The Garden Of Fate (Ο Κήπος της Μοίρας)

-From The Meletic Tales.

In a secluded vale beneath the lingering shadow of Mount Delphi, whispers spoke of a garden unseen by most who had heard of it. Locals called it Lathró géros—The hidden garden. They said no map could guide the worthy to its tranquil depths, and that only those whose souls were laid bare might glimpse its flowering wonder, where petals unfurled not merely with seasons but in response to the unvoiced desires tucked within the mortal souls of seekers.

Eubouleus, a young seer apprenticed to Pythia at the famed oracle at Delphi, possessed eyes that seemed always fixated beyond the world of matter. Each morning he rose before dawn, journeying to the temple to tend the burning flame. In the flickering torchlight, he pored over entrails and vapours, seeking good fortunes—all the while swept by a singular shadow that plagued his contemplative thoughts: Where does the line lie between providence and free will? Often, when the columns sighed beneath midnight wind, he would dream of coral blooms opening in silence, as if to answer. He would gaze up into the stars at night, hoping to connect with the cosmos.

One twilight, Khloris—a woman with hair like spun sable—approached him. She carried a sprig of golden myrtle and petals aflame in the dusk.

‘Eubouleus', she whispered. ‘I fear my heart is torn. The hierophant has demanded I become his bride. Yet… yet my soul rebels in disagreement. I sense another way—something luminous awaits beyond these walls. Will you help me?’

He studied the myrtle and petals glinting softly. ‘There is a place, perhaps not myth. A garden that responds to longing…’

Her eyes widened, with hope and intrigue displayed. ‘Tell me more that I must know.’

He hesitated, for his knowledge was tenuous. ‘There are murmurs… that some place exists where every unspoken yearning blooms, where one may see the shape of their own soul demonstrated in petals. I… think it is real and existential’.

Khloris' grip tightened on the sprig. ‘Then I beg you then, lead me there that I can find my truth’.

The two set forth at dawn, descending past olive groves into a mist-laden glade. When Delphi’s dawn-wind abated, Eubouleus halted by a spring bubbling cold and clear. He drank deeply.

‘Can you feel it?’ He asked.

Khloris nodded. The air seemed heavier, charged with latent promise. They walked in silence as petals unimagined began to drift on the breeze: viridescent blossoms dusted with starlight that should not mark daylight.

At length, a hush fell. A wooden gate, vine-wreathed, stood unmoved by time. Neither rust nor traveller’s scrawl marred it. Eubouleus brushed aside ivy and quietly urged it open. Beyond sprawled a garden more beautiful than any temple mosaic: beds of flowers in impossible hues—violet-gold, azure-pink and moonlit silver. Each bloom pulsed as though alive beyond the presence of nature.

Khloris gazed and was wordless. Then, without knowing why, she knelt before a copper-coloured rose, translucent and humming. She closed her eyes, and the bloom trembled before her. She opened them to find petals unfurling gently as if in tribute to grief long hidden. She had mourned her lost freedom.

‘The garden knows. It breathes our hidden secrets, when we are less aware', said Eubouleus softly.

They wandered deeper. At a pond’s edge, daisies pale as smoke opened and closed as though in conversation with their own desire. Nearby, a scarlet blossom foamed like blood upon a bed of jet leaves.

Eubouleus felt a sudden sorrow tug at him. He remembered orphaned visions: a future that blurred—insightful glimpses that always ended before truth. He gazed at the scarlet bloom and, without realising, his secret took root: A life free of fate’s burden.

The flower shuddered and burst open, petals dropping like embers across the path. He watched with amazement. Khloris observed him, concern in her face.

‘What do you see?’

'Nothing… and everything’, he said. ‘My longing—my hope. That perhaps fate is not absolute as I had thought before’.

Khloris laid a gentle hand on his wrist. ‘And this garden… is it kind or cruel?’

Eubouleus smiled wryly. ‘Perhaps indifferent. It gives form to longing. What one does with the vision is another matter entirely different'.

They paused by a cluster of lavender-blue blossoms that swung as if breathing, petals quivering to some inner rhythm. Khloris moved close, fingertips brushing them. The blossoms rippled. She withdrew.

‘It… echoes me’, she whispered with amazement.

He said, ‘It resonates with our unspoken selves revealed’.

Night fell, not as darkness, but as silken dusk. Fireflies drifted amongst the surrounding blooms, their lights stirring a soft chorus of rustling petals. Khloris lifted a moon-white bloom to her lips.

‘See, this one opens with hope. A pure wish, and that is all', she said.

Eubouleus watched as she spoke her desire aloud for the first time: ‘I wish only to be free to choose whom I love… or to follow my own path desired’.

The moon-stemmed flower glowed softly and then blossomed wider still. It folded out inner petals in transparent shapes of clasped hands.

In that moment, Eubouleus' hand met hers. He felt her tremble—and the garden responded: a ripple of blossoms rustled around them, petals drifting like snow. He, too, saw his longing: a single violet bloom erupted by his feet, its petals heavy with dew and melancholy.

Khloris looked down, worried. ‘Are these… supposed warnings?’

‘No. These are honest truths that we must bear in life’, he said quietly.

Their exploration awakened something ancient. A scorching wind gusted—a gale not summoned by storm, but by sheer emotion. Petals tumbled violently as though tossed by an inner rage that was manifest. The tranquil pond churned into foaming swirl. A great thistle, thorned and black, erupted violently from the earth, as though repudiating some deeper hurt not yet known.

Khloris stumbled back. ‘What is this?’

Eubouleus braced himself. ‘A surge of fear and grief… but whose?'

He looked at her. ‘Tell me truly, have you ever questioned... you know, yourself?’

She swallowed hard. From her robe she withdrew a silver brooch shaped like a swallow.

‘I love another. A travelling sculptor, Diodoros. We met on a visit—briefly, but enough to plant hope. I kept it secret. I feared reprisals', she confessed.

She held the brooch forth, tears shining. Eubouleus took it. The black thistle shook, and petals from surrounding blossoms rushed back, assembling around the thistle, softening its form into a bloom of midnight velvet flecked with silver. It opened once, then closed quickly.

Khloris' agony softened into a great relief. She touched the transformed bloom and was astonished. She could not believe what she was witnessing.

‘I see my fear made into a flower—a guardian against loss'.

Eubouleus pressed her hand. ‘Accept it, and the garden will ease its raging tempest’.

She nodded, cradling the bloom. The wind stilled. The pond calmed, reflections of countless petals shimmering like cosmic stars.

Beyond a weeping cypress, they found a marble bench with an inscription in archaic lettering: ‘To know what you are is sunlight; to know what you may be is moonlight’.

‘A riddle’, murmured Eubouleus.

‘Or more of a test’, replied Khloris.

They sat and silence gathered. The garden paused with them. After a time, Eubouleus spoke.

‘We’ve shown the garden our inner truths, let it show us its own revealed'.

Khloris closed her eyes. Petals drifted around as though in contemplation. In her vision, she saw Diodoros' face, radiant. He carved in marble and smiled her name. In the same vision, she saw Delphi’s temple, its columns dark and oppressive. Then that vision shattered, replaced by this garden, infinite in beauty and possibility.

Eubouleus saw his fate unraveling: he walking beneath a calm sky, free of burden and a scholar content in a small villa. His absence left emptiness—voyagers lost purpose, flame dimmed. His apprenticeship fulfilled its destiny or undid it entirely. He opened his eyes. Khloris looked over, tears glinting.

‘What do you see?’ She asked.

‘I see my fate, but it frightens me. The ease of choice… I have no guide', he admitted.

Khloris observed him. ‘Then walk with me’.

They rose. The air was balm. Blooms—white, amber, rose—hovered as though curious. A jasmine vine arched overhead, heavy with blossoms like silent witnesses.

Eubouleus reached out, inhaled its perfume, and realised this garden had granted them not mere reflection but an unveiling of will: the power to choose rather than obey.

He grasped Khloris' hand. ‘Come. We choose: the oracle—or new life beyond’.

Her voice was steady now. ‘I choose us instead’.

He smiled. ‘Then let us leave, with our truths like seeds. We will plant our own fate’.

Together, they descended the vale, hand in hand. Behind them, the garden stirred, as though waving them farewell, petals drifting like phantoms on the breeze.

Years later, in a small home by the olive groves below Delphi, Eubouleus and Khloris were free of temple bonds and to live together. Eubouleus offered counsel to villagers, not bound by prophecy but guided by compassion. Khloris taught young women to shape sculpture in clay, telling stories of souls set free. They discovered the philosophy of Meleticism, and had embraced To Ena, the One. They taught the principles and pillars of the philosophy.

They never found that wonderful garden again, although a wind of blossoms sometimes drifted by their door like distant memory. Occasionally, they spoke of it with fond memories.

‘Do you remember the black thistle?’ Khloris would ask.

‘It protected your secret’, he’d say.

‘The violet bloom?’ She’d continue.

‘It reminded me hope springs from sorrow’, he’d reply.

They sat by lamplight, hands joined, petals drifting on the hearth’s open window as they contemplated the garden.

In the vale, the hidden garden stood still—waiting for hearts unspoken, for longing made visible. The cosmos, it was said, had not abandoned it. They listened closely.

As the years passed with quiet grace, each season arrived not as a master but as a guest, welcomed by Eubouleus and Khloris with the calm of those who people had seen what lay beneath the surface of the soul.

Their home, modest and whitewashed, sat at the edge of the grove where almond trees bloomed in spring like blushing clouds. Villagers often came seeking wisdom—not from oracles, but from those who had known fear and chosen love. Eubouleus' guidance was never cryptic nor burdened with divine riddle; he spoke plainly, inviting others to see themselves as they were, and as they could become with the acceptance of the philosophy of Meleticism.

Khloris would sculpt beneath a pergola wrapped in ivy. Her hands, once restrained by ritual, now gave shape to memory—figures of women holding flowers, of men staring into pools and of still water. She worked mostly in silence, but her students claimed the clay felt different in her presence—lighter, more responsive, as though it too had tasted the garden.

One afternoon, as cicadas hummed lazily, a young boy named Parmenides wandered into their grove. His mother, a widow from Amphissa, watched from a distance as the child stood spellbound before a statue Khloris had carved—a tall figure with closed eyes and a blossom cupped between its hands.

‘Why does it hold a flower?’ He asked softly.

Khloris smiled. ‘Because the flower is a truth that cannot be spoken. It must be held, felt and understood’.

The boy frowned. ‘Is it magic?’

‘Not magic. Awareness. The statue listens to the flower in silence’, she replied.

Parmenides knelt by the sculpture and whispered something into his cupped palms, holding them up as if to mimic it. Nothing happened—but a gentle wind stirred a fallen petal into the air.

‘Will it tell me my future?’

‘No’, Eubouleus said, emerging from behind the olive press. ‘But it may show you your soul. That’s more valuable, isn’t it?’

The boy nodded gravely. Khloris watched Eubouleus fondly as he placed a hand on the child’s shoulder.

‘Come. I’ll show you the well. It reflects more than your mere face', Eubouleus said.

That evening, when the boy and his mother left, Khloris turned to her Eubouleus. ‘Do you think he’ll find the garden one day?’

Eubouleus considered the sky, painted with gold. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps the garden found him already—in that one question he dared to ask’.

She nodded. ‘I wonder sometimes if the garden has forgotten us. Did we conjure it with our longing’.

He smiled. ‘No. The garden answered that, remember? Reality follows our awareness’.

They both laughed softly, the words echoing like a gentle teaching to be heard.

On the twelfth spring since their journey, Khloris fell ill. Not sharply, nor in great pain—rather, like a candle whose wick burns low yet with steady light.

‘It’s nothing’, she said at first. ‘Just weariness. Clay dust and old bones’.

Eubouleus knew. He saw it in the way her breath faltered, in how the flowers she sculpted grew smaller and more fragile.

One morning she asked to walk alone amongst the almond trees. He watched her from the porch, arms folded. She moved slowly, her robe dragging lightly through the grass. At one tree, she paused and placed her hand upon the bark. Eubouleus saw her lips move, speaking not to him, but perhaps to the tree or the past or the wind.

That evening, she called him to her bedside and asked for silence. He sat beside her, their hands clasped as petals from the open window drifted across the linens.

After a long time, she whispered, ‘If I go first, promise me something’.

He leaned close. ‘Anything that you ask’.

‘Plant a garden. Not for me. For all those people who shall never find the hidden one’.

Eubouleus closed his eyes. ‘I shall'.

Her smile was thin, but luminous.

She passed on the next full moon. No thunder marked her departure. No divine voice. Just the hush of the cosmos receiving one of its own.

True to his word, Eubouleus began to dig. Not a grand shrine—no marble, no statues. Just earth, turned by hand, beside the grove. He selected seeds from wildflowers Khloris once admired. He gathered stones to line a path and carved a bench like the one they’d once sat on in the hidden garden, but something strange began to occur.

Where he tilled, flowers bloomed out of season. Petals curled in odd but beautiful patterns, as if shaped by invisible emotion. Once, when he walked there with his eyes clouded by tears, a single black thistle rose again—but not in anger. Its petals shimmered softly in starlight, its thorns dulled by dew.

Neighbours noticed the change. Children wandered in and emerged with wide eyes. Elders lingered and spoke of certain things they had never confessed before.

One woman, childless and long bitter, sat beneath a fig tree in the garden and whispered to no one, ‘I wanted a daughter, but I feared the pain of losing’.

Next spring, she adopted an orphaned girl from Naupactus.

Eubouleus no longer called it Lathró géros—the hidden garden. He named it Khloris' garden. There was no gate. No riddle to answer. No incense or divine decree. Only a quiet walk, a breath held then released that the Meletic truth allowed to bloom with its presence.

He did not mark the boundaries with stones or signs. The garden did not belong to him. It was not his to claim, only his to tend.

People arrived not by design, but by quiet compulsion. Some came by accident, others by dreams they could not name. A shepherd’s son, who had lost his voice in grief, wandered through one spring and sat in silence beneath the oleander boughs. When he rose to leave, he still did not speak—but a violet bloom followed him, curling around his staff. That year, he began to paint on driftwood with the sap of crushed berries. His village later called him the soul-keeper.

An old widow named Hermione came only once. She left behind a braid of hair at the roots of an olive tree. No one ever saw her again, but when the tree bloomed out of season, white petals filled the path like snow. The villagers said the garden had remembered her.

Khloris' name was spoken in murmurs, not as legend, but as longing made real. They said she had once held a flower that bloomed only for truth. That she had walked away from a life assigned to her and into one she chose. That her final breath was taken not in fear, but in full awareness—her soul echoing the bloom that had first opened when her heart did.

In time, Eubouleus planted three rows of flowers for the future—one for those persons who sought to understand, one for those persons who needed healing, and one for those persons who had yet to realise they were searching. He watered them not only with rain, but with remembrance.

When his own time came, he did not resist. He lay beneath the tree where she had once sat, the woman who had walked with him into truth, and let the silence take him like a gentle tide. A bloom stirred by his hand, and the garden went on listening.

Even in the deep hours of night, when no foot pressed the path and only the stars kept vigil, the blooms did not sleep. They turned slowly, ever so subtly, as if drawn by unseen thoughts passing in the wind. Each petal remained open to the quiet stirrings of the world—of pain, of joy, of silent choices not yet made.

Travellers who returned after many years found flowers they did not recognise—blooms that had not been there before, waiting just for them. For Khloris’ garden remembered not time, but truth.

And truth, once planted, always returns.

It might come as a scent on a forgotten breeze, or in a dream where a single flower opens without sound. Some people say the garden drifts—rootless yet eternal—appearing wherever longing is honest and the soul unafraid to be seen.

A child who has never heard the tale may still find themselves walking amongst its blooms one day, guided not by stories, but by an ache they cannot name. There, without question, the petals will stir. Not to test them. It simply reveals.

In that quiet revelation, something begins—not loudly, not with thunder, but with the stillness that comes before understanding. A single breath, a pause between thoughts, a bloom unfolding in answer to a question not yet asked. That is how the garden speaks. Not in words, but in presence. And presence, once felt, is never forgotten.

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