Jezebel didn’t live in the caves. She actually lived just outside the village in a cottage I had passed by many times while traveling down to the Hollows but always overlooked it. It had always been just off that path a half mile out from the village itself, but I never bothered to wonder who had lived there or why they lived so far out from the rest of Sonata. It turns out there was a good reason for that as well.

Jezebel wasn’t what some would call a “respected member of the community.” I had a hard time understanding why even after it was explained by other members of the village. Jezebel said that part of it was because she was foreign. Another reason she said was because she has a unique attitude about people and life in general that makes people in this part of the world very uncomfortable.

First, she believed that love is freely given and not bound by notions of monogamy. Second, she believed that humans, in general, were the most destructive and petty beings in the world right after the gods. After all the loss and destruction brought on by the Judgment War, most people don’t like being told that hedonism is okay. After all, that’s what the war was started over.

The gods had been gone from Embre for a long time during the Age of Human and that allowed humans to develop slowly and steadily over time. Eventually they rose up to equal the Age of Kingdoms. When the Age of Gods came about, deities started coming out of the woodwork and demanding to be worshiped because they were bigger, stronger, and had much longer life spans. The thing about gods is that most of them don’t really care for mortals and while they wanted tribute and adoration, they offered absolutely nothing to the mortals in return.

It got so bad that mortals stopped worrying about the gods smiting them for whatever reason and started ruling over one another, claiming it was the gods that gave them the right to do so. Next thing you know, the world became a big party for the wealthy and noble and complete misery for the poor and common folk with no in between. Your life either sucked or you were too busy raving to notice that your fun is making life suck for everyone else.

While all this was happening, the gods were too busy being idols to notice what the mortals were doing in their names until the day they woke up and decided to punish mortals for their insolence. In response to this, a mythish woman named Arletas stood up and spoke out about how unfair it was for the gods to punish mortals for living just like their idols did. The gods didn’t care to hear about any of her objections and went about forcing sacrifices just to put the mortals in their place.

It was around that time that Arletas challenged the gods face to face and the first god since Vampira Gorath fell at the hands of a mortal. Arletas killed Iriam, the god of pride, and his death was felt in the hearts of gods and mortals alike. After that, the world woke up to the truth. The gods could be killed. “The Judgment” became “the Judgment War.” Mortals of all different sentient species came together and rose up against their supposed superiors, driving them back to the shadows once again.

It had been countless centuries since the gods had been heard from and only a handful remain. Some people claim there are no gods left at all. Some claim to have met one before. Most agree that they don’t care. They stopped being relavent long before I was born and even Arletas herself, with all that she had done to free mortals from their path of enslavement and/or destruction, had disappeared. Humans had to build back up from their tribal days and it took over many millennia to reach the Age of Kingdoms. No one, anywhere, wants to return to the Age of Decadence, except for Jezebel.

She told me that in those days, the people who were most free were the ones who weren’t shackled to the worries and constraints of fear. “The nobles were not all beevolent kings and queens,” she said, “but they were free because they did not fear the gods and they did not fear death. They lived their lives in complete abandon and they lived more than anyone has ever lived since.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that but I know now what it means to be free.

She invited me to her house many times but every time I tried to invite her to visit the village, she would tell me that she would rather not cause trouble for me or herself by making an appearance to the townsfolk. The townsfolk seemd to show a general dislike of her but that didn’t stop me from visiting her. Her house was nice. It was small and quaint with many cozy nooks and crannies. She always had the sweetest jams and jellies to serve with her bread and most of the times I spent with her would have us sitting in her kitchen with a jar of jelly open and a basket of bread triangles to dip into the jar.

What I found most fascinating about her home was the assortment of sculptures and paintings she had collected from her many travels. Some sculptures were in the shapes of people or creatures while others were shaped like emotions. You could look at them and feel what they were trying to express. Some inspired anger or passion while others flowed with peace and serenity. The paintings were the same. Some paintings were of people whose entire lives were captured in colors that told of the hardships they endured or the wondrous things they experienced. Some paintings were swirls and strokes of energy that soothed the soul or set it ablaze. I’d get lost in those paintings.

The other thing that had a lot of passion and anger in that house was me. Jezebel recognized it from all the times she had watched over me while I explored the Hollows. Even for a kid playing by herself, I had a lot of drive and energy. Sometimes I’d go to the caves just to vent when I felt I couldn’t go to Mark or June. Jezebel wanted to comfort me those times but she felt it wasn’t her place. That was until she couldn’t stand staying in the shadows anymore and came to intervene during the thing with Chris.

Like me, Jezebel came to the Hollows to unwind. Unlike me, she did so by going through a specific tunnel that led to an underground lake where she would sit and meditate. I didn’t know how to meditate and it weirded me out a bit to know that the entire time I was playing around in those caves, she was in there too just sitting and listening. I also thought it was odd that while we were both in there at the same time, I never ran into her nor did I even hear her. She told me that, “you cannot find me because you do not seek me. You cannot hear me because you do not listen for me.”

An idea came to mind. “Okay, so then teach me how to go unseen and unheard!”

Jezebel let out a slow sigh and put her cup of tea on the table. “There are many things I can teach you, child. Just as there are many things that I have learned. However, going unseen and unheard won’t be the point of these teachings. It is simply something that happens when you become part of the world.” She reached out with her slender fingers and delicately grasped a corner of bread, bringing it to her mouth.

At that point, I was thinking that becoming part of the world meant blending in like camouflage or something; the way that lizards do. “Can you teach me to become part of the world then?” I paused. “Please?”

She took a knife and began spreading a bluish-red jelly over the piece of bread. Her face showed infinite patience and I still felt as if all her attention was on me even as she statred to work with the jelly around. “You were already part of the world, child. That is where you come from. Remaining part of this world is something that you and almost all other people have forgotten. You stop being able to feel the heartbeat of the forces that were responsible for your creation. You have become blind and deaf.”

I lowered my head, recognizing her response as a “no”. She cradled my chin with her first two fingers and lifted my head so my eyes could meet hers. With a honey-sweet smile and vibrant gaze piercing the haze of my sadness, she added, “I can teach you to open your eyes, child. I can teach you to truly be alive. Alive an Free.”

Besides attending lessons at a tiny school, I spent very little time in Sonata during the day. Mark and June trusted me to take care of myself after they had figured out on their own that I was going down to the Hollows every day. They knew what I was capable of and they felt I was safe after being given many talks to warn me about the dangers in nature and in people. As long as I was home by a certain time and did as they asked, they gave me all the freedom I needed.

That was a better attitude than a lot of the people of Sonata had. Most people seemed to keep their heads down and their walls up. That seemed to be the way of the town. I didn’t notice until later but Sonata was self-sustained enough to be completely cut off from the world. That’s why the stranger knew I’d be safe here because Sonata wasn’t involved in politics or charges of loyalty. The only business we got was when the rare ship would pull up to our port and exchange goods. The rest of the world seemed ignorant of Sonata.

It was a good thing too, because while we remained isolated and blind to the struggles on the other side of the Alblu, the world was going to war. Kingdoms were falling and the monarchies were dying. The power to decide the fate of so many people was taken from the hands of one man or woman and given to the people themselves. A man named Marcus Fox made it happen. He killed the kingdoms.

Marcus Fox was king of the Fox Kingdom in Northern Embre way up at the top of the mainland. Marcus Fox saw how other kingdoms were being ruled and looked to his own. He asked his people what they wanted and gave each citizen a voice. Other kings and queens were acting on what they thought was best for the kingdom without ever asking what the people wanted in those kingdoms. Marcus spoke with the rulers of other kingdoms and, under his guidance, changed the order. Kingdoms became nations governed democratically and kings and queens became mere officials whose only power was to enact the will of the people.

It started out as a peaceful transition but the nations began to have problems dealing with the kingdoms that remained. Marcus Fox continued to push for change even after all the kingdoms that volunteered to become nations had done so. Those nations banded together in an alliance and helped Marcus force the change upon other territories. One by one, kingdoms fell to the Alliance of Nations. In a matter of years, all of the mainland would become part of the Alliance of Nations, encompassing North, West, East, and Central Embre. The only remaining resistance was South Embre.

Sonata never saw the blood of battle nor heard the cry to war. We kept our heads in the sand only speaking about what was going on around us in whispers over supper. The Alliance of Nations brought their army to invade Southern Embre and, with it, they brought a weapon that no one could imagine. Men made of metal that didn’t know mercy, didn’t know honor, and didn’t know hostile from non-hostile nor even ally. With heavy footsteps, they landed on the shores of the Southern Continent and tore apart the versamilitary of humans, elves, goblins, and any other mortal that was called upon to hold off the forces of oppression. The kingdoms of Southern Embre fell, but Sonata never felt their loss.

So while Sonata sat in the dark, the rest of Southern Embre was forced to change everything. Brace was no longer a place at all, having become part of Jellette just before the Fall of Kingdoms, and now the kingdom of Jellette had become the leader of the Southern Embre Nation. The city of Hope had become its capital and everyone on the eastern side of Behemos Rest suddenly mattered when before the war they were like strangers separated by a long stretch of mountain from northern shore to southern shore. The southern continent also had a lot more interaction with the mainland. This was good news as far as economic growth was concerned but after the End War, it was barely a promise for economic recovery. The only thing we ever saw of the thriving economy was in new technology. Otherwise, Sonata didn’t grow at all. It was a flower that never died and never bloomed.

While Sonata kept itself detached from the rest of the world, I was getting closer to it. Jezebel took me to that place in the Hollows that she used to meditate. It was a lot bigger than I expected it to be. The place was a large open area with an extremely high ceiling that opened up to part of the Hollowlands. The opening had a waterfall that poured down into an underground lake. The sound of water running down into the large basin was soothing and I could see how it could put one in a peaceful state of mind the second they walked past the entrance. The plant life that surrounded it was more diverse than just the glowshrooms that littered the tunnels before.

Glowshrooms were how we found our way around at first. When she had used them to pretend to be a monster taugh me that they were safe to pick up. They changed color when they were plucked from the ground and when you put them down, they would change color again. It would never be the color it started as. Jezebel said there was a lesson in that, like there was a lesson in everything. “Once something dramatic has happened to it, it can never go back to the way it was. You can try to recreate all the circumstances it had before it was affected, but as long as it has memory, it will never be the same.”

When the portable, electric lantern became a thing, we didn’t need the glowshrooms anymore. Once electricity was condensed into a miniature light, I thought such an invention was perfect for exploring the caves. Mark gave one to me as a present knowing how I loved the Hollows and I raced to show Jezebel what it could do. She marveled at the invention and told me how she thought it would be wonderful to spare the glowshrooms from being plucked and carried to where they didn’t grow.

At the underground lake, we spent a lot of time doing seemingly nothing. We would sit with our backs to the waterfall and close our eyes. At first, I had to fight the urge to fall asleep, what with the ambiance of the rushing water and the melodic sound of Jezebel’s voice telling me cryptic teachings. It wasn’t until I started actually listening to those words that I stopped having to worry about passing out. The things she said were meant to make me think and the more I thought, the more I changed.

“Child, everything in the world lives and pulses like a heartbeat with its own rhythm as it moves through time. You have this rhythm inside you and it does not have to go ignored. Relax and feel the song of your heart. Once you do, you can change it. Make it slow. Make it fast. Change the pitch. Change the tone. Take that rhythm and synchronize it with the rhythm of the world around you. Move as all of life moves and feel as all of life feels.”

When I would close my eyes before, it was just darkness and my imagination. After a while, things began to change. The darkness would have subtle touches of color seeping in around the edges. I didn’t just see them. I felt them. Some were warmer and some were cooler. Some moved fast and some moved slow, but they all had their different flow. I could start to see and feel where they were coming from. The quick white flow of the waterfall shifting and changing to a slow blue as it hit the lake and settled down into the pool before it was swept into the quick white and black tunnel beneath the lake. I could feel the slow green of the plants as they took in the vibrant white, yellow, and red of the sunlight pouring in and making them to pulse with green and white life.

The most incredible and vibrant colors came from Jezebel. They tumbled over one another and mixed together, each one taking turns being dominant. Every color I could imagine churned inside her and they moved in the most unique ways. I was starting to understand how she thought and how she felt but I still wasn’t sure how to sync up my rhythm to hers. Not until she sang.

Beauty that intense had no words to describe it. She was a symphony unto herself, with all other instruments except her voice replaced with raw emotion so profound it inspired lovers to wed and armies to war. It burst forth like the birth of a new star, exploding from her body in all directions and showering the cave walls in radiance far beyond the most inspired dreams. I was washed away in wonder and finally found my own colors being eclipsed by an entire world of brilliance.

I didn’t know how I was ever going to match up to that and then I realized that I wasn’t supposed to become equal to it. I was supposed to become a part of it. It started when I let it flow through me, not just through my ears, but right through the very core of my body, saturating it. The light surrounded me and filled me at once. I lost track of what part of the iridescence was mine and I felt hers begin to pull at me. It lead me to sway and move and then I did what I hadn’t done since I was six and curled against my mom while she carried me off to sleep. I sang too.

I didn’t think the chroma of our beings could become any brighter or more intense. Once I joined her singing, it grew and flared out until the cave could barely contain it. It was flooding in all directions and swirling about. Even with my eyes closed, I could see it and I could feel it. It crashed against the walls and poured into the labyrinthine tunnels of the Hollows. It moved in torrents until it spilled out not just into the sea, but into the sky.

I felt more than just the music embracing me. I was being held in warmth and security. It was like I had fallen into the place where I belonged. When the music stopped, I slowly opened my eyes to see what had embraced me and saw that I was at the beginning of the hollows, staring out at the atual waves crashing against the jagged rocks that protected the entrance. It was Jezebel’s arms that were wrapped around me, keeping me from falling in. “How did I get here?” I gasped.

“You were moved by the music,” she explained in her sweet voice. “Yes the music is a dangerous thing. It can sweep you away and take you to amazing places you have never dreamt or down into nightmarish holes you can never crawl out of. That is why, when it moves you like this, you must take control. Grab a hold of rhythm and teach it to move the way you want it to move. Life flows like a river. Move with it but do not get washed away.”

She leaned over me and spoke into my ear with the softest sound she could conjure while still being heard over the sound of the sea lashing against the coast. “Your instinct right now is to fear what is before you. You fear the unknown that is beyond but do not struggle and do not fight against the stream. Do not stand still or you will lose all control. Hold your arms out,” she whispered as she slipped her thin hands over my wrists and guided my arms open. “Move to guide yourself through the currant. Make it take you to where you want to go.”

At first, I wondered what the point of all this was. Was she trying to manipulate me like she did the stream of life? Was she trying to twist me and move me like the rhythm she spoke of? Was she trying to make me like her for some sort of need? Did she need me for some plot?

No. She was the river that had met another force like her, held back by a cobbled dam of worries and responsibilities. She saw me and knew I was shackled to chains of regret and sorrow. She changed her course to erode at the things that were holding me back. She wasn’t trying to control me. She was trying to set me free.

I took in a slow breath and looked out over the waves jumping up at me, ready to jump into the water and be carried out into the Alblu. I understood now. The river can’t be fought. It’s too hard to stay still, clinging to what was while everything else passed me by. I can’t swim back upstream. I can’t get back what was lost. While I may crash against the rocks and parts of me may be taken where I cannot follow, I can live. I have to be like the water and keep moving. I can’t let the things that have happened to me be what hold me down. I must let them shape me. I must learn the way. I must keep going. I cannot stop for the world will not stop for me. There is an end for all things but so much beauty is lost if I stay in place and wait for it. I must keep going. I must see what waits for me further down. Unspoken promises of rapture have yet to reveal themselves. I must keep going. I will never replace what is lost but the emotions within me aren’t dead; only chained and weak. I must set them free and find something that makes me feel that way again.

I turned to face Jezebel and I wasn’t sure if the moisture on my face was the water spray from the sea or if my breakthrough had let tears once shut away now loose to fall again. Maybe it was both. She knelt down to my level and set her soft hand against my face, not pushing away the water but cradling my cheek in her palm. “Sweet child, are you ready to begin your journey? Do you know how to move even after staying still for so long?”

I got the feeling she knew more about me than she was letting on but it didn’t bother me. She was a guiding hand and a mysterious teacher who had happened into my life to show me the way. I don’t know how my life would have turned out without her to enlighten me. Perhaps I would have stayed in Sonata and let my days play out as a quiet woman in a quiet place doing quiet things. It would have been a stagnant life not worth living.

I gave a nod to her while fighting to breathe. There was so much sorrow and elation mixing together like the colors in the cave. All of it flooded into my small vessel and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. All I could do wa drown in it until she said, “don’t. Let it come and celebrate what it means. You are alive and full of so much beauty; the beauty of love and the beauty of sadness. Take the passion and the melancholy and be proud that you have them. Do you know what to do with all this?’

I knew. I knew how to sing this song. I knew how to travel down this road. I knew how to laugh and love and cry and despair. I knew that life promised neither joy nor tragedy but if I ever wanted to know what it felt like to be the brightest star in the sky, there was one thing I that must do in order to experience it. I must keep going.