“Stop it!”I snapped.“I just need you to shoot straight with me.Who are you?Why am I here?”
“The Maiden asks our name,” the old woman said.She cast her eyes about, rolling them wildly as if trying to decide how to answer.“No, the Maiden knows not who she is, she shan’t know who we are.No, no, no, as much as we respect her, we cannot.”
“If I’m this Maiden you’re speaking of, then youwilltell me what I want to know,” I said.
“No, fair Maiden, we cannot,” she said.“You shall call me a Crone if you refer to me at all.”
“That’s a terrible name.”
“We are what we are,” she said.“I am a Crone, and you are a Maiden.The Maiden.The Maiden of the Moon—she who has inherited the power of ages.”
“What does that even mean?”I asked.
“In time,” she said.“In time.Come, come.Come to the edge.Closer, dear.We shan’t push you—no no no, we shan’t, you can trust us that much.”
Her gnarled hand was in my own, and she pulled me to the edge of the tower.With her other hand, she pointed to the far horizon.Her pointer finger was wizened, like a calloused branch, skin stretched taut over bones.
“The towers,” she said.“Look at them.Alight your eyes upon again.”
It was dusk—a purple, midnight dusk—and yet I could still see.There were four vast towers spread equally over the horizon.
Three of them were aflame, braziers on the top lit.One flickered with an eggplant flame; the other a burning auburn hue, the next a powerful cerulean blue.They meant something.I could feel an echo of something awakening deep in my mind—deep in my heart.A feeling almost like déjà vu was hovering at the edge of my memory, ensconced in a bubble…
“You see it, don’t you?”the Crone asked.“The beacons.Evermore are being lit.Yet more will alight—though perhaps only the last.Shall there be others?Only you can say.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You do, we think.You know more than you think you know.”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” I said.
“The Maiden screams her ignorance into the void!”the Crone said.“She shrieks that she does not know with her mind, and yet she ignores the feelings in her heart!”
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Look at it,” she snapped.Her bosom was heaving.She grabbed my chin, forcing my eyes to look up at the sky.“Do you see it?”
“The moon?”I asked.
It hung there, awash against the sky, three-quarters full.
“Yes.Do you hear it calling to you?”Her voice was rancid, a hot plume of breath in my ear.
And yet… she was right.There was a slight whisper on the wind.Words now—words of people, words of something humming loudly.Someone was calling me—not my name—not the name I remembered.It was something deeper—more like calling to some role I was in—and they were imploring me.Something about… something about…
“I don’t understand,” I replied, talking to the stars.“What do you all want?”
“You hear their words?Their pleas?”the Crone asked.
“I hear them, but it’s all jumbled,” I said.“I can’t make out what anyone’s saying.”
“They are wishes, oh fair Maiden,” the Crone said.“We hear them, we see them.Little flickers, bright spots in the sky.Dazzling—each desire flying through the ether.They call to the Moon, oh Maiden.They call to you—for you—they wish for you to save them.To illuminate them, to inspire them.”
“I don’t know what to do.How can I help?”
“It will become clear, one day,” the Crone said.“Simply light the beacons.Still yourself and listen, oh Maiden.This is your destiny.Our destiny.”
And then the Crone cackled again, a wheezing laugh, and I jerked in my sleep and woke up…
