Gather the Sentient (22 page)

CHAPTER

38

LANYING

Wednesday, October 5

Shanghai

It had been several days since Lanying had composed her email to Salomon.  Since pressing send, she’d checked for a response no less than 37 times, but who was counting.

She placated herself by focusing on the time difference between China and the Congo, shortage of internet access, and sheer lack of time.  All of this was to keep her from dwelling on the idea that he might never respond at all.

After a morning of classes and a quick chat with Mia and Thomas in the afternoon, she prepared a simple supper of dumpling soup which she shared with her grandfather off a tray table in his room.  He’d begun refusing more and more of his meals and between that and his weakening faculties, she feared he wouldn’t be with her for very much longer.

“Any news from the boy in Africa?” he asked her.

She shook her head, rolling her noodles around her chopsticks and into her mouth.  “Not yet,” she said after swallowing.

“You seem discouraged.”

“I’ve had three more visions of him – working in the fields, laughing with his family, studying.  I haven’t seen him in that trancelike position again.”  What she didn’t say was that she was starting to doubt she’d ever seen it to begin with.

“Give it time, child.”  He took the smallest bite of noodles.  “Trust in your abilities.”

Her grandfather’s confidence gave her strength.  Strength to follow her heart, which she knew ultimately would eventually lead her out of Shanghai and back to the US on a permanent basis.  However, she was hesitant to discuss the call she was feeling because although she knew he would be supportive, she also knew being without her would break his heart. So instead of saying anything about it, she quickly changed the subject.

“Tell me more about the origin of the prophecy in Africa.  And your trip.”

He chuckled to himself, setting his barely eaten noodles aside before pulling his blanket over his hips.  “I remember it now as if it were another man from another time, because of course, it practically was.  It was the year before I met your grandmother, and I was a university student myself, just about your same age.  One of my history professors, Dr. Yeung Wei, planned a trip to west Africa and needed a research assistant.  Of course, I said yes when he asked.  How could I refuse?”  He took a sip of his hot tea and continued.  “Now I thought we were going to Angola to archive antiquities housed at their Natural Museum of Anthropology in Luanda, and I suppose according to the university’s bank account records we were.  But I didn’t know until we arrived that Dr. Yeung’s main focus was the prophecy.

“According to what we discovered there, the Bantu people brought the prophecy with them as they migrated from the Middle East as early as 500 BC.  It spread throughout the tribes for thousands of years and was eventually carried to the New World via slave ships in the 1700’s.”

“And the scrap of paper from inside your box?”

“I copied it off an ancient rock face where it was carved onto cliffs of a dried riverbed.  Dr. Yeung believed the inscription was over 2500 years old.”  He closed his eyes, as if he was remembering the spot.  “That trip to Africa sparked my fascination in the prophecy I’ve been exploring ever since.”

Lanying tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been there, face to face with concrete evidence of the prophecy revealed by the ancients.  A prophecy of which she was now a part.

“You know, based on a lifetime of extensive research, Dr. Yeung theorized that the culmination of the prophecy would occur in his lifetime.  He was wrong, of course, because he passed away almost 25 years ago, but he was close, in the whole scheme of things.  Very, very close.”  He struggled to catch his breath and Lanying heard a faint rattling in his chest.  She was about to mention it when he continued.  “There’s something I need to tell you about the prophecy and my part in it.  You see, as it turned out, Dr. Yeung was more than just a researcher.  He was what those of us inside the inner circle call a ‘keeper.’  Someone who is tasked with using what he or she knows of the prophetic signs to watch for the coming of the psychics who will usher in the end of days.  They protect the secret of the prophecy, hoping to keep its prediction from the evil psychics.

“Just as there are seven light and seven dark, there have always been seven keepers.  When one dies, he or she passes the mantel on to another who takes their place as a sentinel.  Watching.  Preparing.  Waiting.  When Dr. Yeung passed away a quarter century ago, he passed that task on to me, along with the contents of the trunk containing his lifetime of research and all the research that came before.  I added my own findings, of course, but now, well, I suppose there’s no purpose in passing my duties on to you.  It seems, my child, you hold a much greater purpose in the development of what is to come.”

They sat in silence for several moments, and she was overcome by the weight of what it meant to be called to the light.  It seemed silly she should continue on with her paltry day-to-day existence, as if nothing more was happening in the world than life itself.  But so much more was happening, under the surface.  The fate of the world was being decided.

“I think I’m about ready to turn in for the night,” her grandfather said finally.  “Why don’t you go check and see if you have any messages from that Congolese boy.”  He winked at her then, in a very uncharacteristic way, which she imagined gave her a glimpse into who he may have been as a younger man, in the days he roamed the African countryside.

Instead of heeding her grandfather’s advice, she dawdled, afraid of being disappointed.  She washed the dinner dishes and set plates of food aside for her parents to reheat when they got home.  She straightened the books on her shelf and read two chapters of her counseling textbook.  Finally, after brushing her teeth and changing into her pajamas, she logged onto her email to check for messages.

To her surprise and delight, there was a reply.

Until the moment she saw Salomon’s name as the contact, she hadn’t realized how nervous she’d been about their eventual connection, or lack thereof.  Now, she found herself paralyzed again, unable to force herself to open the message for fear of what she may find inside.  Finally, she closed her eyes and clicked the mouse.

   Dear Lanying,

Your email greatly surprised me.  I have never gotten a message from someone so far away before.  Also, I was surprised by the unusual nature of your words, talking about visions you’ve been having of me from your home in China.  I think to myself, how can this be, that a woman in China is seeing what I am doing in my village in the Congo?  But the descriptions you shared with me are true, so I must believe that you can do what you have confessed to me.

Now I must also confess to you about what I can do, because you were right in assuming visions are part of my life as well, although I see things much differently than you.  When you saw me looking at the photographs, I was using my ability to channel information from them.  I am able to learn more about many objects just by touching them.  I’ve been able to do it since I was a boy.  Sometimes I use what I see to learn about the past, sometimes the present, and sometimes, although rarely, the future.

I look forward to getting another message from you again soon.  I would like to know more about your visions and the other people you can see.  Until we talk again…

Very truly yours,

Salomon

After years of being judged and belittled by her peers, to have this man, a virtual stranger, validate her abilities, was surreal.  After blinking back tears, she reread the email, confirming she hadn’t misunderstood his intention to continue their communication.

She immediately composed an email in return.

   Dear Salomon,

Thank you for your response to my correspondence and for trusting me with your secret.  It must seem quite strange for me to reach out to you about our shared abilities, seemingly out of nowhere, but there is something more I need to confess to you regarding the gifts we’ve been given.

You asked specifically about the other people I can see in my visions, and one of them is a man named Thomas who lives in the United States.  On a recent trip there for an educational conference, a curious thing occurred.  I actually met this man from my visions.  To say it was a coincidence would be an understatement.  But the coincidences didn’t stop there.

Through the course of our conversation, we discovered we share the same birthday – a birthday we also share with his girlfriend, Mia, and another woman, Kate, with whom they were also acquainted.

And, as if sharing a birthday wasn’t strange enough, we also all have psychic abilities.

So now, I hope you don’t mind, but I must ask if you are also 25 years old, born on February 17
th
?

Warmest regards,

Lanying

After composing the email and sending it off, she couldn’t fall asleep.  She tossed and turned, organizing what she knew about the prophecy in her mind in an attempt to make sense of the illogical.  At 2am, she noticed her phone screen was illuminated, a notification of some sort.  She powered it on to discover a new email from Salomon had just arrived.  Upon opening it she discovered the correspondence contained only three words.  Three words she should have been prepared for, but evidently wasn’t, from the way her heartbeat quickened in response.

“You are correct,” was all it said.

CHAPTER

39

SALOMON

Thursday, October 6

Democratic Republic of Congo

Salomon loved manual labor.  The dull ache in his shoulder muscles and small of his back at the end of a long day in the fields.  The satisfaction that came with knowing he’d made productive use of his time, toiling not just for the sake of surviving another day, but in an effort to improve the lives of everyone around him.  The best part, however, was how quickly he fell asleep each night, the exhaustion of his body always overpowering any lingering concerns from the day.

Tonight, though, it was different.  After volleying a series of emails back and forth to the Chinese woman, Lanying, his mind would not be still.  Since Marceau and his satellite communication would not return to the village for several days, he would be unable to correspond with her again until later in the week.  He didn’t know if he could wait.

He was pondering the prophecy now as he lay in bed beside his sleeping wife.  His restlessness was bothering her, and she stirred as he struggled to find a comfortable position in the hopes of falling asleep.  It seemed, though, to be a lesson in futility.

In her final email, Lanying had described a prophecy to him, the way she fit into the ancient prediction for the world, and how she believed he did as well.  After reading the message several times, he’d been unable to respond to her.  Unable to put into words just how unbelievable it all seemed.

And yet, he couldn’t help remembering the strange etching he’d come across in a rock alcove as a child.  Engrossed in the persistence of day to day life, he’d all but forgotten the message and the strange visions he’d experienced when he placed his hands upon the words.  Now, thinking back to the inscription painstakingly rendered against the smoothest section of rock, he realized the possible significance of his decade-old discovery.  And the truth behind the visions he’d experienced there.

Careful not to disturb Keicha, he rolled off the thatched mattress onto the floor, put on his glasses, and tied his shoes onto his feet.  The moon was full and bright, and it guided his path as he easily slipped unnoticed past the sleeping members of his family into the steamy night air.  Outside, he prepared a torch from the closest fire pit and set out into the forest.  Surprisingly, after so many years, he remembered the way, although parts had become overgrown and the closest stream now cut through a small section in the valley.  The forest exploded in a symphony of chirps and calls and croaks from the wildlife that soared in the canopy and skittered across the muddy earth.  Mindful that he was more prey than predator at night in the jungle, he used the torchlight to deter snakes and spiders from his path.  He was grateful for the distraction and had all but forgotten about the purpose of his excursion, when he spotted the familiar alcove of his youth carved out of the cliff side.

He stopped dead, reconsidering his decision.  If he remembered the inscription in the cave and his visions correctly, what would it mean?  Would it change who he was or force him to reevaluate his purpose?

“I believe you may be part of the prophecy as well, chosen to put an end to the evils of the world.”

The last line of Lanying’s message returned to him, and he closed his eyes, a spring of anger welling up.  He already knew who he was.  He already had a purpose.  He didn’t need eleven words in a cave to expose some new facet of reality.

And yet…

He ran through the last twenty feet of underbrush toward the cave at a sprint and stopped just short of its entrance.  He held the torch out at arm’s length, using it to burn away the cobwebs and illuminate the rocky interior.  The inscription was still there, as he had known it would be, and with new insight he read the words aloud, his human voice a stark contrast to the primal echoes which filled the air.

“Seven light to save the earth. Seven dark to destroy it.”

Without warning, his legs gave out beneath him and he crumpled to the ground.  Had he been drawn to this cave all those years ago for a reason?  Should he have been more intuitive, knowing the words were meant for him to find?

With a trembling hand, he reached out to finger the weathered inscription, terrified of the authenticating vision it might produce.

Almost immediately the ancients were there beside him, primitive and earth-worn, huddled inside the cave debating the truth of the prediction. One of them, the youngest, was diligently etching into the wall with a sharp piece of quartz while the others deliberated about how and when the fate of the world would be decided by seven gifted souls.

“Seven light to save the earth. Seven dark to destroy it.”

Was it possible the end of the world had finally arrived and that it was his responsibility to assure the evil was kept at bay?

Salomon didn’t have long to ponder the possibilities because just as the moss of the spongy forest floor began to mold itself around him, he heard a shriek.  The sound tore him from the vision, and he knew instinctively it wasn’t the call of a monkey, a chimp, or even a gorilla.  It was wholly human.  And it was coming from the direction of the village.

Prophecy forgotten, he struggled to his feet and headed off in the direction of the cry.  Moments later a second call rang out.  And then a third.  His feet careened through thickets and vines, as he veered off the well-worn path, opting for the straightest route back to the village.  The closer he got, the more manmade chaos he could make out over the now relative serenity of the jungle – men’s angry voices, vehicle engines, and deafening wails of women and children. 

There was no question as to the bedlam’s cause – an armed gang of Rwandan rebels.

Seven years before, a group of Rwandan men had been responsible for his sister’s brutal rape.  Now images of Manu’s battered body drove him through the brush without regard for his personal safety.  His face and arms were torn and bloody as he approached the village.

He did not stop when he saw the pile of rubble where the granary once stood.

He did not stop when he heard the staccato of machine gun fire ripping across the night.

He did not stop when he saw the inferno engulfing the homes of his neighbors.

He did not stop until he reached his own family’s hut.

But by then, it was too late.

Behind him, he could hear the rebels loading into their trucks, taking what they wanted from his village before destroying the rest.  He knew he should go after them, but he was paralyzed by the sight of his family - the bodies of his wife and sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews scattered across the floor as if they’d been blown there by the wind.  For the second time that night, he fell to his knees, unable to scream, unable to breathe.

He remained there for a moment, consumed by the smoke and ash of the nearby huts, struggling to make sense of the horror surrounding him.  And then, with sudden clarity he understood.

Darkness has arrived,
he thought. 
So now I must be the light.