Time Dancers

and waited.

As dawn approached, our conversation gradually decreased and our senses sharpened. The wind blew in gusts from the north and west. It was still pitch-dark to the west. I turned just in time to catch the first rays of light breaking in the east. Something crossed my mind, something Geaxi had not mentioned all night long. I turned back around. “In the telegram,” I said. “What was the ‘other news’?”

Geaxi never answered. She was facing west, leaning forward. “Listen!” she said. “Do you hear that, Zianno?”

I concentrated as hard as possible, leaning forward and listening, stretching my “ability” far into the North Atlantic. I heard the wind, but nothing else.

“He is slipping away…what…yes…yes…” Geaxi mumbled. Her eyes glazed and her pupils dilated. She opened her mouth and began to produce a sound that could not be heard, only felt and understood instinctively. I felt a vibration begin in my stomach and spread to my heart and lungs, then finally to my throat and mouth. In tandem and parallel, as in a chorus, we began making the same soundless sound. It was effortless. It was like swimming in another dimension, a dreamlike highway of spirit and mind.

I looked back as the sun rose and spread light across the broken stones. Every single cat of Caitlin’s Ruby had gathered around us. Green eyes danced like stars, staring back in silence. I turned again and Nova was standing just beyond the farthest broken block of stone. She was in her white nightgown and her feet were bare. The shawl had been abandoned. Her eyes were dark and distant. She was staring to the west. Geaxi never turned around. She closed her eyes and increased the volume and intensity of “the Voice.” I closed mine. We traveled together as a wave, crashing through space, ahead of the sun, ahead of time…west, west…west into darkness.

And there it was! A strange silver bird with no eyes, and wheels instead of talons, more albatross than eagle, flying low and straight on the horizon, close to the water. Suddenly and without warning, our wave, our chorus, increased and swelled. Another powerful voice had joined us, sweeping us forward, our “Voice” changing, filling and spilling down, directly through the silver bird and the living mind within. “A—haz— tu!” we sang. For a brief moment, the strange bird dipped slightly, then recovered and regained its true and steady course toward the east and the light of dawn.

I opened my eyes. I looked for Nova, but she had shifted position. She now stood to the west of “the slabs,” staring back at Geaxi. Neither spoke for several moments. Geaxi searched her eyes. I started to reach for her and Geaxi grabbed my arm, holding me back.

“Are you awake, Nova?” Geaxi asked. She took a tentative step toward Nova, extending a hand. “Do you know where you are?”

Nova stopped staring at Geaxi and glanced at me, then down at her nightgown and bare feet. She seemed puzzled, confused, like a small child who has just awakened from a long dream. “How did I get here?” Nova asked. “And what are you doing here, Zianno?” She rubbed her eyes and turned in a slow circle, trying to understand.

I laughed and smiled. “You walked,” I said. I was simply glad to have her back.

“And you spoke!” Geaxi said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Nova replied.

Geaxi and I exchanged quick glances.

“Who woke me?” Nova asked. “The voice was not you, Geaxi, and it was not Zianno, but it was Meq. I heard it clearly. The three of you were singing, ‘A—haz—tu.’ ”

“That was another?” I asked. “The other voice was not you? I assumed the other voice had been yours.”

Nova looked to Geaxi. “Who was it?”

“I do not know,” Geaxi said. She paused and looked west again, frowning. “Yet, his voice was completely familiar to me in a way no Meq ever has been.”

“He?” I asked.

Geaxi dropped her frown and turned to me. “What?”

“He—you said he was familiar to you.”

“I did? I said that?”

“Yes.”

Geaxi shook her head back and forth. Gradually, a small smile appeared. “I do not know who or what it was,” she said, “but I have never felt such a thing. Never.”

Back at the house, Arrosa was up early and preparing breakfast. She was shocked to see Nova, but not completely surprised. The Meq and their mysteries were not unfamiliar to her.

Later, all of us, including Arrosa, Koldo, Willie, and Mitch, gathered in the courtyard of Caitlin’s Ruby to watch the skies. It was Saturday, May 21, 1927. In the thirty-first hour of flight, the Spirit of St. Louis was sighted and signaled while flying over Cornwall. We never saw the Spirit of St. Louis, but the drone of the big engine could be heard for miles.

Geaxi said, “We shall go to Paris. I must congratulate him.”

Mitch said, “I second that! The man has earned it.”

Nova continued to look slightly confused. “Who? Who is he?”

“The ‘lone eagle,’” I said. “Charles Lindbergh.”

At 10:24 P.M. that evening, he landed safely in Paris at Le Bourget airfield. The entire flight had taken thirty- three and one-half hours.

His life would never be the same.

6. Elur (Snow)

Snow is separate from all other phenomena in Nature for one specific reason: when it snows, each tiny six-sided snow crystal, every single snow “flake,” is unique and unlike any that has ever fallen before or ever will after. Still, is it not strange that at the end of this miraculous creation and fall, each instantly becomes part of a whole, forever unrecognizable as they were? Punishment or reward? Remember, Nature makes no mistakes.

We left Caitlin’s Ruby early in the morning, just as the last remnants of fog were burning off and all of Caitlin’s cats were scattering back into obscurity. All except one, a big white male Persian with an enormous tail, who sat staring at us from a stone wall close to the limousine.

“I call him Snow White,” Nova said. “He is the only one among them who will not let me near.”

Nova took a tentative step toward the wall and Snow White jumped and ran the length of the wall before stopping. He looked back once, then disappeared over the side with the others.

Arrosa sent us away with plenty of food and a letter of introduction to a woman now living in Paris on the Rue d’Ulm in the Rive Gauche, the Left Bank. Geaxi had not been to Paris in several years and had no existing contacts in the city. Also, for various reasons, she did not want to stay in a hotel. I had never been to Paris and neither had Nova. Mitch said he was planning on staying with an old friend from St. Louis—“a surprise visit,” he called it. Arrosa assured us her friend could be trusted in every way and would be glad to give us shelter and any assistance we needed. They had first met as dancers in New York and had remained close ever since. Her name was Mercy Whitney and she had been living in Paris throughout the 1920s. Arrosa said she was independent in mind, spirit, and bank account, and loved to laugh.

Geaxi thanked Arrosa and said, “Those are good attributes for anyone.”

I loaded what little luggage we were carrying and in minutes we were headed east. Willie did the driving and Mitch sat up front with him. Geaxi, Nova, and I sat in the back.

“First stop—London,” Geaxi said. “I must check the mail at Lloyd’s, then we are off to Paris.”

“The mail?” I asked. “At Lloyd’s? What’s the joke?”

“I should have said safety deposit box; however, it is still the mail to me. We have used Lloyd’s Bank in London for over a century as an occasional message drop, particularly by Trumoi-Meq.”

“That sounds much too modern to be Meq,” I said. I scratched my head and winked at Nova. “I would have