An Unearthing of Goddesses

An Unearthing of Goddesses Part 18

The Elementals gathered in the liminal fields. Aurae held the sword, showing it to her sister goddesses.

"I have seen this sword countless times over the years and indeed it was once mine," she said. "While elegant and serviceable, it had always a plain blade – until today. I noticed it in its museum case, the blade now emblazoned with a lengthy script – in our now extinct Elemental language."

Gasps were emitted, the sisters looking at one another in wonder.

"Only we are able to read this then," Dona noted. "What does it say – and who wrote it?"

"It is a message. From Anya." Aurae said, while everyone looked on in stunned silence. She lifted the blade higher.

It reads: "My dear Aurae. I know you will find this message in our time. We are trapped here in eighth century Nara. We have found the final piece of the formula – but it has been stolen. Please send Gaia and Nandi. Hurry. My powers weaken daily. Lhamo maddens me!"

Gaia and Nandi looked at each other, worried. The other sisters were in disarray.

"Who has the power to trap them there?" Dona asked. "We are Elementals. Anya has much prestige."

"It must be a dark Elemental," said Cassie. "Only they have that intent."

"We must move now," Gaia said to Nandi. "We may not have much time. We will have to find out who our enemy is when we arrive."

The sisters performed a ritual of purification and of good fortune for Gaia and Nandi. As they left to walk through the woodland doorway, Gaia turned to Kate.

"Please continue your studies. When we return you should be well schooled with your sisters, and we will approach the Autumn Equinox well prepared. Our hope after all, lies with you." And with that the two entered the woodland path and disappeared.

***

Aurae turned to Kate. "Come sister, we have more work to do." She took Kate's hands and lifted their arms together, and together they rose from the ground in flight, their arms instantly sprouting into wings that effortlessly caught the wind's currents and they were swept up until the meadow was a smudge below. 

Kate felt the sky wrap around her and its wind currents become her home, its edges infinite. As hawks, they soared through the blue fields, their sharp eyes alert to everything in their world. They dipped to the ground only long enough to dive for a small delicious morsel of mouse, plump and juicy like a ripe peach in its fuzzy brown skin.

They perched in treetops, bending with the wind, and skimmed over rivers where they splashed into silver schools of fish just beneath the surface. Aurae motioned them higher and they rose, up and up until the fields below were specks – surely too high for a bird to venture – and then they joined the wind, becoming one with it, no longer feeling it lifting up their wings but that their bodies were celestial orchestrators, moving through the sky drum at times tapping, beating, booming, then, trilling, wailing, sweetly crooning, merrily whistling, singing and whispering. Like a jazz performance they ebbed and flowed, staccato to moody, moving the skies and scattering the clouds.

Then, they rested. Kate sat on a torn cloud beside Aurae. Their feet dangled over the edge.

"I feel like an angel," Kate said, breathlessly. Human words couldn't adequately describe the experiences she was having; but she simply relied on her heart and her senses to translate them for her. Later, she would remember mainly feelings, smells, sounds, and the touch of clouds tangling through her fingers as she watched the unfolding of the Earth below.

"Well, you are in training to be a goddess." Aurae observed. "This is my special place – Cassie has her wave, I have my cloud. Which do you prefer?"

Kate shook her head. "I don't know. It's a tough choice. I'm going to have to make it though, right? At the end."