I thought it might be fun to revisit one of the early drafts of Journey of Awakening. This is the third and final part of Back to the Beginning. If you'd like to read part one and part two you'll find them here:
This chapter has always been special to me. It's one of the few I wrote from personal experience. It was hard to cut it, but it didn't go with the version my editor and I chose. But at least now you can read it. ; )
CHAPTER 3
One, two, three, four.
Sarah counted stripes on the worn pastel carpet, sighed and stopped to eye a
print on the wall. Pointillism. The designer had probably meant well but
failed. Subdued hues and framed artwork could do little to calm anyone waiting
to know if a loved one would live or die and nothing could beat the absurdity
of standing in a hallway admiring a peaceful country scene while her
grandfather fought for his life yards away.
Frustrated, she entered the ICU waiting room. Several people
looked up and Sarah realized they hoped and dreaded she was a doctor with news;
their faces a strange mix of expectation and relief. Then, as eyes met hers,
relief flooded into the uncanny identification of kinship. She was one of them.
A feeling of solidarity pervaded the small space where the community of
sufferers shared in a universal truth. Small children watched a cartoon on a
television suspended from the ceiling in one corner. Adults napped, lying
across several of the heavily padded chairs. An ice chest and sleeping bags
crowded other corner. Someone was in for the long haul.
Unsure what to do, Sarah glanced around, her gaze stopping
at a little silver box on a nearby wall.
“What room?”
Sarah turned to the brown eyes of a young woman, obviously
pregnant, who sat on the edge of a couch.
“Excuse me?” Sarah said.
“Do you know which room?”
“No, they just brought him in. The doctor told me to wait here.”
The woman nodded. “Then push either button. Tell them who
you want to see and don’t let them forget you’re here.”
Sarah smiled her thanks, stepped up to the box and pushed
the left button.
“Yes?” The voice was hollow, distant.
“I’m here to see William Kenneth.”
“What room?” The woman sounded bored.
“I don’t know. They just brought him in.”
“Just a minute.”
The intercom went dead and then buzzed back to life moments
later.
“They’re still working on him. The doctor will come out
when he’s finished.”
Working? Finished? What the hell did that mean? As she
debated whether to find a seat or continue her pacing, the door opened. A
collective breath caught in the room.
“William Kenneth, any family?” A young man dressed head to
toe in blue scrubs walked in.
“I am——” Sarah began then stepped forward. “I’m his
granddaughter.”
The man peered at her for a moment and lowered his voice to
a whisper “I’m Dr. Mosely.” He laid a hand on her shoulder and led her to an
empty section of the room. “Your grandfather has had a heart attack. He’s
stable now.”
“W——when can I——?”
“Visiting hours are over.” Then his gaze softened, “but you
can see him for a moment.”
The doctor led her back into the hallway then paused before
large double doors and pushed a steel circle on the wall.
Sarah walked into an alien world of hissing ventilators and
the aggressive smell of strong chemicals.
Darkened rooms contrasted sharply
with the bright hallways. Sarah kept her eyes averted from glass partitions
that seemed more like museum cases than hospital rooms. Printed curtains hung
from railings on the ceiling, offering the patients a measure of privacy.
Before reaching the end of the corridor, the doctor paused
and indicated a room with a nod of his head. William lay on a bed, tubes
growing from his hospital gown. An IV dripped steadily as monitors beeped and
tiny lights flickered. His index finger glowed red. Sarah traced the line to a
machine. Ninety-two
point nine.
The doctor glanced at a chart. “He’s stable. We’re running
tests now. We’ll know more in a few hours.” He looked up. “Don’t stay too
long.”
For several seconds she stood rooted to the spot, unable to
assimilate that the man on the bed was the grandfather she’d known all her
life. As if pulled inward by unseen forces, his body had shrunk almost beyond
recognition. Sarah’s eyes brimmed over. Until this moment, William’s mortality
hadn’t registered. He was her grandfather, the constant in her life; but now he
seemed so frail, so small. She fought panic. He couldn’t leave her; she
couldn’t face the world alone. Sarah rebelled against her selfish thought but
it fought back; she needed him; his voice, his presence, his strength.
“Papa?” her voice seemed small against the machines’
persistence. “Papa, don’t you leave me.” She trailed a hand along the creases
of his face and leaned closer to lay her head on his shoulder.
“Sarah?” The voice was little more than a whisper.
She straightened, grasping a hand that had taken on the
appearance of a dragonfly’s wing, the skin translucent over veins and tendons. “I’m
right here, Papa.”
“You’ll go to Anatar?” His voice remained a whisper.
“Papa, I won’t leave you. I’ll look after you. I’ll get a
job and——”
A thin smile touched William’s mouth. “Some things are out
of our control. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. I’m satisfied. The next
task is yours alone.”
“You rest now; we’ll talk about this more when you’re
better.”
“No darling....” His eyes flickered. “Now is the time to
decide. You wear the pendant. You can feel its power. Please, say you’ll take
it back.”
Heat bloomed through her chest as Ilydearta glowed, faint
light seeping through the thin fabric of her blouse.
A cool breaker washed over
her troubled mind, leaving in its wake a soft narcotic calm and the blurred
image of pebbles whispering on a distant shore.
“Yes, Papa, I’ll go to Anatar. I’ll take the stone. I’ll
finish what you began.” Sarah closed her eyes to ward away an involuntary
shiver. “But I don’t know how to get there.” This
is crazy. “And——if I do, where do I leave it?”
The pressure of his hand increased. “No, Sarah, you can’t
leave it. You must find the other two stones. The three stones must be reunited
or Anatar will fall into darkness.”
Sarah fought to still a groan. Darkness?
Like in a Tolkien novel? These things don’t happen! She could
feel the insistent pressure of his hand and something else; his strength ebbing
away like tame rain sucked in by thirsty soil. She panicked, seeking to grasp
at reality in a world of beating lines, blinking lights and hisses.
“But Papa.
I don’t even know how to get there. Do I have to go back to Germany, find
the lake?”
Through a misting of tears, Sarah watched peace settle over
William’s features.
“The sea, my love...the sea... is your mother.” He labored
a faltering breath. “The sky, Sarah.”
William smiled and closed his eyes. The trace in the
monitor peaked once and flattened into a straight line along the center of the
screen as the beep became a single note.
Sarah gazed at her grandfather, his outline softening
through a blur of tears. “I love you the moon, Papa.” She kissed his forehead
and stepped out of the room passing the nurses who rushed to William’s bedside.
CHAPTER 4
Sarah stepped into the darkened entry and deposited her
keys in the glass dish, the echoing sound unfamiliar. Until this moment, the
house had seemed to hold its breath waiting for William’s return, now it felt
sad, resigned to a permanent loss.
As her silent footsteps glided over the wooden floors,
Sarah felt bitterness curdle in her throat. They had always made a game of
walking without noise and trying to sneak up on each other, whether it was in
the house, the beach or the woods. She now recognized it as part of her
training. Sarah’s hand reached to her chest and Ilydearta underneath her
blouse, its beat insistent, prodding, urging. She turned to the worn banister. Upstairs,
she paused before her grandfather’s open door.
Few had attended William’s funeral: students who read his
obituary in the local paper, the man at the grocery store, a neighbor or two.
Sarah hadn’t cared. She watched as though witnessing a play. Nothing seemed
real.
Her heart beat
with the voice in her head. He’s gone. He’s gone.
Now what? Get a job? The house was paid for but bank statements told her there
was little money left. Her grandfather had wanted her to go to a place called
Anatar; a place better left in a fairy tale. Did he expect her to know how to
get there? Well she didn’t. The analytic part of her brain told her the anger she
felt was part of the grief process. It didn’t help. Surely this was a dream;
she’d wake up soon and tell her grandfather about it while they shared breakfast.
She realized she was pacing up and down the hallway. Her steps echoed in the
enclosed space, a lonely hollow sound. How was she going to get through this?
One arm outstretched, Sarah leaned against the wall, her legs weak. Warmth
bloomed in her chest and for a moment, Ilydearta glowed incandescent. William
and all the love and security he represented receded into the misty background
of her mind and hovered there, an indistinct memory of something beautiful in
her life. She was filled with longing, a craving for something, but for what
she didn’t know. And then a blurred image played like a flickering old film
against her closed eyelids: pebbles whispering on a distant shore.
The beach. That was it, the house was too small. I
need space... Air. Sarah walked down the stairs and through the
garden toward the ocean. The beach was her sanctuary, the place she would go
when she wanted to be alone. Mist swirled in her wake then slowed, gathering
and resettling to eddy at the feet of tall eucalyptus, their fragrance and
shape adding to her dreamlike feeling. She breathed in the pungent scent as a
breeze rose and a shiver ran through the leaves.
Before long, she could hear the breakers grinding against
the shore where she’d spent many joyful afternoons, alone and with her
grandfather. The beach was isolated, well away from any tourist attraction and
now, well after sunset, it was deserted.
The breeze made her skin feel alive. The soft hairs downing
her arms tingled as if charged with static. Sarah narrowed her eyes as the
recurring imagine of a pebbly beach filled her mind. But not this beach.
Removing her shoes, she walked to the foam crust left by
the last wave. The sea, my love...the sea... is your
mother.
Cool sand sent shivers through her body. Sarah gazed up at
the night sky where thousands of stars throbbed in unison with the pendant
lying against her heart. The sky, Sarah. A seagull cried overhead. The salt-spray mixed with her
tears until it was as if the ocean cried with her.
Sarah gazed across the inky depths. The waves fell in one
long splash, like a wall falling, a wall of dark stone capped in fluffy snow.
She regarded the dark water, felt her heart surge with the tide. Come.
One foot moved forward then another. Cold water eddied
around her calves as she took another step, freedom chasing away the last
remnants of fear. The pebbles in her mind’s shore tinkled like seashell wind
chimes as she stripped off her clothes. Ilydearta catching the starlight, Sarah
dove into the ocean.
****
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into what might have been. Let me know if you have any questions about what would have happened next. ; )
