When she had closed her eyes it felt as if a hand reached down, scooped her up and placed her in the middle of the hall of the big house. She blinked in the light and wondered how on earth she had arrived so forcefully right within the heart of the house. She look around for Danny but he was nowhere to be seen and she wondered briefly if she should leave and return to the tree, but the smell of the cardamon prevailed and the dream she had had about the chandelier came to mind.
She looked up to see that the star that she had noticed at the centre of the chandelier was surrounded by the solar system, all carved in crystal, and surrounding the planets were the astrological symbols, and mathematical formulae, making the whole display the most intricate and mysterious thing she had ever seen. The fact that it hung within soft and moving light made it all the more intriguing because she could never see everything at once and as she turned her head different aspects shone out and others faded into the shadows.
She was leaning so far back that she almost fell over, she then looked round to see if the Carnelian kitchen door was open. It was not, no sound emanated from behind it and although the smell of cardamom was in the air, it was more memory than reality.
She felt sad not to see Simmi’s smiling face and felt at a loss. Going up the staircase or along the corridor was not permitted and she was rather irritated by that. ‘I wonder if they have let Danny into the main house?’ she muttered angrily to her self. ‘If they have that won’t be fair, I was here first, Raven was my brother ... mutter ... mutter ... mutter.’
The only path open to her, it seemed, was down the spiral staircase where a gentle light was moving back and forth. What opened up before her was breathtaking, there was this octagonal crystal room that was made from the clearest crystal she had ever seen, much clearer than the crystal that Aunt May had given her. It shone and sparkled with all the colours of the rainbow while remaining completely transparent. Around the edge of the room the crystal formed the most beautiful church windows that looked out onto a moat of clear water in which colourful and mysterious fish swam. The windows stretched from floor to ceiling and the light was constantly changing, but soft and delicate. It was the most peaceful place she had ever seen, very cathedral like, and yet completely unexpected, as it was the foundations to the rest of the house.
In between the windows etched into the walls were images from the bible, or at least that is where she thought they came from. There was the mother and child, beautiful and proud, bearded men in simple robes, some teaching others who were sitting at their feet. There were people healing the sick. There were images of children everywhere and one particular image caught her eye, a group of 12 children was walking in a line down a spiral path inside a mountain. In front of them was a man who was holding aloft a flame and each of the boys held a flame above their heads. Above the mountain was etched lightening bolts and it looked as if these children were being led to safety as the world above them came to an explosive end. She felt a shiver of fear and wondered what had happened to them. Had they been saved?
Each image was fluid, constantly changing like a hologram, the colours vibrated energy into the room as each image seemed to radiate a predominate colour. The mother with child was a light blue, the beautiful man in the simple robes was a pearlescent gold, and the healers seemed to give off a pink hue. The image of the young people was a radiant gold, but the leader was pink. How could this be so from the same piece of crystal? The effect was truly magical. Everywhere she looked there was more to see.
In the centre of the room was a curricular table in which was carved a cross with four arms of the same length, that were the colour of light blue topaz. Around the edge was a blue circle the colour of deep sapphire blue. Isabella ran her fingers round the circle looking for the join, but there was none, this was a perfect circle of crystal that had no beginning and no end. The beauty and the quality of the work transfixed her and the crystals shone with a internal light.
Arranged around this central table were many different chairs, some were ornate, upholstered and grand, others were small and wooden and basic. There were chairs for children, chairs for giants and chairs that pointed away from the centre and towards the walls. In-between the chairs were stools, like the one Aunt May uses for meditation, and mats which were all pointing in the same direction, 'Prayer mats' she thought. Some of these prayer mats were very beautiful with ornate designs, others were plainer, some were well worn and others brand new. She particularly liked the ones that had the tree of life woven into them. She looked around and thought that all humanity was represented here, the very grand and the very simple, the Christian, the Catholic and the Muslim, the Jewish and the Hindu indeed every form of faith that she could think of could find their representation here, be it an image, or a form of seating. Even the Native American Indians were represented, so it wasn’t just religions. What connected them all was a very tangible sense of peace and well being. A sense of something far greater pervaded the atmosphere.
Arranged around the edges were the enormous illustrated books that she had started to expect, but this time she felt that these did not contain individual stories but the stories of humanity, their cultures and beliefs, their successes and failures, their developments, their hopes and their fears. Once more the pigments and the golds shone out in the candlelight and this time she felt she could approach them.
The writing on the manuscripts she did not recognise, it was more imagery than letters and was beautiful in its rhythm and form and although she could not read the words she formed a sense of the story. One of the manuscripts was open at a page that depicted conflict, the pages were crowded and full and she could feel the pain etched on the page, heartbreak and loss seemed to flow from the images. On another the writings were less dense, there was more space, more of a sense of peace, of things moving slowly, if repetitively generation after generation.
There was one new book with relatively few pages and that intrigued her, but again she could see conflict, but peace too for at its centre was the star, the star she had called her star of hope. That book had a gentleness about it that made her want to know more, but she knew better than to touch the pages, or to turn them back, so she looked at the open pages in each of the books and then chose a chair to sit down in. Not too grand and not too simple, not at the front and not at the back, just right and like Goldilocks she fell asleep.
