Those words are like music to my ears. I want to ask her all about her, how she’s feeling, if she is in any pain, if she is happy to go back home, but something about the way she gazes into the distance tells me that she’d rather listen than talk. So, I comply.
“Many religions around the world believe in reincarnation and the Indians of North America are no different. Many tribes believed that. There were even people who told others and truly believed it I think, that they had some kind of personal supernatural knowledge about having lived through two generations and that the Great Spirit told him this was his third and final birth. Other tribes for example, believed that the child would always choose its mother. There was no chance there. This happened because some babies were predestined to be reincarnation of former relatives. When a baby was born, old women would take it and they would try to find some physical signs on the baby’s body which could indicate that the baby is a reincarnation of someone else, someone they knew.”
“How did they do that?” she asks me and I smile. She’s listening.
“They would bring the baby to different places or show it things and people. Then, they’d carefully watch the baby’s reaction. The signs were the baby’s unclenched hands and all in all reacting in a favorable way to all these stimuli.”
“That doesn’t sound very scientific,” she says, but there is no mocking in her voice. She is simply asking for more clarification.
“Well, that’s what it means to believe in nature,” I explain, shrugging my shoulders, because there really isn’t a scientific explanation to this. That’s where the problem lies for most people. They like to have something tangible before them if they are to believe. “I mean, you can’t see the wind, but you can feel it, right?”
“I guess you’re right,” she nods, then turns back to the lake again. “Have you ever touched the bottom?”
“Once,” I tell her. “It’s very muddy.” I hear her chuckle. “Do you have lakes where you live?”
“I was born in a small village,” she tells me her story, or at least, the beginning. “There was nothing there. Literally nothing. There’s still nothing.”
“Is that why you wanted to move to the city?”
“Isn’t that the reason everyone wants to move to the city?” she replies with a question, but I’m good at reading between the lines.
“I never thought you were like everyone else,” I say, then bite my tongue. It wasn’t meant to be shared. Oh well.
She turns to me and gives me a puzzling look. Great. Now, I made her feel all self-conscious and I ruined the moment we had together. Great. Just great.
“I didn’t want to escape my village,” she suddenly continues and I sigh with relief. She didn’t take it the wrong way. “I wanted to better myself and then return, to try and make that place better. I still do. I applied for this modeling job not because I thought I’m pretty or because I wanted to be on the cover of magazines. God no. I was hoping that job would help me pay for school.”
“I didn’t know that,” I admit.
“Well, I wasn’t really talking much these last two weeks, was I?” we both chuckle at that. “Now, I feel like I ruined everything.”
“You? But, none of this is your fault. Why would you blame yourself?”
Her lips are moving slowly, they look like juicy red cherries and she occasionally licks them as she speaks, without even noticing. Her bare feet are digging into the grass, smudged with dirt and mud. A single green leaf peeks at me from her hair. She probably picked it up when she was fighting her way through those bushes. I don’t take it out. It looks like it belongs there, like she belongs here. And now, she is this close to leaving.
“If I didn’t apply for that job, I wouldn’t end up in that horrible situation. You see? I put myself in that situation. It’s no one’s fault but mine,” her voice is trembling and she wraps her arms around her raised knees.
I move a little closer to her and I press my fingers on her elbow. My skin is dying for contact with her and this is innocent enough not to frighten her. As I do that, she doesn’t shudder, she doesn’t move away. She allows me to feel her with the tips of my fingers.
“Look at that leaf over there, fluttering in the wind,” I point towards the highest tree as I speak. Then, I take a pebble from the grass and throw it into the lake. “Look at those ringlets in the water. Feel the grass beneath your feet. We’re all part of the Great Spirit. It knows what it’s doing, even if it doesn’t make much sense to you, it will show you the way. It brought you here for a reason. Trust it. Let your intuition recognize that voice.”
I hear her sigh. She doesn’t say anything. We both allow those words to settle in, as the wind ruffles the leaves a little more. A bird flutters away from a nearby bush and we both jump, as I pull my hand away. She quickly glances at me and sees no worry on my face. She smiles.
“I think I’m way jumpier out here in the woods than in the city,” she admits.
“And yet, the worst things still happen in the city,” I remind her. “It’s just a matter of perception.”
“Like, what you see?”
“More like what you hear,” I correct her. “There are always voices around you. The world is never silent. It can be dark; all you have to do is close your eyes. But it can never be silent. And, all you have to do is choose which voices to listen to. That’s in your power.”
“I think your voice is the only thing I’d like to listen to right now,” she whispers softly and leans her head on my shoulder. My heart feels so full, like it’s about to implode and I don’t even try to calm it down.
Chapter 17
I open my eyes early that morning, so early that even without glancing outside the window, I know it’s still dark. I know everyone is still asleep, in their beds, so I stay in mine as well, even though every fiber in my being wants to jump out and start getting ready. There really isn’t much to get ready. I was brought here without any luggage, apart from the clothes I was wearing and those were thrown away, so now, I’ll be returning with just the clothes on my back. It’s just a different set.
I’m lying on my back and staring at the ceiling. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness easily and I can see the outlines of all the objects in the room. I can recognize them instantly. There are no monsters here, lurking from the closet or beneath the bed I’m sleeping on. I know that now. For a long time, I believed