Lin was having an uneasy feeling as he sat waiting for Mia to return. He couldn’t sit very long though. He stood up and started patrolling the perimeter. Boshu joined him.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this? ” Lin confided in Boshu.
“About what? ” Boshu asked.
“Mia . I am having a strange feeling about it. ” He said.
“Well, if you say so, everything around us right now is strange. What do you think is normal going around here. ” Boshu had a practical answer.
Mia on the other hand was trying to make sense of the things she had just seen. She had the opportunity to have a glance at the very core secret of the mer-witches’ survival, a mystery well preserved from the outside world. After the extinction of the male population, the mer-witches had no other option than to resort to dark forces for their survival. The dark forces allowed their queen to have one male child at a time. That child would then be cloaked in dark aura so it remains hidden from the rest of the world till it reached maturity. Once mature , the queen would step down and a new queen was appointed. The male would then enjoy conjugal life with the queen and procreate. As long as there were females born, the male would be safe. But once the queen delivered a boy, the male would then have to be executed and the new born be cloaked with it, infused with dark powers. The new born would then be abandoned far away from the southern territories and left to explore and exploit the waters of the other worlds. Once it reached maturity, it would then be taken back to the mer-world in the South . There it would be married off to the new queen and kept in her chambers as a mating toy.
The realisation struck Mia very hard. It meant her friend Anjana and this new found friend creature were both doomed. However she failed to understand why she was able to see them both. She tried asking that to the creature, but it too had no clue as to why Mia was the one they could communicate with. Mia went ahead and grabbed the creature’s hand and gave it a right hug. As they continued swimming towards their destination, she made a promise to herself. Of the three questions she had, she would use two to find an answer to survive the curse and the last one she would use to help her mer-friends. With renewed determination and boost, they swam forward.
As Mia reached near the surface, the creature left her hand and asked her to stay put in her place. It swam swiftly towards the surface but banged hard against some invisible wall. It backed of a bit. Then prepared to bang it once more, but this time with its back where it had a tail like protruding part. As soon as it hit the water surface, there was a severe blast, whose shock wave made Mia go flying away a mile. The creature swiftly swam to Mia and grabbed her hand and pulled her out. The water suface was covered with lily. As many colours as our eyes could imagine. It covered every inches of the surface except the place they had blasted off. The creature leapt out of the water and landed on the lilies. It then extended its tiny limbs to help Mia out. She laughed but did reach out her hands. Surprisingly, it was easily able to pull her out.
As Mia stood there admiring the place, which was amongst the cloud she noticed her dress was completely dry, even though she had just come out of water. The water gave way directly to the sky which was sprinkled with cottony clouds. They had to leap from one to another to move forward. Though they were clouds, the landing was soft like grass or bushes. Without wasting anymore time, they started looking for the tree of knowledge.
They searched here and there. Across the entire stretch of clouds. But they could not find the tree. There were in fact gardens with shrubs of weird kind all over the clouds, but the tree of knowledge or any tree for that matter was not to visible.
“Aahhh! What do we do now? ” Mia sat down with frustration in her voice.
The creature peeped to have a look at her face and made a whimpering like voice . It’s eyes felt sorry as if trying to tell Mia that there was nothing it could do. Though their conversation was smooth underwater, communicating on land was a bit difficult for the creature.
Mia touched it’s face and said ” You have helped me a lot. Don’t worry anymore. It’s upto me to get the rest of the work done in this mission. ” With those words Mia stood up and concentrated. The creature too, jumped back in the water as if with the cue.
Mia this time walked slowly, carefully examining every cloud she jumped on. After travelling almost across most of the clouds, she found herself facing a clearing. She stopped. There was something shinning from a far away spot in the clearing. She strained her eyes to take a good look. It looked as if it was a reflection from a huge mirror. She moved a bit closer. The distance between herself and the mirror like thing was quite great. It would be a sharp fall. She leaned as much as she could and finally saw it. There was a tree inside the mirror. It was perfectly reflecting its surroundings except the fact that there was a huge tree inside which wasn’t there outside. No doubt it was the tree she was looking for, the tree of knowledge.
“Finally, I made it” She thought to herself. But the thought made her more nervous than relieved. Here comes the real test, finding it was just part of the job. It was time Mia got a grip over herself and hand out clearly thought out answers to the riddles from the tree of knowledge and negotiate wisely for its sacrifices. She needed the correct answers that would lead her to save more than her own life. She needed to be able to do this not for herself but for many more. She cleared her head and throat and made the steep jump below, landing foot first. She looked up and was immediately greeted by the ancient tree with voice that was hollow.
“Welcome my sweet child, Mia, what brings you to me this day”. Mia kept staring as her ears could not believe that she had just now heard a tree send her greetings. When it sunk in, she stood up, dusted herself and replied ” Thank you O! the great Tree of Knowledge. I come with my burdens to you today. “