The Spell of Rosette - Kim Falconer [75]
‘Where would you like to stand?’
She looked at the Sphinx. ‘I can choose?’
‘You choose every time you draw in a breath, every time you exhale.’
He took a stone from his pocket and dropped it over the edge. When it hit the surface, waves flowed out from the impact point. They expanded towards each shore, upstream and downstream, an ever-increasing circumference, interfering with the ripples of the currents, creating more and more little waves.
‘Sphinx, are you saying there is something I can do in the future that will alter what has happened in the past? If I do something on one shore, it will change another?’
‘You could construct it in those terms, but I’m suggesting you stop thinking of past and future as if they were two different things. It’s all one river, one shore, one mind, one spiral, when you focus on it.’
‘And when I don’t focus on it?’
‘Then it is infinite ripples of possibility, each with a potential destiny of its own.’ Again he opened his arm out towards the flow of water until it blurred into the horizon.
‘But what if…’ She felt the tactile sensation of his departure.
‘I’ll leave you to contemplate.’ His voice trailed off, and he was gone.
‘That’s it? That’s all you have to say?’ Nell looked down at the water. She thought for a second it was laughing at her. ‘Enigmatic Watchers,’ she mumbled. ‘Just what I don’t need—another metaphysical puzzle.’
She wandered over the bridges for the rest of the day, dropping stones into the water and watching the ripples flow. Just before she dropped a particularly lovely greenstone over the edge, she straightened, slipping it into her pocket instead.
Bingo.
She shape-shifted into a red-tailed kite and caught a thermal. With one last look below, the ripples still clear with her raptor vision, she shot off towards the horizon, hoping that her cottage in Dumarka wasn’t far off.
The Three Sisters had been restless all day, scolding and flapping and cawing. They’d be quiet for a moment, composing themselves in a stately row, then suddenly the commotion would start all over again—flap, squawk, raucous. When the slanting light angled through the garden, turning red roses golden, they flew to the highest pine, watching all directions like weather-vanes.
‘When will you settle?’ she asked.
Someone comes! Someone tall, long legs.
‘Are you talking about a heron or a person?’
They squawked and flapped but didn’t answer.
She tapped the windowpane. ‘If someone’s approaching, why not fly out to meet them instead of sitting here all day and driving me nuts! I honestly don’t detect a threat!’
The middle raven tilted her head to stare into the cottage then took flight, followed by the other two.
Finally, some peace.
Person, Nellion. Long legs person.
How far off?
Long legs has a long walk.
She squared her shoulders and put the kettle on.
Nell sipped her tea and studied the chart before her. The eclipse would be on Saturn in less than three days. She never felt comfortable in the shadow of an eclipse and this one seemed particularly potent. It could coincide with a realisation, a disclosure and a choice to make. With Mars at a ninety-degree square to the lunar nodes in the cardinal sign of the Ram, things would happen fast. Quite likely, there would be an uninvited guest.
‘Nothing my ravens didn’t tell me.’ She looked up at Mozzie draped over the rafters. ‘Be mindful, my beauty. Someone’s coming but I can’t say who.’
The snake flicked his tongue in her direction, uncoiling to meet her eye to eye. Ally?
‘I hope so, Moz. Could use one about now.’
The fire had burned low when she heard the Three Sisters return and the gate latch click. Booted feet stepped confidently up the path, a purposeful walk, a man’s walk—long legs, indeed.