The wind gusted and seemed to change direction at will. We were on the highest point of Caitlin’s Ruby and there were no trees or even brush around “the slabs.” They stood tall, black, and silent as they had for thousands of years in this place, in these exact positions. There was only starlight overhead. Orion was low and close to the horizon and Venus was far to the west.
While we waited, Geaxi paced and I sat against the base of one of the stones. Geaxi wore boots, a jacket, and her beret. I wore boots and a jacket, but my head was bare. The wind was relentless and neither of us was prepared to be where we were.
“Why does he want us here, now?” I asked. “Especially here in this place?”
Geaxi never stopped pacing. “The ‘now’ disturbs me,” she began. “The ‘here’ is because this place will have great meaning during the time of the Gogorati, the Remembering. We are certain of this, but we are not certain why. Sailor has always wanted this place to be the first place where all five Stones come together. He thinks. no, he is certain we will learn something.”
“What?”
“We will find out.”
“What about Eder? When will you tell him?”
“Later. Something is wrong, I am most certain of that.” She stopped pacing for a moment and looked at me. “We should find this out first, no?”
“Yes,” I said. I knew she was right. Sailor was more upset than I’d ever seen him and our news would only make it worse. The wind blew and I thought how long it might take them to climb the path, then I thought about where I’d last seen Opari, then I thought about where I’d last seen Nova. If Sailor walked in and saw Nova, then.
“There they are,” Geaxi said. “I can feel them.”
Sailor came out of the darkness first and Opari was immediately behind him, wearing a full cape and hood. Neither had made a sound. Opari walked over and knelt beside me. She smiled, but remained silent. I looked around for anyone else and there was no one. In the small space inside “the slabs” there was only Geaxi, Sailor, Opari, and me.
Sailor spoke almost at once, but he was hesitating, something I’d never heard him do.
“There has been a terrible. a multiple. an unexplainable tragedy, I am afraid. with possible consequences. I am not sure where to begin.”
“Then begin with Pello,” I said. We hadn’t heard from him since he’d left with Pello.
“I could begin there, Zianno, but the. tragedy does not. No, not there. ” Sailor trailed off a moment, then looked at Opari and back to me. “And the consequences. the consequences may affect you directly, Zianno. Believe me.”
“But—”
“Let me go on, please. I do not know what to make of this. It. it could mean. no, I am not sure what it could mean. That is why I wanted us all together — now, here, all five Stones together at last, in this place. to find out the meaning. ” He didn’t finish and began pacing.
“What has happened, Umla-Meq?” Opari asked in an even voice, a voice aware of Sailor’s fear. “Tell us what you know.”
“What do you mean ‘all five Stones’?” Geaxi interrupted. “I do not see Unai. There are only four of us present. Is he—”
“No,” Sailor said suddenly. “No, he is not dead. He is. in another state.”
“Another state?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
“Please,” Opari said to all of us at once. “Let Umla-Meq speak. He says there has been a tragedy. We are all. we are all Meq, first, last, and for all in between. we must remember this and listen, because in the end there will be no one else, no one. You Zianno, my love, you are too young to know this, and you Geaxi, you know a great deal, more than anyone, perhaps, but you too are young. You, both of you, do not yet know of. consequences. Now, please, let Sailor tell us what he knows.”
“This is what I know,” Sailor said. He continued to pace in a lopsided figure of eight pattern and spoke as if he’d thought it over many, many times and distilled it into a few drops of information that still would not break down and yield anything that made any sense. “I know Unai and Usoa crossed in the Zeharkatu several years ago. They came to Trumoi-Meq to help them do it, in the old way, and they went into the Pyrenees, where it was done. It was done and their blood became like Giza. They conceived a child not more than a year ago and moved to the Balearic Islands, awaiting the birth. There is a fishing village on the coast of Menorca that Unai wanted their child to experience in the years before the Itxaron, and learn the life there. The war in Europe had not affected this village in any manner. It was a good place, a safe place. a good choice.”
Opari took my hand in hers and held it tighter than usual. Sailor went on.
“Now Pello comes to Mowsel with disturbing news, at the very moment we are leaving Africa, he comes with news that Trumoi-Meq has never heard before, news that. ” Sailor stopped pacing and turned his back to all of us. “Pello told Trumoi-Meq. that the child of Unai and Usoa. had died of influenza.”
Opari began a low, rumbling growl that climbed octave after octave until it became a high, whining trill. Geaxi joined her, like another dog or wolf, and added a clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth. It was frightening. I looked at Sailor and he stood where he was, staring away in silence. For a moment, I thought the slab of granite over our heads had moved. I stretched my hand out and touched the stone behind me. It was cold and solid. My heart was racing and my thoughts tumbled and slipped. I had missed something. What was it? I couldn’t grab hold of it. I took a step out of the enclosure and looked up at the sky. I focused on one star and then another, and then the space between them, which became another star, and another. I turned back inside and almost fell on Sailor. My voice felt disconnected.
“Will Usoa not be able to have another child?” I asked.
“No, beloved, no,” Opari said. “Do you not see? Do you not see the truth. the consequence?”
Then, like a crack between the light, Sailor’s meaning came to me and took my breath away. I said it out loud and Opari shed a tear with each word. It was so simple and yet, for all these millennia, it was the only true thing that separated us from all others. “Meq. babies. do not die.”
“That is correct, Zianno,” Sailor said. “Meq babies do not die — they do not.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means we may be the last,” Geaxi said. “The last ones.”
“Not necessarily,” Sailor said.
“But we only have our blood!” Geaxi shouted. “You know this, Sailor. What is the Wait about but this? Nothing! Nothing but our blood sustains us. Nothing!”
“Wait,” Opari said firmly. She was the oldest and had been on her own the longest. Even Geaxi calmed down and listened. “Sailor, why do you carry Unai’s Stone?”
Sailor reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cracked leather pouch, gathered at the top with a thin leather strap. He opened it and out rolled the Stone into his palm. The tiny gems still embedded in Unai’s Stone sparked and flashed like shooting stars as he turned it over and held it out. “He could not wear it any longer,” Sailor said. “He has. drifted. He is very close to madness. Usoa does not even try. She is completely lost within herself and will not stay in any one house or dwelling longer than one night. They move about like child demons. Unai gave the Stone to Pello, telling him his heart was too weak to wear it.”
“Sailor,” Opari said gently. “What do you think we should do?”
“I. am not sure,” he said and started pacing and retracing his figure of eight. “But. I feel somehow we should. we must find it here. there may have been something. possibly the Stones. together. I am not sure, but. ”
“Sailor,” Geaxi said, grabbing him by the shoulders, “you are rambling.”