After The Reckoning

The great thaw began and all of the village emerged from their thatched homes. Dwellings worse for wear after the long, slow darkening. The wintertide lasted much longer than before, and the town folk were eager to meet the new babes, now almost two years old; and also to find out who among them had passed. Some of the younger men were picking up brush and debris and assessing what repairs needed to be made.

Meager sunlight struggled through low-slung clouds, but to the gathering clan it meant all things—to come together as a group once again. To barter, gossip, and have fellowship. The scent of green- emerging from the forlorn earth-- and of cooking--wafted in the air. Laughter carried in the wind from one home to the next. Children squealed and ran in circles, women hugged and began relaying all that had happened during the void of connection.

In the center was the market. The men bartered and bantered there. Anything leftover from the long Hiddentimes might be of use to the other. A length of rope, a flint-rock, a meager jerky that no one had the appetite for anymore. It was all mulled over as though it were great treasure, admired, and pains taken to listen to the merits of the scant good. It was all they had left.

The old man lumbered slowly, the boy by his side, to the tables cobbled together with the wares. Some were displayed nicely—handmade dolls crafted over hours of conversation by the fire. Others strewn about loosely, a few knife sheaths crafted from animal leather, or cloth satchels with unknown contents to be explained by the vendor. 

The old man saw the rocks first. Three of them, and blinked. He thought his age and dim eyesight had betrayed him. However, it was the rocks of his grandfather’s childhood, exactly has his grandfather had described them. The striations, the size, the shape—almost the size of a robins egg. He thought they were a myth. He knew the rocks supposedly told the story of the othertimes, yet he was not sure how. He thought they had all been destroyed long ago.

The boy saw the rocks and reached for one, and before the grandfather could stop him, snatched one with delight. They were all colorful, roughly the same size and shape, and seemed to shimmer even in the dim light of the solstice. The clansman intervened and proceeded to peddle his wares, explaining that the rocks glimmered in the light of the fire, and could be heated and put under a pillow, or held in the hand after resting in the hearth to provide warmth at bedtime. But the old man was the only one still alive that knew the truth of the rocks. 

But how to explain to the boy?

The eclipse,

The annularity,

The Reckoning

And everything that followed.

The old man knew if you proffered the ‘rock’ , it gained more power. And with enough power, it would spring to life. And the more it was proferred, the more powerful it became. He knew it could be dormant for eons, and if the right conditions existed, it was dangerous.

Very dangerous. 

Many factors determined this:

The amount of time between awakenings of the rock.

The intent of the giver and recipient.

The time of year.

The prosperity or lack of the clan.

The communal knowledge of the clan.

The boy was transfixed with the shimmer and shape and immediately began to turn the rock over and over between his fingers, stopping only to rub his thumb into the smoothness of a well- worn groove. The old man wanted to stop him, to send the rock careening into the fog, but he could not. He was paralyzed by curiosity. Of the forbidden.

The old man could not hear the laughter anymore, or smell the loam, or feel the earth beneath his feet. He knew. And, he knew…. it was unstoppable.

The rock started to expand, and light started to spring from small cracks. The vendor was distracted by his kindred, whom he’d not seen since the wintertime; but the boy and the old man were riveted on the ever-growing apparition. It was no longer a rock, but an egg.

And from it sprang a hologram. Small in scope, no larger than the human heart. And it depicted a foreign clan, one they had never seen. And in particular, one clansman.

And he:

Woke very forlorn, and tired.

Looked at a small box he held in his hand, pressing his fingers quickly into it.

Waited for his quench from a small machine.

Opened a large box and pulled out an array of food.

Dressed in strange clothes

Rushed through a doorway.

Got into a carriage.

Many people were milling about, more than the man and the boy had ever seen.

All of them were in a rush.

Went to a tall building, which were no more.

Felt anxious,

Felt ‘not enough’, although there was not a word, in the

New Times, to describe this word.

Sat in a chair all day.

Went home.

Pressed his fingers into the small box in his hand again.

Ate from a small box.

Talked to no one.

Went to sleep for a short respite, restlessly; not as the

New Clan did for ‘The Intervals’.   

Woke, and did it again.

And again.

The old man finally snapped out of his reverie, and took the egg, the ‘otherworld’, from the small boy, collapsing its form back into a rock, and tossed it back into the bin.

   And he said, quietly, but urgently to the boy, “Do not speak of the rock, or of the Otherworld. Ever. The Otherworld causes much pain. Do you hear me, boy?”.

And the boy nodded in agreement.

The old man and the boy continued on and perused the other wares, well into afternoon; and after the sun started to set in the expanse of the eastern sky, joined their kin in the homeplace and settled in to enjoy a late evening fire and The Sustenance. The group ate and were in good spirits from the day. The children laughed and played on the floor with their new dolls, the woman sewed something intricate with new colorful thread from the market. The old man struggled to stay awake, wanting to mull the events of the day.

The boy was fast asleep, the second egg secretly tucked away in his pocket.