Her senses inundated with an intense mix of sights, smells, and sounds, Marguerite ascended the stairs that led to a landing above a busy outdoor marketplace. There she found a large, covered open air hall. One side of the rectangular space had a complex facade, decorated from top to bottom and all the way across with a patchwork of colorful, detailed, wordless portraiture.

The figures mostly appeared as humans, though some had heads of animals. Many wore regalia, a few simple clothes. Natural settings predominated — earthly landscapes, gardens, cloudscapes. Many figures held implements — small weapons or other handy devices. When their hands were empty, the hand positions varied in ways that appeared purposeful. One figure had extra arms, splayed out symmetrically, each hand positioned differently. The windmill-like figure stood atop a much smaller, balled up figure.

Elegant but simple wooden furniture lined the same wall and held a variety of objects. Marguerite wondered how the objects came to be there. The offerings created a singular display with the wall. The figures in the drawings could have even reaching out to place objects there, or pick them up.

At its center-point across the hall, the wall featured a statue — a bronze bust around which a layered alter emerged, decorated with silks, bowls, candles, and others things she had no names for. Someone had recently been attending to it. An extravagant number of fresh flowers hung in strings around its neck. As she came closer, she could see that the bust featured not one face, but three conjoined at the sides. The faces were beatific and, to her eye, androgynous. Not male, not female.

Continuing to the far end of the hall, she was pleased to discover a balcony from which she could just make out the sea. She also noticed a hunched over woman with a broom working in one corner. They made eye contact. The corners of the tiny brown wrinkled woman’s mouth lifted in a smile. She put down her broom, shuffled to a nearby box, and lifted a large piece of colorful fabric out of it. She extended it towards the stranger and nodded in every direction all at once. Very friendly, she thought.

Marguerite nodded back. imitating the woman’s greeting as best she could. In a wordless, gentle exchange, the woman wrapped the stranger deftly, comfortably, in the cloth. The last wisp of the copious fabric draped over the Marguerite's dark hair. Then the woman was gone, exiting down a separate set of stairs nearby.

Marguerite gazed at the sea. She felt the weight and fit of the new fabric around her. She imagined it was a cocoon and felt like a caterpillar aware of what it might mean to undergo a transformation inside. Transformation. The word drew her attention back to the wall.

Vision transformed, she thought. Each figure was no doubt part of intertwined stories, like the gods and goddesses of so many faith practices throughout time. But here the image of each also belied a vivid perspective that took the form of a vision, and those perspectives, as on this wall, were what was celebrated. The character of the figures themselves was a window into the great visionary capacity of those who endeared them.

She felt growing love for each figure and her feeling about the character of each, its integrity, grew stronger until she felt intense belief that each was real. She looked out at the sea, and recognized that inner pull being activated.

She stepped back from the intensity and let herself reflect more broadly. One interpretation of Storyland’s real heroes is that they are its invisible storytellers. They animate faith in Storyland. In this Faithful territory, which she suspected was Sanatana, Land of Eternal Truths, figures worthy of faith, its heroes like the myriad figures on the wall, were each an animator of a certain kind of faith. Each had a unique perspective that was made visible. Character is transformed through envisioning. Thus visionary characters in stories bring story-ness itself alive, rather than invisible storytellers like sorcerers over a brew-pot of story-ness. It was the former that was worshipped here.

But who were the three on the center statue? She felt this was the symbol she was looking for. An animated group of revelers began arriving, coming in by the same route Marguerite had. Help streamed in by the same route the old woman had left.

The help carried armloads of platters of fresh cooked foods, colorful slices of fruit, and pitchers and bottles of drinks. Impromptu tables were set up, each covered with fabric that delighted the eyes. The food, of course, delighted all the senses. The hall filled with voices too. Young women clustered in one corner; young men in another. In the middle, elders mingled. A band formed across from the wall. A wedding party, Marguerite concluded.

Marguerite’s fabric wrap blended with the garb of the growing crowd. She stood at the rail nearest the sea, watching the band's and other celebratory preparations. Her attention snapped into focus when she saw a man approaching the three-faced statue at the wall. First he bowed, then his mouth moved like he was talking to it. She made her way to his side, and just as she arrived, he laid decoratively hand-embossed paper in the open space in front of it.

The two turned to face each other. The stranger bowed, as she had seen the spry man, dressed in purple, do to the statue. He bowed back and said, “Namaste.”

She repeated this part too. “Namaste,” she said. “I am on a mission from Queen Faithful. You are a Hindu priest of Sanātana?” she inquired.

“I am.”

“I see you have connected with the sacred in preparation for this gathering — a wedding I take it.” “The couple has just married. We are here to celebrate into the evening.”

“Wonderful! So you’re job is mostly done?“

Dryly the priest observed, “When you put it that way it’s a bit disheartening, dear lady.” Glancing over his shoulder he raised one hand to exchange a quick wave with someone down the hall, and focusing again on her.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”