Josef Kuhn

12/22/09
Preservation

Courage is a kind of preserving…the preserving of the opinion produced

by law through education about what—and what sort of thing—is terrible.
And by preserving through everything I meant preserving that opinion and
not casting it out in pains and pleasures and desires and fears.
Plato, Republic

I have lived long, and I know the time cannot be too far off now when I will pass
into the Cloud of Unknown. Yet that is no reason to change what I do, for I simply do
what I want to and should do. What reason is there to change what is already right and
good? And so I catch that which spills out of my heart; I solidify and sculpt it, give it
form. Perhaps no one will ever read this meditation; certainly not in this lifetime. If you
have come across this book and are now reading it, preserve it as you would a sacred
treasure. You may even learn something from it, although my language and thoughts
might be too ethereal and obscure to make anything clear to you. But that is all of little
consequence. I write this only out of inspiration—longing—you may even call it
compulsion. I know this is my Dentuna. It moves within me, and it tells me, “Look and
wonder, view and let go.”

* * *

It is my birthday. Not the Celebration of Years, but the day I am born. A Tabular
from the Order stands by and writes my name into the official log, marking the time of
birth and date. The year is 606. The doctors run some preliminary tests and then send me
home with my parents. My parents are gentle and dutiful people, so they take me without
to the doctor for the weekly checkups without complaint. The doctor in his white suit
checks to make sure my physiological health is in order, and a yellow-robed Seechar who
works at the doctor’s office runs simple tests to explore the potentialities of my mind and
soul. He passes a flickering candle back and forth in front of my eyes and dips my pudgy
little hand in ice water. Once I have started crawling, several Seechars are present at the
checkups, which are now biweekly. They place me in a room with various objects and
observe my what I do for a short time. As soon as I utter my first word, my parents are
required to bring me in for verbal observation. The Seechars listen intently to my
babbling and take notes.
At these checkups, the Seechars have been taking taking a keener interest in me
each week; finally they ask my parents if they would consider bestowing me upon the
Order of Erama. They have sensed something in me, something they describe as a great
life-feeling potential. My parents accept, as most do, for it is a rare honor to have a child
selected by the Order. They can hardly refuse a duty and a privilege so noble as
contributing to the preservation of the Life-Giving Order. Before they give me up,
though, they give me a name, Ropheo. My father says it rings strong, like a lion or a
warrior. My mother is holding onto his arm, in the doorway. My father tells the yellow-

1
robed Seechars that he knows I will do great things for them. They nod and say that I will
do great things for Erama. Then they are carrying me out, and my mother and father turn
back into the house. I do not see their faces when they turn away.

* * *

I am sitting at a desk in a sparsely furnished classroom among about twenty other

boys. The walls are rough, hewn out of reddish-brown stone; this room, like many parts
of the Abbey, was carved right into the earth. Soft electric lights glow from the sconces
on the walls; between them are hung watercolor paintings that we did last week, as well
as helpful signs displaying the colors, the numbers, and the alphabet. The twenty of us
boys all wear the simple brown robes of Egukwu, young initiates, symbolizing the earth
from which we shall sprout. At our wooden desks, each of us has a slate and chalk out to
write lessons with. The lesson master, a Channou, wears a deep blue robe, signifying the
calm but deep lake of his knowledge. After he finishes teaching us how to pronounce
some words he has written on the chalkboard, he tells us all to gather around him in a
circle on the floor at the front of the room. He sits down cross-legged among us. “I’m
going to talk to you all about something very important today,” he says with a fatherly
smile. We all listen patiently. “Who has heard of Erama?” A few hands go up sheepishly.
I don’t know what he is talking about, but I roll the word over in my head. Erama. What
a beautiful sound. It must be the word for a beautiful thing.
“You few who have heard this word before probably shouldn’t have, but that’s
okay. You’re not in trouble.” He grins. “Can anyone tell me what it means, though?”
Nobody volunteers.
The lesson master grins more widely. “Good, then we’re right where we should
be. Starting from the first stone of the path.” He rises and walks to the blackboard, where
he begins to draw a bubble diagram. He writes “Erama” at the center, then draws many
other lines branching off it, so that it looks like a spider or the spokes of a wheel.
“Erama”—he said the word with a certain savor—“is the reason why we do all things.
She is the reason the Order exists.”
She?

* * *

I have been out into the strange, backward world of today. One does not need to
see very much of it to know how sad, how miserable and how wretched are these
creatures who do not know Erama! Although perhaps some of them do. But their world is
so fractured, so twisted and cacophonous, how can they not be driven to utter
distraction?
Blessed be the founders of the Order of the Sacred Mysteries of Erama, who saw
the clear need to guard and preserve the transcendent Mysteries from such a riotous
world. For if the Order was not hidden away but in plain view, how quickly would
everything we’ve worked for be destroyed. We hope that our efforts have been slowly
advancing the tides of Erama. But we are too small, too powerless to change the world
on our own. If Dentuna someday guides the world beyond its infantile stage, then the
Order will step forward and reveal the true way of happiness, and be embraced by the
goodwill of a mature human race.

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 * * *

I am seventeen, getting midday meal in the Dineria, and I am thinking about

Erama. My robes are now a deep red, the almost purple color of blood right before it
completes its journey back to the heart. These are the robes of a Soluar, my Family. A
giddy joy pulses through my nerves every time I think of this, even now, two years after
my placement in this Family. I am one of the lucky ones, the ones who will actually get
to see Erama.
I get my food and look around the Dineria for a place to sit. The Dineria is a
spacious hall with high windows in the central building of the Abbey. Like the rest of the
buildings and the walls themselves, it was built out of ground. The clay-rich, red-brown
earth around here was perfect for packing and baking into the big, solid blocks that make
up the walls. The walls of the Abbey are in the shape of a square, and the buildings inside
the walls are rectangles of various shapes that rise majestically from the ground. The
Dineria is filled with long tables, which right now are populated by clusters of various-
hued robes. Spotting the dark red robes of some of my classmates, I sit down with them
and spoon food into my mouth quietly, thinking about Erama. Again. We are all thinking
about Her. None of us can ever stop. We still perform our duties around the Abbey,
rotating assignments each week, and we still go to our regular classes—Language Arts,
Logic, Mathematics, Natural Science, History, Philosophy. But our favorite time of the
day, the thing we all look forward to, is Family Training, when Apprentices of each
Family receive specialized training for their own discipline. That is when Carlo, a wise
and humorous old man, comes and talks to us about the Mysteries, and then we have
discussions to see how each of us is progressing in our understanding of Dentuna and
Erama.
Dentuna is a powerful force that permeates the entire universe and guides its
course. It harmonizes the wills of individuals with the vast, complex tapestry of events.
When things are in their proper order, Dentuna is at peace and life flows smoothly. If one
attempts to go against his Dentuna, however, this throws off his harmony and balance
with the rest of the universe. Unless he submits to the providence of Dentuna, his life will
be thrown into utter chaos and havoc. As the Channou was telling us in History
yesterday, the Great Wars that ravaged our planet at the end of the last age were the result
of a great many people arrogantly resisting their Dentuna. Unfortunately, much of the
knowledge and enlightenment mankind had gained before that time was lost during the
Great Wars. Because some men succumbed to the temptation of violence, we lost almost
everything we had as a human race. Some speculate that the secular government may
have intentionally destroyed this knowledge, and they may still be hiding some of it.
Whatever the case, the true age of the Earth is no longer known. We and people of the
lands around us count the years from the establishment of the Order, which was the
rebirth of hope for civilization. From that point, the year is currently 623.
Those of us eating together are quiet because we are all thinking about what Carlo
said to us just before we left Family Training that morning. “One drop of the draught of
Erama and your soul will be blissfully satisfied for the life to come.” I mull this over.
How powerful this Erama must be, like a medicine that cures all ills or an elixer that
quenches thirst forever.
We young Soluars are linked by our common Dentuna. Carlo has taught us this,

3
and we are able to sense it within ourselves. Like all Brothers of the Order, we were
picked out by Seechars soon after birth. As I am not of the Seechar Family, I do not know
the methods by which they identify the mark of Erama, but I have always marveled at
their excellent wisdom and discernment. Every Brother I know seems like he was born to
serve the Mysteries. But we Soluars are different; we have a special purpose. Only one
new Soluar is selected every two years. Thus, there is one fifteen-year-old who was
recently chosen for the Soluar Family, one nineteen-year-old who was chosen two years
before me, and so on up to twenty-five. At that holy age (five squared, a powerful
number), the Soluar goes to a hidden place. There, he lives for two years in seclusion
with Her—Erama. From what I have gathered, She is a sort of High Priestess of the
Mysteries. For those two years, She and the Soluar live in blessed partnership, guarding,
perpetuating, and preserving the Mysteries. After the two years, the fully initiated Soluar
returns to the cloisters of the Abbey, living the rest of his life in contemplation and
prayer. A few times when I’ve been to the cloisters for some reason, I have seen these
enlightened Brothers, kneeling on the ground or hunched over the desks of their cells. For
the most part, though, they are seldom seen or heard from, except for Carlo, whose job it
is to teach us.
I will be happy to lead a life of contemplation and prayer, but sometimes it seems
I will have to wait forever before I can experience the glory of Erama. Often I get so
excited when imagining what Erama must be like that I don’t know what to do with
myself. I scream into my pillow and kick my bed, laughing the whole time. I sprint laps
around the Citadel. I am ashamed to admit that when I see the older Soluar apprentices I
am often besieged by jealousy that they will be going to Erama before me. But of course,
I calm myself down and do not let the jealousy show. “Every Soluar must have his turn,”
I say to myself. “Wait yours, and you will be so flooded with happiness that afterward
you will never understand how you could have been impatient. One instant of Erama is
enough to fill past, present, and future.”

* * *

Most things we feel the lack of only because we have been conditioned to expect
them. But there is another class of things, or thing, that we feel the lack of because it is
necessary. I have lived for this thing and this thing alone. I have had no money, no
luxuries, no connections to the outside world. No family, in the biological sense, no
friends, except for those who together with me are seeking the good. No hopes, no
dreams or ambitions, no responsibilities, no duties, no cares in the world, other than this.
Erama was planted in my mind from the beginning, and it became my end. I have no
regrets about it. I was trained in the most meticulous art of rational thought, and using
all my powers of intellect I never have been able to find a better reason to live. Maybe I
have missed something—an an outerworlder would think so. But I say, it is they who are
missing something big. They may choose to ignore it or mistake it for something else, but
I am sure that from time to time even they can feel it, that emptiness inside of them, in
their darkest moments.

* * *

I am pushing a wooden cart along a dirty street, cracked asphalt patched with tar

4
and smeared with oil. The Abbey lies behind me in the foothills of a mountain range. To
either side of me stretches gently rolling farmland. The fields at this time of year are only
bare, frozen dirt, and they are dotted by run-down houses whose silhouettes are darkening
in the twilight. These houses are small and rustic, built from wood or aluminum, with
sagging shingle roofs. Every once in a while along the road I meet one of the simple folk
who live in these houses going to or from town, often with horses or mules pulling carts.
Sometimes a herd of pigs or goats is herded along the road. As I get closer to town, there
are more buildings along the road. Some of them have big, light-up signs that are
partially burnt out; a few of them are vacant and disused, the windows blindfolded by
sheets of paper.
Supply runs into town are the only times most Brothers ever leave the Abbey. I
have supply duty about once a month. I have been up and down this road dozens of times,
but my curiosity with the strange things I see each time never seems to subside. I arrive at
the outskirts of town, a jumble of stores, houses, and apartment buildings. The biggest
buildings are no higher than the walls of the Abbey. I make my way along the twisting
cobblestone streets to one of the larger grocery stores. It is a very wide and long building,
housing many aisles, and the dim lighting and low ceiling make me feel like I am
wandering around a large cave. I find the things we need on the wooden shelves—bulk
packages of toilet paper, dish soap, laundry soap, light bulbs, toothpaste, and other
sundries. I also pick up some sugar, salt, spices, baking soda—food items that we can’t
produce ourselves at the Abbey. We have our own orchards and vegetable gardens,
chickens, pigs, and cows for meat and dairy, and we make all our own bread from wheat
grown by farmers around the Abbey and milled by ourselves. We sell our excess produce
to stores in town in exchange for money to purchase other necessities.
Little children and less tactful adults stare at me in the store, but I don’t mind it
very much. I suppose my red robes must cut a strange image for them, who are all
wearing two-legged pants and warm coats over skinny-sleeved shirts. They all know
about the Order that lives in the big castle-like edifice outside their town, but many of
them have never seen one of us before. We don’t bother them except for trading, and they
don’t bother us. In fact, I have heard that many of them like having the Abbey near their
town. Although they have little knowledge of what goes on inside it, they say it exudes a
powerful calm and an air or protection over the town, which I am sure it does. What they
must be feeling, although they do not know it, is the emanation of Life-Giving Erama.
I have to make several trips to the cashier’s counter, carrying my items in two big
wicker baskets. On my last trip, a child is throwing a fit in front of me. He is sitting in the
seat of the cart, and his mother is hurriedly tossing items onto the counter. The cashier
girl is hastily typing prices into a little mathematical calculator. Without being too
obvious, I look at the child with interest; he is a young boy with curly hair, no more than
two years old. I must have looked like that about twenty years ago, I think. I wonder what
the future holds in store for this boy. He appears to already be too old to be selected for
the Order; instead, he will go to the secular schools, drifting down the customary path,
learning whatever skills he needs to get by in life. He will live with and know his parents.
As the cashier girl finishes tallying the prices, the boy’s mother bends down to
hush her screaming child. I guess that she is about forty. Wrinkles are starting to appear
on her face. She has the look of someone who was probably considered to be in ideal
shape about ten years ago, but now her hips and thighs are a little bit fat. I wonder if she
has a husband or if she is raising this child alone. I wonder what it would be like to have

5
a child. As she leans over to shush the child firmly but gently, her eyes sneak an upward
glance and meet mine. She quickly looks back at the child.
I try to place myself in the mind of the mother, but it makes me dizzy. “Sir? Can I
help you?” I hear and realize that the mother already is pushing the cart and child out of
the store. “Yes,” I say, regaining my ground, and I start unloading items onto the counter.
The night descended while I was in the store; I am grateful for my heavy cloak
when I step outside. The townspeople who are out seem to be walking with a bit quicker
pace from street lamp to store light, glimmer to glimmer; I assume it’s because of the
cold. The lamp posts and store windows are bedecked with colorful ribbons and
evergreen branches. The town’s Festival of Winter must be approaching. As I navigate
my way back through the narrow, maze-like streets, pushing my wooden cart now laden
with goods, the image of the mother and the little boy, his eyes filled with salty tears,
won’t leave my head. Of course, I don’t remember my own parents at all. Once a child is
selected by the Order, the Order becomes his father and his mother. So it is really
meaningless to talk about parents at all. I don’t think about my parents often, but now I
cannot help but conjure images in my mind. I hope they did not cry when I left. I am sure
it saddened them a good deal to lose a son, but I hope they knew that their individual loss
would accrue sublime blessings for all humanity.
A high, lilting laugh comes to me from across the street. I look up and see a girl
and a boy about the same age as me, her arm through his. She is laughing at something he
just said; he chuckles along with her. He is wearing straight pants, a well-trimmed black
coat, and a checkered cap. She has very dark brown or maybe black hair that hangs down
in many loose curls from under a knit woolen hat. A red scarf with white deer on it is
wrapped around her neck. The couple’s condensing breath mingles in front of their faces.
I shiver, remembering how cold it is. The boy walks confidently with her on his arm, but
he does not swagger; he never forgets to look into her eyes. She, in turn, gazes adoringly
into his, causing a swarm of conflicted feelings to rise out of my stomach into my lungs
like gnats from a summer pond.
I should not feel envious, for I will have the chance to experience full Erama,
while their relationship is temporal, transitory, imperfect. I watch them more closely,
watch their eyes, their mouths, the tiny muscles of their faces, trying to detect any hints
of their true feelings. They look happy right now, but one can never really tell. Plus,
where will they be in three years, or ten? Probably heartache and discord, or if not, then
boredom and stagnation. So I should pity them. But Brother Carlo warned us not to take
too simple a view of outerworlders. “They may possess more truth than you realize, and
their truth is not wholly separate from ours.”
Longing tears at me, the longing that never really leaves. I know it is a reflection
of my longing for Erama; it has only been stirred up by my fleeting beholding of a boy
and a girl. I do not attempt to stifle it; instead I bask in it, nourish it, let it grow. Carlo has
told us that all longing, if it is a true, deep longing, is good. “If you lose longing, you
have lost Erama.” But with this longing comes sorrow. I cannot tell I am sad for the
couple that has just passed by, for myself, or for the world at large. This feeling is
painful, but pain is often necessary and good. It lets us know that our longing is true.
“Longing and sorrow are bound together as a lion is bound to his prey,” says Carlo. “The
lion is only freed from his prey when it has passed into the Blessed Lands where it does
not have to eat. Longing can only be freed from sorrow when it is truly fulfilled, in Life-
Giving Erama.”

6
 The feelings are so perplexing and confused. I spend the whole walk home
attempting to winnow them with my thoughts, but they are like a stubborn knot of cotton.
Pushing my cart down the starless country road, I resolve to bring this matter up in
Family Training tomorrow. Maybe we will make some progress sorting these things out
together. But like Carlo is fond of saying, “The journey goes on throughout life. Nothing
will ever be completely clear until you have passed through the Cloud of Unknown.”

* * *

I remember the first time I met her, my Lady Erama. She looked so exquisitely
beautiful standing in that doorway. From the very first night, the connection between our
souls was like the electricity buzzing through the bulbs in this very room. We are a
complete, closed circuit. And we still are. Though our physical images are distant from
one another in this temporal space, our souls are entwined in an immortal embrace, a
dance that will last forever. And in the circle are all who have experienced Erama, all my
Brothers with me. We are all one in soul.

* * *

It is spring in the year 631, and finally my own time has come. After years of
preparing my soul and watching other men go to Erama, now it is finally my chance to
experience the wonder. I am led out of the Citadel by two men in the light blue robes of
the Trahar family, the ones who have the most dealing with the outside world but know
the least about the secrets of the Order. They ask me to sit in a wooden mule-drawn cart,
and then they place a black silken hood over my head. “This is customary, to preserve the
secrecy of the House of Erama’s location,” one of them tells me. I can’t see anything.
The cart lurches to a start and rumbles over the bumpy ground; I can sense we’ve left the
Abbey, and then the cart turns onto the main road in the direction away from the town.
About an hour later, we have been traveling on what seem to be gravel roads and
have taken too many turns for me to remember. I wasn’t trying to memorize the route,
anyway. The cart stops, startling me out of my half-asleep reverie, and somebody takes
the hood off my head. The two Trahars are standing there, stretching out their legs.
“Hope you had a good ride,” one of them says.
Behind them is a house, but not like any of the rundown houses I have seen on my
trips into town. We seem to be in a mountain valley, and the house sits on the hillside in
the middle of a pine forest. It is two stories, made of solid-looking wood, with four thick
log pillars at the four corners. These pillars keep the house level above the sloping
ground, so that half of the house hangs suspended in the air. It has wide windows on three
sides and a wooden deck running round its entire circumference. The late afternoon sun
backlights the house, shining golden through the large windows and through the trees
behind the house. The House of Erama. It is even more beautiful than I have imagined it.
The Trahars walk me up the steps and then leave me at the door, where I am
greeted by a short, stout man. He is wearing a robe that is the light cream color of natural
cotton, and he is bald, with only a ring of white hair going around the back of his head.
“Hello, I am Foedus,” he says, holding the door open and smiling warmly. “Don’t worry,
you won’t see much of me anymore. I’ll only stop by about once a week to clean up the
house. You have any problems, the Lady knows how to reach me.” He winks. “Why

7
don’t you go in there and make yourself at home.” I thank him, stepping into the foyer,
and then he bustles down the steps and hops onto a motorbike I didn’t notice there before.
I pause in the foyer, unsure of myself. I have waited my whole life for this, but I
never really thought about what I would do when I first arrived. I realize that I had
unconsciously assumed that everything would be arranged for me, that it would all just
fall into place. I run my hand over the fancy designs on the wall, looked up at the crystal
chandelier. Then I hear light steps coming from down the hall. The door next to me
swings open.
My gaze travels up from the floor. First thing I notice are her feet—she is wearing
only cotton socks. Then I see that she has on pants with legs—something I am not used
to. They are blue and made of some kind of coarsely-spun material, but they are closely
fitted to the curves of her legs. Above that she has on a soft, long-sleeved black shirt,
again much more form-fitting than the clothes I am used to. The collar shows a V of soft
white skin at her neck. And above that, her face—my stomach immediately drops to my
feet and my head starts pounding like insanity caged. The graceful but confident lines of
her chin. Her lips like swaths of strawberry pie. Her fair skin, with a gentle dusting of
freckles like cinnamon across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. Her sparkling,
radiant green eyes. And the black tresses of her hair, falling in loose, dangly curls all
around her shoulders.
I stare at her for a full minute while she waits for me to do or say something.
Finally I take a step toward her, stretching my arm out dramatically, and say, “Erama!” It
is truly a gasp of longing from my soul, but it comes out sounding more like a croak. She
laughs, and I look around to see if someone has turned up the lights on the chandelier.
No, it is just her face. Then she gestures to my dark red robe, grinning. “Why don’t you
go find something to change into?” she says, pointing up the stairs to a half-open door.
Behind that door I find a bed bigger than anything I have ever seen, spread with
green and gold covers and piles of fluffy pillows. It faces panoramic French doors
looking out over the valley, where the sun is still setting. The bed also has a massive oak
headboard, matching the other pieces of furniture in the room. I see two dressers, one
covered in knick-knacks and one empty on top. I guess the latter is mine. In it are stacks
of underwear, plenty of socks, and folded piles of the clothes that outerworlders wear. I
take whatever is on top and figure out how they go on. The pants feel strangely tight and
stiff.
Downstairs, I find Erama standing behind a counter, pouring something into two
oddly-shaped glasses from a big, dark bottle. The liquid is the same color as the robes I
just shed. She looks up. “Now that looks a lot nicer. Your shirt’s on backwards, though.
The little white thing on the neck is called a tag. It always goes in the back.” I look down
and notice the little white thing under my chin. Noticing my consternation, she laughs
and says, “Don’t worry about it right now, though. Here, come over here.” The kitchen is
adjoined to a living room with couches and chairs. She places the filled glasses on a low
table there and plops down on a couch in front of them.
I walk over and sit on a couch across from her. Now I have had a few minutes to
think of what to say, I decide it is best to start out by declaring my everlasting dedication
to her, to Life-Giving Erama. I place my hand over my heart and hold my other one out to
her. “Oh beautiful Erama, I would just like to tell you that I am forever sworn to you. I
will guard, perpetuate, and—”
She waves her hand. “Please. You don’t need to talk like that anymore. And my

8
name is Elle, okay? Not Erama.”
I feel like the house has just been flipped upside down. “What? If you’re not
Erama, then who—?”
Elle sighs. “I don’t know what you’ve been taught, but Erama is not a person.”
“But aren’t you—Her?”
“Yes, I am She, the one you are to live with for two years, but I am not Erama.
My name is Elle.”
I don’t know what to say. “My name is Ropheo,” I croak.
She smiles and sticks her hand out to shake. “Pleased to meet you,” she says.
“Now take a sip of this.” She handed me a glass. “This is called wine.”
I lift the glass to my mouth and swallow some. My mouth reflexively puckers up,
and Elle laughs lightheartedly. “How do you like it?”
I consider for a second. “The taste is bitter, but it gives me a pleasantly warm
feeling in my throat and stomach.” I take another sip. The taste actually isn’t that bad. It’s
sour, but with a hint of ripe sweetness. As I take a few more confident swigs, Elle laughs
again. “I think you’ll find it very pleasantly warm, indeed,” she says. Her laugh is high,
lilting, reminding me of some delicate memory I cannot place.
It grows dark outside quickly while Elle and I lounge on the couches, talking and
sipping wine. At some point, she invites me over to sit next to her on the couch. I hope
she doesn’t notice me trembling with nervous joy as I sit down beside her. I tell her all
about myself, although she already knows the general facts. My history is roughly the
same as each Brother she has had here before me. For this reason, she talks a lot more
than me on this night. I find out that she, like me, was given up by her parents as a baby
and raised in a very secret manner by the Order. According to her, the Order actually
contains a very small Family of Sisters who live in seclusion and keep the feminine
Mysteries of Erama. It is they who must find and raise each new Oracle of Erama, as Elle
calls herself. She lived with them until she was twenty, and then she came here.
When she first calls herself the “Oracle of Erama,” I arch my eyebrows
skeptically. “What?” she says. “Don’t I look like it?” She smirks at me teasingly.
“Well,” I say, “honestly, I was expecting something a little more…mystical, I
guess. Like white robes and burning candles.” And this is the truth.
Elle laughs. “That’s what I thought when I first got here, too.” I don’t want to ask
how long ago that was.
After a while, our conversation dies down a little bit. Elle is swirling her last little
pink droplet of wine around in the bottom of her glass, looking at it demurely. Finally I
say what’s been most on my mind the whole night.
“Elle…you said you’re not Erama. You said nobody is.”
She nods without looking up from her glass.
“Well, if you’re not Erama, then what is it?”
She looks up, her eyes suddenly gleaming mischievously. “That’s what you and I
are here to find out.”

* * *

I am walking along a narrow forest path with Elle. She says it was made by deer
traversing this ground many times until they trampled out the weeds and a path became
clear. We have been walking through the valley for quite some time; the house is far

9
behind us.
As we walk I hold Elle’s hand lightly, but she keeps just far enough away so that
our arms form a V dangling between us. It has been difficult to get used to her the past
two months. On the surface, she is blithe and free; she does not hesitate to say what she is
thinking, and she never misses a chance to laugh. Her demeanor leaves me feeling
inadequate, in a way. Always the serious one, I am ashamed that I cannot be more like
her. But she diffuses even this worry because she never hints at the slightest bit of
irritation or boredom with me. In fact, the more chagrined I become at my own
personality, the more she seems to enjoy it. But despite her easy charm, she has
consistently maintained a small separation between us. Every once in a while we are
having a pleasant conversation and she suddenly gets very quiet and then leaves the
room. I have even been moved several times to kiss her, and each time she turned her
head to receive the kiss on the cheek with a gracious but apologetic smile. Right now she
seems to be extremely interested in the plants on her side of the path, pointing out
different flowers and bushes along the way but avoiding looking at our joined hands.
“Look, Ropheo, there’s some milkweed! That’s what monarch caterpillars eat,
and then they make their cocoons on it and turn into butterflies,” she informed me.
“Yes, I know, I learned that in Natural Science,” I say, and the smile falls away
from her face. I immediately regret saying it. We continue to tread along in silence for a
little while among the oaks and pines. The leaves have all grown back recently, and the
ground under the trees is filled with an explosion of vibrant green plants from the rain last
month. Some of these stalks have shot up past our heads in just the past few weeks. I
think I can hear the gurgle of water; I know that the brook at the bottom of the valley
must be swollen right now.
Elle pauses to run her fingers lightly over the trunk of a thin oak tree. “The bark
has been peeled off here. The deer ate it during the winter.”
This time I lean over to examine the tree. I feel the patch of smooth, exposed
wood. “Yes, it’s fascinating…I can’t believe they can digest bark. It’s too bad humans
can’t do anything like that.”
Just then a piercing crack rips through the air, sending me jumping practically into
Elle’s arms. “What’s that?” I ask, looking around with alarm for the source of the noise.
Elle squeezes my hand and draws my arm in a little closer.
“Don’t worry. It was a gunshot. The hunters are out.” She looks behind us into the
forest, and I think I see a hint of anxiety in her eyes.
“Hunters? What are they hunting?”
“Probably turkey at this time of year. Come on, let’s walk.” She pulls me after
her, and we resume, but I am sticking a little closer to her, and she doesn’t put up a fight
against it. I keep looking around, expecting to a man with a gun step out of the woods
right next to us.
“They’re hunting animals? Do they kill them?”
“Yes.”
“Why…how can they do that?”
“I don’t know,” Elle says. “They just do. That’s the world for you. Foedus says
that it’s almost like a science, though. He says humans are part of the natural
environment…if we don’t kill some of the animals, they will overpopulate the area and
then they’ll just die anyway. It’s called culling.”
“So they get paid to do it?”

10
 “No. They pay to do it. It’s a sport for them.”
“Doesn’t that…pain them to do that?”
“Ropheo, people have been hunting since time immemorial.” The afternoon sun
in front of us heats our brows and glints through the trees into our eyes as we pass by
thick green vegetation and colorful bursts of wildflowers. “We used to have to hunt to
survive. We couldn’t have made it to where we are today without hunting.”
“But we don’t have to hunt to survive anymore.”
Elle sighs. “Maybe they’re just paying a sort of tribute to their ancestors. It’s their
culture. Maybe they’re just trying to preserve what came before.”
The pattern of beliefs and events, people, birth and death and everything in
between out there, is so enormous that I can’t seem to get a grip on it. There is what came
before and what will come after, and right now is only a brief interlude between these
two massive, almost incoherent symphonies. “I still don’t understand,” I say. I look at
Elle and she is frowning at the path ahead of her as we walk; I can see her consternation
is the same as mine. Suddenly she stops, grabs me by the shoulders, and kisses me
forcefully on the mouth. I feel her arms behind me, pulling me into her, but she is leaning
into me so much that I fall back into the bush behind me. She comes down with me, and
we just stay there. Bright green leaves are around my face and hers; I can feel thorns
pricking into my back. I pull her closer into me, and we sink further into the tangled
branches. And out of all the mess of things that we can’t understand, one thing suddenly
makes sense. Erama. I can tell this is it by fiery spices shooting through my veins and by
the flakes of static electricity sloughing off the top of my head.

* * *

I wake up sweating in bed, thinking I’ve lost the beating heart. There was a
beating red heart, lying on a tuft of grass, leaking away its life…and the lions were
closing in on it. So many of them, they were slinking toward it with their soft paws and
their shoulders rotating in that awful way, like slick, oiled pistons. And I was a lion too,
and I had to sink my teeth into that heart before the other lions snatched it away…but I’m
not a lion. I’m a man, lying in bed with a woman. An owl hoots outside. I get up and
close the window, and as I climb back into bed, Elle mumbles something incoherent and
opens her eyes a little bit.
“It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” I say.
She sticks out her hand and feels the sheets where I was lying. “You’re sweating,”
she says drowsily. Then she lifts herself up on her elbow, looking more alert. “Were you
having a nightmare again?”
“Yes,” I say, “but it’s fine. You can go back to sleep.”
She looks at me with concern. “What was it about?”
I start to tell her to go back to sleep again, but then the thought of the beating
heart and the lions makes me shudder. “Honey,” Elle says, reaching out to touch my face.
I lean forward and kiss her on the lips. She kisses back, harder. Her arm snakes over and
strokes me on the back, right along the little hollow of my spine, the way that always
sends me shivers. Soon I am clutching her and she is clutching me, with all our might. All
our confusion, all our fear. All that is pent up. In this shape, our nightmares can only
attack our backs.

11
 * * *

I am considering the form of woman. Can anything else stir one to higher praises
of Erama? How perfectly sculpted, proportionate and exquisite, soothing and delightful!
Of course, I am not envisioning just any woman’s body—I am meditating on the very
notion, the abstraction of woman. This is the perfect image stamped on my soul from my
two years of blissful contemplation of Her. In this world, She is the most perfect
recreation of the idea, the closest one can get to that which truly IS. For this reason I do
not quake when I remember I am not near Her body, for the Erama that we created still
exists between our immortal souls.
Two short years can give one a lifetime’s supply of joy. True, it was difficult to
part with my dear Beamille, perhaps the most difficult thing I ever had to do. When it
came time for me to leave, how my soul grieved and raged. Beamille! it cried. Be with
her! This is the greatest and final test of every Brother, the true test of his courage, faith,
and discipline. So while my soul tossed blindly about like a ship in a storm, I kept my
mind focused on what I knew was the truth. I knew what I was called to do by Dentuna,
and harmony with Dentuna is the only path to true happiness. I thought of my younger
Brothers, the Soluars with whom I had grown up, who wanted and needed to experience
Erama as I had. How could I begrudge them that out of my own selfishness? I thought of
the cruel, misshapen world outside, and the Order, its last great hope for light. I knew
because of these things that I could never stay with Beamille. And when I acknowledged
that, the most supreme happiness and peace finally came over me.
I suddenly realized that no part of our connection could ever be lost, because
what once has been, always IS. And I knew that my all Brothers, too, were united with me
in Erama, because what will be, always IS. I had been taught this many times in my
training, but I had never really understood it until that moment. So, I returned gladly,
and I have stayed here since then, not out of law or duty, but out of my own free will.

* * *

I come back into the house from the vegetable garden I have been tending on the
side. Because we are so well taken care of, we have to find various ways to keep
ourselves busy. I bring the crisp coldness and the scent of brittle leaves in with me,
clinging to my clothes.
In the living room I find Elle sitting on a high stool by the windows, which
display a panorama of autumnal valley and gray sky. Her eyes seem to have changed,
chameleon-like, to match the sky; the gray has washed the green out of them. She does
not move her gaze from the window until I touch her shoulder and she is startled out of
her thoughts. When she looks up at me, she is not quite quick enough to hide the anxiety
in her eyes before I catch it. She tries to smile.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“What is what?”
“What were you looking at?”
“Just a hawk out there.”
I look out. “I don’t see any hawk.”
“It was circling for food. I guess it’s gone now.”
We are silent for a few minutes, looking out the window. I put my arm lightly

12
across her shoulders. They are tense. “It’s getting toward winter,” she says.
“Yes.”
She looks at me searchingly, her eyes going back and forth between mine. I know
what she is thinking. I came here at the beginning of spring, a year and a half ago.
A rustling noise behind me makes me look over my shoulder. Foedus has just
come into the adjoined kitchen with his cleaning supplies. He gets down onto his knees to
scrub the floor. When he sees me looking at him, he grins and gives a wink. “Don’t mind
me, I’m just cleaning up. You two just act like I’m not even here.”
I lower my voice to speak to Elle. “I know we only have a few more months.”
She looks down at the ground. “Don’t say that,” she whispers.
I glance back toward Foedus, who is happily scrubbing the floor. I turn back to
Elle. “I’m going to miss you,” I say quietly.
“I’m going to miss you too,” she says with a quaver, and suddenly she is crying
into my shoulder, burying her nose in my neck.
“C’mon, let’s go somewhere else,” I whisper. I lift her up from the stool and walk
toward the staircase with still crying into my shoulder. We pass Foedus on the floor, and
his eyes meet mine for a second, but then he busily returns to the floor, scrubbing
intently. I help Elle up the stairs to our room, where she sits on the edge of the bed and I
next to her.
More collected now, Elle dabs at her eyes with her shirt. “I’m so sorry,” she says.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No.”
“I always get like this towards the…towards the end.” She sniffs. “I’m okay,
though.”
I am just staring at her. When she sees this, she looks at me more forcefully.
“Seriously, Ropheo, just forget about it. I’m fine.”
But I am not fine. A wild impulse is seizing my heart. I don’t know if I can resist
this, even with all my education, all my training. It’s tearing me in two. Words float
before my mind, words like Erama, discipline, Citadel, generosity, self-control, desire,
Brothers, Mystery, Order, Dentuna. But they have no hold over me, because they are just
phantoms, and this is happening right now.
“Let’s leave,” I whisper.
“What?”
“Let’s leave this place behind. We can run away,” I say, a little louder. She looks
away from me. I can tell that she knew this moment was coming.
“Look,” I say, “why should we have to end this after two years?” My heart is
racing, my mind is crackling and jumping to places I’ve never been before. I never
thought I would be saying this. “Outerworlders live together for their whole lives. Why
shouldn’t we?”
“Outerworlders are unhappy.” I can tell she has had this conversation before.
There is a steeled look in her eyes. “Most of their relationships don’t last, and the ones
that do end up miserable.”
I am hearing things that I have heard for my whole life, but I have never so much
wanted to believe the opposite. “This is different. We’re different. We could live
together…for our whole lives!” Even as I know the thought sounds crazy coming out of
my mouth.
“But honey, where would we go?” Elle asks. She knows all the arguments.

13
 “I don’t know…anywhere. Somewhere far away. We could find a place
unmarred, untouched, like the original creation. I’ve heard there are still pockets of such
places that exist.”
And then fatal blow, the one I’ve been trying to avoid: “But what about our
Dentuna? We have to preserve the Mysteries of Erama. And to do that, we can’t be
selfish.”
Desperate, I scrabble for something to hold onto. “We could live…our whole
lives…just the two of us.”
“We are living. We are living more than anyone else on this planet, at this very
moment. Just be with me now. Soon we will be out of time.”

* * *

The last few weeks have been tortuous. Today is our final day, Elle and I, and still
the bitter war is raging in my skull and in my breast. Elle has remained steadfast. I can
see the unhappiness in her face, though she tries to hide it. But she has already told me
how this has happened with almost every Soluar she has ever lived with. When she told
me that, I had to resist the urge to grab her wrist and shout, “And how many is that?” To
her, I am no different than any of the other Brothers who have come.
Elle is a much better servant of the Order than I will ever be. I admire her
practically unflinching dedication. And this has made it even harder for me, because the
more I admire her, the more I wish to be with her forever. But she is right, of course. Our
duty is to the Order, to Erama. I am increasingly unsure of what Erama even means, but
the Order needs me to trust them. If I don’t, it could destroy so much of what we have
worked for. My Brothers need me. They need me to know that they need Her. I know that
I should be able to resist these emotions. It is not easy, but if She can, then I can. That
must be what it truly means to be an Oracle of Erama.
There is a knock on the bedroom door. I am in there alone; Elle left some ten
minutes ago. She said we needed to be alone. The door opens, and Foedus takes a step in.
“Pardon me, Ropheo. The Trahars are waiting downstairs.” He stands there holding the
door open with his head bowed a little, looking solemn and apologetic. He knows that
this has been a hard time for me.
I get up and follow him down the stairs to the front door. I am wearing my heart’s
blood robe again, for the first time in two years. Two light blue robes are waiting for me.
I stop in the foyer and look to my right down the hallway to the kitchen and living room.
Elle is framed in the doorway, sitting on a stool at the counter and watching us. Her
expression is carefully blank. Our eyes meet once, then she turns away and does not look
at us again. It’s better that we don’t say goodbye. It would be too hard.
“Ropheo.” Foedus is looking at me steadily. I nod. I take one last look at Elle in
the doorway, and then I quickly go out the door. I climb into the wooden cart, the black
hood comes down over my head, and then I see no more until we get back to the Abbey.

* * *

I have lived long now; the shining fulcrum of my life is past. But that does not
mean I do not feel my heart racing and the blood rushing to my cheeks every now and
then. I could tell you about passion…Erama! Beamille! Oh, that’s life… Her potpourri

14
still clings in my hair. Am I dissatisfied with my small, barren cell? No! For the sun still
shines in through the window, and out there in the orchard are trees, and grass, wind
and ground! These four walls are not cold stone, but warm, packed earth. And this room
is not a barren chamber; it is a living womb from which Erama will flow, from which I
will be reborn.
I, Stasinto, attempt to bequeath the goodness I have found upon the world,
whether by humans reading this in some future age or by the emanation of wisdom from
the very ink of these pages into the air. I have not lowered my sight to mere mortal and
earthly pleasures, but have always raised my eyes to the everlasting Truth, that holy
Light which is the Highest Good, Erama, which Dentuna ever works to bring about. I
lived for the Highest Good, I attained the Highest Good, and what now? Now I die for
the Highest Good, every day, until I pass into the Cloud of Unknown, where I feel certain
I will once again become one with—

It is my birthday. We had a small celebration at the midday meal, where all the
Brothers said a blessing over me and a special pudding was served for dessert. A few of
my closest Brothers, Soluars, gave me small gifts—a homemade quill, some ink, new
bedding for my mattress (dark red, spun in the Abbey), a little stained-glass suncatcher in
the shape of a hummingbird to put on my window. When I ran into Carlo after one of his
Family Training sessions, he gave me a big, birthday hug.
I’ve been back now for several months. Things are a lot different now than they
used to be. Instead of having lots of classes with other apprentices, now most of my time
is free time, which translates to alone time. We can go anywhere we want in the Abbey
and do anything; we are free to roam. But the experienced Soluars don’t talk much to
each other—there is not much to say, or maybe there is too much. Sometimes I’ll go out
on a walk through the orchard with one of my older Brothers. I’ve tried talking to them
about Erama, and they are receptive to the subject as long as we stick to vague
generalities, but as soon as I try to get more specific with my relationship with Elle, they
seem to get uncomfortable with the conversation. It’s almost like they’re afraid of
something there.
I have talked to Carlo a little bit about this, too. I need to know how my Brothers
achieve such endurance. He looked at me with some concern, patted me on the shoulder,
and tried to reassure me. It takes time, he said. Everybody has trouble at first. Just like
physical strength, you have to build up your mental courage with exercise. But he said
once you have built up this strength, you will have the most wonderful existence in the
world. I could see the assurance and happiness radiating from his kind eyes, and I don’t
doubt that he is right, but it still failed to heat the coldness of my soul.
So finding these conversations with my Brothers unhelpful, I’ve spent most of my
time in my cell like everybody else, meditating, reflecting, and writing. We are not
required to write. But inevitably, within the first couple weeks of returning, every Soluar
finds himself drawn back into his cell to connect pen and paper.
That’s what I’m doing right now. Writing. Or trying to write. My narrow window
is open, and a lovely spring breeze is floating in from the sunny orchard. I find I keep
writing the same things over and over again, in slightly different ways. I sound like one
of those birds outside my window who keeps repeating the same five notes over and over
again. What do these other Brothers have to write so much about? How can Brothers
thirty or forty-five years older than me still find something to say about a two-year

15
fraction of their lives? Is anything they write fresh and new, or is it just the same line
repeated over again?
I can hear their quills scrabbling away in their cells. We all live on one long
corridor, one long cell block, and our cells do not have doors. We can all hear a Brother
sneeze down the hall. We can all hear each other’s stomachs growling right before
mealtime. And lately I’ve become convinced that I can even hear the writing of every
single inhabitant of each cell down the hall. The scrabbling of a million quills echoes
down the hall like the scrabbling of rats’ feet in my dreams, scampering to scavenge a
leftover piece of meat.
Now it’s getting hot in my cell, despite the thick earth walls and the smallness of
the window. I’m sitting at my desk, trying to write, and my red robe is stifling. The
hummingbird suncatcher glints innocently on the window. The smell of pollen and
flowers is thickening in the room; in the orchard, fruit is ripening and getting ready to
drop. Over the buzzing of millions of bees, the birds keep tweeting and tweeting, a
mounting archipelago of notes, and rats’ feet keep scampering down the hall. Bees. Birds.
Flowers. Rats. Fruit. All multiplying.
Suddenly a shout is echoing down the hall: “Somebody do something!” and I
realize it’s my own shout and I’m standing up in my cell with my chair on its back on the
floor. I spin around and rush out into the hallway in a flurry of red robes, and then I’m in
the cell of the man next door, who looks up from his writing, startled. He is quite a bit
older than me, with only a little bit of gray hair left on his head, and he looks very tired. I
was prepared to yell, but his age gives me pause. Instead I address him in as controlled a
voice as possible.
“What’s your name?”
“Stasinto,” he says, looking bewildered.
“And do you know mine?”
He squints at me. “Erm…no, I can’t say I do.”
I bark a laugh. “Well, I’m Ropheo, and I’ve been in the cell next door to you for
three months.” He just stares at me like I’m a madman. “What are you doing?” I almost
shout.
“I’m writing,” he says.
I snatch the little notebook he is writing in from his desk and begin reading the
last few lines he has written, out loud. “I lived for the Highest Good, I attained the
Highest Good, and what now? Now I die for the Highest Good, every day, until I pass
into the Cloud of Unknown—what is this? You think you’re dying or something? You
don’t look dead yet to me!” I throw the little book back down on his desk and storm out
into the hall. “You all act like you’re dying!” I shout, so everyone can hear. “Well, you’re
not doing any good by dying, and you’re not doing any service to Life-Giving Erama!
And I, for one, am not dying!” I march down the corridor to the exit into the courtyard. A
few heads poke out of their cells to see what’s going on, but no one moves to stop me.
After I leave, I’m sure that they all just go back to their writing.
I come out the doorway into the courtyard, where Brothers in robes of various
colors are about their daily business. Ignoring all of them, I walk straight toward the
Abbey gates. They are open, as they usually are during the day, to let Brothers come and
go from the fields. I don’t really know what I’m going to do; I just feel a crushing need to
get out of the Abbey. The gatekeepers, a couple of Trahars, stare at me from the little
gatehouse on the side. They look like they’re considering coming out to stop me, but I

16
just keep walking. When I’m a little ways outside of the gate, I risk a glance back, and in
the window of the guardhouse I think I see a short man in a cream-colored robe talking to
the guards. But then his figure vanishes from the window frame, and I am not even sure
of what I saw.
I reach the road and I instinctually turn right. Soon the fields of the Abbey are
behind me and I am in territory I have never been in before. Or at least never seen.
Finally I stop walking. I need to pull myself together. What am I going to do? There’s
still time to go back, and it will be as if nothing ever happened. I shade my eyes from the
sun and look out in front of me. There are a few houses and other buildings out there, but
beyond that are the forest-covered hills, getting bigger and steeper as they get closer to
the mountains.
Somewhere out there is a house that I lived in for two years. And somewhere out
there is Elle.
“The journey goes on throughout life. Nothing will ever be completely clear until
you have passed through the Cloud of Unknown.”
I shut off the stream of admonitions and portents in my head and start walking.

* * *

It has been six days since I set out. My feet are full of blisters, my robes are torn
and dirty, and my stomach has been empty nearly the entire time. I did find some wild
strawberries and raspberries in the woods, which weren’t fully mature yet but were edible
nonetheless. I also struck upon a few mountain homes with gardens and stole what I
could from those. I’ve been drinking from streams and from the outdoor water spigots on
houses.
I’ve stuck to the roads because I know the house has to be on one. Every dirt road
I come to I’ll walk down and check every branch off of it, even if it’s only two tracks of
mud in the grass. I figure this is the only thorough way to do it. If I don’t find her house,
then I walk back out to the main road and keep going to the next dirt road. The problem is
when another main road intersects the first one. Then I have to go down that and check
every road off of it. I’ve tried asking some passersby in cars or trucks if they’ve ever
heard of the House of Erama or of a house in the woods with such and such description,
but none of them have.
My patience is nowhere near exhausted, but my body is. I don’t know how much
longer I can keep this up. With no outerworlder money, I can’t even pay for food or
lodging. Sleeping on the ground isn’t too bad, but the hunger is draining all my energy. I
can already count my ribs. I figure if I don’t find the house in the next couple of days, I’ll
have to start begging for food door to door. But I don’t want to do that because I am
afraid the local law enforcement will get involved, and if they do they’ll probably take
me back to the Abbey. I’ve been doing most of my traveling at night in case the Order
has sent anyone out to look for me.
This night, I’m investigating a particularly lonely road. It’s somewhat promising
because there don’t seem to be many houses on it; it’s just a long stretch of winding dirt
road through the forest. Still, I try not to get my hopes up too much, guarding against
likely disappointment. After traveling on it for what I guess is about five miles, I see a
light through the trees up ahead. My heart quickens and I pick up the pace, but then a
pang of hunger makes me slow down again.

17
 The road comes out of the forest into a little clearing on a gentle hill. A crescent
moon shining down gives me enough light to see the house. Suddenly my knees are
weak. This is it. The wraparound porch, the French doors…I could never mistake it for
another, even at night.
I want to burst in through the front door and wrap my arms around Elle, but I
know I can’t. There’s another Soluar living with her now, Jemino, my closest younger
Brother in the Family. A twinge of guilt pricks me. I shouldn’t be doing this. But it’s too
late now. I’m already doing it.
The light I saw through the trees was from a first-floor window. I creep up to the
window and peek around the edge to see if anyone is still up. There, across the living
room, is Elle, sitting with her back to me. All I can see is the back of her head. I look
around the room, but it looks like she is alone. What is she doing up by herself at this
hour? I can’t tell if she is reading or just sitting there.
I rap on the window very lightly. Her head snaps around; she looks like a scared
rabbit caught away from its hole. Then when she realizes who it is, she looks even more
scared. She jumps up from her chair, wrapping her bathrobe more tightly around herself,
and walks quickly to the door, never taking her eyes off me.
I am already waiting there when she opens it. “Elle,” I breathe. I step forward, but
she steps out and closes the door behind her softly. When she looks at me, her face is a
blend of fear, consternation, and—I think—a little happiness to see me.
“Ropheo!” she hisses. “What are you doing here?”
“I ran away. From the Abbey.”
“How did you even find this place?”
“I looked.”
Elle leans back against the door, struggling to piece it all together in her mind.
“You mean…you came back for me?”
“Yes. I had to. I tried to follow Dentuna, I tried to live like I know I’m supposed
to, but I just couldn’t do it. I…I wanted to be with you again.” I look down, ashamed.
When I look back up at her, she is giving me a strange look, but it’s not accusation. It
looks more like pity mixed with gratitude.
“Ropheo, I don’t know what to say.” Her voice breaks. “What…what do you want
me to do?”
The same intense feeling from the day she cried on my shoulder now grips me
again. I look at her fiercely. “Come with me.” Suddenly I feel a wave of dizziness from
hunger and have to steady myself against the wall. She looks at me with concern.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah…just a little hungry. Do you have any food?”
She goes inside and comes back out with some cheese and crackers, which I
gobble down greedily. She watches me silently while I eat. When my stomach no longer
hurts, I look up at her again. “So?”
“What do you mean ‘so’? You walk up here at three in the morning and expect
me to just drop everything and run away with you? Jemino is asleep up there right now!”
She starts crying again. I approach her tentatively and put my arms around her.
Something sings inside of me, but I shove it down. “I’m sorry,” she says, shuddering. “I
just don’t know what to do.” I hold her like that until she stops shaking and breathing
hard, which is about fifteen minutes. Then I hold her for another fifteen minutes, neither
of us saying anything, just standing on the porch under the moon with my younger

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Brother sleeping above our heads. Finally I venture to say something, risking the breakup
of our little huddle. “I’m sorry. I never should have come here. I’ll just—”
“No,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to apologize.” I look down at her; she
looks so young, I think, and so pretty in the moonlight. Suddenly a strange thought strikes
me. “Elle…”
“Yes?”
“What happens to Oracles of Erama when they get old?”
“What?”
“Well, they can’t have wrinkled old ladies for the Oracle…” I look down at her.
“I think,” she says, combing over all her memories of Sisterhood, trying to work it
all out, “it must be a little different every time.” We both ponder this silently.
Finally Elle speaks up. She sounds like she is figuring out the words as she says
them. “This is how it was supposed to be all along.” Her face is next to my chest, and she
is taking very deep breaths. “We don’t even have a choice. We have to do it. Or it’ll
never end. It’ll always be the same.” Her words echo within my ribcage. They contain a
hard truth; I can’t deny it. It’s why I came back here. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I
have failed. Elle looks up at me. “I’ll go,” she says. “We have to go now.”
Elle slips quietly back inside to gather some things, mainly food, into a bag. She
tells me that she has a small stash of outerworlders’ cash from Foedus. “For
emergencies,” she says. She can’t go get clothes for fear of waking Jemino. I tell her this
is perfect; now we are both stuck in robes. She laughs.
Now I am just waiting for her on the porch. I am so dejected and elated, I don’t
even know what to do. I look out at the whole nighttime forest, the dark swaths of
unknown out there, and I shiver. But shivering is good; it reminds you that you’re still
alive.
Finally she comes back out with everything she thinks we might need before we
can go to a store tomorrow. I sling the bag over my shoulder, put my arm around her
waist, and usher her off. She can’t resist stealing a glance back at the sleeping house.
“This is crazy,” she whispers. “I know,” I say. I look back, too, and something light
catches my eye in the darkness at the edge of the woods. I squint back, and can just
barely make out the shape of a squat, robed man. And I swear I see him wave before he
fades into the blackness. Then I drape my wide, heavy sleeve more tightly over Elle’s
shoulders, and we hurry off down the dark road.

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