Gift

THE GIFT

The hillside displayed the heat engendered colours of Andalusia in
July: brown-gold, flame-orange, terracotta and shadowed purple. The
sunlight vibrated on the surfaces, so that all the contours shimmered
as though with inner energy and her eyes ached with the strain of
absorbing its power. Then the whole pattern seemed to move and melt and
blend together.

She closed her eyes and saw not darkness, but the pulsing red of
reflected light inside her eyelids. She forced her eyes open against
the glare, and looked at the hillside again. Unbelievingly, she looked
at the hillside. It was in motion like a giant kaleidoscope, its planes
and strata forming new patterns in a stately silent dance: in the very
centre an ever-increasing black opening, velvety and fathomless. A soft
breeze caught at her hair at the nape of her neck, a cool breath
scented with jasmine and pine. The parched and arid land around her
revealed no such plants. Her feet moved of their own volition and she
felt the breeze strengthen, lifting her gently clear of contact with
the stony ground. The widening black hole drew her through the air. She
passed through its vortex and found herself in cool darkness, her feet
on smooth marble, a throne cut in the living rock facing her. The
cavern stretched up and out of sight with the fluted anpillared
grandeur of a Gothic cathedral. From the side aisles, indirect light
pierced the darkness and picked out the uncut gemstones set into the
throne.

Her heart pounded and her throat tightened with panic at the
strangeness of it all. The fragrant air was almost tangible. She was
attracted to the throne. As she crept on tip-toe nearer and nearer to
the gleaming rock seat, she saw on it a parcel wrapped in what looked
like rainbows, laced with silver thread. A present? Yes, this was her
birthday. Everything suddenly seemed perfectly logical. The mountain
had moved, the hillside had opened, the ancient and beautiful cave had
drawn her irresistibly in only because the inner earth held a gift for
her.

She lifted the multicoloured, glowing box. It floated in her hands,
weightless as a dream. She sat down on the throne , turning to face the
wide opening of the cave mouth, which now seemed to frame the deep
indigo of a night sky, a full moon and an evening star. Moonlight and
starshine made a silvery pathway to her feet and on her lap the rainbow
colours floated away. leaving a box covered in delicate figured silk.
She moved her hands gently around the silken surface of her gift and
the box opened like a fan to reveal another box inside it, which
glistened blue-green like the summer sea, its sides lacy as wave-foam.
She pressed the white filigree and that box opened. There was another
box inside it. This was as shadowy as pine woods and fragrant as a herb
bed. The wrapping fell away from that box like tiny leaves and inside
was another box, burnished like the sun, gleaming gold in the pale
reflected moonlight.
The gilded covering parted and within was a globe of crystal, radiant,
clear, and within the crystal ball she saw a cave, a throne, a woman.
She recognised the woman as herself. This enchantment was all for the
essence of herself, that treasure of treasures, the most that time, or
place, or life, or love could offer. She had been given the gift of
herself.

? LINDY McNAUGHTON JORDAN, 2002 (585 words)