Chapter 21 -

03/25/2018

Doe was a few steps ahead of me. I was practically hanging on to the sound of his footsteps, when we filed behind him.
We broke to a stop in front of a tall tree, and I stepped back to take in the view. In the musk I squinted to see one side of the tree full of blooming flowers and the other side bleak with nothing but leafless branches. Somehow the sharp contrast gave me an uncanny sense of balance between life and death.
“Guru Gumii lives up there,” Doe said, pointing to a small hut about fifteen feet above the ground set right in the middle of the tree. Its greenish brown color had allowed it to camouflage into each side of the tree.
“Let me go and pay my respect first,” Doe told us to wait. He proceeded to a ladder that hung down from the hut.
He moved up the ladder quickly like a shadow and disappeared into the Guru’s residence. When he reemerged, he had with him another koala. The large figure raised very wide hands at us and I heard Doe’s voice, “Come up. The Guru is waiting for you.”
We began climbing. The ladder seemed to be made from interwoven ivies and twigs, cleverly blended along the rough of the tree trunk. As we ascended, I had an odd sense that I was being pulled up by a certain force.
There was no door to the cabin. The ladder led us directly inside, which was dusky with the exception of two pale shimmers over a long platform that took almost half of the already small room.
The large Koala gestured for us to line up against the wall. I nudged forward with Bulkee and Sye on each side of me. My ears were filled with a soft clicking sound.
“Guru Gumii knows why you are here,” said the large Koala, who I had initially mistaken as the Guru herself. “I am the oracle’s Interpreter,” he went on. “She will talk to you through me.”
My eyes shifted to the fitful light source, when it moved. My mouth went dry, as I registered that the two shimmers were actually the eyes of a petite koala sitting on the platform.
The Interpreter straightened and stepped to the back of the room. I held my breath, as the willowy figure on the platform slowly rolled two balls with her hands. Clicking noises from the clanging of the balls trailed over and filled the space.
Guru Gumii opened her mouth, and a drift of smoke lifted from her oval shaped lips, ashen and narrow, as if her whole body contained nothing but the misty white fume.
“I have been expecting you all,” the Interpreter began to speak on behalf of the Guru. The white fume slowly traveled across the room and the Interpreter continued. “Only one of you may communicate your demand. Now bring forth your request.”
“Ears. Speak up,” Bulkee said in a hushed tone.
I stared down at the floor, as I thought of how best to start. “My name is Sasha Ears,” I said. My voice was frustratingly timorous.
I felt the shimmers of light burn to my face and I looked back up to find Guru Gumii’s intense stare like two spotlights fixed at me. I locked my fingers together, yet failing to stop them from twisting.
Guru Gumii lowered her hand and let one of the balls roll onto the floor. It glided toward us and stopped right when it brushed against my left foot. Again, the white vapor rose. “Go on,” said the Interpreter.
“Guru Gumii. We are trying to get to the Prince of AohhoA,” I said but I stopped when I noticed the white smoke freeze in the air. There was a moment of silence, uncomfortable for me but Guru Gumii seemed to be at ease with it.
The fume moved again. “The Prince is occupied. Highly occupied,” responded the Interpreter.
“I understand,” I whispered. “The Prince is fighting off the Ashendrons. We will reach him before he resets the Kingdom. But something strange has occurred here in the Pocket of Tree Houses that no one seems to remember the past. The Big Gloom might have something to do with it. Will you please tell us what’s happening?”
“Are you asking the right question?” The Guru’s reply came as a surprise to me.
I shook my head in reaction, unsure of how to respond.
“The Big Gloom is part of the Cycle in the Pocket of Tree Houses. It erases memories of all the residents so that everyone has a fresh start of the next Cycle.”
“Except for me,” I said. “I remember everything clear to the point.”
“Exactly,” the spotlights flashed once. “The right question to ask is why you are here, remembering it all.”
My temple tightened with tension, as I noticed the smoke slowly making its way to me.
The Interpreter raised a finger and went on, “Everything taking place in the course of life has its reason. There must be a cause to your arrival.”
What cause? I had nothing to do with this place! I wanted to tell them about the call I received and how it mixed up my trip to Vermont with someone else’s to AohhoA. “Chaundomic X, the head of the Ashendrons took me here by mistake,” I heard myself murmuring. “It was just a slip-up.”
It had to be. 
“Is that so simple?” The Interpreter translated. The air in the room turned heavy with the weight of the question. “You must seek the truth for it is greater than you can conceive,” he said.
The smoke looped around my neck like a white snake toiling me. It forced me to think, again. “What is the truth?” I asked.
Upon my question, Guru Gumii tilted her head to the floor, her mouth wide open. The room dimmed, as she squinted, drawing her round eyes into two thin lines. When she inhaled and flared her stomach, the smokes in the room sailed back to her instantly like speedy serpents.
I shivered, when the fumes converged into her mouth and the Guru convulsed violently. I watched the Interpreter rush over and press his hands on the back of her head. For a brief moment, I feared that she would never open her eyes again.
But Guru Gumii sat up and remained just as poised as she had been before. The light to her eyes returned gradually. “I see a veil,” the Interpreter said. “It has been casted over the truth. Your abductor has been too forcible for my power to cross his dominance. He has been carefully guarding a secret that is known to few. And the secret pertains to the reasons that you are taken. I shall not divulge the identity of your abductor but I will give you a riddle. Seek clues in it.”
She proceeded to tell me the riddle through the Interpreter: “He who holds control to it which you may spend but with no way to receive, you may waste but with no way to save and you may kill but with no way to revive is controlled by the lacking of it.”
The Guru went over the riddle again and asked me to repeat after her. She seemed satisfied, when I was able to recite it back.
“Now, as to the Big Gloom,” said the Interpreter. “There is no way around it, because it’s part of the Tradition in this Pocket.”
“But we can’t stay here forever,” I said. “What do we do to get out?”
“The Big Gloom can’t infiltrate your memories until the sun makes to the first Grit on the Belt of Sunpath. What you can do is to decipher the riddle before you see the sun up on the Grit again. Once you have it resolved, things should fall into right places.” The luminance flashed again before distinguishing like the last spark of a campfire. “Go now. I should rest. You return here to find me, when you have the answers.”
“We will be back soon, Guru Gumii.” I said to the hollow of the room.
In the dark the Interpreter guided us to the door and we quickly made our way down.
The riddle burned in my mind. What would the answer lead me to? A mixture of thrill and fear swelled inside my chest.

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