The Phoenix in a Foreign Labyrinth

Chapter 23 – Phoenix Rising

Yune shook her head and, not without some difficulty, pulled herself back to the present. She looked down at the cathedral. She often visited Oscar’s grave in the cemetery there, but she never went inside the building itself. It was less than a week now until the Feast of the Assumption, so even though it was just a weekday morning Mass, the congregation had swelled to many times its normal size. Who exactly was this god that they worshipped, though?

She had lived in Paris for over thirty five years encompassed by its churches and cathedrals, being enticed by the smell of incense wafting through their open doors and enveloped in the sound of bells ringing from their tall towers, and yet the god who indwelt those buildings had always been nothing more than a stranger to her. The kami, the old gods of Japan, seemed much more real and ready to make themselves known.

She remembered the time that Oscar had taken her to the Ama-no-Iwato shrine as they were journeying to Paris, and seeing the entrance to the cave where, it was said, the sun goddess Amaterasu had hidden herself, plunging the world into darkness. Dimly aware of the sound of aircraft high above, she closed her eyes, trying to imagine the cave’s shadowed stillness, and then remembering how she had once re-enacted the story for Alice.

Alice, アリス, A-ri-su, that dear name, that sublime word, it echoed in the emptiness of her heart like the sound of water drops echoing in the cave. She thought of all the visits she had made to that shrine over the past years, of all the offerings she had made there and of all the prayers and entreaties she had offered up, and wondered if the goddess would or even could ever answer them, even in the smallest way.

But in an instant, although her eyes were still tightly shut, Yune saw the world fill with a light so bright that it seemed as though the very eye of Amaterasu herself had blinked open.

A moment later, Yune had become a blazing phoenix, whose spirit rose up on wings of unutterable beauty through the inferno of red and gold flames that now engulfed the hilltop. With the searing winds still raging behind it, the Ou struck out northwards at the speed of thought, the speed of hope, the speed of love, across the Pole and then down, down towards the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean where the spirit of its eternal companion was waiting, ready to be awakened.

                    Alice Blanche                                1867 - 02.23 am April 15^th, 1912

                    黒デル湯音 (Yune Claudel)           1870 - 11.02 am August 9^th, 1945