Through the Great Forest - III

There is no good in the river that runs dry.

Nathan pushed forward to walk beside his mother.

"I don't understand what you're looking for. Nothing's changed for the last five hours."

"Plenty has changed, but you look with a city man's eyes, not the eyes of one born of the Great Forest."

"Mother, ever since we entered the forest, you've been speaking like those crazy shamans who come from the rural parts to persuade the king's people to leave the city. I mean no disrespect, but what has happened to you?"

"When one is away from one's life for too long, he begins to forget what should never be forgotten. I had a good life in the city with your father, but the old ways are the ones that protect us from what lies beyond the Great Forest. And those ways are the ones which we must now cling to."

"I've seen the maps, Mother, and there's nothing on the other side. It's just mountains and glaciers for miles and miles until you get to the pole, and then it changes to a snow prairie."

"No man has ever returned as himself after entering those mountains, and none has gone from one side to the other."

"Of course, you can't go into the mountains and not be changed! You'd have to be terribly dense not to come away with a better perspective on the world. They say that the world from the top of mountains makes you forget the folly of mankind and remember the world when it was new created. Dame Hilde said all of the great writers had been to the mountains, and that was where the learned to write."

"My son, you think yourself wise when you are a fool. Listen." Maura's hand silenced the angry thought about to spill from her sons lips, and Nathan cocked his head, certain he would hear no sound.

He saw rather than heard. A beast with mud matted fur stepped into view. Standing on two legs, it was easily half again Maura's height. It snarled, but Nathan was certain it was not looking at them. When the animal lunged forward on four legs, it missed them by yards. As Nathan swung around to see where the beast had gone, he immediately wished he had not. This time the beast was closer, and was looking almost directly at them. If it rushed forward a second time, Nathan and his mother would not survive. He could just see his mother out of the corner of his eye, but he dared not speak. He watched in horror as she darted forward, attracting the beast's next assault.

"Mother!" he screamed. The beast stopped in midstride, spinning toward his voice as if to attack and then fell onto its face. Nathan's knees wobbled as he watched his mother leap onto the beast's back, stabbing it with a dagger as she came down.

A thousand questions raced through Nathan's mind, but none took form until his mother's hand took his arm and began leading him away.

"Nathan, I did not want you to see what the Mountains Beyond hold for those who travel them, but now you have seen, and now you must know that there are beasts more fell and more dangerous than the one you just killed, but none are more powerful than you. This is true of every beast and every man - we stand over the beasts, though the beasts wish to stand over us."

Nathan could only mouth a silent "What?" as she continued. "Had I raised you in the village, you would know all that you must know, but now you must learn it at a time when the knowing of it must be written in your very flesh. You must learn to watch and to listen. The beast you slayed was a Daemon-Wolf, it hunts by movement and by sound. That is how one must defeat it - using its strength and its weakness against it. You did this without knowing, but you must learn so that you may do as you know - then you will be able to defend yourself and protect the Great Forest."

Nathan regained his tongue and blurted, "Mother, I did nothing to that beast! You stabbed it, you led it away, you killed it! I had nothing to do with it! I want nothing to do with it! I don't belong in this place!"

"All mankind belongs in this place, many have wandered far from it's borders, but all must return whether they acknowledge it or no. You will learn. You must learn. If you do not, you cannot live, and you will instead be born into the Mountains Beyond in the bellies of the daemons."

Nathan fell silent, falling behind his mother, giving her the lead and keeping his thoughts to himself.

Passing on

It was time. Twenty years of waiting were twenty years too many. It was time. His wife was dead. The one child they'd born was grown. It was time. He donned his hat, threw on his overcoat - the same one his father-in-law had given him twenty-five years ago - and walked out the door.

He passed the flower shop like he always did, but this time he went inside for the first time in twenty years. The clerk greeted him cheerily, but he was more interested in finding the right roses - the slightly off colored ones with a little orange and a little pink. Not that he could tell - he was color blind - but his wife knew them. He shrugged and asked the clerk for help, they were called something like autumn or fall or some season or other.

With roses in hand, he walked toward the parish where they'd been married, where their daughter had been baptized and then married, and where he, at last, would end the waiting. Bittersweet memories brought a little smile to his face when he first looked on the statue where his wife had given every rose to Mary. Kneeling at her feet, he placed one of the roses in the little vase, asking her blessings for his wife, his child and himself. As he passed through the gates of the cemetery where his wife had lain these twenty years, his throat tightened and his eyes watered. Finding her grave with the little marker - as far away from the trees - so that she could see the stars - and as close to the water - so that her dad could go fishing - as had been possible, he knelt in the grass, placing the remaining rose upon her stone. Here he paused once more to ask mercy for his wife's soul, his child's and his own.

Standing, he continued his walk toward the parish. When they had married, it was a secular parish run by the diocese, but the Jesuits and taken it over in the last ten years. Fr. Peter smiled when he walked into the office.

"Andy! It's great to see you! How're things going down at the university?"

"They're good, they're good. How're the Jesuits these days? Running low on new recruits?"

"Oh no, we haven't been low on recruits since we got that new Superior General. The kids just love the guy. It's amazing ya' know, it really is."

"So you're not looking for any old men anymore, is that it?"

"Well, gosh, Andy, I don't know. Do you know any old men that'd wanna join these days? I mean, if there were more guys like you, we'd be doin' great, but you've got your daughter to look after and all."

"Actually, that's what I'm here for. I wanted you to be the first to know that I'm applying to the Jesuits. I also want your recommendation."

"Wow, Andy that's great. That's just great. Sure I'd love to give you my recommendation - don't look a gift horse in the mouth, ok? You know that one right? Oh, hey, did you hear the joke about the Jesuit and the liturgy yet?"

"Yeah, Fr. Peter, I heard that one already."

"Oh, that's too bad. It's a good one, but I guess it gets old after a while, huh? Say, listen, I've gotta hear confessions in a few minutes, why don't you come back after Mass and we'll go have dinner er somethin' alright?"

"Sure, that'd be great Father, I'll see you then."

He smiled as he left. Fr. Peter hadn't changed since they'd met twenty-five years ago. He was a good man. And a good priest, though how he wound up in the US and not in China was anybody's guess. Maybe he shouldn't have agreed to dinner. The last time they'd gone to dinner, Fr. Peter had picked the worst burger place in town. Oh well, it would at least be an experience, and his wife had always liked Fr. Peter. She would be happy for him. She would wish she could join them. He smiled, twenty years was too long to wait, but he still had twenty years left to go.