Cuore di Luna's Important Dream

**There's a bit of a back story that explains why I went back to Riversleigh Manor after I crossed over the threshold of the Enchanted Door. If you would like to read that, please visit here.**

I decided after the spy was well and thoroughly dealt with that I should spend some time exploring this great big Manor House. I thought that it would be such a wonderful adventure on it's own. And, I think it could have been, except that it was so strangely quiet. Most of the residents had followed L'Enchanteur on their journey to find the Cave of the Ancients. One of the kind ravens in the gardens was able to tell me that Anita Marie had commandeered a ship called the Calabar Felonway, in order that the travellers could find a map showing the way to the Cave of the Ancients. I had thought to stay here in the quiet house, perhaps meditate and turn more inwards, but instead, I found myself restless, eager for more adventures. Alas, there wasn't much I could do at the time...the kind raven didn't know where the Calabar was when her cousin had told her the story. Besides, it had been more than a week since the raven had told me about L'Enchanteur...even if I did know where they were, they would have been long gone by now.

I tried to do some writing and painting in my luscious room as well, but the muse refused to be coaxed. All of this quiet was beginning to wear on my nerves, and I found myself becoming more and more sullen and cranky as the hours went on. I tried to read a book, and found myself reading the same page over and over again, dreaming of adventure with a crew of pirates. I threw the book down in disgust, and cried "Arg! What fun is it to stay here, with this new found openness, if everyone is GONE?!?" I found right then that I was suddenly very tired. "Yawn...good!" I growled, "At least in sleep the hours go by quickly." I stomped up to my room, crawled into my luxurious bed and fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

And I dreamed instantly, a dream like I have never had before. I saw flashes of scenes at first, with some of the travelers that I know, Porthosina sewing a flag, all reds with a flower and the initials CF, I saw L'enchanteur conversing with what looked like a pretty wild woman; she seemed to be the captain of the ship; I saw Daffy crafting some dolls in a ship's cabin, and some cook getting rousted from the ship....it didn't make sense at first, but then I realized that I was seeing the past, things that had happened on board the Calabar Felonway.

Then the images began to slip away, and I was seeing a face, a face that was out of focus and very far away. As I struggled to focus on the face, it began to come closer, get larger and come into focus more. Finally, when I could see the face completely, I screamed in terror....this face had three eyes, two normal looking eyes, and then a third eye in the middle of her forehead, and all three were looking into my very soul. I tried to wake myself up, struggled to move in this dream, to run, get away from those probing eyes, but it was useless...I was held in their gaze, and could barely breathe beneath their piercing weight, let alone move. I felt as if a thousand needles were boring into me all at once, and every single thought, action, deed, sin, omission, or memory was being laid before me and these eyes, all for the eyes to examine. Just when I thought that I couldn't take it anymore, when I thought that I was actually going to die from the weight of that gaze, it stopped, just as suddenly as it had began.

The face grew smaller in the dark, and I could see the body that it was attached to. She was very tall, a young woman, with the creamiest, darkest skin I had ever laid eyes on. Her face was simply breathtaking, an exotic beauty, with her long black curly hair pulled up under and through a lemon yellow scarf. She wore a long, flowing tunic made of silk, the color of the orange in a sunrise, with soft, billowing silk pants underneath. Her features softened from the harshness of that piercing gaze, and she smiled gently at me, as if she not only recognized my fear, but that she had felt it.

I suddenly sighed with relief, as I realized that up until then, I had held my breath in. I felt oddly comforted by her smile, not only that, completely comfortable in her presense. I knew that she not only knew everything about me, but that she had felt every single thing I had ever felt, and that she felt warmth towards me. I felt that her and I had just become instant friends, and I felt sorry that she had to feel my pains, as well as her own.

"It must be tiring work to not only be telepathic, but to be empathic as well, feel all the feeling of others?" I asked quietly.

She laughed joyously at that. "Honey, you aren't kidding! But you understand some of that, you know what it's like to take on the feeling of others, too. And now you can hear telepathically too, with that opened up heart you got there. You don't have to tell me, I know that hurt to come off, that cage on your heart. I felt that pain from when you did it."

I thought to her, "Yup, sure did, and it still hurts, actually. I feel naked without that cage, actually...very vulnerable."

She smiled mischeviously back, "Yes, well, that's because you are. Look down."

I gasped as I looked down and saw that I was completely buck-naked, and then I chuckled a bit at how obvious the symbol was....knowing naked means vulnerability in dreams. I had read my Freud in college. I looked at her with a question in my eyes.

She laughed, and put her hands up, "Oh no child, that's your subconscious doing that to you...I had no part in that.

I laughed with her, a long, loud belly laugh. I was feeling pretty vulnerable and naked before her, this beautiful woman who knew every single thing about me. But even though I felt soft and open before her, I realized that I wasn't uncomfortable or frightened, wanting to find anything to cover me. I was surprised by how free I felt in front of her.

"This is a dream you know," she thought warmly to me. "the subconscious and all just doing it's thing And I already know your question, so let me just answer it. It's just easier to communicate with you in your dreams than try to reach you directly when you're awake. You're more open in your dreams. In fact, last time I tried to communicate with you while you were awake, I couldn't get through, since you were obsessing about how bored you were, and all. My Queen couldn't even get through to you. Lots of thoughts going on in that busy little head of yours," she laughed.

I blushed as she laughed. It's true, I do have the monkey mind, and it was a little unsettling to know that she had seen it all. I decided to change the subject.

"Since I'm not quite as telepathic as you, could you please tell me your name, and why you are visiting me in my sleep?" I asked a bit defensively.

"I'm Cynwise, child, and I came here because we could hear your laments half-way around Lemuria." She spoke this aloud, her voice gentle and full of kindness.

"Uh, oh, sorry about that. Um, who's we?"

"The Tanitians, or otherwise called The Bog People. Ugh, I know, it's a horrible name, but it tends to keep onlookers away. They imagine us as being all kinds of ugly and great lovers of human flesh. None of it true, but it works for us. We are descendants of the Amazons and the Cyclops, each girl born with the magical gifts of perfect insight into the hearts and souls of all creatures of Lemuria."

"That's quite a gift." I said aloud, with some timidity in my voice. She was beautiful and friendly and kind, yet I was still feeling a little unbalanced by that third eye.

Cynwise face became gentle and soft. "You know, Cuore di Luna, I don't judge you. I may tease you a bit, but there is no malice in my heart for you. I actually have a heart full of love for you, as I have seen your pain and your triumphs, and I can not help but adore you, for how hard you've tried to understand what this thing called Life is about. We are a lot alike, and I feel like I just found my baby sister." There was a tear in her eye as she said this.

I, too, began to well up, at the sincerity in her voice, and how gentle she was with her knowledge of me. I couldn't help myself, I walked up to her and gave her a warm hug. The top of my head was aligned with the bend in her elbow.

"So, this gift you all have, is it a burden on you sometimes, to know so much about everything?" I asked in my head.

Cynwise smiled at me sadly, "It is a burden, child, sometimes so heavy that it becomes impossible to carry anymore. Imagine being able to see into the heart and souls of all creatures. Every living thing, plants, animals, people...even the stones tell stories. Imagine being able to feel with perfect precision the bloodlust of the boar, or the wickedness of that spy you ran across. See, we can't just turn it off...it's who we are. When we gaze with intention at anything, that creature cannot help but reveal it's soul to us. That heavy feeling, where you felt pinned down, like a butterfly on a card? We don't mean to do that, mean for it to hurt, it just happens that way, and the process doesn't stop until the entire soul, thoughts and memories of the creature are laid bare. It's not an experience that any creature can forget."

"For a long time," she continued, "our ancestors couldn't control this power, and found that they were reading the thoughts of anything that they touched. Many of us were persecuted and hunted down. Having all of your secrets suddenly revealed to a perfect stranger can cause humans to become dangerous, dangerous enough to want to kill the secret-keepers. That's what they used to call us, you know, the Geheimnis Guardas, the keepers of the secrets."

"Is that why your tribe stays hidden?" I asked quietly, already knowing the answer.

"You got it, my little chickadee. In the old days, when we spent more time in the openness of Lemuria, besides becoming hunted by humans that would see us dead, we faced another terror...insanity. Some of us would go completely stark-raving mad with the thoughts of other creatures...they would drown themselves in the sea, just to get away from it. That's the scream of the banshee you've heard tales about...it's one of our own women going mad from the knowing of it all, knowing too much. That's when our Queen decided that it was better to seclude the tribe, and what better place than a bog? No one likes bogs, no one travels in them, they can be dreadfully dangerous if you don't know they lay of the land. We have made ourselves a rather lovely home there. We just wanted to have some peace with ourselves, not be hunted or scorned, and be able to live out our lives, become crones, watch our grandbabies grow, without the pain of watching another one of our sisters go mad or be slaughtered."

I sat quietly for a moment, feeling the utter sadness of so many lives lost, so many women murdered, all because of fear. I realized in that moment that some of those feelings weren't mine, they were Cynwise's. I was feeling some of her feelings.

Before I could utter a word, Cynwise began speaking again.

"You want to know why am I here, and why did I just expose myself to you pain and guilt and frustrations, considering what the consequences might be; madness? Well, let's see, how can I say this without completely freaking you out? Hmmm...nope, there's no way, so I'll just tell you. See, Cuore, you're actually one of us, child. You've got a great-grandmama from way back when, back on your dad's side, I think, that was a Tanitian, a Geheimnis Guardas. That's why we could hear you so well, half-way across Lemuria. Haven't you ever wondered why you were so empathic, why you could feel the pain of others so well? Why you had to build up that cage around your heart in the first place? That's why, sweets...it's in your blood."

I had to sit down for that one. I noticed I was now covered in layers upon layers of clothes, blues and indigos, flowing over my feet, and a hood covering my face. It was a little overwhelming, at first, to know that one of my ancestors possessed such a great gift, and could have gone completely mad because of it. It certainly explained a lot, though.

"Yes it does, child. See, nowadays, we Tanitians have learned how to block out the thoughts of others, except for those who are Tanitians. We are wide open to each other. We found that we needed to stay connected that way to each other, not only for an outlet for our power, but because there is a great comfort in knowing each other through and through. It provides us a measure of ease and understanding rarely seen in tribes of humans. However, when it comes to reading other forms of life, we only have a select few; powerful women that are strong enough to be able to handle the pains and anguishes of knowing and experiencing the feelings and thoughts of others. Those that will still know who they are after knowing another's heart and soul like that. It takes years of preparation, and we have special ceremonies and inductions to go through before we are allowed to take on any humans. Some of us never make it past flowers, some frogs, others can get to mammals, yet go no further. Training in this way has enabled us to stop the insanity that ran rampant in our sisters for so many generations. Right now we only have 5 of us that can read a human, and come back out ok from it. Our Queen is one, and I am another."

"See child, you're a bit of a special case. All of the Tanitians could hear you, after you got that cage off of your heart, because you are one of us. It was all very bizarre, and no one knew quite what to do, because while we can hear you, because of the Tanitian in you, you haven't been hearing us, because of the human in you. It's a good thing for us that you just feel the normal human stuff, although you do tend to get a bit whiny, child." She laughed as she said this last part.

"Oh great, so now there's a whole tribe out there freaking out because they can hear the human's thoughts. Anyone on the brink of insanity yet? Heard any Banshee calls lately? Cynwise, you're really good with the guilt trips, you know that?" I pouted as I sat there on the floor. I noticed at this point that I was wearing a red hunting outfit that seemed to glow with angry flames. I felt like a toddler, about ready to throw a temper tantrum.

"Oh now hush child. No guilt needed, so stop your flaming anger. You see, Tanitians aren't so different from humans, we have the same thoughts and feelings, in general. It was bizarre because we all know each other so well, and suddenly we began to hear a sister of ours, someone we had never heard before. So, pick up that head of yours, and hold it high, because you are a part of the Bog People, a Tanitian, a Geheimnis Guardas, child! Well, at least part of you is, and that part is good and strong in you."

With those words, I felt that pride, that strength of a thousand women keeping the secrets of the entire world. Tears came to my eyes as I swelled with pride and comfort, knowing this woman loved me right then and there, knew everything about me, and still loved and honored me.

"Can I ask you another question?" I asked, this time with no timidity, and already knowing she would know the question.

"Why do I keep calling you child when I look like I'm about 18?" she chuckled. "Oh darling, I'm actually 60. Partly it's genetic, and the other part is living in a humid place, in a bog near the sea. Does wonders for the skin."

"Oh, and I almost forgot. I have another mission, other than telling you to pipe down." I grimaced at this. "No, no, I'm just playing with you. You really need to lighten up. The Calabar Felonway has anchored in our bay, so if you would like to join your travel-mates, which I already know you do, I can show you where they are."

"Really?" I squealed. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I thought that I was going to go crazy in the big ole Manor House. Oh, wait, you already knew that. This is going to take some getting used to, the thought that there's a whole tribe of woman that can hear me."

"Well, get used to it. Oh, and don't worry, no one is judging your thoughts. If you live long enough, knowing the thought and feelings of your sisters and brothers, you begin to realize that there just isn't much difference between any of us. We're just all trying to figure out this life of ours, and really, all judgements go out the window. You'll see what I mean."

"What do mean I'll see what you mean?" I asked, as Cynwise began to fade, shimmering before me, as an old map presented itself in front of me.

"Oop, REM sleep almost over, gotta show you the map..." Cynwise said as she was fading.

"What do you mean, Cynwise?!?" I cried after her, as the map loomed larger in my vision. I could see the Bog People's area clearly marked on the map, and I could see where it was in relation to Riversleigh Manor. It was a well-drawn map, and I knew exactly how to get there.



Just then, I woke up with a start. I shook my head, actually, trying to shake that feeling from the dream, that feeling that a thousand eyes were watching me.

I went to the bathroom next to my room to get a drink of water, splash my face, think about my dream. Was that "just a dream"? Is all of this true? I splashed my face with water, as I was feeling feverish, hot. As I was drying off my face, I looked in the mirror, and I noticed that small dent again, right on my forehead, between my eyes. It was almost imperceptable, but in this light, I could see it plain as day. My birthmark, mama had said. Honestly, I had thought that someone dropped me as a baby, and left an indentation in my soft skull. Now it was tingling a little, and I knew that it wasn't just my birthmark, it was my birthright.

I laughed out loud then. "Cynwise", I thought, "alright, I'm coming." I went off to pack my bag, and find my red-winged shoes.