Calm before storm (pt 2)

After consoling my sister awhile longer, I headed back into the house. Mother hadn’t been exaggerating–the awaiting porridge was colder than the river stream splitting Alder Village in two. In the middle of the summer though, gulping it down sent a pleasant cool throughout my body which counteracted the heat.

As I scraped up the last spoonful, Father made his entrance into the room. He was a tall and broad-shouldered man with an imposing build, filling the doorway with his frame. I had inherited his height but not width, which my father jokingly blamed on my narrower mother. Personally, I considered it a fair trade. While I’d never have his strength, my leaner build made me far nimbler than he could ever hope to be.

“Cal. Your wedding is coming up in a couple days,“ he said in his usual gruff voice.

“No way!” I said sarcastically, gulping down the last bit of food. “And who is the lucky girl that is marrying me?”

“Her name is Angeline,” my Father replied. “And if you keep that tongue of yours wagging, that fine young lady will have your marriage annulled before autumn. Don’t think your mother and I will take you back when that happens.”

We shared a grin.

“Which reminds me. We’re headed to the shrine today. Just me and you. How about now?”

I groaned, loud and theatrical. “But it’s so far. Can’t we just huddle and call for a blessing here?”

Father shook his head. “You need the proper rites set up by a priest, not a kitchen prayer between bites of your cold porridge.” He was already turning to the door, which meant the conversation, as far as he was concerned, was over. “When I was set to marry your mother, I walked to that same shrine with my father. Now it’s your turn.”

I’d never met my grandfather. He’d passed the winter before I was born, and father spoke of him so rarely that sometimes I forgot I’d ever had one. But hearing him mention his father softened my resolve, and I followed without protest.

We left the village premises, past the last set of fenced pastures and a low stone wall that signified the settlement boundary, until it gave way to open hill country and, eventually, the temple grounds. Or rather, the foot of the temple grounds. The shrine proper sat at the top of a hundred stone steps that cut straight up the meadow hillside, steep enough that one couldn’t see the statue from the bottom at all.

The sun’s warmth had curdled into something crueler by the time we started ascending. Sweat beaded along my hairline, but we both started the arduous climb in silence.

At the top, the view of the wide stone courtyard broke open, and there it was. Sumada, carved twice the height of a man, weathered by centuries of wind. The old stories named him the First Disciple, the first one who had reached enlightenment and met the Great One, when the world was in its infancy. It was he who now stood as an envoy between prayer and answer.

“Garant! Is that you?”

The priest came out of the shrine house on the right, donning a bright red robe. He was near enough to my fathers age that the two of them had likely once been boys running this same hillside together. But the priest’s bald top and gray hair on the side made him look a decade older.

“Avalon.” My father clasped his hand firmly, the greeting of two men who knew each other well enough to skip the formalities. “You haven’t heard? My son’s getting married.”

“Splendid! Truly!” Avalon’s eyes found me, crinkling at the corners. “Who is the bride?”

“A farmer’s daughter, out of Ravenfell. Angeline is her name.”

Ravenfall was where my father had done most of his trading these past years, hauling grain and dried goods a full day’s ride east. It was on one of those trips that he met Angeline’s father, and the topic of unwed children was brought up. A few visits later, and I’d met Angeline herself. She was well spoken, thoughtful, an amazing cook, and beloved by many in Ravenfall. I wasn’t quite sure what her disposition of me was, though I was able to make her laugh often and we connected with each other at various levels. It must’ve been favorable enough that we both independently agreed to pursue the arrangement of marriage.

“Wonderful news.” Avalon’s attention settled fully on me now, warm and searching. “I take it you’ve come for a rite of blessed marriage and prosperous life thereafter?”

“Yes sir,” I replied.

Avalon chuckled. “No need to call me ‘sir’ anymore, Callum. You’re a grown man now. Avalon will do just fine.” He waved a hand toward the statue. “Well? Come along then. Sumada doesn’t like to be kept waiting any more than the rest of us do.”

I stepped closer to the base of the statue, until its shadow fell long and cool across both my shoulders. Avalon moved to the ring of candlesticks circling the enclosure around the statue, and he did not reach for flint or striker at all. He touched two fingers to the first wick, and a flame simply appeared from under his skin. He moved down the row unhurried, wick to wick, until each one birthed a new healthy flame.

I’d seen it a hundred times before, and it still raised the hair on my arms.

As far as anyone in Alder knew, Avalon’s was the only family within a hundred mile radius who carried even a trace of the Gift. To wield the Gift meant having a lineage that was distantly related to the Disciples who walked the earth in its early flesh. Most families didn’t carry it at all. Ours certainly didn’t, unless you counted my mother’s uncanny ability to produce a broom from thin air whenever she caught me lazing about.

Avalon’s right hand closed around a small brass bell, and he started ringing it vigorously while motioning it in a circular pattern around the statue, commencing the prayer. I closed my eyes and pressed my palms together tightly. The priest began to mutter mantras from an ancient, scholarly language. Gradually, I let the ringing of the bell and the steady chant fade into the background, until only my own thoughts remained.

My father had always told me that a prayer came from the heart, so I hadn’t prepared anything beforehand. Fortunately, I thought my wishes were relatively simple.

I prayed that everyone around me would be happy and healthy. That the ranch setup and initial essential purchases, like livestock and seeds, would go smoothly. That Isabelle would visit often, staying weeks at a time, filling the fields with laughter and giving a target to tease besides ourselves. That one day, I would earn enough to retire my parents, and care for them in their final years as they had once cared for me growing up. That my own children were much less troublesome to their parents than Isabelle and I had been. And above all, I prayed that whatever hardships awaited us, we’d always find the strength to face them together as family.

I chuckled to myself. Perhaps I’d gotten a little carried away. What I thought were simple, postnuptial wishes had grown into a laid out plea for essentially an entire lifetime of happiness. The Great One probably had better things to do than to listen and grant everything I’d just listed. But still, sensible or not, ordinary or not, the wishes were sincerely mine. And as the bell’s final note faded faintly in the air, I stood content with what I’d asked for.

Avalon lowered the bell at last, letting the quiet fully settle over the courtyard. I slowly opened my eyes and fixed my gaze on Sumada. I raised my pressed hands up to my forehead, before lowering them back down to chest level, completing the final gesture of the prayer.

***

After the rite, Avalon had insisted we stay for lunch. I suspected that he and his family were loneliest during the summer months, where there were few visitors to the shrine. Most only came in the spring or fall, seeking blessings for harvests, their crops, or the start of a school year.

The meal itself was pleasant. I was reminded of Avalon’s son, Barrak, who was a few years older than my sister and already being groomed to succeed his father at the shrine. He had already shown great promise in the Gift, supposedly even surpassing his father’s skill at the same age. But between discussions of distant politics and updates on the various families of Alder Village, the lunch drifted by in an ordinary blur.

Eventually, the plates were cleared and the conversations began to wind down.

“Please come again when you're married, Callum. I’d love to meet Angeline.” Avalon said.

I gave a weak smile. “Of course.”

Then came a knock from the main door of the house.

Not a gentle knock, nor the familiar knock of a neighbor stopping by. It was loud enough to cut through the room, and sharp enough to halt any conversation.

And from that moment onward, the quiet, ordinary life I had always known would never be the same.