Chapter 20 - 20. ‘Family?’ II
We walked past the grave yard. I looked at them one by one. Mickey said that the grave was not for human, and I was not supposed to be able to see them. I asked to myself, "What have happened to me?'. I really did not understand what they had said to me
By the grave, I saw a quite crowded area. But in my eyes, it was a bit unclear scene in my eyes. While my eyes were on that scene, I saw shadows of trees and forest. Mickey asked me to follow him. Even though I was a bit uncertain, I kept walking behind him. Di dekat
The scene of market was a bit different from the ones I often saw and visited. I felt that I crossed over a time machine and I was in a time I had never known in my life.
I walked through the market which was full of sellers and buyers were bargaining goods, simple kiosks were lining nicely. The roofs were made of thick shabby fabric with wooden supports and the four ends were tied to pegs planted in the ground. The floor was made of stones arranged neatly. They were having transactions and ignoring us.
Some goods sold in there were not unfamiliar for me, but some others were. I had never seen them before.
Mickey went deeper into the market. It was dark and made me feel uncomfortable because the roofs were covered so that no light could penetrate into it. The situation in there was a bit different. Glass lights were in line, many kinds of dried leaves for herbs were displayed in every kiosk, and some strange or quite extreme goods, in my opinion, were also displayed there.
We kept following that tubby cat, turning to one of kiosk selling seeds. Suddenly I remembered the flower shop where I worked. For a while there was an urge from inside to go home.
There was something a bit different with Mickey, not like when we were still in Euron, where they would talked to me in secret. In here they talked to me freely.
"Still some more distant away," He said. "We walk along that path until that turning," Mickey fastened his little steps..
Faintly I could smell the odor of incense when we went into the perfume section and any ritual goods. I saw a black rock looked like a gum benzoin, was available in every shop. Aroma therapeutic candles for religious rituals were also availabl
When I threw my sight around, my eyes were stranded to quite eye-catching kiosk. It did not sell goods for religious rituals like the others, but it displayed dried frogs, a pile of horns and bones, dried animal babies which were hung, and something which were put into a jar filled with water. When I looked at that jar pretty closely, suddenly my tummy felt really sick, and I wanted to throw up.
It was a very strange place with the aroma of incense stronger enough in my nose than the other kiosks. The goods for worshipping displayed there were different from Temhe ones I ever seen before.
Not only bones and died, but also human bones and human mutilated bodies, and human infant were also sold. They were displayed on the shelves of the kiosk. Kerberos took me out that shop and I signaled to Mickey that I could not go in because suddenly I got my stomach upset and my legs were paralyzed.
Mickey went into the kiosk alone and I bent down in front of the shop to hold myself from throwing up. Not long was I kneeling down, someone approached me and asked to get up.
"Sit here!," she asked me. She pushed a chair from the shop for me to sit down and offered a glass of water. I took the water and it tasted so sweet and with soothing flower aroma. The warmth from that liquid made my stomach felt better. "Just wait outside" she commanded. I simply nodded. .
From a distant I could hear Mickey was talking to the seller. It looked like that cat wanted to know Zarina's address from that person. Even though I could hear all their conversation, I could hear 'Fire Lily and Mother river'. I did not know what they meant but I knew where the place was.
River Mother was in Sa'bah, in a village where my old house was in. I could not presume, so I waited for Mickey to tell us all.
I did not wait too long, Mickey went out of the shop with the seller. He was a friendly person. He said we needed to look for Fire Lily if we wanted to meet Zarina. She loved that flower. In other word, we needed to bring Fire Lily to visit Zarina.
"But, fire lily is very rare. And only certain people can see it," I was confused. I looked at Kerberos and Mickey one by one, "Many say that the flower is just a myth," I looed back at the seller. "I have never seen it for the length of my existence,".
Mickey wondered. "How do you know that?" he asked.
"Actually, I used to live in Sa'bah. There was an underground river named river Mother and the myth about Fire Lily. If you wanted to find that flower, you had to go to the ruins of a church, you would see one lily with bright red among more than thousands white lilies—even more. If you pick it up, Manji would give you 1 life for 1 flower you gave," everybody loked at me in astonishment, "Nevertheless, as long as I lived there, never have I seen that lily, not even the church, let alone the lily. It seems like it is just a myth".
"it is because that place is in another dimension." Said the seller looking at me, "Go get red lily and give it to Zarina. She will grant your one wish." He explained. Then, he went back into his kiosk.
I, Mickey and Kerberos were just speechless. They were still shocked with my story I just told them. Perhaps, it was beyond their expectation that I knew lily and all the story of it.
…
I lived in a small village, on the border of Euron, called Sa'bah. To the west of it was an area which was adjacent to Tohron and Urk directly.
Sa'bah was the most backward district in Euron that almost 75% its area was mountains and steep rocking hills, while the rest 25% was barren desert. This geographic condition had caused the low population. Most of them lived in the area of Crescent
Crescent area was an oasis around river Mother, which was curve in shape and narrowing on both sides like a crescent. River Mother was an ancient underground river that flew in some areas in Euron.
In the lowlnd area,river Mother was not completely under the ground, some surfaces came to the surface shaping like a lake with its water as clear as glass and the bottom sand as white as snow. In genereal the river had its depth around 25 meters 40 meters in the middle. And the water kept flowing throughout the year.
Although Sa'bah was known as a the most backward village, it was pretty wellknown in Euron. Many historical sites and buildings were in Sa'bah, from the ruins of old Urk city, the river Mother oasis, castle site of Moon Satan, doll and theater performance, and all myths and rumors about Manji.
Sme people said that Manji was twin ladies who lived in the ruins of the Moon Satan castle. They were very skillful in weaving with high qaility products.
In other words, no one from the upper world nor underground world could weave as fine as them. They really wanted to have fire lily. Unfortunately Manji had no eye balls so that they could not see the fire lily among hundreds or even thousands of white lilies in the ruins of Barones church.
From the myth, it said that to get fire lily, you needed to come in the afternoon, just before the sun set. It was at 4.45 to 5.00 pm.
Despite the rumors that said it was easy to imagine, no one could find the exact location of Barones church. People said that the place was a small building located not far from moon satanic castle. But in fact no single lily grew there.
…
Mickey took us out of that market. During the walk I told them about my village, Sa'bah. It might be true as the seller told us that the church was in another dimension. And I believed it was. For my 20 years living in there, not even once did I ever saw that place.
"To tell the truth, I have never seen that place," I told them honestly. "I believed in what the seller told us that the place is not in here," my voice sounded frustrated. That might have been affected by fatigue I felt and series of dreadful incidents I had been through so far.
"You mean in here?" Kerberos looked impatient, "In fact, even right now you are not in the dimension you belong to,"
Like rain in the sunny day, I was really shocked. From the beginning I did feel that the place here was a bit different from the place I used to visit.. And I felt that all I saw in that market was very strange.