“I never had a doubt,” Sailor said calmly.
“Neither did I.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, but there is something Opari and I must do.” We had not yet greeted the Fleur-du-Mal and Fielder. We walked over and I embraced the Fleur-du-Mal for the first time in my life. “
I nodded to Opari and she took the leather necklace and the Stone of Blood from around her neck, while I took the Stone of Dreams out of my pocket. I reached for the Fleur-du-Mal’s hand and placed the Stone in his palm. Opari slipped the necklace and Stone over Fielder’s head and around her neck. Fielder was not surprised. She looked Opari in the eyes and smiled, nodding once.
“After you have crossed and carried this,” I told the Fleur-du-Mal, “you will understand.”
Sailor shouted, “Zianno, wait—”
Just then, Mowsel said, “It is beginning. It is beginning now.”
Although no one gazed directly at it, we could all feel it happening — the cold dead disk of the moon sliding into place in front of the burning disk of the sun. Simultaneously, we began to feel something rising inside us — fear, yes, but something more, something overwhelming. Mowsel had a grin on his face and Zeru-Meq had his eyes closed. Nova looked at Ray and Ray looked at Nova. Susheela the Ninth took hold of Sailor’s hand and entwined her fingers with his. Geaxi removed her beret and West wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. The Fleur-du-Mal glanced at me, giving me an enigmatic grin, then took Fielder’s hand in his and turned to face the sun. Darkness spread rapidly and the shadow bands raced across the landscape in a surreal dance toward the horizon. Twenty seconds to go. Ten seconds. I turned to Opari and we embraced. I held her so tight and close I could feel every part of her. I whispered in her ear, “We are on our own now.”
She whispered back, “I know.”
Totality!
We both looked up and stared at the beautiful and terrifying burning black hole in the sky, the Strange Window, the Empty Ring, the Bitxileiho, and we became suspended, weightless, nowhere and everywhere. Where was where?
Even though I was not aware I had closed them, I opened my eyes and realized I was on my knees, and so was Opari. I glanced over at the others and everyone was on their knees. The sun was still in partial eclipse, but totality was over. It had lasted only two minutes and forty-nine seconds, and I thought it was odd how something so anticipated, complex, and fundamental could pass so quickly. Fielder and the Fleur-du-Mal, Geaxi and West, Sailor and Sheela, and Ray and Nova, each looked the same as they had two minutes and forty-nine seconds earlier, but they were not. They had crossed in the Zeharkatu, and during that time every cell in their being had been changed, altered, and restructured. That which in the past had made them invulnerable to age and disease was now gone, along with the mystical Meq ability to heal, repair, and restore all tissue, fiber, sinew, and bone in a matter of minutes or hours. They were now more like Giza than Meq, but each one could also do something they could not do before. Like the Giza, they could now mature and reproduce. Of course, Mowsel and Zeru-Meq remained unchanged because they had no Ameq and could not cross. But everyone else had crossed — everyone except Opari and me.
It had long been assumed that Opari and I would cross during the Remembering. Even Opari and I had assumed it, though we rarely discussed it. In St. Louis, when we made the decision to stay with Jack while he was dying, even if we missed the Remembering, we both knew something essential had occurred. Betrayal is too strong a word, but Opari and I understood that we had separated ourselves from the others in some way, and it was irreversible. After Jack died and we felt we might still have a chance to make it to Montana in time, I realized what we must do with the Stones and with ourselves. The solution was absurdly simple and seemed meant to be. For us, it became the key that unlocked the whole purpose of the event. Ray and Nova were the first Egipurdiko and Egizahar Meq to ever cross. It wasn’t thought possible before. Susheela the Ninth was Sailor’s second Ameq and they crossed. That also had never happened. West and Fielder were a completely different species, and they crossed with Geaxi and the Fleur-du-Mal.
For some reason, the Meq were evolving, changing from the inside out, and this Remembering was all about that evolution. Sailor had said “the Stones must cross,” and now they had. By transferring the Stones and their mystery to Fielder and the Fleur-du-Mal, Opari and I had made sure the Stone of Dreams and the Stone of Blood became part of that evolution. But for Opari and me, this Remembering was not our moment, not our time to cross. The Meq are blessed with destiny
Back in South Wales, Ray had asked if this Remembering would “tell us why we are the way we are.” I didn’t think so, but I was hoping it would. Who are the Meq? I don’t know. Why are the Meq here? I don’t know. Where are the Meq going? I don’t know. Opari and I had not found these answers. Instead, we had found each other.
It was a cold Monday morning, February 26, 1979. Below us the earth was turning, and overhead the sun was shining. Along with the others, Opari and I stood on the small outcropping of rock and turned in a full circle, staring at the barren beauty around us and remembering it. That’s all we can do with any moment. We can do that and we can endure and survive. Moment to moment to moment.
Epilogue
There is a lot to be said for traveling in a twelve-year-old body. First, there is your height. You are halfway between a little kid and a big kid, or teenager, both of whom are highly visible in public. But the twelve-year-old is invisible. No one pays attention to the activities of a twelve-year-old, or even two of them. With the right resources, time, and imagination, any kid could do it. In the years following the Remembering, Opari and I traveled this way, generally unnoticed and always unannounced, and never stopping long in any one place. We had only one criterion for choosing the next destination — it had to be a place where neither of us had been.
Using a complicated system of drop boxes and postcards, we kept up with the whereabouts of most of the others. Ray and Nova had moved to Veracruz, Mexico, which was the city where Ray was born. They were the first couple among those who had crossed to have a child. In 1984, when Nova turned seventeen, she and Ray became the teenage parents of a healthy baby girl, seven pounds eleven ounces, named Eder Zuriaa, and she was born with a rare and unusual characteristic — her left eye was dark brown and her right eye was green. Ray reasoned that this would make her a good switch-hitter when she learned to play baseball. I didn’t understand the logic, but Ray said, “Damn, Z, it’s clear as a tear to me.”
Geaxi and West returned to live on the south coast of Wales at Morgan Manor. Two years after Nova, when Geaxi turned nineteen, she also gave birth to a baby girl after being in labor for thirty-three hours. It was a trying and traumatic experience, but Geaxi never complained. She told me, “It was no worse than playing chess with you, young Zezen.” The baby was named Iza, the Meq word for “first,” because Geaxi said she was the first of a new species of Meq.
Sailor and Sheela settled in Cairo, living with a wealthy family of traders Sailor had known and trusted for centuries. Mowsel and Zeru-Meq lived with them for a few years, then left suddenly, heading in separate directions, Mowsel going west and Zeru-Meq going east. Both of them had no fixed plans and were not intent on arriving anywhere in particular. In the late spring of 1988, Sailor and Sheela had their baby, a beautiful boy with sharp features and dark skin. He was given the formal name of Zubi-Meq, but Sailor called him Jack.
The following year Opari and I stopped in Cairo for a visit and to see the baby. It was bizarre to see Sailor as a young man. He and Sheela were twenty-two years old and looked just like any other young, modern, handsome couple. It was also odd to be so much smaller than Sailor. However, the most surreal moment of the visit was an
