Greer was struck by the surety that rang in Hannah’s voice. She could almost see the colors that swam at the edge of her vision, almost feel the fiery warmth of the aura Hannah described. Almost, she thought, feel the love of the Goddess flowing back into her awareness. She was still afraid—afraid to believe so blindly—but something stirred in her.
“I would that I had your faith,” she said to Hannah. “I would that I felt your certainty and not this chimera of doubt that I’ve battled all my life. I am not worthy of you.”
Hannah smiled, like the bright sun coming out from behind gray clouds. “I would debate that with you,” she teased, “but let it go. We both know She calls us, and we can do no more than obey. Let us go to Her together and perhaps my faith will sustain you until your knowing is clear to you once more. It will be, one day. I am sure of that.”
Humbled by this woman’s immense, unshakable faith, Greer bowed her head and rested her forehead on Hannah’s hands. She felt very tired.
“You are right,” she said softly, “your hands are warm. They soothe. I think your healer’s arts work on me, also. I am so tired, but it is not the tired of an aching heart; it is the tired of exhaustion.” She raised her head and met Hannah’s eyes. “I can’t share your certainty, not yet, but I will be content to abide by it. Will you come with me, sustain me with your faith? I—I need you.”
Bowing her head slightly, joy shining from her face, Hannah let silent tears drop onto their entwined hands.
“Yes,” she said softly, “I will.”
They traveled only a small distance that day; just past the fringes of Hannah’s people’s familiar territory. They stopped at a place where a dip in the parklands cradled a bowl of soft grass and as Greer rested, Hannah set up their meager camp. Beside Balat’s knife, Greer had some sweet roots in her robe and a chunk of cheese she’d found at a shrine to the Goddess. Hannah found some still juicy late citrus and they dined by starlight. Greer had her firestones but by tacit agreement they kept a cold camp.
When they were sated, they relaxed together on the soft grass and spoke quietly.
“Where do you go?” Hannah asked.
Greer gestured to the southeast. “That way. There are mountains there that call me. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
Hannah nodded thoughtfully. “Whenever any of my people speak of the Sibling, they look off that way. It is somehow known that your realm will be built there.”
Greer was silent for a moment, then asked, “What else do your people know?”
Hannah thought back. “That you will bring cohesiveness back to our world. That you will rule wisely and show us the way back to harmony. That you will bring us balance, and peace.”
“Do they know that while I am ruling wisely, I will be tortured with doubt and uncertainty? Or that under the greatness that they prophesy is pain?”
Hannah did not meet Greer’s eyes. “No. Those things were not given to them.”
“I thought not.” Greer brooded for a long moment, then shifted so she lay facing Hannah. “Tell me,” she said, leaning on her elbow, “about you. What do you do when you are not healing or birthing babies?”
In the deepening darkness, Hannah told Greer her story; how she seemed destined to be a nurturer/healer from the first; how she found room in her heart to love every small, innocent thing; how, as maternal as she was, motherhood and love with men seemed to elude her. Although she overflowed with love for all the small and helpless she’d touched, there was within her an emptiness that none of her nurturing had filled.
“Do you seek to fill that void, then?” Greer asked.
Hannah shook her head. There was about her a resigned sadness. “No. I trust in the Goddess to use me as best She will. My desires are as nothing to Hers. She may sometime deem it that I have my own child, my own husband, to love but if not, I must be content. Her will—not mine.”
“You have never known physical love, then?” Greer asked.
“No. I have heard it, seen it, counseled it, attended it, but never known it. Sometimes I feel I know more about it than anyone, save Her, and still I know nothing. Have you?”
“I know even less than you. But I—I don’t think I want it. I have this feeling sometimes that my force, my creative power, is for far more remarkable things. I feel like I must save myself—for Her. That my energy is Hers alone. If I were to scatter it—piecemeal it out—I could not do Her work. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Still,” Greer said, lost in her thoughts, “I crave love also. I had someone once—I had a father. He was no relation to me, but was my father by choice. He loved me.”
“I never knew my father,” Hannah admitted, “but my mother was good to me. She loved me beyond anything. She is dead now.”
“My mother also,” Greer said. “I never knew her; she died as I was born.” She looked at Hannah sadly. “So we have each had one person love us. That is not very much.”
“Some people never have even that,” Hannah noted, but Greer’s meaning was not lost on her. “We have each other, Greer. I will love you if you wish.”
For a long, dark moment Greer was silent. She met Hannah’s eyes and saw starlight reflected there and still, deep water. She saw passion and loyalty, reverence and boundless faith. She saw adoration so pure it pained her.
“And I,” she said, feeling emotion rise up in her throat, “will love you.”
The next day, they reached the low foothills, each mounding a little higher upon the last, great rounded stair steps to the high mountains. Seeing the high ground rise up before them—no longer in the infinite distance, but here, now—Greer fell silent.
“What is it?” Hannah asked, seeing her hesitation.
Greer shuddered, staring upward. “I don’t know what awaits me there. I feel vulnerable; unprotected.”
Hannah stepped closer. “I’ll be with you.”
“Yes.” Greer smiled halfheartedly. “I wish I had your courage.”
“Perhaps,” Hannah said, “it is much easier to have courage when greatness is not a part of one’s future. I am only a midwife; no one will demand more of me than that.”
Greer eyed her new friend curiously. Was there bitterness there? No, she didn’t think so. But there was truth. Even disturbed, she could sense that. And beyond the truth in Hannah’s words, there was more.
“I will demand more of you,” she said with gentle firmness.
Hannah looked surprised for a moment, then inclined her head very slightly, a gleam in her eyes. “And for you, Greer, I will give it.”
They started up the grade. The foothills were steep-sided for all their smooth roundness and finally the women were forced to use the rock-strewn gullies and watercourses as their path. Occasionally as they went, Greer would be struck by a sudden recognition, and she would point the way past an unscalable rock fall or lead them to a less rigorous path. Hannah, who had no knowledge of these highlands, was content to go where Greer led.
The going was slow and they spent days on the climb. If Greer felt like she walked slowly, Hannah gave no notice. If one of them tired—usually Hannah, unused to constant climbing—they would stop and rest and both expressed an interest in the plants they found along the way. Examining the leaves and flowers that presented themselves, they traded healing secrets and herb lore. Greer learned early on that her own halfhearted interest in Balat’s medicines now put her a poor second to Hannah’s knowledge. Hannah, it seemed, knew everything about everything that put down roots and grew, and what plants she did not know she took a sample of and hid within the folds of her robe. By the time they had reached the high, barren plateau from which the mountains thrust, Hannah had cataloged in her mind all the growing things and had adjusted her own recipes enough to keep them fed.
The plateau was an eerie place. Treeless, almost devoid of any green at all, it seemed an island of purposeless brown in a sea of blue-green haze. All around, the lower world fell away in shades of rich
ness, vivid with the colors of life. High above, the great high mountains towered in their snow-brilliant mantles—icy, aloof, unreachable.
Wordlessly, Greer led them circuitously around the base of the granite peaks. Hannah followed without question, knowing Greer went where she must without a definable knowing. On their third day on the plateau, just past midday, Greer came to a high overlook, stopped, and sat down.
Hannah came and sat near her. She looked out at the valley far below. The sun glinted off something—a small pond, no doubt—but other than that the valley was unremarkable, at least to her. She wondered what it was that held Greer’s attention so, then realized that Greer was trembling.
“What is it?” she asked, touching Greer lightly on the shoulder.
Ignoring her own shaking, Greer said, “Do you see that place where the sun glints?”
Hannah looked again. “What is it? Water?”
“No, not water. It is a white building. It is the Ruins—my home.”
They spent the rest of that day on the high overlook, Hannah attending to their meager camp, Greer alternately sitting, staring, or pacing. When darkness fell, Hannah used Greer’s firestones to spark a small fire, for both felt a need of it against the high, cold sky. Hannah made a salad for them of greens and seeds she’d gathered and when the night was dark and the stars wheeled slowly overhead, they lay on the ground and Greer told Hannah of her beginnings.
It seemed to be someone else’s story, not her own. Details she had forgotten long ago came back to her as she spoke, and she often felt the emotions—innocent trust, naive contentment, anguish and betrayal—seize her as if she still lived those moments. She talked through tears of her fear and panicked flight but would not let Hannah comfort her. She spoke in soft, smiling tones of her life with Balat, sometimes stumbling as she translated the words of his language into theirs. She talked haltingly of her time as a wild thing, the speech of any human inadequate to explain that dreamlike interlude. And she spoke of her eventual awakening to the destiny before her, the cup the Goddess had filled for her that she had so long refused to drink.
“I am not the person who left this valley so many years ago,” she said at last. “I am no longer Grace, my sister’s fosterling, the quiet, simple, contented child. I have lost the innocence I had then, the trust. I have lost the cloak of sweet purity that I wore then.”
Hannah, listening throughout in silence, shifted quietly at her side. “Perhaps,” she agreed, “but you have become the person you need to be. The Goddess has forged you in Her fire, tempered you in Her flood, and formed you into the woman She needs you to be. It is true you are no longer Grace, and I mourn with you her passing, but that is as must be. You are Greer, now. That is all. You are what you are.”
In the darkness, Greer found Hannah’s hand and pressed it. “I see now why the Goddess threw you at my feet. I need you, Hannah. I rail against fate and make myself miserable, and you are so pragmatic. Your simplicity shames me. Perhaps, when I have no wish to do what I must for myself, I can do it willingly—for you.”
“Oh, not for me,” Hannah insisted quickly. “For the Goddess.”
Greer smiled at the irony. “To me, you are one and the same.” She leaned over and kissed Hannah’s brow. “Sleep. Tomorrow we will start down toward the valley. The future begins tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 21
Abel cut determinedly with his hoe at the wild grass that grew so quickly at the base of the tree. This time of year he could barely leave the groves a moment and it seemed the grasses sprang up behind him. The frequent heavy dews and the ever-warming sun called every seed ever dropped to sprout. Cultivating around the new, small trees was a constant battle.
He stopped and dragged an arm across his forehead, wiping away sweat and grime. Just past midday, the sun was at its hottest. He seemed to sweat more lately; at least he didn’t remember sweating so freely when he was younger. Strange that he never seemed to notice a change until it was fully wrought. He didn’t feel like he was getting old, but sometimes ...
“Daddy! Daddy!”
He looked up and grinned at his tiny daughter crossing the grove to him. Just barely three, the furrows of the irrigation canals were formidable obstacles to her and she had to focus all her attention on crossing them even when they were dry, as now. She walked cautiously atop the berm, took a deep breath and plunged down into the shallow rut, then scrambled ungraciously to the top of the next berm. Although her forward progress demanded all her attention, her final destination—Abel—was the greatest prize and she often stole quick glances at him as she negotiated the canals. One day, he was afraid, she would look up at the wrong time and go sprawling. Thank the Goddess three-year-olds were so resilient.
Refraining from speaking and possibly distracting her at a crucial moment, Abel leaned on his hoe and watched her come. She was his joy. Tiny and delicate and golden, she was his most blessed gift. Even all the love he had for her mother could not compare to his love for Kyra.
“Daddy!” she called again as she topped the last berm. Barefooted, half naked and browned by the sun, she still shone.
Grinning, Abel set his hoe against the tree and squatted down, arms wide. Kyra ran as fast as she could into those arms, her little body colliding with his, her pudgy arms flung around his neck. She planted gooey kisses on his face.
“Kyra, love,” Abel said happily, “what are you doing out here? Does your mother know where you are?”
“Mommy sent me,” she replied with three-year-old indignation. “She said you forgot your water bin and that it’s hot out here. She said you’ll forget and won’t drink and you need your fl—flu—”
“Fluids,” Abel finished. “And she’s right; I did forget and I didn’t want to stop and go get it.”
Modeling a pose of her mother’s, Kyra put her tiny fists against her waistless sides. “But you stopped now, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Abel laughed, hugging her. “Now, the question is, are you going to stay here and do my work while I go get my water? Hmm?”
Kyra shook her head solemnly. “No, Daddy. I’m going back with you!”
“Oh,” he said in mock surprise. “So you won’t do my work for me?”
“No. I have my own work.”
“And what’s that?”
“Silly,” Kyra said, “I had to tell you to get your water!”
“Oh, yes.” Abel stood, pulling his daughter up with him and swinging her up on his shoulders. Familiar with her high perch, she clasped her tiny hands around his neck and laid her chin on the top of his head. When he felt she was securely attached to him, he started off through the grove, ducking low under branches that she called to his attention.
“Daddy,” she said halfway through the grove. “What’s that noise?”
Abel realized he’d been attentive to nothing but his small daughter and now switched his senses to the rest of the world. An abrasive hum rattled from a nearby tree.
“I’ll show you,” he said. Parting the lower branches of the tree, mindful of the thumbnail-sized fruit that clustered amid the leaves, he searched for the insect. He listened closely to the harsh ticking, scanning the tree branches. It had to be here somewhere. They were usually quite large, but a transparent gray that made them hard to see. He kept following the sound.
“Ah—there!” He pointed to a branch above them, one that bowed and dipped in the breeze. “See that gray beetle, just past that clump of leaves? It’s lying along the branch, so it’s hard to see.”
“Does it have big, dark eyes?” she asked.
“Yes, big like a fly’s. See it?”
“I think so. What’s it doing?”
“It’s calling for a mate.” Abel frowned to himself. “It’s awfully early, though; we’re not near the equinox yet, and they don’t usually start until after. Well,” and he shifted his daughter’s weight and backed carefully out of the branches, “I guess he’ll just be calling for a long time.”
“No, Daddy, there�
�s another one!” She loosed her grip on his neck to point in the direction of the new sound and almost toppled backward off his shoulders. Luckily Abel had one hand against her back and he steadied her even as he turned toward the second sound.
“Well, that’s strange,” he said. “I wonder what’s set them off?”
“Another one!” Kyra squealed when a third insect began its chirring. “And another one! And another!”
Baffled, Abel turned circles in the middle of the grove, and from all directions the frantic ticking-humming of the beetles came at him. Unlike their usual mating procedure, none stopped when a new one began; they all kept up the racket. More and more chimed in, louder and deeper, harsher and more frenzied. Soon the air of the grove vibrated with their song and the vibration rattled the eardrums of the humans. Kyra squealed and put her hands over her ears.
That was when Abel seemed to realize somehow that the thrumming was not limited to the grove alone, nor was it caused by the beetles’ early calling. He seemed to feel it in his feet, from the ground itself. He sensed it coming from all directions—above him, below him, all around. The beetles, he thought suddenly, were only answering it. A prickle of excitement, chilled by anxiety, patterned up his spine.
“Hang on,” he told Kyra tersely, and set off through the grove in a longstrided walk.
“What is it, Daddy?” Kyra held his neck in a strangle hold, even her tiny fingers echoing the apprehension that was all around.
“Shh.” Uncharacteristically, he put off her question. Striding through the trees, he was aware of ever more beetles taking up the call. He steadied his daughter with both hands and began to trot. After a long moment he broke out of the trees and onto the path.
Goddess Rising Page 26
