Lost in time, gulls had struggled circling overhead in a gusty dark storm. Anchor wandered across an immense flat rock atop a black stone cliff; a precarious spot for the fragility of youth. Whipping wind froze her scant garments tight around her shivering skinny body. Mother Earth was rumbling. She was preparing to crush Anchor’s youthful tenderness to untraceable bits. Roaring tons of water hit the cliff side. The drenching impact soared into chilling air. It’s arching destination of fury was obvious … supernatural Anchor.
Anchor looked into the watery death and exclaimed her miraculous sentence, “You die first, Mother of Creation!” and the waters lost all primal force. Ashamed, water splattered like soft rain on the black slate rock, tears at Anchor’s feet. From that day forward, Anchor was a healer, a prodigy, a tribal shaman. She was frequently referred to as witch; a forlorn term that made her laugh timidly. Clinking her ever-present powerful vials and potions stored in her pockets reassured her. Power was always loaded at her magic finger tips.
Mother Nature never chose Anchor. Anchor was strange. Because she survived Nature’s foolish attempt to obliterate her, Nature became Anchor’s slave or so people believed. The people erected a religious obelisk at the site of the ocean miracle. But within a year’s time, the foundation eroded to a powdery crumble. Sabotaged by the salty sea, the entire monument toppled very naturally into the deepest depths.
Anchor dressed plainly and lived alone in a cliff-side cave, a rock nest. She was literally an anchoress; a woman who retires to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion. It was very primitive and unsettling for most people.
Most guess the tossing sea Anchor’s only rightful parent. They are wrong. That mock battle was just rivalry between the Ocean and Anchor. Her true mission had been long secluded. The enigma of Anchor was beyond even her exotic strangeness. Inklings, premonitions, dreams touched her, but Anchor’s destiny began when she was 17-years-old. Her fortune was concealed. Now the season came, she was scarcely ready, but Shiloh awaited. A transformation was required not only of the Golden City but of the very hearts of her people.