Volume Three: Through the Gate
Sometimes we don’t have the answer, but we know where to find it!
As I am adding the personal contents to this newsletter on Thursday evening, I can’t help but think about all of the severe weather alerts that have been showing up for our area of Coastal Virginia. Storm Surge Warnings. Flood Watches. Tropical Storm Warnings. Hurricane Statements.
Here is the radar view from this morning after I had gotten up and made breakfast for the chickens. This was before going out to help everyone get a good start to the day ahead. That blue dot is Bessie, Pearl, Amelia, and me.
But we will be okay. We said our prayers together last night, and we didn’t fret about what might happen. We trust that we are always being watched over and protected. We also are good at figuring things out if anything happens, as you will see in this week’s installment which begins Volume Three: Through the Gate.
This last volume is being written right now as the powers of nature prepare to force me to wade through water to the feed the chickens later today after having turned our play areas into ponds. But I’m not worried. If there is any hen who will rise and take command in a disastrous situation, it is my Amelia!
There in my garage, surrounded by the tools and materials I loved to work with, I felt uncomfortable. It was as if I had been wearing not only pants made of wool, but a shirt and underwear made of wool as well.
My mind and my heart were both itching to find a way to keep all of my chickens safe and together with me in The Garden. It was our home, the home that even Amelia had come to love more than her old home out in the country, where flying was free and easy to accomplish. If I did not follow Uncle Buddy’s rules, I would lose my chickens and my home.
I thought back to all the promises I had made to the chickens over the months. I had promised Gracie and Bessie that they would always be together and never separated. Not only that, but I had promised Amelia that I would never give her away or prevent her from returning. I’m sure I had promised Pearl that I would build a stage for her where she could perform her comedy acts. That was the only promise I had kept, but I knew Pearl would make her own stage, even if it were only an overturned bucket.
These were not just promises the way people look at them. Each of these was an Ü(h)awrës, the highest kind of promise that a chicken could ever make or receive. These were words which must never be unkept or broken because there are very few other words that can repair them once they become broken.
And yet, with all of that, Amelia took over the situation. She knew what lay ahead was more than I might be able to handle. She saw watching over us all as merely doing her duty as a Sentinel.
“Emily, you have a remarkable gift in your drawings,” began Amelia. “I have only seen one other bird with a gift like this.”
“I have heard that there was another bird with a similar gift,” said Gracie’s wren. “It was discussed at a meeting with the Local Head Librarian. It is not a particularly good gift to have because it can be used to bring evil into the world.”
“You are certainly correct to say that,” said Amelia, “because I saw how Professor Accipiter used it. That bird was the only one that I was unable to free from The Circus. But rather than drawing a picture to make a portal, The White Peacock spread her feathers and opened a portal with them. I saw The Professor reach in and bring things from another place—perhaps even another time. That is so much like what Emily did when she used her drawing on the roof to bring me home again on Christmas morning.
“If one of Emily’s drawings can bring me home, I fully believe another of Emily’s drawings can take us to Paris. Now everyone, gather in closer, and I will tell you what we are going to do.”
Once we had all huddled close around Amelia, she began to explain what was to happen as if casting a magically miraculous spell over us.
“Emily is going to draw a large picture on the largest sheet of drawing paper in this garage. It has to be big enough to hang up on the garden gate. The one that you once used to hang a backdrop for your first dancing stage.”
“That was always my favorite place to dance,” said Gracie. “It was magical when Lefty danced with me and the others there, and after he left, it was magical again when Pearl danced there.”
“Emily, if you don’t mind, please start on a drawing of the most beautiful gate you can imagine—one that belongs in France and protects an outstanding Parisian Garden, Nate, you will need to hang Emily’s drawing there on our old American gate and play an album of French music on The Record Player. Gracie, while the French music is playing, you should dance on your favorite stage like you did before. And while she is dancing, Emily, you should add the last details to your drawing while remembering how drawing lets you do things you would never be able to do any other way.”
“These are strange directions,” said Gracie and Emily together.
“There’s something our friend, The Raven with Blue Eyes told me. She said that we must stay together, and when we do, we can do anything because we unlock each other’s gifts. Gracie, your dancing gift unlocks Emily’s drawing gift.”
Gracie’s wren leaned in to hear better and to ensure he wouldn’t miss anything. He told everyone, “If this is something I should not be hearing, tell me, and I will fly away. You have no idea how persistently inquisitive the Head Local Librarian can be.”
“Don’t worry,” said Amelia. “You can come with us if Nate and Gracie agree. After all, we will need an official record of what we discover. No record is more reliably trusted than one made by a Page of The Living Library like you. And what’s more, the Head Local Librarian may learn a thing or two from you about how The Living Library in Paris does things. For now, you can search through your records of Gracie’s life and verify whether what I say next is truthful or if my imagination is getting the best of me.
“When Emily first flew with me and guided me to the town called Moon, I could hear Gracie’s feet as she danced to a song on The Record Player.”
“That is what happened here,” said Gracie’s wren. “But we had no idea because we were here, and you were there somewhere along the wild river.”
“When Emily’s brought me back home again, I could hear Gracie’s feet as she was dancing to a Christmas song on The Record Player.”
“That is astonishing,” said Gracie’s wren.
“I must have very loud feet,” said Gracie.
“Not loud,” said Amelia. “Just feet that create their own songs that others can hear in their hearts.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “Gracie, I remember the time I knew your name was right for you because I could hear The Music of the New Day when you danced down the chicken ladder one morning when the honeysuckle was blooming.”
“So, Gracie,” emphasized Amelia, “You will need to realize that your ballet feet are keys that unlock several things. First, they unlock the ability of Emily’s drawings to allow her and others to do things they can’t do any other way. Second, they unlock the songs of nature and the world around you so that others can hear what you hear with your heart in their own hearts.”
“That is outstanding,” said Gracie’s Wren. “You have no idea how proud I am to be your Page. You surely must be The Key to the Living Library.”
“But there is at least one additional thing to know,” Amelia interrupted. “While I was there in The Circus, I had an opportunity to study what went on with The Professor and The Air Shadows. I actually saw them hovering over the people during a performance. I even heard them. It sounded as if they were a record being played backwards.”
"That is what I thought too,” said Gracie. “Whenever I heard them in the brambles, no one else could hear them except me. Not even Lefty could hear them. But I know you heard them, Amelia because they really do sound like a record playing backwards. Why can some of us hear them but not others?"
“And that, sweet and precious, Gracie, is what makes you the most extraordinary ballerina who has ever danced, and it is the third thing you need to know and to practice.
“When I was flying back home, and you were dancing to Christmas music, something made the wind slow down. Do you remember what you might have done differently when you were dancing?”
“I was trying to match my steps to what I heard on The Record Player. It was playing a French song, “Il Est Ne, Le Divine Enfant,” and I was getting confused by what I was hearing with the wind blowing the branches around outside. So, I tried to do some innovation, sort of like how I had seen Pearl do with her dancing.”
Everyone looked at Pearl, who started to sing her Dipsy-Doodle song.
“That’s it!” said Gracie. “Those are the exact same musical notes of the Christmas song—only backwards. So, I reversed the order of my dance steps.”
“The mystery of how to defeat The Air Shadows and The Absence of Love is finally solved,” I said, “But Amelia, you tell everyone how it’s to be done.”
“You know I love a mystery to solve. When all of the facts are known and viewed with a heart filled with love, it all makes perfectly good sense. There have been clues all along in the history of chickens throughout the ages!”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“As you know,” Amelia replied, “We chickens prefer words that sound the same forwards and backwards. Throughout the centuries, we have always held them in high esteem because they were give down to us from the first chickens.”
“From my study of your words, there do seem to be many words in Old Chicken that are palindromes.”
“That is because it is believed that the Absence of Love and the Air Shadows were thrown down to the Earth by The Great Gardener himself. Not hearing their songs and messages is the only way for people and other living creatures to avoid them and be free from their influence.”
“But, Amelia, how is that accomplished?” I asked.
“If the Air Shadows should come here to this garden, Gracie should listen to the music they make. Then she can turn it into a series of dance steps, remember them, but then dance the steps in reverse.”
“It’s like dancing a palindrome!” said Gracie, understanding at once what Amelia wanted her to do.
“You can dance anything,” said Bessie, “and even backwards!”
“When our ancestors roamed this world,” said Amelia,”we were just beginning to have scales that were transforming into feathers.”
“Except for on their feet,” said Pearl, holding up one of her feet and waggling it to show me that her foot had only scales, no feathers. “Because, even back then they dreamed of a day when they could paint their toenails pink or any other pretty color that they wanted without feathers getting in the way.”
“Something about that does not sound historically accurate,” said Gracie’s wren.
“But then as The Air Shadows began to fall from the heavens, they began clinging to the great rocks called asteroids that smashed into the earth. Finally The Absence of Love grabbed onto a mountainous boulder that hit the earth with such a great force that the earth’s air and land and water began to change forever until almost no life could survive, not even the mighty dinosaurs. I know this is true because I am a Sentinel who can see the scars upon the earth and can tell what they mean.”
“It was then that a plan was necessary to survive the catastrophe, so each successive dinosaur generation became smaller with more feathers until the only scales remaining were on their feet. That helped with how the earth changed, but they needed to a way to survive the invaders from the sky.
“The first birds discovered they could do this by the sounds that they made. This was something they discovered when they launched themselves into the air and flew for the first time and called out to all the other animals about the marvelous gift they had been given.
“With some of those calls, the Air Shadows disappeared like smoke. With other calls, the Air Shadows could be made to change the direction of their spinning, and that weakened them. Those were the most powerful calls and were incorporated into the vocabulary of every bird as palindromes, and the first birds to ever use palindromes were—chickens, the descendants of the fiercest dinosaurs of all, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“Now friends, we must be just as fierce as our ancestors when we seek to rid The Garden of The Air Shadows to prevent The Absence of Love from establishing a home anywhere else on this planet. Look for his marks which are the presence of slavery, wars between groups of people, and the destruction of the world’s beauty that sustains all life.”
“Your idea is a good one, and even a very sound one,” said Gracie’s wren, “But we are few in number. How can we convince the vast number of the world’s people not to listen to the Absence of Love and His Air Shadows?”
“I do not have that answer,” said Amelia. “But I know where we can find it. We must—all of us—go through the gate that Emily draws for us.”
“Through the gate!!!” cheered everyone with their wings raised high.
Until Next Time
If you have any comments—good or bad—please share them. But please remember that this is not intended as a non-fiction account of the origin of birds or dinosaurs. It is more like a mixture of several possibilities and accounts with a fictional spin.
Our Best Advice for the Days Ahead: Remember that people are stronger together. You can help unlock someone else’s gifts, and they can unlock yours! And while you’re remembering, look for your own gate and discover the world it opens into!
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
I love the idea of collaborative magic!
Your world is enchanting. I especially like the lore and worldbuilding in Chapter 2- a bit like Tolkien's.
The McGarrigle Sisters and The Chieftains did a great version of "Il Est Ne" on one of the latter's albums (it's on the 2CD "Essential Chieftains" set, which I very much recommend). If it was possible to imbed an audio version of a song in a book, that could be the one.
You bringing up the potential bad weather in Virginia brought me in mind of how the Atlantic provinces of Canada are often victims of the same bad weather. Fiona hit them bad, but they dodged the bullet with Lee....