Out of The Woods (30 page)

They began the meal under starlight, sitting in a circle around the fire. Tall flames licked at the bits of broken tree branch, swaying orange, white and red. At the very edges of wood, the flames were a hot blue. The blue drew Halley’s gaze, marking, as it did, the line between what was and what was to be.

Jordan interrupted her thoughts. “It is right to ask all your questions.”

Halley hesitated, chewed an unfamiliar vegetable, and swallowed. Eating with her fingers was a strangely pleasant sensation. She pinched some rice between two fingers, and placed it in her mouth. Its taste was fresh and cleansing. Licking the stickiness from her fingers, she let her hand rest in her lap. The first question she wanted to ask sounded crazy:
Is all this real?
How could she ask that, when she could feel the earth solid beneath her, could taste the food?

“You must ask the questions.”

Halley hesitated. Did she want to know the answers? What would it mean to her, if this weren’t real? Would it mean she was crazy? Or, perhaps, dead? She ate another mouthful of rice. She’d spent much of her life avoiding the truth. Not knowing had its costs too. She placed the broad leaf-plate on the ground, and sat up straighter.

“You don’t have to stop eating,” Eden giggled. “It’s not as serious as all that.”

Halley didn’t smile. Depending on the answer to her question, her whole world could collapse.

Eden picked up the leaf-plate and placed it back on Halley’s lap.

The edge of the leaf felt good between her fingertips, real and substantial. She gripped it tightly.

“You must trust. Believe you are strong enough to know the answers to your questions.”

“Like a leap of faith?” Halley said.

“Even eagles must take one, the first time they fly.”

The words made Halley’s ears buzz. She took a drink of water from her canteen, and swallowed hard. “Since I left Fernando at the crossroads-that-was-not-a-crossroads, my journey has been… these people I’ve met, who knew me, who seemed somehow to
be
me…” Halley stopped. “I knew the waterfall, and the house on the plains. I knew the forest and the wildflowers. And the secret room…” She ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it.

“And…” Jordan prompted her.

Halley let her hands fall to her lap.

Jordan looked at her through clear eyes. The silence held.

“Was it real? Were those people real? Jordan…are you…are you real?”

Jordan held her hands up to the fire to warm them. “Ah, Akilina, who is to say what is real? Was your life while you lived with Fernando real, authentic? I think not. How could it have been, when you were not living the truth?”

“Yes, but…”

That wasn’t an answer; it was an evasion.

“But you need to know,” Jordan said. “This question of real or not is very important to you.”

How could it not be? Halley wondered.

“Look at the stars,” Jordan said, gesturing with one hand.

Halley looked up. In the towns, the stars were masked by ground light; in the city, they disappeared completely. On this mountain-top, the multitude of stars made the night more light than dark. She had never seen so many at once. This was authentic; this was spectacular. Halley bit the inside of her lip.

“It looks real.”

“Then let it be real,” Jordan said. “Let it be.” She continued to eat, slowly and thoughtfully. “What we imagine as real is only one of a multitude of ways the universe may present itself.”

“So…”

“So it is real. I am real.”

Halley breathed out a great sigh of relief.

“Thank God,” she said. “I couldn’t have borne it otherwise.”

“Yes, you could have,” Jordan said. “You can bear all.”

She placed her leaf-plate into the fire and they watched the fire flare up, transforming it into green and gold light.

“But, I…it sounds stupid…but…I need you…it’s like, you’re my…”

“Be your own hero,” Eden interrupted. “You don’t need Jordan to be your hero, or anyone else.”

Jordan laughed. “Ah, the young – they are close still to the infinite wisdom. If only we could hold onto that as we age, and not have to go through a whole lifetime before remembering such truths.”

“I’m not
that
young,” Eden protested.

Halley wasn’t listening. She wanted to ask a different question, one that mattered deeply, all of a sudden. She rubbed her ring finger, and felt a burning pain in the very center of her chest. “I had a ring. Once. I took it off.”

“Do you wish now that you had not?”

Halley looked away; she immediately missed the connection with Jordan’s eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything about it, except the name Sean and a warm feeling inside when I think of that name.”

“You cannot remember, but still, you must decide.”

“Decide? What do you mean, ‘decide’? Decide what?”

“Whether to wear the ring. Whether to choose to live the life that goes with it. Whether to stay within the circle of the ring.”

Halley rubbed her throat, as if to free a voice that had been silent too long. “Yes, I will. I will wear the ring.”

The stars glittered.

“You answer too quickly, without thought.” Jordan placed her hands on her knees. “First, you must face the reason you took the ring off. Why did you remove it?”

Halley looked into the fire. The answer made the food lose its flavor.

Jordan rested a warm hand on her shoulder.

“You cannot speak the words. Would it help if I were to speak them for you?”

Halley shut her eyes.

“Sean loved you. He treated you well. To him, you were a Queen. But not to yourself. To yourself, you were no Queen.”

Halley wrapped her arms around herself, cold in the warmth of the fire.

“You could not allow his love. In your heart, you belonged with one more familiar. More cruel. To a Fernando or a Nick or a Trance. Someone who would hurt you, who would validate for you the way you saw yourself.” Jordan paused. “The way you thought your father viewed you – at fault for your mother’s death, and deserving of great pain.”

Halley opened her eyes. The sky, which had been so full of light just moments ago, was infinite and empty.

Jordan’s voice was full of compassion. “You came here to save yourself. Not to save your marriage with Sean.” She waited until Halley had again met her eyes. “Love for another does not make you whole. Understand this: you are already whole.”

“Then why does the ring seem so vitally important? Why does my chest hurt the way it does?”

Jordan rubbed her hands together, generating heat. “Love does not make you whole. This is true. But it is also true that to accept another’s love – to accept that you carry light within you that can be seen and recognized and loved – that, Akilina – that allows you to soar.”

Halley placed her hand over her mouth.

“If you believe yourself worthy of great love, yes, you will wear the ring again…”

Eden interrupted in frustration. “But this whole thing wasn’t just about some stupid man,” she said. “That would be so dumb, to go through all this for a man.”

“Ah, Eden, of course not,” Jordan said. “It was for Halley, and the horses, and the baby. You – small-girl-soon-to-be-woman – are also wise to ask your questions.” She placed a gentle hand on Eden’s arm. “You know you are worthy just because you are. It is a fact of your creation. This, you have always known.”

“Well, of course…” Eden said.

“Halley had forgotten this worthiness. She had to discover it once more. First, we must love ourselves. When we do, loving another is possible, and right.”

“So the stupid man…”

Jordan smiled. “Loving is simply recognizing the spark of light in another, and re-uniting it with that in ourselves. We are already whole; when we love we become holy. We become more connected to the infinite.”

“Like, more deeply rooted?” Eden said.

“That is right.”

“So…” Eden said, turning to Halley, wanting to get back to basics, “Are you going to put the ring back on?”

Halley looked back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t have it.”

“Ah, this does not matter. Do you know what it means, to wear it?” Jordan asked.

How can it not matter?
She looked inwards anyway. “Wearing the ring means I must tell the truth. I must open myself. I must tell others of what I have learned of myself here.”

“This is right, but there is more. Wearing the ring also means you let go forever of unloving lovers who do not satiate your soul.”

“You mean Fernando.” Halley said. “I let him go.”

“That jerk!” said Eden.

“Fernando, and the others that came before, and nearly came after,” Jordan clarified. “Do you understand why you were able, finally, to free yourself? Why it was so hard to let go?”

Halley didn’t answer.

“It is because you have learned that the light you saw in him – and the others – was your own. You have re-swallowed it: it shines from your very pores. When you look into the smoothness of a river you will see it in the glow of your eyes. It is a beacon to all beings, that light. It was always there, even when you could not see it. It is what drew Sean to you. It is what will make him stay.”

“And Nick? Is it what drew Nick?”

“Yes. It drew him as well. The light draws both good and evil – you must be wise, and alert enough to tell which is which.”

“Is the light you speak of…is it what I see, when I look at you?”

“Yes. It is your light. Reflected back.”

Halley’s eyes filled with tears; all that beauty resided in her, and now she knew.

They were all silent for a time.

“What about…” Halley began, and then stopped. Maybe it was too much to ask.

“The baby?” Jordan finished. “Your question is of the baby?”

“It’s just…I thought I would find the baby when I got here. When I got to the top of this mountain. But I haven’t. And he’s not crying anymore…”

“And you want to know…”

“Is it real too?”

“Ah, that is up to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you still feel the pulse?”

Halley placed a finger to her forehead, where she had felt the pulse of the baby since she had first heard its cry. “Yes,” she said, “I still feel it. But why do I feel its pulse there?”

“You feel its pulse here…” Jordan said, placing two warm fingertips on the center of Halley’s forehead, “…because here is your inner eye. It is your physical body’s connection to the universal.”

“I don’t understand. My inner eye?”

“You will understand all, soon, Akilina,” Jordan said gently. “You will understand.”

That night, Halley and Eden slept a golden sleep, not waking once. All around them was benevolence. Jordan watched them, breathing in and out, breathing life.

Her feet were cold. The covers on the bed must have slipped sideways and left her bare feet exposed to the night air. Or maybe they’d left the window open too wide. She moved to get back under the covers, but it was no good – the covers must have slipped all the way off the bed. She shivered. In vain, she tried to snuggle into Sean for warmth. Something was in the way. What was it? It was hard. It was uncomfortable. She wanted to turn on her side, but couldn’t. Now her feet weren’t just cold – they were freezing. The ceiling of the house was leaking and ice-water was dripping on them – drip, drip, drip. With a muted growl, she tried to stir Sean, to make him give the covers back from his side of the bed. He was always stealing them, and the extra weight on his side made them slip off. But he wouldn’t move, not even when she shoved him with her elbow. He was cold too. Why didn’t he wake up?

The cold became so intense that it began to feel warm. No, it wasn’t warm. It was hot. It was like fire. The fire swept up her Achilles tendons, up her calves and shins. It leapt onto her kneecaps and burnt off her skin. Up and up it went, over her hipbones and across her belly. But it wasn’t until it kissed her throat with cold, thin lips that Halley began to rise into consciousness.

Her body felt peculiarly buoyant.
Like floating in bed, how strange
… She sucked in a breath and coughed out furiously – it wasn’t air she was breathing, it was water! She tried to breathe again, with the same result.
Drowning, I’m drowning! But… how…I was sleeping, we were in bed…

But she wasn’t sleeping, she wasn’t lying down in bed, she was sitting up.
Jesus!
She couldn’t move. She was tied down, a rope around her waist. And she was pinned – some dark round object sat heavily on her lap. Wildly, she struggled. The taste of the water was in her mouth, grit and bile and fear, and she couldn’t spit it out. She held her breath and instinctively fought to move upwards, shoving her numb hands against what she sat upon. Her head rose above the water line, into the remaining slice of air. She breathed in greedily, like it was the first time she’d ever done so. As she did, she became fully and terribly conscious.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

She was staring through the windscreen of the car, which was criss-crossed with fine lines – it had broken, but not shattered. Instantly, she remembered: the suspension bridge and the truck swerving into her lane; the moment of collision; the sensation of flying, bird-like, through the air.

She looked over at Sean – his chin was slumped onto his chest, but his height had kept his face clear of the water. “Sean!”
Oh Jesus, oh Sean…oh no!

There was blood on his face. She reached for him but when she took her hands from the seat, her head slid back under water. She shoved herself back up, coughing hard.

“Sean! Sean!” she shouted, trying to wake him.

He wasn’t moving, except for the blood that ran down his face through a gash in his forehead. He must have hit the windscreen. His eyes were shut, his skin, where it wasn’t bloody, was grey.
I can’t tell if he’s alive.

Using one hand to keep her head above water, she put the other to his chest, slipping it between the buttons of his shirt. He was so cold. But her hand rose slightly – he was still breathing. And the cut on his forehead was still bleeding – that meant he wasn’t dead, didn’t it? In the muffled silence of the car, she heard him take a slim labored breath.
Thank God
. The breath shuddered, stopped. Her hand on his chest lay still. An awful silence filled the car.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

Something inside her squirmed in delight.
Trance!
She pressed her hand down through the water onto the car seat, hard. “Shut up,” she said, “just shut up.” A shudder passed through the base of her skull. Even underwater, even in the doomed car, with death fluttering its cold wings about her, she remembered to stay vigilant: he still must be contained.

“We will be all right,” she said. Her words held the aura of gold about them; the tone of her voice was rich and melodic, a river-voice.

Taking her hand from Sean’s chest, she searched underwater for her seatbelt latch and clicked it open. It made no sound.
Hurry, got to hurry.
She checked Sean again; there was no sign of breathing.
In six minutes, he’ll be brain-damaged. Or dead!
Get the door open! Get him out!
The door handle slipped in her grasp. She got hold of it and pulled it hard upwards. The door wouldn’t open.
The pressure! The water pressure is too much. Got to let more water in, even it out.
She cranked the window open a slit.
Not too much water – not to the roof or he’ll drown.

She turned to Sean – he had begun to breathe again, with a thin whistling sound. He didn’t move. The breath came at irregular intervals, and was too shallow.

The water flowed into the car through the window, raising the level slowly.
Too slowly. He could stop breathing again.
Sucking in a full breath, she stopped her throat like she did when swimming underwater. Then she quickly opened the window the rest of the way. Water flooded the car furiously. The car filled to the roof, the air bubble sliding out through the window like a fat round fish.

Sean’s lungs would, even now, be filling with water. No, she thought, remembering her First Aid,
his throat will spasm and shut his airway, but only for a short while. Got to get him up. Not much time
. Instinctively, she pressed the timer button on her bright orange sportswatch – she had to know how much time was slipping by. The watch face lit up in the murky darkness.

Moving out from under the steering wheel, she quickly dragged herself through the water, over Sean’s immobile form. His seatbelt wouldn’t open. Anger gave her power. With a fast move, she unbuttoned the small knife from her pocket and cut the seat belt in half. She checked her watch: twenty seconds had passed.

The manual lock on his door lifted with reassuring ease. The door handle, though, wouldn’t budge. Growing desperate, she jerked it upwards. It snapped off.
What next!
She swung back to her side of the car but that door too was stuck fast. Forcing her movement to be slow, she gentled the handle upwards, as she would a reluctant horse into a horsebox. With huge relief, she felt a click. The door was going to open. She pushed at it, but it still wouldn’t budge.
Hell with gentle!
Flipping her body around, she slammed at the door with both feet, once, twice, three times. The door sprung open, swirling dirt from the river bed around in the water. A surprisingly pleasant sensation of shadow and darkness slid down her spine.

Grabbing at the collar of Sean’s shirt, she dragged him out.

The buoyancy of the water made him surprisingly light. Once free of the vehicle, she quickly looped her arm around his body under the arm pits, hugging him tightly to her. She checked her watch: forty-five seconds gone.

At the depths of the river bed, the water was black, too dark to see. She shoved her feet against the roof of the car, and followed the bubbles of her breath upwards, kicking her way toward the surface.

It was so very far to travel.

After a few seconds, the water began to change color. It became a dirty green, then aqua, and then almost clear. And then she was looking up, holding tightly to Sean, not letting him go, and she could see the light of a circular yellow object. It was surrounded by an aura of thin lines, shining through the topmost layer of water.
The sun!
With a powerful final kick, she burst through the surface, gasping deeply.

What relief she felt was short-lived – Sean was unconscious. His head lolled to one side. Without the underwater buoyancy, he trebled in weight. Keeping her grip, she dragged him, cursing aloud at the difficulty, towards the shore. “Hold on! You’re going to make it. I
won’t
let you go!” She spoke as if he could hear her.

The current had moved her close to the bank, and in only a few moments she was feeling the weedy river bed under her feet. The seconds raced by as she slipped on the weeds and loose mud, her boots sliding and Sean dropping back into the water. He was so heavy.
Help me…someone help me!
The urgency of her need gave her strength. With a final heave, she moved Sean onto the hard, slanting river bed. His head and chest rested above the water.

Quickly, she turned him on his side. She opened his airway, clearing his mouth. The grit of river water ran over her hand, and he reflexively vomited the contents of his stomach. She swept out his mouth again, fighting back her own vomit. His tongue felt lifeless. With a shove, she returned him to his back. Tilting his head back, she confirmed that his airway was clear.
Stay calm,
she told herself, as her heart pounded. Holding her ear near his nose, she listened for breath. No sound. She watched his chest – it didn’t rise.
Five breaths, then check for a pulse. No pulse!
“You are
not
leaving me!” she said. She checked her watch: two long minutes had gone by already.

Halley began the resuscitation, forcing Sean’s heart to pump, forcing her breath into his lungs.
One, two, three, four.
The silver bracelet banged back and forth against her wrist bone.
Breathe, please breathe
. She used the timer on her watch to time the chest compressions.

She worked, and while she did, she had a vision of a mountaintop, of eagles, of the color orange, and she focused her mind on it, was there, as her body pumped life back into Sean. “Come… come see it with me…” she whispered.

Halley sat up quickly to see whether Sean had begun breathing. She put her ear next to his nose and listened.
Nothing.
Her desire to see him awaken was overpowering. She looked at the thin skin of his eyelids. There was a quick darting movement of his eyes under the lids, like he was dreaming.

“Yes! Come back! Come back!”

A moment later, he was conscious, sitting halfway up, gagging and coughing. With a violent wrenching of his upper body, he vomited the rest of the river water, and coughed his lungs clear. It took several minutes. Halley supported him at his shoulders, sitting on her knees beside him. Through his cold wet shirt, she could feel the warmth of life returning. She took one hand to her mouth, and fought back her tears. He sat with his head between his knees for several minutes, half in and half out of the river.

“Thank God,” she whispered, looking upwards. “Thank God, you’re alive…”

“Thank
you,
” he said.

Gently, she helped rinse his face and upper chest. It was like a baptism. When they were done, they moved from the water onto the dry grass, Halley supporting him on her arm. They collapsed down on their backs next to one another, exhausted.

In a little while, Halley leaned up on one elbow and looked at Sean. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly. She ran a finger tenderly over the late-afternoon stubble on his cheeks. His reflexive smile made small apples in his cheeks, and she kissed each one. Unexpectedly, she began to giggle. The sound surprised her as much as the thought that had triggered it:
kicking open the car door was kind of fun
. She surrendered to the giggle, and felt it expand in her belly to a full-blown laugh.

Sean’s eyes opened. He looked at her in wonderment. Then he kissed her hard on the lips, and joined her in laughter.

The air took on a clearer quality, and for a moment, Halley let herself think of all the things that, together, they still would do.

“I knew you would do it. I knew you would save us.”

They heard a rustle of leaves. In the forest nearby, Halley saw a little girl watching them, dressed in the greens and browns of the woods. On one shoulder, the girl carried a tiny golden monkey, and on the other, an eagle. The monkey made a sound,
ch ch ch ch ch
, and the little girl giggled, as if they were sharing a great joke. The eagle screamed, as if in triumph, and the little girl covered her ears with a laugh, as she moved into the woods.

“Eden,” Halley said.

“It’s a bit like that, isn’t it?” Sean replied.

Halley looked at him quizzically. “Oh. Oh, yes. Like the Garden of Eden. That’s right.” Her hand brushed the edge of something soft. It was a horse blanket, monogrammed with the letter A.

“That’s lucky.”

“What?”

“I guess she forgot her blanket.”

They were wet and it was getting cold. They wrapped up in the blanket, their combined body heat quickly warming them.