(A little bit of the fiction writing that I dabble in. I hope my readers enjoy. :) It's amatuer...but it's mine. Like my favorite fortune cookie once said.. "You create your own stage. The audience is waiting".)
2000 - A.S. Foxfires Arts

"Sights seen in the mind's eye can never be destroyed"
Strabo (64 BC - AD 21)

THE PASSAGE - Chapter One



Seraph closed her eyes as she was told.

Her senses tingled with awareness as the sound of falling water grew louder, mimicked in a gentle touch upon her shoulder. Someone warmed her ear with a whisper, but before sense or reason could give the words shape, they faded into a place that held no form at all. Sound rushed out, as if being pulled through a small hole, leaving only thick quiet to fill the void.

Darkness cradled her. She felt the muted pump of her heart, and the velvet blackness caress her skin the way it did when someone stood too close at night. Was she falling, or flying? Maybe she was levitating.

'Or maybe', she thought, 'I have already arrived'.

The questions drifted in the same dreamy procession as leaves floating downstream, and yet there was no real need for answers. She knew this, for she had crossed over many times before. But regardless of her certainty, the questions always remained.

Or perhaps they were the answers all along.

--

"Open your eyes," a voice said.

It was as if a door were thrown open near the ocean, just in time to hear the seventh wave crash on the shore. A rush of tingles ran wildfire up her spine, while echoing words untangled themselves from her thoughts. She swayed as she felt solid ground beneath her feet and gulped the fresh air, tasting rain on her tongue.

The fading light in the sky eased into her vision. There were storm clouds darkening overhead, and a wind that spiraled down from them teased at her long black hair.

It was then that she heard the chanting. Women's voices, lilting in harmonic tones that seemed to rise and fall with the blowing wind. Before her, solitary on the sloping green plains, a ring of square stones almost triple her height. Torches had been thrust into the ground around them, their flames guttering wildly in the wind. She walked through the wet grass and pressed herself against one of the stones, circling around to the other side to shield herself from the storm. Shadows danced against the slabs of rock like ghosts of the women within the ring. Their hands reached up to the sky, their backs arched in offering. As Seraph stared, a peal of thunder rolled across the plain, and lightning sparked the bank of clouds. In a heartbeat she was blinded by it, clenching her eyes shut until the moment passed....

...but dizziness welled up in her core as the chill of the storm suddenly gave way to a press of hot, dry air. The next breath was laced with spice, and the sound of the women and thunder thinned out until it hissed like a thousand serpents. She pushed away from her brace against the stone and opened her eyes, squinting as she adjusted to brilliant sunlight flashing on pale dunes as far as she could see.

At her feet, a terrace of quarried stone spreading out like a mountain. Pulling her hair back away from her face, she picked her way across the platform of stone, following the call of a reedy voice. The heat blazed against her dusky skin, magnified by the massive granite blocks that had baked under the sun for hours. When she peered down the terraced slope, she saw a young man standing on a high ramp, draped in a pristine white robe and adorned with gold and lapis lazuli. Below him on a grand stairway, a dozen men worked in unison, their backs shining slick with sweat. Across the desert, a shadow of the pyramid stretched out to touch the distant sand, and Seraph knelt down to press her hands against the burning stone...

...but her fingers disappeared beneath the surface of water. Ripples from her touch fanned out through a mirror smooth pool, disrupting the perfect image reflected within. A cool breath of wind chased away the parched heat, and Seraph glanced up, following the line of water and cypress trees as they joined together in the distance beneath the pregnant swell of a palatial tomb. Silence fit the moment as moonlight glowed on the white marble dome and it's guardian minarets. A hint of a smile grew, the moon shining just as deeply in her pale green eyes. 'Such truth in beauty' she thought to herself as she looked back down into the reflecting pool. . .

. . . And saw the face of London's Clock Tower light up. It boomed the hour, and with each heavy chime Seraph felt herself center to the world around her. A double-decker bus roared by in a blur of red, and flashes from a tourist's camera lit up the sidewalk around her. It was raining again, and her brows perked slightly as she realized she was already carrying an umbrella. Flicking it open, she watched the flow of people on the sidewalk, peering over her shoulder as they disappearing down the stairs to Westminster Station. She tightened the scarf at her throat, a faint scent of sandalwood lifting up from her wrists. She looked down to see she was wearing a simple brown wrap skirt, lace up boots and a black duster that hung well past her knees.

"Perfect," she whispered, glancing up at the Clock Tower as she noted the time.

The passage was complete. They would be pleased.

Threading her way through the rush hour crowd, she tossed a coin to a busker.

He quickened the strum of his guitar to match her stride as she disappeared into London's Underground.
(To be continued)

2000 - A.S. Foxfires Arts