A Gift

I set out three weeks ago to make the journey to the Great Synagogue. This is the first time I've ever left home on my own, but the gods have called down from above for me to venture out. They came to me in a dream, and in my mother’s the very same night–a great treasure has been given to me and the people of my village, long as I claim it. I’ve almost made it, yet I feel as though I haven’t done enough to actually go in the old temple. Every boy wants to have the chance of adventure they hear of in folk tales–and I had that chance and it wasn’t as exciting as I imagined. I ran out of food a week ago; there wasn’t a god who spoke to me and gave me food, I had to get it myself. There was no companion I met on the way who tragically died, or I got to bring home with me. It was just a long journey on horseback, now on foot because I left my steed at the last village. It’s just that now I’ve made the journey without proving my worth as a warrior, or a hero, and I might not be prepared for what’s inside. So many questions have been swirling in my head the last few days, I can’t even think straight anymore! As the Synagogue finally comes into view I’m snapped out of my thoughts. I have to be ready now. Whether or not I think I am. My hands push against the doors, struggling to open the temple. I’ve only just pried open the heavy doors to the Synagogue, but the putrid air that’s been sitting in here for centuries is already burning my nose. It takes a lot of willpower to not run the other direction in order to breathe anything clean. “Hello?” I call out into the open chamber, my voice repeatedly ringing through the empty halls. I take a torch of the wall and light it, startled at a bright blue flame appearing instead of the normal fire I expected. I’m taking that as a sign the gods are with me, and I head in. 

The smell seems to stay away from me while basked in the light of the torch. I walk down a crumbling hallway and torches light the same blue as I pass them. My mind wanders back to the dream I had before I left my home, but I can’t remember if there was any instructions on how to receive the gift. Or where to. My footsteps echo as I walk, and each torch I pass has a brighter and brighter light. That’s when I see it. A cracked open door has blue glowing from it, filling the passageway I walk through. A strange noise also emits from this mysterious room–the fear that I won’t be prepared is attacking my senses, because what, could possibly, in any way, be behind this door? It opens for me as I approach and it’s contents are in no means what I expected. Some sort of feline is curled on a blue throne, a chandelier’s light glowing the same shade. The cat is a midnight blue, with what can only be described as glowing blue stars shimmered across its fur. This is it. This, is the gift? This is the gift?! A cat. The gods think a cat is going to help my village through the current drought and tyranny of our leader? I take a deep breath to steady my mind, and I close my eyes to help myself find peace. ‘Breathe, Conlan. The gods only mean to help you. Follow your faith and breathe,’ I repeatedly say to myself until I no longer want to abandon my entire belief system. Not knowing what else to do I walk up to the throne and examine the collar on the feline’s neck, “Oralia”. Closer up, I do recognize the beauty of the creature. A rather large cat, she’s half my size in length but slender. Her fur is fluffy and tufts of white sprout from the inside of them–her chest and stomach having the same white, though still shimmered with the glowing blue “stars” the rest of her coat has. I can’t stop myself from reaching and feeling her fur, which is the softest thing anyone could ever touch. But her eyes flutter open, gracefully and beautifully, and I see her eyes–a pale and glossed over blue. Peculiar, not only have the gods given me the most unusual cat I’ve ever seen, but she’s blind. She uncurls and stands, yawning and stretching her back before taking a sitting position. Though she can’t see me I know she’s looking at me. Looking through my body and into my soul. “Worthy,” she seems to say in the blink she gives me. 

“Oralia,” I speak out, almost a whisper. The name swims in my head and I scoop her up in my arms, somehow not falling out of my arms with her size. She begins to purr and I sit on the throne–it’s as if someone's telling me what I need to do. And I close my eyes.

Conlan Thatcher

Beloved son and brother

1607-1626

Marjorie Thatcher holds the hand of her two living children Catherine and Tristam as they stand in a cemetery. It’s been five years since Conlan left to the Great Synagogue in order to retrieve a gift for the people. Today his family holds a funeral and marks an empty grave with a tombstone, because it’s clear he will not be returning at this point. Amelia Fernsby, Colan’s former wife-to-be, stands nearby. She hasn’t married yet, and although she’s still young she probably won’t. Conlan was the love of her life sp she doesn’t want to, but she’s also the unwed mother to a four year-old little girl. Amelia gave birth to her exactly nine months after Conlan left–she named her Oralia Thatcher, giving the girl her father’s last name. Shortly after realising she was pregnant, Amelia’s father kicked her out and she moved in with Marjorie. She gave birth in their house, and despite having no midwife Amelia claims it was almost painless–the process was quick as well, and Oralia didn’t cry at all when she was born. When Marjorie asked her what she wanted to name the child, for some reason she was insistent on Oralia–despite having the name Lillian Thatcher picked out for weeks. Amelia said she knew what to call her as soon as she saw the little girl’s face. Now a toddler, the girl has been surprisingly healthy her entire life. Besides being born blind, Oralia hasn’t even gotten a cold. Amelia and the Thatcher family have always been grateful for that, and her health makes up for the oddity of her midnight blue hair. Amelia joins hands with young Tristam and lets Oralia sit in front of the tombstone. She whisper’s “worthy”, too quiet for anyone else to hear, and kisses her father’s tombstone. 

A week later a garden of marigolds has grown and sprouted around the empty grave–full grown earlier than flowers should be.

When Oralia is just seven, an outbreak of disease spreads throughout the cattle in her village, so her mother sends her over to the neighbours’ with food as an attempt to help during hard times. She asked to bottle feed some of the calves that weren’t sick yet.

The cattle then thrive and an abundance of healthy offspring are seen during the next breeding season.

At 15, Oralia falls in love. She meets a young man at the market. And then while horseback riding. Next thing you know they’re 17 and telling her parents they’re getting married. The hard part was telling his father. He was the tyrant of their kingdom, and therefore their village. The young prince snuck out to meet up with Oralia, doing so ever since the first day he ran into her. The king was less than happy at the news of his son marrying a commoner, screaming at who wanted to be a happy couple–until suddenly the king wasn’t shouting anymore, he was clutching at his chest and not making a noise. The royal physician declared him dead minutes later. Despite his father’s death, Prince Christopher was glad to turn his title in for King Christopher Knight. And Oralia became Queen Consort Oralia Thatcher–being allowed to keep her last name as a sentiment to the father she never met. As she gets older Oralia realises she has great healing powers, and becomes known for curing the “incurable”--no one she can’t heal besides her own sight. People visit from all across the realm to ask for her help. The kingdom’s wealth and power grows, and the people rejoice their rulers. As the years go by Oralia becomes restless. She wants to go to the Great Synagogue, the place of her father’s death. But she knows she can’t leave yet.

At 40, Oralia and her husband still rule. They had two kids, both boys. The elder just 18 and the youngest 4. The children are kind-hearted and like their mother have never been ill. The entire kingdom is confident in Lewis’s ability to be a good and just king, the matter becoming relative as Christopher’s health declines. He’s gotten very sick, coughing up blood and not being able to eat more then one bite a day. Try as she might, Oralia can’t fix him. Usually with a touch of her fingers, a kiss on the forehead, or a bite of a muffin she made will cure the ill. But nothing she can do has helped her husband. So they wait for his impending death.

At 42, Oralia spends her time helping her oldest son with his duties and taking care of her youngest child Marcel. She still longs to journey out and find anything left that’ll tell her what happened to her father. A little voice in the back of her head tells her that she won’t return, so she waits until Marcel is old enough to not need her. 

Now she’s 56, both her boys are grown and at the age where their mother just annoys them. Despite her age Oralia is still strong and healthy, and she knows she is able to make the journey to the Great Synagogue. She leaves in the night, slightly reluctant to leave her family. But she knows she has to go, has to know what secrets are held their. It’s been on her mind her entire life and she will figure it out.

The doors to the Synagogue are once again shut, and like her father so many years before she’s overwhelmed by the smell of decay and rot. Unlike her father, she has no reason to light a candle because it will not help her see–despite that the candles light on their own as she passes, and if anyone was watching they’d see that Oralia herself was glowing the same blue. She absentmindedly runs her fingertips along the wall, feeling the heat from the torches as she walks through the empty halls. It’s as if something is pulling her along, telling her where to walk, where to go, but she wants to take her time. An entire lifetime was spent waiting for answers, but she feels that when she finds them her life will be over.

The very last room her father went into sits ajar, and Oralia enters with a smile on her face. A cat sits on a throne with a skeleton, blinking at the old woman who entered. Neither creature can see the other, but they are seeing each other’s souls. Reaching out to pet the cat’s head, the woman whisper’s her own name, “Oralia.”.