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We found him asleep on the beach of white sand, by the Grove. A boy of no more than ten, but he had dragged his little boat some way from the water before collapsing into sleep. When he awoke with us gathered around him, he demanded to know if this was the Isle of the Moon, as though that had been his intended destination. We had assumed that he had been pulled off course by a strong tide, as his boat had no sail and he had carried the net of a mainland fish-catcher, but it seemed that he had planned on coming to the Isle of his own accord. He would not tell us his name, and he was taken to the Hut of Rebirth to be questioned. He would speak to none of the other Priests, so I was left alone with him to discover why he had come to our island. I was not much more than a boy myself, small for my fourteen years. He seemed to trust me when he would not speak to the grown men. He told me that his mother had been taken away from the Isle of the Moon as a newborn babe by a Priestess, but the Priestess had died as soon as she set foot on the mainland. A fisherman had found the babe curled in the arms of the Priestess, and taken the tiny thing home to his wife, who was barren. The fisherman knew from the dead woman's robes that she was from the Isle of the Moon, but he did not want his wife to know as it would have broken her tender heart, for she was a Christian and believed that the baby was a gift from her one God. They had raised her as their own, and called her Cecilia, after a holy Christian saint. The fisherman always kept the silver brooch which the Priestess had worn, and when Cecilia was a grown and married woman and his wife had long since died, he gave the brooch to Cecilia and told her of her true origin. Cecilia had mourned for her unknown mother, and sworn to return to visit the Isle of the Moon. Her husband had forbidden such talk. He too was a Christian, and told her that the Isle of the Moon was nothing more than a pagan myth. With a small son, and no rights of her own, she was trapped knowing that she could never return to her true home. She pined away slowly, and when her son was a lad of ten, she was near to her death. She called him near, and told him what she knew of the Isle of the Moon. As she clasped his hand for the last time, she pressed the silver sickle brooch into his palm. After shedding three hundred tears, the boy had gone to the beach to wait for his father's fishing boat and tell of his mother's death. His father, in spite of his stern manner, loved his mother very much, and he was overcome with grief. He left the boat with the sails flapping in the wind and ran to his wife's side. The boy was left standing by the boat with the brooch held tightly in his hand. His small hand had bled where the pin of the clasp had pricked his skin, and it was the same bright red as the beautiful soft sail of his father's boat, which had come from a far-off holy land. He knew the boat well, as he had been out with his father many times. He slipped onto the boat and rowed out to sea until the wind filled the sail and he let the rudder find its own course. He fell asleep in the nets piled on the deck, and when he awoke, the boat had gently run aground on our softest sand beach. He had pulled the small boat as far from the water as he could, then fell into an exhausted slumber in the sand. When next he awoke, it was to our faces. After he had told me all of this, I passed it all on to the older priests. They did not believe the story, and demanded proof of the poor boy. There was no red sail on the boat, they said. He was only a mainland fisherboy, fallen asleep rowing with his nets. He then showed them the silver sickle, which was certainly the brooch of a Priestess. They commanded me then to leave him, and I was told that he would need to undergo the same rebirth as the girl-children who were brought to the Isle. I did not see him again for a full moon's cycle, at which time he was brought, thin and shivering, to the Hall of Priests. He was to become one of us, and they told me his name was Attis. Late that night, as we lay together for warmth in the bed-circle of our hut, I assured him that I would never again pass on his stories to the other Priests. I saw how terrible he looked, and blamed myself. I asked him what had happened, and he told me of the Trial of Rebirth. After feeling strange from his first meal of raw mushrooms and cold tea, he decided not eat the food or drink they brought him and buried it in a small hole he dug in the dirt floor with his nails. He drank only the water that collected on the sill when it rained. He counted the days and nights, and they numbered twenty-eight when a gentle Priest finally came to fetch him. The Priest had asked him what he remembered of his life before. I think from the description that it may have been Oannes or perhaps Bran. He said that he had told the Priest he did not wish to remember anything, that he wished only to live on the Isle of the Moon where no man kept a wife prisoner to break her heart and spirit. The Priest was very pleased. The Priest then asked him his name, and he told him that he had forgotten it, and never wanted to hear it again. This pleased the Priest also, and the Priest told him, 'You have a new name, then. It is Attis.' So even I, his only friend, do not know his true birth-name. But Attis suits him well, as one who reveres the mother above all else. I even believe that he wishes to follow his namesake, and be gelded for the service of Ceres. Much as I too worship the Goddess, and have never coupled casually out of respect for her, I could never consider that most great of sacrifices, to submit to the sickle. It has been many generations since such a thing was done, when last the Goddess was in her third phase and hungry for blood. He even wears the silver sickle given to him by his dying mother, pinned to the inside of his gown so that the other Priests cannot see. In matters of the teachings of the Temple, his book-learning is not strong as he was not taught letters until he came to the Isle. In the physical tests, however, he excels. For him to submit to the sickle would be such a waste, as he would make a far better Consort than he who currently wears the antlers. He is still very young, but has the control of a god. If I had one small fragment of his ability At this point, the ink was smudged as though the book had been closed quickly, with the words still wet. He had clearly been interrupted as he wrote. Cybele was stunned. It was Cabirius's own private diary, which explained why there was no trouble taken to make the script neat. It was never meant to be read by the eyes of others. She felt closer to Cabirius through reading these words than she had by touching his body. She felt almost jealous of the depth of his friendship to this boy Attis. She had never been that close to another, at any age. She thought that Cabirius would return to retrieve this treasure as soon as he realised he had dropped it, despite the fact that he had left in anger. Of course, she should never have read it, but how could she not? So she poured herself a cup of wine and prepared to wait.
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