Ancient Things We Hold

Chapter 30

The Uncertainty

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Where to now?

Not to a town, not to a remote village. There was nothing around them but wilderness and it had been that way for days. Even with the fatigue of fishing, washing in cold rivers and trekking across lands with no idea of where they were going or when they would get there, a certain peace was bestowed upon Hodaya.

She had never felt so strong before. In fact, she could hardly see how life could possibly decrease in value or bearability from that moment. As an intelligent person who had suffered a great deal, she was aware that horror could always lie ahead. However, at that moment she saw the knitted branches and grass of the autumnal gold meadow that stood ahead of them and dared to believe in hope one last time.

Ohannes and Tamar were watching over Levona's children by sitting together and talking. They were getting to know each other, perhaps for the first time. Wandering so incessantly and through unknown lands left little time for conversation. However, it was an unusually warm day for October and the western lands seemed to evoke a certain desire for rest. Hence, they sat and they spoke.

Tamar had always said that a husband was not to get to know, or to share intellectual or emotional ideals with. A husband was to have- to care for and to be cared by. However, at that moment she seemed jolly pleased as they murmured in each other's ears, so quietly that the wind carried away their voices. They were both smiling. In fact, at that moment they all seemed to be.

It was a rare occasion indeed, for drifting offered many hardships. However, with life itself, it was the little moments of enjoyment that made it all bearable. As they sat around for a while knowing full well that soon they would have to leave and all their discomforts would return, it all seemed so human.

Hodaya's gaze drifted over to Aldwyn. He had his trousers rolled up above his ankles, for his feet were standing uncomfortably in the frozen pearls of water. His skin had turned raw from the cold, but he stayed there so he could bend over and cup the water in his hands, then pour it over the dirt smudged faces of his children. They squealed in shock and waved their arms in protest, causing him to laugh a little through his explanation over why they must be cleaned.

The water was running from further west, so she thought about how it was new water, untouched by the lands in which they had come from. He was washing their children in water none of them had ever touched before. Somehow it seemed sweeter-clearer- even though it was clearly just the same as any other.

Anyone who wasn't them seemed so pitiful compared to all they had survived, even if it had been slow and through many tears. A life full of pain, sorrow and joy. What else was to be expected for a girl, a Jew, a pauper? She would remain that way forever and there was nothing in the world that could make her want to change it. She knew what made her and she knew it was those attributes that had led her to that moment, staring at him with those two little creatures she adored so much in a pasture she knew was going to end eventually.

Above the grass was the dying sun. For her, it no longer held fear with the less power it emitted. She just acknowledged that it was going to get dark with no more anticipation. The sun was dying and that was that.

She closed her eyes. For mama, for papa, for my siblings and for all I have known- I will let the sun die. The wind stopped for a moment as she thought that and smiled a little. Aldwyn seemed to know why she did, for he looked up from the children and reflected her expression as clearly as the water he stood in reflected his frame. Then they just held that moment close to their chests as the final glow of the evening melted into the earth.

And for the tree.