Revelations

By the time Heryshaf reached his uncle’s side of the field, a small crowd had gathered around him, murmuring and making sympathetic noises.

“Let him in,” croaked his uncle. “Let the boy through.”

Heryshaf pushed into the centre.

His uncle looked smaller than he remembered.

“Leave us,” the old sheep said.

The others moved away, somewhat reluctantly.

“Uncle?”

“Heryshaf.”

“What is wrong?”

His uncle smiled.

“It is the end of my time in this world.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Heryshaf moved closer.

“Don’t cry for me, boy. I’ve had a good long life.”

His uncle reached up and wiped a tear from beneath Heryshaf’s eye.

“And I leave it with no regrets.”

The old sheep thought for a moment.

“Except one.”

“What?”

“A promise.”

His breathing had become shallow.

“Come closer.”

Heryshaf did.

“Your father would have been proud of you.”

Heryshaf looked down.

“I know,” his uncle continued, “because I am proud of you.”

Heryshaf opened his mouth.

“Don’t ruin it. Just listen.”

Despite himself, Heryshaf smiled.

“When your father was a lamb, he was a great nuisance.”

“My father?”

“Terrible. Questions from morning until night. Why are sheep sheep? Why do we follow? Where are we going? How do we know?”

Heryshaf stared at him.

“Sound familiar?”

“A little.”

“A little?”

His uncle coughed.

“Everyone told him to stop thinking so much. We told him life was much easier if he simply accepted things as they were.”

“Did he?”

“Of course not. He was a strong-minded fool.”

The old sheep looked at Heryshaf.

“Rather like another one I know.”

Heryshaf said nothing.

“Your father said there was something more. He couldn’t prove it. He just knew.”

Heryshaf felt something tighten in his chest.

“And when he was twelve, he left.”

“Left?”

“The flock. Everything. He went looking for whatever it was he thought the rest of us were missing.”

Heryshaf could barely believe what he was hearing.

His father had stood on this same grass and asked the same questions.

“What did he find?”

His uncle’s eyes moved towards him.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“He never told me everything.”

“Why not?”

“Perhaps he couldn’t.”

Heryshaf remembered the river.

For some reason, this frightened him more than if his uncle had simply said that his father had found nothing.

“But he came back?”

“Oh yes.”

“What was he like?”

The old sheep was quiet for a moment.

“When he returned he was, how can I put it; more than a sheep.”

Heryshaf felt a strange warmth move through him.

Until this moment he had thought his questions separated him from his father.

Now they seemed to be the thing that connected them.

“Why didn’t he ever tell me?”

“Because you weren’t ready.”

“How did he know?”

“He didn’t.”

Heryshaf frowned.

His uncle smiled.

“Parents are very good at being certain about things they cannot possibly know.”

Heryshaf laughed.

His uncle began coughing.

At first Heryshaf waited.

Then the coughing became worse.

“Uncle?”

He put a hoof against the old sheep’s back.

“I’m all right.”

“You don’t sound all right.”

“I haven’t sounded all right for twenty years.”

He drew another difficult breath.

“Now listen. There isn’t much time.”

Heryshaf became still.

“Your father did leave you something. Four things, in fact. Four things he spent his life discovering.”

“What things?”

“Secrets.”

Heryshaf leaned closer.

His uncle closed his eyes.

For one horrible moment Heryshaf thought he had died.

Then one eye opened.

“I said listen, boy. I didn’t say climb into my ear.”

Heryshaf moved back.

His uncle took another breath.

“Four secrets,” he repeated.

“And your father made me promise that, when the time was right, I would give them to you.”