“I have no idea what’s going on,” she said to Carolyn, her voice low.
Carolyn kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand. She nodded several times. “You’ll love this, Mother. But you can’t blame Jean-Pierre, not entirely. He asked for my opinion and I told him exactly how to go about this.”
“How to go about what?”
Carolyn gestured to a long narrow white box on the table near the champagne. “This is for you. In a few minutes, we’ll go to the sycamore room and you can open it. Then you’ll understand everything.” Carolyn squeezed her hand again. “Don’t fret. Trust me and trust your breh.”
“Fine,” Fiona muttered. But she wasn’t happy about this. She thought she might need to have a conversation later with Jean-Pierre about how much she had never enjoyed surprises.
Jean-Pierre handed her a glass of champagne. He held her gaze. “Lately, I have been thinking of baby Helena’s christening and the ritual of the oil and the ash. I recall Sister Quena saying that we are born of ashes to serve Second Earth. I think this is very true, perhaps even in a larger sense, that very often our lives must be burned down to nothing before we can be born to greater acts of service and of love. So this is for you, my beloved Fiona: I dedicate this evening that I might express my profound gratitude that in the ashes of my life, I was born anew to be your breh, and to serve you, now and forever.”
Fiona blinked up at him. His words were beautiful, even profound. Okay, maybe she didn’t need to have that conversation with him after all.
He lifted his glass. “To ma chérie,” he said.
Seriffe and Carolyn lifted their glasses as well. “To Fiona,” they said, as one.
Each of them drank in her honor and she brought her glass to her lips and sipped as well, overcome. Her heart ached at so much love, at so much expressed respect and honor. She still didn’t know what this evening was about or what it was meant to be. And she didn’t have the smallest idea what awaited her in the sycamore room, but somehow it no longer mattered. To be with Jean-Pierre, her daughter, and Seriffe was enough.
“Come,” he said. He put his glass on the table and took hers as well, settling it beside his. “Come.”
Carolyn picked up the long box and smiled her encouragement.
Fiona didn’t ask any more questions. She put her arm in his as he led their small processional to the sycamore room.
When he opened the door, and she walked through, she didn’t at first understand what she was looking at. Off to the right, a copper basin of sorts sat on top of a broad pillar of mortared stones. Beside the basin, a single tall white candle burned, flickering slightly as currents of air passed through the outdoor space.
With a slight pressure on her waist, he guided her to the strange edifice. “What is this?” she asked.
“I suppose you could call it a pyre.”
She met his gaze. “For burning things? You made this for burning things?”
He nodded.
“What are we going to burn here then?” She was lost, totally at sea.
Carolyn held the box up. “I made this for you,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I got all the names right. Bev at Militia HQ helped me do this. The landing platform security cameras had a tape of the moment Rith showed up in that cage. I hope—” Suddenly Carolyn’s voice got stuck and much to Fiona’s shock, her daughter’s eyes filled with tears.
“Carolyn—” Fiona began.
But her daughter lifted her hand. “I can do this.” She cleared her throat and began again. “Mother, I hope this will give you some peace. When Jean-Pierre told me what he wanted to do, I felt in my heart that it was exactly the right thing. But we both agreed that if it isn’t, if you don’t want to do this, then we understand. Completely. Neither of us want you to feel pressured.”
Seriffe had his arm around Carolyn’s waist, a gentle, loving support.
As Carolyn held the box in her arms, Fiona lifted the lid.
Inside, tied together, was a bundle of small pieces of paper, none of them larger than two or three inches. On the first piece was a woman’s name. She recognized the name: the first woman who had died in Burma.
Her throat tightened.
When the puzzle came together in her mind, when she finally understood the intention of her breh and of her daughter, of the pyre beside her, and of Jean-Pierre’s earlier speech, she was moved beyond words.
“This will take time,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Please, chérie, take all the time that you need. We are here only for you in this moment.”
She carefully untied the bow that held the papers together. She lifted the first one out, spoke the name, then dipped the corner into the candle’s flame. The paper ignited. She dropped it into the copper basin.
She drew the next paper out and read the second name. She repeated the process so that the papers burned together.
Within a few minutes a little bonfire blazed in the copper bowl, and with each passing tribute her voice grew stronger. She then asked each of them to participate, to draw a paper, read a name, and offer up the little torches as an honor to those who had died.
She wept, she laughed, and at times she shouted her rage at what had killed so many. But with each burst of flame, as the fire grew, as the breeze sometimes sent sparks into the air, her heart grew lighter and freer. By the time the last of the papers had burned to ashes, as Jean-Pierre held her in a warm embrace from behind, she smiled.
This would not be the last time she performed this ritual, of that she was sure. She suspected there would be days, as the war took its awful toll in countless ways, that she would need to come to this pyre again and again, the names once more inscribed on another set of papers, to create more little bonfires in order to release the terrible burdens of the past.
But for now, with Jean-Pierre’s arms holding her tight, with her hands clasped over his arms, with her daughter and Seriffe standing in a similar manner, with the last of the flames dying down to embers and the papers burning to ashes, her heart was at ease. And she knew joy. Great, wondrous, unqualified joy.
