Category: Essays andinterviews

Love on the Nile

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, romance, travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

 

luxor love best

Two nights ago I got married. It happened on this felucca on the Nile with the moon overhead and the lights of Luxor Temple shimmering on the water. It was the most romantic and also the most fun night of my life.

In a moment of reflection, I looked across to Farouk’s Winter Palace, remembering how as a ten year old child my family stayed there, pulling a mattress onto the balcony to escape the heat. I remember asking my dad why only Christians went to heaven while everyone else went to hell. I had met so many people of other faiths and cultures who were truly good people and didn’t deserve such a fate. My dad assured me they did (and let me say I love my dad and respect that he always stood for what he believed). However, it was then I started to question the dangerous myopic view of the zealots–of any religion. So it was especially meaningful to be on that boat thinking how fate had brought me back to this place.

I traveled for three years, from Turkey to Bolivia to Morocco to Costa Rica and beyond, not sure where to lay my head. I  have found my home. Many people might think this is a crazy decision but hey, I’m a crazy person. Life is an adventure, and I’m living it to the fullest, one moment at a time.

 

My Infinity

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Book of Angels, books, Cave of Secrets, Essays andinterviews, Key of Mystery, Land of Talismans, Night Angels Chronicles, travel, YA Urban FantasyLeave a comment

In a few weeks I will be taking off for two months in Egypt. It’s time to start up the blogging again in preparation….

 

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My parents in 1967

I was last in Egypt at age ten. I can imagine much has changed since then. Of course, the monuments of Luxor, where I will be staying, will not have changed. I look forward to walking among the queens and kings and breathing in their spirits, as well as the slaves who suffered in order for those in power to gain immortality. This is the dilemma that drives me, the juxtaposition of yin and yang. Is it evil and good, or is that just how we have tried to explain it? Perhaps it is really something else that we don’t understand.

Luxor is my next stop in gaining inspiration to write Throne of Desire, book 5 in the NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES series. Writing six books is a lesson in endurance. It is also  a spiritually uplifting experience. I found that while writing Land of Talismans, book 4, the characters truly took over the story. They are leading me on their own mysterious journey. I am learning much as I travel along.

 

Writing this series has taken me from Los Angeles to Istanbul, Turkey; the Sahara Desert, Morocco; Martha’s Vineyard; Lausanne, Switzerland; Sucre, Bolivia; Lake Arenal, Costa Rica; and now Luxor, Egypt.  My characters represent many cultures and ethnicities, the stories are steeped in history. The themes of free will (does such a thing exist?), spirituality vs materialism, the corruption of power; the sedation of the masses, well…let’s just say it’s all in there. What would you, as an ordinary human being, do if you had the opportunity to become a god?

And what, really, does that mean–to be a god? What does it mean to be human? What is life and what is death?

 

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Good vs Evil…who can say for sure?

We don’t know the answers to these questions, no matter how much we fool ourselves into thinking we do.  To know these answers means to have the knowledge and power of what many call God…or the universe… or whatever words one wishes to use. As finite beings in an infinite universe (a concept impossible to comprehend) we theorize, speculate, believe we know, kill each other over theological technicalities, but the fact is, we are tiny ants climbing up onto blades of grass, thinking we have scaled the highest mountain when we haven’t even made it out of the backyard.

That said, it’s a lot of fun speculating and I am putting it all into NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES.  We’ve each been allotted a certain amount of energy to put back into the universe. So, this is how I use mine. Telling stories, creating my own little worlds. And along the way, traveling where my spirit takes me to absorb all I can of the wonders of the world I live in.

What a life! We should make our lives worth living–to ourselves, which is why I have such a hard time writing in this blog. It’s all in NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES, it’s all in my other writings. I want people to read what I write. I want to share my little worlds and hope that others will get lost in them, too. It’s a way to find connection in the void of infinity.

Life shouldn’t just happen to us. We should give our all to creating our best adventure.

This is my best effort. And I’m loving every minute of it.

 

How I Packed Up and Took Off to See the World

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, My World Project, Night Angels Chronicles, Uncategorized1 Comment

Check out the link to my essay on how I freed myself of extra baggage and took off traveling two years ago to find inspiration for my writing. Thank you Amy Oestreicher!

“It doesn’t matter if I am in a café in Phoenix, wrapped in blankets on a freezing night in the Sahara Desert, or writing with a view of Arenal volcano, four fans on full blast to keep the sweat from landing on my computer. I could be in a penthouse suite overlooking the Bosporus, or on a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, or maybe a train across India (a goal of mine). Each space has an atmosphere that speaks to my spirit and sparks my imagination. Each view, whether dark or light, colorful or noisy, joins together to become an added layer in my life.

The shrinking of my possessions has meant the growing of my freedom. The giving up of a static living space has opened a door to the universe. I am not bound by one location, one thought or one experience. My feet move in any direction I point them, light and free. ”

Love My Detour!

INTO THE WORLD_LI

INTO THE WORLD

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, Uncategorized1 Comment

My World Project                    New Millennium Writings

When I was awarded the New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Award for Reflections from Istanbul, an excerpt from my childhood memoir INTO THE WORLD, I was asked to write an introduction, something about my motivation and approach to writing. I recently received the print edition of the anthology and I re-read the introduction, which I hadn’t seen since I sent it off a year ago. With the insidious rise of fear and hatred across America and the prospect of a third World War looming, the introduction and this manuscript are especially vital now. So, here is the introduction:

INTO THE WORLD 3

It is appropriate that I received news of this award as I was on my way to Marrakech. Writing INTO THE WORLD has been a lesson in endurance, working on it when I can, because it is something I am compelled to write. And I can say that this magical part of the world, Morocco and Egypt in particular, were perhaps the biggest influences in my life from those childhood traveling adventures. So for many years, I kept that dream alive, that determination to come to Morocco and to finish the book. I am blessed to have that dream become a reality, with the added bonus of being able to work with children while I am here.

I am a traveler and I travel where and when I can, through words and pictures and through mountains and valleys and cities and villages. This is a gift that I have been given and I am grateful, although it can be a burden to be so driven, and I do not take the responsibility lightly. When I write, I do it with my whole heart and mind. It is my way of knowing that I exist and that what I do on the planet matters. My hope for INTO THE WORLD, and everything I write, is that it will fight against irrational hysteria and turn people’s consciousness away from fear towards unity.

INTO THE WORLD

We are all strangers in a strange land, even inside our own skin. We can never truly know ourselves or even those who are closest to us, but that doesn’t stop us from trying, each in our own ways. And so life is essentially a lesson in the acceptance of loneliness, whether we live surrounded by loved ones or on an isolated mountaintop. Understanding that we are all in this same predicament is, ironically, what gives us compassion towards one another and brings us closer together.

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A Beautiful Journey and Remembering Casey Cohen

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, Night Angels Chronicles, Uncategorized1 Comment

I have never, quite honestly, cared much about money or possessions or having a permanent home. My books, however, have been with me for over thirty years, a few more than fifty.

These Eskrima sticks have been with me close to twenty years. Other sticks have come and gone. But these I have wrapped and re-wrapped. They are ordinary, sturdy Japanese bamboo, but they have served me well, having clashed in many battles, enduring with me and helping me stand firm.

Over the years, I have found myself whittling down my earthly possessions, although I have never been one to collect many things. I am more apt to get rid of stuff, I don’t like clutter. Traveling light suits me best.

My books, though, are irreplaceable. There is not price tag that can be put on them. For two years I kept them in storage while I traveled. Taking them out again and placing them on the bookshelf was a spiritual journey in itself. Touching each one again, leafing through the pages, transported me to so many places.  Rushdie, Vonnegut, Musashi, Wilkie Collins, Asimov, Jack Vance, Du Maurier, these are some of my favorites.

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Some of my favorite books going all the way back to my childhood Bible, for which I have many mixed emotions.  

In my room, I have a small gathering of select books. When I travel I take one or two with me. I never go anywhere without Casey Cohen’s journal which he gave me when he died, filled with his favorite sayings, written by his closest friends. Sister Janet Harris contributed to the journal and he made sure to show me what she had written. She is the one who introduced me to Casey, considered by many to be the foremost authority at that time on the death penalty phase. I used to joke when I walked through Central Juvenile Hall with Janet, the Catholic nun, on one side of me and Casey, the Jewish atheist, on the other, that I was perfectly balanced. That balanced was gone when Casey died. He was her moral compass. This is something I have written about in Letters from Purgatory.

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From Casey’s journal, Sister Janet Harris’s contribution

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What Casey chose to put on the inside cover of his journal. It tells everything about who he was and why I loved him.

One of my favorite scenes in a movie is from Only Lovers Left Alive when she leaves Tangiers and all she takes on her journey is a small case with a careful selection of books.  I know exactly that feeling of choosing, it is so important.

Although I am most often a cynic and a pessimist, I believe there is a spiritual realm that we only glimpse rarely and through a haze. We cannot see the big picture. It seems the more we try, by gathering what we think is “information”  and “knowledge,” the more lost, confused and fearful we become.

So, I take it back to simplicity, something I learned in my marital arts training. Repeating basic moves, like reciting a prayer, brings peace, assurance and humility. I have found glimpses of infinity can be found through focusing on well-worn objects that have stood the test of time, and have been infused with energies; through powerful words (although there is danger in the power of words); and through intense physical effort, which can bring with it a complete calming of the mind.

I recently wrote a post for The Fix, where I talked about how our society is inundated with drugs and what it is doing to our children–prescription drugs as well as street drugs. This got a huge backlash from some people. They called my writing harsh, even dangerous. I understand the pressure to use drugs. It is there, everywhere, we are told we must drug our “ADHD” and “ADH” children so they can fit in and succeed. I disagree, except in extreme cases.

Happily Slipping Into Our Straitjackets

It is tempting to take a pill and think it will make things better. And sometimes it does. But it only puts a Band-Aid on the issue and propels the person o a journey to find the perfect drug, just the right dose. Instead of a journey to find the right spiritual practice.

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Training with my daughter, on the right, and her friend, on the left.

It isn’t easy to discipline oneself to train, to meditate, to face a mountain and climb it. But it is the most rewarding of journeys. Every day I could find an excuse not to train. But each day is a lesson in overcoming, each day is a lesson in perseverance, in the beauty of putting one foot in front of the other. It is beautiful, it is the best to live in that moment, because each moment is unique and will never come again. And then, the energy that we expend in those moments becomes infused into the universe around us.

A beautiful journey.

For All the Girls on the Schoolyard

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, Book of Angels, Essays andinterviews, Fight Club, Key of Mystery, Letters from Purgatory, Night Angels Chronicles, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Beautiful morning, out running the streets of Phoenix, fantasizing about the Zombie Apocalypse because those wide, eerily empty and silent streets always make me imagine hordes of zombies are about to burst around a corner (I love my imagination).

Anyway, as I ended with some jump squats, two men on bicycles, decked out in bright blue helmets and tight spandex outfits that showed off their paunches, whizzed by yelling “ribbit, ribbit!” and laughing obnoxiously.

Suddenly, instead of the Zombie Apocalypse, I was someplace far worse: back on the schoolyard with all those entitled boys, and me wanting to join in the dodge ball, basketball, and handball games and them pushing me out.

“Why can’t I play?”

“Cuz you’re a girl.”

I pushed back and got in those games, and I was as good and most times better than those boys. It makes me mad to this day that I had to “prove” myself. In fact, I realize now that they were intimidated by me. I was taller than all of them. Maybe not always as strong, but a whole lot more focused and generally more coordinated. There were a couple of boys who gave me respect, but even they never gave up the distinction that I was a girl in a boy’s game. I got made fun of constantly. I was called all kinds of derogatory terms, but the one I remember is “Mommy Long Legs” which I would now consider a compliment, but they didn’t mean it that way.

The school bully was named Bill. I know it sounds cliché, but that was really his name. Even more cliché, he had a blond buzz cut, was meaty, and turned pink under the hot sun. Bill would stand at the end of the street, just beyond the school, and demand money from everyone who needed to walk home that way. In the private world of children, where real monsters are always more prolific and scarier than imagined ones, no one said anything to the clueless adults about this.

I never gave Bill a penny. It was one of those important life lessons where I learned how to get out of a sticky situation by using my  brain and not giving in to fear. Bill was lazy and hid his own fear inside his big body, preying on the weak. Except that he was really weaker than everyone else. I always managed to talk my way around Bill, confusing him with language, until before he knew it, I was gone.

You learn to pick your battles.

As for the incident this morning, if I’d been a hefty guy doing those jump squats, or if a guy had been jumping with me, not a peep would have come out of those smirking, lily-white mouths.

I envisioned chasing after them, pulling them off their bikes and grounding their smirking mugs into the pavement. Making them apologize, not to me because what do I care, I’m a fighter who can well defend myself, but to all the little girls they must have intimidated on the schoolyard and then the women in the workplace and just generally in everyday life that they must somehow feel they have the right to lord it over.

Ah, the satisfaction of making them grovel.

I used to train with some British Kyokushin men who would come to Los Angeles every summer. I was the only women “allowed” to train with them. These guys were tough, seemingly oblivious to pain. The workouts were grueling, probably the hardest I’ve ever experienced. That’s why I liked them. It was freeing to train like that, to have all thought of differences in sex or ability fall away. I do remember one time when the guy who led the class, a scrappy fellow with a heavy cockney accent, tough as nails, half my height, yelled out, “Come on, don’t fucking hit like a bunch of girls!”

I was right in the front row, in the middle. No one reacted, I didn’t think anyone but me  realized he had made a faux pas. But then, maybe to them I wasn’t a “girl.” But then, what was I? Should I have taken it as a compliment that they didn’t put me in that category? Of course not. Still, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t throw a fit, demand an apology, or walk out in a huff. I just kept on training.

Again, you pick your battles. I was already doing something that most women never get the chance to experience. My actions spoke for me because afterwards, a couple of the men came up to me and apologized, explaining their fearless leader came from a rough background and wasn’t all that educated in proper etiquette.

“He didn’t mean it that way.”

I didn’t want to say, “What way?” I just left it at that.

As I did with the twerps on the bikes. I didn’t attack. I continued to jump my way home. Ribbit, ribbit….

And then, I did the same I did with Bill. I used my brain and wrote these words.

How Social Activism can Inspire and Promote Your Writing–All while Turning You into a Better Person

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Book of Angels, Essays andinterviews, Key of Mystery, My World Project, Night Angels Chronicles, UncategorizedLeave a comment

As writers and artists we have unique opportunities to change the world.

Check out my article in Night Owl Reviews about the win-win opportunities of social activism.

How Social Activism can Inspire and Promote Your Writing–All while Turning You Into a Better Person

We Are All The Same, and Thankfully, Different

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, My World Project, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Students in China Made to Take Exams Outdoors in Toxic Smog

I am teaching English online to kids and adults in China. This is proving to be an enlightening experience and my students are delightful. I love nothing more than finding out about a new culture and meeting new people. Funny how the differences remind us how much we are the same.

Lately, we have discussed the air pollution in China, as some of my students have been kept home from school because of it. Another one of my adult students works in waste management in Beijing and described the challenges of dealing with this problem.

Being able to communicate one-on-one with people in another country, one where the United States seems to have increasingly hostile relations, brings a deeper level of understanding. Now, I read that Americans’ feelings of good will towards Russians has dropped by 30%. It’s important to remember that we, the people of any nation, are all the same. Nothing has changed from day to the next, from one year to the next, from one administration to the next, in who we are. We all want to live a peaceful life, have a roof over our heads and take care of our families. It is the governments, the media, the corporations, the special interest groups with their own agendas, that create these widening gulfs of misunderstanding and manipulate emotions and play on fears.

Now we have new buzzwords, within the United States, polarizing groups of people, more and more. We lump people together inside a prison of words, and think we have the right to keep them there. Then, the other side fires back with its own prison of words. And before we know it, the words are so deeply embedded on our consciousness, we don’t even remember how they got there or why. The story gets repeated and embellished, always from one point of view. The other side retaliates. The words become violence, somehow justified because we no longer look at our opponents as people just like us. They are something dangerous and worthy of extermination–or at least worth of being taught a serious lesson.

Such as those “fly-over” states, spoken of with such disdain. It seems that highly educated pundits now find it okay to openly label country folk stupid. How stupid is that? Surely one of the most basic rules you learn in college when doing research is not to make sweeping generalized statements about an entire group of people? Mind you, the country folk do the same. despising the city folk for their privilege and education.

Amazing… the word stupid was banned in my family. One of the best things my parents taught me was to be very careful about using a word like that, because using it could well prove my own stupidity. Be sure of your facts. Don’t generalize. Calling people who are somehow different from you stupid (or any other negative term) only shows your own ignorance. And fear.

In fact, the whole flinging of nasty comments across borders is just plain, well… stupid. And that means it could well grow into something dangerous. For everyone.

MALEKU CHILDREN SHARE THEIR STORIES: My World Project in Costa Rica

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, My World Project, Uncategorized1 Comment

My World Project on Facebook

“Conservemas la Naturaleza y aseguremos la Vida al Mundo.”

~ Eugenia Alvarez Elizondo, teacher in the Maleku school.

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Maleku school children, their teacher, Eugenia Alvarez Elizondo, and Daniel Spreen Wilson

On July 6, 2016 I landed in Liberia, intent on staying near Lake Arenal for three months, maybe longer. It’s now September and the time has flown by. I am returning to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks and then, I will probably come back. I haven’t quite had enough of this beautiful place yet.

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Arenal Volcano

During my time here, I’ve had the joy of conducting the My World Project with Maleku youth on the Reserva Indigena Maleku. There are only about six hundred Maleku left in Costa Rica. They have been rounded up and given land on which to live. Meanwhile, much of the land they used to call home has been cleared in order to create pastures and fields. Many Maleku are now farmers. The Maleku can no longer build their traditional homes, since the palms they used have become endangered. Kind of ironic. The Maleku are not the ones who caused the plants and animals to become endangered. Yet, they are the ones whose lives have been changed forever because of it. Now they must live in cement houses that do not “breathe.”

Maleku 7  Maleku 15  Maleku 2

Everywhere I go I meet people who offer to help with My World Project. And I have people contacting me who want to do it in other places around the world. So, day by day, this community is growing.

As happened in the Sahara Desert, I had no idea when I got to Arenal how I would make this project work. But I have always found if you open yourself to possibilities, they will find you. Sure enough, I met a great guy, Daniel Spreen Wilson, who founded La Reserva Forest Foundation. This great nonprofit has taken upon itself to help reforest the Maleku Indigenous Reserve, allowing native animals, such as the Mantled Howler Monkeys, sloths, reptiles, amphibians and tropical birds to once again live in their natural habitat.

Maleku 16  Maleku 18 Maleku 19

Daniel has been here for thirty-three years and speaks fluent Spanish. So I was very thankful to have his help. Together we traversed the bumpy road from Lake Arenal to the reserve. We met with the teachers in three schools. So far, we have been to the first school to do the program and we go to the others over the next week.

Maleku drawing 7

From Africa to the Americas and beyond, what are children telling us with this project? Well, they are telling us that they love their natural world. They love their lakes and rivers, mountains, forests, deserts and oceans. They love their plants and animals. They love their families and their traditions. They love peace. They are interested to share their ideas with other children around the world who feel the same.

Maleku drawing 2

What they don’t want is the continued destruction of their worlds by outside forces. Not only is their natural world being destroyed but so is their spiritual world, meaning their traditional ways of life. And the drug culture that is now so prevalent in the United States is slowly but surely invading their lives as well. These are not just clichés to be switched off because we have heard them a thousand times. These children do not know the meaning of a cliché. This is the world they live in. This is what is happening to them. These are their real day-to-day struggles. These children see very clearly, without anyone having to tell them how express it, that their worlds are being destroyed.

Perhaps we should listen more to our children.

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WHO ARE THE NIGHT ANGELS? The Story of Blanca

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Book of Angels, Essays andinterviews, Key of Mystery, Night Angels Chronicles, Uncategorized1 Comment

Book of Angels on Amazon.com

Book of Angels, volume two in the NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES, opens with Sera’s Turning. In order for her to survive, she is given the blood of the five Night Angels and she becomes one with them and sees their terrible pasts. This gives Sera her first real understanding of who they are.

Blanca is the NIGHT ANGEL who Sera feels hates her and wants her dead. In Key of Mystery, Sera thought that Blanca must be Peter’s girlfriend, but she finds out this isn’t so. Their relationship goes back hundreds of years. Sera still doesn’t find out what happened all those years ago, that will have to wait for another book. But this is what she does now know:

  1. As a human, Blanca was a gypsy, or a “traveler” would be a better term. She was thought to be a witch and was a victim of the Catholic Church, at a time just before the official start of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. All of the Night Angels suffered terribly as humans before they became vampires, but for Blanca, that suffering was the worst. She was tortured and thrown in a trash heap, left for dead.
  2. Sera doesn’t get any insight into how Blanca ends up in the court of Sultan Mehmet II, in the Ottoman Empire. But once Blanca is there, Sera sees how Blanca meets Fabian Gore, Peter, Strejan, Malek and Marianne. Together they fight as Janissaries in the Sultan’s army. The Sultan is the one who turns Blanca and the other Night Angels into vampires.
  3. Sera doesn’t yet understand why Blanca hates her so much, but she struggles with her own hatred of the Night Angel. However, as she begins to get to know Blanca better, a grudging respect and even compassion unfolds. When it comes time for them to go on a mission together to find out if the Queen is still imprisoned in the Life Box in St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sera and Blanca make an uneasy pact. Sera begins to wonder if she isn’t misinterpreting Blanca’s hatred and it is really about something else.
  4. There is one more interesting fact about Blanca that Sera finds out in Book of Angels, but I will leave that for readers to discover for themselves! It will be interesting to see how Sera and Blanca’s difficult relationship unfolds throughout the series!

Here is an excerpt from the time when Sera, Peter and Blanca are about to embark on their journey to St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Desert. Blanca doesn’t want to take Sera and an argument ensues, during which Sera discovers some important things about Blanca’s character and the bond between the Night Angels:

Blanca groaned impatiently. “Why must we take her?”

“Be quiet,” said Peter with a growl.

I was desperate to stall for time. I didn’t care if it made Blanca angry. “What I want to know it, am I going to have to listen to you two fight the whole time? Because it’s fucking boring. How do you even keep it going for hundreds of years?”

Peter pretended surprise. “Fight? Us? Perhaps on occasion, like everyone, but never on a mission.”

“We’re on a mission and you’re fighting.” I raised my eyebrows. “Hello?”

“Shut up,” said Blanca, adjusting her sword on her back.

“Whatever,” I said.

“Whatever,” Blanca mimicked. And under her breath, she said, “Ignorant Oak Haven bimbo.”

I had literally taken off into the air to attack Blanca, but Peter grabbed me and slammed me back onto the ground.

Blanca folded her arms, chin raised triumphantly. “See that?” She walked right up to me, while Peter restrained me. “Let’s get one thing straight, baby. I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. I don’t want  you here.”

“That’s three things.,” I said through gritted teeth.

One corner of Blanca’s mouth turned up slightly. And then she laughed. Peter let me go, and I glared at him. I didn’t know which one of them made me angrier.

“An irritating little thing, isn’t she?” said Blanca.

Peter grinned. “Yes, she is.”

Blanca turned back to me. “Peter and I might have our problems. But we trust each other. And we have each other’s back. We have fought together for hundreds of years. When we’re on a mission, we put our differences aside. I’m willing to do the same with you. Think you can reciprocate?”

I just stared at her, saying nothing. I hated her so much.

Peter reached toward me. I flinched, but he put his hand on my arm gently and I calmed down. “Maybe you don’t like Blanca’s rough ways, but she’s telling you something important. When you’re in battle, there’s no one better than Blanca to have at your side. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t!” I jerked away from him resentfully. “Why should I? This is all crazy! But still, I’m trying. And what do I get for it? I get made fun of,  insulted. By everybody! You treat me like dirt, Blanca, and I’m supposed to take it?”

“Pretty much, yes,” she said. “You’re the runt of the litter. You have to pay your dues.”

“Okay,” said Peter. “Can we do this? Can we all agree to put our differences behind us while on this dangerous mission?” We nodded. “Great. Now, humans would call what we are doing teleportation. As I said, we call it the Passage. You are a denizen, Sera. This means you know yourself on a molecular level. You will easily navigate the Passage.”

I sighed. “If you say so. I’m ready, let’s get this over with.”

The next thing I knew, I had leapt into the air with the two of them, my mind on St. Catherine’s Monastery, and I found myself hurtling through the Passage, horribly aware of every atom in my body and the indomitable forces of the universe that were trying to pull me apart.

Painting by Theodor Aman