Into the Daylight

It was the hottest day of the year, approximately six days after Sua passed her fourteenth Sun celebration. Her mentor, Nieve, the last oracle left in their tiny, insulated village, informed her to prepare for this day the night before. The hottest day of the year marked the day Sua would travel to the spirit realm alone and journey back while disrupting the spirits there as little as possible, a trial all apprentice oracles faced before their abilities would fully blossom.

After years of training and meditative rituals, Sua knew exactly how easy it was to upset the spirits in that realm. The presence of the living created something of a disturbance in the air. Nieve believed they could smell the difference, the odor given off by the blood still pumping through their veins both irresistible and infuriating to the dead who could no longer breathe or bleed. Whatever the reason may be, spirits did not appreciate the living to dally in their realm, therefore Sua needed to be quick and effective on her journey.

Sua looked herself over in the mirror, amazed at how much only a few years changed her. Her eyes were the same amber as always, her skin as deep brown as it always was in the hotter months. Her hair was curly and long, longer than it ever was, and impractical as it may be, she let it fall freely down her back. She was taller now, her body growing sinewy during the physical training that began when she was eleven Suns old. An oracle need not only hone their mind and spirit, but their body, for all three worked in tandem to keep her safe wherever she might go. She felt strong and confident in all three, although her heart was doing a nervous thump, thump, thump that she couldn’t quite ignore.

Completing her spirit journey and becoming an oracle meant Sua would leave her village for at least ten Suns and travel across the sea, offering her gifts to the people of the world and honing her practice. An aspiration she held dear since she was a young girl now so close to coming true. It filled her with an excitable anxiety, her nerves unwilling to calm and her heart only increasing its steady drumbeat.

Only when her mother appeared in the mirror’s reflection, smiling at her from the doorway, did Sua’s heart start to calm. She smiled and twirled to face her mother, leaning gratefully into her soothing embrace.

“Do not fret, my daughter,” said her mother. She pressed a kiss to Sua’s forehead. “I know you will accomplish exactly what you are meant to.”

“Thank you, Mama. Your words will carry me through.”

“You will carry yourself through, dear heart. You and only you.”

***

“Remember how it goes?” Nieve asked, lighting the last of the ceremonial incense, filling the room with the woody scent of cedar.

Sua nodded in affirmation, her eyes closed and her body relaxed, inhaling the soothing scent of the cedar that always carried her into her meditative state. She could not bear to lose focus now. Her heart was back to pounding once more, and she wondered if Nieve could hear it for how tremendously it roared.

“It is time, my girl,” said Nieve. “I will be here however long it may take. Fare well on your journey.”

Sua took one last deep breath, and as she drifted into the spirit realm, she felt Nieve’s calloused palm rest over the back of her hand, and heard her whisper, “Do not stray from your path.”

***

Upon waking in the spirit realm, Sua stood in a purple grove of lupine and iris. This was always where she ended up, her ‘ground’ in the spirit realm, so to speak. Nieve once told her that standing in this place was the closest to safe as one could ever truly be in the spirit realm. The scent of the flowers, although different for everyone, supposedly covered up one’s scent, masking their presence from the spirits for a short time. Once she stepped out of that grove, it would be unfamiliar ground, and her presence a beacon to all spirits around.

Hesitant but unwilling to linger on it, she took the first step. Then the second. Then the third, until she was marching forward on a steady path, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

Do not stray from the path. This was the most well known rule of the spirit realm. The living, simply put, did not belong in the realm of the dead. Spirits disliked their presence, yes, but more than that, the realm itself detested it. Each spirit, living or dead, had its own path, and to stray from it meant… well, Sua wasn’t quite sure what it actually meant. Nieve never told her exactly what would happen, perhaps because she did not know herself. Chaos, despair, heartache. Sua could only assume.

What Sua did know is that she would not grow hungry or tired in the spirit realm, so long as she maintained that path. This was the only solidified advice Nieve gave her on the matter, and that alone was all she needed. At the end of her journey, she would be exhausted, but now, she needed all the strength she could get.

After what felt like hours walking on the same unchanging path, the spirit realm began to shift and change. It was subtle, at first, then became more apparent. Mysterious, unrecognizable wildflowers began to pop up along her path, emitting a dizzying scent. The grass that grew neatly around the path was long and shimmering cerulean, swaying in an imperceptible wind. Wide, towering trees with broad, luminous leaves created a canopy overhead, shrouding her path in a murky light.

This was all fine to Sua. A spirit trick, meant to unnerve her. It would not work, she decided, carrying on even as the wind bit right through her, chilling her down to the core.

She continued on stubbornly down the path, refusing to stop or turn the other way even when sharp brambles began to bleed onto the path itself, cutting her ankles and snagging on her pants and shoes. The wounds were superficial and only stung when she acknowledged them, so forward she trod.

Only when she heard the distant sound of laughter, children’s laughter, tinkling like bells, did Sua find herself compelled to stop. The sound may not have struck her so were it not identical to her own voice only a few short years ago. There was no question. It was her.

No, it’s a trick, she thought. A spirit’s game meant to lead you astray.

Yet something tickled at her, a sharp, distasteful feeling in the back of her mind. She needed to go there, to herself, to help her. It nagged at her in a nasty way, cutting at her like the brambles, until she could resist it no longer. Off the path she went, barely cognizant of the decision as she made it.

Sua met little resistance as she went, easily wading through the tall blue grass into the darkness of the forest until she came out the other side. She stood in a clearing of wildflowers upon the shore of a crystalline lake, and standing there before her was herself, only three Suns younger than now. She looked softer, less defined, and her hair was barely past her shoulders. This version of Sua was from before she began her physical training, before she began truly preparing for her journey through the spirit realm.

For a moment, Sua thought that her younger self might not be able to see her, as she continued running around and laughing on the shore of the lake. That is, until younger Sua turned to face her older self and cast a wicked smile before diving headfirst into the lake.

“Wait!” Sua called, running toward the lake and stopping just short of the shoreline.

As she looked down on her reflection, she saw her younger self once more.

“What’s wrong, Sua? You’re not still the same scared girl you were three Suns ago, are you? Dive into the water,” her young reflection went on, goading her.

“No,” Sua said firmly. “You won’t trick me anymore.”

“No? But you’re already here. You’re in the spirit realm! This is everything you’ve worked for. Why not dive right in?”

“I won’t. I’m going back to the path right now.”

She turned on her heel to walk away and stopped short, all the breath leaving her now unearthly body. Before her was the same sight: the field of wildflowers and the lake, perfectly mirrored to the scene behind her. She turned around and around in every direction and found it the same no matter what. Her reflection laughed and it echoed all around her.

“You’re trapped, Sua,” the reflection hissed, its voice distorted from the one that once mimicked her own. “You always have been, you always will be.”

“No!” Sua screamed, forgetting herself for a moment.

She took a steadying breath, trying with all her might to fight the woozy feeling seeping through her, coating all her bones. It wanted to drag her down with it, to pull her into the water, but she couldn’t let it.

“No,” Sua repeated, standing as firmly as she could. “You are not me. Just a reflection of me, when I was younger, foolish, and scared.”

“And what are you now?” the reflection teased.

Sua dared glance down at it, and its features were distorted, caught in twinkling ripples of light on the water.

“I am not you,” she said, “and I will not go in the water.”

She turned away from the reflection, the spirit, whatever it may be, and ran in the opposite direction, back the way she came, hoping with all her might that this would work. She held her breath as she leapt with all her might, and landed squarely on the surface of the mirrored lake. She did not allow herself a moment to stop and revel in it, but kept running, her feet splashing water up all around her as she tread across the crystal lake until she was stumbling back into the tall, blue grass. Finally, Sua felt solid ground beneath her feet. She ran and ran until she was back on her path, heaving and sweaty as if it were any other training day back in her own realm.

It seemed too soon to feel relief, but Sua let it course through her anyway. She made a mistake by wandering off the path, but she could recover. After regaining her bearings, Sua continued straight along her path, not allowing any sight, sound, or scent to pull her attention away, no matter how they poked and prodded at her. The spirits in this realm were restless, and they would do anything to lead her astray. She knew better now.

For what was perhaps hours or maybe only minutes, Sua walked, determined to get out of the spirit realm and conclude her journey. She felt sleep slinking into her bones, and the beginnings of hunger gnawing at her stomach, reawakened by her unexpected detour. Things might have gone almost horribly wrong, but further deterrence was something Sua could not allow. On and on she pressed.

When she came upon the end of her path, it was obvious not by the look of it, or the feeling in the air, but by the small child, only seven Suns old, sitting at its very rough, literal end, drawing oracle signs in the tawny dirt.

With a pang, Sua recognized this child too. Once more, she saw her younger self in front of her, but this time was different.

The child smiled up at her and outstretched a hand, in which it was holding a sizable, jagged rock. It did not speak, or laugh, or break eye contact with her, but she knew exactly what it wanted her to do. What she had to do.

Sua took a deep breath and raised the rock into the air before swinging it down, meeting the child’s skull with a sickening, definitive crack.

***

She came back to her realm in a daze, and immediately it was clear that something was horribly wrong. Nieve was nowhere to be found, and although the incense was completely out, it smelled strongly of smoke. Thick, rancid smoke. No.

Sua jumped to her feet and stumbled out into the hazy night, the night sky obscured by the massive plumes of black smoke curling into the air. Faintly, she heard the pained and horrified screams and cries of her people, but noted that they sounded far away enough that they must have evacuated to the hills.

For a moment, Sua could only stare in shock at the destruction surrounding her. Her village, completely ravaged. Her people, traumatized and displaced. She knew in her heart that the cause of this catastrophe could only be her. Her actions in the spirit realm were wrong, not only in straying off the path, but in killing her younger self. She knew the moment she did it, shame unspooling thick inside her gut.

Not only was her oracle ceremony incomplete, but her village was being destroyed, all because she was too afraid to face the past and let it go. To be her truest self. The journey was not only about coming into her full potential as an oracle, but as herself. Instead of accepting who she truly was, from the start all the way until now, she ran away. She ran and she killed.

I have to go back.

Stumbling but determined, Sua ran back to the ceremony site and reconstructed it as quickly as possible without missing any steps. She replaced the used ceremonial incense with fresh bundles and lit each one before sitting in the center of them once more, and forced herself to take even, relaxing breaths.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

***

Reawakening in the spirit realm, Sua was not surprised but pained to see it was burning the same way. Even her precious grove was starting to become singed, but the fire crept no farther than the edges of her path, although it licked out into the air across it and stank with the same acrid scent as it did in her village.

Although she was terribly afraid, exhausted, and hungry, Sua marched forward through the horrible pillars of flames. All the way, she heard the agonized screams and cries of her people, the crackling of flames as they devoured homes and trees crashed to the ground. Many times, Sua swore she heard Nieve or her mother calling her name. The voices alternated, pained and begging one moment, vile and scathing the next.

They screamed for help, then called her a failure, a disgrace, a shame to her people. They cried and cried, Sua, help us! Why are you letting us die? Please don’t leave us like this.

She carried on miserably, drenched in sweat and stained by smoke on every inch of her body. There was no way to tell how much time passed in the spirit realm, but to Sua, it felt like days and days. Her feet and legs were scratched by the vicious brambles, now knee high and crawling all over the path. Fire nipped at her from every direction, but never fully breached the path itself.

By the time she was coming to the end, Sua was on her hands and knees, bloodied from crawling but too weak and weary to stand any longer. She crawled until she reached the end of her path, coming face to face with the child once more.

Again, the child offered her the jagged rock, staring at her with wide, knowing eyes. Her eyes. She took the rock and lifted it above her head, then threw it as hard as she could into the still crackling fire. For a few moments, she coughed and wheezed, but finally found the strength to get on her feet.

Slowly, painfully, she shuffled toward her younger self, and took the confused, hurting little boy into her arms. The boy she once was, before her true self became clear. The boy she was afraid to be, but had to let go. His arms wrapped around her middle, and they both sobbed in one another’s embrace. Behind them, the fire snuffed out.

***

The village recovered slowly but surely, its people injured but somehow still jovial as they repaired and rebuilt their ruined homes. Her people believed in the safety of each other, not in walls or any other man-made construct.

Sua felt she had let them down, had violated that safety and trust, yet not one of them held disdain in their hearts for her. If they did, none showed it. Instead, they welcomed her home from her ceremony with open arms, and Nieve proudly announced her status as a true oracle to everyone, bragging about her one and only apprentice carrying on her legacy.

Her journey away from home would begin in no less than a month from then, but she could not go right away, not with her home in shambles and her people left to rebuild it. First, she would help right here at home, where she always belonged. The Sun burned hot and unforgiving overhead, but Sua did not shy away, coming out into the daylight.