Goddess Rising

by Melissa Bowersock

  Slipping into the grove, Grace approached Abel. He sat on the ground, his back against a tree bole, and checked the edge of his flint spear point. He’d kept to the natural stone even when some men preferred the rusted metal they found among the ruins. The stone, Abel said, was easier to maintain and, more importantly, was the Goddess’ own tool, more in accordance with the life force on which they depended for food. As Grace saw him run a practiced thumb over the spear point, she wondered if Pat had chosen Abel because he understood the Goddess, or if he understood because Pat had chosen him.

  “Abel,” she called out, “the strangers are here. Pat says to come.”

  Fully expectant, Abel gathered up his weapons and put them away in the leather pouch he wore slung over his shoulder. The men all rose to their feet and slapped dust from their coarse woven trousers. Some, Grace noted, looked distinctly bored with the idea of a gathering, while some anticipated a lively visit or exchange of ideas. The different levels of Goddess-light in them were markedly obvious to Grace.

  Abel fell in beside her as they walked through the grove.

  “Will you go out to hunt tomorrow if the strangers stay in the valley tonight?” she asked.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “Perhaps just a few will go. One day will not make much difference.”

  Grace felt comfortable with Abel, with his easygoing temperament. Nothing unsettled him. While Pat was moody and intense, Abel was calm and detached. He was a good balance for his mate. Pat did well to choose him.

  Grace had no illusions about Abel being her father. He had joined the colony when she was six, wandering in alone on a summer afternoon. It was almost a year later before Pat married him; Grace attended the ceremony. If she could choose a father, she might choose a man like Abel, but it was a moot point. The light of the Goddess passed from mother to daughter, woman to woman. A father’s contribution—unless the man were remarkably attuned to the Goddess—was minor.

  “This group is large,” Grace told him. “More than half our number.”

  “Yes,” Abel said. “They grow more restless as each year passes. I think they’ll come in greater and greater numbers and more often as time goes on. The dream gets stronger.”

  Grace examined Abel’s clear, intelligent face with her eyes. “You’ve had the dream, haven’t you?” she asked, knowing.

  Abel nodded. “Once. It was more a realization than a dream; a knowing. I’ve never had it again, but it’s as if it exists within me, a taut cord stretched the length of my body, and every so often the Goddess strums it.” He looked thoughtful. “She touches it more and more often.”

  A thrill ran up Grace’s spine at his words. Perhaps the time of the Sibling’s coming really was drawing near. As blessed as Grace was with attunement for the Goddess-force in the world around her, she had never had the dream, never heard the Goddess speak, never been visited by the undeniable knowing of the Goddess’ will. She flowed along in the river of the life force, content and at peace, yet never saw the spark of revelation that lit some people’s eyes. She found that spark wonderful.

  “And the dream brought you here,” Grace finished for him. She was again grateful to live here at the Ruins, to be tied by blood and circumstance to the Sibling, to be a part of the great deliverance, no matter how small and inconsequential. For the moment her doubts were forgotten and she felt only the thrill of anticipation.

  “I’m going on ahead,” she told him, too excited to walk slowly. Skipping ahead, she retraced the narrow grass-edged path back to the Ruins and slipped silently in through the kitchen door.

  There was a murmur of voices in the great room. She felt more than heard the unseen numbers of people; the air vibrated with their energy. Any gathering of colony with strangers took on this high, thrumming sense of urgency and expectancy. The hope and desire was a thickness in the air, a tangible feeling that permeated the Ruins and plucked at one’s skin. Grace chafed gooseflesh on her arms and slipped through the door into the great room.

  She was stunned by the quiet pandemonium. Small knots of strange women stood about the front of the room, talking animatedly to colony women, gesturing at the room around them or tending more babies than Grace had ever seen at one time. They chattered in a strange cadence, although their words were familiar enough, and seemed poised on the edge of excitement and fear.

  In the center of the room, Pat stood stiffly before a group of the strangers—older women—and listened patiently to their plea.

  “From far we come,” the apparent head woman said in her odd cadence, “as commands the Goddess. Stronger and stronger is the dream.” Grace was struck by the similarity to Abel’s words of just a few moments before. “Soon the Sibling is coming. Here we will wait for her.”

  Pat listened to the woman’s terse yet earnest words and looked displeased. “The dream grows ever stronger,” she agreed with reservations, “but only the Goddess can know when the time is at hand. We know of no signs, no portents of the coming. It may well still be many years away.”

  The other woman wagged her head back and forth. “Signs we have. A man of our family sees the Sibling in his mind. In light he sees her; in the face of the Goddess he sees her.”

  The edges of Pat’s mouth turned down in vexation. “You take the ravings of a man as sign?”

  “Sign it is,” the woman cut in. “Since birth this man is blind, and sees nothing. I know, in his mind, he sees. The Sibling is near; the Goddess shows her to him.”

  Grace was surprised to see her mother’s back straighten even more, as if she were angry or—afraid? There was a character of posture Grace couldn’t identify, but she knew Pat was displeased.

  “We will have time to talk,” Pat reassured the visitor stiffly. “Please, put down your bundles and be welcome in our valley. We will eat together, and talk.”

  The other woman nodded, sure of herself. She gestured to her companions to sling down their burdens. With that seemed to come a signal to relax; the visitor women began to chatter excitedly to one another, and to their colony hostesses.

  “This blind man,” Pat said to the lead woman.

  “Orin?”

  “Yes, Orin,” Pat said. “Is he with you? Did he come?”

  “Outside he is,” the other woman nodded happily. “To know the Sibling before he dies, that is his wish.”

  “And that is for the Goddess to grant,” Pat snapped.

  Grace chilled at the sight of her mother’s rudeness as Pat turned her back and walked straight toward the kitchen door. Afraid she would somehow receive the brunt of her mother’s obvious ill mood, she scrambled backward through the door, out of Pat’s way, and edged over to the long counter. Pat charged into the kitchen, all stiffness and vexation.

  “Where are the men?” she demanded.

  Grace flinched at her cold tone. “Coming. I ran ahead. They should be here any moment.”

  Pat tapped a foot thoughtfully, agitatedly on the kitchen floor. “I can’t believe the Goddess would do this to me,” she said to herself. “Oh, for a man with no sensitivity!” She paced the kitchen. “Maybe this Orad—”

  “Orin,” Grace corrected, then bit her lip in regret at calling attention to herself.

  “—Orin, then.” Pat seemed not to even notice her daughter. “Maybe he’s no more than an old fool. But I can’t take the chance. Oh, there’s no time! There’s no time!” She leaned against the kitchen wall and threw her head back, as if she might see the face of the Goddess in the dingy ceiling above her. “Is this the way it must be, then?” she asked the ceiling. “Is it time?”

  The ceiling gave no answer.

  “All right,” Pat said, shaking her head sadly. She dropped her tired eyes to Grace, and Grace shifted uneasily. “If it’s time, so be it. But at least give me time to explain ...”

  Grace was afraid. She’d never seen Pat so agitated or so soulful at the same time. Her mother was ever controlled, ever confident—until now. She looked defeated.

  “The Goddess’ w
ill, not mine,” she was murmuring. Her eyes sightless, she suddenly straightened and Grace saw a familiar strength infusing her mother’s body, returning it to its normal control. Pat was herself again—proud, strong, unwavering.

  She stared hard at Grace. “We need water,” she said tonelessly. “We need the bins full.”

  Grace’s heart sank. “Yes, Mother.” She would miss the gathering. She would miss every bit of the visitors’ exciting news. All the joy for the things she had accomplished this morning was covered over by a gray blanket of disappointment. She went and got her buckets and trudged out the door.

  Amid the ballyhoo of the visitors’ setting up a makeshift camp and becoming comfortable at the Ruins, all the tables of the great room were laden with food and water and seventy-odd people jostled good-naturedly for places to sit. The colony people and the strangers mixed well enough, each wanting the company of the other for news and stories. The fewer men from each group gravitated toward each other, eager to talk of hunting or laborsaving ideas or horticulture. Abel, as Pat’s husband, sat beside Ona, the visitor’s leader, at the high table with the blind Orin on his other side. Ona had no present husband, so Pat sat between her and Maren, the group’s second, a younger woman with a muscular body and clear eyes. In order of unspoken rank the remainder of the two groups arranged themselves at the lower tables, fanning outward from their leaders.

  Pat took a small loaf of bread from a wooden trencher and broke it into several pieces. Offering first to Ona, then to Maren, she passed the trencher to Abel. He gave one piece to Orin and took the last for himself. Returning the empty trencher to Pat, he bowed his head. Everyone else did the same.

  “We thank you, oh Goddess,” Pat intoned, “for this food which is Your gift, which is our life. We thank You for these friends who have come so far at Your beckoning. We thank You for all Your bounty, all Your love. We await Your will.”

  “Please enjoy the food,” Pat told the assembled group, and immediately the room was filled with the din of chattering voices, the rasp of metal on wood and pleased sounds of delighted palates.

  “Generous is the Goddess,” Ona said to Pat, gesturing at the bounty before them.

  “Our valley is blessed,” Pat agreed. “Where is it you have come from?”

  “Almost an entire moon,” Ona said pointing, “from the west. Maren keeps track of how many days.”

  “Twenty-three,” Maren supplied.

  Pat nodded, surprised at the distance that implied. It was the farthest anyone had come to reach the Ruins.

  “Who guides you?” Abel asked.

  Ona smiled with a trace of smugness, her mouth full. “Orin,” she answered after a moment.

  At the blind man’s name, there was an immediate drop of conversation and several pairs of eyes at the closest tables turned to see the unusual male prophet. Sightless but still well able to hear, the white-haired man sat a bit straighter in his seat. He laid a hand on Abel’s arm and leaned toward the sound of Ona’s and Pat’s voices.

  “The Goddess guides,” he pronounced reverently.

  “How does the Goddess guide you?” Abel asked.

  The old man pulled back to a more comfortable distance from Abel. All his senses except sight were keen.

  “Here I feel it,” he said, stroking the front of his brow with gnarled fingers. “Here She tells me how to go. I turn, She tells me no, not that way; yes, this way.” He demonstrated, turning his head, holding up a flat vertical hand or a pointing, horizontal one to show how the Goddess directed.

  “So as long as you are going the right direction, you feel Her gift?” Abel asked. “And if you turn wrong, the feeling changes?”

  “Yes, yes,” Orin said, pleased that Abel understood so quickly. “The feeling of the Goddess you have also?”

  “Very little,” Abel admitted. “I have felt the dream once.”

  “The dream, yes,” Orin breathed. “The dream is ...” He searched for words. “Joy. And pain. For the Sibling, joy and pain.” He turned his head slowly, as if looking about the room. “This ... Ruins ... is the place of the Sibling. The Goddess-light shines from here.”

  “Yes,” Abel said. It was common knowledge to all who had dreamed or heard or been taught the Prophecy that the Sibling would rule from the Ruins; that was not news. But the feeling Abel got from this man—the incredibly strong, knowing feeling—gave him chills. He could almost feel the hair on the back of his neck rise up, as if the Sibling were only just behind him. He turned away from Orin and glanced past Ona to Pat. The expression in her eyes stunned him.

  Pat knew.

  Grace hauled the awkward, full bucket up to her shoulders and tipped its contents into the big bin. The splash echoed hollowly in the empty kitchen, a depressing reminder that her job was far from done, that she would be hauling water long after the visiting-feast was over.

  She couldn’t help but wonder why her mother was being so particularly harsh on her today of all days. She didn’t for an instant fault Pat—she understood that Pat’s demand for discipline and duty was a commitment to the Goddess—but she wished miserably that today might have been different. She hungered for news and stories as much as anyone in the colony, and wanted so much to hear it firsthand.

  And instead she was hauling water.

  The food smells that drifted into the kitchen were just another mouthwatering reminder of what she missed, and a reminder that she’d had nothing all day but a piece of fruit. Her stomach grumbled in response. Setting her empty buckets by the door for the next trip out, she rummaged through the cluttered counters for food the women might have overlooked. Pat would not begrudge her a midday nibbling; after all, she was being taught hard work and discipline, but she was not being punished. In all her harshness, Pat had never been cruel.

  Near the ovens she found a small loaf of bread, the bottom of it blackened to char by a too-hot fire. Knowing it was unfit to be served visitors, she broke the burned part off and put the rest away in a fold of her sack dress. A platter of fruit sat nearby, and she picked another sweet one to eat while her buckets filled. Near the great room door sat a cloth-wrapped brick of cheese, and she broke off a corner of it as well. That would hold her until day’s end, when she could have supper of whatever the visitors left.

  Through the closed door, she could hear the murmur of many companionable voices and she was pained again by her necessary exclusion. How grand to be able to go in and sit near the high table and listen to the old male prophet! Obviously Pat had her doubts about the man’s authenticity, but it would be exciting all the same to hear what he might say about the Sibling. Driven by youthful curiosity, planning on only taking a moment or two, she nudged the door open a few inches and peered out at the gathering.

  There was the prophet—Orin. He stared sightlessly out over the great room and chewed his food happily. Grace had noticed some silent passage between Pat and Abel, but she was more interested in Orin. She wished he would speak.

  Abruptly, she saw his body tauten. He put out a hand, patting the table restlessly until he felt Abel’s arm, then his hand gripped the younger man.

  “The Sibling,” he said hoarsely, his voice breaking. “Her light shines in this place.”

  “Yes,” Abel said, his own voice questioning the old man’s insistence even as he reassured him. “The dream tells us that.”

  “Not the dream!” Orin roared in his old man’s voice. “The Sibling—I see her! She is shown to me by the Goddess. I see her—here.” He tapped the old brow above his sightless eyes.

  Eyes that seemed to look directly at Grace.

  Startled by that blind stare, unnerved by the man’s outbreak, Grace felt her heart lurch painfully against her chest. Her ears roared. She glanced at her mother and was aghast to find Pat looking back. She jerked back from the door and almost fell backward over her own surprised feet. Recovering her balance, she darted for her buckets. She was halfway out the door when Pat reached the kitchen.

  “Grace!” Pat called
sternly. “Where are you going?”

  “To the fault, Mother. I had only stopped for a moment. Honestly. I wasn’t dawdling.” Feeling guilty and duty-bound and somehow afraid, she kept walking even as she spoke. It unnerved her even more to realize Pat was following her outside.

  “What did you hear in there?” Pat demanded.

  “I—don’t know.” Grace was horrified to realize she was very close to tears. Everything was suddenly strange, with a dreamlike quality to it. The day seemed to be unraveling. “I just heard the man—Orin—say he could see the Sibling. That’s all. I hadn’t been standing there more than an instant.”

  “Grace.” Pat’s voice sounded breathless behind her on the path. “Stop. Stop and listen to me.”

  “But the water,” Grace said, wishing for the ordinary, comfortable quiet of the stream. “The bins aren’t full.”

  “I don’t care about the bins! Stop and listen to me.”

  Pat’s sudden change of priorities, the strange urgency in her voice all scared Grace. The girl faltered in her steps and before she could regain her stride, Pat was there, yanking the buckets out of her hands, throwing them aside.

  “Mother ... ?” Grace questioned Pat with growing unease. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  “Listen to me,” Pat said, gripping Grace’s shoulders and digging her fingers into the girl’s flesh. “What Orin said—it’s true. He is a true prophet of the Goddess. I hadn’t wanted to tell you yet, but the time has come. You must know.”

  Grace didn’t like this. Not Pat’s words or the way she said them or the intense, burning light in her eyes. She was terrified that Pat was leading up to something so awesome that she didn’t even want to consider it. She didn’t think she wanted to know.