Mirai

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Elijah stared at me. Honestly, if I could have, I would have stared at myself. It was such an odd thing to say, and I knew nothing more about it than what I had said. Except that I felt it was so, so important for Elijah to hear it, to know.

"Who's he?" Elijah asked.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully, though I also had a hunch of who it might be. Or rather, that it was Elijah's mate. But I didn't want to say that because I could be completely wrong, or I was completely right but knowing his mate was a man would freak Elijah out. Not that many ever considered homosexuality a problem. Most would accept their mate, no matter what, in a heartbeat. They were perfect for you, after all. But it felt better to leave it unsaid.

"So, I don't really know anything about the woman," I said to change the topic, and I talked fast to not give Elijah the possibility to interrupt. "I haven't even actually seen her face. I do know she has a mark on her right shoulder of a serpent coming out of a pomegranate. It looks a bit like a tattoo, but it isn't. Like how the countdown obviously isn't a tattoo. So that's the one and only clue I have to try to find her with."

Elijah still looked a little peculiarly at me, so when he opened his mouth again I was sure he would ask me more about what I had said earlier. But he didn't.

"Well, I have no idea what it might mean. But you can borrow my computer to search and see if you can find anything."

After he had spent a bit of time showing me how to work the computer, giving a much more proper explanation of what to do than the man at the library had, I was once again searching for serpent pomegranate marks. Most of what came was related to pomegranates. There was partly the story of Persephone and Hades, how he had made her eat pomegranate seeds to keep her in the underworld. Some other texts told about pomegranates as the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve had eaten in the Garden of Eden. Since that had a snake involved, that was what I ended up reading more on and trying to see if it would give me any ideas.

It didn't though. Nothing there brought me anywhere closer to coming up with an idea as to who she could be. Or well, it made me think the mark was there to show she was being punished for something. Especially with the snake coming out of it. As if she had stumbled upon some knowledge or such that she ought not to have, and the snake came from that knowledge to punish her. But that was all wild guesses really that were as likely to be true as false.

I read some more on the Greek mythology of it. Found one story of a woman, whose name even meant pomegranate, who killed herself to avoid being raped and whose blood turned into a pomegranate tree. And there was the fact that the goddess Hera often was depicted with a pomegranate. In those cases, the pomegranate was said to symbolize immortality.

But I found even more that connected pomegranates to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. That made me decide where to go next, although I had no idea what to do once I got there, but it still felt like the correct place to go. My instincts told me so, and those instincts were the best help I could get.

"So have you found anything?" Elijah asked when I turned away from the computer and joined him in the living room. He sat on the couch with a book open, but he shut it and placed it on the coffee table. The cover of the book faced up. It was a green cover with leaves and birds on it. The title read Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems and was by John Keats.

"Not really," I said and looked away from the book and to Elijah. "But I'm going to go to Jerusalem."

There was a solid ten seconds of silence.

"Jerusalem? Why Jerusalem of all places?" he finally asked.

"I'm not sure. But it feels right. There are lots of different things about pomegranates in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam." I shrugged and sat myself down on the couch next to him.

"When are you leaving?" he asked next.

"Was thinking about already now."

"But it's late! It's better if you sleep some more. Get proper rest. You can leave early in the morning."

I opened my mouth to argue, but closed it again. It actually made a lot of sense. Yes, I was limited in time, but I would be at risk of being found by the coven as soon as I left. I maybe would need to run and fight. So it was better to have all my energy. That way, I could run for longer before I needed a break.

"Alright," I nodded and Elijah's shoulders relaxed.

"I'll reheat some of the porridge for you."

He got up and left me alone. With nothing else to look at, my eyes turned to the book again. I picked it up and opened it to a random page and read.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve,

                    Young virgins might have visions of delight,

                    And soft adorings from their loves receive

                    Upon the honey'd middle of the night,

                    If ceremonies due they did aright;

                    As, supperless to bed they must retire,

                    And couch supine their beauties, lily white;

                    Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require

Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

Just having read that one stanza was enough for me to be sure that poetry would never be anything for me. Sure, it was from the middle of the poem, but I didn't get it at all.

So I placed the book back down, but I had to force my eyes to look away.

The stanza is from the poem The Eve of St Agnes if you'd want to check it out in full.