Refiner’s Journey

Providence deposited me at the mouth of winter’s midnight. The parchment, pressed against my bare flesh, seeped its siren song into my bones. I hadn’t counted on the world’s fortuitous sendoff nor the reciprocal sovereign hand that reached for me. But here I am.

The path ahead looked dismal. Dense fog curled itself around the faintest of light, sucking it down like a ravenous child eating supper in the presence of death. Who was I to question my circumstances? I held the ticket, purchased with autonomy and expectation. Of course, I was wrong.

The sky wept openly, soaking what little covering I wore. It weighed me down like chains, sticking to my skin. Every drop pelted me like shrapnel, ricocheting from one open wound to another.

The wind spoke up, stirring up the rain. I hugged the parchment closer and took a step forward.  Head down, I pushed against the elements, one step at a time. Steady now, Amelia. Steady.

Eyes open, yet blind. I trusted only in forward momentum. I knew the direction I had to go.  North. Always north, toward the sun, I couldn’t see or feel. The south held artificial light, climate-controlled misery.  East and west looped back to the same crossroads. The same path I traversed time and again. But not this time.

Not when the words beckoned me forward with a distant melody that stirred something within. The wind howled around me, a barking cacophony, trying to drown out the voice.  With every step, I left yesterday further behind.

“Amelia,” my accuser calls, “Where are you going?”

I can’t look back. I won’t. Not this time.

“Come back home, Amelia,” he calls.

The parchment is dead weight in my arms. Its edges burn into my chest.

“No,” I whisper, hastening my stride.

His laugh crackles like lightning. “Aaaaameeeelia,” he croons, every syllable pronounced. “You’ll never make it.”

I know he lies, but his words plant doubts. My feet slow, dragging through the mud. I couldn’t will myself to turn around, to spit into the wind as one last act of defiance.  Nearly at a standstill, I lift one foot and then another, only to find the mud climbing up my trembling legs.  This journey is over before it began.

The serpent coils around me, hissing his accusations into my ear. “You’re defeated, Amelia. Lie down and die.”  He stops short of the parchment, flicking his tongue in disgust.

“Lies. Lies!” For a moment, he recoils, then tightens his grip, squeezing every breath out of me. “Die.”

Winter’s death had come, I surmised, my ticket to nowhere punched. All that was left was resignation. I had come to the end of myself as it should be. The parchment spoke of such things. Surrender. Death to self. The only path forward required the crucible—the refining fire. Would I emerge purified, or scorched? You know the answer, Amelia. You know.  The seed must die in winter.

My accuser, satisfied in his work, slithered away, back to the age of man. His venom worked its way through my blood, red-hot lava flowing through my veins, carving away at my bones. Brittle and worn, every step hinged on the breath of mercy. “I can’t,” I wanted to cry out, but the words wouldn’t escape my lips. My limbs, heavy with mud and regret, petrified mid-stride.

I am undone.  The dead buried their dead along the way. I once scoffed at the saying. I can journey north, find salvation in the mountain, and emerge from the wilderness of my own making. I lied to myself, to others, to the voice. The crucible awaits, yet I am a dead woman. A corpse.

A corpse entombed in the flesh of the earth, devoured in time, and vomited out. Oh, Amelia. What have you done? Where is the melody now? My heart pleads for deliverance.

The parchment begins to hum, a soft glow emanating from its pages. Its words seep through the mud’s confines, sinking into the boiling shadows forged in darkness. Snowflakes drift downward, softly at first, alighting on my tear-stained cheeks. It blankets me in my filth, covering me, dissolving the hardened earth from my skin.

“Child, come,” a gentle voice beckons me.

My legs still tremble. I falter with the first step. I stumble in the next, scraping my knee on a jagged boulder that came out of nowhere. Drops of blood stain fields of white, leaving a trail behind me. The path is unsteady, and although I fall repeatedly, the melody drives me on.

I’m almost to the mountain. The fog lifts enough to see distant peaks. I’ll soon be there. A new journey begins at the crucible. There, I begin again, leaving winter’s midnight behind for the dawn of eternal spring.