Chapter 10: Sharna's Nighttime Sojourn

Sharna

Since the jaguar attack, I’ve had strange dreams and visions, as if the creature left some of itself inside of me. In dreams, I stalk through the woods hunting prey, run great distances without growing tired, leap into trees and bound over logs easily. When I wake, I grieve the loss of the physical prowess I had while sleeping. 

It’s been three days since Taiye fell ill. Mixa has cared for her every moment, tending the fire, sitting at her bedside, and patiently giving her sips of tea. 

I’m sitting with Taiye while Mixa naps. She stirs, flails at her blanket but doesn’t wake up. 

The Horse Hearth Healer comes to the bedside and presses the back of her hand against Taiye’s forehead. 

“It is common for visitors to catch this fever.” She sounds concerned. “I have seen this many times. It can be quite serious.”

“It’s strange.” I say, “I can’t reach her. Since she became ill, I haven’t been able to see her mind at all.”

“In this hearth, we call it the ‘Away Illness’. When people recover, if they recover, they often can’t remember being sick. There have been cases of profound change after they recover.” She gently tests Taiye’s pulse and tucks her arm back under the blanket. 

“What kind of changes?”

The Hearth Healer knits her eyebrows together and purses her lips. “It can be small things like a change in preferences for certain foods or the loss of a skill they once had. But it can also be more serious where they almost become another person. A cheerful person might become angry or impatient. Some have rejected their home hearth and decided to become solo wanderers.”

I’m glad Mixa didn’t hear this. The news of her closest friend changing or becoming a wanderer would upset her.

“What can I do?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing really. Make sure she drinks and keep her warm. Otherwise, all you can do is wait.” She sits and makes a brief note in her notebook.  

“A twig that won’t be burned,” I say quietly. The healer shakes her head in dismay. We both know what it could mean if Taiye never returns to our hearth to cast her twig into the home hearth fire. The sadness weighs on me. 

Only ten days ago, I thought that my life would never change. I pinned great pink peonies into my hair before the Feast of the Return, baked bread for the feast, worried about crops freezing, and like everyone, was concerned about the dragons in the valley, but everyday life seemed more pressing. I never dreamt that I would leave the hearth or and follow Solis on this trek. 

The Hearth Healer rolls back my pant leg and runs her fingers over my wound. Her touch is cool. “It is healing, but it will scar.” She reaches into her pouch and applies a pungent, oily salve. 

“How do you feel?” 

“Fine… only…”

She inclines her head toward me. Her eyes are cool gray and when she looks at me, it is as if she hears me completely. 

“I’m having strange dreams.” 

She touches her temple lightly. “May I?” 

I nod, assenting to having her probe my memory. I’m not used to being read, I’m usually the one doing the reading. 

With her eyes closed, I feel her enter. There is lightness of her mind that’s pleasurable. After a minute or so, she says, “Ah yes, I see. It feels like more than a dream. It is…”

As she trails off, we both examine the fragments of my dreams. I remember again the power of my muscles bounding through the woods. She disengages and shakes her head lightly.

“It is only an illusion that we are separate. We are all one thing. The jaguar bit you, but it wasn’t separate from you. The boundaries between you are weak. The jaguar may be dreaming of your life.”

I’m too preoccupied to think what this means right now.

##

I awaken in a fever. The night is still, dark, and cold. I kick off my bed covers and lay staring at the ceiling. The light from the hearth fire is low, just banked glowing embers. 

I’m dizzy and nauseous. A chill runs through my body and I snatch my covers over me. I must have the Away Sickness. I should tell someone, do something. Mixa sleeps sitting up next to Taiye. I could tell her, but I know she’s exhausted and I’ve felt how worried she is. The Horse Hearth Healer has gone home. 

In the next moment, I’m moving through space. The air around me roars. I’m in some kind of room. Everything is hard and made of odd, unnatural colors. I am strapped to a chair. There are others with me, also strapped to their seats and staring straight ahead. The man next to me bobs his head rhythmically as though listening to music. All I hear is the deafening roar. 

I turn to him and ask, “Where are we?”

He doesn’t seem to hear me. 

Then a voice fills the room. I can’t understand anything it says. I feel a sick sense of sinking down. No one else seems concerned at this change. 

I reach out and lightly tap the arm of the man next to me. He turns, looks, and seems to see nothing. I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or awake. I can’t explain where I am or why I’m invisible. 

Then I’m back in the horse hearth. The roar is gone. I sleep restlessly but have no more dreams. 

##

When I wake in the morning, the Horse Hearth Healer is tipping a cup of twig tea to my lips.

“You need to drink. Try.”

I sip feebly at the cup. I want to tell her about my strange vision in the night. My throat is dry and sore, my eyes seem glued shut. 

“I saw something…” but the words come out like a croaking sound. 

“Shhh, don’t try to talk. You need to rest.” 

I try to move my mind to reach out to her, but it is sluggish and disoriented. I feel her enter my mind, softly. I try to bring up my recollections from the night before, the room of strange colors and hard shapes, the roaring in my ears. She is repelled, just as I was. 

The effort exhausts me. I fall into a black sleep. 

##

I am knee deep in a thick, freezing, muddy ditch. All around me men shouting and little whistling clicks and distant booms sound like trees falling. It is winter and the surrounding trees are bare. Many of them are damaged, missing limbs, or have massive black holes in them. Periodically, I hear men scream in a high-pitched way, as though they are in terrible pain. 

I lean over and vomit onto the hard, muddy ground. In the poor light, I see the mud is mixed with blood, some of it sitting in puddles. The men running past take no notice of me, the vomit, or the blood. 

A man creeps to the edge of the hole, peers over the edge, and ducks down suddenly. I try to reach out and touch him. He doesn’t know I’m here. I watch as he unpacks a little box from his pocket, his hands trembling, and shakes out a white twig. He strikes a wooden stick and fire leaps from the end of it. He holds the stick to the end of the white twig and sucks. This part I recognize. I’ve lit a bundle of herbs at ceremonial events. The burning stick is new to me. I reach out to pat his arm, as though I’m comforting a child. He blows out a long wisp of smoke and he seems genuinely relieved. I try to enter his mind to understand what is happening, but his mind has a black curtain drawn in front of it. 

I want to escape, but I don’t know how I got here. I vomit again. I put my hands over my ears to drown out the booming and screaming, but it invades my bones like a fog, filling my veins with ice. 

##

I jerk awake. Not as if I’m waking, but more like I am re-inhabiting my body. The roof of my mouth is dry and almost sandy. I’ve been on a trip to a strange, dark land. Outside I hear the bustle of the hearth, distant hammering, someone sawing, someone humming. I’m so relieved to be back in the Horse Hearth. Day light streams across the floor. I try to sit up, but I’m too weak. I fall back into my bed. 

I feel disjointed, as though I’m watching the whole room through a sheet of ice. The Horse Hearth Healer comes in carrying a bunch of lavender. She lays it on the table next to me. 

She smiles. “You’re awake.” 

I nod. It’s an effort to move my head, which is pounding. 

“Yes.” My voice sounds raspy. 

“Don’t try to talk. You’re very weak.”

“My dreams…” I want to say that I’m afraid of sleeping, but I can already feel my eyelids closing, sleep overtaking me against my will. 

“Shhhh, I’m here.” She arranges the lavender in bunches around me on the bed. 

“Terrible dreams…” I don’t know if I’ve spoken the words or only thought them. 

She lifts my head and tips a cup to my lips. 

“Drink.”

I can’t. Beneath me are wooden planks, the floor seems to move sways beneath my feet. On the other side of the ornate railing is a vast expanse of water. There is water in every direction, rolling with waves. The wind blows a fine cold mist in my face. A group of men stand in a circle. Something about them is menacing. They could be wanderers. I’ve heard of those that wander at sea. 

A man with a thick red beard shouts something I don’t understand. It seems to make the other angry. I try to enter their minds, but I encounter a consciousness as black as a starless night. The red bearded man pulls a knife and lunges at another man. The group stands back as they stumble to the ground, tumbling, punching, and flailing at each other. I can’t see the knife. 

I don’t understand why no one stops them. I’ve never seen people trying to kill each other as they surely are.

One of them screams, and the fight stops. The bearded man rolls over, clutching at the knife planted in his chest. He grabs at the knife and blood pours from his mouth. The other man stands, grasps the end, and yanks it from his chest. I look on in horror as his blood pours out onto the deck. The other men walk away, grumbling. No one is trying to help him. What kind of hearth is this? I rush to him, trying to staunch the bleeding. 

He looks into my eyes as I lean over him. His eyes widen, as though he can see me. I enter his mind. His heart is filthy. He wants to own golden objects, land, women, but mostly he only wants more. He has a giant stomach and a tiny mouth. He can never consume enough to fill his hunger. Now, as he lingers on the cusp of life, he sees the emptiness of his desire. He understands there is no owning anything. His last flickering thought is regret then his breathing stops.

I’m horrified by the violence and the men who didn’t care. The bearded man’s bottomless hunger is the most frightening thing of all. His own poisonous thoughts killed him. The other men busy themselves, scrubbing at the floors, coiling up ropes, pitching buckets of water into the sea. 

Time passes. I sit watching the men at their work wishing I could escape. Two men lift the red bearded man by his arms and legs and pitch him into the water without ceremony. It terrifies me how little these men care for one another. I run to the railing and peer down into the roiling water, but the red bearded man has already sunk beneath the waves. 

I catch the scent of lavender. It beckons me away from this terrible scene. 

I close my eyes, concentrate on the source of the smell, and wake up in the Horse Hearth. Mixa is slouched in a chair next to me. In the firelight, Taiye’s gaunt face is relaxed for the first time in days. She must be recovering from the fever.

Mixa stirs and says, “Oh, good, you’re awake. You need to eat.”

I shake my head.

But she forces a cup to my lips and drinks a few sips of salty, herbal broth. 

“My dreams …” I grip Mixa’s wrist, and say, “Stay, stay with me, I’m afraid…”

I try to shake the image of the dying man and his blood spilled on the deck of the boat. These dreams are more real than my waking life. I shudder, thinking about them. 

“Shhhh. Try to sleep. I’ll be here.” 

My eyelids are too heavy. I grasp at Mixa’s arm.

I pass through many unknown lands in my dreams. Snowy peaks, noisy caverns, noxious smells, and sweet perfumes. I fly through verdant forests, golden fields, and soar along rushing rivers. Days and nights pass in a moment. At times I am the jaguar, bounding through the woods, always hunting, always hungry. The stars spin around me overhead. I feel sick to my stomach.

Then, at last, I sit poking a stick into a paltry fire. My hands are small. My fingernails are crusted with dirt. I look around, trying to understand where I am. A cave, perhaps some kind of stone cell. 

I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or if I’ve entered someone’s mind. I’ve lost the ability to tell reality from dreams. 

A boy sitting across from me runs his hand through his filthy matted hair with his face pressed against his knees. When he lifts his face, I see that it’s Fengranye. 

Can I be in Hanasorsha’s mind? I can feel that she is more bored than frightened. 

I tell her that her mother is coming for her soon. 

“They are coming.” She says aloud. 

Fengranye stands and paces in front of the fire. “We don’t know that. This isn’t a Wanderers’ story, Hana. This is real.” 

Hanasorsha doesn’t like the use of her familiar name or being talked down to. Her impatience flashes through my mind. She stands and heads up a long hallway, littered with bones. A breeze chills her, the rough ground hurts her feet.

Fengranye follows, agitated. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Hanasorsha stops, her ire rising to her throat, then shouts, “You can’t tell me what to do! You aren’t from my hearth. I did what you said! Nothing happened! I don’t care if the dragon kills me. I’m going to find a way out!” 

For a moment, I admire her courage facing down a boy twice her age. He snatches at her arm, but she slips his grip and runs. At the opening of the passageway, I can see a dim light ahead. She climbs a pile of rocks and sticks her head out through the narrow opening. 

She screams, “Svaart, you coward!! Come down here and kill us or let us go!!”

Fengranye yells, “Hana, no!” 

She scrambles out of his reach. “CAN YOU HEAR ME, YOU COWARD??”

The dragon flies along a ridge line, igniting a row of trees with its fiery breath. Even from a distance, I can feel the searing heat. 

I try to tell Hanasorsha I’m here and she should move to safety, but she’s consumed with rage. She digs at the opening, tearing as her fingernails begin to bleed. The dragon lands in the clearing outside the cave. The earth rumbles beneath its weight and it turns to face the cave, squinting at us. Fengranye grabs hold of Hanasorsha and drags her roughly backward. 

She screams, “NO! NO! NO!” and thrashes in his arms, kicking violently. 

The cave is nearly dark as something passes in front of the dim light. Then the dragon’s roar fills the whole cave with sound and ferocious wind. Hanasorsha stands, defiantly looking into the dragon’s mouth.

“GO AHEAD!” She screams. “You can’t keep us here!”