​Finnian Payne turned seventeen on the Winter Solstice, and his life changed forever. Through the centuries, the Winter Solstice had become occasions whereby the child officially became an adult in the eyes of the community. 

For centuries in villages of the valley, the tradition was that a child became an adult in their seventeenth Winter Solstice year. His birthday had landed on the exact date of the winter Solstice that year, making his passage even more special. 

The majority of the region’s population was well past working in the fields or doing manual labor, leaving most of the work to the few still able-bodied citizens. The Winter Solstice ceremony brought more of the population old enough to do the adult work.

The ceremony was grand and lasted well into the night. The children of the surrounding villages had gathered together with their families to honor their passing into adulthood. Finnian had attended many ceremonies in the past, but this was different. There seems to be a sense of urgency about the whole thing. 

While never saying anything, the elders seemed eager to end the ceremony quicker than in the past. Many had reached their seventeenth-year milestones, more so than in the past, and the abrupt ceremony was a surprise. 

The following morning, the elders informed the newly “ recognized” adults what the hurry was the day before.

“Finnian, you have proved yourself to be an able leader, dependable, and our best hunter. That is not to say that any of the others are less able or dependable but, there must be a new leader. The council had decided  that you are to lead this group into battle tomorrow morning.”

The small group stood in stunned silence. The elder continued. “There have been no new adults in several years. The elders and the council have been preparing you for this day. We are aging and need young, hearty men to fight.” He paused. “What the village doesn’t know is that we have been under threat of attack for a long time. Tomorrow, you must defend the village and our way of life.” The elder paused to let them think for several minutes.

Finnian spoke up first. “What or who are we fighting?”
Before the elder could answer, the sky darkened, and the light shining through the windows dimmed to as though twilight had fallen. The elders exchanged glances, and the chief elder pointed out the window. “Them.” 

Finnian and the others turned to look out the window. Outside on the edge of town was an army of soldiers on horseback, led by the legendary  General Akitia, a warlord from a distant empire. The young men had not thought to be a threat to this region. Finnian now realized the talk of the village’s resources and their value he had heard over the years was real. 

He turned to his peers, and Finnian realized the years of sword fighting, hunting, and tracking they endured was for a reason. He took a breath and addressed his men. 

“We have an enemy to fight, and we are ready.”

​The garden was tranquil, but she realized harmony was a momentary matter. Within a few minutes, the reality would return. The sounds of planes and gunfire were deafening, but it was the sounds of drying soldiers that cut to the bone.

 She’d volunteered to be a nurse early in the war. Within a month of beginning to serve,  she had held severed hands and looked deep into a young boy’s guts and not blinked. How much blood had she washed from her hair? Far too much, but nothing ripped her heard up as sounds of the dying soldiers. The garden became her sanctuary where she came after another one died. The sounds of the pond and the smell of fresh flowers, and even the buzz of flies, were peaceful. She could compose herself and remembered there was life beyond the blood, guts, and dying.

Today had been horrible.

Three young men and a female driver of an ambulance were involved in a rollover accident. They managed to save one young boy but lost the others. She cried, the drone of a bee nearby and the plop of a frog in the pond her only companions. 

She sensed someone in the garden and whipped her head around. 

 “You okay?” Her commanding officer stood before her. 

She stood and faced her CO. “No… yes, I’m fine.”

“Linda, I know. You did the best you could.”

Linda straightened her apron and pulled herself together.

 “Thank you, sir. I’ll get back to work now.” She saluted as she walked past him.

 The war in the east against the Japanese had been fierce and devastating. It seemed the only space that either side avoided was the small gardens and resting places dotted through the country. A fire could destroy the land and buildings surrounding the gardens, but the gardens were sacred. It was in these small patches of nature that she kept her soul together. 

She retired from the Army Nursing Corps, a colonel, and taught nursing for the army and other medical schools. Now, fifty years later, each night, she came to sit in her small Japanese garden at her home in California.

Through the large glass door behind her, her service medals and awards in the war hung on the wall. But she took little comfort from the medals, as she tried to forget all the men she couldn’t save.

​The boy waited patiently on the path, knowing they would have to return home eventually. The army had blocked the main road, including the main gate, which was the only other way into the estate. Most of the locals knew about the old service path to the estate but rarely used by anyone. They feared the army would find out about the back gate and path but not locate the tunnel as Lord Stanley was essential to their cause. 

He had a message to deliver to the Lord, but when he arrived, he’d found the gate ajar. He decided to backtrack out of sight and wait.

He leaned on his bike and remembered the day the invading army had come through the town. The soldiers destroyed or damaged the town’s buildings and rounded up anyone who remotely looked as if they could be a threat. Some died at the hands of the soldiers, with the rest held hostage until the region’s elders agreed to surrender the town to them. A few citizens held out, waging a guerilla war from the hills.

Several wealthy landowners were either killed or captured and placed under House arrest, and the army used the estates as headquarters with armed guards patrolling the grounds. The army chose Lord Stanley’s estate as their main headquarters because of its location on the side of a hill facing the ocean. They hadn’t counted on the estate having tunnels from the second great war and the back gates hidden from the main grounds, behind a wall of evergreen trees and brush that made passage difficult. However, a tunnel that from the back gate to the house. For several weeks they had been sneaking out one at a time to get messages and supplies. So far, the soldiers had not caught them, but it was risky. 

Lord Stanley had the tunnels cleared out and made plans that were underway. The risk the soldiers would discover someone missing from the house or caught at the entrance to the tunnel or in the hidden basement area was always present, but they ignored the risk and prepared to fight the enemy.

After a long wait, Lord Stanley showed up and stopped short when he saw him leaning against the bike.

‘Michael? Is everything ok?

“I have a message for you from the resistance. The army suspects you and others are part of the resistance, and tomorrow planes come from over the mountains. They are planning to bomb the estate. Hide in the tunnels by six a.m. The resistance will come for you when the bombing stops.” The boy jumped on his bicycle and rode down the path,  leaving Lord Stanley saying a prayer to himself as he slipped in the gate and down the tunnel.

By six the following morning, Lord Stanley huddled in the tunnel with his family and a few servants as the ground shook and bombs and artillery destroyed his family home. But they were alive, and Lord Stanley and the others would carry on for as long as it took. 

They would defeat their enemy, and freedom would be theirs again.