Page 180 of The Chase
The old monk hesitated. “A year ago.”
“You asked Icon to get it back?” I said.
He gave a kind smile. “We prayed for its safe return.”
“Did you know who had it?”
“We were spared such details. We were told it’s better that way.” The young monk earned himself a nudge of disapproval.
Tobias was returning it through me.
Was he returning them all?
“You must take off your shoes first,” said the younger monk.
“I have questions,” I said.
“‘True love is born from understanding,’” said the older monk and gestured. “This is the way.”
Light-headed, my feet teetered.
A sense of reverence with this small action of removing my boots. I rested the paper bag on a long side table and lifted out the box. Carefully, I removed the singing bowl with the gong inside it and clasped it tightly.
I held it out to them. “Here.”
Their gazes fell upon it and they bowed their heads. The older monk gestured left.
Carved wooden doors lay ahead, foreign whispers... The doors opening—
A low chanting emanated from fifty or so monks who kneeled before a large wooden bed and under those covers slept an elderly priest, his head propped up by pillows.
The monks turned to look at me, and as their gazes fell onto the bowl I saw recognition in their faces.
It was hope.
Step by step, as though outside of myself, I walked toward the left side of the bed. “You cannot touch him,” said a monk to my left.
I gave a nod of understanding and moved closer until I stood next to the elderly monk. He looked so peaceful and my gaze fell to his clasped hands.
The spiraling fine wisps of incense rose here and there, the soft lighting calming. Whispers rose around me.
The old man stirred awake and he turned his head to look at me. His kind chestnut gaze found mine and lowered to see the bowl, and he gave a nod of acknowledgment, a glimmer of relief.
Kneeling, I bowed my head in respect and raised the bowl for him.
It was taken from me and handed to him by the same young monk who’d guided me here.
The elderly monk raised himself higher in the bed, freeing his hands from the blankets and waving off help from the others. He wrapped his hands around the singing bowl, his eyes closing once again as though in prayer.
The younger monk sat on the edge of the other side of the bed and took the bowl. He rested it close to the old man and leaned in farther to continuously stir the gong around the inner edge...
The room was filled with the ethereal sound of shards of white light shattering into a million crystals and this was music unlike anything I’d ever heard, as though prisms of color had transmuted into notes...
Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought of Tobias, realizing this was what he’d wanted me to know.
Being here was the only way I’d have understood.
I knew this with all my heart and a sigh of understanding escaped my lips.
