She awoke to bright sunlight and the call of a bluebird. The ground underneath her naked body was cool but not uncomfortable. Tears streamed down her face as she gazed across the Paigorya Valley to the magnificent sight of Noble Mountain.
"Welcome back, Ake'omo," Mylah said.
Mayenta rolled her head to look up into the branches of the dogwood. The tree had donned her cloak of white blooms. It was spring—a time of renewal.
On a lower branch sat Mylah, using one of the dogwood blooms as an umbrella to shade her fair skin from the sun. Pik zoomed in from an upper branch and settled comfortably beside Mylah. Both of them had watched for her this day.
"Do you remember?" Mylah asked.
With a sob, Mayenta nodded. This time, the forgiving black void of being unable to recall the truth had not followed her back to this place. This time, the events of that day plowed through her mind like a runaway locomotive, stark and brutal in ruthless detail.
She had been on her way home from pulling a double shift when the call crackled across the radio. She was tired and hungry, wanting desperately to take a hot bath, don her ratty sweatpants and enjoy the utter chaos of the evening with her two daughters before falling into bed with Tom, but instead, she picked up the mike and responded to the call. It was on her way home.
She had then flipped on the siren of her squad car and sped down the streets, making it to the scene before anyone else. That was when her heart stopped beating, when she died inside. A familiar blue Tahoe with a Braves baseball tag on the front bumper sat in the middle of the intersection twisted and snarled between a red minivan and a utility truck. She slammed on the brakes and jerked open the door, stepping out almost before her cruiser came to a halt. She couldn't breathe as she ran to the mangled SUV, and what she saw . . . oh, dear god, what she saw.
A whimper escaped her as she stared unseeing at the bright blue sky above the dogwood. Tears streamed out of the corners of her eyes and rolled down the sides of her face into the recesses of her ears.
She thought she had screamed and she remembered the pain in her knees when they cracked against the pavement. They were all dead—Tom, Carrie, Chris—it could not be. How could they be dead? They should have already been home from little league soccer practice. It could not be!
She had been frozen, catatonic, with her hands and forehead against the cold metal of the Tahoe when she had heard the other sirens coming. They were just a few blocks away, but then there was the screeching of locked tires. Someone on the sidewalk screamed for her to look out. She looked up just in time to see another car crash into the other side of the minivan and push it her way. Then her memories began anew, here under the dogwood, when she had lain on this ground for the first time.
She swiped the tears away and sat up to stare at the wide expanse of the valley below—so beautiful in its springtime splendor with varying hues of green set off by splashes of color from blooming trees and shrubs amid the backdrop of the clear blue waters of the lake and the deeper, almost black blue of the Teraquovee Sea beyond.
"Mylah, what does Paigorya mean?" she asked. Her own voice sounded coarse to her, as if she had not spoken for a very long time.
"It means place of solace, Mayenta," Mylah said, the sympathy in her voice apparent.
"My name is Karen," she whispered, remembering other details of who she was.
"A beautiful name, Ake'omo," Pik said.
"And Polongi?" she asked. "Does their name have a meaning?"
"Their name is more of a feeling of strife and not a definite word, Karen. It could mean fear, disorder or chaos, despair, denial, the list continues."
Karen nodded her understanding. "I thought that is what you would say. Are you real?"
"Do you think we are?"
Karen looked over her shoulder at the beautiful Spriht the others deemed as Mother. "You are to me."
"Then, yes, we are real," Mylah smiled. “And Paigorya is your home when you need a place to rest, but as you know, it is not your true home.”
“I know,” she said, realizing now why she had come here, and why she could not stay. She unfolded her crossed legs and stood. Raising her face to the sun, she closed her eyes and took a brief moment of solace in the light that warmed her skin. She breathed in the fresh air then let it rush from her lungs, letting all her pain go with it. "Mylah, Pik, I have to go." She turned to look at the two tiny faces she had come to love.
"We know," Mylah smiled.
"We will miss you, Ake'omo." Pik rose to his feet on the branch and bowed.
"I will miss you, too." She glanced one last time at the village lying far below. "Tell Nate I love him, and that I am sorry I could not love him enough."
"Karen, he will understand," Mylah said.
Again, she nodded. She blew them a kiss and followed the path that would take her over the mountain. The way to the Polongi would be longer this way, but it would give her time to come to terms with what she had to do—she had run from the truth long enough. It was time to face and conquer the Polongi—it was time to face and conquer her demons.