about that in due time. For now, you must expand your vision and allow your perspective to follow me. I will take you where your sight has not yet been able to travel and show you how to reach beyond the physical horizons you have already surveyed. Ours is a world of spirit, a sphere of invisible influence, where the forces of light and darkness do battle day and night. As I did through the Ovulum for many centuries, you must provide a window to the world of the living for a God-seeking soul who longs to see the realm of lost loves.”
Merlin bowed. “Although I cannot see how I am to fulfill this great commission, I am at your command, good prophet.”
“I expected you to be willing,” Enoch said, “and I now advise you to be ready for a fight unlike any you have ever seen. In order to complete the creation of the Great Key, we will step into the midst of a climactic battle.”
“The rubellite in the pendant is ready to serve as the Great Key, but who will be the two witnesses?”
Enoch spread out his glowing fingers. “One who will come in a disembodied state similar to ours as well as another witness who is flesh and blood. A number of years must pass before the culmination of that plan, for the dragon king has yet to arrive, and the second witness has yet to find her way.”
Merlin melded his fingers with Enoch’s scarlet wrist. “Is Valcor in as much turmoil as it appears?”
“Without a doubt. He wishes to shelter everyone in his protective wing, yet he knows that God has not called him to cower in the shadows. While Valcor struggles in his mind, the destiny of all dragons hangs in the balance.” Enoch laid his hand on Merlin’s forehead. “Close what is left of your physical eyes and follow me. Since the Oracle of Fire will count on the lessons she has learned through the centuries, our timing must be perfect.”
After poking her head through the neck hole of her fuzzy blue nightgown, Sapphira let the hem drop to her knees. She laid her cross next to Enoch’s scroll at the edge of her floor mat and curled up close to Acacia. Her twin snored lightly, tired from her turn in the village scrounging for food the usual potatoes, cabbages, and beans as well as for books, clothing, and firewood.
All the other scrolls had burned long ago, and the cross’s flames never seemed hot enough for cooking. So if they ever wanted warm food, they had to get fuel, and hauling an armload of wood up to the portal on the steep hill proved to be quite a task. Still, taking turns kept the burden manageable, and the townsfolk thought the same blind girl visited the alleys and dustbins every day probing for castaway remnants. Although they never begged, sometimes their accessories sunglasses, a ragged bonnet, and a walking cane coaxed a bit of monetary sympathy from a few kindhearted souls. The money they collected came in handy for an occasional bar of soap or a newspaper.
Sapphira pulled her blanket to her shoulder. The cavern seemed to get a bit colder every decade, but sleeping had become much more comfortable since the people in the living world began throwing away such treasures as mats and blankets. With only a tiny hole punching through the material here and there, her new bed had provided many nights of comfort without the soreness that her old sand mattress had inflicted, and the threadbare blanket was just enough to ward off the chill.
Still, a mattress alone couldn’t bring complete comfort. Sapphira closed her eyes, trying to shut out the pain of a thousand haunting thoughts, but visions of Elam kept flashing in her mind. What was he doing now? Did he get away from Devin back in, what was it, nineteen thirty something? Or was it only a dream? Was he even alive? If he was, had he forgotten about her?
Over the years since Elam stopped appearing on the screen, every time Sapphira surfaced in Glastonbury to hunt for food or other supplies, she took note of every young man she passed. Strangely enough, many of them smiled at her, though they believed her to be blind, giving her opportunity to study their faces. Hundreds of smiling faces later, no Elam. Images of Paili also haunted her. How old would she appear to be now? Twenty-five? Thirty?