Portals to the Vision Serpent
Chapter Seven
It hadn’t taken Sybilla’s mother long to wield her power. The farmer promptly fired Gabe. Rather than putting an end to things, it opened a pathway that may have been taken anyway, albeit not quite as soon. With the town abuzz, knowing where he wasn’t wanted, Gabe had no problems leaving.
“Take me with you!” Sybilla had begged, afraid of losing the excitement he’d brought into her dull existence.
“You don’t really know me,” he cautioned her. “I can’t give you what you want.”
“That’s crazy. Look what we have!” She was relentless, ignoring his defocused gaze, as if he was fixated on another time and place entirely. In the midst of her cajoling, his silence became deafening. Finally, turning back to her, he consented as if he’d presaged things to come and given over to destiny, her words having little actual impact on his decision.
After sneaking home to gather a few belongings, Sybilla met Gabe outside town at the pasture where they first encountered each other. It seemed fitting somehow. From there they blew where the wind took them. They stopped in this town and that, taking odd jobs, finding minimum shelter. Sometimes they camped outside town, sleeping under the stars, going into bus stations to clean up. When they had money they’d get on a Greyhound, getting off on a whim. When they didn’t, they’d hitch a ride. They had no stated destination but definitely heading west in a meandering fashion. Over the next eighteen months, they kept on the move, looking for the right spot and not finding it, never staying anywhere beyond a few weeks.
Having little life experience, Sybilla was willing to follow Gabe without question. Her dormant spirit of adventure was let loose. If she noticed his increasing reserve and off-the-wall irritations directed her way, she quickly shunted them into an area of her mind where she hid anything that was troubling. Virtually everything was unfamiliar ground, including her relationship with him. She let him guide her, or so she thought at the time. But in retrospect, her own directive nature had begun to surface, along with her passion for photography. Her camera was one of the few possessions she’d brought with her. The places they went and the people they saw became her subjects. Sybilla discovered she had a talent for capturing the felt sense of environments they traveled through and exposing secrets folks kept locked away, depositing them onto a two-dimensional surface. Her photography was expressive in a way she was never allowed to be.
There was something about discovering her gift that may have caused Gabe to regress into himself, perhaps thankful he no longer had to do or think for her. Maybe it was his role to be a pied piper, to bring her out into a larger world than the one she’d lived in before. It could have ended at that. Then she realized she was pregnant.
Sybilla recognized a baby complicated things, but she was thrilled. Her love for Gabe had grown to the degree that the mere thought of him melted her heart — and quelled her growing alarm at the changes in his manner. She found herself surreptitiously watching, always studying him for some sign of the tenderness that recaptured the times when they’d first been together. The glances he’d cast her way back then were of complete adoration and pleasure. That was why, even though he’d said she didn’t know him, she did. Remembering soft eyes looking into hers, nakedly, baring his soul. It was seductive — and unforgettable.
They had been in California for a while, moving down the coast, headed over toward the Southwest. Sybilla had successfully hidden the early morning sickness that started to come over her, thinking it was important to choose the right time to tell Gabe. But she couldn’t quite find it.
When she finally spoke, haltingly, giving the words hope, he said nothing. Instead, he stared at her in a way she couldn’t quite fathom, like confirming something. When he became even more removed than usual, the ground beneath her feet grew fragile. Should she walk too heavily the earth might develop cracks she would plunge into, reflecting the uncertainty and growing divide that prevailed between them. Sybilla was afraid to enter into that void with petitions of any significance. Her inner expanse toward adventure was replaced with contraction, not of early labor, but of trepidation.
They stopped in a desert town on the Arizona side near the Mexican border finding a small place, nothing more than a shack really. But the owner was willing to rent on a week-to-week basis. Sybilla was glad to settle in, even if only for a while. They had done well in California, the wages they earned there going far in the desolate, out-of-the-way spots they’d been frequenting recently. Gabe was looking for something, allowing that, if he were to find it, they would have to leave behind the aspects of their culture she considered normal, but he characterized hateful. Hence, the places they rested would barely qualify as a spit in the road, the people they encountered increasingly odd. But probably no more eccentric than they themselves may have become, life on the road encouraging that.
Sybilla got over her morning sickness and was back to capturing the landscape and its characters, rendering interpretation through her lens. This pastime had become her passion, but also her salvation, a distraction from the peculiarities of her new life and Gabe’s increasingly strange behavior.
When he first started going out into the night, she thought he was leaving her. She’d wake up in the early hours, reaching for him, finding the place next to her cold, the covers undisturbed. She’d move through their home and discover it empty. Standing at the front door, peering out into the blackness, she’d see the sky punctuated by millions of stars but none providing light for her. Sometimes when Gabe came home near dawn, Sybilla could almost feel him before he entered the house. It was discomforting, the air preceding him filled with bristling electricity. She’d feign sleep, waiting for him to crawl into bed. But he didn’t have an apparent need for sleep and would act like he’d risen before her, making the coffee and going outside to drink it. His senses appeared heightened. More than once, he’d winced when she made a dish clatter or spoke a little loudly.
Gabe was restless, unable to be still, only appearing to find any release out in nature. Perhaps the land absorbed what accosted him and gave some relief. In those times, there was an abject innocence and purity that issued through his eyes to hers, asking forgiveness for all the turmoil and withholding. The silent poignancy buried itself in Sybilla’s innermost spaces, keeping her there, with him, without question. The vulnerability Gabe made visible at those rare, fleeting moments made up for desolate times, bringing hope for better days.
One night there was a full moon. Sybilla turned in early but tossed and turned. Gabe was in the front room reading, or at least turning pages because she could hear them. Then the front door clicked shut quietly.
Finally unwilling to remain passive and uninformed, she quickly threw on some clothes, and slipped out the back door that led off the bedroom. He was considerably in front of her, headed straight into the open desert behind their house and looked to be carrying a backpack. Under the strong moonlight she could easily follow him but was slowed down by having to watch where she walked, so as to avoid the myriad forms of cacti, and who knew what creatures that came out at night. On the other hand, Gabe skimmed over the landscape, like something transported him, clearly bound toward some rock formations in the distance. Sybilla had seen this form of intensity in Gabe plenty of times; everything else was blocked out except the object of his focus. Even if some part of him sensed he was being followed, whatever was drawing him won out, leaving Sybilla to trail behind without fear of detection.
He disappeared through the huge stones like magic. Eventually arriving at the place she last saw him, Sybilla could only discern a sheer wall of rounded organic forms reaching into the sky. From afar, they looked like otherworldly guardians. Now standing in front of them, she felt a cold shiver crawling up her spine, signaling her to run home, to hide from what she was about to discover. Instead, she found the courage to override it. Sybilla was weary of submitting.
She slid along the base of the rock wall and found nothing. Deciding there must be some access above, she climbed gingerly. Her newly added weight slowed her down. Again she watched her feet, remembering Gabe’s caution. Snakes loved to come out after dark and lay on stones warmed by the sun. Even though the temperature was dropping, as it did in the desert at night, the rocks were still warm. Sniffing the air, she could smell wood smoke. A little farther up, Sybilla spotted what appeared to be a cave. But light from the moon peeked through from inside, indicating an opening in the farther reaches. Carefully picking her way, she slipped into the passageway. Groping along one wall, her heart pounded with exertion — and foreboding.
She saw flickering light ahead. A campfire reached up into the night, playing across the boulders. She crept up to the opening, careful to hang back in the darkness of the tunnel, safely out of sight. Gabe was there below her a few hundred feet, in an open space surrounded by geologic protection, fueling flames that leapt high into the sky. The fire ring looked well used as though many in the past had done just as Gabe was doing now. He crouched, taking something out of his backpack throwing it into the fire. The sweetish smell of herbs reached her nostrils. It crossed her mind that he was calling upon something to join him, an invitation to something unseen.
She remembered him howling with laughter once. “If the Catholics only knew the incense they burn in mass comes from the pagans. Burning it opens a portal! Either side of reality can pass. If only they knew how many disembodied attendants were tucked in among them! They’d run screaming!”
Sybilla shivered in fascination at the scene unfolding before her, not daring to show herself. In the clear desert air sound traveled a good distance. The silver light of the full moon rendered a surreal distinction to everything she saw. Gabe was mumbling something. She couldn’t make it out. The murmuring went on for some time while he continued to toss plant matter into the flames. Becoming still, he stared into the fire, perhaps hypnotized, while the blaze popped and hissed. His back to her hiding place, Gabe raised his face to the moon, intoning. His arms were overhead as if to receive something. Sybilla thought she saw movement in the air above him and dismissed it. But when Gabe lowered his arms his frame was strangely larger.
Later, looking back, what transpired next could only have been a few moments, but it seemed like hours. Time was interrupted. Each proceeding nanosecond recorded her terror, rooting her in place. He turned, in slow motion, facing her. He’d known she was tailing him all along! Only it wasn’t Gabe she was seeing. Even in the moonlight and from that distance, she was certain. The stranger’s face looked carved in stone, deeply etched lines around the mouth, hooded eyes, resembling some ancient Indian, almost cartoon-like. But she wasn’t laughing. The creature’s eyes pierced the darkness like a heat-seeking missile ferreting out her hiding place and threw a warning. Just below the level of hearing her ears caught a guttural sound.
At that moment, a bat flew out of the darkness, diving at her. The child she was carrying suddenly kicked for the first time, and she felt it, agitated, matching her own state of turbulence. That’s all it took for Sybilla to break whatever spell was being cast. Time sped up once more. Her feet flew back the way she’d come until she discovered herself home again, holding onto her belly, the transmission from her hands seeking to reach her unborn child, hoping to extend security she didn’t feel herself.
Sybilla’s sleep was fitful, anticipating Gabe’s return at any moment. But he didn’t appear that night. It was just as well. She needed a head start to digest what she’d witnessed — and what she could even possibly say to him.
What was that? What did I see? Her thoughts whirled. But she didn’t doubt her eyes. Sybilla had witnessed something unlike anything she’d ever thought real or possible.
Is Gabe crazy? What’s gotten a hold of him? Is that him? Am I crazy? That’s the stuff of horror films! What am I doing with him? What am I going to do?
Somewhere in the midst of her fright and confusion, a great power arose. It was the innate, potent energy of a mother protecting her young.
I’m out of here! What’s he thinking? He needs help! I can’t let my baby be exposed to God knows what!
Standing at the door, she scanned for him. The sun was well up in the east. It was after nine o’clock. He’d never done this before. Even if Gabe went out at night, he always returned by the time she awoke. In the middle of her outrage, Sybilla worried if he was even alive. Deciding she’d better go see, she was in the bedroom pulling on her clothes when the front door opened. She sank down on the bed, waiting.
“Hi,” Gabe ducked his head in the door, giving a wave, a small sheepish smile on his face.
She followed him into the kitchen. Silently, Sybilla watched him reaching for the coffee. He was disheveled, more than if he’d slept in his clothes, like something had been wrung out of him. When he turned to face her, it wasn’t a Gabe she’d ever observed before. She thought he looked like a lost child. The anger that was bubbling, verging on caustic words, began to soften as he reached out, touching her arm, clearly in apology. Surprised, she’d thought he’d be churlish as he’d been so much of the time in the last months.
“I’m so sorry. You must’ve been worried,” he looked up at her through long lashes, head bowed.
“Where were you?” Sybilla asked quietly, taking in every aspect of him, waiting to see if he’d lie to her or acknowledge her presence the previous night.
“This place. Found it a few weeks ago. Something about it. Been on my mind,” his sentences were choppy, words rushing over each other, “Sybilla, you should come with me! Photograph it! It’s incredible. All these big stones. So powerful, I think people have been going there for centuries.
“Last night I was reading. Couldn’t get into the book. Something kept drawing me back to those rocks. It got so intense I just had to go!” he continued on, his voice getting stronger, like he was defying her, “I thought I’d be right back, but once I got there I needed to stay for a while. It was cold and I made a fire. But I must’ve fallen asleep. The next thing I knew it was morning. Don’t know why I slept so late. It took me this long to get back.”
Sybilla regarded him pointedly. She finally decided that, at least from Gabe’s remembrance, the story he related was exactly what had happened. He had no recollection of the events he’d omitted from this version, nor was he aware that she’d been at hand. Sybilla couldn’t decide if she was relieved or even more terrified. At least it likely explained where he’d been all those nights. It also indicated a growing obsession with whatever the experience brought him.
Finally she spoke, “Gabe, don’t take off like that again without telling me. You gave me a fright! I couldn’t imagine where you were.”
“I know,” the little boy again, chastised, “I won’t.”
Sybilla came to the conclusion that it was better not to say anything to him about what she’d witnessed. There was no sense in challenging him on something he didn’t remember, or at least didn’t seem to own. She could tell he was preoccupied, though not about her or the baby. Sybilla was so tuned into Gabe that she knew the nature of his silences. Now he frequently projected inner strain and vulnerability rather than irritation directed outwardly toward her or any situation.
Using this change to her advantage, Sybilla began to carefully drop suggestions that it was time to find a better place. The baby was coming soon. They could just as well stay where they were, but she secretly hoped to snatch Gabe out of whatever otherworld had spirited him away. They needed someplace with more people and an everyday kind of life, not the stark landscape where shadows and legend lurked in the moonlight — because there he would go. She acted disinterested in his invitation to photograph that area to cover her growing dread and unwillingness to imperil the baby or herself.
He continued to disappear periodically at night. Sybilla chose to bide her time, staying silent, putting her attention instead toward preparing for their baby. In her sixth month, Gabe agreed to head toward central Arizona, a place he’d traveled through called Mother Lode in tribute to its affluent mining past. A compromise, he’d said. He described a small town with miles of desert extending to the north — a forest of saguaros, chollas, ocotillos and geologic formations rife with petroglyphs. A place with character, Native people and artists of all sorts! Begrudgingly, he let her know that Phoenix was within reach if she really wanted it. But not so close as to contaminate with the things cities bring. Gabe expressed some excitement, and Sybilla’s spirits began to soar.
They found a small place on the edge of Mother Lode. It wasn’t much to look at but had a large yard that looked directly into the desert wilderness, protected as a preserve, and all the landscape that he’d described to her before they came. Gabe wanted to be sure that no other housing would encroach. Not too much civilization, to give their child a chance. She got the uneasy feeling that he’d deposited her there for all time, taking care of this one last thing before moving on. But he stayed, growing quieter in his soul, disappearing at night only occasionally.
©2013 Carla Woody. All rights reserved worldwide. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, Arizona 86304. Email: info@kenosis.net.
Find links to all chapters as they are published in the Table of Contents below.
Table of Contents
Preston
Sybilla
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Preston
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Carla Woody:
Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage. Read in Illumination Book Chapters.
Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness. Read in Illumination Book Chapters.
Navigating Your Lifepath: Reclaiming Your Self, Recapturing Your Vision. A Program to Revolutionize Your Life. Find in Illumination Book Chapters.
