha. He traces the shape of her face. He then looks to William. The resemblance is uncanny. Even Edwin, now in a food trance staring at the snapping fire, carries similar facial architecture: thoughtful ovals, shapely lips, proud and high forehead. Loche attempts to recall his own visage—does he share the same nose, chin, smile?

Lornensha eats in silence. She does not appear to notice the lingering stares from William, Julia and Loche.

“We will indeed speak of this,” William says to Loche. “And by this, I mean the stunning reality of being in the presence of—” he nods to Lornensha. Lornensha takes no notice. “I dare say, such a discussion may require your expert psychological counsel.”

The thrill of a laugh emanates somewhere deep in Loche’s abdomen, but he quells it and remains silent. His psychological expertise? A long-ago college lecture queues up in his head—a professor enters the classroom with the words, “Let’s talk about your mother…” and then he ticks down the evolutionary psychological chain from Freud’s Oedipus Complex to Harlow’s monkeys to the thousands of self-help bookshelf crowders exploring the relationship between mother and son. How, psychologically speaking, can any sense be made of William’s 600 years of life and the connection or disconnection to his mother, the effects of her death upon him and the supernatural torrent storming around them? There is nothing in Loche’s academic or experiential past that he can conjure to assist, assuage, understand. Another laugh gurgles somewhere deep, only this one has the character of lunacy and madness—for after all, add the staggering reality of meeting your mother three hundred years before you were born.

It is not a laugh, it is a cry.

As if by some divine mercy, Julia’s eyes draw Loche’s attention and suddenly the impossible is simple. She holds him for a few moments. All light, matter, a coil of cosmos spiral into a single, inescapable knowing as he falls into her fire-lit pupils. She gives a subtle nod to his little boy. Edwin is looking at his father. Loche looks at William. William studies Geraldine of Leaves as she tends the fire. The great grandmother presses a long branch into the flames and a thousand stars burst and sparkle heavenward.