Ancient Creatures of the Black Ponds on the World Voyages of the Destiny's Dreams

A gigantic bone stuck up from the black goo like something beckoning from beneath the surface.

It was the 1800s. Anya, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern, stopped breathing and her heart pounded.

Her thoughts raced. “The legends are true. It is them. Underneath. How many are there? What are they like?”

The stories carrying ancient wisdom awakened deep inside of Anya. They bubbled up from somewhere beyond time.

She could almost hear sounds coming from beneath the shiny dark surface of the seepage. It was neither liquid nor solid. The dark slime seemed almost as if it had its own life or energy.

“Stop paddling,” Anya called. “Don't get too close. You’ll get stuck. It will get you, too.”

The dry, broad plain around them stretched like open arms, welcoming and inviting them. Distant mountains peeked through the morning’s ocean mists. Sage perfumed the air and stung the nostrils with a clean, sharp, spicy scent.

It drifted deep into the mind, flowing and stirring memories from unknown places.

“How do I know this?” Anya asked herself. Images floated to the surface of her consciousness like dreams inherited from her long line of storytelling ancestors.

She spoke to the group in the boat. “I know what this is. My grandmother’s stories. Before time as we know it there were massive creatures on earth. Giant tigers with huge saber teeth. Towering hairy animals with long tusks. There was a dark pool of ooze that lured them and took them captive in its depths. They rest there now.”

Upturned faces gazed at Anya with mouths dropped open and eyes wide.

“Legends say that eleven thousand years ago, fifty thousand years ago, maybe one hundred thousand years ago, the earth was covered in ice. Creatures larger than a big ship lived here. Gigantic bears standing up as tall as ship masts. There were huge, hairy, slow-moving creatures with long claws. All kinds of monstrous lizards and snakes, too. The ancient animals stepped into the dark stuff seeping up and bubbling from the inside of the earth. They sank into the stickiness to lie beneath the midnight sludge.”

It was Anya’s first journey on the river that led inland from the ocean in the area called Los Angeles in the 1800s. She and a small group of others from their sailing ship the Destiny’s Dreams were on their world voyages. Now the wooden vessel with its three masts of square canvas sails bobbed at anchor in the bay.

Anya, Adelberto the First Mate, Isabella his wife, the woman known as Wind Reader, Akela from Hawaii, Luciana the mapmaker, Alfonse the Peruvian-French captain, and a few sailors stared at the glistening surface of the black mud seeping out of the ground in a series of ponds.

They were riding in the “Caballito de Tortoro” which means small boat. It was a traditional reed boat made in Peru like the ones from the big lake high in the Andes mountains.

Caballito’s bow was like a cougar’s head and the stern was shaped like a bear. Bundles of reeds from the Andes Mountain lake were wrapped together and strapped to make a lightweight water vessel. On her world voyages the Destiny’s Dreams sailed into places of ancient arts and wisdom.

When Captain Alfonse saw his first reed boat he knew he wanted one. He felt a vibration stir his body like a shiver. Now the Destiny’s Dreams carried the smaller Cabillito de Tortoro on the deck. The crew and passengers used it to go ashore when they anchored and to paddle up shallow, narrow waterways.

“Let’s see this bone of a giant creature.” One of the young sailors called out.

“Keep back,” she called. But it was too late.

“I’m alright. I want to see what this is.” A fifteen year old sailor spoke and leaped from the boat on to the ground. He walked over and stepped on the murky soot colored ground. It was Akela, from Hawaii. His name meant leader or guide. He joined the crew at the last port, after arriving on a voyage from the big island. Brave and bold, he was still learning caution was part of being a leader too.

He reached for the massive bone sticking up like an arm beckoning.

“I just need to see what this is.” His words faded.

“Shhhhllllluuup.” The black pool made a sticky, sucking sound.

“Oooohhh. Uuugggh.” Akela’s head whipped around, his arms waved, he lost his balance, and one leg disappeared up to the ankle into the midnight pool.

“Don’t move. We’ll get you. Stay still.” Anya’s voice held a tone of command. She was short and slight. She breathed deeply and hollered.

“You’ll sink beneath the black ooze if you move.”

“HHHHuuuuhh.” Akela gasped. His eyes rolled. He stared at Anya. His limbs froze.

“Quick,” Anya pointed. “Grab that branch.”

Adelberto climbed out of the boat and stood on a rocky ledge next to the river.

“Here.” He moved closer to Akela. One arm reached out holding the branch.

“Grab this.”

“I’ve almost got it. Just a little closer.” Akela leaned to stretch toward the branch.

“Shhhhuuuu…” There was a sucking noise and Akela’s foot sank deeper into the murky stew.

“Gggguuuug.” Bubbles gurgled around Akela’s foot and leg.

“Sh…sh…sh…” Wavelets of the dark stew rippled across the surface.

“I’ll get you.” Adelberto’s breathless voice was suddenly cut off. He stepped closer to Akela.

“SSsshhhhuuug.” The sticky stew surged around Adelberto’s leg and his foot disappeared.

“Stop. I mean it.” Anya’s voice cut through the air.

“I think I know what to do.” She grabbed a coil of rope in the Cabillito de Totoro.

Alfonse watched. “I know what you want to do.”

“Everyone. Grab paddles. Get ready to paddle like you never have before. Lives depend on it.”

The sailors and passengers braced themselves and held the paddles.

“Get ready to catch this,” Anya called.

Short and slight, but strong, hurled the coiled line toward Akela. It struck Adelberto and he grabbed it. Akela caught it with one hand and wrapped it around his arm.

“Now. Pull. Pull. Pull.” Alfonse and Anya hollered. Paddles dipped into the water and the group leaned all their weight into it.

“OOOOoooo.” Like a deep intake of breath, the dark brew of ooze gave way on the legs of the captives.

“More. Pull. Pull. Pull.” Anya’s words ended in a shriek.

“It’s working. Again. Now!”

“Wwwwhhhup.” The midnight pond gave up it’s newest victims.

Akela fell into Adelberto’s arms and the two stumbled through the sticky seepage toward the small boat.

Captain Alfonse’s hands on the lines dragged the two captives from the black ooze and back into the boat.

Later that night, Anya got her journal out and wrote the story down in her slanted script.

Many decades later, the faded journals from the Destiny’s Dreams written by the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern were found in an old sailor’s trunk in the attic of the keeper’s house for the Mystical Coast Lighthouse.

A ten-year-old girl named Emily read this story to her friends on a rainy day by the faint light coming through the attic window.

The antique lantern sitting nearby caught the window’s light and the etched designs on the blue glass sent indigo colored shadows onto the walls that moved and wavered.

In their imagination, the children thought they saw shapes like an old fashioned wooden sailing vessel, a reed boat with a bow like a cougar and a stern like a bear’s head, and shadowy figures against mists and ocean spray.

"Look. I think I see them now." One of the children pointed.

It was as if the stories and memories floated out of the journals and painted the walls with images.