Goodbye
We were drawing steadily closer to the floating settlement and we had attracted a lot of attention. A crowd of varying textures from black and white to in between made up the crowd that greeted us. The biggest difference from the island of Atlantis being that no one appeared to have the mantle of a slave pressed down about them. It was an encouraging sight.
I felt a peace settle over me as I took in the apparent unity of the gathered crowd. These people it seemed had finally gotten it right at least for a little while.
Jim grasped a hold of a line that was thrown out to us and moments later Ortega and Flynn caught lines of their own and slowly the catamaran was pulled into the dock and tied off. The crowd eagerly made way for us as we stepped off the boat onto at least something that resembled dry land.
I looked back to see that Keturah hadn't followed us.
"Aren't you coming?" I asked curiously.
She shook her head no as she quickly untied the mooring ropes and let the catamaran drift off from the dock a ways before she threw an anchor overboard. That certainly was odd behavior.
I didn't have time to dwell on it though as a spokesperson for the interested crowd had emerged.
It was an older woman whose auburn hair had begun to gray in places. She was as white as white can be and yet she looked at me in the eye without any condescension of any kind.
"Welcome to our colony of survivors brave strangers! You are from the surface aren't you?" She asked inquisitively.
"Yes, we are." I said speaking up.
"Why, if I may ask, have you come so far to our inner world?" She asked.
I decided to be unflinchingly honest with her, "At first we were in pursuit of the treasure we expected to find in the sunken fleet of the convoy of ships that brought you to this inner world. We didn't know this place existed, until we basically fell into it. We had decided not to come, because the spiritual cost would of been too great, but then a way was set up for us through the supernatural and we came through to your world under the influence of God. I'm not sure how, but I've been led to believe in a vision that somehow my little crew is to be used instrumentally in a great plan of the Creator's orchestration to bring freedom to all the peoples of this inner land."
The woman smiled and a murmur of excited anticipation broke out and swept through the gathered crowd. The woman touched her heart with a hand as she said with reverence, "You don't know how long we have held out for such a hopeful day and now that it has, what is there to be said but welcome!"