Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 962

Chapter 962: Chapter 962

Grace added: "They will part. Let us through. We have walked their markers. They know we carry memory."

The wives exchanged quiet glances, fear and expectancy trembling beside trust.

That night, everyone slept near the glyph-well, drawn close by its faint glow and slow pulse. Jude and Grace lay close; he held her hand until dawn.

Morning found them ready with bundles and supplies. Each wife took a flute or drum or small whistle to sing on the walk. Each wore a ribbon tied through hair. Even the children watched from behind sari-draped shoulders, wide-eyed.

They stepped through the orchard’s west–border, where mist had grown thick over night. At first the watchers receded. Then parted. Path cleared before them.

Beyond the boundary the world changed, air cooler, stone beneath boots harder, sky clearest yet. They moved as one, walking in a circle around each other, voice–pulse steady behind them. Occasional footsteps from watchers followed for brief moments, then stopped.

After half an hour they reached what Layla had marked: a flat high plain at the mountain’s foot. There, moss tables stretched with scattered stone pillars, all broken and weathered, some twisted into spirals so steep it was hard to imagine how they’d stood.

They gathered among the pillars, each wife choosing one that spoke to her, perhaps carved by human hands, perhaps watcher- or island-formed. They approached together. Each placed their palm to stone; when they did, it shone white hot, then faded. A collective pulse traveled through the ground. A watcher rose nearby, kneeling at the pillar’s base. Its eyes glowed.

Jude whispered: "They honor us."

Then he spoke aloud, "This place is risen by memory. Let us anchor in memory and promise. Let us open the mountain’s past and remind it we belong."

Grace joined him, rose daughters and daughters–in–law each standing as witness.

They sang, first a quiet hummed note, then a melody in their voices: words from earlier rituals, names of watchers and wives, island as memory-carrier and home. Their voices rose together until every pillar glowed, and watchers mirrored them, flooding outward in shifting formations.

A wind tore across the plain, sweeping dust and pollen in silver gusts, carrying their song upward.

When they fell silent, a low rumble sounded from the mountain’s base.

Not a beast’s growl. A shifting of stone.

A pathway opened, a vein of rough stone leading upward behind the pillars.

Jude tested the way with his foot. It held.

He stepped onto the path. "We go now."

Grace squeezed his hand. "One step at a time." Nina, no, Susan pressed her shoulder; Serena drew the children close in a buffer zone. The wives tightened formation and ascended.

The path wound steeply, stone carved with glyph arc, watchers watching high on ledges, blinking silent. Every few steps small pulses of energy jived beneath their boots. The watchers drifted up above them, watching steady.

After an hour, the path opened onto a ledge deep in the mountain rock. Here the air smelled of ice and earth. At the center stood a carved dais, an island within the mountain. On it lay the form of a person. No; a watcher-sculpture. Solid stone, carved human, arms outstretched, palms up, ribbons wound around it like vines. The form gleamed in twilight. Storm-break dawn light flickered through a high crevice above.

Scarlet knelt first, placing a petal on the chest. She spoke: "I am part of your dream." One by one, each wife stepped forward, offering tokens: a child’s shoe, a hunting arrow, a braid of thread, a painted shell, an obsidian flake, blue petals, sunflower seeds, fragments of clay, feathers, dried fish scales.

Each placed her gift on the form, whispering her name. Jude followed last, holding Grace’s hand and Susan’s other. He placed a watcher glyph shard at the heart. He whispered their family’s line: "I am Jude, husband to twelve, father of two, keeper of this place. I remember the ones who came before me, and the watchers who shaped them."

At that moment, a deep chord resonated through stone. The watcher-carving opened, its ribs split inward, revealing a pool of water within. A slow current pulsed from the chest outward, rippling into bowls and petals and shells. The mountain hummed. Each pillar they’d passed now glowed white.

Above, in a gap, watchers rose, dozens of them, drifting downward. They hovered, then touched stone. They bowed, one by one, as if acknowledging presence and witnessing rite.

The pool’s water rippled. A face appeared in it, no features, but emotion: longing, peace, recognition.

Comfort rolled through the ledge. Fear slid away.

Jude stepped closer, knees dipping toward chest, but he didn’t kneel on stone. He placed both hands on water within the pool. The others followed. Light traveled up their arms in golden waves. The watchers’ forms grew brighter.

Time slowed.

And then the pool drained. The watcher-form reclosed. The ribbons drifted away on currents no one could see. The dais faded to stone. The lights dimmed.

The air stilled.

They looked at each other. Hearts pounding, eyes wide.

Jude took a deep breath. "We opened the first chamber."

Grace held his gaze. "The watchers co-created it with us."

Susan nodded, voice low. "What do we do now?"

Jude wrapped one arm around Grace, the other threading with Susan. "Return, rest, and prepare. This place will continue opening. We’ve started the spiral, but haven’t seen the summit."

Down they descended as the sky darkened to purple that would become night. The watchers receded behind them calmly, respectfully.

At dusk they lay together back in the orchard, the moon overhead full and expectant. They made quiet love among lily blossoms, the stones around them humming with afterglow.

There would be rest tonight.

Tomorrow, they would speak softly in families, laying plans.

The watchers stood at the perimeter, silent guardians, witnesses of flesh and memory.

The mountain, deep and looming, would wait.

And Jude, holding twelve wives and two children, felt the next promise forming in his chest, a vow to carry memory onward, step by step, into the spiral they had begun.