eighteen #2
“No, but it sounds like you might end up in prison if you don’t get some sleep.”
Ramaron laughed. “Sleep? Never heard of it. Don’t want any Dreamwalkers visiting…” He cut himself off. “Rahara, you said?”
Mira nodded.
“What did she look like? Did she have a form?”
Mira did her best to recall the long, dark hair and the two dotted sapphires where the eyes should have been.
At first, that was all she recalled. Then, the more she thought about it, the more she envisioned layered robes, pale, white skin, and a heart-shaped face that was more enigmatically feminine than what Mira was used to seeing on Yahzen.
“I’m also not entirely convinced she was conversing in Julah. Which would make sense if she were walking from the First Epoch. Could she have made me understand the Harmony?”
Ramaron rubbed his stubble before snapping his fingers to get Chayo’s attention. As his dog danced around his owner’s feet, Ramaron said, “I’ve only heard the Harmony a few times.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Why was he so pale? As pale as Rahara. With hair as dark as hers, and a face that was…
Rather enigmatically feminine for a modern-day man.
“You know it when you hear it,” Ramaron said, after swallowing the lump in his throat. “It makes itself known to you. You just… you just understand it, yeah?”
“When was the last time you heard it?”
His gaze leveled on her. Ramaron was no longer the uncle who understood most of what she went through as a slight outcast with famous parents in their society. He looks more like my father than ever. That was a solid look of warning.
“What?” she squeaked.
Both of his nostrils flared as he considered whether to tell her.
“When was the last time?”
Finally, his shoulders sagged as she rubbed the top of his dog’s head. “Last night.”
Mira’s mouth dropped.
“It’s been a long while.” Suddenly, Mira understood why this man looked a thousand years older.
Why he looked like he hadn’t slept in five months.
Why he didn’t want to talk about it. He heard the Harmony last night…
A once-in-a-lifetime event for most julah, but she already knew that her parents and Ramaron were particularly chosen by the Void to hear its fervent messages.
It was why her father became the youngest High Priest in recorded history, and why her mother was the Daughter of the Void, as the media liked to call her.
It must be exhausting. Terrifying. Maybe beautiful, in its own way. “Always shakes me to my soul.”
“What did it say?” Mira asked in a hushed whisper. “Was it the Void?”
“I have no idea who it is,” Ramaron said. “Your mother and father keep their guesses to themselves. Your mother, especially, is secretive about her communications with the Void.”
“What did it say, though?”
“You must not tell your mother.”
“Of course not!”
Ramaron glanced toward his door. “The Harmony is not words and sounds. It is a forceful idea planted into your mind. It’s feelings, emotions, and your eyes stapled open against your will. It forces you to see a piece of the cosmos most mortals are not allowed to peer into.”
“Whoa.”
“Yes. And I don’t think it’s a secret that my first round with it in a long while has happened so soon after I’ve arrived on Arrah. Your mother’s right. We’re close to a thin veil. Given that I’m staying at the nearest Temple…”
“Well, what idea did it put into your mind? Are you saying you can’t explain it with mortal words?” Besides, wasn’t Julah descended from the Harmony? A direct linguistic child? How could the Harmony be nothing but shapes and ideas passed from one person to another?
“I just have this unshakable feeling that I’m not to let you too far out of my sight.”
Something chilled Mira’s skin. “Both of us?”
“It’s always been just your mother before. This unnerving urge to protect her with the full force of my strength. Like we’ve been bound together since before we were born. Has she told you… anything about what happened the morning of their wedding?”
He must have meant Mira’s parents. “No.”
“Ah. Then, it’s not my place. But that was the day I protected your mother with every fiber of my being. She wouldn’t have been here today if the Void had never spoken to me.” He looked right at her again. “You wouldn’t have been born.”
My mother was pregnant with me when they got married… That was all Mira knew. Joiya hadn’t been showing and, according to her, hadn’t even told Nerilis that she was pregnant until they returned from their honeymoon. She wanted to be sure. Because of all the false starts…
“So, you protected me that day, too?”
“Yes. And haven’t I been watching after you ever since you were a child?”
“I always thought it was because you loved my parents.”
“You being their child means I love you as well. That you’re a tolerable kid is a bonus.”
It was a joke, but neither of them cracked a smile.
“You and her… you’re the same. You are from the same source. That is what I protect.”
Mira wasn’t sure what he meant. It was like a confession he didn’t even realize he spoke.
When she closed her eyes, Chayo returning to her seat to whine for attention, Mira saw the Dreamwalker again.
She was an effervescent presence shrouded in the bright yet calming blue of the Temple, the mortal world, and the very needs and desires rapscallions like her clung to so as to experience life to the fullest.
Even when we’re sleeping with people we shouldn’t be.
Ebony hair. Sapphire eyes. An organic confidence that shook the earth with every step.
She opened her eyes again. While Mira wasn’t a soul-seer, she did the next best thing to opening her blinded inner eye.
Rahara sat across from her, a snake coiled around her throat.
“Mira.”
She squeezed her eyes shut again, releasing the hallucination into the ether. I see Rahara, but I hear Ramaron. When she allowed herself to return to the present, it was the same man who had given her refuge when the world was too cruel and had helped her bury a dead body.
“You’re the same people,” she shot back. “So, I’m meant to be protected by you both.”
While Ramaron stared at her, Mira picked up her tea and stared at her reflection. It did not escape her that she was the spitting image of her mother, despite Joiya being petite.
I wonder if we’re meant to protect anyone… And Mira wondered if the Harmony would ever properly speak to her.
Considering how much trouble she liked to get in? Anytime now.