The Remembering

Koldo gave me a blank look. “How about down by Tillman Fadle’s cottage?” I said, nodding my head up and down.

“Yes, yes,” he told the men. “Of course, that’s right — Tillman Fadle’s cottage. I will show you the way.”

After the vans and the men had gone, we opened the three crates with a crowbar and a hammer. Then we opened the beehives themselves, and inside sat the three spheres. To get them into the old cottage, it took the efforts of Koldo and four of us. Koldo had no idea what they were or what their purpose was, and he didn’t ask. With a slight smile and a wink, he only said, “Strange-looking bees, no?”

An hour later a cream-colored Rolls-Royce convertible drove through the gate and slowly made its way down the long driveway to the main house. Arrosa walked outside to greet the visitor. A chauffeur got out from behind the wheel and opened the rear door. A boy wearing an expensive short-sleeved silk shirt and linen slacks stepped out. He had his black hair combed, pulled back, and tied with a green ribbon. His red ruby earrings sparkled and so did his false smile. “I am Xanti Otso,” he said, glancing around at the beauty of Caitlin’s Ruby. He took hold of Arrosa’s seventy-year-old hands and kissed the backs of both of them. She smiled. “And you must be the lovely Arrosa,” he said.

Ray and I were standing on the front porch of the cottage watching the arrival. Ray slipped off his beret and scratched his head. “He’s a genuine, certified piece of work, ain’t he, Z?”

“That … and a few other things.”

A doctor must be a traveler, … Knowledge is experience.

— Paracelsus

Teaching everyone to “read” the spheres began the next morning. They were all familiar with written and oral languages from around the world, but I told each of them that “reading” the spheres required an approach that was more unconscious than conscious, and more collective than individual. That was the reason why it was necessary for every single one of us to “understand” the invitation before we answered it. I assumed the oldest one among us would be able to do this much easier than the youngest one. However, it was not Susheela the Ninth, it was Nova, the youngest Meq, who was first to break through and surrender to the meanings behind the markings. She smiled and touched a sphere with her fingertips. “Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.” Perhaps it was Nova’s long history of having “visions” that did it. I don’t know, but she was the first to “read” the spheres. Ray and Geaxi were next. Then it was the Fleur-du-Mal, who had an expression on his face that I had never seen before. It was a cross between profound wonder and absolute humility. Sailor was humble himself when he made the unconscious connection to the markings and their meanings within meanings within meanings. Zeru- Meq, Trumoi-Meq, and Opari followed Sailor, and finally the eyes of Susheela the Ninth watered and tears ran down her cheeks. She reached out with both hands and, one by one, we made a chain of hands, a circle around the spheres, and breathed the air around us as one body, one mind, ready to travel, ready to answer the invitation.

On June 3, a cold, wet, blustery day, not unusual for any time of the year in Cornwall, we prepared to drive out of Caitlin’s Ruby and head north. Koldo had purchased a full-size tour bus with great, wide windows all around. The ten of us, including the Fleur-du-Mal, boarded the bus, and Koldo kissed Arrosa goodbye, saying he would be back as soon as possible.

We took the A38 from Bodmin to Bristol, and the rough weather seemed to make the West Country even more wild and beautiful. From Bristol, we traveled on the A403 to Severn Bridge and crossed into Wales just as the skies to the west began to clear. We drove on to the outskirts of Swansea and stopped for the night at a small hotel and restaurant along the coast of Swansea Bay called the “Crab and Cockles Inn,” a place Koldo knew well from visits in the past.

The next morning little was said over breakfast, yet there was a glint of excitement in everyone’s eyes. We were calm and anxious simultaneously. On this day something was going to happen, something fundamental to all of us, and none of us knew what it might be. Ray likened it to the feeling you have at the carnival, just after being strapped in and you’re about to enter the fun-house.

Once we were in the tour bus and on our way, no one had to consult a map to know our direction. We even took turns telling Koldo where to turn because inside ourselves our destination was like a beacon in a fog — we merely followed the beam, the path, the compass … the “Voice.” Under a cloudless blue sky, we traveled west along the southern coast of the Gower peninsula. At the far end of the peninsula we came upon the small village of Rhossili and each of us knew we were very close. We drove slowly north, beyond Rhossili Down and along a winding narrow road that followed the contours of the heather- and bracken-covered slopes. Two-hundred-fifty-foot cliffs overlooking the sea loomed only a half mile away. We traveled on another twelve miles until, finally, I told Koldo to pull over and stop. Nothing was around to suggest we were there, only an open gate and a paved country lane that disappeared around a ridge to the west, but each of us knew we had arrived.

Sailor opened the door of the tour bus and stepped out. The others were close behind. I turned to Koldo and paused. He spoke first. “Don’t worry, Z. I will remain here and wait for your return. Now, go,” he said. “Onzorion! Good luck!”

“Thanks, Koldo.” I practically leaped out of the bus and hurried through the gate to join the rest. We walked in silence along the asphalt lane for a quarter of a mile, then rounded the ridge and saw our destination. Facing the sea and nestled against the rock outcroppings on the western side of the ridge was an ancient, fortified manor house of timber and stone. It was a composite of architectural styles and was likely built over the span of several centuries. There was also an unmistakable presence that we all felt at once. It was strange, exotic, and powerful, yet familiar.

I glanced around at us. Almost everyone would have fit into any crowd of twelve-year-old children anywhere in Britain. Even the Fleur-du-Mal had dressed simply and left his hair hanging loose and untied. Only his ruby earrings separated him from the others. Geaxi, however, wore her finest black leather leggings and black vest, which was held together with strips of leather attached to bone. She had adjusted her black beret to the perfect angle, and for shoes she wore her favorite ballet slippers. In full view and dangling on a leather necklace was the Stone of Will. Opari also wore the Stone of Blood around her neck, but inside her shirt, as did Sailor the Stone of Memory and Nova the Stone of Silence. The Stone of Dreams I kept in my pants pocket.

“Do you feel that, young Zezen?” Geaxi asked.

“Yes. Yes, I do, Geaxi.” I took hold of Opari’s hand and we continued on, climbing the wide steps and approaching the massive oak door that served as entrance to the manor house.

I raised my hand to knock and the door swung open. A tall, elderly man, probably well into his eighties, stood in the entry-way. He had ruddy cheeks and pale blue eyes, and except for a few long silver wisps that were left uncombed, most of his hair was gone. He was dressed in formal attire, although everything was slightly ill fitting and a little wrinkled. For ten or fifteen seconds, he stared back and didn’t say a word, gazing at each of us with a kind of childlike wonder. Finally, he said, “Please, come in. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Is it possible to have your whole life and everything you’ve known and taken for granted change completely and forever simply by walking from one room to another? The answer is yes and the next ten minutes would prove to be the most extraordinary ten minutes in the history of the Meq.

We were led through a sitting room crowded with furniture accrued over generations to a much larger room with twenty-foot-high ceilings and wide windows on the south and west sides, which let in a flood of sunlight. Two immense Persian rugs covered the floor and at the far end of the room a fire was burning in the fireplace, even though it wasn’t needed for warmth. Facing away from us toward the fireplace there was a long couch and two chairs, and though we couldn’t see who it was, someone was sitting in one of the chairs playing the cello, and playing it with passion. The low, slow, sonorous tones lifted and filled the big room. The old man turned to leave while the ten of us stood motionless, listening. Then Geaxi, who was on my left, leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Concerto in D Major by Arthur Sullivan.” A moment or two later, the playing stopped.

“That is correct,” the cellist said. The voice was male, but high-pitched and raspy, and the accent was