Till the time to get up for her morning run came, Ravela remained firmly on her bed, sulking.
Life wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been fair, kind, or generous to her till the day she reached this little town, and Ravela wasn’t ready to risk her life here for some insane teenagers drunk on their luck.
As Ravela stood in front of Ma Stone’s hostel her mood was sour. The negative feelings from her dreams wouldn’t be lessened by the weather, which if the current clouds were any indication would be bombastic.
The thought of swimming in the lake suddenly entered Ravela’s head for the first time since she lived here. Thinking about it further Ravela realized that she didn’t know how to swim. The embarrassment was immense. She might have drowned herself on a thoughtless whim.
Breathing slowly she composed herself, this wasn’t the time for stupid thoughts.
Ravela refocused waiting for her students, who took their sweet time, she soon realized.
Standing outside the house all morning was not in her plan for the day. Walking toward the park bench by the lake, Ravela sat down and looked over the lake.
All the things she survived reshot through her mind. If that being had dropped her in an ocean world she would have drowned the moment she fell asleep or her telekinesis had whittled her down to the point of unconsciousness. She spotted from the corner of her eye Laena leaving the house and looking for Ravela.
Ravela remained on her bench. Was she going about this training routine wrong? Was something else going on? Ravela wondered if Safora and Markus were inside her room right now searching for her crystals.
Standing up, Ravela walked slowly back toward the house. Laena spotted her and jogged her way.
“Sorry, I’m late I overslept. Let’s go.” Ravela ignored her words and kept on walking back to the house.
“You wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“Erm. You're.” Laena said sputtering flustered.
Inside the house Ravela floated herself slightly over the stairs, not making a sound while going up the stairs. She stood in front of her room’s door. There was rustling inside.
Markus could be heard whispering inside. “This is stupid. We don’t know if he was gonna say no. And even if he says no, this ain’t right, Safora.”
Ravela got very angry. She silently opened the door to two teenagers sitting above her open suitcase.
She felt betrayal and rage. Floating inside, she closed the door without noise.
She took a crosslegged position still holding herself above ground. Laena could be heard calling without shouting outside the window. The stupid girl was in on this. ‘Stealing from me again?! I will teach you.’
Safora got up and walked to the window. Markus on the other hand turned around while getting up and froze mid-movement. They made eye contact, there was no emotion on her face.
Ravela made sure he couldn’t move. A feeling of contempt snuck into her heart. Safora took one look outside and spun around.
“We gotta go he-” she stops mid-sentence.
“-is back,” Ravela finished the sentence for her. “And behold, thieves in my room.”
Safora stood there speechless. Ravela let go of the telekinetic hold on Markus. Safora looked like a deer in headlights.
Ravela used her powers to close the window with an audible snap and floated the content of her suitcase onto her bed. Empty the entire range of her backpack. All her ring boxes flipped open. Her eyes wandered over her possessions.
“Well? Is what you trying to steal from me not here?” Ravela looked at the teenagers. “Do you think me a fool, girl?”
Markus tried to speak up for his sister. “Mr. Roi-” Ravela shut his mouth.
“I am not talking to you, Markus. I am sure all the excuses for your sister were convincing and not at all platitudes you think would pass with other adults,” Ravela said and returned her attention toward Safora. “Do I look like a moron, Safora?”
Getting out of her crosslegged float, Ravela landed.
*Plop*
The sound of her feet hitting the ground with authority. She picked up one of the rings. Studying it instead of looking at the teenagers.
The golden band was spotted with tiny green shards all over it. A beautiful ring, it gave her joy just looking at it. The stretching silence became awkward and Ravela had every intention to make it even worse for these kids.
“Nothing? Hmm, perhaps I was wrong to come here.”
She put it back into its box and with tender care closed the small case.
“I think I will have to pack my things and start over,” Ravela said while walking to the closet.
Ravela focused her attention on Safora. Her things meanwhile collected themselves back into her suitcase. Her bag with money flew out of the closet.
Safora looked shaken by the things happening.
Ravela released the hold she had on Markus’ mouth. She pulled out the clothes from her closet, this time by hand. She was putting pieces into the second bag she had acquired for her La Heumö trip.
“Now you’re just leaving?” Safora said now clearly in shock and beside herself.
Ravela could hear Laena come up the stairs trying to be quiet.
“Why wouldn’t I?” The door opened and Laena entered. After closing the door quietly she turned and froze in place. Ramiel currently taking clothes out of the closet and packing his things startled her.
Ravela ignored the sputtering girl and kept packing.
Safora opened and closed her mouth like a fish. “So, you lied to us from the start.”
Ravela stopped packing and turned toward the girl. “You! Don’t get to talk about broken promises. I kept to the letter of my word. Do not speak to me of the truth, thief.” Ravela hissed.
“But you can’t reverse the changes the crystals made.” Safora protested
Ravela’s expression darkened. She felt anger bubbling up inside her. Her nose curled and her next words came out with the natural vibration of her voice though it still was the voice of Ramiel talking.
“Girl, you have not the slightest idea what’s possible.”
Her eyes lit up with harsh golden light. The expression of the teenager somewhat hides the color draining from Safora’s face. She turned to the other two “None of you have the slightest clue what is going on and despite that, you insist on going behind my back trying to meddle in things beyond you. After I only asked that you consider the consequences of your demands.” Ravela paused and turned back to face Safora.
Markus used the pause to speak up. “It wasn’t my sister who came up with this idea.”
Ravela didn’t turn away from Safora. She held the girl's gaze. “But she didn’t stop it either. She even helped to commit the crime.” Walking away from Safora, Ravela turned her attention to Markus and continued. “So was it you, then? Or was it Laena? Tell me.”
Laena chose this moment to come clean. “It was me. I thought you would reject Markus because of what I told you.”
Ravela got in her face. “And you, in your infinite wisdom knew better than me, is that it?”
Laena’s eyes were glued to the floor.
“Look me in the eyes, Laena.” The girl looked up the guilt was written all over her face. “Whose choice do you think it should be? Mine or yours?”
Tears were welling up in Laena’s eyes. “Yours.”
Ravela bitterly states what shot through her mind, hearing Laena’s response. “If you believe so, we wouldn’t stand in this very room with your friends going through my things,” she turned to Safora adding, “again.”
Ravela walked into the middle of the room. “And what choice do you leave me with? What should I do now, oh wise and all-knowing, Laena?”
All three of them looked at the floor lost for words.
Ravela spun around slowly, waiting for an answer. She could almost grasp the shame in the room with her bare hands.
Ravela let the ring in her hand zoom back to its velvet box. Ramiel’s ring flew into her hand. Putting it back on, she said, “Maybe I should call Ma Stone up here. So I can be certain none of you ever enter my room again rummaging through my belongings, seeking to steal what is mine.”
Laena panicked. “No, we can’t tell her. Her health…s-she can’t take such a shock.”
Ravela looked at her with all the contempt she could muster. “And who took that risk? It wasn’t my choices and decisions that brought us here. Maybe in the future, you don’t make the choices that aren’t yours to make, and stick to a more mindful approach to actions you take that your families may be heartbroken to learn about.”
She looked at each of them. “We will talk about this later. But don’t be mistaken. You two are no longer walking on thin ice with me. As for you, Markus. You of all people should keep your sister out of trouble. Not get her into it. All of your complicities and inactions have consequences.”
Ravela walked to the door and before opening it, she said, “Get out, and do never try something like this again.”
They snuck out of her room. The last time she only felt stolen from, this time her privacy, rights, authority, and pride felt violated. She needed help with these kids. Urgently so.
After closing the door Ravela hurried over to the bathroom mirror. She nervously checked her eyes, but they were just Ramiel's normally brown eyes with white framing. The realization that her true eyes broke through the facade of Ramiel troubled her. There was no room for flaring bouts of rage if she wanted to not be caught randomly glowing at people.
“The right path,” Ravela mumbled to the empty room.
She had to talk to Keeper Namon. Maybe he could find the right words in a sermon to get these teenagers to reconsider their current approach to things.
“Yes, maybe the keeper can help,” Ravela said to nobody. Slowly putting her clothes and other stuff back into their former spots, Ravela absentmindedly opened the window. She could hear the faint noise of the teenagers having a full-on argument.
Ravela lay down atop her blanket staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t made for these kinds of problems.
She just lay there staring straight at the ceiling. She got herself in a mess. Her true face breaking through because she became emotional had her flabbergasted. “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.”
Rising from her defeatist slouch, Ravela closed the window. She then exchanged her sports clothes for more formal clothing, took her copy of the Golden Path, and left her room.
Today was a Sunday, so Namon would be at his temple preparing to tend to his community. Ravela had never visited him in his place of worship. It felt wrong to lie to him in his holy place.
Walking through the park felt not as relaxing as it usually did. Her troubles had wandered off taking their shame and guilt elsewhere.
Ravela found her way to the temple. The stone of it was strangely different from the rest of town. The darkened stone forms a charming but small house of worship. They were bigger and not as uniform slabs of stone. The walls weren’t as straight as the buildings in the rest of town and yet, it didn’t look wrong. It seemed oddly fitting, with its two small towers, its stabilizing buttresses separating the artfully crafted windows in an as functional as an aesthetically pleasing way. Ravela found herself enthralled by this old but still robust construct.
In comparison, the rest of the town while charming lacked the aged magical glamour oozing from the temple. Ravela pulled herself out of the appreciative trance.
She walks back to the big wooden portal framed with blackened metal frames. Behind the door, the temple opens into a wide and spacious room full of benches and some paths on sides beneath columns and arches.
Ravela walked through the center path beneath an arch-supported roof. There were a great many decorations inside for such an old building.
“Ramiel, how odd to see you here.” A voice greeted her from her left.
Turning Ravela saw the man standing beside a wooden construction. A box with two doors with beautiful carvings on the outside.
“Blessed day, Keeper Namon. I think there is a need for your worldly guidance.” Ravela fell in with the door.
Namon’s warm smile suddenly became a concerned and reserved expression.
“And you came to me for an open ear. You’ve come to the right place.” Namon quickly, but without seeming in a hurry, slipped between the benches. His arm on her shoulder, Namon guided her to the first row. “I am glad that I’ve earned your trust. It means a lot to be sought out for guidance.”
Ravela sat down beside him looking at the altar and studying the central piece of this temple. “Hm, it is not for me alone I seek advice. But tell me about your temple first. It is so strange, yet fascinating. Colder than I expected too.”
Keeper Namon studied her expression closely but decided to indulge her if only to grant her the time to organize her thoughts.
“The first thing you need to know is that this isn’t a temple it is a Safe House. A place along the golden path for guidance and gathering who find themselves on the road or maybe even beside it. Any such house will grant you a safe return to the way of the righteous.” He paused before he added a bit of a sad twang to his voice. “If one truly seeks it.”
Ravela looked at him, and he looked tired, defeated even.
“This Safehouse is like many in the unified states build more sturdily and not as warm and welcoming as the Safehouses in Africa or even down south where the climate is warmer and allows the more celebratory design most people are accustomed to, but it is not less a haven against the uncertainties of life. You see the people in the center are the guardians. The ones blessed by God in all his wisdom to protect humanity from all sorts of calamities. The man they’re surrounding is Famal the Wise. He was the guiding light for our faith for over two centuries. His passing was mourned all around the world. It took decades for the news of his passing to spread to the last corner of the old world. It was heartbreaking like a lighthouse showing you the way in the stormy sea suddenly went dark.”
Keeper Namon paused and looked up at the ceiling. “God gave him incredible powers and he found other gifted and made the world a better more compassionate place. His teachings changed the world; are still changing the world.”
Ravela looked at the image of the man and his many followers. All gifted men, all of them made their mark on this world. It looked like one of her old team photos with all staff and reserve players. Her face displayed a crooked smile, at the weird thought crossing her mind at the oddest of times. Ravela turned a bit and asked. “And what was that box you stood beside when you greeted me?”
“Oh that, is the confessional box. If you want to be forgiven for your sins and find a way to redemption, you would talk to the keeper inside. In this Safehouse’s case that would be me.”
Ravela considered his words for a moment before asking. “And what is the convention for having a confession in your Golden Path?”
Namon was looking at Ravela with different eyes now, like someone worried for a friend. “You would sit down on one side of the box, in a separate cabin and I would sit on the other side. We wouldn’t be seeing each other. There is a small rectangular hole that is a bit obscured through a grid but we both pretty much could tell who’s on the other side.” Namon sighed and leaned back on his bench. “It is the principle of the thing more than it is actual anonymity. Confessional confidentiality is absolute, whatever someone confesses to a keeper is between them and god. It is forbidden for a keeper to break that Seal. Whatever one confesses is safe. But a keeper will urge the one confessing to return to the path of the righteous, to come clean of his sins or atone for them absolving someone of the confessed sins is also part of that duty.”
Ravela took that information in with astonishment. The risk she was about to take with the keeper suddenly seemed manageable. She got up walked three steps then turned to ask an important question. “Can anyone come to confess to you their wrongdoings?” Ravela asked while holding in The Golden Path Namon had given to her.
Namon smiled. “It does not matter who comes to confess. We guide everybody on the path and to the path. The seal applies no less.”
That was good enough for Ravela. She turned around and made her way to the confession box. She waited for Namon to catch up to her. He had time, his sermon was not for three more hours and preparations were done already.
Namon reached the box and got into his seat. Ravela waited a moment longer, letting the keeper settle in and collecting her thoughts.
She opened the half of the confessional box meant for herself and got in closing the door.
