It was beautiful. Even I had to admit that. Hazakura Temple mantled in snow and fringed by black pines with the sun rising in shades of frosty pink and orange. The temporary bridge spanning the ravine of Eagle River swayed slightly in the icy wind and inadvertently I glanced across the abyss to the basic hut that grandly referred to itself as the Inner Temple. Maya. It was hard to imagine how the events of the past four days could have gotten any worse and even harder to believe that there could still be such tranquillity. A small hand slipped into mine and I turned round to see a tiny and very dejected looking spirit medium standing beside me, twisting a strand of her light brown hair worriedly with her free hand. By the redness of her eyes and the tear tracks down her cheeks, I could tell Pearls had been crying pretty hard.
"Hey, Pearls." I smiled, an anticlimactic greeting if ever there was one.
She raised her head and looked me full in the face; the anguish she was feeling spelled across her face as clearly as though someone had written it with a permanent marker.
"Everything's changed now, hasn't it, Mr Nick?" she sniffed, swallowing hard and tracing patterns in the snow with her shoe.
I couldn't deny that, no matter how much I wanted to. Because the fact was, change had indeed smashed its way into our lives like a train wreck and now all that was left to us was that hardest of tasks: picking up the pieces. As kids, we all get taught not to play with those enticing bottles of corrosives sat just out of reach on some top shelf; to ignore the lure of exciting products such as bleach and antifreeze. We are never told though, that one thing just as caustic is the truth. Everyone involved in this case had been burnt, some more badly than others, but all of us would carry the scars for the rest of our lives. Because one other terrible thing about the truth is that, once you know it, it never goes away.
"Will...will Mystic Maya be OK?" Pearls whispered, looking more wretched than I had ever seen her before.
"Of course she will." I comforted the little girl, hugging her into my side. I could only hope that what I was saying would prove to be true.
Ludicrous, excitable, full of life, resilient Maya. But this time...I couldn't help but wonder whether what had happened had just cut her too deep for her to be able to even start to accept it, let alone continue as normal.
"Mr Nick- you know you're Mystic Maya's special someone?" I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; neither I nor Maya had been able to disenchant Pearls of her theory that she and I were...involved.
I nodded, not wanting to upset her- for an eight-year old, she'd already withstood an incredible amount during the past couple of days.
"That...thing that happened- it's hurt her really badly. And that's why she needs you to be there for her...but you have to be gentle. My mom always used to say.." and at this, Pearls paused, no doubt remembering that currently her mother wasn't doing all that fantastic a job of being a role model, given her conviction for murder and subsequent incarceration in the state prison.
"...that a woman is like a blackberry." she finished.
An odd choice of metaphor...
"How so? Squeeze her too hard and she squirts out purple stuff?" I quipped, at a loss to understand this peculiar pearl of wisdom.
She shook her head, a gleam of the old Pearls temper back in her eyes.
"No! I mean, she won't come off the bush until she's ready. You just have to wait for that time to come."
"And if it...doesn't?"
"You'll know she was never meant to be picked by you."