“What?!” said Anthē.

“He's fallen in," said Conn. "Don’t worry, I’m sure he will have survived.”

“We’ve got to go down there and find him!”

“Let’s get off this tree first, in case those birds come back round for another pass. We’ll be no use to him if we get knocked in too.”

They shuffled the remainder of the way to the end of the tree and slid down the roots back on to the ground. Anthē was expecting Conn to start making his way down the slope so he could go and retrieve Zantheus. But instead, he, Feanna and Ethall merely sat down a little way from its edge.

“Well, we might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

“What?” said Anthē. “Shouldn’t we go down there and help him out?”

“Don’t worry,” said Feanna. “He’ll find the way out. Though I suspect in Zantheus’s case it may take longer than most...”

“Come again?” Anthē was confused. “What do you mean, ‘in Zantheus’s case’?”

“Have a look for yourself,” said Conn.

Anthē took his advice and peered over the lip of the slope. The same green mass that Zantheus had been enquiring about grew close to them here, and made its way up most of the side of the gorge, stopping only a little way away. It was like someone had taken a ball of wool, only one that was made out of leaves, vines and shoots, and strewn it without care in the middle of the trees below. Presently there was a tremendous rustling down there in the wild green. She could hear Zantheus’s muffled grunting, but the foliage concealed him from her sight. After a while the grunting grew quieter, then subsided altogether, and the rustling stopped.

“Here we go...” said Conn knowingly.

A gauntlet-clad hand appeared, thrust forth from the vegetation. Then an arm, then a head, then another arm. Zantheus began climbing up the slope towards them.

“That didn’t take too long,” said Anthē.

But Conn just said “Wait.”

When Zantheus had gone about an ammah, suddenly a green tendril shot out from below him and coiled around his leg. His immediate response was to try to wriggle free, but this only made it constrict more tightly around his leg so that he cried out with pain. He struggled all the harder, and at once the vine dragged him back into the leafy pit with another cry of surprise. He disappeared from view once more, lost in the overgrown mass.

“What happened to him?” said Anthē.

“The Harmatia plant cannot be struggled against,” said Conn. “It can sense movement. The moment it entangles you, the only hope you have is to play dead, to let yourself become perfectly still. Keep watching.”

Under the mess of green, the grunting resumed as Zantheus fought with the Hamartia plant.

“While he battles he cannot free himself, the plant only wraps itself tighter around him. It is only when he is still and the plant thinks he is dead that it relaxes its grip. At least until it next senses his movement, that is.”

This time the grunting stopped slightly more quickly, though it took longer for the hands and arms to emerge a second time. Zantheus began to climb again, and got to about the same place up the slope as he had before, when another vine extended itself and wrapped around him.

“Zantheus!” shouted Anthē from her vantage-point up high. “Wait!”

But she was too late. Zantheus jerked his head up to look at Anthē, and at once the vine tightened and dragged him back down the slope. More grunting, then silence again.

“What is it?” bellowed Zantheus from the depths of the Hamartia plant. He sounded angry.

“Conn says you have to relax! You have to play dead when it catches you!”

“That is an easy thing for you to say!” was the frustrated reply.

“Just try it! He seems to know what he’s talking about!”

A pause, and Zantheus resurfaced for the third time. Sure enough, he had covered about an ammah when the plant sensed him and stopped him in his tracks. But this time, completely against his instincts, Zantheus managed to stay completely still. After a few moments, the vine loosened and he was able to slip his foot out from it. Elated, he made a mad dash upwards. Two more ammahs and another vine shot out and gripped him. Since this time he responded by being everything but perfectly still he was pulled all the way down again.

“Stupid plant!” said Anthē. She went and sat down with the others. “What a horrible thing!”

“Yes, it is horrible,” said Conn. “But it teaches a lesson we all must learn...” he added quietly.

They watched as Zantheus continued making little journeys up the slope, making different amounts of progress before he inevitably found himself rushing towards the bottom again.

“It was those stupid birds that did it!” said Anthē. “Why did they have to rush past us like that?”

“Oh, they did it on purpose of course,” said Conn.

“What?”

“They are in league with the plant.”

“What do you mean?” Anthē suddenly came very close to doubting the sanity of her guides, which before she had been relatively sure about.

“Don’t look so puzzled,” said Conn. “They are symbiotic.”

“What does that mean?”

“They have a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Feanna.

“They benefit from one another? How?”

“The birds try to trap large animals in the plant. Then, when they fail to escape from it, they eat them. At the same time, they also prey on smaller animals which feed on the plant, protecting it in the process. So they each benefit from the other. They are ‘symbiotic.’”

“So you’re saying they’ll come back and eat Zantheus if he doesn’t get out?”

“They’d try. Though I’m not sure they’ll be able to open up his case to get inside...”

Anthē did not find this joke amusing. “I wish they hadn’t knocked him in...”

“Don’t worry, Anthē, he will get out,” said Fenna.

“I just hope it happens soon, so we can carry on.”

A pause.

“Let’s cook something,” said Conn after a while.

“May we share some more of your food?” asked Feanna.

“Be my guest,” said Anthē. “Just so long as you’re willing to prepare it again. If I have to cook another meal for that pompous...” –her tone softened as she heard Zantheus being sent to the bottom of the slope for the umpteenth time– “Well, let’s just say I’m tired of cooking.” She took off her pack and took out some food and utensils according to what Conn wanted. She was surprised when on this occasion he did not pass them to Feanna but set them down, started building a small fire and began to cook a stew using what he had chosen.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“You cook for your wife?” Anthē asked.

“Sometimes. I’m not very good at it really...”

“He does his best,” said Feanna. Anthē suddenly became slightly envious of the pair. “In any case,” Feanna went on, “he can’t stop me from helping him.” She stuck in a spoon to extract some of the bubbling mixture and tasted it. “Hmm. You know what would spice this right up? Desheh. Ethall, do you think you could find us some Desheh?

“Can Tromo come with me?” asked the girl.

“I don’t see why not,” said her mother. “As long as it’s ok with Anthē.”

“Fine by me,” said Anthē.

At this Ethall marched up to Tromo, who was still peering over the edge of the drop watching Zantheus’s slow upward climbs, and grabbed his hand. “Come on! I’m going to look for some Desheh! If you don’t want to help...say nothing!” She sped off, laughing at her own joke, dragging Tromo with her. They watched the two of them career out of sight, leaving them alone.

“What’s Desheh?” asked Anthē, for want of anything else to say.

“A kind of herb,” said Feanna. “Ethall knows what it looks like. It has a nice flavour to it.”

They watched Conn busy himself with the stew. Then, he and Feanna took the conversation in an entirely new direction, and an odd one, even for them.

“So tell us Anthē,” said Feanna, “what are your dreams?”

“Dreams?” said Anthē. What a bizarre question. “What good are dreams for? Dreams never got anyone anywhere.”

“Oh, but everyone dreams, Anthē,” said Conn, stirring the pot. “Dreams are what carry us from one day to the next.”

“I suppose...” Anthē agreed reluctantly.

“So tell us,” said Conn, “what are your dreams?”

Anthē knew that they were not going to give up until they got some kind of answer. Shyly, cautiously, she gave them one. “Well... there is one thing...”

“Go on,” said Feanna.

“Well...” said Anthē, “one day... I would quite like...to get married.”

Feanna smiled. She reached over to clasp Conn’s hand next to her. “That’s a good dream to have.”

“Is it?” said Anthē, with a tinge of resentment. “Where has it got me? Dreams never got anyone anywhere.”

“So you keep saying,” said Conn. “But, to my mind, that all depends on the way you dream.”

Anthē laughed. “What do you mean by that? How—”

Anthē stopped mid-sentence. She had heard something. It was one of Zantheus’s grunts, but no longer muffled and far-off, now it was close by. She rushed to the lip of the gully. Sure enough, there was Zantheus, about ten ammahs away, so close to escaping from the plant. “That didn’t take too long!” She started calling out encouragement to him. “Come on Zantheus! You can do it! You’re nearly there!” Conn and Feanna spoke too, but more solemnly.

“Careful, Zantheus,” said Conn. “Not far to go now.”

“Just remember, you can’t fight it,” said Feanna. “Stay still when it grips you.”

The part of the plant that was currently coiled around Zantheus relaxed, and he made a rush for the top, thinking this was the last stretch, aiming for Anthē. Just as his hand reached the edge of the slope and Anthē took hold of it to help him up, one last vine jerked up and wrapped itself around his torso. He cried out in pain, but instead of letting go of Anthē he gripped her hand more tightly and tried to use her to wrench himself up and over the lip of the hill. She responded in kind by trying to pull him up.

“No!” shouted Conn, and he pulled Anthē back just in time to stop her toppling down in to the clutches of the plant along with Zantheus. Anthē herself stumbled backwards over Conn. She let out an angry cry.

“Arghh! He was so close! I nearly helped him out!”

“No, you didn’t,” said Conn, dusting himself down. “None of us can help him out, least of all you. His strength may not be any use in getting him out, but still it is only he who can find the way.”

“Stupid, cursed thing!” said Anthē. “Now we have to wait all over again.” She sat back down. Slowly her anger subsided.

Conn went back to stirring the stew. “What were we talking about before?”

“Dreaming,” said Feanna.

“Oh yes,” said Anthē. She recalled the question she had been about to ask. “How many different ways to dream are there, then?”

“Two, by my reckoning,” said Conn.

“Oh? And what would they be?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” said Conn, “the first way is when you care more about how the dream makes you feel than the dream itself.”

Feanna elaborated. “The first way is where you fix upon your desire for the dream, instead of fixing upon the dream.”

“What do you mean?” asked Anthē.

“Take your example of a marriage,” said Conn. “The first way means caring more about how marriage would make you feel than the marriage itself.”

“Alright...” said Anthē. “I think I can guess what the second way is.”

“Of course you can,” said Conn. “The second way is when you dream for the dream alone, not for how it will make you feel.”

“No, I don’t really see,” said Anthē. “How you can separate the two? Whoever dreamed of something that wouldn’t make them feel happy?”

“Quite right,” agreed Feanna. “There is nothing wrong with being happy. But the second way is where you fix on what you are dreaming instead of fixing on your desire for the dream, on your own happiness.”

Anthē laughed. “As far as I can tell, all we’re interested in is our own happiness.”

“Quite right again,” said Conn. “I completely agree. We need to be taught. We are slow learners. But we are learning all the time.”

“Well, no-one ever taught me there was a best way to dream.”

“It’s not just a quality of dream,” said Feanna.

“How so?” asked Anthē.

“Well, it’s like we try to teach Ethall: If you dream, don’t dream for how it will make you feel, learn to dream for the dream. If you sing, don’t sing for how you will be heard, learn to sing for the song. If you fall in love, don’t love for how you will be loved, learn to love for your lover.”

“What is life, anyway,” said Conn, “if not a long drawn-out dream?”

Anthē nearly dismissed this outright, but something made her think about it for a bit longer. “Maybe...” she said. “But dreams feel different to the rest of life, don’t they? I don’t know. They just seem lighter... fainter...”

“But the two ways are always there, aren’t they?” asked Conn. “You can dream for how the dream makes you feel, or you can dream for the dream.”

“...maybe,” said Anthē, still skeptical.

“Have you ever woken up from a really good dream,” asked Feanna, “so good that it made all the hurt and pain in the ‘real world’ seem unreal? I find that as soon as I focus on the good feeling, it leaves. As soon as I try and catch it, it slips out of my grasp. But if I focus on the dream, on what it was actually about, the feeling stays. It is a strange thing.”

“Perhaps I will try that out...” said Anthē. Then she remembered something. “Actually, I did have a very strange dream recently, about being in a beautiful garden. And…no, it’s silly.”

“Go on,” said Feanna.

“Well, Leukos was in it. But it was before I met him. In fact it was the night before I met him.”

“Interesting,” said Fenna, glancing at Conn.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” said Anthē.

“No, we don’t,” said Conn. “Stranger things have happened. We believe you. What happened in the dream?”

Anthē reached back into her memory. She didn’t have to reach very far. The dream had never really left her. “We were in a beautiful garden. But part of it had been damaged. And Leukos told me that it could be repaired, and that I needed to find the other person the garden belonged to, to discover the rest of it. What do you think it means?” To her surprise she found herself opening up to Conn and Feanna, asking for their advice.

“Hmm,” said Conn. “Well to my mind your dream of the garden and your dream of marriage aren’t really very different. In both, you want to discover something new with one other special person, and share it with them. I think the garden is like your heart.”

Strangely enough, Anthē could understand that. “But what was Leukos doing in my dream?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Conn. “He is an odd one, isn’t he? The best way of understanding it might be that sometimes when we dream about something important, our dreams can skip forwards in time a bit. That might have to do with Leukos turned up in your dream.”

For some time Anthē thought about this, without saying anything. Then she said, “How do you think I can make my dream become true?” It felt like a foolish thing to say, but she said it all the same. It was what she wanted to know.

“Well,” said Fenna, “it’s like we mentioned. We would say: Keep on dreaming for the dream, and not just for how it will make you feel.”

“But how do I do that?” said Anthē.

As she was saying this Tromo and Ethall retuned, sooner than expected, each with huge clumps of some red plant in their hands.

“Oh!” said Feanna. “We won’t need that much.” She took a pinch from Tromo’s proud bounty and sprinkled it into the pan. “Thank you, sweetie.”

“Ethall,” said Conn to his daughter, “why don’t you play with Tromo some more, while Daddy gets this ready? Just make sure you’re back before dark.”

“Ok!” The girl needed no further encouragement. “Tig!” she said to Tromo, with a wallop, and shot off, trailing Desheh in her wake. Tromo however stayed where he was and looked at Anthē, as if waiting for permission.

“Well go on then!” said Anthē, reluctant to acknowledge her authority, and he dashed off after her at once. “I wish I could be a child again,” she said wistfully as she watched them go.