spirits and stones

It’s slick, and it’s wet, and it’s muddy out here and as I watch Whisper slip on the stairs down and I try to catch him, I can tell these stairs are so much more worn than they were in his original time. Thousands on thousands have passed these steps after him.

This place is still the same as it was in my visions, back when the Camazotz took us in. But the spirits that sang here are gone now, they fled long ago. It is empty and sleeping. Dead leaves must once have told of this caern’s totem spirit, but that Incarna has been gone for a long time. Now, they’re no different from ordinary leaves.

I can’t help try again to catch him as he scrabbles across the algae-covered stone. But he doesn’t need me to, which is partly a relief. I don’t want to intrude.

I watch him cross the river, stepping through the shallow water and laying at the foot of the landmark called the Devil’s Pulpit. His head’s in his paws, his white fur is green from the moss and the dirt, but he looks comforted by it.

I want to cross over, but I know I shouldn’t. This is his place. His sanctuary.

Instead, I start to read the stones laying about. I keep myself quiet and reverent. This place doesn’t hold the same immense weight it did then, but I can still feel it, somewhere in me. There’s still a power in this place.

It just gets stronger as I keep reading. Declarations of love and affirmations of brotherhood. Entire family trees that have come here since times forgotten to express their adoration for this place, this lost caern, this place of beauty.

And lord knows I know that the power of love is a strong force. A strong force indeed.

I read every rock I can find that isn’t too worn from time to read, and when I’ve read every one, I stop to think in the quiet. I feel the tears on my face, and I see them on his too. Everything from newly wedded couples, to best friends, to siblings. In each one, I see myself, my family, my friends reflected like spirits.

That thought stirs me. From my back pocket, I take a marker that I had been using before we set out, and I write our names on a rock that, as far as I see, is completely blank. I set it near the steps.

“It’s kind of like all these rocks are spirits now, isn’t it..?”

He raises his head and looks at me.

“All of these people, they loved this place enough to leave their names here as a sign. Maybe not as much as you guys did, but they loved it. We can make that love into a new caern someday, I bet. What do you think?”

He nods at me, after a moment.

“We can start with this one.”