Waiting on One

The Chosen One

Lyra was a free spirit. She believed in the gods but had never given them too much thought. She preferred to spend her time in the shadow of her father. Collecting and gathering greens and herbs for the village. They would leave early in the morning, even before the stars had settled from the night sky. Lyra often felt like a thief as she snatched day-old bread and some dried fruit from the table in the kitchen. She would stuff it deep into her satchel before stealing out the back door of the house trailing after her father. She was sure that her mother left the food there for her, but it had never been confirmed.

Her father would never take food with them. They would never take a torch either, instead they would rely on the pinprick of light from the hanging stars and the beacon of the moon to guide them into the valley. Leander, her father, was a man of simplicity and preferred to take from the earth. He believed that if he was meant to eat then the earth would provide nourishment to him. He also believed that the moon and the stars as directed by the night would guide them safely, because the night was lonely, and would bless them for visiting her. Leander had no idea how right he was.

When traveling to their valley they would remain silent, listening to the whisperings of the night. Lyra would let the sounds sink into her, like slipping into a still pond. She loved the sounds of the night. The benefit of leaving as early as they did through the night was that by the time, they made it through the trails to their valley the flowers and plants that they were to forage would still be wet with dew.

Dew was the daughter of the moon. Leander explained that the goddess Dew worked to keep the plants nourished and supple for her mother as her mother loved to gaze at the flowers and greenery of the earth each night. Yet, throughout the day the flowers would be dried out by the harsh gaze of the sun. So, Dew would come every night to keep the flowers supple.

Her father also explained that if they picked the plants and flowers when the Goddess Dew was among them then she would keep the flowers alive for her mother. This would also benefit them because they would be able to come and harvest from them again.

By the time their foraging had finished, their satchels full, and they would be heading back to their home the moon would have gone to bed and they could walk and talk amongst the waking birds and the rising sun.

Her father would tell her the best stories while they walked back home. He liked to talk to her about the gods, his gods were different than the ones that she had learned about. Strange and exotic stories that she soaked up like a sponge. She loved to hear about her father's gods. So different were they from the ones that she knew. Like the Goddess Nyx, the queen of the night and the mother of the moon whom even the almighty Zues feared angering.

Leander would also talk about his own family and home. The village he had been born in; it was on the other side of the ocean. He would talk about the world beyond their town. Her father was an outsider; he had seen the world before he had found this town and his mother. Lysandra was enchanted by these stories, but also afraid of the idea that the world outside of the one that she knew was so expansive. She loved her town, she loved her family, and she loved her role in things, as unconventional as they were.

Leander had been in this town for twenty-five years, but he was still considered to be an outsider. That was one of the reasons it had been widely accepted that she could go with him and learn his ways as a healer. He was odd so they would dismiss some of his behavior as odd. Lysandra loved the freedom that this afforded her.

She enjoyed the work that her father did. The work that she did. For a while she had been afraid that the role would be taken away from her and given to her brother. There were female healers, but they were not looked on as favorably as the male healers unless they were ordained by the temple.

Her brother, however, had shown no interest in the work of healing. This did not bother her father. He believed that what a man did a woman could do. Her mother had sighed softly but allowed it. She was not in the habit of challenging her husband's decisions.

It was not something that she considered truly proper, but she had been a wild child once, or she never would have married the man that she did. So, she accepted the unconventional ways of her husband and gave extra offerings to the gods on behalf of her daughter, asking that they find favor with the gods and not draw ire from the townspeople.

Lysandra could see the curling of smoke out of the fireplace of home as they crested their last hill and followed the trail out of the woods. Everyone would be awake, her mother and sister cooking. She smiled. She was excited to show them their harvest. Both satchels heavy and bulging on their backs. She already knew she would spend the morning eating fresh warm bread and the afternoon helping her father dry and hang their harvest.

With a light step she took the lead and covered the short distance to their home, the last leg of their journey. "Ma!" She paused at the invisible gate. Her father had planted jars containing an unknown poultice in the corners of their yard surrounding their house. Although she did not know what was in the jars, she knew that the purpose was to protect the home and its inhabitants. She waited for her mother's responding wordless holler and then headed in the direction that the sound had come from.

She had always known where the invisible fence was, she could feel it. A soft but invisible resistance against her skin and then a give that swallowed her into the protected home. She was the only one other than her father that could feel it's resistance.