The Eternal Soulmate
The old man looked hunched and grey and he struggled to get to his feet as the heavily pregnant young woman entered his cave. Ju rushed to him and hugged him. She knew the rumours that circulated around the village and even in the dim light of the cave entrance she could see that they were probably true. Her father had little time left in this world.
“My child.” His voice was thin and croaky.
“Father, how are you feeling?” Ju hugged him again although the huge bump in her belly made a proper hug impossible.
“My time is near, but I hope to see my child’s child. Please let us sit. My old legs can barely hold me.”
They sat on a pile of soft skins on the cave floor and sat in silence for a while. Eventually Yo broke the silence. “I am troubled, daughter.”
“What is it, Father?”
“The laws of the tribe are for a great purpose. Without them we would have chaos. I fear that I have misused my power for personal gain and will have to pay a terrible price when Death takes me.”
Ju had an inkling of where this was heading. There were many things that they had never spoken about. They had skirted around them like hunters avoiding a big cat. “If I have wronged you Father, I …”
She was cut off in mid-sentence. “Hush child and listen to me. There is more going on here than I can fathom. First, two strange druids appear from nowhere and begin to teach us about the sun and confuse us with their magic. Then a tall dark stranger appears and you become with child. He disappears and months later a new, tall, red stranger appears and the druid somehow convinces me he’s really the same person. The druids have more say than I do. I should have had you stoned, but I could not do that to my own daughter. The druid convinced me to spare you, yet I needed little convincing. He says that there is a higher purpose at play here. With all of the strange happenings I believe him. Tell me daughter. Who is this Simon? What child do you carry in your belly?”
Ju winced as the baby kicked. She hoped that her father didn’t misinterpret the action. She was torn between her duties. The duty to her husband to keep secret the special things they had spoken about; the duty to her father to show him due respect; and the duty to her chief to honour and obey him. She made her decision and the baby kicked her twice as hard. “I don’t completely understand him. He uses words in his own language that I don’t understand when our words cannot explain something. At night, he often cries out in his sleep and I do not always understand him. He often repeats one word, which seems to be a name. I hear it because it is so like mine. He calls for Juliana.” She paused, expecting a response from her father but got none.
“I only know that he is special to me. I cannot describe how he makes me feel. I have never felt so alive. It’s like my whole body is on fire but in a good way. He uses a word that I don’t understand but says we are soulmates.” She groaned as a sharp pain shot through her body and the baby kicked her again.
“Your time is close,” her father said. “It may surprise you but your mother and I felt like that at one time. I hope that she’s waiting for me on the other side and we’ll feel like it again. You didn’t invent it. Is the baby his?”
“What we have is different. I have talked to my friends about it. Even those who are just joined. What we have goes much further than they feel. The baby isn’t his but he will be a true father. Does that not say much about him?”
Her father only grunted. She knew that he was punishing himself for letting two different men take her.
She decided to tell him her biggest secrets. “The one who came first,” she swallowed hard, “The one who came first took me by force. He made me bleed and he hurt me.” She had to bite her tongue to stop herself screaming as another sharp pain threatened to tear her apart. She imagined it must be like being speared. “Simon was not like that. Even though you had decreed that we were joined and he was the same man. Even though the druid had told me what must be. Even though I was heavy with child. I encouraged him. He was gentle. He would never hurt me.”
Yo stared at his only child, shook his head and eventually spoke so quietly that Ju struggled to make out the words. “You would have had a brother had not Death taken him and your mother on the birthing stone. He would be a proud man now with children of his own. The tribe would have a new leader and I would meet Death with contentment. Now everyone jostles for position and I fear for the tribe’s stability when I’m gone. Chaos is waiting in the shadows by the fire. Some talk of Simon as the next leader. Where did he come from? How can we be sure he won’t go back and disappear like the first one?”
Ju thought about the long nights they had lain in each other’s arms planning the future. Occasionally, she could get him to drop his guard and talk about his past. “All I know is that he is running away from something terrible. He is afraid of what he might turn into if he were to return. He is a good man but he fears turning into an evil one. He has found peace here and has great plans to improve our lives. Please don’t think that I have been possessed. Please don’t have me stoned. I believe he comes from the future.”
Yo was about to respond to his daughter’s latest revelation when Ju screamed and pulled herself upright. As the contraction subsided she felt a pop and warm liquid like water ran down her legs and pooled on the cave floor.
“Wa!” Yo shouted, struggling to his feet. “Get in here!” The old medicine woman calmly walked in followed by a group of three other women. “It’s time. I’m going to see my child’s child.”