Dawn Treader of the Mystical Coast



Part I. The Dawn Treader Arrives at the Lighthouse in 1898

Years later, on the other side of the world, Elsie stood on the deck of the ship, watching dawn rise over the waves.

She pictured the woman traveler named Aurora, the dawn treader and time walker, who was surrounded by tiny winking lights.

Elsie was twelve years old then, growing up at the remote lighthouse station, with her older brothers.

It was 1898 on the Mystical Coast, during midsummer's eve solstice celebrations.

The pleasant, mild weather, when spring meets summer, caressed the lighthouse station with salty sea air.

There was something odd about the old woman with her flowing hair framing an elfin face lit by shiny eyes.

She wore a long scarf trailing like a cape, with designs that looked like they were from ancient Egypt.

When asked, she said, "I wove it myself, after I learned how to do it on a trip."

Her long mane of tresses was silvery pale like the waves of whitecaps on the sea. She arrived at the lighthouse station in 1898 on the Mystical Coast.

Draped around her neck for personal adornment were strings made of dried vines or seaweed, tied into complex, artistic knots.

"The knots are a language. I make these myself. A long time ago I learned how to do it in the mountains of South America. It is how they kept records there long ago."

Her stories were fantastical, yet she had a way of making listeners suspend their disbelief.

It was a partly sunny day, with a cool breeze, when she arrived at the Mystical Coast Lighthouse and Victorian Keeper's House. It sat high on the bluffs above the sea.

Everyone marveled at her unique attire. It was like something inspired by ancient civilizations. She claimed she made her own clothing and adornments, inspired by what she had seen.

The lighthouse keeper and his family whispered to each other, "Was she trying to pretend she was thousands of years old?"

But she had a gift of drawing others to her, attracted by her kind voice, attentive listening, and gentle, nonjudgemental responses.

They found themselves confiding in her as if she was an old friend.

"Where did you learn such wisdom?" When they asked her, she smiled and shrugged.

It was almost as if she came out of nowhere. She kept her background a secret.

She floated into the beach from the ship known as a supplies tender by riding on the surfboat, rowed by the sailors. The tall-masted clipper ship was anchored offshore.

In a low, sing song voice, she informed the lighthouse keeper, Joseph, that she had once lived in the area with her husband.

Joseph noticed she moved with fluid grace, unusual for someone her age, and although wrinkled and weathered, her face had a glow.

She said their simple abode in the wilderness, next to the nearby lake, was long ago washed away in a flood. Her husband was away traveling right now.

It was her wish to stay a few days at the lighthouse station, in whatever humble shelter they might be able to provide, while she indulged in nostalgia and reminiscences.

On the first day, she sat quietly next to the pond, where the lily pads lined the edges. Then she spent the night in one of the small shacks on the banks of the creek, below the bluff where the lighthouse sat.

They could see smoke curling from the chimney. She was very self sufficient, and even cooked her own meal of fresh fish, fragrant herbs, and foraged greens in a stew in the fireplace.

Part II. The Dawn Treader-]Time Walker's Tale of Romance

On the next evening, she and the lighthouse keeper's family enjoyed a meal of fried cornmeal flatbread with berries, dried salmon, and fresh vegetables from the kitchen garden, cooked over the wood-burning Franklin stove.

Afterwards, they gathered in the Victorian parlor overlooking the sea.

Elsie, the twelve year old lighthouse keeper's daughter, could not control her curiousity any longer.

She had long brown braids and wore a dark blue apron over her flowered pinafore. Her lively eyes and expressive face were enthusiastic and curious about the stranger visiting the remote location.

"What made you want to come back here to visit? Was it very different when you lived here?

Where did you go when you left? What is your husband like?"

The old woman smiled and pushed her long, wavy white mane to one side with a slender hand.

Her luminous eyes looked steadily into the flames of the wood-burning stove for awhile.

The parlor was silent and everyone breathed lightly, waiting.

Finally, the woman spoke in a dreamy voice, with her eyes gleaming.

"Let me tell you a story about a woman and her true love. They were known as the time travelers of the Mystical Coast.

Their story is full of mythical events and poetic beauty. They journeyed through time together.

The young woman lived in a cottage by the lake of the lily pads you have below the bluffs here.

One day she began to feel a tremor, and a vision came to her when she thought about the future.

The dream sneaked up on her, like something from behind her back, and she believed in it, because she wanted a lasting love so much.

Images and sensations streamed through her with a tingling sensation.

Eons later, she would recall when she discovered the ethereal nature of lasting, fulfilling, loving connections, the limiting aspect of temporary entertainments though pleasing, and the wisdom from the light of her own true self.

When she was moving through the eons with him, her dream, the time traveler, the eras flashed by in the shimmering winks of light.

She believed he was the answer because she wanted to believe this, and she ignored the warning signs.

She thought the beckoning time traveler at her side was forever, but his real identity was not revealed until later.

He appeared to her to be all she ever wanted.

But her inner self was only partially formed and she did not realize that she was not ready yet for this.

When he handed her the packet of notes written on ancient papyrus, then left in the twilight, beckoning to her with his hand, she watched him fade into the paths of time. She yearned to go with him.

Then, invisible to her, his impish eyes sparkled. A rascal, he was breaking the rules of those living in the time travel universe by sharing their hidden secrets with her. 

But he was so taken with her uniqueness and rarity that he felt compelled to bring her into his world, sharing the dimensions of it with her, and becoming her time travel partner.

Where else could there be someone like her, thinking and questioning the established limits the way she did?

 Nowhere else had someone imagined the realms beyond the basic senses.

She was so gifted, with a radiance that pulled him through time to her. They must meet.

Surely she would be the solution to the yearnings and longings that plagued him, and the darkness and coldness he lived with inside his heart.

If not, he would abandon her like the other possibilities he had tested.

What happened to her after that was not his concern.

He had no idea of the selfishness and immaturity of his inner self that would limit the success of his ventures.

It began one morning at rosy dawn's light when she rose and roamed early with her mystical, dark-furred, four-legged creature at her side.

She saw the mist from the sapphire lake in the forest swirling, and taking the form of a human being. The figure became a man with an aura like winking stars around him.

He seemed to clearly already know her. In the morning light, they conversed by the lake, understanding each other like old friends. 

Then they parted with promises to meet again the next dawn.

But he was just beyond a veil of mist that separated them.

In the late Spring air of the forest, they met every day as the sun crept over the horizon.

He presented a plan. It was not beyond her imaginings. She listened and envisioned it. Her dreams would come true.

She would find what she sought.

When he gave her the missing directions for journeys through time, so she could join him permanently in his dimension, through the ripples of time, she couldn’t wait.

She built the time machine like a boat with sails, so the winds of time would push her vessel through the oceans of eras.

More than any desire, something undefined drew her to the past in another place, another world. What she sought would be there.

First, the graceful, slender boat with its unique powers would sail down the river. 

Then it would turn off on a fork and then on a stream and finally float down a creek to be enfolded in the mountains.

The long days of the summer solstice at midsummer would allow time to reach the time-travel portal on the map before sundown.

Her mystical creature, the enchanted hybrid of the forest, dark of fur, bright of eye and loyal of heart, would be at her side as always.

By lantern light, she wrote through the night, making notes of the directions for time travel, drawing diagrams.

The date, time, portal, set of the sails, height of the risen moon, location of the constellations of stars, all had to be exact. She recalculated and checked the charts she drew.

The ancient philosophers’ texts, that she translated from Latin, had been part of the key.

Calendars and constellation charts from antiquity were combined with journals by those who had already tried.

They were thought by much of the population to be without sensible minds, but she thought they were visionaries.

Now she knew the truth about the spirals of time, natural like Fibonacci spirals. Most others thought time moved in a straight, linear dimension.

In the circles and wormholes winding through eras, the sails would be set so the vessel would glide silently on winds of time over the streaming paths.

But one rule must be followed, or there would be no return for the vessel.

No matter what, the travelers must not change so much as a butterfly’s flight. Even something that small cause the ripples of time to change course.

Then eras would alter, erasing their own present time, so there could be no return to it.

Now, sailing on the stream into the hidden portal, she and her mystical creature saw him in the distance on the shore.

Her light vessel breached the time travel portal, touched sand on the other side, and she leaped with her creature onto the shore of the next dimension.

He reached out for her, and his grasp met her hand, no longer separated by a misty veil. They were together, at last, in the same dimension.

Now she would be part of the foggy eons of time, and they would share the same dimension, leaving the old senses behind.

The swirling time enveloped them. She looked into the time traveler's eyes.

He, of the eons of time, anticipated the restlessness inside to ease, now that he had what he thought he wanted.

True, it was an experiment, but he told himself his intentions were good.

They traveled together one era to the next, seekers with inner mysteries.

But his unhappiness remained. A darkness and coldness enfolded him.

And her hopes still haunted her.

They were entertained by visiting many ancient times and continents still unknown to each other.

But they participated in thrills that were temporary, and unwise activities of a shallow nature, instead of things that were more lasting and truly valuable.

Insight, understanding, intuition, good sense, and guidance were missing. They experienced valleys of feeling empty, between the heights.

They visited more places and times, seeking what they wanted outside of themselves and making poor decisions.

A sense of knowing came over her, bringing the seeds of wisdom.

The solutions for what she sought were inside of her. He had not been the answer.

He knew she was not his answer either.

She was careful not to alter the events of time.

One morning when she awoke, she was on the familiar shore, and he was not next to her.

The furry animal at her side nudged her, looked into the distant eons of time, and growled.

She wandered the shore, looking for him.

Then the pale sails of the vessel for journeys through mystical portals appeared and she knew.

She began to feel the sensation of the sands beneath her feet again, to smell the forest fragrance, and to feel the cuddles of her furry creature leaning against her.

As dawn became morning, she climbed onto her boat, trimmed the sails, and a wind sent them through the gateway out to the world she had left.

With her four-legged companion, ever loyal, she sailed back along the streams and rivers.

When her cottage by the lake in the forest appeared, she felt a connection she had never felt before. It was home.

From beyond the veils of time, he watched, glad for her, knowing he was home, too, in the eons of time travel, and a small bud of wisdom began to grow inside his heart.

She docked the sailboat at the wharf, knowing home was a place inside of her, not something to seek without.

Sometimes in the mists of dawn, he spun through the spirals of time to visit her.

Gradually, he saw how his selfishness created the darkness within and limited his relationship with her. He began to let go of it, and his inner light began to grow.

Sometimes she would see the time traveler in the swirling fog over the lake, while she walked on the shore, with the winking shimmers of time still drifting around her.

Other people thought the sparkles were sunbeams, but she knew what they were and who sent them.

Unable to stay away, he began visiting her again with his newfound insights.

Visions of new depths within her began to arise and a new inner self awakened, shining a light that flowed through her.

And she, with her new understanding and insight, awakened early to wait for him at dawn.

Separated by the misty veils of time, their closeness grew with their wisdom, nurtured by the spaces between them, together but not dependent, as they each matured.

He, of the ethereal journeys, and she, of the earthly senses, embracing through dimensions they had only imagined before. Each uniquely themselves.

The threads of their connections wove a new fabric on the looms of time.

Each rosy dawn brought new discoveries and delights in the other.

Each twilight found them closer.

Each moonrise shined on their ethereal spirits dancing under the stars.

Together they sought the beauty of lasting wisdom, instead of temporary entertainments. This shared journey ignited and fueled their love through the ages, evermore renewing it.

They found new paths through the mazes of time.

Once again they time-traveled through the spirals together.

But this time it was different.

Their love connection was renewed and filled by their fountains of wisdom, flowing and welling up from depths.

When they returned they shared what they had learned with others.

The journeys through time remained a secret.

Back in their usual era on the mystical coast, dawn and twilight were their favorite times."

Part III. Dawn and Time - Shimmers of Lights

The melodious voice of the old woman paused and her eyes grew brighter.

The images of the time traveling lovers wavered in everyone's mind.

Elsie and her family looked closely at the figure of the storyteller when she rested after telling her tale.

In the 1800s stories of incredible events were popular. There were fanciful tales of mechanical time travel machines, trips around the world, and undersea contraptions where people lived for days.

The family wondered if the old woman was like the storytellers of these imaginative tales.

Yet, there was something oddly believable about the way she had told the story.

"You make it sound so real," said Elsie.

The woman's eyes were turned toward the twilight outside the window. She had a faraway look and did not answer.

They did not know what to think about the fantastical story. Was it a myth? Could this be real?

How did she know all this?

Then they saw the tiny shimmers of light floating around the old woman, like sunbeams.

Now they knew these must be the time travel sparkles, floating with her wherever she went.

They saw her smile. Then she picked up a lantern and went out through the door with its Victorian stained glass, heading down the path to the sapphire pond under the darkening sky and bright moon.

There she saw his form taking shape.

She ran to him, disappearing into the fog.

Then they were gone, leaving a shimmer of winking lights over the lake.

Elsie watched from the bluffs above. She did not notice the gifts, from the dawn treader, of tiny lights like pinheads that sparkled around her now.

That night. Elsie curled up under her blankets in the lighthouse keeper's Victorian house.

The starry dome moved overhead, and visions of ancient worlds and their people floated like clouds through her dreams.

The little winking lights of a dawn treader and a time walker now swirled around Elsie, while she dreamed.