Fates and Family

The Box of Our Ancestors

We left the final Fate talking to dolls, oblivious that we had made our way through the rows of shielding shelves and out of her realm. Before we left we tried to go back to all the people we had talked to throughout the realm. But the portals to their lives were gone.

We laugh, out in the open grass, about how we have duped all the Fates.

"She can't even tell the difference between a real person and a fake one!" Katapa exclaims.

"Just like how the towerpeople can't tell the difference between truth and lies," Lilith replies.

"The fact that the lies are lies, and our truths are ours, that is our power," I speak into the sky.

"And we remember each other's truths. Across all of time and space, through every distance, we remember each other's truths."

"You're so right, Anderei," I say.

"We will keep our truths going into the future," Lilith whispers wistfully.

"And we will have a future where everyone knows the truth," Katapa adds.

"We will make a better future for our children. For all children."

We keep treading forwards.

"Now that we've defeated all the Fates, what's the path forwards?"

"We haven't really defeated them," I tell him, "just held them off for a while."

"We should keep putting as much distance between themselves and us as we can," Lilith replies.

"That's right. And we should look within ourselves for a solution." We all listen to Katapa speak. "We have outsmarted the Fates so far by looking within ourselves and finding power. I think the power exists within ourselves to actually defeat the Fates for good."

"You're so right, Katapa," Lilith's tone is full of awe.

"And we find power from each other too," I say.

"You're right, Nancee," Anderei replies, "we have to give each other power."

We decide to all hold hands as we keep walking forwards. There is power in asserting that you're all together. That you flow into one another until it's unclear where one of you begins and one ends.

"How do we find strength within ourselves?" I ask.

"We look within our hearts. And we look within each other," Katapa replies.

"We think about all the love we have and all the hardship we have," Anderei replies.

"We focus," says Lilith.

And so we do focus. We go onwards, hand in hand, and we look deep inside ourselves and deep inside each other and deep inside the hearts of all the Earthpeople.

We feel the suffering we've always felt. We feel the longings we were forced to push down. We feel the secret words that are barely whispered within the silences of our souls. We feel the rage that wells up within us. The hope that is carried by the desperation and hopelessness. We feel the drudging pain and the screaming anxiety that we have to deal with. And we feel the silent, inherent, undeniable power that is intrinsic to ourselves. The power that pushes on stronger than anything and flows like a river and stares out in silent, mutinous rage.

We feel the love we have for each other. The tenderness. The brightness. The exhausted, worn-down care that we show to each other. The way our souls always look for each other. Always belong with each other. The way our souls flow into each other perfectly and fit together like pieces of one whole. We feel all the ways we give each other relief, and healing, and strength. We dive into all the ways that we smooth over each other's hurt. All the ways we make each other stand. And it helps us stand.

We feel power within us growing and building and sparking to life like increasingly frenzied lightning. We feel ourselves grow and become more powerful than imaginable. More breathtaking than imaginable. We become what we were always meant to be, what we always were all along. Slowly. Step by step.

We feel the threads of energy and love and unity that tie all the Earthpeople all over the world. We feel the connectivity between all of us burning within us and pushing us forwards. We feel the ways our souls burn into theirs. The single fire that all Earthpeople are flames of. The single river we are all droplets of.

We feel everyone's pain and suffering and toil and work and hurt and exhaustion and grief and anguish screaming within us. We feel all the suffering and oppression they've been forced to endure. And we feel all the rage and the hatred and the intense longing that has crashed over them.

We feel all their love. Their love for their families and friends. Their love for all the Earthpeople there are. We feel the love that gives them life, breathes them hope, helps them become in everything that that are. The love that they use to keep each other alive in their souls not their bodies. The love that keeps themselves alive in their souls not their bodies.

In this all-connected state I feel invincible. Not my body. Not my heart. Not my mind. But my sprit feels invincible. Feels stronger than anything I have ever witnessed. I feel so much larger than just myself. So much more than just myself. I feel like the sky stretching onwards and onwards with its infinity of stars. I feel like I am the all-reaching ground that extends down and down and down. And the air that connects all living things.

I feel all the people I have left behind and who have been forced to leave me behind. The mothers and fathers and brothers and uncles and aunties and titis and cousins and friends and children. Family by blood. Family by bond. Family by shared suffering. We are all family.

And as distanced as I am from my family, there will always be parts of my soul that live on in all of them. And more than life I miss them.

I feel my grief coming down like a torrential rain. And I realize what grief is. Grief is love. And like all love, grief can break you down and it can make you stronger. And this time I let it make me stronger.

We feel the future generations stretching on before us. A song that will be sung long after we're gone. People who we don't know, who we will never know, who we are intrinsically, intimately connected to. The Earthpeople of the future sing inside our blood and we sing inside theirs. We love them with the force of a thousand suns and they do us. The people of the future will be glorious, are glorious, and they are ours to protect.

We feel the past as it whispers and screams around us. The generations and generations of Earthpeople in the past who have worked and toiled and suffered and died. The many lives cut short. The many brutalities that will forever scar our bloodlines.

We feel all the love the past generations had for each other. All their silent resilience. All their secret, untamable glory. We connect to all the small acts of defiance they pulled and the support they gave each other. We connect to the ways in which they're just like us and the ways in which they're different.

We connect to their lives and their stories, stretching back and back and back. Stretching father back than we can imagine. Farther back than we can believe. It is them who laid the foundations for us to rebel and it is us who will lay the foundations for the future generations to rebel.

And over time the rebellion will compound upon itself and grow until it's unmitigable, until it's indefatigable, until it's impenetrable and unshakable and all-powerful. The rebellion will grow until it overpowers the power of the towerpeople and all of us have its victory.

I am almost immersed in the future. I am one with the future. I am one with the past. I am one with the present. I am one with the Earthpeople across all of space and time.

I connect all the way back to the past when my people were free. When we were wild. When the Earth itself was unmarred and untamed. When the rivers all flowed clean and the hills all rolled unending and the forests stretched up and the deserts burned brightly. This past connects to the far future in one single dance of wildness and love and magic and liberty.

We think of all the lands that remain unbowed still. Pieces of fields that have not been mowed down or paved over. Where the grasses grow tall and wild. Pieces of forests that have not been cut down yet. Pieces of snowy expanse that stretches white and pieces of ocean that still teem with life.

And we become a part of all life.

All the people, all the land, past present and future, they all sing to us one song. /Go forwards. Go forwards. Go forwards./ And we don't know what we will find forwards. But I hear the call. I know we all do. And I know that we will find something glorious forwards. I know that we will find something that can set us free.

So we keep walking onwards, hand in hand in hand in hand. And we keep meditating. Keep connecting. Keep becoming. And we feel ourselves grow and our power grow.

I am teeming with hurt. Teeming with grief. Teeming with sorrow. But I am teeming with life.

I barely notice the miles stretching onwards and onwards. The green hills roll on. I pay scarce attention to them. The gray stretches on. And I pay scarce attention to it. But eventually instead of fake-feeling grass beneath our feet we feel soft clay.

We look around and see a stretch of orange-red clay stretching around us on the ground. There is no grass here. But on the clay there is a raised altar. It it made of dark, shining essence that seems to suck out the bare traces of light and life around us. It is a terrible, oppressive thing.

But on the altar. On the altar is something I thought I'd never see in my life. Something that I thought was either just for stories or locked away where no-one would find it. It's an blood-red clay box, symmetrical with each side the size of half of one arm.

"It's the box," Lilith exclaims, reverence floating through her airy words. And we all know what box it is.

———

All four of us are sitting on the ground in the parlour, as Vendi talks to the family of religious matters. We are here as we are monthly. As we have to be.

"The box," Vendi states with a contemptuous voice, "is all that was wrong with the chaotic world before. It was the source of the power of the anarchic dirtpeople and it was from there that they made the world wild and untamable."

We are listening with open ears. And with weighed down hearts. We are there, on the floor, as we always are. As the masters take up the seats above us. As we look up to the woman of the house. As she tells us about how savage our people are.

We are young. We are abandoned. We are dead. As we always are.

This box though. It seems like the tiniest spark of hope. Lost hope, of course. Since it was taken and placed where no-one will ever find it. But still, it exists. It exists. And it is the symbol of a time when things were free.

As chaotic and horrible as things were, they were free.

And knowing that such a time existed, it ignites something within me that I thought was long dead.

I look over to my friends for just a second. And they look over to me. There is something dark and fledgling in their eyes. Something rageful and sparking. Sparking like stars.

Even though they're still haunted. Even though they're still hollowed out.

We keep listening to Vendi talk. We hate it. But as always, we have to do it. But maybe we hate it less than we normally do.

She describes how horrible the box was. How dangerous. How untrustworthy. How it was an agent of chaos and deceit and destruction. How it was the stronghold and the source of power for the dirtpeople before they were taken over. How it was an ill omen and a harbinger of mayhem.

I do not know what all the words mean. They are too complicated for my young brain to handle. But I can feel the feelings behind the words. I can feel the hatred. And it seeps through me like poison, corroding my chest and my throat and my gut. But more importantly, I can feel the fear behind the words. And that fear gives me a sense of catharsis. Like a bolt of bright lightning through a gray and torrential storm.

There is lightning somewhere in the world. There is fire somewhere. There are blizzards and ice and and rolling plains and vast deserts. I know. My old community, the community I still hold close to my heart, taught me. Like it was secret knowledge meant to be treasured and safeguarded.

I told my new community. Like it was secret treasure.

But now, now I know for sure that there is something that can make the Towerpeople afraid. Somewhere, somehow, there is something that can make them feel just a fraction of the fear that we feel every day.

And I like that. I do not quite know why. But I like that.

For the smallest shiver of a moment, it feels as if this box is my destiny. As if it's my heritage.

I finish my work for the day and as always I hate it. It's too much. Too weighted. Too smothering.

But at night I lie beside my friends. My family. My people. My community. The four of us cuddle together close in the basement, over the hard rock.

"There has to be a way to get that box," Lilith whispers. And I startle at hearing this. It is too subversive.

"We all know it's hidden," Katapa whispers back, voice full of longing and melancholy, "hidden where no-one will ever find it. Where no-one will even be able to go. Where no-one even knows."

"Still. We have to try." Lilith's voice is insistent. And it gives me strength.

"So many people have tried," Anderei tells us. "And they all failed. We're just kids. If even that. We can't do something as impossible as that."

"We're not just kids," I tell him. I tell all of them. "You guys are incredible. Amazing. And I want you all to believe that. As hard as it gets, I want you all to always know that."

"See?" Lilith speaks, barely above a whisper, "We're not just kids. If we had the box, we could be so powerful. Someone, someday might find the box."

"Lilith, you're being unrealistic," I tell her. "We have to stay realistic."

"She's dreaming," Kata replies. "Let her dream. We all know we need it."

"We can't let any of the masters know we're talking of this. They'll have us killed." Anderei is right.

Lilith doesn't say anything more after this. She just lies there looking out into the darkness. With eyes that are darker than any darkness could ever be.

I don't believe her. Of course I don't. But still. Still. She put this idea into my mind and now I can't get it out.

———

I am with my mama. I love my mama. She is so nice. So friendly. She always takes care of me. I hope I never have to be too far from my mama.

I am sitting on her lap and she is telling me a story. Quietly. All the slaves have to do our talking quietly. It's how we stay safe. I like her stories. Even if they're sad, they're nice.

They're usually sad. They're always nice.

My brothers, Drayo, Kolti, and Ari, are sitting close beside us. Leaning against each other and my mother. We are all listening to the story. I'm so glad that they're here. I'm so glad that everyone's here.

We are in the slave quarters. A collection of mud huts that are tiny and have very little space between them, arranged in a rectangle with their doors facing outwards. It's busy and crowded but everyone is settling down to go to sleep.

I had a long, exhausting day working out in the fields. I'm glad that I can have time with my family to rest afterwards.

"Once upon a time, everything was free," my mother is saying. "Everything was chaotic. Everything was wild. But everything was free. As dangerous as it was, there was no work to do and no-one telling you to do things. There was no hunger. No tiredness. No fear. No inequality of any kind."

"Ooh I like this story," Ari interrupts. Mama ruffles his hair and I smile up at him. If Ari likes this story then it's definitely a good story.

"Is it the story about the box?" Kolti asks.

"Shh, baby," Mama replies, "let me finish the story." Her voice is so sad. Her voice is so tired. Her voice is so gentle. It's always like this. I don't think I've ever heard her sound harsh before. Loud, yes. Scared, yes. I've even heard her sound angry. But I've never heard her sound harsh. I don't think I've ever heard her sound happy, either. Not completely happy.

It breaks my heart to know how sad she is. It breaks my heart to know how sad all the slaves here are. But at least we have each other. We always have each other. And that's what matters. Matters the most.

I'm glad to have my mother and my father and my brothers and my aunties and my uncles and my titis and all my friends. I'm glad to have all of everyone.

"Keep on telling the story, Mama," Drayo presses.

"Yess Mama," I agree, "tell the story."

Drayo and I switch spots so that Drayo is on Mama's lap now. We all take a moment to adjust.

"The trees reached up and up and up, and there were so many of them. The grasses rolled on and on and on and they were so very tall. The sky was an ocean of wild blue and the ocean was a free symphony of waves and storms. The ice was cold and bright. And the mountains were jagged and high."

"I can imagine that," Drayo speaks.

"I think I would love to live in that," Ari states. "The world itself was free."

"I know you would love to live in that," I reply. "I know everyone would."

"The people would live in the world," Kolti's voice has mirth, "we wouldn't live in the big farms."

We switch spots so Kolti was in Mama's embrace.

"Yes," Mama replies, "the people would live in the world. And it would be great fun. And you you know what would keep everything free and equal?"

"The box!" We all call out softly in unison.

"You're right! The box. The box was our source of power. The power of the earth, and all the creatures that lived on the earth or in the sky or in the water. The power of all green and growing things. The power of all hills and mountains. The power of all water still and flowing."

"Where was the box?" Kolti asks.

"Good question," Mama responds, "where do you guys think it was?"

"It was deep in the thick woods, I think," Ari tells us.

"Or maybe it was at the bottom of the ocean," I add.

"Or a river," Kolti adds in.

"Maybe it was at the top of an icy mountain," Drayo guesses.

Ari goes into the middle of Mama's embrace now.

"Those are all very good ideas," Mama tells us. "You guys are all right. The box was in all of nature. It was in all these places at once. And it protected us. And we could all feel its energy and its magic flowing within us."

"What was the magic like?" I ask.

"What do you guys think it was like?" She responds.

"Beautiful. It made everyone all happy." Kolti smiles.

"It felt like it connected us to the world." Ari's voice is full of wonder.

"It was love," I state.

"I don't think you could even describe it," Drayo states.

"You guys are all right," Mama tells us. "And you're very wise. You're too wise for the Towerpeople to handle. Do not ever let them know how wise you are." There is fear in her voice as well as pride. "Do not ever let them know what stories we tell or how we feel about the stories. The stories are a secret just between us."

We switch places again and Drayo is on Mama's lap.

"We won't," Drayo promises.

"We'll keep the secret," Ari promises.

"Yes, Mama," I say.

"We won't tell." Kolti shares a mischievous smile.

"But the Towerpeople were greedy and they wanted all the power. They wanted to control us all. They wanted us to make them great and grand things. They wanted to destroy the box and all its magic and all of our freedom and equality."

Kolti gets in Mama's embrace now.

"Prince Audra wounded the box with his swords, and the Towerpeople took it away."

"That's horrible." Ari's voice is soft, subdued, and horrified.

"Yes. It makes my heart angry." Drayo speaks into the silence Ari left.

"Don't worry, brothers," I tell them.

"Yes," Kolti echoes, "Mama will tell the story."

"Yes, children. Don't worry. All is not lost. There is still hope. And there will be hope for as long as there needs to be. We will have hope for as long as we need it. The Towerpeople cannot take that away from us. No matter how hard they try."

Ari switches places with Kolti.

"Prince Audra wounded the box," Mama continues, "but he didn't kill it. The box was too alive. Too powerful. A mere sword, however powerful, could not kill it. It just made it wounded. And all wounded things can heal, if they are given care and comfort and love. The box can heal, if we give it care and comfort and love. And we will. I promise.

"The Towerpeople might have hidden away the box. But some day, somehow, one of our people will find it. One of our our people will bring it back to us. And we will be able to heal it. And it will take care of us."

We lie down on the hard coarse dirt floor, all in a line, snuggled close to each other. And we get ready to enter the world of dreams.

———

Mafalia, Pavlin, Levi, and Andronicha are seated in the basement, in the cold of the nighttime with Katapa and I.

Their parents are away on a long trip with Vendi and her granddaughter. It's a good thing. Two of the most horrible masters in the household are gone. But it's also a terrible thing. My children's parents are gone and they are left to miss them.

I know what it's like to miss your parents.

Right now we are all telling a story together. It's a religious story. And that means it's definitely sad. But still, strangely enough, this is the story that the kids wanted to hear.

They talk to each other quietly during the story, and talk to us as well.

"So the four dirtpeople, Ilya, Frenis, Yonas, and Selin, they prepared this circle of magic. They drew it with earth collected from the bank of the river. And they drew it in secret where no-one could see it." Katapa's voice rings soft and exhausted.

"Where did they draw it?" Pavlin asks.

"In the heart of the slave quarters where the masters never go," I reply.

"They must have been very brave to do that," Andronicha comments.

"The magic circle is secret and magic!" Mafalia exclaims.

"You guys are all so cute," I tell them.

"And so they said their spells each night," Katapa continues.

"They said all the spells together, holding hands," I cut in, taking over the story so that Katapa can rest. "And they said them each and every night."

"Didn't they get tired in the daytime?" Levi asks me.

"I'm sure they did. But they got through it. There is only nighttime for doing secret things, after all. Anyways they felt the power within them. And they felt that power growing and growing. But it wasn't strong enough to summon the magic box."

"Unfortunately, they failed," Katapa cuts in. "And wherever the box is, it is still there."

"We can still get the box!" Mafalia almost shouts.

"How?" I ask her.

"Maybe we just need to know more spells," Andronicha suggests.

"We can learn spells from the sorceress," Levi suggests.

"Like they did," Andronicha comments.

"But more, more, more than them," Mafalia sing-songs.

"And then the box will be ours!" Pavlin exclaims. "And there will be nothing they can do!"

They are so young. They are so hopeful. It is the overly-optimistic, misdirected hope of young children. But still, it's hope anyways. I begin to see why the kids wanted to hear this story.

I look over at Katapa. Her eyes are overflowing with love. With love and adoration and concern. She looks back at me. And I wonder what she sees inside me eyes. I wonder whether they reflect her own or whether they carry more hopelessness, more fear.

We agree silently to let the children have their hope. To let them keep talking. We even join in ourselves, until it's time for us to go to sleep.

Sleep time always comes too early and leaves too early. We always never have time.

———

We are in the small dark room of the church. We are all huddled close together. On either side of me is Adri and Caylenne. In my lap is little Kaktria and on their laps are Davi and Olennen. We're holding the children close as the priest gives his speech.

"This is the story of Gadi the wanderer. He was a foolish and foolhardy dirtman. He did not have a bone of good sense in his body. But he was a rebellious slave. And a clever one." The priest's voice is hard and hateful. I feel terrible that all the children have to listen to such a hard and hateful voice spewing such hard and hateful words. Their lives are already hard enough.

"He did what no other slave could do," the priest continues. "He escaped, killing his masters in the middle of the night. He also killed all the other slaves in his compound. For he was a wrathful, selfish man. And he cared for the lives of no-one but himself."

I stroke Kaktria's hair and give her a kiss on the forehead. She needs all the strength that she can get.

"He escaped into the night, his hands and clothing soaked in blood. Like a crazed beast. Eyes glinting in savagery. He ran and he ran until he got to the wild places where no civilized person goes. And he ran through them.

"We was looking for something. Something he thought would bring him power. Something he thought would give him his rightful place as the king of all the worlds. A title the murderer surely did not deserve.

"We was looking for the box. The box that had kept the world wild and dangerous and unable to progress, back before Prince Audra had taken control of the wild and civilized it.

"He thought that this box could surely be found. That it was out their somewhere. And he could surely find it if he searched long and hard enough. Of course he was deluded. The box was placed somewhere where no person could find it. Where no dirtperson could find it. But he was deluded and stubborn.

"So he walked all the world in secret, under the cover of night. He wandered the forests and the fields. The farms and the plantations. The mines and the factories. The deserts and the tundra. The oceans and the rivers. The forges and the halls. The houses and the churches. And everywhere the masters took their recreation.

"He walked the whole world. He walked it twice, thrice, a total of four times. And he searched every part of it thoroughly. This took him four hundred years.

"He walked until his feet were worn to the bone and then he walked on the bones. Then he walked until his bones were worn to stubs. And he walked on the stubs of his legs. He searched until his eyes were bleeding. And then he searched some more, his vision red.

"But no matter what he did, he could not find the box. It was not anywhere. He did not come upon it during any of his wanderings and his thirst for power went unfulfilled.

"And thus it was that he died. Unfulfilled and old and in poverty and without purpose. Without any people and without any hope.

"Thus is the story of Gadi, and this is how it ends."

The priest keeps on talking, but I do not pay attention to it. My attention goes instead to the little girl on my lap. My little girl. Nobody's little girl. Everybody's little girl. The girl we all wish beyond longing that we could take home and take care of. Or better yet, we could reunite her with her original family, who she surely misses like the soil misses the rain in the Vatari month.

Kaktria is craning her head to whisper into my ear.

"I don't think the box is impossible to find," she says, so softly that only I can hear. Her words make my heart jump out of my chest. In surprise and fear. And in just the tiniest spark of hope.

"Why do you think this?" I ask her, whispering softly into her ear.

"I just, I just know it. Someone has to find it." She's so hopeful. The poor little child is so hopeful. The universe knows that she needs hope. The universe knows that it's so hard for a child like her to come by it.

"You're right," I tell her, not wanting to hurt the hope that she feels. Wanting to give her as much strength as I can, however I can, whether I believe it or not. "Someone will find it. However long it takes."

"However long it takes," she echoes. And oh her young, childish voice is so sweet. I give her a kiss.

"Do you not believe the preacher's words?" I ask her gently.

She pauses for a long while.

"I think I believe them," she finally responds. "But not fully. I only believe some of them. I think he made up many things as well. If I believe them or not, I still think we can find the box. The future is not determined."

"You're right," I tell her, still quietly. "He doesn't know the future. He probably doesn't know the past either. He's just an old man who wants to make us feel bad about ourselves. Don't listen to him."

"You're right," Kaktria agrees.

"You slaves!" The preacher bellows. "Make sure you all are paying good attention. Or you will feel the full consequence of your inattentiveness!"

We turn back around. There is only so much whispering we can get away with.

———

"We have to take it," Katapa states point blank. "We just have to."

"Of course we do," Anderei agrees. "We can save our people this way."

"This is what our people have been searching for for forever," Lilith exclaims. We all laugh out loud at her word choice.

"So it's decided," I state. "But how will we take it?"

"The normal way," Anderei replies solemnly, moving to lift the box from its dais. But it doesn't budge.

"Well fck." Lilith says.

"Hey don't give up yet," Katapa encourages us. "We made it this far. The next steps should be easy."

"We should pray," I tell them. "Remember the story of Ilya, Frenis, Yonas, and Selin? They prayed. And it almost worked."

"And we're in the Fateworld itself this time," Lilith comments. "And we have accomplished so much."

"This time it should work," Anderei finishes. "And this time we won't give up until it does."

"That's the spirit, you guys!" Katapa declares. "Now let's form a circle. These things work better in circles."

So we do form a circle. One of us on each side of the dais. One of us standing in front of each square side of the box. We each put a hand on one of the squares of the box. And we each put one hand on the shoulder of the person to the left of us.

We focus. And we let the energy flow through us. The energy of all the Earthpeople all across the whole world, all across all the generations, all across everything.

We are not four people. We are not four thousand people. We are all the Earthpeople that there are. We are all the Earthpeople that there ever were. We are all the Earthpeople that there ever will be. They all come with us out into this circle. They all become one with us in this circle. We are all here together, standing beside each other. Holding each other. We are all of us, all across time and space, all together.

I can feel it with every aspect of my being. I can feel it in everything that I am. I can feel it in everything that I ever was. I can feel it in everything that I will ever be. In everything that is destined, everything that is possible.

I feel such incredible energy and power within me. Such a mystic, mystical force. An unnamable, untameable force. The force that is at the base of all things. The force that is at the centre of our entire existence.

The force of life, of hope, of love.

It overcomes me and leaves me unable to know where I end and where all the other Earthpeople begin. We are all together. We are all together. We are all one. Just infinite intermeshing, intermixing parts of the same whole. Of the same nation. Of the same force. Of the same spirit. Of the same eternity.

I feel so many emotions within me. Such unendurable, unimaginable pain. The pain of each and every single kind. The pain that each and every Earthperson feels or has felt or will feel throughout the ages. And it overcomes me. But it does not destroy me. If anything, it only makes me stronger. It makes me stronger.

At the same time as the pain, I can feel such joy. Joy that overwhelms me. Joy that overcomes me. Joy that seeps through each and every part of my being. And this joy is all the little moments of joy that the Earthpeople feel when we are together, when we can help each other. It is all the joy that our descendants will feel one day when the world is free.

The past, the present, the future, it all flows and swirls and resides within me. So much so that it is all a part of me. All the stories that were ever told. All the stories that were ever not told. All the stories that are being made right now. All the stories that will ever be told in the future. All stories of truth and hope and love and spirit will be told in the future.

I remember all the memories of everyone ever, all at the same time, flowing through me lightning-fast. And I remember how to be a rebel.

It is something I had known all along.

Slowly, all together, everyone's hands moving through the hands of the four of us, we lift the box from its stand. And we maneuver it until it is in front of Katapa, who takes it in both of her hands.

She holds it close to her chest.

We all come out of our trance. And we all look at each other, mutely, in amazement. Unable to do anything but to feel the after effects of our meditative trance.

"That was amazing." Katapa finally states.

"It was truly awe striking," Anderei echoes.

"We have the box now," Lilith states, "what should we do with it?"

"It's too big to hide in our clothes," I notice.

Katapa presses against the sides of the box with her hands. Miraculously enough, the box becomes smaller and smaller. But as it is decreasing in size it seems to only be increasing in power. Until it's almost intoxicating to look at, though my mind still stays crystal clear. Perhaps even clearer than before.

The box becomes as small as half a finger length across each of its sides.

"Well this definitely makes things easier," Lilith states.

"But where are we going to hide it?" Anderei asks.

"We could hide it in our clothes," I suggest.

"But there's a possibility that it could be seen through them, however small that chance." Lilith reminds us.

"True, true," Anderei consigns. "We should be careful."

"We could hide it up our pants," I joke. Everyone laughs with me.

"But actually," Katapa avers, "we could do that. It would be the one place no-one will look. If one of us with a birth canal hides it up there, that would be the perfect place."

"You're right," Anderei exclaims, "we could do that. Any volunteers?"

Lilith ends up volunteering. And it's symbolic, in a way. Out of her birth canal came life, came people. And out of it again will come the new life of the world.

"What will we do once the Fates find out the box is gone?" Lilith asks.

"Hmm I haven't thought about that," I voice.

"We need to trick them. As we have tricked them before." Anderei's right. I voice my agreement with him.

"We could make a fake box," Katapa suggests.

"Good idea!" I declare. "But what will we make it out of?"

We look around, and we keep walking.

Suddenly we come upon a river, with its banks lined with blood-red clay. The river is clear and fast-flowing and beautiful. It fills us with a sense of wonder.

Katapa and Anderei fall to their knees beside the river, as Lilith and I watch on. They submerge their hands into the water.

"You have to come feel this!" Katapa exclaims. So we follow them. And we put our hands under the water just as they did.

The water is amazing. It is flowing, overflowing, with spiritual energy. It feels so clean and pure and free and full of life. It feels like a mother's embrace, like my mother's embrace. Or my father's or my aunt's or my uncle's or my titi's.

It's so strange how such a river could exist in such a strange, corrupted world. But alas it is here. And I just know it can help us, somehow.

"This is amazing," I say into the silence.

"Of course it is," Anderei replies.

"How did it get here?" Lilith wonders.

"Does it matter?" Katapa asks. "It's here now and that's all that matters.

"Tha Fates would never be able to go into this river," Anderei comments.

"You're right," Lilith agrees, "it's too pure."

"So it can protect us from them," Katapa notices.

We stand in the river and look out into the lands.

"Look at that blood-red clay on the river bank," Lilith notices. "We can make a fake box out of it and put it on the altar."

"That's a great plan!" Katapa exclaims.

Anderei digs down deep into the river bank, until he encounters only red clay with no silt. He grabs a handful of soft river clay.

"Oh this is perfect!" He tells us. Lilith and I move to cover his hole and then we smooth over it to hide the proof of his digging.

The four of us then get to meticulously crafting a box that is the same as THE box. We take THE box out of Lilith's vagina and wash it with river water and use it as an example.

It's stressful, and infuriating, and so overwhelmingly difficult to make the box look exactly perfect. But we try. And we try and we try and we keep trying. Until we are sure that years must have passed. Years to make a square box that is the length of my forearm. This is absurd.

Finally we get it as close as we possibly can get it, though it isn't a perfect copy of the original box. Still, you can't tell unless you look at it really incredibly closely.

"What should we do about this?" Lilith asks, despondent.

"We have to just try using it and hope that the Fates don't look too closely," Anderei replies, voice morose.

"Have hope you guys," Katapa asserts, "the Fates probably don't ever look at the box too closely. They're too caught up in their own domains."

"You're right," I tell her.

We walk back towards the dais, Lilith carrying the real box in her birth canal and Katapa carrying the fake box in her hands. We arrive at the dais. And we are about to place the fake box in its place.

But suddenly a strong force of twisted, dangerous corruption comes over us. Our hearts thud in fear. We look at each other for the briefest second. And then we all look to the horizon of the Fateworld.

There, coming at us from at an incredible speed, are all four Fates. Their anger and their hatred is tangible. I can taste it on my tongue. I am overcome with fear. My heart feels like it will beat out of my chest.

We have no time to think. We just take both boxes and we bolt the other way, towards the river. We run and we run and we run. Until it feels as if our legs are scraped raw, our feet are being pounded with a hammer, our lungs are bleeding.

But still we breathe. We breathe and we run. Faster and faster. Faster than the wind. As fast as lightning. Until we feel like we are the lightning. We are at one with the lightning.

But where there is lightning there is always thunder. Loud, booming, dark. Following swiftly behind the lightning. Chasing the lightning. Running after it at full speed so that the lightning has nothing to do but run, run, run away.

And so we run, run, run away. We keep running and it takes so very long. I never remembered the distance between the dais and the river being nearly this long. It used to be such a short distance.

But maybe space moves strangely here. That would be bad.

But still, we have to run. We have to run. Like the lightning, we have to run.

I remember seeing lightning when I was a little child. How beautiful it was. How powerful. How it existed bright and burning amidst all the darkness and the thunder. How it gave me hope that something bright and glorious could still exist amidst the dark, pouring storm all around me. The dark, pouring storm that was my life.

The lightning gave me hope. And now I am giving the world hope. Now I am the lightning. And my adopted siblings and lover are the lightning. And the Fateworld all around us is the storm.

Like lightning flows down to the life-giving, living, nourishing, holding earth, we are flowing down towards the river. The river. Looking for the river. Whevever it is.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts so much to be running and running and running. But we do not get exhausted. We don't even get tired. It feels as if there is a fire inside us, burning on and on and giving us energy.

It feels as if our energy will never be exhausted. But it hurts.

Lightning is made of fire. Lightning makes fire. We are made of fire. And we will bring a fire down into the corrupted, dying lands until there is nothing left of the towerpeole's monuments and their world.

We come upon the water.

The river is pure and clean and cold and flowing at our feet. We rush into it so that we are knee-deep in the water. But still, we feel the corrupting force of the Fates coming over every part of us that is not submerged in the water.

We know that we will have to go deeper into the water. We know that we have to go all the way into the water. But none of us know how to swim. We will drown. We will die.

How can we go on? How can we seek refuge, down in the river?

But still, we feel the water flowing around us. And it's beckoning us, like a mother. It will take care of us, I can feel it. It can save us from the Fates and it can save us from drowning.

"Stop wasting time!" Lilith screams. "Get in the water!"

I see Katapa turn around, she breaks the fake box to pieces in her hands, and she lets those pieces sink down into the water of the river. She then rushes towards the centre. And Anderei and I follow her.

Suddenly the floor of the river drops underneath us. We are sinking, sinking, sinking. But in the blue of the water, we can still breathe. We can still see. We are safe.

We float down to the deep river bed like autumn leaves. Light dances above us. And I can feel it. Here we are safe.

"We made it." Anderei declares. And though he can still breathe, though we can all breathe, his voice sounds strange under water. "Good job everyone. We made it all this way."

"We did," I reply. "They can't get us. We're finally safe."

"But Katapa," Lilith starts, "why did you break the fake box?"

"Because," Katapa replies, "I know that they would continue to go after us if they thought we had the box. Even if we got away, they would never stop searching for us. Because we would have the box. But if they thought the box was destroyed, they would not keep searching for us. Because they would think that the hope of the slaves was destroyed."

"Good thinking," Lilith responds.

"Yes," I reply, "that was very insightful of you."

"We do make the perfect team," Anderei comments with a smile.

And then we take a moment to think. We take a moment to think of all the pain and the grief and the suffering within us, within every Earthperson. We think of all the suffering our children are going through, that every Earthchild is going through.

And it breaks us. It absolutely does break us. But it fuels our inner fire. It gives us motivation.

"Now that we can breathe," Anderei begins, "we should check out the box." We all agree to that. And Lilith reaches inside of herself and pulls it out.

We pass it around between us, feeling it, feeling the energy that flows from it.

We don't open it. Not yet. We shouldn't do so until we are really, truly ready.

"The box feels like it's less powerful than it's supposed to be," Katapa comments. "Like it still has power but not as much power as it used to have. Not as much power as it should have."

"You're right," I say. "All these years of being in the Fateworld, of being owned by the Fates, of being owned by the towerpeople, that must've weakened it. It was a prisoner for so long."

"But now we've set it free," Anderei voices. "Now it's back with our people where it belongs."

Back with our people. Where it belongs. I thought I'd never hear that sentence in my life. It sounds beautiful.

"We can give it strength," Anderei continues. "And we can restore it to its previous levels of power."

"But how do we do that?" Lilith asks. "With our prayers? With our meditations? With our hopes and our dreams? With our universal love? With our rebellion?"

"With all of that," I reply. "We give it power with all of that."

Lilith holds the box in her hands.

"I hope that my children are as safe as they can be. I hope that they have at least someone to be with and lean on. I hope that no child is ever separated from their parents again."

She passes it to me.

"Wow!" I exclaim, "I can feel the box. It's more powerful. Just a little, tiny bit. But still, it's more powerful!" I pass it to Katapa.

"I hope that every Earthperson has other people to lean on. That they are never alone as my girlfriend was alone for all those years. I hope that we can give each other strength."

She passes it to Anderei.

"I hope that every Earthperson realizes how great they are," he murmurs. "I hope that the towerpeople never make us believe that we are worth less than them. That we are worth less than anyone. I hope that we can keep our pride and our confidence strong."

We go on like this for a long time. Passing the box back and forth between each other and telling it our hopes and our dreams and our wishes. And it listens to all of them. And it absorbs and takes up all of them.

We feel the box increase in its power and its energy. It is just a tiny, infinitely small increase. A drop in the ocean. Something that is barely even perceptible. But still, it is there. And it is inignorable.

"We have to get home, somehow," Lilith tells us. And she's right. We do.

"How will we get back?" I ask. I do not say 'how will we get home?' because the place we are leaving to is not home. It is a prison, but still, we need to get back into the real world in order to share our knowledge and our treasure with all of the other slaves in the world.

"We pray," Katapa responds. And hearing this, Anderei smiles.

"Good idea," He says. "Let's all join hands."

And so Lilith puts the box back inside of her. And we all join hands in a circle. And we pray again. Except this time we pray to be transported back into our own realm. Back into the work and the toil and the fear and the wretchedness and the poverty and the injustice that makes up our lives.

And it's a strange prayer. To be asking for this.

But we pray to be able to share our knowledge and our gifts with the people.

And our prayers are answered as we find ourselves in the muggy humidity of the mansion, in Niamus's room standing above his limp body as we were doing at the start of this journey.

I check Niamus's breathing. And I find it not there. Next I check his pulse. And it is similarly absent.

"He's dead," I tell my comrades.

"Wow," Katapa wonders, "we killed one of the masters."

"Good job team." Lilith smiles darkly and mischievously. "No-one will even know it was us."

"So let's get out of here before any suspicion comes upon us," Anderei offers. And he's right. We should do that. We all voice our agreement with him and then go about our various tasks in the house.

There is much sadness from the towerpeople masters upon seeing that Niamus is dead. But he died in such a way. The doctors determined that it wasn't poisoning, and it obviously wasn't violence. It gets attributed to natural causes.

None of the blame gets put onto us.

We smile and laugh about this all in secret.

It's something good among all the infinite anguish.

And we explain our adventures and our learnings to Caroles and Desiree. We give them the box. And they give it to the rest of the people.

And so everything goes on. And everything hurts. All my people hurt. All my people suffer. All my people grieve. All my people work. But all my people have hope that they have never had before. Of course they have still had hope before. But this hope is so very undeniable. It's like the smirk of the ultimate rebellion.

There is a malice to it. And there is a kindness. There is a truthfulness to it. And there is a lying. There is a hatred to it. And there is a love.







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