"Few people that know it say it is a myth, Oliver."
"Just one land, what could seriously be special about it."
"There you are wrong. Ani is not just a land. In the tongue of the ancient people of the lower Niger, west of the great divide, where the myth originated, it means the ground, the land, often associated with the earth, and it's lands.
She is said to be a revered deity, and as such, had some rules of abstinence known as Nso Ani."
"All superstitious."
"So I think as well...,"Nina replied, brooding with her eyes fixed on the burning logs, while Tyler paced about, away from their tent, where she told him to await her return.
" Then, what striked so much fear into him at the mention of her name," he thought, nonchalantly.
The anxiety on Tyler's face had pushed him to seek answers from Nina without ratting out his source. Pondering over the puzzle Moses left behind, Oliver hoped to unravel the mystery behind the events of the past years. The names, Rahee and Kathrina, kept bugging his mind, just as well as the message Rahee had left to him the night she opened up to say more than the howls and growls that echoed with their presence while he was a little boy. And with this thoughts came the blame.
Benjamin had fallen into madness, possessed.
Defying medical treatment, he had been engulfed in the tempestuous storms of insanity and one day, Oliver returned from the fields to meet the door ajar, his mother groaning in pain at the depression that set in right after her husband's death, and the entire cottage, fresh off the overly familiar scent of the older Rosewood son.
He was just sisteen at the time, and it was exactly ten years since his father's death. On that very anniversary.
There was no one to blame save the floating bodies he had lost touch with since his father's death, an accident Oliver would not forget easily.
"I heard you speaking to her," Rosie crooked voice came through from behind him, while he was seated alone, later, watching the flame.
Startled, he turned and hurried over to her immediately, with a sudden warmth heated in both hearts, so much that they buried themselves in an embrace longer than expected.
"First time you spoke in months, mother."
"Sorry son,"she said, ruffling his hair.
"What's with the myth?"
"Nothing much, the name came to mind."
"I don't recall ever reading such stories to you nor your brother."
"Mom, I'm twenty and I read things beyond those limited prescription and recommendation, played out with books that are regurgitated without proper chewing. "
"Yet, you read them."
"Can't say now that I'm ashamed."
" She's correct in all her words, but, there's something she missed.
According to legend, Ani had a sister, an older sister. The one that came before her in creation, and a deity she remains. They call her Idemmiri in the original tongue, translated to mean, "great wealth of water."
I may not know the exactitude of her being and dominion, but the ancient texts on her was translated to mean, " where the formless resides, there the goddess stretches."
" What has they got to do with all this?"Oliver thought, looking away from her as the fire died down slowly with no log left to add.
"The night your father came home with those, he locked himself in his study... I have never seen him so distant from all of us, and so occupied. You know, he was so fond of you boys," she said with misty eyes, gathering to blind her vision, as fogs clouding the way.
Oliver smiled. A very bitter smile concealed unsuccessfully by that facade, worn over gloom and sorrow of the one truth that stood firm, indubitable, like his father's integrity, and it was that a father's neglect had pushed the purer, helpless soul, into the arms of the demon that took possession of him.
"There was scroll after scroll, and out of curiosity, I stayed up that night, peaking from a crack by his shelves on the wall. The first he translated that night carried the words," Without the mark of liberty, the land will chase for generations as would the waters, the accursed, that stranger and the mark of division among brothers."
"That still doesn't explain his madness, mother."
"He wasn't mad, Oliver."
"Really? I fear for my eyes then,"he said, and got up to leave.
"Oliver," she called to him, and struggling to rise, he returned to her side and held her hands.
"I couldn't tell any of you, especially you. It would be too difficult to bear as children.
The amusement park your father built was with great discretion."
"That again."
"You would honour him if you realize while he did the things he did."
"I'm listening, or am I not old enough to know?"
"Son... before the end of two weeks after the appearance of Medusa, your father found out that it came with strange energy."
"That I know, mother."
"Do you also know that your friend Billy was certified to have been possessed by the spirit of a woman named Katharina?
I'm sure you don't.
The spread was fast, but while he took note of outsiders, somehow, he didn't notice the one brewing in his home.
He sold everything he had to keep Medusa out of the contact of anyone else. You got to respect that."
" How could have gotten hold on something under count Gallaway...he bought it?"
"Yes, and hid it behind the walls of what we thought was a lovely mountain. It seems he found a cave inside, pushed it in and sealed it from outside."
As the misunderstanding cleared before his eyes, the guilt of what he had done sank deeper like a blade into his heart, but it was nothing compared to the horror evoked by the image of the rubbles at the park.
" I must go back!"