Rosa Mundi by Gerald R. Stanek (Excerpt)

PROLOGUE

Sunlight beamed in through the window, illuminating a slowly drifting universe of dust specks that otherwise would have remained entirely invisible. Margarethe watched them pass, these tiny motes and mites. Most were falling, to be ground indistinguishably into the dirt floor, but some were carried upward through the light and beyond. Margarethe thought how haphazard it was; their fate determined by the whim of those within the cabin, whose slightest movements begot the miniature gales that drove the specks this way or that. Outside the air was still. Before he crossed over, Brother Matthäus had insisted on an east-facing window—to invite the Holy Spirit, he said. It had made for a cold winter, but with it open on a morning such as this, casting its golden shaft into the dark room, bringing with it happy birdsong and the smell of wet pine, it did almost feel like a sacred visitation.

A bluebird landed on the sill and sat twittering as if it had been dispatched with a message and was now certain of having located its intended recipient. Margarethe returned its sidewise gaze, and wondered what purpose it served—that all of God’s creatures spoke different tongues.

There was a knock at the door; Tobias opened it. The light shone on his face. She noticed how grey his hair had gone in the last month; quite a rapid change, but then their father had gone grey early, before either of them were born. He looked gaunt, she thought—well, they all did—yet there was a tremendous vigor about him, an uncanny radiance.

“Good morning, Brother Anton,” he said.

The light from the doorway met the brighter strip from the window and formed a perfect cross on the floor; Margarethe smiled. Of course this must have happened every time the window and door were open together on a sunny morning, but she had never noticed it before. That it had come to her attention on this day, just before their departure, did not seem entirely inconsequential, and so she allowed it to lift her spirits, if ever so slightly.

Anton set his rucksack on the ground, leaned his axe against the wall, then ducked his head and stepped into the dark room. Sister Katharina followed in the wake of her husband’s broad back, hiking the hem of her dress over the rough bark of the threshold. Margarethe gave Katharina a nod. She smiled back, but avoided her eyes, Margarethe thought. Something had changed. Was she, who had always been so in favor of it, now anxious about their journey?

Brother Lorenz appeared in the doorway; his eagerness was obvious.

“All ready, friends?” he asked.

“As ready as we can be,” Anton said. “There is much I would bring, but I only have two hands with which to carry.”

“Well you won’t need this,” Lorenz said, taking hold of Anton’s axe, as if to toss it aside. Anton gripped it firmly.

“If you think I am going deeper into this wood without an axe, you are mistaken.”

Neither would let it go until Tobias came between them, smiling as only he could; that look of calm, joyous, unflagging faith he turned on them all when they let doubt darken their eyes or dampen their voices.

“If you would like to carry this burden into the new life, you are certainly free to do so,” he said. “But I assure you, Anton, where we are going you will not be needing your axe.”

“But…”

He took the tool gently from Anton’s hands and set it back against the wall. “Our days in the wilderness are at an end, brother.”

“Well what about my chisels?”

Tobias closed his eyes and stood very still, with his head cocked ever so slightly to one side, as if listening. Margarethe could not quite get used to this odd behavior in her sibling, though she had to admit, he had changed a great deal these past months. Perhaps, she reflected, she had known him too long. The others had accepted it readily enough. It was one of the reasons they were willing to leave their crude homes and follow him.

“I am told to remind you, Brother Anton,” he said after a few moments, “that you will always be needed in the New Galilee, with or without your chisels. You may bring them if you wish.”

All Anton’s bewilderment passed and he said decisively, “Good. I will bring them.”

While the men continued to debate the future utility of various ‘old life’ things, Katharina took Margarethe aside toward the window.

“Look, how beautiful,” she said. Little low clouds, shapeless phantoms of the cool night’s moisture, were lingering between the treetops, slowly floating up and dissipating.

“Ah, yes, that is lovely,” Margarethe agreed.

“Like babes in their nightshirts climbing into their mothers’ arms,” Katharina said.

It was such a strange thing for her to say, Margarethe thought. The clouds didn’t look like that at all. Katharina was rather pale in the cheeks. She looked a bit bloated and unsteady.

“Are you sure you are well enough for the journey?” she asked quietly.

Katharina seemed surprised, looked away, then returned her gaze with the warm smile they had all come to know.

“What a strange thing to ask, sister. I am not unwell. But you, are you sure you are fully recovered?”

“Oh yes, I am stronger than ever. It is truly miraculous.”

“You could be carried,” Katharina persisted, “Anton could fashion a litter.”

“You are so kind to think of it, Katharina, but I believe I can reach the New Galilee under my own power.”

“Of course. I only meant…”

“Besides, when we arrive at our destination, we will all be made whole,” Margarethe said, repeating what they had heard from Brother Matthäus time and again, and now from Tobias. “But you…” she whispered, “perhaps you are in need of such a device?”

Katharina shook her head. There was commotion behind them, others arriving at the door, and Margarethe went to greet Sister Renia and Brother Wernher. She let herself be drawn into the continuing discussion of what was needed and what was not, whether the weather would hold and the further consulting of Spirit, but she kept her eye on Sister Katharina, who had moved further into the corner where the golden titles of Tobias’ precious books shone back at her from the corner. Margarethe knew them by heart: Tetrabiblos, Summa Theologiae, Traité de l’amour de Dieu, Mysterium Magnum, The City of God, The Threefold Life of Man, Le Sommaire Philosophique, Astronomia Magna, Rudolphine Tables. She watched Katharina gingerly touch the gilt leather with her fingertips. Beside these on the plank shelf were a few quills, a bottle of ink, and his daybook, open. These also she touched, lingered over—too familiarly, Margarethe thought. What was she doing, reading it? No, it was too dim for that, and surely she would not invade his privacy that way. Then Margarethe saw that he’d left it lying there, out in the open, the strange clockwork Brother Matthäus had given him, that mystery she herself had seen only a few times before, and felt sure none of the others knew of, just as Tobias had not known of it until Matthäus had shown it to him, and how it had been hidden there all along, almost in plain sight. It was an odd little mechanism that seemed to her like a jewel, very finely worked, a marvel of golden discs or rings that rotated round one another. Each section was engraved with strange symbols, and the trick, he said, was to turn the rings in such a way as to align these uncanny markings, to cajole them into revealing their secrets. When she had asked Tobias what language they were he said he did not know, and she had said ‘then what is the use of it?’, and he assured her it was the key to the New Life. The language was not so important because Brother Matthäus had provided him with a cypher, and anyway the markings were mainly numbers. Then she asked him where it had come from, and he had replied it was a gift from God. She had never heard anyone else talk of it, and yet here was Sister Katharina absently fingering it as though it were nothing more than some child’s whirligig—as if she had seen it before, Margarethe thought—and she was just about to discreetly draw her brother’s attention to the way Katharina was twiddling with it when Brother Hermann stuck his head in at the door.

“Everyone is ready, brother.”

“Good. Good,” Tobias pronounced, “Today we begin, my friends. The Great Day is at hand! Let us be on our way. Tell them I will be there shortly.”

Sister Renia and Brother Wernher picked up their bundles and left. Tobias went toward Katharina, stepping so quickly and moving in so close she could not have evaded him if she had tried.

“Oh, Sister Katharina, it is finally here!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly as he reached one arm around her, snatched up the golden marvel and slipped it into his pocket. “Are you not overcome with joy?”

She did not answer. She would not look at him, Margarethe noticed, while she was checking the ties on her bundle of belongings.

“Come, Katharina,” Anton said, “Everyone is waiting.”

“Yes.”

Her husband went back outside, Brother Tobias shouldered his pack, but Katharina hesitated.

“Will you not be taking these?” she asked, picking up the ink and quills and offering them, still not meeting his eyes.

“I will have no need of them.”

“But what about your books, surely you mean to take your books with you on our…pilgrimage. They would be no burden if each of us carried but one.”

“These also we have no need of, for all Knowledge is freely available through prayer. Yet they are yours if you would have them.”

“But…I cannot read Latin, as you well know.”

The bluebird flew in through the window and landed silently on the cross of sunlight.

“Then come,” he said, “Let the birds have them.”

He turned and walked out into the sunshine. Sister Katharina set the ink and quills back down, quickly grabbed the daybook, shoved it into her satchel, and followed—only then realizing Margarethe was still there, watching her. Margarethe smiled at her, placed a hand gently between her shoulders, and guided her out the door.

Chapter One

Through the center of the world a great tree grows. It flowers and roots at both ends. Its limbs cannot be counted. It moves like a river. All the lives, and all the visions of those that live flow from its trunk. The lives flash out briefly and return, but the visions fall, as seedpods fall, and are carried about the cosmos on the breath of God, to root and flower where they may. With patience, courage, and understanding, one may climb this central tree, move through its rings and phases, even flit about its branches like a bird. And like a bird, one might find oneself carrying the seed of a new world to an unforeseen destination—unforeseen by some, yet expected by others. For there is always a broader view, and a higher viewer.

This is why Tani had a picture in her mind of the house from above: the two additions with their dark and shimmering solar shingles coming off the north side, the green palm fronds waving over the atrium, the lapped terra cotta tiles laid like waves across the wide roof of the original building—what they now called the ‘sitting’ room. She could see the way the old adobe wall wrapped its arms around the whole property, sitting like a crown on the hill, and the way the hill rose up from the neighborhood, and the neighborhood grew up out of the town.

This higher view had come through the bird. Tani had tracked its progress from bush to bush, tree to tree, street to street, its little blue head so perfectly round she wanted to cup it in her palm like a newborn’s. She had been with it, had felt the weightless joy of being swept up into the free air by a warm gust, of gliding over the hillside and house, and slipping back to the safety of a thirsty old pine. Together she and the bird had watched the blazing sunset from on high. When the blanket of clouds had changed from orange to red to indigo, and the Dog Star had showed itself, the bird swooped down and perched on one of the many statues in the yard.

I was with them, Tani and the bird, though they did not see me. I too have a higher view. I am a weaver. Not of cloth, though I have made cloth, nor of tales, though it falls to me to tell this one, but of Light. Or you might say I am a potter; a coaxer of forms. There is a word for it in the old tongue. They have given it to me several times, but it slips through and lingers out of reach. They forget that I never heard those ancient words in my ear. They forget what it’s like to live in the middles, groping for solid things. They forget how elusive the gifts are. So I cannot repeat the word that means what they want me to be, what I am meant to fulfill. To those who inform me it is something profound, beyond my understanding, almost sanctified. In practice it is like…re-coiling or re-stitching that which passes from above to below, from without to within, attuning that which repeats eternally to its original intent. In my own mind I think—I am a weaver—but the word they gave me has more than one meaning. It also means ‘to untangle’, ‘to match’, ‘to trace,’ as well as ‘to hold’ and ‘to abide within’, and sometimes, ‘memory’, but I am not a speaker of memory; I am not a keeper of wisdom. Tani might say I am a guide, but I do not lead or counsel; I guide as a fence guides. I am to teach the proper way—the way of the water and the Light. The way forward.

I did not choose this gift; it chose me. My grandmother’s grandmother is also a weaver, a trainer of the waters of the middle world. My grandchild’s grandchild too. Some of us have been seers or healers, interpreters of omens and dreams, or go-betweens, but mainly we are weavers. It is in the line. You might say ‘in the blood’, but that is a thin understanding. The learned men talk of the tiny twisting strands, yes, but it is more than they can know as yet. Every line is not a bloodline. The body is not a cause. It is said every seventh generation is given the gift of the ancestors complete and is expected to improve upon it. That is why we have a special connection, Tani and I. Nadanda-éni is the old word—’seven mother’. We are like echoes, like harmony in music. Sometimes she is aware of me, sometimes not, but my note is always within her, it is part of her. We hold the same space; we share certain subtle structures. My knowledge is in her. We grow together. That is why she knew my voice, why she could hear me almost from the beginning, because it is her voice too. This is fortunate, because even though the work does not require the lower to be aware of what the higher is doing, it is helpful.

But this was early on, and as I said, Tani did not see me, nor did she hear me, not clearly, not quite yet, though I could hear her every thought, spoken or unspoken. I felt her love of the bird, her delight in the sunset, her wonder at the stars.

“You have reached your destination,” declared the car as it parked, beeping rhythmically and backing into perfect alignment with the curb, the other cars, the incline of the pavement. Accompanied as it was by blinking red lights, the whole process seemed like a celebration to Tani, a self-congratulatory expression of perfect execution. It broke her from her dozy vacancy. She couldn’t have said where she had been, what thoughts, if any, had been passing through her mind, or if she had been asleep; the bird was already forgotten, only the image of the house from above lingered in her mind. The rustle of the palms high over its roof, swaying against the darkening sky made her happy; but why, and how could she be? Surely happiness was inappropriate, given the circumstances. She had only been to this house a few times, how could it feel like home? Yet she was in complete agreement with the car. The cool breeze itself was reason enough for celebration, for gratitude, and this was her last stop of the day, but…there was something more than that, some unaccountable expectation or excitement, a sense that she had been directed to this house for some deeper purpose, unknown, unsought, perhaps unwanted, yet preordained and inevitable. She gathered herself and followed the soft curves of the wall around the corner to the gate. 

As she entered the grounds she saw two figures in front of her moving slowly toward the front door, their progress marked by the watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses standing sentry along the meandering walk, or sitting tucked under trees or beside benches like so many garden gnomes. Tani did not know any of them by name, but even the fierce one with eight arms was familiar now, and felt welcoming, as did the ever-present pang of the handpan that seemed to emanate from the bones of the building itself, as if it were signaling to its mother, or calling out for a mate. She had never seen or heard one of these drums before coming to this house. It looked like a flying saucer and sounded like someone speaking through water. It calmed her and pulled her in, despite the hollow poignancy of its tone. She suspected this almost painful quality came from the player, Bennett, as much as from the instrument. He was the grandson. Every time she came he was sitting there cross-legged on the same thick pillow (blue velvet with golden cording and tassels) with the drum in his lap, as though he had been playing the whole time she had been away. His fingers leapt like they were touching a hot pot lid, or as if the drum itself were flinging them away, and his eyes, like those of the garden gods, would follow her when she crossed to the hallway that led to his grandmother’s bedroom. The other day when she’d passed through the sitting room someone had been speaking to him; he just kept pinging away at the steel, didn’t answer them, wouldn’t even look at them, yet still gave her that stare as she came and went, as if he thought she were making his grandmother ill. He never smiled, he never wept, and his hands never stopped moving.

The visitors ahead of her had stopped completely.

“Aren’t you magnificent,” the man was saying. He was bent over, peering at something distinctly light-colored in the darker bushes. Tani quickly caught up and saw there was a rabbit sitting not ten feet from them. It seemed perfectly content to munch what it was munching, despite an audience being in attendance. Its ears were lowered, its manner calm.

“You honor me with your presence, Mrs. Bunny,” the man went on, “Or is it mister? What a beautiful coat you are wearing this evening.”

“How sweet,” Tani said quietly.

“Yes,” he agreed, without looking at her, keeping still so as not to frighten the rabbit. “We are friends already, Mrs. Bunny and I, though we have not been properly introduced. I am Charanpal,” he said, ostensibly to the rabbit. The rabbit did not reply, but suddenly pricked its ears, then darted away. With the aid of his cane, the man straightened and finally turned to face her.

“Good evening. I don’t believe we have met before,” he observed. He was older than her, rather plump. His long grey hair—so thick and stiff that it would not lay down complacently on his neck—was swept back from his face, which was warm, brown, fleshy, and deeply creased. His companion smiled, but said nothing.

“I’m Tani,” she said, smiling broadly. She liked Charanpal already, for the way he’d spoken to the rabbit, and his quiet friend she just loved, as one does those who are destined to become forever friends. She was taller, rather thin and wispy, very fair, and radiantly beautiful. Her hair was so white as to be almost luminous in the dark. She clung to his shoulder as if using him for support.

“I’m with hospice,” Tani explained.

“Ah,” he said, the three of them beginning to walk again, “And what led you to your profession, Tani, if you don’t mind my asking?” 

“Well, I…” she hesitated. She didn’t want to get into it, the experience that had made her want to work with the dying; she didn’t like to make it all about her. “I just want those who are going through this process to see that it is only a process, a transition, not an ending. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”

“You are sure about that, are you?” Charanpal quizzed, while his tall companion nodded knowingly at her.

“Yes,” she replied, smiling, but kept herself from adding, “I have seen it.” She had found that it was best not to go there, at least not right away. Those who needed to know more about transitioning would ask in their own time.

Charanpal stopped again, beside a pale blue statue that was placed close to the walkway, and lit from below by one of the few garden lights that still functioned. It was a male figure standing in a giant lotus blossom, playing a flute. His head was tipped slightly to one side, and topped by an elaborate headdress.

“Ah, Krishna,” Charanpal said, bringing his hands together and bowing, the cane clasped between them. “It is wonderful to see you after so long.” He turned and quietly said to Tani, as if he didn’t want the statue to hear: “I myself presented this one to Orina—oh, many, many years ago, as a little house warming present.” His voice took on the wistful tone she was used to encountering in her job. “I wanted her to have something to remember me by. Not that I didn’t visit her there. At her…palace by the sea. But I was not ready to give up on the mountains.”

“You have known her a long time, then?”

“Only forever,” he replied, brushing some dust off the statue. “I was not aware that he had made the move, and still graced her garden. What a delightful surprise,” he declared, his voice became strong and cheerful again.

“You’re not as blue as you once were, my good fellow,” he said to Krishna, “I’m afraid the sun and time have taken their toll on us all.” Then he lowered his voice again to speak confidentially to Tani. “You can see what the color used to be,” he said, pointing to a protected spot on the underside of Krishna’s forearm where the blue was deeper, with a hint of purple. “All things infinite are perceived as blue, you see.”

“Oh really? I never knew that.”

“By the inner eye, yes. The energy crossing over from the higher planes. Or violet, but that is rarer. Do you see this here, this circle? Do you know what this is?”

Tani looked to Charanpal’s friend for some hint, but she only smiled. It was clear she absolutely doted on him, she was so attentive to his every word, so supportive and loving.

“Isn’t that part of his crown?”

“No, no, no, this part,” he said, pointing again to the area around his head, “here, and here, you see these little sharp shapes, this is not meant to be a physical thing, this is a representation of energy.”

“So…it’s supposed to be like, his aura?”

“Well, no. It is a corona. Similar. You could think of it like that. But it is the Corona of Appearance. When the Divine moves from the higher realms into the mundane world, there is a disturbance. There is refraction, and sublimation. Plasma-like substances are discharged.”

“Huh. I never realized,” Tani said, as if she did now understand the terms he was using, because admitting she was lost by his talk seemed like asking for trouble.

“Oh yes—this is physics,” he insisted emphatically, “And this is not really a crown on his head.”

“No?”

“Well, it may be. To some. Let them think so. But we know better, you and I.”

“We do?”

“Of course.”

He moved on. Tani hastily bowed to Krishna and followed. Their presence had piqued Mrs. Bunny’s interest; her pale form was keeping pace with them, off to the left of the path. In the bushes to the right, a bird left twigs twitching in its wake as it led them toward the house.

“You have spent time with Orina, then?” he asked.

“Yes. I mean a little. I’m just an aide, I…”

“I see.”

“But she seems in good spirits, you know, considering. I think if you can keep from being afraid, it’s much easier.”

“Oh I’m sure. So she has been talking. Making last minute confessions, no doubt,” he mused.

“Well I haven’t…I mean, patients do say a lot of off-the-wall things, but…even if she had, you know, we’re not supposed to…”

“No, of course not. I don’t suppose my name has come up. I mean in regards to any bequests. Charanpal Acharya.”

“Bequests?”

“You know, heirlooms she might want to pass on.”

“You mean like a keepsake?”

“Exactly so. A keepsake.”

“Well she hasn’t said anything to me. I mean, she barely knows I’m there.”

“I see.”

“You should ask her son.”

“Oh, I will.”

A few yards further on, Tani’s new friend paused once more and bowed to another statue; a seated female with an even more elaborate headdress than Krishna, although there seemed to be no halo, or Corona of Appearance, as Charanpal had put it.

“The White Tara,” he observed, “Or Tara of the Seven Eyes. Do you see them on her hands and feet? And the third eye in the forehead. It is said these additional eyes allow her to see all the suffering in the world, but of course that is only what they tell those who cannot comprehend. Why would she need more eyes to see the suffering of the world? This we can all see with only two, it is everywhere. No, these chakras are what she uses to heal the suffering of the world, for as you know, the centers are engines of creation.”

“Right,” she agreed, having long ago learned that it is better to listen and smile pleasantly than to engage in these situations. Grieving people often had a need to talk, about everything, not just their loved ones. It was up to her to show them as much consideration, as much love, as possible. She had heard a lot of strange ideas on many different subjects since she took on this work, and she was careful to be polite, and never hurry those she came into contact with. But why this man assumed she would know all about these things, she couldn’t imagine—just because she said she knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel? Or did he know she didn’t know, and he was only humoring her as a kindness? Was he trying to school her in some mysteries he thought she should know, given her vocation?

“Namo Guru Arya Tara Ye,” Charanpal chanted, bowing again to Tara of the Seven Eyes. Charanpal’s companion, leaning over his shoulder, shared a look with Tani, a little roll of the eyes, which seemed to say “this is why we are always late”; it made Tani chuckle. Charanpal shot her a questioning glance, but didn’t seem to realize what was passing between the two, and kept right on with his discourse.

“And you see what a fine job they have done sculpting the subtle appendage,” he continued, pointing to the headdress. “So intricate, the sprays, like filigree. It gives one a fair impression, I think, a dim reflection of truth.”

“Uh-huh,” Tani agreed again, hoping to encourage progress toward the door, but two steps later:

“Oh, such a prolific gardenia! Thank you for the gift of your fragrance.” Then to Tani, he said quietly, “Don’t worry, I realize our friends cannot always hear in the way we hear, or understand the words we use. I am not crazy.”

“Oh, I didn’t think that.”

“Because I know the intent of encouragement and kindness will be received.”

“Yes, I agree. I think, you know, energy is…conveyed. Somehow.”

“We are of like mind, then.”

And so they proceeded, bowing and blessing their way to the entry of his old friend’s home. This house made Tani feel more out of her depth every time she came. She had only just begun to realize that the patient, Orina Baladin, was someone, someone known around the country, or maybe the world, or at least had been at one time. Tani had looked her up after her first visit and learned that she had run a retreat center that various celebrities had frequented; she gave workshops on living from the soul and opening the heart, and that sort of thing. She’d had followers. Perhaps Charanpal was one of them. But death comes to the famous as well, even to the enlightened.

Tani patiently resigned herself to Charanpal’s salutations, enjoying the evening coolness and the watery sound of the handpan while he greeted a lizard, a prickly pear, the eight-armed goddess, and a plastic frog.

Beyond the dancing palms, the stars were faintly visible. She stared at them, and for a moment they seemed to move, as a group, all falling toward her. The initial twinge of anxiety was followed by that weird feeling which came to her now occasionally, since her illness. At first she had assumed it was an inner ear issue, because it always began with dizziness, but with each recurrence the peculiarity of the sensation had increased. More and more it gave her the feeling of being thinned or stretched out of herself, as if she were reaching for something, as if she were trying to recall someone else’s memories. She tried to welcome it when she was alone, when she could lean into the power of it, for it often provided a strong intuition or recognition of something, some new understanding. But with all Charanpal’s chattering, the something remained out of reach.

By the door, beneath a spotlight, up on a pedestal and so face to face with each visitor, sat a simply carved stone Buddha. She or he was nearly life-sized, but like a child, the head large for the body, the face youthful and big-eyed. Before this Charanpal and his radiant friend stood a long while. They were silent. She smiled. Tears dripped down his round brown cheeks.

Tani respectfully stayed behind on the step, waiting for the weird lifting, déjà vu sensation to fade, waiting for them to finish their communion with the spirit of the statue, expecting to be told in reverential tones, all about this particular Buddha’s work, or at least why it was holding a ball in its hand, or perhaps that it was not a ball at all but a bubble or a portal to another realm or something. She felt like Charanpal were about to tell her what she was really doing there, to account for her unaccountable excitement, to reveal her deeper purpose. But he had practically forgotten her, so intent was he on the little Buddha. He reached out and rested his hand on one stone shoulder, and said:

“Jizō, will your work never be done?”

Then he sighed, lifted his cane, and used its ferrule to depress the doorbell. For Tani, the dizziness and the moment passed.

At first, you see, she didn’t realize they were connected, the dream and the house, although they had entered her life at the same time. The alignment was strong, but she didn’t always catch the things that I sent her way. She had not quite completed the bridge—the subtle appendage, as this Charanpal had called it, the part of the body that is without flesh, without bone, without blood, that only grows when used, that links the spirit world and this waking world, and keeps one in contact with the line—so she did not know about it yet, in her daylight mind. At first she didn’t even remember that a dream had been sent, because the house was not really in the dream, only the stars. That was what hung about her—the sound of the stars, the ancient ones calling out to her across the eons. Of course in the dream there had been no streetlights, the air was clear, the stars were near enough to touch, and they spoke to her in a language she had forgotten and learned and lost again. Even so, when she came to the house and saw the palms and the stars and the gods in the yard, she felt blessed to be there, and something—a strand of Time, a tendril of Light—leapt across that gap where the bridge was not yet fully woven, and sparked in the one world a faint memory of something she had lived in the other.

 

“Rosa Mundi” by Gerald R. Stanek will be available June 30th, 2020.