The hum of the stones and crystals is so faint they wonder if the hum has emerged from within themselves.

Caela’s song seems to have a life of its own … moving through her in rhythm with the hum of the stones and crystals … searching …

Tahuya joins her … not with words … with a low melody seeming to rise from somewhere older than memory.

Solina closes her eyes and begins adding sounds of her own — the rustling of leaves, the rhythm of rain, the call of distant birds woven into human breath.

Amara shifts uneasily. “What are we doing?” she whispers.

No one answers.

Moire notices that the air itself seems thicker now, as though the space around them has become attentive.

The humming beneath their feet deepens.

The stones vibrate with greater intensity …

Once.

Then again.

Caela opens her eyes.

“Do you feel that?”

The ancient stones and crystals, forgotten by the ordinary world, are responding.

Waves of fear and wonder move through all of them.

Yet they begin moving almost instinctively among the standing stones and crystals, weaving around them in a slow, serpentine dance.

No one leads.

No one follows.

The music moves them.

Their songs flow into the stones … into the crystals.

And something impossible happens.

The stones respond to their songs … as though they remember …

Not with words.

Not even with melody.

But with tones so deep they seem to rise from the core of the earth itself.

The vibrations move through their feet, through their bones, through places within them for which they have no name.

They remember something they had forgotten. Yet they can’t put words to it …

Amara stopped moving.

“This is freaking me out,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Who are we?”

Silence settles throughout the ruins.

Then Solina speaks softly.

“I think it’s okay to be frightened.”

“I am too.”

Tahuya nods.

“Maybe courage isn’t the absence of fear, Maybe it’s knowing we can pause. We can stop. We can create boundaries that help us feel safe enough to remain present with mysteries.

They could feel the ruins listening.

And the five friends stood together beneath the violet sky, aware that something has begun.

Something beautiful.

Something terrifying.

Something that has been waiting for them … far longer than they could understand.

Above them, the first stars appeared.

Beneath them …  the quiet of the unknown stirs …

Music: In the Light of Rainbows. Lyrics by Lyn Marsh, Music by Mureka, with Lyn Marsh.