by Ashley McLeo
Eve, my mother often said, had always been envious of Lilith’s ability to know what she wanted and develop deep relationships.
Days began to flow rhythmically. Seraphina became sought after as a tribe medicine woman. Eve took a domestic turn when she agreed to watch Lilith’s children on the days when Adam could not hunt and Lilith went in his stead. This arrangement suited both sisters. Stress lines melted from Lilith’s face. Adam, who in recent years had begun to suffer from stiffening joints, smiled more. Eve glowed with the satisfaction that having a role brings. She’d even begun to flirt less with the men of the tribe, a sure sign that watching her kin had her considering starting a family of her own.
Then Eve began to show signs of being with child.
Seraphina asked about the father daily, listing off Eve’s suitors in varying orders hoping to trick her sister into an admission. She wanted to know who had stolen Eve’s heart.
The day the truth emerged our family cracked in half.
It was Adam.
I remember hearing Lilith’s and Adam’s screams the night Lilith found out. My mother clutched me tight beneath our furs, hoping I was still asleep as I pretended to be. Though I did not know what enraged my aunt, her obvious fury terrified me.
When our household awoke in the morning, Lilith was gone and with her my three female cousins.
Adam was furious. Lilith had taken their daughters without his permission. True, he had five sons, all full grown and capable, but without any daughters who would care for him in his advancing old age?
My mother wept for Eve’s betrayal and Lilith’s disappearance. She wanted nothing to do with Eve, and resolved not to speak with her sister.
At first Eve took pains to appear shocked by the change of circumstances in her family, though her remorse was short lived. Even the whispers of the tribe did not stop her from moving into Adam’s home after the birth of their daughter, Aya. It was only after Aya’s birth that Seraphina sought Eve’s company.
Seraphina was terse with her sister, happy only when touching Aya. Eve, on the other hand, was radiant. It seemed she finally had what she wanted in life. They did not speak of Lilith but rather of their original mission on Earth, as if all that had happened in the interim was but a bad dream.
Eve admitted to having been in contact with Noro in the weeks that she and Seraphina had not been talking. Noro claimed Dimia was eager for them to open the portal. Eve agreed with their father, as she always had on Hecate, that it was time.
My mother did not agree. She claimed that without Lilith, the fata most bound to earth, they would be unable to open any portal.
“How can you be so sure? We’ve grown in power since arriving here. Myself most of all,” Eve replied defensively
While it was true Eve was far more powerful than she had been on Hecate, Seraphina still did not think it possible. Their magic on Earth was different than their power on Hecate. A portal, difficult there, seemed impossible on Earth, in this place none of their pneumas could call home. They needed Lilith, the most connected with Earth.
Seraphina agreed to speak to Dimia soon. Of the fata triplets, only my mother had mastered the ability to send her pneuma back to Hecate to communicate as Noro could, though for admittedly shorter periods. It was her most taxing skill, required days of planning, and did not please her to do it often. Though in this instance she realized it was necessary, and set to making preparations as soon as she left Eve’s hut.
On the day Seraphina planned to send her pneuma into the heavens, she stopped by Adam and Eve’s hut first. To her great surprise someone she hadn’t heard from in years was there. Noro’s deep voice rang from the hut. He spoke to Eve in a familiar way most of Dimia’s courtiers would not dare. Seraphina knew he must have been visiting her often to get that close, sound that intimate. She listened at the door, and what she heard shocked her.
Voices filled with passion. Discussion of a new realm, one in which all fata lived as kings and humans as their pets—their slaves. Those that did not comply would be killed, of course. It was all too easy. Humans had no magic with which to protect themselves. They were powerless compared to the weakest fata. It was all part of Dimia’s plan, Noro said, and Eve, always Dimia’s champion, agreed wholeheartedly.
“I am already tiring of Adam’s inability to care for me and Aya. He’s too human. Too weak. I would welcome a new lover. A fata who could make my life easier,” Eve purred.
My mother was incensed. She wondered what would happen to her children, nieces, and nephews who were half of each species? Perhaps Dimia would make an exception for them, but perhaps not. Dimia had always been a proud fata, boasting of the superiority of fata over the lesser creatures of Hecate, who were often used as pets. Seraphina felt a fool for having not seen Dimia’s plan all along, and she returned to her hut determined to avoid Eve for as long as possible.
Her avoidance was short lived.
“Why have you not yet been to see father? And why do I feel as if you are avoiding me again?” Eve asked, cornering Seraphina in her hut a week later.
My mother, unable to hold in her anger any longer, lashed out. She accused Eve of going behind her back. Of omitting information Noro had given her. Worst of all, of scheming to enslave the humans for Dimia’s good graces.
“You would do anything for father, no matter how wrong!” Seraphina cried. “Have you no guilt over enslaving those who took us in as their own?”
“Why do you care so much for them anyhow? They are weak, suitable only to serve more powerful beings,” Eve sneered. “Is it because you have been limited all these years? Worry not sister, soon enough we will find powerful fata worthy of us. We will not have to settle.”
The idea that Seth had been a sort of placeholder took Seraphina to hitherto unseen levels of fury. She threw Eve out, hurling fire at her back, and told her never to return.
Months passed and the sisters did not speak. Eve tried numerous times to approach Seraphina, a great folly on her part as Seraphina’s anger had only grown as she considered Eve’s betrayal. Eve had thrown away their relationship with Lilith not for love, as Seraphina had previously thought, but to sate her envy. The thought was unbearable, and Seraphina wished her eldest sister would return.
It was only when Eve’s friend came running to our door yelling that Eve had collapsed that Seraphina thought twice about ignoring her sister’s needs. She worried that the shame of being unable to fulfill their father’s wishes would be enough for Eve to attempt to take her own life. Seraphina could not allow it. Despite Eve’s cruelty, my mother could not stomach seeing either of her sisters in pain. The healer in her overrode the anger and she went to help.
Seraphina found Eve’s hut in a state of disrepair. Her sister, it seemed, had given up the pretense of eating, allowing food to rot where it lay. Adam whimpered in the corner, pale and weak, as Aya played with a pile of dirt. Seraphina knew Adam’s health had been poor but had not known he’d deteriorated so. She wondered why Eve had not called for her sooner?
Suddenly, Seraphina felt the air constrict as magic trapped her in the hut and Eve emerged from the shadows.
Eve looked terrible, having allowed her blonde human hair to grow lank and her skin to become covered in dirt.
“What is wrong with Adam?” Seraphina asked, her mind racing.
“He is dying,” Eve replied, glancing back at Adam as if he were an afterthought.
“How could you let him? He is your husband. You could have called for me.”
“What do I care if he dies? Unlike you sister, I have my sights set higher,” Eve said scornfully.
A movement in another corner caught Seraphina’s eye. She turned to see Noro, body and pneuma, float out of the darkness.
“How?”
“Eve brought me over,” Noro replied. “The act nearly killed her, but I nursed her back to health.” He floated to Eve and caressed her face with his navy limb.
Adam had already been replaced.
“W
hy did you call me here if not to help Adam or yourself?” Seraphina asked, seething. “If you brought Noro over, do the same for the rest of the fata. Bring them over one by one. Be our father’s hero.”
“Dimia commands you to help Eve,” Noro said, his amorphous face tightening at Seraphina’s tone.
“I have told Eve before, and I will tell you now, Noro. I will not be party to the killing off or enslaving of mankind.”
“We thought you might say that,” Noro replied, a round smile growing in his navy face.
Seraphina felt powerful magic crawl over her human skin and gasped. Eve was spelling her, binding Seraphina’s magic to her human body. My mother struggled, trying desperately to fight back, but it was too late. Eve was, after all, the strongest fata on Earth.
Noro floated toward her, raising his navy arm with a look of triumph.
A magic Seraphina had not felt in years washed over her. Noro still carried inside him power born of Hecate, a magic that had become lost to Seraphina in her years on Earth. She savored the feel of her motherland for a moment.
Then, her world went black.
My mother knew when she awoke in an empty hut that she was no longer near the tribe. It was too quiet. She stood and went to open the door. It was locked, not by reed or wood, but by magic. Seraphina recognized Eve’s spell work and knew there would be no leaving unless Eve set her free. She began to cry for help, hoping someone other than Eve or Noro would hear.
As if awaiting her call, the door flung open and Eve floated in with Noro close behind. She was in her full fata form for the first time since Lilith, Eve, and Seraphina had transformed into humans. It was a sign of her changed alliance.
“Holler if you must, Seraphina. No one but Noro and I will hear you. Sound cannot travel to or from here, nor can humans see this place,” Eve said hotly.
“What of my daughters?” Seraphina asked.
“I spelled a woman to look after them while we work.”
Despite her predicament, knowing my sisters and I were safe calmed my mother.
“Your plan is to keep me locked up until I help you?” Seraphina asked.
“It is,” Noro answered simply, his body so close to Eve’s that one could not fit a finger between their two shades of blue.
Seraphina smiled. She thought it a stupid idea.
Eve, noticing her satisfaction added, “Unless we are present, your own magic is useless here, sister. You are, in a sense, nearly as powerless as the humans you love. I have left only the power of transformation available to you here, so that you may resume your rightful fata form at any time. Only when Noro and I visit will I widen the spell’s parameters. Then we will attempt to force the right kind of magic from you.”
Eve’s words wiped the smile off Seraphina’s face.
“What do you mean?”
“Noro has learned various means of persuasion in his travels,” Eve said, her voice full of admiration.
In time, Seraphina learned all Noro’s means of persuasion, each more horrible than the last.
Eve observed as Noro worked spells that had my mother writhing on the floor, gritting her teeth in pain. She witnessed him driving sharpened twigs beneath Seraphina’s nails, pouring vile potions down her throat, and forcing insidious mind magic upon her. Not once did Eve deign to help her sister, not that Seraphina expected her to. The approval of their father was at stake, and Seraphina knew Eve would do anything for that.
“You’ve been stubborn beyond belief, Seraphina,” Noro said the first day he entered Seraphina’s magical hut alone. “I’ve seen no one endure as much as you and for that you have my respect. However, that doesn’t change what I was sent here to do. I requested Eve stay at home from now on, as I suspect even she has her limits. I sensed more primal measures of persuasion may be the only way to get through to you.”
That day began a series of daily molestations. After each horrific torture session, Noro would end the day by tying Seraphina down and forcing himself upon her. Yet, still, my mother did not agree to help.
A bulge in Seraphina’s belly was unmistakable within a fortnight. Floating through the door of my mother’s prison, Noro’s dark eyes latched onto the bump. He smiled in victory.
“I see we have succeeded in creating your first fata child. You should be proud, Seraphina. At least this child will be granted full status in our new realm. I’ll let you rest today. I wouldn’t want to strain our babe.”
Seraphina’s torture ceased from that day on, though Noro still visited daily to check on her growing belly.
Seraphina assumed the torture would continue once she bore his child. Either that or Noro would use the child to coerce her into doing his bidding. But why hadn’t Noro already thought to use her other children as bait, she wondered. She could only assume his prejudice against humans led him to believe Seraphina wouldn’t much care if they were harmed. In this instance she was thankful for Noro’s bias.
“I hope I find you feeling well today, Seraphina,” Noro said, floating into her hut. His eyes shone full constellations within them, a fata sign of pure elation that Seraphina had not seen since her days on Hecate.
She stared back at him, unsure if she wanted to know what it was that pleased Noro so.
“I bring you the best of news. It’s of our family,” Noro continued, resting on the dirt floor next to her.
Seraphina tensed, hoping he had not decided to use my sisters or me as bait.
Noro leaned in until his face was mere inches from Seraphina’s.
“Eve and I are to have a child. You two will bear the first fata born to Earth! Is that not exciting?”
Seraphina spat in his face.
The stars vanished and Noro’s eyes sparked with rage. In one smooth motion, he wiped the spit off with his limb and caressed Seraphina’s face.
“Be grateful you are carrying our precious bundle,” Noro growled as he left my mother with juices dripping down her cheek.
At the cusp of dusk four months later, Seraphina felt a faint pressure in her pelvic floor that could only mean one thing. Her child was preparing to greet the world. By the following day her contractions shook her beaten body with a magnitude far beyond that of any of her other pregnancies. Fear overtook her when she worked out the reason why: This child was fata. It did not know how to navigate a human body.
“Why have you not changed back already?! The child will not know how to be born. How could you be so stupid?” Noro screamed throwing open the door for his daily visit.
“I can’t now,” she cried, “I have no energy left to transform or even move.” Her words were ragged, barely audible.
Fear flashed in Noro’s eyes, though Seraphina did not think for a second it was for her.
A battle Seraphina never thought she would have to fight had been raging inside her, since she realized the consequences of choosing her human form. Would she transform and hopefully survive the pregnancy, only to have her child taken from her? Or would she allow the child to die within her, unable to find its way out, to spite the father?
“Build a fire,” she blurted out before she changed her mind.
“Fire?” Noro asked.
“Argh!” Seraphina screamed as a contraction tore through her. “Have you learned nothing in all your time spying, you imbecile? Bring me wood and two flat rocks. Now!”
For the first time since their reunion on Earth, Noro followed Seraphina’s orders.
Seraphina instructed him on arranging the sticks, then lit the fire in the human manner on the floor of her prison. She waited until the flames swelled to the height of a full-grown man before sitting back to bask in the fire’s heat.
Her magic, low after the hours spent protecting her body in labor, sung in her veins as it devoured the flame’s energy. With each heartbeat Seraphina grew stronger, and within minutes she was able to pull energy from the earth and water underfoot, even a bit from the stagnant air that Eve’s protective spells swirled in, still as strong as the day she’d set them
.
As soon as she could, Seraphina released her human form. Her magic flew from the core of her pneuma, the essence of her fata body, outward. Waves of power pulsed through each vein, muscle, and bone she had crafted, coaxing each solid bit of matter into her natural, airy form.
“Is it working?” Noro asked inching his way closer.
“Yes,” Seraphina whispered. She watched mesmerized as the tinge of her human skin grew red, her natural fata color.
Suddenly, another contraction ripped through her, halting her transformation and doubling her over in pain.
That contraction was the first of many that ravaged Seraphina’s half-transformed body. The speed at which they pummeled her increased, and soon it became impossible for her to continue the transformation from human to fata. She found she no longer held sway over her power. Her magic had abandoned her, instinctively rushing to guard her womb while her body spasmed uncontrollably.
“Can you finish?” Noro asked after several minutes of watching my mother suffer.
“They’re coming too fast . . . too strong. I don’t have full control over my body or magic right now.” Seraphina’s voice startled her. It held the airy quality from her years in Hecate, a resonance she had lost during her time on Earth.
“I was afraid it might come to this,” Noro replied, leaving her on the ground to pace the room’s perimeter.
“What do you mean?” Seraphina asked, watching him shake queerly as he floated with his back to her.
Noro spun to face Seraphina and she recoiled. His amorphous, airy arms had morphed into long, jagged protrusions. Before she could register what was happening Noro flung himself on top of her.
Her human skin opened as easily as a ripe fruit. Surprisingly small amounts of blood flew through the air as Noro’s arms pushed aside what remained of her solid human heart and lungs. As he dug deeper, searching for his quarry, Noro nicked the thin membrane that housed Seraphina’s pneumatic core. She gasped as wisps of red mist began pouring from her wound. Noro made no move to stop it and Seraphina began to panic. If it drained entirely, she knew she would not survive.
