Chapter Eleven: Redemption
The night had fallen indigo and heavy, pressing down on the caverns, infiltrating every crack of the rocks. This night, the doves had hidden themselves away from its tendrils. Something was strangely electric in the atmosphere of the cave: something nameless, oppressive, unknown.
Toad sat at the water's edge in another of the small caves that had escaped the notice of the others, and where daylight rarely provided more than a dull half-light, as though it were twilight all of the time. He stared down at his reflection in the water as he had done many times in the past few days, half-expecting Jacob to come to him as he had done before, to soothe the swirls of confusion within him, to chase away his shadows. But not tonight- something was in the air, but Jacob did not come. Toad was alone, and contemplated leaving.
Just then, a breath of something whispered by him, and he looked up and around him, eyes wide in the velvet dark. Something was there. Something had touched him. He was alone, he had come alone- all the animals were tucked away in their places, no one else knew of this cave. Something had touched him.
He whirled round, still sitting upon the ground, toward the deepest part of the little cave, where the darkness was absolute. He could not see, even with his night-eyes, what lay beyond, but he felt something there, waiting. Rising unbidden, he walked as if in a dream towards that place, where he had never been, where he knew not what lay. But his feet were sure, unhesitant as thought they were accustomed to the terrain, and something beckoned to him in the black there, things swirled round; spectral, mystic. He traveled, upward and then down, until he came to a tiny beach, its sands jagged and almost black, where the waves washed up gently, surrounded by the rocks, whispering, solitary. Untouched and unseen ever by human eyes.
And upon this tiny beach, in this tiny cove, where the whispers were louder than the sea, where invisible things made their presence known in the flowing dark, lay the body of Jacob.
Toad stumbled out onto the sands, smelling the musty odor of decay, seeing the bones showing through the skin as thin and papery as parchment… grayish, unbleached by the sun. The clothing that remained was in tatters, ripped; the sands copper and embracing round the form. Nothing, no crabs nor birds nor fish, had preyed upon it. Sheets and threads of flesh clung to the bones still, the dark hair matted but still there. Toad's eyes could not leave the sight, his legs were weak, his mind invaded by foreign things, chipping away at his barriers, chewing ravenously upon them. The boy's eyeless sockets exposed by thin slits that were once the lids of the eyes… the slight opening of the shriveled lips to reveal the teeth, eerily white…Each detail in turn filled Toynbee's world, dragged him down deep into the pits of this lonely place, deep into the pits of sadness, where the boy that was Jacob was found.
Toad felt someone come from behind, walking slowly as if in a trance, as he had been. Without looking he knew it was Mystique. Her body was close to his, her hand clutching his tightly, tightly…and suddenly, standing upon this beach, close to his only friend, feeling her energy melding with his, making them stronger than they had ever been, all the hurt and confusion and sadness that he had ever felt came rushing out in a torrent. It left his body as though he had been exorcised of his inner demons- tears ran silently and freely down his cheeks and he shifted his gaze to see Mystique's face, and it was shining with those same tears, like rivers of diamonds in the moonlight. She smiled at him, he smiled back, and it was Jacob's smile, Jacob's strength clutching their hands, tightly, tightly.
Together again.
They then heard the voice, which came from the sands and the body and the cave and the sea…came from their hearts and they knew it for what it was, and sat down hard together upon the sand as it swirled up to embrace them.
You are as one, Jacob said, redeemed. May you find peace as I have.
He need not have worried, for the two friends stood up together upon the solitary beach, faces open and shining and almost innocent…cleansed of the horrors of their lives and stronger for it. They shared one last smile with the boy and with each other, and then turned, hand in hand, back to the cave entrance, to live their lives again.
As one, redeemed.
The End.