Then I heard the birds.
As my vision cleared, I remembered my friend and found her still lying across my chest with her head on my shoulder. The emotions of loss consumed me again. I cradled her stiff body in my arms and headed down the chute to try and escape the mountain tomb. The shaft was wet, but no longer standing in water. I could see bright sunshine beaming down from the outside.
I stood in the mouth of the cave and stared at the devastation and destruction.
How did I survive?
Why me?
Why not her?
The guilt was almost too much to bear. Why had the air been too thin for her but allowed me to survive? Did my heritage as a half-Shining One protect me somehow?
What about all the others like me? Did they survive? As I stepped into the world once again, holding my friend in my arms, I wondered if I would ever know.
Under the warm, baking sunlight, the waters receded quickly. Perhaps the Creator, having cleansed the world, was anxious to uncover its beauty again.
I made my way carefully down the hill, holding her body close. The thought consumed me: she must be laid to rest properly. I walked for miles that day, searching what used to be our fertile valley and surrounding forest for a proper place for her.
Utter devastation.
I walked until I could no longer feel my feet. In the fading twilight, I reached the end of the valley, a place that was known among the Watchers as the Spirit Road. I had never walked the Road before, but as the sun set along the horizon, I felt compelled to take it. Somehow, it would lead me to Keena’s final resting place. This I knew.
As I stepped onto the Road, a rushing wind whirled around me, lifted me up. My stomach lurched, and I experienced the sensation of falling into a black abyss. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
I found myself standing in a peaceful grove in the warm, afternoon sun. But had it not been sundown only moments before? Had more time passed than I knew? Or had I simply appeared elsewhere upon the Earth, a place where the sun was high and shining? My surroundings were completely unfamiliar, but I remembered the old stories of the travelers, and I knew that I was in a place as enchanted as my companion was.
I had found Keena’s resting place.
I stood in the midst of hallowed ground, clutching my most faithful companion, the closest thing to my heart. I had traveled the Spirit Road to the place my heart most desired: a final home for Keena. I stood among the wreckage of what used to be an oak grove, still soaking from the Creator’s wrath. The acorns crunched under my feet and the air fairly crackled with the energy surrounding the intersections of the ley lines of the Earth. The sacred oaks would grow back, I knew. The earth would reclaim what was hers, and the world would have a new birth. The world that had been taken from Keena, the world for which she had mourned so achingly. And from here, upon this hill, Keena would see it all renewed.
I circled the mound to find the perfect spot. When I marked it, I took out the pouch that held the preparations. The ashes of the sacred nine, a pure silver trowel, a beeswax candle—I used these ingredients to sanctify the ground.
The sun began its gentle descent, and when the hill was bathed in the gloaming that is the time between times, I laid her in the hallowed ground. The sun’s rays shone against the horizon, and in this miraculous moment between night and day, I sprinkled the hallowed earth over Keena.
I made three sunwise circles around the hill and declared the spot forever sacred ground. Little did I know that the magic I cast on that hill would last so long, be so strong, even unto the present day.
The land was desolate when I laid her here, but look at it now. The grove that regrew following the Great Flood is ancient once more. Now your people, the Earthborn have built a community of homes here—the place of the Final Stand that is yet to come.
Remember what I told you, dear one, at the beginning? The world is rarely as it seems. You look to the stars and think you know all there is to know. You look to the depths of the sea and assume that by cataloging the variations of life, you are the master of your domain. But what about the war that rages beyond your ken? What about the legends of old that occupy the collective unconscious of your people, the truths that dare to escape the dark recesses of your dream-self?
Well, now you know a small portion of what is. I pray you take heed of your surroundings. Visit this grove when you can. If you sit quietly, you can still hear Keena’s lament whispering through the ancient oaks. Though I have never seen her—and oh! I wish I had—I have heard it said that on a moonlit night, the shape of a great hound can be seen circling the mound, standing watch. And waiting. Waiting for something that is most certainly coming.
Here among the sacred oaks of Weston.
A Word from Hank Garner
Earlier this year, my friend Chris Pourteau started talking about this passion project that ultimately became the collection you are now holding. When he first released “Unconditional” as a stand-alone story, we all knew he was onto something unique and, frankly, quite special. There is something stirred deep within our hearts when we think of the most unimaginable catastrophes and how our four-legged companions show unconditional love in those times. I think these stories stir us to be better than we are.
I love stories about strange people and places. For a couple of years now, I’ve been building a fictional place called Weston, Mississippi. Each of my books have been set there, and each story has at its core the fact that the veil between this world and another is somehow thinner in Weston than in most places. Chris challenged me to tie “Keena’s Lament” to my larger world, and the idea for this tale was born.
I’m fascinated with legends and myths that seem to transcend cultural groups and specific places. Almost every culture has some sort of ancient flood story. There are also stories about creatures that came from the heavens and mixed with the people of Earth. These offspring became the demigods, the heroes of old, the Nephilim; they’ve been called many names. In most of these legends, these otherworldly creatures were destroyed in floods or other disasters. I wanted to tell one of these stories from the opposite viewpoint that you’re likely familiar with. I began to wonder what it would have been like for these creatures to experience an apocalyptic event. Would they also be blessed with the companionship of one of our four-legged friends?
“Keena’s Lament” is a piece of ancient backstory that gives a glimpse into one of the reasons Weston is such a strange place. In my latest book, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, a character named Crowley has uncovered others of these ancient stories. He sets out to manipulate the power of this place for his own diabolical ends. But a man and his dog—different characters from the Watcher and Keena in this story—stand in his way.
If you’d like to learn more about me and my work, you can find my other books at hankgarner.com, as well as listen to the weekly podcast I host called the Author Stories Podcast.
Tomorrow Found
(a Wasteland Saga short story)
by Nick Cole