“There may, indeed, have been a king and queen here, in somebygone era. For my part, I believe that there was. However, those romances of Arthur and Guenevere are woefully inadequate, I fear. Geoffrey tells the tale of their wizard Merlin who, as a boy, was the discoverer of two sleeping dragons. Most see this story as too fanciful to be the truth.”
- from The Journal of D. D. Windward
Derek paced his room, very slowly, as evening waned and the full moon skittered up from behind the trees. There was no need for preparation. No reading, no exercise, no distraction would smooth out his rattling pulse. When he descended the stairs, he encountered his mother poring over bills at the kitchen table. He told her he was going for a walk, she tipped down her glasses and made a typical, maternal remark about the late hour. He told her not to worry, so she smiled and didn’t. This was Derek, after all. Smart, dependable, reliable Derek. After walking out the back door, he stopped and watched her through the kitchen window. There was so much he wished to say, so much left to do, the kind of things one despairs of at the end of their life. Should he hug her? No, she’ll think something is wrong. Boys don’t just do things like that.
The night felt crazed, made of fraying seams waiting to burst open. There were terrifying possibilities all around him in the darkness that weren’t there before. However, as always, the moon was a bright, obstinate reminder to Derek that there is always a passage back from where he’d come. At a nervous pace, it took nearly an hour to find his way to the far side of the bridge. As he crossed, he could see the giant shape of the Bunyine waiting at the wood’s edge, as deadly still as only a predator can be.
In the moonlight, he could see the creature for everything that it was. It stood up as he approached, as if the gesture were affected out of courtesy. Its size was terrifying. It reminded Derek of a school bus perched on panther legs where wheels were needed. Its height, at its neck, was beyond that of an elephant’s, and the length of its body was several fold its height. Its maned shoulders looked fat with muscles, but it was similarly rippled everywhere, as if the roots of trees were forcing their way out through its silken coat. Its head was grossly over-sized, which made its jaws vast. Its yellow eyes blazed with intelligence and animosity, which was even more frightening than the raw power its body suggested. As Derek got close, he could hear the monster’s breath, as well as the sound of its massive organs doing their business within it. He hoped that he would not set off running when the behemoth spoke. What would it do to him if he did?
“Well met, child,” said the Bunyine. Its voice was like an avalanche. A cold rumble. “Right where, and when, I wished us to meet. This is a fine start.”
Derek was overwhelmed. He wanted to race home, as before, and he was afraid to turn his back to the creature.
“You are here, and that is what’s important,” the beast said. “Whether we speak tonight is of no real consequence. You have come, you have seen me clearly, and you are as frightened as you ought to be.” The Bunyine relaxed, its huge body lying flat with a loud THUMP. Even at rest, its breath was like a jet turbine. Derek’s cowardice was making him angry at himself. The Bunyine threw one gigantic paw over the other. Derek remained as still as he could, and all the dozens of questions he’d been reciting to himself, as if litany, cowered like craven mice under the gaze of this cat. The Bunyine’s eyes narrowed as they looked him over.
“I imagine your ancestor knew only so much. ”
Derek decided to simply ask what he wanted to know “Who…?”
The Bunyine’s head tilted whimsically to one side. “Who am I? Really? Is that the best your curiosity can muster?”
“Uh…?”
“Child, in all seriousness, do not begin with ‘who’.”
“But…”
“’Who’ does not serve for one so old as I. It is not adequate.” Derek said nothing. The Bunyine pointed its snout at the earth. “Set down on the grass, get comfortable, for I will speak for a while. A while for you. I will not hurry, but I shall be done before the sun returns.” Derek, still trembling, slowly lowered himself to the earth. His arms screamed from underneath his bandages, but he did not show it. From the way the Bunyine spoke, choosing its words so carefully, Derek knew that this might, indeed, go on until morning.
Peter went to bed early, stretching out on the faux, French relic like a lion, owning the whole bed as best he could. That aside, it was hours and hours later, halfway through the night, before he was back in that strange other place.
He was standing at the bottom of the hill, this time, looking up at his own house. It was nighttime here, as well, and the dark, black asphalt almost matched the dotted night sky perfectly, the two blending. It created the illusion that one could race up the drive and leap into space. He then recognized the vague wisps of the glow of the sun rising in the other side of the sky. Hearing some footsteps, he turned about and found himself staring at the now more familiar, youthful face of Douglas D. Windward.
“Good to see you, Peter,” said Douglas.
“Awfully dark here,” Peter replied gloomily. He was nervous for some reason. You're on a mission, Peter. Act like a man on a mission.
Douglas, in contrast, seemed lively, at his best. “Give it but a moment,” the man said. “As the night wanes in your world, here it withdraws. Just as often, however, the events are asynchronous. However, I take the time to view every sunrise.”
“I see,” said Peter. “Wait. Every sunrise? Are you here all the time? By yourself?”
Douglas nodded, not without the shadow some slight, telling frustration on his face. “Indeed. That makes your visits seem all the more important, Peter. I anticipate them.”
“Must be lonely.”
Douglas took a few steps closer. He was distant. “From time to time.”
“I bet. How come you didn’t go to heaven?”
Douglas gazed at the sunrise for a few seconds. To his eyes, the sight possessed all the majesty of a Pennsylvania morning. To Peter, it was a striking cartoon. “I’ve got business,” said the young man.
“You stayed behind?” Peter asked.
Douglas continued to watch the morning. “It’s not that simple.”
“What? Heaven? This place? Is there a heaven?”
Douglas turned around. “This is all I’ve known since the day I left the world behind. I’ve made do.”
Peter was shocked. Appalled, even. “Douglas, have you been here for a hundred years?”
Douglas waved a hand, gently dismissing the conversation. “This is not the time, Peter. If only it were. Now, to the task at hand. Are you ready?”
Peter shrugged. Douglas isn’t looking for sympathy. Guys from yesteryear don’t do that. “Ready for what, exactly? All I have to do is get in the house, right?”
Douglas seemed doubtful. “It could be rowdier than that, Peter. I’m not certain what will happen after you claim your reality. It might become dangerous.”
“Shit. Danger. That’s not good. I hate danger. I’ve never been in it, but I predict I will hate it. I know me pretty well.”
Douglas smiled at Peter, it had an real avuncular warmth to it. “Some of us are at our best with the lick of the flame at our heels. Fear is useful. In some ways, it’s a gift, Peter. A great gift. It keeps your edges from running dull. I would not be afraid of the house, nor what’s in it, if I were you. Be afraid of what is in the woods. When you are vulnerable, it will surely attempt to take advantage of it.”
Peter nodded, not sure what to say. “Okay.”
Douglas reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. It made Peter feel tremendous. “Never forget that I am here. Nothing will get to you without getting through me, first. I may not look like much, but I can be useful. Take my word for it.”
Douglas’ caring tone really threw Peter. It was touching. “Um…okay. I’ll remember.”
“I will remain here,” said Douglas. “I imagine it will take you no time, at all.”
Peter nodded. He didn’t feel very confident, however, after Douglas stepped out of the way. As he ascended the hill in the strangely hued, increasing light, he thought only of the many things he’d never seen in life. The most terrifying, of which, may have been watching him from afar, waiting for its moment.
I was born in a land called Dilman, in a valley that is no longer there, near a lake that is not there, either. But for the immensity of the thoughts in my head, I was little different than most any cat of the wild: thin and spindly, lazing about in the trees, on the lookout for squirrels and rabbits. Sometimes, I did not hunt, at all, waiting until I could bear the hunger no longer, my stomach twisting as if split open by a man’s angry arrow. You must understand, I am from a strange heritage.
We may have had a language of our own. It would have been simple, as much as we needed and no more. That would have been enough to attract the attention of men. Perhaps they came at us with their spears in the night, killed us asleep in our nests, decried us as demons, as they did. Perhaps my parents defended me, their whelp. I do not know. But a day must have come when my family was, simply, not there anymore. I was left loose, on my own. Now, I can hardly remember a time that this was not so. I was the last of my kind. Too smart for our own good, we must have disappeared as quickly as we came to be, gone to the same place that time goes, into the yellowing scrolls of history. It does not pay for an animal to think. It is not useful. An animal must do what must be done, without the qualms and trials of being a thinking thing.
In all the time I had to myself, I came to understand that there was something unusual about being so alone. I slept alone. I ate alone. When the forest grew scarce, or an ailment brought me to the edge of death, I suffered alone in my nest. Oftentimes, I would subsist on the bark of the fig tree rather than hunt, for a belly full of meat brought me nothing but sorrow. You see, one thing my people did better than any other was suffer.
If what I was then is any indication of how my kind had been, I cannot fathom how we came to be, at all. Unlike anything that stood on four feet, I would find myself staring down at the leavings of my meal, shattered bones and twisted limbs that it was when I was done with it, and feel something no animal should ever have the misfortune enough to know - guilt.
I was pathetic, lonesome, and sad in a way no other animal seemed to be. Yet, despite that, I was far too attached to my home to leave the canopy of the forest behind. The sun often made me afraid, the terrifying vulnerability it offered. It felt like a tremendous eye that was always watching me, exposing my location to all of those who would make a meal of me, just as I had done to so many. There was a fear in me, leftover, I suppose, from my parents’ demise. What did the sun have to do with it? I do not know. So little it matters now.
To live, then, was to serve, for nature had hegemony in those days, and she insisted upon obedience. Beasts made their nests and lay their litters. The water rose in the morning, became shallow in the evening, and just across it men lived in their huts. They skewered fish from their punts and cast out nets. All things went about their business of birthing and dying, never gaining ground on the Earth. Often, losing it, unto their inexorable demise.
Men seemed little more than another kind of creature to my eyes. I had time for leisure in the fatter seasons when the small prey was plentiful, and I was pursuant of my curiosities, so I would watch them across the water from the edge of the woods. Like many animals, men congregated in settlements, allowing others to have what they had so long as all were mindful of what belonged to who. Besides their keeping of lesser beasts, if that is the word, they seemed no more important than anything else. The way they barked at one another seemed peculiar, for I could hear it from afar when boats approached the bank. I could tell it was not the same as what other animals did, but I was naïve to the concept of speech until the two blessed ones arrived.
How many years I lived in solitude before those two humans came, having the run of that forest, I am not certain. As always, time was beneath my notice. I was more of an animal than I am now. Strange a thing as it seems to do, I tried to build bonds with other beasts of the valley, to make of them companions. All to no point. I never made that connection that men made with each other, nor did I form the kind that men made with beasts. The bond of the master and the burro was one that I did not understand, for I was born neither master nor burro.
Despite all its plenitude, none of the humans came to my forest. None crossed the water even to pick the fruit of the trees. There must have been times of want, when they might have foraged from my home what they needed. But that did not happen. An odd phenomenon, I thought, though not in those words. Not in words, at all, for I did not have them. Men kept their distance from my home, and that was the way of it. It seemed a rule of nature. The boats came only so far, then they would halt as if coming to an invisible barrier. How could I have known that I dwelt on their holy isle? What is an isle? What is holy? How would an animal know?
I remember the first time that I saw them. The fishing people brought them across the water with all the pomp of matrimony. It may, indeed, have been their wedding day. Nets spun with flowers decorated their boats while fellow beasts roasted on spits in the village. A celebration that culminated in the bride and groom being left, gifts at their feet, on my shore. I watched them embrace and press their lips. These were the rituals of mating, of youth. Having no other, how was I to know? How fascinating they were. I could not look away.
Though I knew men only from afar, I knew these two were different. The fishing people treated them differently. They revered them, brought them a bundle of food every morning. I came to understand, in my way, that the forest in which I lived was thought to be exceptional, one in which only they could frolic. I gazed upon them, a bit puzzled as to what made them different than the other humans. They were fairer, I suppose. How did I know beauty in a woman or a man? Somehow, I did. They were not my kind. I do not know how or why, but they were beautiful to me. If ever such a concept made sense to an animal, it was these two that helped me ford that gap in comprehension.
They seemed so delicate, so soft. Just a small, slender cat, at that time, I could sneak around their dwelling unseen, even on the brightest of days, and they were none the wiser. I watched them from within the trees, day after day, as they enjoyed themselves. Captivated, I loomed in the branches and listened to the sounds that came forth from their mouths. I came to understand that words meant things. Some meant water, or fish, or fruit. Necessities. Mundane and everyday things. Some words referred to themselves, and they called each other what the lake people called them in their particular sort of warbling - Adhman-addu and Eawla. King and Queen.
A year passed, or more, and little changed but the increasing depth of what became an all-consuming preoccupation for me. Observing them became my calling, the very thing I endured the miseries of life for. Animals don’t understand the concept of a vocation, they only comprehend what needs to be done, and do it. This was different. I came to understand that this was something I needed in a way I hadn’t experienced before. It satisfied something deeper in me that I never before thought that I needed and I certainly had no word for. A need that, until my people came, only men understood. Now, as an animal defying the boundaries of species, I would contend with it on my own, as I always had done.
My eavesdropping proved more fruitful as more words came to take on meanings. Entire conversations, I overheard. Each one, no matter how humdrum the matter, was more important than the rising of the sun. I found I could repeat the sounds aloud, almost perfectly, by pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I watched them as animals often watch me, with absolute adoration. I learned from them. I lived alongside them, though they did not know it, in these woods that they called their ‘Garden’. Though I took the word to also mean ‘a place for making love’. In them, I found something that made my life more beautiful and fulfilling. I worshiped them, and that made me a part of their world. These were my deities. The King and Queen of Dilman.
Eawla grew hungry and indolent. Soon, her belly grew large, so very large that they spoke of two children, held, therein. From my distance, I celebrated. I knew this to be a great thing. What could be more exquisite than to bring into this world two more beings like themselves? The pair of them, their perfection, carried on into the time to come by their progeny. Their happiness was profound, yet it was curtailed by fear of the act of birthing. And wondered, they did, if this was a curse or a blessing. Most likely, they saw no connection between the act of love and the phenomenon of conception. Having watched them couple hundreds of times, the evidence of only one oncoming birth, even of two, did not seem to follow.
Nevertheless, though the lovemaking stopped, their concern and affection for one another did not decline. As the time for the birthing came closer, their anticipation of the worrisome event was, understandably, bittersweet. They embraced, every night, as tenderly as ever they did, the King whispering to his Queen that God would never take her from this world. One as magnificent as she could only curry God’s favor. To my mind, this was the greatest of all dramas ever witnessed. I had known danger, in my past, as any animal of the wild, but the possibility of Eawla dying awoke in me a new kind of fear. Their pain was mine. I would discover, one day, this was not a sentiment that they returned.
God’s vision is long, but it is not infinite. So much toil it took to bring this world into being. This sky, these stars, all that which lies beyond them, are a testament to that. She elevated what was an epoch of nonsense. Nothing was important, for nothing aged, or thought, or lived. She decided to make things that are meaningful, to make real forms take shape. She had to bring all things together, at once, and bind them with laws. To make such a leap, from nothing to a model of creation, is a jump that only God can make. These are the real commandments - the laws of East, West, North, and South. These laws need not be spoken of or written down, for they are lived by all things, at all times. Even she obeys them. She is obligated the same way you are bound by the reach of your arms.
The means by which time crawls by us, the barrier between now and then, is but one law. This divide occludes her knowing what is to come. She draws her plans, but cannot know how they will end, or what these devices shall reap in eras beyond where her purposes have been fulfilled. This is why Eden is but a story now. God could not save it. The machinations of being are beyond her control. This was evident in the act that made me immortal. It was a mistake. I know this because God is not evil, and no god but a malicious one would purposefully create a thing like me. For I can suffer, but not die.
The night the Garden blazed was but the smallest taste of the power she could once wield. Before the burden of keeping all of creation bound together usurped her might. Now these little glances are all that’s left of what was, once, infinite authority. Who can say now what was meant to be? What the idea of all of this truly was cannot be known, perhaps not even understood, in the way we understand the temporal concepts of life.
I have heard nothing like it, since. The terror is unforgettable, even unto this moment. Deep in the night, as we slept, a sound like a choir of screams tore open the sky and woke up the forest. It was God’s hand wringing life out of the ether, twisting the spine of the heavens till nature cried out in pain. I was retired to a tree limb when it happened. As any canny beast, I slept just on the edge of wakefulness, always ready to flee. Yet, when my ears filled with the fury of heaven, I froze in my perch. My own strength turned against me. My limbs clenched, the muscle and sinew paralyzed with terror. My claws dug into the wood. When the sound passed, I was immobile for a long time, staring and listening to my heart.
When my mind returned to me, my first thoughts were for my King and Queen. Forthwith, I made for their nest on the edge of the bank. My legs barely touched the earth, as I ran. When I arrived, there was no one. For the first time, I emerged into the open and walked among their possessions. It was terrifying, yet it was my concern for them that drove me. Their bedding, their crude pitchers and crockery, all lay scattered. I picked up their scent, it led away, back into the lee of the trees. They must have fled when the sound transpired. I followed the trail into the woods. When I found them, they were quivering in fear. They knew, just as I knew, that the sound came from something unspeakably powerful. I had heard them use the names of their gods, but I did not fully understand the concept. I ascended a tree and I watched them. Adhman-addu comforted his wife as she moaned and clutched her hand. For whatever reason, and however untimely, the children were coming.
I could do nothing but bear witness. As the hours passed, my lady became more desperate, her cries more vigorous. All the while, a light bloomed above us from the sky. A slowly increasing white elegance that, distracted as I was, I did not notice. I did not see it coming, for I am single-minded of purpose. I can miss the obvious happening all around me. It is a mind for hunting. The mind of an animal. A mind for killing. What other possibility existed? I could not look away from Eawla’s suffering. Had I been able, I would have perceived that the encroaching day was exceedingly bright. The light becoming so strong that, eventually, as the children began to emerge from twixt Eawla’s knees, the father was shielding his eyes from it.
At first, I though he was reeling away from the carnage of the birthing, but then I could see this was not so. I turned up my head. I saw what looked like a star descending upon the forest. The light of the flare was blinding, I could almost watch its descent through the lids of my eyes. Coming to be frightened beyond reason, I clawed my way down half the length of the tree and from there, leaped to the ground. Before I could flee, my love for my King and Queen halted me. I turned back, but I could no longer see them. Then, I could see nothing, at all. After that, I do not know.
How long I lay there is hard to say, but I awoke in immense pain. My limbs felt as if they’d been yanked until they were nearly severed from my body. My head pounded with my heart, as if I could feel the arterial pulsations tearing through my brain. I limped back to where I’d left the blessed ones. Eawla slept blissfully while her husband watched the two children. He was a proud father, now, of two sons.
The same magic affects no two souls the same way. And its effects on creatures that are aware, that have intellect enough to know they are alive - like myself, my queen, my king and princes - it is more meaningful than to those of animals. But the blessed ones were not in such pain as I. Here was a father comforting his sons, and a mother sleeping soundly after her exertions. One boy was very quiet. The other, how he shrieked! The quiet one they came to name Anbir, which was their word for ‘Simple’ or ‘Easy’. The noisy one was named Kakra, which was a word that meant something like ‘the Picker of Fights’.
As for me, I crept for cover, as I always did when I was ailing. Now I was beset by a raw and pounding fever. I found a place where I could safely endure until my sickness had passed, but what was to come was far worse than any ague. The pain, as my body changed, continually drove me into swoon. My limbs stretched away from my torso, growing longer and thicker. My spine curled into a half circle, straining the skin until the bone tore out through my fur. Bulges and peaks erupted from my skull, seeking to become the head of a beast much larger than I. I beat my head on rock and tree, doing anything I could to knock it back into the shape it had always been. For these changes, I paid my toll in screams, my voice becoming deeper with every day that came and went. I was becoming something quite unlike anything that had ever lived. Something that should not be.
My king and queen, surely, must have heard my mangled cries, for day and night my lungs purged my soul. My suffering must have terrified them as much as myself. As always, I bore my pain alone. None came to comfort me, protect me. That is not my life. It was two weeks before the course had concluded, perhaps as many as four. For days after, I remained on the mend. When I arose again, I rose much higher and taller. I was different. I saw, from far above, life as it must have been to a skinny, spindly cat. It was frightening how small I’d been. I had always felt diminished by the world, and had taken to the trees for protection at the slightest provocation. Now, I would not hide. I could walk out in the open, tall and proud. Having lived my life as a scared animal, this was a dramatic reversal of fortune. I could not have known how much better it is to be small.
As well as my new body, I felt a new sensation as I stood there. Something in the trees, something possessing an unnatural power to awe and seduce drew me to it. It had been tugging at me for days, but I’d had no strength to pursue. Its call was as strong as anything I had ever felt in body or mind. I did not know from where inside me it came, or what was receiving it, but it yanked at my very soul. I followed it into the forest. With my new strength and size, I had trouble moving through the woods. The well-worn corridors between the trees I’d always used were now far too small. Soon, I came to it, the root of this overwhelming feeling. It was hard to approach, so overwhelming it was. It was a crater, and I moved to the edge to look within it. It was a pit made by God’s power, and at the bottom of it was a mound of the most beautiful, golden beads. Still hot, though they had laid there for weeks. They twinkled like the stars. I dared not touch them.
As I stood there, I came to understand that I was now a part of something far larger than myself. Far larger than even the world. I was a part of this world, and that should be enough. I was not alone after all. These feelings felt like blessings, like wishes come true. When I returned to my nest, I was filled with passion. I felt true goodness in me and I wished to share it. The time had come, I thought, to let my King and Queen know me. I longed to approach them and speak their words back at them, to assure them I was in their service, consequences be damned. This great new body of mine would scare them, but I would bow my head and pledge my faith. So much had transpired, these were hard times for them, worrying times, and they needed to know that this giant beast in the forest was a friend to them, not their enemy.
What would I say? I fretted and I practiced my diction, imagining a discourse with the royal pair. Though I knew better, though I understood my place in this hierarchy, nonetheless, I needed to know them and for them to know me. There came a day that I was certain I was ready, or nearly ready. Nothing more than a good meal for strength, and a long, deep sleep was needed. So I hunted and I slept. Then I had a dream I remember vividly, to this moment, though some eight-thousand years have come and gone.
In the dream, it was day. I was bolder in this world, unafraid to walk in the sun without my natural aversion. I walked through the forest, over the very path I would take upon my waking. I found them, and I approached with my head bowed low, as I had seen men do in supplication to them. Adhman-addu and Eawla, always just finishing, or just starting, or engaged in their love-making, halted and turned to me. I shrank back, head dipped even lower. I groveled to my utter shame.
“My King,” I said to Adhman-addu. “Do not fear me. I do not know what I am, but I know what you are, and we must not be enemies. For God would not despoil this garden of peace with a bitter conflict among his children. For you and I are both his, though you are better.”
There was a short quiet, then, to my surprise, it became apparent that my words had made him hostile. Adhman-addu raged and cursed at me, indignant at the very notion that I would address him. “You, a beast of the field!” he shouted. Then he laughed, for I was pitiful, shrinking from him. “We children, you say? How dare you! God has made of thee an abomination! Oh, what sins committed thy father, to damn thee, lonely creature? What terrible things are in your heart?”
I turned and retreated back into the forest. I felt nothing less than hideous. What creature of claw or mane could match their perfection? Beauty was worthiness, I supposed, and I was worthless, even more so in my absurd, new shape. I hated myself for what he’d said. I could not bring myself to hate him, however. Who, or what, was I to question the most beloved? So I fled his sight.
When I awoke, my excitement had abated, replaced with dismay. Partly from the scene I’d created, and partly because the dream had seemed so real. It had been unlike any other that I could remember. The colors, so strange, so vivid, made it something different. I realized then how truly beautiful they were. I may have some part in the greatness of the world, some minuscule part, but they were the key to that greatness. It was, after all, all for them. I had no business thrusting myself into their affairs. No business trying to rise above this meal I’d been served in life. The joy I’d felt in my resolution to know them, my longing to speak with them, was just a self-deception. An abomination had no place in their higher world. Perhaps, not even in this lower one.
Derek was entranced. The terrifying form of the creature telling the tale was forgotten, he was so taken in by the story. The Bunyine’s description of his home was a little confusing, though, and the boy was having a little trouble visualizing it. It was a valley? A lake? An island? How long ago had this all occurred? Derek had no idea, but it was an old story, that was for certain. Much of it had possibly become muddled over time, however long that was. Even this place’s name, Dilman, could have been something he picked up later. This did not mean that the story was false. The truth was not in the details, after all. Forget whether it rained in the morning or the afternoon. That was not what the truth was.
One part fascinated Derek the most. Under his breath, he mouthed one word. “Manna.”
The Bunyine, so keen of ear, heard him. “Yes, child. The beads in the crater. I did not know what it was then, but it was the seed of all this magic.”
The beast’s eyes were trained on the boy now. He was expecting some kind of response. Perhaps he was tired of hearing his own deep voice. The boy’s own wobbled just a bit. “Manna was food,” he said. “It came with the dew, in the morning. That’s what I remember. That’s what I read.”
“Yes. The beads, illuminated from within, cast shadows that twirled, resembling leaves and flakes. That is what made it manna. And did they not come with the morning? The bright light through which they were conducted. A fire like the morning sun. Is this not so? That is very astute of you to make that connection. That aside, do you know what story I am telling? You must, by now.”
“The Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve. It’s the most famous story ever told.”
The huge feline purred. It was not the comforting sound that most have come to expect from a cat. “The fisher people, always watching them from afar, revered the couple as much as I. They must have seen the two boys when they brought them food. They must have stood close enough to know, in time, just how different the sons were from one another. The one so calm and full of wonder. The other filled with anger, discontent even with the offerings of his mother’s breast. It became part of the yarns they spun when they returned to the village. The simple people must have imagined, with the judicious wisdom of peasants, a day would come when these two, so opposed in natures, would arrive at a violent end. Perhaps the one killed the other. Perhaps not. I do not know.”
These last words caught the boy’s attention most. He was calm now, knees pulled to his chest. He wanted to ask about the dream, but he knew about that already, or he thought that he did. This was no time to waste words. “How did it end, then? The garden. How did it end? There are no apples, so far. No snakes.”
The Bunyine said nothing. He stood, stretched, then gathered himself, settling down, again, and twisting his body into a partial coil. The beast then took some time before speaking, staring up at the night sky. “The end came suddenly, in a way that god could not have intended. Her creation, felled by a poisonous stream of water that flowed in from the South.”
“Poisonous water?” Derek spoke softly, to himself. He looked up, quizzical. “Salt water?”
The Bunyine gave a slow nod. “Yes. Our forest, overrun with water like I had never tasted. It came from the sea, rolled in over land and swallowed up the lake, its wonderful, fresh water replaced with pestilential salt. Soon it rose, ever higher, overtaking the land itself.” The Bunyine’s voice trailed off. Derek was sure, now, that he was the first person living who’d been told this tale. He could hear the hurt in the Bunyine’s throat as it recalled the end of its childhood. It had never spoken of it to anyone, he was certain. He did not know exactly how he knew things, sometimes, but this he knew. “They came for my King and Queen, the fisher people did. Took them away in boats. But no one came for me. Once again, I lost a mother and father. That is how it felt to me. That is how naïve I was. They were not my mother and father, it did not matter how much I wished it.”
Derek’s head was ablaze with sudden understanding. He knew this story! Not the flood of Noah, from the Bible, but from prehistory. He’d read about it in on the library’s Internet. It had fascinated him to no end. He’d spent hours and hours learning about it. It was the Black Sea Flood. He knew, exactly, where this Dilman was! It must have been a valley on the Black Sea side of the Bosporus, which was a freshwater lake before the Mediterranean had risen and flooded the land. That’s how the strait was created. And it must still be there, submerged in the salty waters off the coast of Turkey. The Garden of Eden! What a thing this was! To be the only person on Earth to know!
“I fled my home: a huge, frightened cat. Innocent, naïve, and alone, as always.” The Bunyine’s ponderous tone had changed. Hatred had crept in. But hatred for whom? Adam and Eve, or whatever their names had been? God? The creature’s continued stargazing seemed very sad, to Derek. All of the bloody tales Douglas had spoken of, stories that were more myth than reality, which was most of them, hadn’t prepared Derek to pity him. “God’s mistakes are, indeed, legendary.”