Category: Story Bits

By allowing the current to propel the canoe, Ayo progressed silently toward Kiraigu, the Sacred City. The stillness was broken only by the occasional dip of his paddle to maintain the center of the stream. He had long grown accustomed to the obscured view from the ceremonial head covering that he wore, and he no longer worried that the traditional body paint, carefully applied by moonlight, was bleeding together from the sweat running down his body even at this early hour.

The longa berries had given Ayo both a calmness and a heightened sensitivity. He prayed that he had eaten them at the right moment to ensure their full effect once he reached the temple. His sense of time was confused — it seemed both that he had just begun the water journey, and that he had been drifting for days in some eternal twilight. He seemed able to view himself from above as if in a dream, but could still clearly hear the staccato tinkling of the current in his ears, and could feel the paddle in his hands and the night air on his damp body.

Ayo rounded a sharp bend which required his full attention to avoid contacting the far bank. When he next looked up, he could see the city before him and to the left, its outline visible in the dim pre-dawn glow. He quickly paddled toward the city, pulling with all his strength, knowing from legend that it took a strong man to reach the entrance before the current carried him past, and that missing the entrance, and having to find another way into the city, was a bad omen that cast the power of the entire journey into doubt.

Joey crept forward another step then paused again, listening in the darkness. He glanced back at Timmy and Eric, or at least to where he believed they were, and thought that he could vaguely see the outlines of their heads interrupting the fence-line fifty paces back.

Sarah awoke in the darkness to the measured breathing of her two sleeping sisters, Abigail and Emily. She heard no distant voices from the village hall, which indicated that the last of the adults had gone to bed for the night. Nor did she hear the early-morning lowing of the cows anticipating their pre-dawn milking. This was the true middle of the night – that still, quiet time when the world seems to be holding its breath before awakening with the new day.

A closer inspection of the space in which she found herself revealed a small crack of dim light at the base of one of the two narrower walls. The light was so dim that it took several minutes for her eyes to distinguish it in the darkness. She reached toward the crack with her fingertips and felt a slight draft of colder air seeping out.