Chapter 38: Impressions on the Retina
Time sometimes expands or contracts depending on the mood of those living through it. For Anemo and Remi—who was still trapped in the body of a white Angora cat—the fifty days remaining until the winter solstice perfectly mirrored this illusion. Some days were long and exhausting, especially for Remi, who had emerged from her experience within the Ether Wall drained of all her strength, where her human spirit had drifted like a ghost, visible only to cats. Other days were far too short, never leaving enough time for all the information the two wanted to gather. They needed to learn everything they could to travel through the Mirrors of Time and reach the Cats' Cave, Oweynagat, in Ireland. Yet, one thing remained as clear as daylight in their minds: they would do whatever it took to return Remi to her true body as a strong, independent woman.
"Tell us, Shehrazad," Anemo asked during one of their days of feverish preparation for the great crossing through the mirror, "how many times did you physically travel through the Mirror of Time before it broke? Did you ever travel into the present, just as we intend to do?"
"I couldn’t tell you exactly how many times I traveled through time..." Shehrazad replied quietly. "Many times, before the attack that took my family. And yes, I did travel into the present, completely in secret, back when I was under strict surveillance. After the death of my loved ones, I tried to return to that fateful moment..."
"You tried to save them?" Remi asked, her large feline eyes widening.
"Yes," the woman answered, her voice drifting as if she were falling into a trance. "I tried to go back to that exact moment, or a day or two before it... Somehow, my life from that period remains a forbidden destination. I don’t know why. But let us return to the matter at hand! Before any journey through the mirror, I used to research extensively about the period and the place I wanted to reach. I would form clear pictures in my mind... For the two of you, since you are both writers, this exercise of imagination should be a walk in the park."
"You are right in a way; we are writers," Anemo replied, trying to hide the anxiety that was just beginning to claw at his mind. "But I don’t know if my imagination will be of any use this time. We have never actually visited Oweynagat!"
"Oh, come on, Anemo, stop being silly! You have a special talent for worrying!" Remi meowed. "When the solstice comes, we will set off from here, fully prepared, and your father will be waiting for us with the car parked right there in Roscommon, just a stone's throw from the cave. I can't wait to be myself again! Are you worried because you can't picture the cave? In this digital age, you can see anything you want on the internet! Why, we can look at images of the cave until we know them in our sleep. The cave itself, the entrance... even the spiders and bats if you like. Stop being such a doom-monger!"
Anemo did not wait any longer. He opened the laptop resting on the black marble table in Shehrazad’s courtyard. His fingers flew across the keyboard, searching for images of Oweynagat.
Dozens of photographs appeared on the screen: a narrow rocky opening hidden among patches of grass and thistles, somewhere on the green hills of Roscommon. It looked like nothing spectacular at first glance—just a muddy, rocky channel sloping down into the belly of the earth.
"Look at it, Remi," Anemo whispered, turning the screen toward the white cat. "It looks so..."
"Narrow and damp," Remi completed, staring at the screen with her wide, blue eyes.
As a writer, her mind refused to see only the mud and rocks in the photographs. She looked beyond the pixels, trying to feel the chill of the place, the scent of the fresh, damp soil of the North, so different from the dry, dusty air of Cairo.
Shehrazad, who was watching them with a warm, enigmatic smile, stood up and walked toward the door leading into the kitchen.
"A cup of tea will make our work much more rewarding! Would anyone else like some?"
The two writers nodded in agreement.
"You're right, Shehrazad, thank you! A tea will help us clear our minds," Anemo replied.
"Look for the images the Professor showed you last time. The ones with the water—with the mirror waiting for you there!" the woman added before disappearing inside the house.
The next pictures Anemo found took them beyond the narrow passageway, where the space suddenly opened up into a massive natural gallery—a giant fissure in the earth. The light from the photographers' torches could barely cut through the dense darkness. The soft limestone walls looked as if they were sweating; large drops of water glistened on the uneven ceiling, ready to fall. The rock was perfectly smooth, washed and polished by the slow flow of water across the ages, leaving long, chalky streaks that gave the cave an organic, almost living appearance.
"Look here, Anemo! This is what the Professor showed us last time! One of these is the Mirror of Time!" Remi leaped right onto the table, nearly landing directly on the laptop keyboard.
In the deepest section of this fissure, where the silence of the earth became absolute, the camera had captured two natural pools. The water inside them was so clean and still that it looked solid, like a sheet of inky volcanic glass. Not a single ripple broke its perfect surface. In the flash of the camera, the rocky bottom of the pool was completely invisible; instead, the water reflected the cave ceiling with such stark clarity that the depths seemed to stretch downward forever, completely inverted.
"This image must be printed onto your retinas," Shehrazad said in a near whisper, placing a tray with three cups of mint tea on the table.
At that exact moment, just a short distance away from them, inside the round hollow of the courtyard's black-and-white mosaic, the Mirror of Time in Cairo began to stir. On the mirror's water screen, the reflection of Oweynagat appeared—Ireland's legendary cave, shrouded in mystery and myths, with its damp, somber atmosphere and all.
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