Marei - book one. Part two: Initiation. Chapter 10

The tiny candle at the opening barely lit any of the interior of the small almost circular room that the tunnel opened into. When I reached the end of the tunnel, which was twice as long as my legs, I scrunched around until my head was in the tunnel and my legs could stretch below me to find a foot hold in the dark sphere. I found one quickly and not too far down the wall and reaching back into the tunnel, I pried the tallow candle from the crack it had been placed in and shone the small light into the opening where I was now standing.

The cauldron was almost entirely circular, with a flattened top as if the lid had been placed on a cast iron pot. Around the base of the circle a narrow ledge ran like a small bench. It was on this ledge that my feet were resting. The floor was also slightly flattened, like the ceiling, and was only knee height away from the shelf so I stepped down from my perch and sat on the stone rim. Holding the candle above my head, I inspected what I could of the rest of the room.

The ceiling, though flat, was carved with a strange collection of hash marks as if someone had tried to keep track of something and then had given up, but started again on top of the original count. Other than that, there were no marks to be seen inside; no paintings, no decorations, no altar or offerings, and even more interesting, no sign that this cave had been used as a home by animals.

I leaned back against the strangely warm rock and rested my head on the dark stone. I could still hear the surf crashing against the rocks outside and the gentle rhythm combined with the exertion of the day lulled me to sleep in minutes.

When I woke it was because I was cold and could not get comfortable. I lifted my head from where it had fallen sideways and wiped away the thin trail of saliva that had drooled down my cheek as I slept with my mouth wide open. I stretched my arms and stood to find I was submersed in knee deep water. Luckily the water was still warm from the summer’s heat or I would surely have gotten too cold to have woken up from my slumber. I pulled my feet up onto the ledge next to me and huddled into a ball, trying to retain the small amount of warmth I had collected while I was sleeping.

The candle had not yet guttered, but it was burning lower and lower, and closer to the stone that held it. With a pang, I realized it would go out soon and I would be left alone in the darkness. Peering down into the inky black water that was even now lapping at the edge of the shelf on which I sat, I shuddered to think that I would be alone in the dark cave with the water rising.

My mind was in two parts about this – one part of me was screaming in panic for me to leave the cave, run from the rising dark water and find warmth and shelter. The other part kept reminding the panicked side that the cauldron was supposed to be a cleansing; how could you have a cleansing without water? And what better water for a spiritual cleansing than the salty ocean? Although Grandmother had warned me that some people did not live through the test it never quite occurred to me that she might have meant me; and though I understood in theory, I did not yet understand the practice of risking my life for this test. I blithely assumed that I would be fine.

While I was still talking my panicked side out of literally running for the hills, the water began to rise in earnest now, touching the shelf and quickly covering the surface and soaking my clothing. I could see no reason now to pretend that I was going to stay dry, so I turned again and dangled my knees and feet in the tepid salt water.

The candle, now tiny, flickered in the darkness, momentarily sparking brighter than it had a right to, with such a small amount of wick left. As the water covered my thighs I watched as it jumped, danced, guttered and died. I kept my eyes on that tiny orange spark of wick as the heat left it until it was just a memory of light on the inside of my eyelids. Without the candle, the cauldron was pitch black. The tunnel was just long enough so that the light from outside did not enter.

Again I closed my eyes though I knew I would not sleep this time. Opened or closed the darkness was the same. I blinked rapidly several times to see if I could discern any difference between the blackness behind my eyelids and the blackness that surrounded me and when I could not, I gave up and kept my eyes open anyway.

The water was rising more rapidly now and soon had gone as high as my belly button. I could feel the rhythm of the tides moving in the water as it licked higher and higher on my body, gradually seeping up into my clothes to fully soak me before the level of the water had risen. Not only could I hear the steady throb of the waves beating against the face of the cliff, I could feel it echoing in the water that pulsed in and out, higher and higher as if it had a life of its own.

As the dark salty water reached my chest and started to lap at my neck I fought down panic. How much higher would the water get? There was only so much room in the cave, surely Grandmother would not have left me here to drown. Grandmother’s words echoed in my mind’s ear: “for some, the only cleansing the cauldron can offer is death…” As the thought escaped from my mind, the panic that I had been fighting surfaced with a vengeance and I stood on the narrow ledge, reaching around me in the darkness to find the tunnel that lead to the outside world.
My fingers closed around the edge of the opening just as a wave surged in through the narrow crawl space. I gasped as it hit me full in the face, sucking in a mouthful of the briny liquid, and I stumbled backwards off the ledge and to the floor of the cauldron. The water was as deep as my head here and I struggled, splashing and coughing to the surface and climbed back onto the ledge where I had been sitting moments ago.

Water was rushing into the cauldron from the tunnel as if someone was pouring a bucket into the opening. Even with the steady give and take from the tide, there was now a constant outpouring and the water rose higher and higher in the cauldron. I was swimming now to keep my head above the water – it was too deep even to stand on the ledge and be able to breathe without the water surging unexpectedly up my nose. I swam to the end of the tunnel and tried to put my head inside the small hole. The surge of water pushed me backwards and into the center of the cauldron again.

Again and again I tried to push out of the cauldron, past the insurgence of water that was rushing with the force of the entire ocean behind it, into the cavern where my air supply was getting dangerously low. As the water rose above the top of the tunnel opening, I felt with my feet in the opening, wondering if I would be able to push myself out of the tunnel if I went in feet first.

I took a deep breath, and pushed down under the water and into the tunnel with my feet extended in front of me. I was able to get myself almost completely into the tunnel but the surge of the incoming tide caught me and pushed me again to the center of the room where I surfaced, gasping for air. Taking another deep breath, I tried again, pushing my legs into the crawl space and pushing off the low ceiling of the tunnel towards the outside world.

Entirely within the tunnel, I could feel it when the tide changed and raced back into the cauldron and I scraped my fingers against the uneven surface of the tunnel, hoping to catch hold of something that would keep me from being thrown back into the cauldron. I thought in my panic that if I could just wait out the intake, I would be able to push my way to freedom on the next outgoing waves. I pushed against the top of the tunnel and managed to keep my ground but my pants caught on a sharp piece of rock that was sticking down from the roof of the narrow tunnel.

I was stuck and could not push my way any further out of the cave. Terror gripped me as the breath I had been holding started to run out. I struggled and twisted, trying to free my pants from the grasp of the caves’ fingers. I didn’t care if I went back into the cauldron, I had to breathe. As the water began its strong thrust into the cave I pushed with both hands and my free foot towards the interior of the cauldron, hoping that the combined effort of my body and the ocean would propel me towards the ever smaller supply of air. With a rip that I could feel, though I could not hear it, the rock let go of my pants and I shot into the cauldron again, gasping for air in the small space that was left.

The sound of my ragged breathing echoed loudly in the shallow air space. There was just room for my head now, and only if I tipped it just slightly to the side. But it was air. I began to tread water and I let myself float from side to side, and sometimes in circles with the play of the tide. My face scraped against the rough stone ceiling but I was too tired from the recent exertions to care. I knew now that I would not be able to hold my breath long enough to fight the pull of the incoming tide and push myself out of the tunnel as I had been trying. My only hope of survival now was to relax and save my strength and focus on keeping my mouth and nose above the water level, however shallow it was.

Floating in the darkness, being pushed around by the relentless tide, seemed to take forever. The water level continued to rise, but slower until I was floating on my back, with only my face out of the water. There was no space between my nose and the ceiling and several times as the tide moved me around I could feel the skin being scraped off the edge of my nose. I was afraid to wipe it off, afraid that I would upset the delicate balance that I had achieved which was still allowing me to breathe in the tiny space. I was certain that it was only my ultimate stillness that allowed me to continue to have the tiny space for air.

I pleaded and bargained with the Gods and Goddesses in my mind; I did not dare to waste my precious air by speaking aloud to them. I told them that I would do what they told me, that I would be as easily moved by their wishes as I was moved by the tides, if only they would allow me to continue to draw breath. Unbidden, tears seeped from my eyes as I begged anyone who was listening to my thoughts to grant me a reprieve from the agony of struggling for air. After the tears reached the water I chastised myself – I was simultaneously begging for a release from the water and adding to it with my own tears. Realistically I knew I could not have increased the water level with my tears alone, but my mind was far from realistic at that point.

Regardless of what I promised the Gods and Goddesses, or how much I begged for assistance, the ocean continued to rise until I was pressed flat against the top of the cauldron with only my nose above the water. I closed my eyes tightly and fought to quell the panic that would arise every time water would splash into my nose. I knew now that the hash marks on the ceiling were not from keeping time, but from counting breaths as my own fingernails scratched again and again into the rock as I struggled to maintain my tentative hold on life.

Locked in the dark watery void, all thoughts ceased until I was focused only on the breath. Just one more. Just one more. Just one more. I could hear my hear pounding in my ears and I focused on calming the frenzied rhythm as I repeated my mantra. Just one more. Just one more. Time elongated, stretched until there was only that moment of Just One More. With every exhale I could feel the air bounce back into my face and I would pause until the ripples on the water had stopped before I would inhale again. Just one more.

Suddenly, like a cork being pulled from a bottle, my ears popped and my eyes flew open in surprise under the water. The tide had turned. Excited and relieved to the point of crying, I knew that all I had to was wait until the tide had dropped and I would be able to climb back out of the cauldron. But I could not cry now, I still had to focus. Just one more. Just one more. Almost done. Almost done. Almost done. The chant in my head changed with every inhale as I started to feel the water level recede. Soon my whole face was out of the water and I could tread water again, and take full breaths without feeling the spray of salt up my nose.

My relief was short lived. As the water lowered to where it was even with the top of the tunnel that meant my impending freedom, a great sucking pressure pulled the water out of the cauldron and through the tunnel. I was still floating freely in the water and the strength of the tide pulled me over until I was flush against the tunnel, my torso pressed against the opening as if the ocean could fold me in half and squeeze me out of the tunnel.

As the pressure from the outgoing tide temporarily abated, I swirled back through the water to the other side of the cauldron. The ocean pulled again and I was sucked towards the tunnel. The tunnel had been my idea for a way out previously and now as I was stuck, unable to pull myself away from the opening, I wondered again if this could be the way out, sooner than waiting several hours for the tide to drop enough to crawl out as I had crawled in. Before when I had tried, I had been fighting the tide, pushing out when the water wanted in. But now, I would be moving in the same direction.

I took a deep breath as the water relaxed its hold on my body and readied itself for the next pull. As I was twisted towards the tunnel, I held my breath, but kept my head above the water. I wanted to see if I could hold my breath for more than one turn of the tide, should it take longer than one to push my way out of the tunnel and into the air. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in the tunnel with no air when all I had to do was wait until the water went away.

I held my breath for three full pulls of the great water and decided that the risk was worth taking to get out of the cauldron. I began to cry, feeling a desperate need to be free from the dark watery prison where I had been held for so many hours. I wanted to be outside so badly that I was willing to risk my life to make it happen. I was certain I could escape within three pulls from the ocean if I dove in head first and pulled myself through the tunnel.

I wiped the tears from my face and forced myself to slow my breathing and heart rate again. It would do me no good to be panicked and waste my air inside the tunnel. When I was certain I was as calm as I would get, I took two deep breaths and, when the tide began it’s frantic pull out of the cave, dove head first into the tunnel and towards freedom.

I was sucked out of the cave and helped by clawing and pushing against the tunnel with my hands and feet but I did not reach the end of the cavern before the tide turned. I threw out my arms and legs and stretched out to my fullest, pressing against the sides of the tunnel with all four limbs to hold my place without losing ground. When the tide turned again, I let out a few bubbles to release some pressure in my lungs and pushed off towards the exit. This time I could feel the edges of the tunnel just under my fingertips and in my excitement at touching the outside of the cave I did not brace myself as I should have when the water pulled back into the cave and I too was sucked back into the cave for an arms length before I managed to stop the backwards momentum.

My lungs were bursting with the need to expel the air I had been holding for so long and as the tide turned again, I made a final desperate push to the outside of the tunnel. As the water propelled me towards my destination, I grasped the edges of the tunnel and pulled myself out of the cave like a fully grown child from her mother’s body.

Ocean water sprayed out behind me as I popped from the mouth of the cauldron. I fell into the still surging water below the tunnel opening. Incapable of thought, I struggled to my feet and trudged through thigh deep water towards the opening in the forest where I knew the path was. I clambered over rocks, stumbled, splashed into tidal pools, and fell more than once before I dragged myself up on my elbows and knees to the soft mossy forest floor where the ocean could not reach, and promptly passed into unconsciousness.

Amazingly, I dreamt. As I was lying helpless on the moss and stones, I opened my eyes to see a pair of feet wrapped in white and gold bejeweled sandal ties. They laced across each other in a very Roman style, but the sandals and the feet themselves were far from Roman. I looked up into a face that was half woman and half cat, with wide golden horns growing out of her skull as if she were a deer. But these were horns, like sheep, not many pronged antlers. She wore an elaborate headdress made from metals and stones the likes of which I had never seen in all my short days, but that glistened even in the half light of the still cloudy day. Her short dress wrapped around her and tied at the waist and was as white as bleached bone.

She smirked at me with her muzzle mouth and her dark eyes sparkled with a glee that felt wrathful and not mirthful. "I have heard your cry, Marei of the House of Benjamin. I have heard you promise to be faithful. When your lungs cried out for air, did you not still feel a calm that enabled you to continue in the face of adversity? This, then, is what I offer you. The ability to remain calm, even when you may die. And in return, as you have promised here in the depths of the earth, someday you will do my bidding willingly. Return now to your teacher and learn what you can. I have great need of you, in the days to come and will call you to my shore.”

She snapped her fingers and I awoke instantly, my head pounding and my body stiff and sore and tired. But alive. I struggled to my feet and began the arduous climb back up the hill.

I rested often, my muscles sore as if I had been walking for days before attempting this climb home. At one point, only a few turns up the path, I spied a fallen tree in the forest just off the trail. I ventured carefully off the set stones and retrieved a passable walking staff which made the climbing easier and the resting less frequent.

The day had turned to night as I wove back and forth on the up-slope. Still I did not slow or stop for too long. I feared that if I stopped walking now, I would be too sore to continue in the morning, so I pushed on into the night. After the complete and utter blackness of the cauldron, the starry night, even with no moon in sight, was truly light enough so that I could mark the trail.

I walked all night and as the sun began to first color the sky pale purple, I reached the clearing where the House on the Hill stood, quiet and sleeping. The sight of that safe haven sent a surge of exhaustion through me that was almost enough to knock me to the ground. Swaying with fatigue, I shuffled the last few yards to the House and opened the door. Without thinking, I pulled several logs from the wood pile next to the fire and stoked the morning fire into a blaze.

After the fire was burning brightly I stripped out of my now dry and crusty clothes and fell naked into my soft bed without putting on a clean night dress. I do not even now know how long I slept, but Grandmother told me in subsequent days that I slept until the next morning dawned, and that I cried out in my sleep.