Echo

sure, Scotty said, “Meow?” Nothing. What if he tried barking? The creature’s fragile horns resembled cut glass, sending mesmerizing refracted rainbows, generated by sunlight, spinning and tumbling off the tree trunks as it breathed.
    “I see you found Echo.” Startled, Scotty looked down, surprised by none other than Jose and Barney. Barney stood wagging his tail so hard it looked like his tail was wagging his head. The creature turned and took an amazing flying leap, landing in Jose’s arms.
    “What the heck is going on here?” Scotty demanded angrily. He stood with his tail swirling around him. He quickly turned away in embarrassment while it tucked itself away under his shirt. Turning back, his jaw dropped as Jose lifted his own shirt, unfurling a glimmering golden tail of his own.
    “I don’t …” Scotty paused, confounded. “I don’t get it. What’s going on here?” His voice cracked, on the verge of hysteria. Unexpectedly, his mind sensed a foreign pressure, a hovering aura.
    “You are both my Brothers now.” A calming disembodied whisper hung somewhere in the air. Scotty looked around , bewildered.
    “That’s Echo. She doesn’t talk the way we do. I named her Echo because I hear her in my mind; just like you do.” Jose’s matter of fact statement grabbed Scotty’s attention, holding him back from freaking out. Placing Echo back on the rock, Jose boosted himself up and called to Barney to join them. Leaping up, Barney snuggled up to Echo, who promptly climbed up his back and sat there.
    “Are you kidding me, dude? I cannot be seeing this.” Incredulous, Scotty looked from Jose to Barney to Echo. “She? It’s real?”
    “Yes, Scotty, she’s real.” Flicking his tail toward Scotty, he added, “And this is real, just like yours.”
    “We’re the same?” Braking down, he flung himself into Jose’s arms, crying the healing tears that would say goodbye to his childhood and start him on the path to manhood. He no longer felt alone. He didn’t know what the heck happened to him years ago but now he knew he could count on Jose’s support and guidance.
    After Scotty calmed down, Jose related the details of the first time he met Echo.
    “I’m sure you’ve gathered that I am too old to be playing in the woods. Well, I can thank good old Barney here. He decided he needed to be in the woods. Here at this rock, as a matter of fact. Do you remember a few years back when Barney came home with his stomach split open and he got away from us before we could get him to the vet? That’s the day. I tracked Barney up the hill fairly easy. When he cut into the woods I almost lost him. He still dripped blood but I was losing the light. With all his blood loss I couldn’t see how he kept going. I finally tracked him here, but I couldn’t find him. See over there?” Hose pointed to a cairn of stone that Scotty recognized, knowing he found his gold coin there so long ago.
    “I found some spots of blood over there but couldn’t see where Barney disappeared. Feeling got me nowhere. I noticed a spot of blood up against this wall, hidden around back of all the stones. It looked like Barney just disappeared into the wall. Not only that, the spot of blood looked like it was cut in half by the positioning of the wall. So I took my hand—and you are not going to believe this, but I touched the stone and my hand went right through it. It felt all wet and gooey. When I pulled my hand back out, damn if it wasn’t completely dry.”
    “Brother, I could feel you when you touched the Womb.” Scotty could hear Echo whisper to Jose, the now golden aura still evident.
    “Uh, Echo, what do you mean, the Womb?” Scotty asked timidly.
    “We always have a portion of the Womb to travel with. It is part of the Exalted Womb that remains back home on Oolah. We cannot live without it. It is like your mother and father on this planet. It feeds us, maintains us, protects us, and informs us. I was plugged into the Womb when you put your hand through it. I felt you when you walked through, just like my Barney did.” Echo reached down to stroke Barney’s head. She wrapped her leathery golden hands around Barney’s neck. If Barney could purr, he would purr. If Echo could purr, for that matter, it appeared she would, too.
    “Your Barney?” Scotty questioned with raised eyebrows.
    “Yeah, they have a thing going.” Jose laughed—a joyful sound to Scotty.
    “But what happened after you entered the uh, womb?