The Silent Sanctuary by Jason P. Burnham
Aleesia had not been to the Silent Sanctuary in ages. Putting two kids through wizarding school who pretended not to know their clean-up spells, having a husband constantly off at war in the Hinterlands, and caring for an ailing griffin added up to very little free time. It was a wonder she’d made it back at all.
It was either visit the Sanctuary or collapse under the unbelievable weight of existence, and she had not been ready to give up her life’s essence to the winds of time. Well, she had, but her best friend Mira had convinced her to take care of herself for once.
So here she was. In the Silent Sanctuary. Alone, excepting the endless souls within.
She took in a deep breath of the petrichor that never faded and walked along the lush green path. Soft ferns tickled at her ankles from either side of the forest and trees shot into the sky, the overstory so dense and thick that if there’d been a sun beyond it, its light wouldn’t have shone through. The only energy source the forest needed was the souls within it.
The first memory tree stood before her. She couldn’t now recall its name, but she knew its aura—soft, gentle, ancient. The Sanctuary was the only place she could touch something as old as existence and not feel guilty about taking the time to stop and appreciate the world around her. She gazed up at the tree’s highest branches, soft brown and covered in moss. It looked stoic, she thought; ancient, wise. She wished she could see herself in it.
She ran her hands along its timeworn bark, smooth where the grey lichens and green mosses resided, and rough in its native state. Embracing the tree with both arms, she thanked the soul within for its calming presence and continued on her path through the Sanctuary.
From the first memory tree to the second, a small brook babbled alongside the path. In the water were a few tadpoles, one or two of which were making the transition to adults with leg buds sprouting. She thought of her own tadpoles at home and hoped they weren’t giving Mira too much trouble.
The second memory tree had always been her favorite, though she could never pinpoint why. It looked like the moment it had sprouted from the ground it had been stuck in a violent maelstrom, its trunk continuously twisted by malevolent winds. There were no such winds in the Sanctuary, but she wondered what the soul within the tree had experienced before its arrival. The bark spiraled round and round, out of sight into the canopy. Even its branches twisted and twirled, giving the whole tree a sense of motion, as if it might spin out of the Sanctuary at any moment. Yet despite whatever the tree and the soul had been through, they were there in the Sanctuary, indomitable as all the others.
She picked her way carefully to the third memory tree, the path changing from verdant grass to pebbles and rocks. Someone had once told her the symbolism of the path’s changes, but she never could quite keep it in mind while avoiding getting sliced by the tiny stones leading up to the third tree.
When she looked up from her stone-avoidance vigil, she gasped. The gnarled, ragged trunk always surprised her—it looked like it had died a horrible death and come back to life with the sole purpose of stealing souls. She thought of it as an inverted ash because of its black bark with occasional white patches, though the bark itself had the scroll-like consistency of sycamore.
She imagined others thought it ugly; she had once. Now she had a respect for it, a camaraderie. It had found its place in the Sanctuary despite what appeared to have been a hard life for the soul, the tree, or perhaps both. The years since she’d last visited had changed her viewpoint. She saw herself in the tree now—battered, worn down, but still standing. She caressed its bark and thanked the soul within.
I know your suffering, she thought. For a moment, it seemed to answer, a warmth spreading from the tree into her hand and down her arm to her heart, where each beat pumped the feeling into all the little crevices of her soul.
The path widened and eased after the third memory tree, stones replaced again by luxurious grasses, sprinkled here and there with little blue and purple flowers. She bent to stroke the soft petals and considered the path ahead. She could continue the circuit of memory trees, thanking the souls as she went, or she could loop back to the first and take her leave, back to her waiting family.
The contrast between the softness of the blue petals and the roughness of the stones she’d just left sparked an idea. She walked gingerly back to the third memory tree, cleared an area of stones near its base, and rested her back against it. The throb of the soul within warmed her and she settled in for a nap.
With Mira watching the kids, the Sanctuary was giving her a gift and she intended to hear every quiet word of it. She relaxed into the tree and felt her pains and worries melt slowly away. They might return when she left the Sanctuary, but for the moment, she was going to enjoy the silence.
