New Discovery

Sixth Passage

The spring arrived with an unexpected fury. The moorland exploded into colour as flowers bloomed in a riot of colours that seemed too vivid to be natural - deep purples, electric blues, crimson reds. Colours that it almost hurt to look at directly. The landscape pulsed with an energy as the dormant came back to life. Elena no longer looked like the academic who had made that first passage through the Mên-An-Tol. There were silver streaks in her hair that hadn't existed back then, even though she was barely forty. Now she moved with a grace, a fluidity, that seemed to say that she was only partially anchored to the physical world. The sixth passage now seemed inevitable.

She arrived a little before dawn. But a different dawn now. The light seemed to emanate from the standing stones rather than the sky. The morning mist clung to the moorland landscape coiled possessively around the stones, tendrils living, responsive, aware. Her research bag so m much lighter now with only her essential items - her recorder and her notebook. Her notebook filled with observations, and intricate drawings, it resembled more an artists sketch pad than scientific notes.

The Mên-An-Tol waited, as always, now not passive but responsive, anticipating. It still watched as Elena approached, but now the watching was almost an invitation to come forth and engage with it. 'Sixth passage' she said. Her words seeming to vibrate with meanings seemingly rooted in some other world. The passages had long since become something other than a physical act. The passage now seems to be a delicate conference, an intersection, of multiple realities. Of course her body moved, but with a movement that seemed to have become more a fluid concept than something physical. Again memories that weren't her own accompanied her flickering like light through wind blown trees. Also the, now familiar, sounds, the whispers, surrounded her. Not exactly words but impressions. Promises? Warnings? Again all at the furthest reaches of hearing.

Elena emerged into a landscape yet again transformed. The standing stones appeared alive - not metaphorically, literally. They breathed. They remembered. Each stone a repository of many stories older than any human language. The grass beneath her feet seems like a network of communication, every blade connected, every root a messenger. There were movements at the very edges of her perception - creatures small, intricate, watching. Her recorder had captured sounds like distant bells, sounds like the wind blowing through ancient corridors.
'Sixth passage' she whispered 'the boundary is more permeable than we ever understood. Reality is not a fact, it's a conversation.'.

The sea-glass charm around her neck seemed to vibrate with a quiet, expectant energy.

Six passages completed. Three more remained.