Sapphic Voices Fantasy

When Amazons Dream

Part Three Of A Three-Part Saga
Dream III: In The Realm Of Possibility

Disclaimers: `This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the Author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.'

Cautionary Note: This Story is not suitable for underage readers. If it were a movie it would likely be rated `R'--no one under eighteen admitted.'

Library of Congress Registration: Oct. 2004

Chapter X

Thanks to Signe's maps, the trek across the deserts of Anatolia was uneventful. In the foothills of the Caucasus, more pilgrims, a couple of mountain guides, plus a dozen llamas joined the longest caravan ever to the Caspian Sea. By early Summer, it snaked through a labyrinth of towering snow-capped peaks and dark, forbidding valleys. With plenty of grazing for the animals, the inspired hearty pilgrims were able to reach the summit of Sofia Pass by the Fall Equinox.

The plan was to follow the eastern coast of the fish-infested Caspian northward to the vast steppes of Kirza and then head east to the Aral Sea, where they would camp until Spring. But an early blizzard forced them to Winter-over in a grassy ravine carved out by the Sofia River. Hemp yurts provided shelter for most of the pilgrims; the rest, including Andrea's coven, found refuge inside a vast shallow cavern on the edge of an alpine meadow.

"I knew I'd come to this," Andrea muttered while tossing another chunk of deadwood on the roaring fire.

Lineah laughed and said, "We could bunk in one of the yurts."

"And sleep like sardines. No thank you."

"All that body heat would be nice during the long nights ahead," Lineah said. She turned a large fish sizzling on the cooking stone.

"I'm plenty warm at night, believe me," Andrea said with raised eyebrows.

"So am I," Helen said and kissed Lineah on the cheek.

"The twins take care of each other, but I worry about Ren and Shu-Li. They'll have to double up," Andrea said.

"That'll be a cold day in hell," Lineah joked just as the moody astrologer approached with an armful of wood. Ren, a few steps behind, carried a small sack of cornmeal and a jug of goat's milk. Shu-Li deposited the wood on the pile.

"Hell sounds pretty good to me right now," she said and rubbed her numb hands together over the fire.

"Yeah, that wind is a killer," Ren had to agree. She poured goat milk into a ceramic cooking pot and added some cornmeal.

"Not that glop again," Shu-Li groaned. Ren pulled a jade vial from inside her jacket. "A little something to sweeten the pot," she said and poured the contents into the mixture.

"Blessed Be," Andrea said.

"Where'd you get honey?" Shu-Li asked, catching a dab with her finger.

"It's surprising what those clever Iberians brought along. They even have several kegs of wine."

"Maybe we should drop in for a visit one of these evenings," Lineah said.

"Inez made me promise not to say anything about the wine."

"Me thinks my little sister is blushing," Andrea teased.

"Ren's got herself a honey pot all right," Shu-Li couldn't resist the chance to needle somebody.

"Don't be a jerk," Ren snapped at her. "Inez and I are just friends."

"Spoken like a true closet case," Shu-Li muttered under her breath, loud enough for Ren to hear.

"I am not!"

"Don't get your up tight tail in a knot, Rennie dearest," Shu-Li jabbed.

"It's hard to relax with you sniping all the time," Ren countered and vigorously stirred the sweetened pot of gruel.

"Honesty is not sniping," Shu retorted.

Ren and Shu had been bickering all morning, and Ren was sick of it. She stopped stirring the gruel and glared at the testy astrologer. "Maybe if you got laid once in awhile you wouldn't be so quick to mouth off." Ren serenely returned to her stirring. Shu-Li looked as if she might explode.

"You know, Shu," Andrea, as usual, had to referee. "I worry about you. Not that I blame you for feeling miserable, we're all dog-tired, but I can't help thinking there's more to..."

"If I need counseling I'll ask one of Signe's novices. I can't help it if people don't want to hear the truth about themselves," Shu snapped.

"The truth isn't always negative," Lineah said. "I can't remember the last time you gave encouragement."

"Actions speak louder than words. I carry my weight around here."

"Of course you do, hon," Andrea said. "I need to say it more often, but I appreciate everything you do. But I'm hurt that you don't confide in me anymore."

The Chinese Amazon stared into the fire and didn't mince words. "A true friend doesn't sleep with the enemy," she hissed and stomped off. Ren stood to go after her.

"No. Let her be," Andrea said.

Ren knew her sister had been cut to the quick. The subject of Andrea's unabashed heterosexuality was one the coven avoided like the plague, all but Shu-Li, that is. Every time the dyed-in-the-wool separatist brought it up, the fur would fly, feelings would get hurt. For weeks on end afterwards everyone would walk on eggshells; the strain sometimes left the coven teetering on the brink of dissolution.

There would be no coven without Andrea Tedesco; a truer friend of the women in her life and a more steadfast fighter for feminist ideals never lived. And not once did the feisty water witch display anything other than complete acceptance and even outright envy of lesbian sexuality. It wasn't that she hadn't experimented along the way, but, as she was fond of saying, "I'm here, wet, and horny--get over it."

But Shu-Li, unlike the rest of her coven, could not, would not `get over it.' In spite of her political diatribes, the Chinese Amazon had never really come down to the whole truth of the matter.

"She didn't mean it, baby," Lineah said to Andrea, who was weeping.

"Don't feel sorry for me. It's Shu who's hurting and I can't for the life of me figure out the right thing to say or do to tear down the wall between us. It's getting thicker and taller every day and I worry that one morning we'll wake up and she'll be gone. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up a hermit living on top of some peak in Tibet."

"That may not be so bad. Solitude is chosen by many of the world's great sages," Lineah tried her best to reassure, even though she knew it was no use.

Andrea wiped her tears with the back of her hand. "Shu-Li is miserable even when she's alone."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

Emerald walked up to the campfire and sat down. She signed to Andrea, "Shu has a broken heart."

"Yes, I know." Emerald scooted close and whispered something in her ear. "That's ridiculous," Andrea scoffed and abruptly stood.

"What's ridiculous?" Lineah asked.

"Emerald is playing mind games again." Emerald shook her head and sullenly crossed her arms across her flat chest.

"What did you say to her?" Lineah signed.

"Ask Andrea," Emerald said in a voice that sounded like she had just taken a hit of helium. Lineah looked to the agitated water witch.

"I'm not hungry. Go ahead and eat that fish before it burns," Andrea said and left the camp fire.

After a brisk walk along the raging Sofia River, she wandered over to Moab's yurt, where he was tending to an injured llama.

"That's a nasty gash," Andrea noted with a wince.

"It will heal fast," Moab said while dabbing some comfrey salve on the llama's neck. "Not so for my dromedary."

"I thought llamas were gentle creatures."

"They are, unless you abuse them. They never forget. She must be kept a far distance from my camels. They never forget, either."

"Unforgiving critters, just like some people I know," Andrea muttered.

Moab wiped his hands on his tunic and put the llama on a long grazing line. "You are angry with someone?"

"No, I was just thinking out loud."

"I do that also," he said with a grin.

"And you talk in your sleep," Andrea teased. "Of course, you make sure to avoid the common language so I can't pry into your dreams."

"I dream every night since we began this journey," Moab said.

Andrea wrapped her arms around his neck. "Tell me your favorite."

Moab sat down on a milking bench and pulled his lover onto his knee. "I dream of home," he said and received a soft kiss on his forehead.

"Are you homesick?"

"I think often of Crete and my sister and my brothers of the Swan Lake."

"But you don't dream of them?"

"I dream only of our new home. It is most beautiful, with trees as big as mountains that touch the sky."

"Be careful, Signe will not approve," Andrea said and kissed the crown of thick black curls.

"She does not know how much I love you."

"Oh, I think she does. That's why she let you come on this little hike with me."

"But she is cruel if she thinks that I won't love you more with every step we take together."

"Love is a funny thing, dear heart. It comes and goes on the wind."

"I will always love you," Moab sweetly vowed with a squeeze so tight Andrea let out a little scream. Moab loosened his grip and asked, "Do you not love me forever?"

"I love you now, and now is forever, my darling," Andrea cleverly evaded and surrendered to a passionate kiss. Moab pulled his love into the yurt for quick delight that lasted until his snickering yurt-mates came in to cook the evening meal. Andrea stayed for some hearty fish stew and delicious corn cakes that reminded her of tortillas. Afterwards, Moab walked her back to her cavernous accommodations.

"I was thinking," Andrea said. "Perhaps I will sleep alone tonight. We had so much fun today, I don't want you to tire of me."

"But I could never tire of you."

"I know, hon, but I haven't had a single dream since we left Ananna."

"You must sleep alone to dream?"

"I'm too excited to dream when I'm in your arms."

"I did not think of that," Moab said, tugging on his thick beard.

"Neither did I...until this moment. Anyway, you could think of me tonight and still have your pleasure," Andrea alluringly suggested.

"You are a most clever nymph." When Moab ran his hands over her breasts, Andrea's knees weakened along with her resolve; but the sight of Shu-Li glaring down her nose from the cave entrance was a real turn-off.

Andrea slipped from Moab's amorous embrace. "I feel selfish that other women can't enjoy your incredible prowess," she said, dodging Moab's roving hands. Thinking she was playing, the young stud lifted his tunic to reveal his manhood in full bloom for the tenth time that day. This elicited a chorus of derision from a group of Amazons passing by. When their snickering turned to hexes and evil eyes, Moab hurried into a grove of pine trees.

Andrea didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she opted for anger. "Wipe that smirk off your face," she grumbled at Shu-li before retiring to a cold bedroll at the back of the cavern.

That night, Andrea's dreamtime came fast and furious and it didn’t include Moab. Dressed in resplendent warrior garb and brandishing a sword with three doves perched on its blade, Shu-Li galloped roughshod through Andrea's dreamscape on a red-winged black stallion. Crowned by a halo of circling crows, the fierce astrologer slew dragon after fire-breathing dragon, until a river of blood swirled around the golden hooves of her courageous steed. In the final scene, horse and rider levitated from the gore, orbited the Full Moon a few times, and streaked like a comet across the Milky Way.

Andrea sat bolt upright drenched in sweat. Every vivid detail of the epic kept re-playing in her mind and made sleep impossible. In a panic, she fled from the cave. She got down on her knees and found the Big Dipper in the brilliant night sky.

"I know you're behind this, Signe. Tell me what it all means. I beg of you, give me a sign."

Andrea kept her gaze riveted on the constellation, but nothing, not so much as a shooting Star, indicated that the Oracle had heard a single word. Andrea then appealed to Hecate, something she reserved for serious spellwork. Almost immediately, a shooting Star circled the Moon. The dream replays ended. After giving thanks, the exhausted witch returned to her cold bedroll, hoping for merciful sleep. But, much to her distress, Shu-Li's angry face hovered overhead like a disembodied apparition.

"Knock it off!" Andrea yelled and woke up Lineah and Helen, who were sleeping nearby.

"Andrea," Lineah whispered. "Are you OK?"

The tormented dreamer didn't answer. She lay rigid as a board. Lineah slipped from Helen's arms, grabbed a torch, and crawled over to check. Andrea's dark eyes were wide open, dilated, and unblinking. "Andrea," Lineah whispered, fearing the worst. "Oh, shit. Andrea! Wake up!" She patted Andrea's clammy cheeks.

By then, the entire cave of mostly Amazons was wide awake. Thinking they were under siege, several flew from their bedrolls and scouted the premises. Ren grabbed a torch and rushed to her sister's bedside.

"Is she ill?" she asked Lineah, who shivered more from terror than the treacherous night winds.

"She seems to be in some kind of trance." Lineah checked for a pulse and was relieved to find a slow steady one. Ren moved the torch back and forth across the dilated eyes, but they didn't respond.

"Maybe we can startle her out of it," Helen suggested.

"Good idea. I'll get some ice water," Ren said and dashed out of the cavern. By the time she returned, a small crowd of agitated Amazons had gathered around.

"Give her air," Lineah scolded.

Ren approached with a jug of river water. "Shall I just pour the whole thing on her face?" she nervously asked.

"For crying out loud, don't drown the woman!" a voice bellowed from the shadows. Shu-Li crawled from her bedroll over to the scene and grabbed Ren's torch. "Let me have a look." With her left hand, she gently closed the eyelids and, to her coven's amazement, bent down and tenderly kissed Andrea's hot forehead.

"Did you see what I just saw?" Lineah whispered in Ren's ear. Andrea opened her eyes and stretched luxuriously, as if she'd just awakened from peaceful slumber.

"Blessed Be," Ren sighed.

The first face Andrea saw was Shu-Li's, and it was smiling for a change.

"I remember you," Andrea yawned. "You're quite the dragon slayer."

"If you say so."

"I know so."

"OK, everybody. Show's over. Let's all try to get some sleep," Lineah ordered and impatiently motioned for the crowd to disperse. The twins knelt down next to Andrea, signed something, then each gave her a kiss, one on each cheek.

"Good night, sis," Ren said with a hug.

"What? No bedtime story?" Andrea, back to her old self, quipped. When Ren left, she turned to Shu-Li who was still kneeling close by holding the torch. "Tell me, what happened here?"

"Apparently, you were dreaming with your eyes open."

"I remember seeing your face...you were madder than a hornet. You're not still angry with me, are you?"

"No, but give me a moment," Shu-Li said.

"Quick--leave me. I want you to go to bed happy for once."

"Sure thing...Teddie."

"Teddie? No one's called me that since grade school."

"It's Teddie from now on, then."

"Only when you're not pissed at me."

Shu-Li extinguished the torch and crawled back into her bedroll. Before drifting off, Andrea `Teddie' Tedesco savored traces of the dragon-slayer's rare and beautiful smile.

Chapter XI

Two Winters had come and gone before word of the advancing migration transformed the Angaran outpost into an ecstatic hive of activity. Only half the pilgrims from the bamboo forests of the panda and tiger survived their trek north through the bitter cold and killer altitude of the Himalayas. Sophia conducted a remembrance ceremony for those who died. With a piece of flint, Ariel worked her fingers to the bone etching their names on a rock wall near the waterfall.

"Is there word on the main caravan?" Sophia asked Taji, who'd just returned from a scouting trip west of the outpost.

"The Khangai elders met with guides at the Lena tributaries. The first of the pilgrims should begin to arrive when the Moon is Full."

"A matter of days, then."

"If the weather permits."

"Did the elders say how many there are?"

"Too many to count."

"And what is their condition?"

"Some are frail, some are injured, but all are of good cheer."

"Very well. Their large animals shall shelter with yours at the Kundai meadow. The heated caves are ready. Kara and Leah have been preparing remedies for those in need." "We must not delay our departure past the Summer Solstice," Taji said.

"Yes, I agree. Every night, our spellwork serves that end."

"Sophia. A...there is something I wish to know," Taji mumbled, his eyes cast down.

"Yes? Speak up."

"Is it possible that the great water witch is among the pilgrims?"

"Oh, I am sure of it."

"I think of her when the Kundai spouts."

"And how often is that?"

"Every day," Taji replied with an ear-to-ear grin.

"I see. We may need her services again to insure safe passage to and from the secret meadow."

"The witch can make water return to the Earth?"

"If anyone can, she can. Now, my friend, I have much work to get back to."

The crone stepped inside the cottage. Left to his thoughts, the weary nomad wondered if Andrea would recognize his aged countenance, much less remember the joy they had shared. After Mariana's tragic death, Taji's hair and beard turned gray almost overnight. Although he managed to maintain a cheerful stoicism around his people, when alone his spirit was repeatedly assailed by storms of grief. But it was lingering guilt that dragged him down more than anything else, for he had never forgiven himself for betraying and then banishing his brother from the Chagandei clan.

Often during solitary walks along the Angara, Taji tortured himself with things he could have, should have done differently. In spite of many tearful heart-to-hearts with Sophia, he had yet to find a way to stop punishing himself for all the destruction perpetrated against his once harmonious homeland. On his worst days Taji begged Yin Herself to exchange his life for the return of Mariana's.

It was no wonder, then, that the devout steward of Angaran tradition was more than anxious to be free of the steppe and its harsh memories. Like the condemned awaiting an eleventh hour pardon, Taji couldn't sleep. Night and day, he worked at a fiendish pace in preparation for the arrival of his salvation. He barely took time to eat, which, much to Sophia's consternation, was taking its toll on his once robust health.

Since his leadership was vital to the success of the migration, Taji's torment became a regular subject for the coven's nightly spell work, yet all attempts to exorcise his demons had failed. As a last resort, Sophia hoped that his deep regard for Andrea would do the trick. On numerous occasions, she called upon Ariel to conjure the lively witch just for that purpose.

"She's obviously not willing," Ariel said to the crone during one such round-table effort.

"Maybe she's ill," Kara said as she bounced her daughter Melena on her knee.

Sophia drummed her bony fingers on the table. "Even so, she should give us a sign."

"We know she's still alive," Ariel said. "Her aura continues to come through in that same lovely shade of rose."

"I say we stop banging our heads against the wall. We'll find out the truth of the matter soon enough," Leah argued without looking up from her knitting project, a hat for Melena, who ever since she'd learned to walk preferred the outdoors.

Sophia asked for a joining of hands. "Let us envision clear skies between now and Andrea's arrival on foot."

During the ritual, little Melena slipped from her mother's lap. Her mop of black curls bounced wildly as she wandered over to the cradle she'd outgrown. Cooing in a language only toddlers understand, she began to rock it, gently at first then more vigorously, until its contents let out a wail. Kara broke the circle and rushed over to the scene of the mischief.

"No, Melena. You must be gentle with the baby." Kara lifted the infant out of the cradle.

"Baba," Melena repeated with outstretched arms.

"She needs her mother now," Kara said and, much to her daughter's distress, took the infant from her sight. In the face of Melena's whining protests, Kara handed the infant to Leah, who kissed the tiny forehead of her firstborn and sang a Sumerian lullaby that inspired cooing.

"What a good baby she is," Ariel said and stroked a soft rosy cheek.

"Winterborns have tender hearts," Leah said and re-arranged the blanket.

Kara scooped a very fussy Melena up into her lap. "What are you going to name her?"

"I'm waiting to hear it."

"In a dream?" Ariel asked.

"Perhaps."

"Some souls answer to more than one name," Sophia said.

"You could call her Cora, which signifies heart in many lands," Ariel offered.

"Cora. I like the strength in it," Leah said. "Is that your name, my little one?" She nuzzled her newborn's nose with her own. The baby gurgled and blew a bubble.

"I think she likes that name," Kara chuckled.

"Baba," Melena chimed in and reached for the tiny bundle.

"Baba. Yes, I like that name, too," Leah humored the toddler.

"Let us continue," Sophia said, again reaching for a circle of hands. "Join me in sending strong encouragement to the brave pilgrims heading our way."

"Blessed Be," the coven said in unison.

"Bessie Bee," mimicked Melena.

A round of chuckling inspired a most endearing giggle from the precocious child. Melena slipped from her mother's lap and repeated her version of the sacred phrase, which she accompanied with a little jig. The coven burst out laughing.

When the frivolity was over, Leah announced, "Everyone--I want you to meet Bess." She handed the infant to Ariel, who kissed her and passed her to Sophia, who blessed her and passed her to Kara, who said, "Welcome to the world, Bessie Bee. May your life be a long and happy one." She kissed the baby, as did Melena, the first to speak her name.


Everyone, including baby Bess, slept well that night. At dawn, a loud knock on the cottage door startled Sophia from an important dream. She was less than cordial when she opened it to Taji's beaming smile.

"Sophia! They are in sight!" he gasped, barely able to contain himself.

"Oh, Glorious Day!" the crone shouted. "Where are they?"

"They are crossing the least of the Kundai tributaries. I sent some men with llamas to help."

"Very good! You go greet the first of them, Taji. I will join you shortly."

"Very well, old woman."

"And Taji, have them separate the goats from the pack animals."

"I will make sure of it."

Taji bolted from the doorway and practically flew up the treacherous trail to the canyon rim. Moab and Signe's guides were the first to arrive. They each had a heavily laden dromedary in tow. Having only heard of such creatures, Taji stood in awe as they approached. Caked in mud, the ships of the desert were not in the best of moods and promptly spit all over one of Taji's young clansman when he reached for its ornately tasseled halter.

"I apologize for his rudeness," Moab said and took control of the cranky beast. "Mud has made him sour."

"I am happy to hear the common language. Welcome to Angara," Taji said, stepping up to the handsome young man whose long hair and beard made him look much older.

"I am Moab of Crete," he said with a firm grip on Taji's right arm. Not familiar with that custom, the Angaran stiffened, but managed a polite smile.

"I am Taji of the Chagandei clan." Overcome with emotion, Moab threw his arms around the shy nomad, who struggled against such an intimate embrace. "Are you the caravan leader?" he asked after wriggling free.

"I follow the guides and my sister's maps," Moab, insulted by what he took for rudeness, coldly replied.

"And who is your sister?" Taji asked.

"The Oracle of Crete."

"I wish to see her maps."

Moab promptly opened a pouch hanging from the nasty dromedary's neck. "See for yourself," he curtly said.

As Taji perused them, his leathery forehead furrowed. "I do not recognize these markings."

"The maps are Sumerian; they brought us this far. Now, you must take us east and then north to the land bridge. My sister says you are most capable."

"I myself have only been as far as the Okoh Sea," Taji said, swallowing hard.

"From there, can we follow the coastline to the land bridge?" Moab asked.

"I have learned from the ice dwellers of such a route. The stone that points to the pole Star can guide us."

"My sister spoke of such a stone. Show it to me." Moab held out his hand.

"The crone Sophia has it with her, but I am familiar with its use. I will show you before we leave."

Moab was beginning to have misgivings about the nervous Angaran and asked to see his maps. Taji had none. As the tension between the two men grew; the Angaran kept checking the canyon trail, but there was no sign of Sophia. An Amazon who had joined the migration at the Aral Sea stepped forward from the milling crowd and forcefully addressed Moab in the common language: "Is this our destination, or not?"

"This is Angara," he answered and looked to Taji.

"Yes, welcome." The Angaran tried not to stare at the jagged scar that traced the left jawbone of the muddy pilgrim who towered over him. "I Am Taji."

The Amazon ignored his greeting. "I was told the sage Sophia would meet us," she curtly said.

"She is on her way. It is her wish that everyone separate the goats from the large animals," he suddenly remembered.

"What are we supposed to do with the poultry and sheep?" the tall Amazon disdainfully asked.

"I do not know for sure. What is a sheep?"

"Bring one of the rams over here!" the she shouted to one of her companions. A diminutive woman in mud-caked leggings emerged from the milling crowd with a gnarly ram in tow. She dragged the bleating balking creature over to Taji. In awe, he ran his hand over the grimy fleece.

"A weaver's bounty!" he exclaimed.

The ram bolted and nearly pulled its handler over the brink of disaster before the scar-faced Amazon wrangled the frightened animal to the ground. She picked it up and carried it a safe distance from the precipice.

With a killer scowl at the anxious Angaran, she sharply chastised, "Our sheep do not like the rude voices of men."

"Forgive me," Taji muttered to the angry newcomer whose glare seemed as permanent as her scar.

An awkward silence spurred Moab to ask Taji, "Where are we to pasture our animals?"

"The llamas and other camels will go to the Kundai meadow. It is thick with tender grass and there are stone windbreaks."

"You will lead the way now," Moab ordered and grabbed his dromedary's tether.

"We must wait for Sophia," Taji balked with an eye on the Amazon, who defiantly folded her sinewy arms tight across her mud-splattered tunic.

The scene grew more and more chaotic as the pilgrims streamed in. Aware that Taji was becoming agitated, Moab took out the conch shell and blew a long loud blast.

"Our host requests that you cull your goats and sheep from the beasts of burden!" he bellowed. "Where do you want the sheep and goats to gather?" he asked Taji. "A...I..." the flustered Angaran stammered.

"Welcome, Moab, my son!" Sophia's gravelly voice mercifully rang out behind him. Breathing hard, she negotiated the last few steps to the canyon rim. "Such a magnificent beard!" The crone embraced him. "How handsome you've become!"

"And you are looking handsome as well, old woman," he said, kissing her hand.

"Such talk!" Sophia admonished and scanned the milling throng. With tears flowing down the deep lines of her leathery cheeks, she asked Moab to draw their attention. Once again, he blew the conch.

"The Wisdom of Sardinia wishes to speak!" he shouted with gusto. One of Signe's novices darted from the crowd with a milking stool and helped Sophia rise to the occasion.

As the pilgrims continued to stream in, the crone faced north and raised her arms to the azure sky.

"Fly down, merciful protector and bless this gathering of brave souls with your presence!"

A hush fell over the crowd. The pilgrims still arriving stopped in mid-step and looked upward. A chorus of gasps greeted the rhythm of the massive red wings flapping overhead. The pilgrims made room so Yin could make a perfect light-as-a-feather landing on the hardpan. Her enormous size and splendor enchanted as well as terrified. Even the animals froze in the shadow of the epitome of equine power and elegance. With Her restless hooves floating barely a thumb's width above the ground, the mythic mare spoke clearly in the common language:

"My Mother's spirit is with each of you. Her Sacred Syllable protects you. Use it wisely and always with Compassion. Blessings for a safe and wondrous journey to your new home."

Yin levitated and hovered overhead. From inside the red dust cloud her wings created, She neighed a final farewell. The ground shook; the pilgrims crouched in mortal fear of an earthquake, for they had experienced many since leaving Ananna. Suddenly, from somewhere in the crowd a child's voice cried out, "Look, mama! Ponies!"

The thunder of their hooves was celestial music to Taji's ears. He fell to his knees at the sight of the largest herd of white mares he'd ever seen. They gathered into a tight formation and pranced in place atop a nearby rise. Yin blew an ear-splitting greeting to them and flew north.

In her absence, the ponies broke formation and bolted down onto the flat, heading straight for the throng of stunned worshippers. At the last moment, they slid to a stop in a semi-circle around the crowd. Following some more elegant prancing, they reared, neighed a sonorous chorus of farewells, then, high-tailed it back towards the Lake of Souls.

When the last of the white mares had disappeared over the northern horizon, the pilgrims exploded into cheers, throwing hats or whatever was handy and inanimate in the air. Taji jumped to his feet and brushed off his leggings. At first, he thought the display terribly disrespectful, but soon gave in to the unbridled joy of it all. Even the dromedaries could be heard humming a sound that bore an uncanny resemblance to the Sacred Syllable itself.

The rejoicing went on past midday, and it would have gone on longer had it not been for the scattering animals left unattended. In the remaining daylight, Taji, his top herdsmen, and Moab rounded up all the pack animals for the drive up to the Kundai meadow. Meanwhile, Sophia and the Compassionate Warriors undertook the monumental task of overseeing the steady flow of pilgrims, sheep, goats, and poultry pouring into the outpost. "I haven't seen her yet, have you?" Ariel asked Kara, as they watched the noisy procession plod past on their way to the geothermal caverns.

"No. But I don't doubt she'll arrive in style."

"Andrea isn't much of a hiker--she's probably taking her own precious time," Ariel said with a chuckle.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see her carried in on a bed of silk pillows," Kara teased. "On the shoulders of four virile men, do doubt."

"Speaking of men, that Moab is very much a handsome one," Kara said with a sigh.

"How can you know with all that wool on his face?"

"And have you ever seen so many Amazons all in one place?" Kara said with her hand on her heart.

"And so many babies!" Ariel exclaimed.

"And did you notice? All of them are girls. That reminds me, I better see what mine is up to," Kara said and ducked inside the cottage, where Sophia, Leah, and a group of newcomers were crowded around the table. The scar-faced Amazon, who sat next to the crone, offered up her chair to Ariel when she came in.

"No, thank you," the Finlandian said. "After such a long journey, I'm sure you need it more than I." Ariel moved over to the hearth and warmed her hands.

"There is much to share," Sophia said to the newcomers. "Your stories so far are very compelling."

"Many of the pilgrims have been living in Anatolia," Leah excitedly relayed to Ariel and Kara.

"Are you eager to go home, Leah?" Ariel asked.

"Yes, but our guests are trying to talk me into joining the migration east. I am giddy from the possibilities," the native Anatolian added with an alluring smile at the Amazon whose probing gray eyes kept darting to Ariel.

"Where are you from?" the stranger asked her.

"Finlandia."

"I thought as much. I have heard that your forests are teeming with goblins." The group chuckled, but Ariel remained cool.

"No more than anywhere else, I suppose," she countered. The edge to the Amazon's remark put her on guard, yet the jagged scar she found intriguing. Ariel looked directly into the wolf-like eyes and pointedly added, "Not all goblins are to be feared."

A smile crept across the Amazon's wind-ravaged lips. "Perhaps, but where I come from, they are without exception the evil offspring of Dracula."

"Who is Dracula?" Leah excitedly asked, resting her hand on the Aralian's arm.

"Dracula is the name of a vampire who preys upon young beautiful girls," she replied, while stroking her neck. Leah feigned shock, but was very aroused by the sexual innuendo she hoped was directed at her own swan-like neck.

Ariel, who didn't care for innuendo, pulled her cloak tighter around her narrow shoulders. "Where is your homeland?" she asked the Amazon whose gaze she couldn't shake.

"The Aral Sea."

"I have not heard of it," Ariel said. A powerful deja vu intensified the Finlandian's struggle to remain cool and distant.

"It is a land of beautiful lagoons," the commanding newcomer continued.

"Why did you leave it?" Leah asked.

"The Tsar's army caught up with me." A scowl enhanced the jagged scar she traced with her finger. To Ariel's relief, baby Bess's whimper gave her an excuse to quit the pregnant conversation. While rocking the infant, however, she kept an eye on the Aralian, who stole glances every chance she could.

Perhaps it was the eerie glow of the oil lamps, but something about that crooked smile sparked traces of a nightmare she'd had just days before Mariana's death. In it that same scarred face was where Mariana's should have been. Ariel tried but could not resist the dreamtime Amazon's hypnotic stare and the desire to know the mystery behind it; she decided to trust that the long journey ahead of them both would tell the tale.

"How did you escape the horsemen, Yevi?" Leah persisted in her flirting. That name was instantly pleasing to Ariel; Yevi in turn was enchanted by the Finlandian's smile. At that moment, two more Aralians, part of Yevi's coven, boldly entered the cottage to warm their hands at the fire. "It's snowing like the devil out there," one announced.

"Well, I guess everyone arrived just in time," Kara said.

"Not everyone," Ariel interjected. She lifted Bess from her cradle and delivered her to Leah, who immodestly prepared to nurse.

"Andrea has not arrived?" Sophia asked.

"Not yet," Ariel replied.

"Do you know of the famous water witch?" Sophia asked the newcomers.

"Are you speaking of the woman who coaxed the artesian spout from the Toboli steppe?" Yevi asked.

"That sounds like her," Kara chuckled.

"Just after we crossed the last tributary, I saw her and a small group break from the main caravan and head north," Yevi reported.

"Are you certain?" Sophia asked with great alarm.

"Why didn't you stop them?" Ariel dared scold the Amazon whose hypnotic eyes had narrowed to slits.

"I am not their keeper," she snapped like a starving dog with a piece of gristle.

"When did you see them last, Yevi?" Sophia pressed.

"Early this morning, just before we saw the smoke from your hearth," she absently answered with a close eye on Ariel. "They were climbing a steep hillside."

"I will find them," the Finlandian announced. Before anyone could stop her, Ariel flew out the door into a blizzard.

Yevi jumped to her feet, knocking over her chair in the process. "I will go with her."

Sophia hooked her by the arm and commanded, "You will stay. Ariel can take care of herself."

"Sophia is right," Leah said. "She knows every rock and clump of grass within a day's walk from here."

"I suppose she's clairvoyant as well as beautiful," Yevi said and righted her chair.

Leah forced a smile in the face of Yevi's obvious infatuation with her dearest friend. "You may suppose it," she muttered.


Ariel didn't need magic. Simple intuition drew her like a magnet along the path she could walk blindfolded. At Mariana's grave, she found the shivering coven huddled together against the drifting snow.

"Ariel!" Andrea cried over the howling wind. "Somehow I knew you'd come!" The two embraced.

"Take my hand! Sophia is waiting!" Ariel shouted at the top of her lungs.

By the time they reached the outpost, it was pitch dark.

"We never would have made it without you," Andrea said to her rescuer before stepping inside the cozy cottage.

Sophia, who was stoking the fire, cried for joy, "At last, the wayward witch arrives! How wonderful to see your face!" With tears streaming down her stinging cheeks, Andrea rushed into the crone's arms.

"I'm selfish to worry you," she sputtered.

"Nonsense. Come, sit at my table."

The rest of Andrea's snowy coven filed in and silently gathered around the hearth. Ariel helped them remove their steaming cloaks, while Kara served up hot cider. All the newcomers but Yevi had retired to the heated caves for the night, so there was plenty of room for the weary six of Hecate's Cove, plus Helen, to devour some hot cornbread and a most delicious soup Sophia herself brewed for the occasion. Not much for conversation, the weary moderns retired to the loft shortly after supper.

Softer bedrolls made for the first decent night's sleep since their departure from Ananna more than five seasons before. They awoke to a glorious morning of clear skies and glazed patches of melting snow. While the rest of her coven happily pitched in with a myriad of outside chores, Andrea, who'd slept in the longest, sat at the table with Sophia sipping hot cider and cradling Leah's new baby girl. "Does she have a name?"

"Bessie Bee."

"How sweet. Is there a father?" she asked and fondled the tiny fingers.

"She chose not to have one," Sophia replied.

"I thought only priests are privy to the mystery. How did Leah manage?"

"It is common practice for Anatolian mothers to pass the necessary knowledge to their daughters, so they can decide for themselves."

"Gives pro-choice a whole new meaning, that's for sure," Andrea casually observed, which went right over Sophia's snow-white mane. "It seems the pilgrims have a clear preference."

"More girls than boys were born on the way, I take it."

"All of them girls, including six sets of twins," Andrea replied.

"Speaking of twins, I am curious. Is it Emerald's and Joy's choice not to speak?" Sophia asked.

"Most of the time. But when they do, everyone pays close attention."

"What are their gifts?"

"Channeling and telepathy. And many more talents they keep between each other," Andrea answered. "Personally, I find their sense of humor most remarkable...and endearing."

"They are full of mischief, like most twins," Sophia said.

"Oh, yeah. They keep us on our toes all right."

"And what of the beautiful Helen? She is from Anatolia, is she not?"

"No, Selenia, I believe. Have you heard of it?"

"Yes, of course. Signe's younger sister lives there."

"Really? I thought after Signe, they broke the mold," Andrea wisecracked and poured herself more steaming cider.

"I will miss your modern expressions," the crone chuckled.

"Frankly, I can't imagine Signe having a mother."

Sophia looked shocked, then strangely sad. "What an unkind thing to say."

"Not an Earthly mother, anyway," Andrea persisted in the face of the crone's misty eyes.

"Signe is not a deity, my friend."

"Don't tell that to the Mediterraneans," Andrea scoffed and sipped her cider.

"She is a faithful servant, nothing more, nothing less," Sophia pointedly argued.

Andrea knew the crone was upset about something, yet remained sassy. "Why do I feel a riddle coming on?"

"I speak plainly. Only the Sphinx speaks in riddles...as She should," Sophia replied in dead earnest.

"Plainly speaking, Sophia, I must say that Signe has the presence of a queen...hardly the servant type," Andrea glibly contended, even though she felt the thinning ice crack beneath her shiftless feet.

"She serves Life, as do I and you and all Earth's faithful," Sophia parried in a trembling voice Andrea hadn't heard before.

"True, but how many of us are Oracles, for crying out loud?" Andrea sassed, this time in an attempt to add a little levity.

"How you vex me!" the crone scolded.

"You sound just like Signe. I drove her to distraction as well," Andrea boasted. She took a swig of cider, which scalded the tip of her tongue. She wanted to curse, but thought better of it, since Sophia seemed in no mood for modern sacrilege.

"My confounding American, some day you will come to cherish that which is unknowable. Only then will you know peace and happiness."

"I've known happiness. Don't forget-- where I come from, knowledge is power." Andrea accidentally bit her scalded tongue; the exquisite pain brought tears to her bloodshot eyes.

"And yours was a dying world, was it not?" If Sophia hadn't despised gloating, she might have uttered a smug `touché.'

Andrea struggled for a clever rebuttal, but for once couldn't think of one. "For somebody who disdains argument, you're terribly good at it."

"If only everyone were as entertaining as you," Sophia softened. She took Andrea's free hand and squeezed it.

"I do what I can," Andrea feigned humility.

"At this moment, you do so remind me of my Signe," the crone said. Andrea's mouth dropped open; her stinging silver tongue couldn't manage a simple apology, much less articulate the barrage of questions that Sophia's revelation spawned. All the water witch could think to do was carry Bessie Bee over to her cradle and lay her gently down to sleep. Andrea lingered in the dark corner of the cottage, where she continued to struggle for words, but nothing seemed appropriate. "Something amazing happened at Mariana's grave," she at last got down to her truth.

"I supposed it had," Sophia said. She motioned for the contrite pilgrim to come sit down.

Andrea shuffled over to the table and plopped down across from the misty-eyed Sardinian sage. "We encircled it for a blessing," she tentatively began. "I heard pounding hooves. I'd know that snort anywhere." Andrea started to weep. "It was Mariana's mare. She looked like a woolly mammoth in her Winter coat. She trotted right up to me...and..." Andrea cleared her throat and suppressed a sob. "When she offered me her warm muzzle, I was so overcome with emotion, I flung my arms around her neck and bawled like a baby." Andrea took a deep breath. "Oh, Sophia! I received such comfort! When I let go of her, Rhea did the most amazing thing. She went down on her knees and rested her muzzle on the grave stones. We all gathered around and stroked her icy mane for the longest time...and then...I swear this is true, Sophia...she wailed and wailed. It was the most awful sound, not quite human, not quite equine. Finally, she rose to all fours, backed away, and reared up on those big haunches of hers. She let out the most ear-slitting whinny and bolted into the blizzard. I thought my heart would explode when the sound of her hooves faded to nothing."

Andrea wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock. "Men are shit," she muttered, then pounded both fists on the table. "I hate every last one of them!" She pounded harder and harder, spitting and hissing a string of murderous curses, until Sophia had to restrain her. Lethal hexes rolled off her sore tongue and ended only because the raging dowser's voice gave out.

Sophia lightly stroked the tangle of salt and pepper ringlets. "Rhea has given you a precious gift," she softly said.

"I don't understand," Andrea half-whispered.

"You now have the power of Nemesis."

Even though the meaning at best was cryptic, Andrea didn't question; she took a deep breath to center herself, and placed her swollen right hand over her heart.

"The pain...it's gone," she declared. The rage, too, had subsided. Andrea moved over to the hearth, and turned her back on the fire. "Sophia, I've always believed that the best revenge is to live well," her voice cracked. "And I've taken more than my share of pleasure, but it's all come to nothing. I am lost, empty." Andrea's shoulders slumped, she felt small, vulnerable; she looked to Sophia for a sign, anything to give meaning to that desperate leap from Raven's Bluff.

"You are a seasoned vessel ready for new wine," Sophia said with a wink.

With a smile, Andrea uttered the first modern expression the crone could fully appreciate: "Ain't Life grand."

Chapter XII

Lyle, an early riser, was always the first to witness the dawn of a new day and tune in to the chorus of avian calls that announced it. By his second Summer of study in the primeval rain forest he had created an extensive patchwork of edible permaculture under the dense canopy, all the result of his extraordinarily green thumb. The teen-aged fount of sylvan knowledge discovered at least one new species of plant every day, which Emma recorded by scratching crude drawings (with the aid of one of Cynthia's precious bobby pins) on sheets of alder and maple bark. The unwieldy pages of Turtle Island's first book stood floor to ceiling in the corner of Ted's kitchen.

"I wish that boy could figure out a way to grow paper," the cook complained, while frying up some camas patties.

"Give him time," Cynthia said. She finished beheading a steelhead with a sharp wedge of quartz Ted kept just for that purpose in his collection of stone-age utensils.

"What we need more than anything around here is something to make clothes out of," Fran said. Her constable's jacket was frayed and unraveling at the seams.

"Jake claims there's hemp growing up near that meadow Sadie's always hiking to," Ted said.

"Why don't we smoke some and run around nude without a care in the world," Fran teased with a wink at her lover.

"That's an image I could have done without this morning," Cynthia groaned and put a couple of filets on the red-hot cooking stone that served as a grill.

Jake bounded through the door of the commons and sat down at the table. "Somethin' smells awful good," he said.

"My, aren't we chipper this morning," Fran said. "You look like the tom cat that swallowed the canary," she razzed, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest.

When Cynthia flipped the filets, Jake licked his lips and said, "Tender and pink, Cindy, just the way I like 'em." The mayor laser-beamed a scowl in his direction just as Sadie, followed by Carl, came in and sat down at the other end of the table.

"Good morning," Cynthia said to Sadie, who didn't look up.

"Mornin'," she muttered.

"Hungry?" Cynthia cheerily asked.

"I'm starving," Carl announced and patted his growling pot belly. Cynthia served up some camas cakes to Carl and started to give the rest to Sadie.

"None for me, thanks. I'll just have some tea, if there is any."

"We just happen to have your favorite, Ms. Morgan... nettles," Ted graciously informed and flipped over some more cakes with a new spatula Jake had carved out of deadwood with his beat-up Swiss army knife.

"Thanks," Sadie yawned.

"You look awful," Fran said to her. "Trouble sleeping?" she asked with a knowing glance at Jake whose grin had degenerated into a crooked smirk.

"I slept fine," Sadie lied and glanced at Cynthia, who was in a losing battle with a wave of nausea.

"Excuse me," she muttered and had to run outside.

"What's with the mayor?" Carl asked through a mouthful of steaming camas.

"It's your fault," Ted said to Fran.

"Mine?!"

"Yes, yours. You were the one who suggested we all run around in our flabby birthday suits," the cook teased, looking straight at Jake, who was leering at Sadie's breasts.

The widow, sick to death of sexual innuendo, which she often perceived even when none was intended, snapped, "Is that all you people ever think about?"

"We were only trying to make conversation," Fran retorted. Ted served up a couple of cakes in a shell and set it down under Sadie's nose.

"I said I wasn't hungry," she muttered and bolted outside. Jake shot out of the commons and chased her down at the creek's edge. "Hold up, woman," he gasped.

"Let me be." Close to tears, Sadie walked at a wicked pace.

Jake grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. "Dammit, Sadie, look at me. I wasn't born yesterday. I know the score."

"You don't know a blamed thing," Sadie snarled and broke his grip.

"I know how I feel about you, Sadie, how I've always felt about you..."

"Don't make this any worse than it is."

"We wanted it to happen--plain and simple."

"There ain't anything plain nor simple about it."

"Cynthia don't seem to be any the worse for it."

"Are you blind? She looks like death warmed over."

"Look here, Sadie. We're all adults. What's one little picnic in the woods?"

"Some picnic," Sadie hissed and started to walk away. Jake hooked her arm.

"For crissakes, woman! Open your eyes! We live like animals, we may as well act like 'em. Sometimes, if it wasn't for Carl talking me into that leaky canoe of his, I would just as soon blow my brains out!"

"And this time, I have just the tool for the job," Cynthia interjected as she popped from behind a giant Cedar, where she'd been puking her guts out.

"What on earth are you raving about?" Sadie chided.

"I still have that .38 Mariana gave you for safe keeping. You remember. And it's loaded. Emma and Lyle sure as hell would be better off without us so-called adults mucking things up here in paradise."

"You're both crazy," Sadie grumbled and broke from Jake's desperate grasp.

"You're bluffing," Jake disdainfully addressed the pale-faced mayor.

"Just try me, big boy," she challenged with the `bring-it-on' gesture she was famous for during political debates. Jake at first laughed it off, until Cynthia turned up the heat with insults about his manhood. Jake lunged for her, but the seasoned out-fielder was too fast for him. In one graceful motion, she side-stepped out of reach and picked up a good-sized cedar branch.

"Come on, Jake, ol' man, I know you're dying to," Cynthia challenged with a two-handed grip on her formidable weapon. Jake lunged again and missed. "Come on, you can do better than that," she taunted with relish.

Jake picked up another fallen tree branch and poked it at her. This time, Cynthia tripped over a root, lost her balance, and on her way down suffered a stinging blow to the back of the knees.

"Stop this at once!" Sadie shrieked and stepped between the two combatants.

"Get out of my way, woman!" Jake bellowed and roughly shoved Sadie aside. She tripped and fell face down in the wet Earth.

"You rotten son of bitch," she muttered, spitting out debris.

White-hot rage catapulted the redhead to her feet and up onto Jake's back, where she clawed, slapped, pinched, and screeched like a banshee. Cynthia, seeing her opportunity, nailed her rival with a wicked poke to the crotch. Jake collapsed and brought Sadie down with him. While he writhed in agony, the woman of his lifelong wet dreams hissed in his ear, "Come near me again and I'll kill you with my bare hands." Sadie climbed off and threatened to kick him again in his manhood. "Do you hear?!" she spat. Jake could only nod in the direction of her beet-red face.

When Carl and Ted came running out of the commons, they couldn't believe their eyes. Emma escaped Fran's grasp and rushed to the obvious loser of the sordid fray.

"Please don't die, uncle Jake!" the child sobbed.

"I bet he wishes he would," Sadie spat with great satisfaction and caught a smirk from Cynthia, who was struggling to stay vertical.

"What in the world is going on?!" Ted demanded.

The mayor casually brushed off dirt and fir needles.

"Just a little misunderstanding," she replied with a smug grin. "It's all settled now. Isn't that right, Jake?"

When Carl tried to help his paddling buddy to his feet, Jake let out a less than manly wail, for it was more than his pride and joy that was injured. His left ankle was swollen to cantaloupe proportions.

"Come on, let's get him down to the creek," Ted said to Carl. There, they eased his injured foot into chilly waters.

"You two outta be ashamed of yourselves," Fran started in, shaking her head mostly at the mayor.

"She's plenty ashamed enough for the both of us," Cynthia put it on Sadie, who was still seething.

"The way I see it, Jake just got himself a free ride around here, and all because of your..." Fran stopped herself with Emma present.

"Our what?" Sadie hissed.

"Aah, never mind. It ain't worth discussin'"

"That's our Fran, always takes the high road," the mayor said with biting sarcasm that cut the devoted constable to the core.

"Help me clean up the kitchen, dear," Fran said to Emma, who balked at the one chore she hated more than anything in the new world.

"But I have to go help Lyle weed," she whined.

"Where is that boy, anyway?" Cynthia asked.

"I'll go find him," Emma volunteered and took off like a shot across the creek.

Fran headed back to the commons with Cynthia limping behind her; Sadie went down to the creek to check on the wounded.

"He should lie down and elevate that ankle or it'll be the size of a watermelon," she advised.

Later that morning, with Jake's six-foot-two frame resting not so comfortably in the sleeping cottage, Sadie escaped for a solitary stroll down to the cove, something she usually avoided because of the sad memories it invariably evoked. But in lieu of a priest, the devout catholic felt the need to confess her monumental indiscretion to the ocean itself, `solace for the righteous and the wicked alike,' she was fond of saying, even though she was never quite sure where she'd picked up that notion or whether she truly believed it. Since she'd surrendered to Jake's pent-up desires, Sadie's second chance at life had become a nightmare. She had always held a warm regard for her dead husband's half-brother, and the sex was fabulous, but the toll it took on her dearest friend broke Sadie's heart. Although Cynthia tried her best to hide her misery under a thin veneer of good cheer, the sight of Sadie and Jake together had become intolerable. It had gotten so bad, that whenever possible she avoided the redhead altogether.

It was Jake's idea to invite Cynthia along on the picnic, and, although Sadie didn't want to believe it, something told her his motives weren't altogether noble. And, as it turned out, she was right. The conversation turned to things erotic, one thing led to another, and before she knew it, she was literally sandwiched between the both of them. The fact she experienced the most intense pleasure of her life made it all the worse, especially since she couldn't quiet incessant yearnings for more of the same.

So as she plodded along the beach that bright Mid-Summer morning, she prayed hard and fast for the strength to fight a monstrous demon she believed was bent on leading her into everlasting damnation. Sadie walked and prayed way past the `Point of No Return' (so named by Jake and Carl). When she finally took notice of her surroundings, she was trapped in a small unfamiliar cove between the encroaching breakers of high tide and solid rock. There was no place to go but up. Bad knees notwithstanding, the hapless sinner managed to pull herself up onto a narrow ledge, which, judging from the barnacle line, would not save her from the rising tide.

"And this is how it all ends?" she languished into the wind.

When the first swell spilled over her sandals, she considered trying to swim back around the point, but she knew that if the riptide didn't get her, the chilly waters would. Another swell broke over her knees, but Sadie managed to keep her footing long enough to begin reciting the lord's prayer. At `thy kingdom come,' a breaker crashed violently against the ledge and swept her into the churning brine.

The survival instinct kept her afloat for one last look at the sandy beach on the far side of the point. She tried to swim towards it, but was sucked under by a wicked undertow. When she re-surfaced for what she thought was the last time, Sadie heard someone calling her name. With every fiber of her being she kept her head above water long enough to recognize Lyle bounding into the surf. She tried, but couldn't make her arms paddle towards his bobbing head. Sadie Morgan's Life passed at light speed across her mind's eye before everything went to pitch black.


"She's coming to," a voice gurgled.

"Sadie? Can you hear me?" a clearer voice came through Sadie’s right ear. She opened her eyes to two blurred faces.

"Am I in purgatory?" Sadie sputtered, then vomited sea water. A hearty round of chuckles made her squint in a desperate effort to focus. "Is this heaven?" she asked the face that she hoped was an angel's.

"I'd say so," Loren said. Sadie's eyes focused in on her handsome face.

"Oh, glory be!" she cried and tried to lift her head.

"Ah, ah, ah. Take it easy, young lady," Claire said. Sadie wept when she recognized her.

"Am I dreaming?"

"A question I ask myself every day," Grace said, kissing Sadie's hand.

"Oh, lordie! Look at you...how thin you are," Sadie said, reaching for Grace's sallow cheek. Grace translated for Misha.

"That's what I keep telling her," Misha, who was dripping wet, said in Russian.

"And who might you be?" Sadie asked the striking Amazon.

"She might be Misha, a wet blanket we picked up along the way," Loren teased and earned a poke in the ribs from Grace.

"Sadie. We're going to take you home now," Claire said. Before she could protest, Sadie felt herself levitate under a pale blue sky. She saw the faces of several strangers, then Marty's and Robin's smiling down on her.

"Put me down. I'm too heavy."

"Relax and enjoy the ride," Grace said.

"Which way?" Loren asked Lyle, who was leading the entourage through a dense jungle of ferns.

Lyle stopped at the tree line. "Is Mrs. Morgan going to be all right?"

"I'll be fine, son. As soon as I get out of these wet clothes," Sadie replied, reaching out and taking his hand. "Thank you, son."

"He's one hell of a swimmer," Loren said. Lyle's ragged baggy cut-offs jarred the ex-newshound's memory of that fateful day a lifetime ago when he'd twice warned her about parking in front of the Sand Dollar Inn.

"Please, girls. I can go under my own power," Sadie insisted and was ignored.

The pilgrims made their less than grand entrance into a deserted settlement. Sadie was conveyed into the commons and helped onto a bench in front of the glowing embers of a dying fire. Lyle brought it to a roaring blaze in short order, then ducked out the instant wet clothing started to come off.

"Do you have something dry to wear?" Grace asked Sadie as she draped the soggy Seafest 2007 sweatshirt across a chair.

"I didn't have time to pack a change of clothes," Sadie quipped. Grace wrapped her own beautiful blanket around Sadie's freckled shoulders. The sight of auburn ringlets was a dagger through her heart.

"I can be making za tay," Anya said in her best English and dashed outside to fetch one of her trusty pots from the travoise. "Did she say tea?" Grace nodded. "Oh, what a dear. That'll sure hit the spot," Sadie said and took in the smiling faces that surrounded her.

"Well, ain't you all a sight for sore eyes," she said. The nodding Russians spoke to her, but since Sadie lacked a common language, she didn't understand a word.
"How far have you come?" she asked Grace, who sat down at her knee and settled into her old role of translator.

"Half-way across the continent, and then some."

"I see."

Dread took Sadie by the throat the moment she realized that her daughter's was not among the gaunt weathered faces. She looked as if she might pass out, so Claire stepped up and held her firmly by the shoulders.

"Where is...my Mariana?" Sadie dared ask and watched all the faces grow pale. "Have you seen her?"

Marty started to utter the terrible truth, but Loren preempted with part of it. "She's in Mongolia."

"Mongolia?! How can that be?!"

"Well, a lot of strange things have happened since we last saw you," Loren hedged.

"You don't have to tell me," Sadie said. "Hecate's Cove ain't what it used to be, now is it?" Just like old times, the clueless Russians chuckled along with the Americanskis.

"You see, Sadie. What with the dire circumstances and all, Mariana didn't end up in Nebraska like she'd planned. We found out through the telepathic grapevine that she and Rhea landed in Upper Mongolia. That's because her timing was a tad off, and..."

"What in the world were you all doing in Nebraska?"

"Now, that's a very long and amazing story, and we'll have plenty of time to fill you in later. But right now, we're starved," Loren did her best to keep things light.

"Are the fish biting?" Claire asked.

"Not like they used to. But we got plenty of good eating around here that comes right out of the ground. Ted's quite the cook, you know."

"Who's Ted?" Robin asked.
"Oh, I guess you never got introduced. He was Mariana's doctor. He showed up that last day during the meeting. I was sure surprised to see him."

Loren flashed back to the testy phone conversation she once had with the good doctor Kurdiz. Suddenly, Cynthia charged like a bull through the open commons door.

"Sadie!" she cried. The Santee clan made way as the mayor rushed over to the love of her life. "Are you all right?! We've been looking everywhere!" She took Sadie's hand from Grace's and kissed it.

"I'm fine. Don't make such a fuss," Sadie scolded, painfully embarrassed at the open display. "I went for a little swim..that's all." Sadie wrenched her hand from Cynthia's vise grip.

"Who are these...?" Cynthia started to ask. "Holy moly! I can't believe it!" she cried, hugging Grace, then Loren, then Claire. She stopped at Misha, who was shivering in her wet clothes. "Go to the sleeping cottage and bring this woman my jacket," she ordered Fran just as she came in. Cynthia then moved on to Marty and Robin and shook their hands. "How..what.. where...?" she stammered.

"How ya doin', mayor?" Loren asked and received another bear hug.

"Never been better," Cynthia lied. "Look at you...fit as a fiddle," she added, gripping Loren by the shoulders. "And your hair, it's down to your waist!"

"I've become the dream girl I always wanted," Loren said in a girlish voice and twirled like a beauty queen. Everyone, especially Misha, enjoyed that spectacle.

"Who are the others?" Cynthia asked, eyeing each one.

Beginning with Misha, Grace introduced the Russians. The rest of Hecate Cove's dysfunctional family spilled into the commons, and by the time Grace finished translating, she was more than ready to escape to the great outdoors.

"It's wonderful to see Sadie," she said to Claire on their way down to the creek. Claire took Grace's hand and squeezed it.

"Mariana would be glad to know her mother made it."

"We're going to have to tell Sadie sooner or later."

"I agree, but right now we have to catch us some lunch." Claire inspected her trusty pole and the twisted horsetail hair fishing line.

"I suppose we'll need some worms," Grace grimaced.

"I'm good, but not that good," Claire chuckled.

Grace followed the expert fisherwoman over the creek bank, where they poked around in the mud for bait. "Gotcha!" Claire shouted and held up a giant grub.

"It's big enough to fry up," Grace said, then winced.

when Claire started to skewer the writhing bait on the wooden hook.

"Forest animals can't be killed!" Lyle shouted from across the creek. Claire dropped the grub.

"Dammit," she muttered as it burrowed out of sight. Lyle glared at the tall Lakota Swede with his fists clenched at his sides.

"Come on, Claire, let's fish the surf," Grace, always the diplomat, cajoled. Lyle picked up a basket, waded across the creek, and set it down at Claire's feet.

"These are for eating," he said. He pointed to the collection of camas bulbs, berries, and assorted roots and greens. "There are eggs in the duck coop behind the commons," he said to Grace, trying not to stare at the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen.

"Yummy! Lead me to it!" Grace rejoiced with a little jig.

Emma dashed up and grabbed the basket. "Uncle Ted is cooking a great big omelette--he needs this," she announced. Claire and Grace high-fived each other and made tracks for the first decent meal since leaving the hot springs.

About halfway to the commons, Grace turned around to Lyle, who was dragging his feet. "You coming?" she asked the shy teen. He nodded and followed the two newcomers whose long tresses reminded him of mermaids he once saw swimming the foam at the foot of Raven's Bluff. Or was it a dream?


After that first meal together, the Santee clan and Hecate's Cove survivors enjoyed a brief honeymoon of lively storytelling and sharing of resources. The pots and pans especially thrilled Ted, who could at last boil rather than cremate crab. Ideas for stews and soups came fast and furious to the self-made chef. Misha's precision carving tools were cause for celebration, as were the assorted well-made axes and hatchets whose razor-sharp flint blades made quick kindling of driftwood for the eternal kitchen flame. Beyond that, the business of integrating the two groups proved to be a delicate and often contentious process.

The presence of modern men was distasteful enough for the pagan pilgrims, but keeping the truth from Sadie made for a treacherous web of outright lies that everyone had a hard time keeping straight. The language barrier proved quite burdensome as well, especially for Grace, who, although she hated teaching, ended up organizing a basic English class for the Russians. Between that and the daily chores, she hardly had any time for Misha and, more importantly, for herself.

One warm day after a string of unseasonably cold rainy ones, Emma, the self-appointed teacher's aide, offered Grace a break from the classroom tedium.

"This is my favorite trail. It was made by deers, but Lyle and me, we made it wider for people to take hikes on."

"I bet that was a lot of work," Grace said, already breathing hard. "How far does it go?"

"A long, long ways up to my secret meadow," Emma replied and skipped ahead, pigtails bouncing wildly.

"Hey, slow down," Grace protested.

"I love this forest, don't you?" the nine-year-old dreamily said, while twirling round and gazing up into the dense canopy of Spruce and Cedar.

"It's lovely, but I'm not much of a hiker these days," Grace groaned and stopped to rest against a Cedar root. She wiped the sweat from her brow and rubbed her bruised and scarred knees.

"How old are you?" Emma asked.

"As old as this tree."

"No you're not," Emma scoffed. "Are you sick?"

"No, Emma, just tired."

"I'll walk real, real slow, then"

"Where did you say you're taking me?"

"You'll see."

The sprite took Grace by the hand and didn't let go until they reached the summit of the narrow elk trail. She instructed her weary charge to close her eyes.

"What for?" Grace gasped.

"You'll see. Are your eyes closed?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"Yes, yes, I promise," Grace sharply assured. Patience with children was never her strong point.

"OK, you can look now."

Remnants of morning dew glistened like diamonds on the thick blanket of purple.

"Isn't this the beautifullest garden you ever saw?" Emma said. She gently ran her hands over the delicate blooms. Grace fell to her sore knees and brushed her fingertips across the closest velvet petals. "Aunt Sadie says they're wild irises." Grace fought tears. "My garden makes aunt Sadie cry, too. She says it's because the flowers make her happy. Do they make you happy?" The grief-stricken liar nodded. Emma draped an arm around her and said, "You can come see my garden anytime you want to."

"Thank you, Emma...I will...every day," Grace wept and embraced the girl.

That evening, after a gourmet dinner of steamed clams, roasted camas, and dandelion greens, Misha and Grace held each other on the beach. Bathed in the glow of another spectacular Sunset, Grace felt the first stirrings of true contentment.

"I'm so happy to be home," she sighed in Misha's ear.

"And I'm happy that you are happy," Misha said with a kiss on Grace's velvet cheek.

"What do you think of it so far?"

"I've been so busy building our new lodge, I don't think about much else," Misha answered. The workaholic did a cursory survey of her beautiful surroundings and declared, "Not bad for a place called Turtle Island. Where are all the turtles, by the way?" Grace nudged Misha's ticklish ribs.

"You have to agree it's a far cry from that cave on the Snake."

Misha pulled Grace across her lap and said, "Siberia in the dead of Winter would be heaven with you in my arms."

"It's been awhile for us, hasn't it, babe?" Grace sighed, stroking the lusty Russian's hungry lips. Misha took that as her cue to carry her angel to the tall grass, where they made love until the Crescent Moon rose over Raven's Bluff.

Sadie and Cynthia, who'd decided to take an evening stroll on the beach, heard the unmistakable cries of pleasure, but pretended they hadn't.

"Let's go back. I'm dog-tired."

"But it's such a beautiful night," Cynthia said, gazing up at the Milky Way. "Oh, look! A shooting star!" Of course, by the time Sadie looked, it was too late. "Stay with me until the next one."

"All right, but let's walk to the north spit."

"Your wish is my command," Cynthia said and offered her arm, which Sadie, as always, felt obliged to take.

"I've been thinking."

"Uh-oh."

"The girls..they're all...you know...lesbians, aint' they?"

"They enjoy each other's company, that's obvious. After all that time on the trail, it's amazing they still speak to one another."

"Why say that?"

"Hell, Sadie. Look at how we were behaving the day they showed up."

"Did you get rid of that damned fool pistol yet?"

"Nope."

"I swear, sometimes you act more like a man than..."

"Jake?"

"Don't put words in my mouth. What possible good can come from keeping that thing? I'm for throwing it off Raven's Bluff at high tide."

"Don't be too hasty, dear heart. The way I figure it, if those gals made it all the way from Nebraska, there's a good possibility that plenty other folks a lot less savory are wandering around. Who knows what criminal element could show up."

"Here the good lord's given you a second chance and you want to start the whole shootin' match all over again. Where's your common sense?"

"I'm telling you, we could all be sitting ducks."

"You're a jaded old sea hag, Cynthia McKibben."

"I never felt younger." Cynthia gave Sadie a quick peck on the cheek.

"Don't," the redhead recoiled.

When they reached the spit Cynthia plopped down in the deep sand still warm from the Summer Sun. She relished an extra-deep breath of salt air and once again gazed up at the night sky. Sadie sat down at a proper distance.

"Are you counting on another shooting Star?" she asked.

"Nope."

"As soon as I see one, I'm going to turn in."

"Suit yourself," Cynthia said with feigned indifference.

Not much of a Stargazer, Sadie, who never felt more tied up in knots, turned to Cynthia and abruptly announced, "I'm never having sex again."

Cynthia burst out laughing.

"Joinin' a convent now, air we?" She loved to inflict her brogue on Sadie, who thought it sounded not a bit Scottish, nor Irish, for that matter.

"Maybe I'll start my own." Sadie wrapped her arms tight around her knees.

"Can I visit?"

"Just leave your wanton ways outside the gate."

"I've been called a lot of things in my life, but wanton has never been one of them. Although, at this juncture, I wouldn't mind living up to that label."

"Well, I'm through with the whole rotten mess," Sadie re-vowed.

"Of course you are," Cynthia had to snicker.

"Laugh all you want, but I made a promise to the almighty when I was drowning. And I'm going to honor it."

"Hallelujah!" Cynthia couldn't resist.

"The lord punishes blasphemers."

"You better stay well clear of lightning bolts, then."

"Make your jokes. But I've made up my mind, and that's that." Sadie dug her heels into the soft wet sand.

"Oh, come off it. Don't you think you're being a tad self-righteous?"

"What we did was an abomination! I will never forgive myself! Only God can do that, and I'm going to spend the rest of what's left of this Life trying to make up for it." Sadie stood and brushed herself off.

Cynthia looked to the Crescent Moon for strength. "Well, ain't this a kick in the pants? Don't you find it just a little bit strange that the good lord saw fit to have a bunch of queers show up just in time to save your ass?"

"Lyle saved me."

"That's only half the truth. Without Misha's help, you and that boy would have drowned in the riptide. And what about Claire? If she hadn't given CPR you wouldn't be standing there making a damn fool of yourself."

"The fact that they showed up when they did was all part of god's plan for me...plain and simple."

"The plain and simple truth, dearie, is you're a wanton hypocrite. And to think that your own daughter..."

"Shut your mouth!" Sadie snarled. Cynthia struggled to her feet and took hold of the woman she couldn't stop worshipping if her Life depended on it.

"It's the truth, Sadie! Everybody but you knows it. You were the only one in town who made her feel like a freak. Mariana's a natural born lesbian, like me."

"How dare you talk such filth!" Sadie shrieked and bolted down the beach.

Cynthia, who couldn't believe how fast the redhead could move, wanted to chase her down and apologize, but her battered heart wouldn't survive another betrayal. The lovesick Amazon in mayor's clothing walked to the end of the spit and looked to the Milky Way for a little solace. A shooting Star arced over the ladle of the Big Dipper and brought a smile to her tear-stained face.

Mariana's distraught mother huffed and puffed through the deep sand past Misha and Grace, who were strolling hand in hand back to their encampment.

"Evening, Sadie," Grace said, but Sadie chugged past without so much as a nod.

"What's her problem?" Misha asked.

"I don't think things were going so well before we showed up here."

"Yeah, I picked up on that, too."

"But nothing's going to worry me tonight." Grace kissed Misha's hand.

"Me either," Misha said and returned the favor.

"At last, a clear sky to sleep under. Between the snoring and stinky feet, I couldn't bear that cramped cottage one more night."

The adoring Cossack embraced her fabulous lover. "Tomorrow, the rafters are going up on our new lodge. Soon you shall be sleeping in style, my queen."

"You and Sashi and Luka do such nice work," Grace said and received a row of tender kisses up and down her neck. "Keep walking, hot lips," she ordered with a pinch to Misha's firm butt.

Lyle, who'd been watching the amorous display from his perch in a grandfather Sitka, was embarrassed, yet undeniably turned on. Sexual urges were a source of confusion for the boy whose entire being was in love with trees. There was zero rapport between the virtually feral teen and the adults in his life, especially the three men. Because of what he'd picked up from Internet porn sites, Lyle had a warped view of sex with or between women. And Amazons, as far as he could tell, were from a parallel universe.

Nevertheless, the teen found himself staring every chance he could at the attractive newcomers to Hecate's Cove. His initial encounter left him in awe of their physical strength and skill, something he could respect. It was their anatomy, however, that aroused both pleasure and fear, just as Fran's naked breasts had done the day she nearly drowned. For it was their lingering image that drove the boy inside the burnt-out trunk of a cathedral Cedar, where three times he gave himself exquisite pleasure.

Lyle climbed down from his bird's eye view and was about to scurry off to do the same, when Emma spotted him lurking in the shadows.

"Uncle Ted wants to see you!"

"I can't," Lyle muttered.

"Why?"

"I'm busy," he said and headed for his favorite hideaway.

"You'll be in trouble if you don't!"

"What do I care," the boy retorted and ran off.

"I'm going to tell!" Emma shouted after him before turning towards the commons, where Carl was just coming out the door.

"What's up, little missy?" he asked, tugging on her pigtail.

"Don't," she whined. "Lyle ran off into the woods again."

"What else is new?"

"But he's supposed to have his hair cleaned."

"He's got lice again, huh?" Carl said, scratching his crusty bald dome. "You go find him and tell him he can't come inside from the rain no more if he don't get it taken care of." "I'm too tired." Emma faked a yawn.

"OK, you get your beauty rest, princess. I'll chase him down.

As fate would have it, Carl found Lyle scaling the heights of pleasure while straddling the trunk of a young fir. The boy had no idea the lascivious voyeur was savoring the bizarre spectacle; he was mortified when Carl leapt into view with his own stiff resolve protruding through his open fly.

"It's all right, son. Let's you and me have ourself a little fun. Come on over here," Carl said breathless. Lyle recoiled. "I said get over here, boy! You don't want the whole world to know you been reamin' a knot hole, now do you?" Lyle frantically zipped up his cut-offs. "Now boy, it's time you learnt the facts of life."

Under the ghostly light of the Waning Moon, Lyle was initiated into the modern order of `jack-offs.' That is to say, his seed flew higher and farther than he ever thought possible. But before Carl officially declared the boy a man, he introduced him to the joys and rigors of the blow-job. When Lyle refused to return the favor, Carl grabbed him by the testicles and hissed, "You tree-hugging little pussy. Maybe you'd like to go humpin' around them man-hatin' dykes tonight. They'd cut the dicks clean off scrawny little faggots like you and cook 'em up for supper." Carl pushed the boy to his knees and threatened to do just that if he didn't perform.

Afterwards, with Carl's firm grip on the nape of his neck, Lyle suffered the dry heaves all the way back to the settlement.

"You got the story straight, boy?"

"Yessir," he mumbled.

"Remember, from now on if you say a word to anybody about our secret, your juicy little sister and me are gonna have to get better acquainted. You understand me, boy?" Carl tightened his grip until Lyle choked.

"Yessir," Lyle wheezed, then gagged the moment he stepped inside the commons.

Carl claimed that Lyle accidentally got a hold of a poison mushroom. Everyone except Emma believed him.

Chapter XIII

By the following Spring, the Santee clan had learned a great deal from Lyle about harvesting and sustaining the bounty of the rain forest. Loren was particularly thrilled about the steady supply of dogbane, which, under Sadie's guidance, she learned how to twist and weave into rope, mats, and footwear. After Misha got around to repairing her old loom, the dedicated weaver transformed the raw material into leggings and simple, albeit scratchy serapes. Smoking the weed, however, was not the experience everyone had hoped for, in fact, it was the cause of blinding headaches and many a trip to the latrine. Nevertheless, more and more uses were discovered for the amazing plant, including a rough paper. Dogbane accounted for half of the cultivated crops in aboriginal Hecate's Cove.

Lyle, who had gradually given stewardship for his thriving permaculture over to the Santee pilgrims, took to roaming the nether reaches of the rain forest and was often gone for days on end. He always returned with new and more exotic specimens of flora that Emma painstakingly archived with charcoal on dogbane paper; beyond that, the restless teen didn't participate in settlement life. Although his adopted aunts made numerous attempts to lure him back to civilization, Lyle became more and more reclusive. The strict vegetarian barely spoke and ran around in a loin cloth, except in Winter, when he donned a tunic and leggings.

Loren, who wove clothing for the elusive young man, was the only member of the settlement, other than Emma, that he acknowledged. And much to the grief of his adoptive aunts, it was clear that for reasons unknown to everyone except Carl, Lyle seemed forever lost to the Wild.

"That guy gives me the creeps," Marty said one night after a prayer circle inside the new lodge.

"You're not the only one. The next time he ogles me I'm going to gouge out his beady little eyes," Grace said, vigorously stoking the coals in the huge hearth.

"I couldn't stand to get that close to the slime ball," Anya hissed from her perch at the new spinning wheel Luka had just finished constructing with Misha's set of precious wood-carving tools.

"It goes to show you, sometimes even conjurors screw up," Loren said.

"Your point being?" Robin asked.

"How else could scum like Carl get a second chance?" Loren replied.

"The pig's not worth discussing," Misha muttered. "I say we pretend he's invisible."

"I say we neuter him," Luka snickered and made a snipping gesture with her fingers. Everyone laughed, except Claire, who'd been pensive throughout the lively exchange.

"What's your take?" Loren, finely tuned to the moods of her savvy lover, asked. Claire shrugged her shoulders.

"Speak up, Claire," Grace urged. "Don't deprive us of your wisdom."

The Lakota Swede could be counted on to never mince words. "This talk is hurting us more than Carl ever could. He is what he is, and he's nothing to me. It's starting to feel like the bad old days around here."

"Well, it's about time somebody said it," Robin chimed in, slapping her knees. "Has anyone been dreaming lately?" she asked. Nobody raised a hand. "Well, neither have I. And that, comadres, is not a good sign."

"Chores, chores, and more chores. If this is the good life, then I'm chopped liver. What I wouldn't give for the soothing sounds of a piano bar," Loren ventured with a sigh.

"Don't tell me you miss hell on Earth," Grace chided in dismay.

"The chief misses her martinis," Marty teased and sparked laughter all around.

"I knew it would come down to this." All eyes were on Grace, who looked very professorial as she stroked the delicate line of her jaw.

"It seems our resident sphinx is hatching a riddle for us," Loren said, drumming her fingers on the gnarly chair arm.

"Of sorts. It's elementary, really. You see, our momentous adventure has brought us right back to the quintessential square one," Grace waxed abstract in an upper crust accent she'd perfected during her boarding school days in not so merry modern England.

"That being?" Robin played along with her tongue firmly lodged between cheek and gum. The naturally blonde sphinx caressed her chin and looked down her perfectly sculpted nose at her now snickering questioner. Everyone leaned forward so as not to miss the Earth-shattering wisdom about to spew forth.

"Happy hour, of course," the sphinx haughtily replied.

Dead silence ended with an explosion of cackles and guffaws. Stomping feet knocked all of the beach-combing treasures from the mantle.

"You mean we went to the trouble of pre-empting history just so we could get stinking drunk at the end of the day?" Misha couldn't stop giggling.

"Yes, dahling," Grace answered in a sultry voice and pretended to take a drag from an imaginary cigarette holder.

"Well, in that case, I vote we get busy and make us some vodka," Sashi piped up.

All the Russians shouted a resounding "Da!" Misha and Luka jumped to their feet and danced like the Cossacks they most likely were in past incarnations. Soon, everyone was tripping the light fantastic around the lodge.

"Hold it!" Loren shouted. "How are we going to make vodka, which I don't care for by the way, without potatoes?"

"Oh, my poor deluded Americanski," Misha taunted. "We have something much better," she said with a flourish and tossed Loren a camas bulb from the supply basket.

Loren's frown melted into a mischievous grin. "By Jove, comrade. I think you just might be onto something." Loren bit into the sweet meat. "I can see it now. Hecate's Distillery, the life blood of Amazon culture!" High-fives sparked more high jinks.

"To Cascadia's first all-girl city!" Robin mimed a toast.

"Hear, Hear!" the clan chimed in.

In lieu of libations, wild ideas flowed freely that night. A number of proclamations were put forth, not the least of which was to get down to some serious spellwork around the one subject at the back of everyone's mind: perpetuation of the species. Parthenogenesis had been a favorite subject around the campfire, but the demands of day to day survival on the trail overshadowed any serious experimentation. During their leisurely Winter at Raintree hot springs, those yearning to become mothers played around with things like extreme temperature gradients and the insertion of various herbal concoctions during lovemaking. But for a few pesky rashes, nothing came of it, although the very idea of spawning female offspring made for heightened passion.

The separatists in the clan couldn't stomach the obvious alternative, but that didn't stop the spinning of late night scenarios starring the reclusive nature-loving teen, who in their eyes was the prototype for all future men on Earth: rarely seen and a friend to the Wild.


By the next Full Moon, Grace whispered to her ardent lover, "I missed my period."

"I'm not that good," Misha, breathless and sweaty, teased.

"I've been counting, and I'm ten days late."

"You don’t eat enough ."

"That's your answer for everything."

Grace rolled over for a sleepless night. The next morning, after everyone else had gone off to their respective chores, she and Robin lingered at the table sipping tea.

"It's probably nothing."

"Have you been late before?"

"Not ever. But the reason I'm telling you is...I know this sounds absurd...but I had this dream a couple nights ago that I got pregnant."

"That's wonderful!" Robin exclaimed in the face of Grace's scowl.

"You don't understand. Motherhood is the last thing I want. My own mother was rotten at it, and I'm sure I'd be worse."

Robin recalled Grace's motherly devotion to her deceased goats, but wisely avoided stirring up bad memories. "I don't believe that for a moment," she argued.

"The point is I don't want the aggravation--not now, not ever. Life is starting to get easier and I'd like to kick back and enjoy it for a change."

"I can get with that," Robin said.

"Just for the sake of discussion, though, as a biologist, do you think spontaneous fertilization happens in mammals?"

"I didn't used to think so, but now I'm not so sure. As a matter of fact, lately I've been invoking a very knowledgeable person on the subject."

"Who's that?"

"Andrea Tedesco."

"Isn't she a water witch?"

"Among other things. From what Andrea tells me, the first requirement is that a woman has to desire a baby with all her heart in order for it to happen. I guess that rules you out."

"I would think so. Just out of curiosity, though, exactly how does it work?"

"There are a number of different methods ranging from herbs, to meditation, animal magnetism, ice packs before or after super hot sex."

"A bunch of mumbo-jumbo," Grace scoffed.

"It's more than the modern mind can comprehend."

"Dr. Walker, have you completely given up on science?"

"It has its place. You know, Grace, I was going to wait until tonight at supper to spill the beans, but something big is going down that could make this whole discussion moot."

"Not another earthquake, I hope."

"No, no..nothing like that," Robin lowered her voice. "I have good news, momentous news. Without going into details, a caravan of enlightened pilgrims is heading down here from the north."

"Nomadic Sasquatches, no doubt," Grace chuckled.

"This is for real, Gracie, I swear it. They're coming to...well...I don't know how else to put this...to bring the mysteries of the Divine Feminine to Hecate's Cove. Now, before you go all haywire on me, the reason I wanted you to know is that Andrea says that babies have already been born along the way."

"Isn't she supposed to be on Crete?"

"She's with the caravan. Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Sure, I love a good story," Grace taunted.

"In a nutshell, what you have to understand is that the Mediterraneans have this parthenogenesis thing down to a science. Isn't that a hoot?!"

Grace was convinced that Dr. Walker had gone around the bend. "A definite hoot. Exactly when will these superior beings arrive?"

"Depending on the weather, of course, I'd say by next Spring, or even earlier."

"And you're basing this all on a séance or two," Grace said with disdain.

"OK, Gracie. I can see you're not with me on this. We'll all have a chance to hash it out after dinner. In the mean time, I wouldn't worry about your problem. You might want to speak to Anya about some herbal remedies."


Grace never consulted with Anya and spent the next several mornings in the latrine. "At least I can rule out a tumor," she cynically thought between waves of nausea.

"Grace? You all right in there?" Claire asked from outside the latrine door.

"Just peachy," Grace groaned.

"Open up. Anya's mixed up a brew for you."

"To put me out of my misery, I hope."

Grace reluctantly unlatched the door and received the remedy from Claire, who was appalled at her pasty complexion and deep dark circles under her eyes.

"Drink up. You're not getting enough liquids."

"What am I supposed to do when I puke everything up?" Grace took a sip of the bitter brew. "What's in this shit?" she gagged.

"A special combo from Risa's journal. Anya says there's an antispasmodic in it."

"Whatever it is, it's gross," Grace moaned, but bravely kept sipping. Blotches of color instantly dotted her sallow cheeks.

"Atta girl," Claire coached as Grace held her nose and downed the rest of the nasty potion.

"Now, if you don't mind, I'd like a little privacy."

"Oh, by the way. Robin wants to see you as soon as you're up to it."

Claire closed the latrine door. By midday, her patient was feeling a bit better and managed to keep down part of a soft-boiled wild duck egg. Relieved of her chores, Grace lounged in a hammock Loren had woven and stretched between two poles driven deep into the beach sand.

Robin, fresh from the camas fields, plopped down cross-legged in the sand. "Well, ain't you livin' the life."

"I need my vitamin D, you know," Grace said, rubbing her flat belly.

"That's right. Looks like Anya's remedy is doing the trick."

"I'm reserving judgment until tomorrow morning. How are you this glorious day?"

"Except for my aching back, never better."

"What's on your mind, Dr. Walker?"

"Can't a friend just stop by for a visit?"

"Yeah, but even in this glare, I can see those shamanic wheels turning behind those dark eyes," Grace replied, shading her own.

"I never took you for a mind-reader, Gracie."

"When it comes to unmet needs, I'm second to no one."

"I'm not horny, if that's what you're getting at," Robin chuckled.

"That's not what I heard last night," Grace said, raising her perfectly arched eyebrows. Robin blushed and sifted the sand through her fingers.

"Seriously, Grace, there is something that's been driving me crazy. I just can't figure out how...I mean, now that it appears that you are in fact pregnant, would you mind telling me how you did it?"

"I didn't get it on with the locals, if that's what you're implying," Grace retorted.

"Of course not. No, I was just wondering if you've been doing anything unusual, or eating anything out of the ordinary."

"Before this nausea crap started, sex had been hotter than ever."

"So I heard," Robin teased.

"I can't think of anything else that's different."

"If you don't mind me asking, how do you feel about motherhood?"

"I'm taking it one day at a time. Misha is ecstatic and I love seeing her happy."

"Sure, but what puzzles me is the heart and soul thing. According to Andrea, fertilization can't even happen without both being involved."

"Well, obviously, I'm the exception to the rule--the story of my life." Grace swung her thin legs over the edge of the hammock and looked out at the pale blue Pacific.

"You don't want this child, do you Grace?"

"Now look who's the mind-reader?" Grace stood and braced herself against a flood of conflicting emotions. For Misha's sake, her impulse was to react to Robin's bulls-eye inquiry with indignation, but Grace could not lie to herself. She looked squarely into Robin's empathic eyes and blurted out the whole truth of the matter. "No, I do not. When Misha's asleep, I lie awake and wonder how much time there is to... you know."

"Safely abort it."

"Yes." With tears imminent, Misha's angel reached out for Robin, who sprang to her feet and embraced her.

"This isn't the end of the world, baby--you'll get through it. But don't you think Misha deserves the truth?"

"I can't" Grace whimpered in a child's voice. "It'll kill her."

"Misha adores you. She wouldn't want you to suffer in a lie."

"But even if she accepted my decision, how would...how would I get rid of it?"

"Anya tells me there are herbs. Who knows if we can find any around here. Even if we do, it can get dicey."

"How dicey?"

"You're not in the best of health, Grace. These herbs can cause hemorrhaging if they're not administered in just the right amounts." Grace broke their embrace and paced.

"Either way, I could die."

"Claire is sure that if you start eating better and get plenty of rest, it's safer to have the baby. You know she'll be showered with a ton of love."

"Oh, Robin, I'm so afraid!"

The undisputed shaman took Grace's hand. "Of course you are, hon. I'd be, too, and I'm one of those wanna-be's. But whatever you decide, let it be from your heart. And remember, you won't be going through it alone." Grace smiled.

"Leave it to you to see the logical upside."

"I do what I can," Robin said and wrapped her strong arms around Misha's reason for living.


Once Robin broke the news of the approaching caravan, no one in the Santee clan slept much. Misha talked non-stop about the baby and Grace did her best to feel happy, but mounting turmoil made it impossible to do anything but fake it. One morning after another sleepless night, Grace told herself she was ready to face the music. She talked Misha into a meditative walk along the beach. The tide was still out far enough for them to sit down on a driftwood log at the foot of Raven's Bluff.

"Are you happy?" Misha asked.

Grace watched a flock of noisy sea gulls skim the breakers. Wishing she could fly off with them, she clung tight to Misha's arm and lied through her teeth, "I've never been happier."

"Me either," Misha said and embraced her.

"But what if it turns out to be just a weird symptom of my lousy appetite?"

"My heart says different," Misha said, kissing Grace's cool cheek.

"I can't imagine how this happened."

"Our love runs deep. I'm surprised I'm not pregnant myself," Misha said with a sly grin.

"And what a beautiful baby she would be." Grace buried her face in Misha's neck and wished, with all her heart, that the tables could indeed be turned.

"I'm not built for having babies, but you are," Misha said. She placed a hand on Grace's flat stomach.

"I suppose," Grace sighed and felt revulsion at wimping out.

Although the morning sickness eventually abated, Grace's torment raged on. She was so anxious, she lost her appetite, which of course drove Misha to distraction. One balmy evening, while on their stroll to the cove, Grace was on the verge of spitting out the bitter truth, when Loren jogged around the south point.

"Hey, you two...I should say, you three," Loren gasped.

"Training for a marathon?" Misha asked with tongue in cheek.

"Gotta keep up my stamina, if you get my drift," Loren replied with a nudge to the Russian's shoulder.

"That's why we're sleeping out under the Stars tonight," Grace teased the over-sexed weaver.

"Keeping you awake, are we?"

"I'm thinking of building a little cottage of our own up on the bluff, with a separate room for the baby," Misha proudly said. "What if it's twins?" Loren quipped.

"Oh, god!" Grace blurted out and immediately covered her genuine horror with a nervous giggle. "The way you and Claire have been going at it lately, I wouldn't be surprised if you both got pregnant with triplets," she valiantly continued her charade.

"Me pregnant?! Not a chance. Claire has always wanted children and I'm more than happy to do what I can to help," Loren said with a wink at Grace, who avoided eye contact. The veteran inquisitor knew something wasn't quite right with her Gracie, but had the good sense not to pry.

"If my angel has twins, I will be twice as happy," Misha said and kissed Grace on the cheek. "And I will just build us a bigger cottage."

"I hate to break it to you, pal, but my rock-hauling days are over," Loren said and did some stretches.

"Then, you better get busy and weave some baby blankets." Grace's light-hearted demeanor hung by a thread, even as a million butterflies bounced off the walls of her rib cage.

"You can count on it. Gotta run, it's past my sack time." Loren trotted off.

"Let's turn in, too," Grace said to Misha. She tried to stand, but suffered a bout of dizziness.

"Are you all right, honey?"

"I think so," Grace moaned and doubled over. Misha eased her angel onto a log. "That's better. It's just a little cramp—it will pass." The pain subsided, but the torment raged on. Grace grabbed the doting Cossack's wrists. The truth exploded over the roar of the encroaching surf. "Misha! I don't want this baby! I can't go through with it! Every night I pray for a miscarriage! Do you hear me, Misha?! I want to get rid of it!"

Grace desperately clung to outrage at her cruel predicament. Her lover, frozen in the moment, couldn't speak. "Did you hear me, Misha?! I don't want the baby! I don't want to be a mother...not ever!" Grace shrieked. "Say something! Tell me you hate me! Tell me I'm a worthless piece of shit!"

Misha collapsed onto the log. Grace struggled to her feet, turned her back on the ocean. She watched the face of her muted lover turn a cadaverous shade of gray. The tide was rising fast. She tried to get Misha to stand, but she wouldn't budge, even as the foamy brine swirled around their feet. Wishing she alone would be swept away by the inevitable riptide, Grace yelled, "For god sakes, Misha! The tide!" She tugged and pulled, but it was no use, the devastated horse whisperer remained glassy eyed in the face of her angel turned demon.

Loren, who'd been in earshot of the outburst, came splashing around the north point and saw Grace knee deep in water, struggling to keep her footing. Misha seemed glued to the log.

"Is she ill?" Loren asked Grace between gasps.

"Devastated," Grace tearfully replied. "Loren, we've got to get her out of here."

A surge of boiling brine slammed the log against nearby rocks. Misha slipped into the water; when Loren tried to help her up, she recoiled. Sputtering and choking, the incensed Cossack grabbed Grace by the shoulders and growled like a hungry grizzly, "Which pig raped you?!"

"Nobody raped me!" Grace yelled back, as much from insult as fear of the white-hot rage burning in Misha's dilated steel-gray eyes.

"Don't lie to me!" Misha snarled and began shaking Grace, who went limp and mute. Loren stepped between them just as another surge filled the cove. The log nearly rolled over them.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!" Loren yelled. She offered Grace her hand, but Misha slapped it away.

"I see his ugly face in your eyes!" she raved on and watched Grace's expression go from fear to sorrow to defiance. "I will kill the pig!" Misha bellowed and lunged through waist-deep tidewater around the north point.

Suddenly, a sneaker wave swamped Loren and Grace. Against a terrific undertow, Loren practically carried Grace around the point to safety. A monster surge transformed Hecate's Cove into a cauldron of destruction; the massive log was tossed like a toothpick against the rocks.

"Leave me!" Grace choked and collapsed on the hard sand.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Loren asked breathless.

"Please, Loren, stop her before it's too late!"

Fueled by adrenaline, Loren caught up with the raging Amazon outside the commons, where she and Cynthia were embroiled in a heated exchange that looked as if it might come to blows.

"Give it to me, you bitch!" Misha screamed in Russian, grabbing for the .38 Cynthia always wore inside her belt ever since a run-in one night with a mother bobcat on the prowl. Fran, who was returning from the creek, dropped the giant clamshell full of water and put Misha in a chokehold.

"Now, whadya say we just sit down over here," Fran grunted and maneuvered the struggling hothead over to a bench. Misha's ferocious hunger for revenge, however, was too much for the constable. Misha knocked her flat on her back. When Cynthia came to Fran's aid, Misha ripped the gun from her belt.

"Give me that weapon, you maniac!" the mayor commanded and lunged for it. They struggled and it looked as if Cynthia, the huskier of the two, was winning. Suddenly, Emma came running up screaming, "Don't hurt my aunt Cindy!" She kicked Misha in the shin several times before Loren could pull the hysterical girl to the side. The gun fell to the ground. Limping and swearing, Misha got to it first and, before anyone had a chance to react, she'd jumped the creek and bounded like a deer into the forest.

"Where she's going?" Loren asked Cynthia.

"To find Carl. He's out looking for Lyle."

Loren ran towards the creek.

"Do you know the trails?!" Fran called out after her.

Loren didn't answer and splashed into the creek.

"You'll be lost in five minutes!" Cynthia warned.

"I'll take that chance!" Loren shouted over her shoulder.

Cynthia scrambled down to the creek. "I'm coming with you!"


Loren and the mayor spent half the night stumbling around in a maze of deer and elk trails, all without the aid of Starlight, blocked by a thick layer of clouds. They were lucky to find their way back to the settlement. After a quick supper of cold camas cakes, Loren dragged back to the Santee lodge. She found Grace pacing outside and had just cajoled her into going inside, when a gunshot pierced the heavy night air.

"No!" Grace cried and bolted for the tree line with Loren in labored pursuit.

"I'm getting too old for this shit," the ex-track star muttered to herself, tripping over roots and rocks along the way. The growing light of day didn't make the ordeal any less grueling.

Running on adrenaline fumes, Loren was ready to give up the ghost when Grace's voice rang out, "Oh, Misha, no!" When Loren staggered up to the edge of the camas field, she found Grace on her knees hunched over Carl's stone cold body. Not wanting to believe he was dead, Loren felt his puffy neck for a pulse.

"Too late," she said and scanned the vicinity for any signs of the most likely culprit.

"I'm going to find her," Grace vowed.

"Hold up, Grace. Misha's armed and out of her mind. Let's get help."

"She would never harm me," Grace said and staggered towards the dark stand of Cedar. Starlight bled through a tear in the clouds, casting a ghostly pale over the desperate seeker.

"For once in your life, think of yourself!" Loren pleaded. At that moment, a shadowy figure crashed through the brush.

"Misha!" Grace cried and ran to her. Loren cautiously approached, keeping a wary eye on the deranged avenger, who was barely able to stand. She tried her best, but Grace couldn't keep her lover from collapsing to the ground. "Help me!" she ordered Loren whose bum knee was on fire.

Limping towards the two silhouettes, Loren muttered, "Damn drama queens."

"What was that?" Grace asked, cradling Misha's head in her lap.

"My knee is killing me," Loren groaned and rolled over spread eagle onto a bed of camas lilies.

The commotion had woken up everyone at both lodges. Jake and Ted eventually arrived on the scene. When the good doctor tried to get Misha to talk, she spit in his face. The two men left carrying Carl's body between them.

As it turned out, Misha had suffered a nasty gash over her right eye and was in and out of consciousness during the long walk back to the Santee lodge. Grace was able to get only bits and pieces of the story.

"Lyle has the gun, then," Cynthia grimly said to Loren, who sat across the table inside the Santee lodge.

"I would presume so," she tersely replied with her eyelids at half-mast.

"He's got just enough bullets to knock off the rest of us so-called adults in our little family," Cynthia bitterly remarked with a glance at Sadie whose pained expression didn't go unnoticed by Marty.

"Why say that?" the ex-reporter had to know, more from curiosity than genuine concern.

"As far as I see it, we're all accomplices in that poor boy's fate. Carl swore to protect the children and this whole time, he's been..." Cynthia choked on her own words. "How could we not see what was going on?"

"Carl was never the same after the accident," Sadie said.

"What accident?" Marty eagerly asked.

"He shot and killed his son in a hunting accident," Sadie answered.

"That's no excuse," Cynthia hissed.

"There never is," Grace spoke up, even as a parade of childhood horrors ran roughshod across her weary mind. "I am sure he was a victim himself," she added and glanced at Misha, who sat in the shadows staring blankly at the floor.

Fran turned her chair towards the mute. "Misha, you have to tell us everything that happened--it could be our only hope of finding the boy." With considerable cajoling from Grace, who translated, Misha pieced together the sordid scenario.

"Like I said, when it got lighter I tracked the pig and found him with the wild boy. He was forcing himself on the boy. I snuck up behind the piece of shit and put the gun to his ear. I said we are now going to play a man's game of Russian roulette. When I spun the chamber, he elbowed me in the stomach and took the weapon, then, he hit me with it. The next thing I remember he was sitting on me pointing the barrel between my eyes. He laughed like a hyena and I could smell the stench of his breath as he tore at my clothes, and that's when the boy came up and hit him with something. I couldn't see what. Then, the piece of shit keeled over, but he still wasn't dead. The wild boy grabbed the gun, they struggled, and it went off. I tried to stand, but I blacked out. When I woke up, they were gone. That's when I stumbled into the meadow and saw my ang...you know the rest."

Misha told her story without once looking at Grace.

"Lyle saved your life," Marty said to her. Wishing he hadn't, the Russian resumed staring at the floor.

"Well, I've heard enough. We have to find that poor boy before something worse happens," Fran vowed. The constable studied Misha with a jaundiced eye and said, "You still haven't told us why you did such a damn fool thing in the first place."

Grace translated, but Misha refused to answer. By Sunrise Cynthia and Fran had left to organize a search party. Sadie lingered and asked Grace to walk with her outside. They sat down on a bench near the rippling creek.

"I know you're dog tired, dear, but there's somethin's been drivin' me to distraction."

"What is it?" Grace, glassy-eyed and slouchy, asked in a monotone. She sensed a deeper need in Mariana's mother, but didn't have the heart to try and assuage it.

"Emma tells me you go up to the meadow every day."

Grace sat up a little straighter. "Yes," she uttered, averting Sadie's misty greens.

"I go myself whenever these ol' knees allow it. I feel close to my daughter there." Grace said nothing; her heart ached from a rush of painful memories. "Is that why you go there?"

Grace kept her eyes riveted on her rippling reflection in the crystal clear water. "Yes," she confessed.

"This has been a terrible night and I don't want to make things worse for you, but I need to say this now, or I never will. You see, ever since you and the other girls arrived here I have this same nightmare night after night and you are always in it, as is my Mariana, but she's..." Sadie stopped to clear her throat, but Grace knew the rest before she heard it. Grace tore her gaze from her own reflection and looked squarely into the freckled face that so reminded her of Mariana's.

"She's dead," she coldly confessed, even though tears streamed down her ashen face. Sadie gasped and clutched her heart. "I'm sorry...I'm so very sorry," Grace whimpered.

"My baby girl is dead!" Sadie wailed and fell into Grace's arms. Sadie's sobs were beyond torture; when they stopped, all Mariana's beloved could think of was escape. But since Sadie didn't ask, Grace felt no pressure to explain exactly how she knew the tragic truth, yet she was compelled to at least give some comfort by saying what she knew all along: "Mariana's soul is here in Hecate's Cove."

Those rarefied moments of shared grief forged a maternal bond Grace hadn't experienced since Risa nursed her back to Life. She was able to eat her first decent meal in days. Misha withdrew into backbreaking toil in the fields and often didn't come back to the lodge until well past dark. From inside a wrenching loneliness she'd not experienced since childhood, one morning Grace asked Sadie to join her on her hike up to the meadow. It was there that Sadie learned that Grace was pregnant. Along with religious reservations, she was able to feel Grace's anguish.

"Misha thinks Carl raped me, and that's why she did what she did," Grace said, twisting a blade of grass between her delicate fingers.

"I see."

"What hurts is she doesn't trust me."

"Does she believe in this...whadya call it?"

"Parthenogenesis. At first she believed it was our loving, but I never wanted it to happen. It came as a terrible shock to me, because you have to desire it with all your heart and soul for it to happen."

"Yes, I remember how much I wanted my first baby."

"Mariana wasn't your only child?"

"She had a brother she never knew. He died before he was a year."

"I'm sorry," Grace said, placing her hand on Sadie's freckled arm.

"He's one of heaven's angels now."

Grace withdrew her hand. "I don't believe in heaven."

"You shouldn't say such things," Sadie scolded, but quickly softened her tone. "I suppose not everybody does. Why don't you believe, dear?"

"I always thought heaven sounded terribly boring, sitting around on a cloud, nothing to do but peer down on Life. Look around you. This is all the heaven we need right here," Grace explained with disarming clarity and conviction.

"You sound just like my Mariana."

"Well, you know what they say?"

"What's that, dear?"

"Likes attract."

"I thought it was opposites."

"Misguided myth," Grace countered. She picked up a twig and started chewing on it.

Sadie thought for a moment, then, trying not to show the embarrassment she was feeling, she blurted out the truth, "You were in love with my Mariana."

Grace threw down the twig. "I still am--more than I can ever express," she sighed and fondled an iris blossom. "It's amazing how these flowers keep blooming from early Spring all the way through Summer."

"Cynthia says it's a miracle."

"I've seen plenty of those since I escaped from hell," Grace said and stretched her arms up to the clear blue sky. A cramp doubled her over.

"How far along are you, dear?"

"More than two Full Moons."

"Time is running out for..." the devout catholic couldn't verbalize the option, much less condone it.

"I've been having a recurring dream," Grace sidestepped the land mines between them. "I see my baby girl. She's wrapped in the blanket Loren wove for me back in Nebraska, the one with the irises and Rhea and...anyway, all I see is my baby's sweet little face. She smiles, blows bubbles. I fall in love with her. I tell her I will never leave her...not ever."

Sadie clasped Grace's trembling hand.

"When I woke up from the dream this morning, I watched Misha sleeping so peacefully beside me and I wanted with all my heart to wake her and tell her the good news, but it was as if somebody was strangling me. I couldn't breathe, everything went to black. I know now that my dream is nothing but a cruel joke." Grace pulled away from Sadie and ripped a blade of grass, roots and all from the warm dark soil.

"Do you truly believe that?" Sadie asked.

Grace's attention was drawn to a red-tailed hawk circling overhead. "I don't know what to believe anymore," she absently replied.

"Well, I know what my Mariana would do," Sadie begged the question, then answered it. "She would honor her dream."

Grace wanted desperately to deliver a clever rebuttal, but she knew there wasn't any, and since she'd given up on lying to herself, she said nothing as her heart hammered in her ears. "You don't know this," Sadie's voice seemed to be echoing, "but the reason I'm sitting in this here meadow talking to you right now is because Mariana had faith in things you can't see, except in dreams. Down in that cellar when all seemed lost, I got everyone to join hands and imagine safe haven, just like my girl told me to do. And, praise the Angels, it worked!"

Sadie's last few words never registered. In an instant, Grace relived the dreamtime reunion with Mariana. Searing images of their loving, her own milk-soaked breasts, the agate rune, the grinding ache of the snake wound, and Mariana carrying her to the field of wild iris. It seemed as if it all happened again that very moment.
"Grace, dear? Did I upset you?"

Trembling, Grace turned to Sadie; she tried to talk but couldn't. With mounting fear Sadie watched those aqua eyes dilate to solid black; the loveliest of faces took on the expression of a cornered animal. She reached for Grace's hand, but was harshly rebuffed. The love of her dead daughter's life sprang to her feet and bolted across the purple meadow.


By the time Sadie made it to the grove of cedars, Grace was long gone. Faced with three choices, she took the trail to her left. Sadie didn't realize it at first, but the grueling climb was taking her straight to Raven's Bluff, a place she avoided like the plague ever since Rhea was driven over it that awful night a lifetime ago. A herd of elk greeted her at the very meadow where the mare once grazed. They didn't move a muscle as she threaded her way through the velvet forest of their massive antlers.

"Oh, Blessed Mother of God, let me find that poor child in time," Sadie prayed aloud, crossing herself. She spotted a freshly trampled path and followed it towards the distant roar of the surf.

The jungle of tall grass made it impossible to know exactly where the edge of the precipice was, so when Sadie heard the breakers crashing below, she froze in terror. A screeching sea gull swooped low overhead and startled her; she lost her balance and fell down on one knee. After crossing herself twice more, she struggled to her feet and, shaking with determination, she made her way along another freshly trampled trail that ended at what she recognized as Lionshead Crag, so called by generations of sailors who relied on it for navigating the treacherous rocks at the mouth of Hecate's Cove.

Out on the crag's outermost point, Grace was standing with her arms outstretched to the electric blue sky, her golden hair blowing wildly in the steady wind. Sadie was mortified. She didn't want to startle Grace over the edge, so all she could think to do was cross herself again and keep still. Grace shouted something into the wind, but Sadie couldn't make it out. Then, when it looked as if she might jump, Sadie cried out to her, but the name blew back in her face. The anguished widow attempted to climb out onto the jagged rock, but slippery moss denied a foothold.

"Damnation!" she growled and immediately crossed herself in contrition. She was about to make another attempt, when she noticed a purplish mist drift up and rapidly enshroud the crag. The moment Grace's form disappeared inside the curtain of thickening fog, Sadie spied an eagle hovering overhead. In an effort to get a better view, she slipped and banged her right knee.

"Dammit to hell!" she hissed and again crossed herself, this time in mortal fear for her soul. Sadie tried again to reach Grace, but still couldn't get a foothold. Now freely cursing like a drunken sailor, she leaned against the rock to catch her breath. When the mist cleared, Grace was nowhere to be seen.

The miserable sinner fell to her knees and wailed her lungs out in a storm of expletives directed at the almighty himself. When she pulled herself up, Sadie, bruised and unrepentant, brushed herself off and angrily trudged for home with the terrible news weighing mightily on her shoulders.

When she reached the creek behind the commons she didn't bother to take her sandals off; like a charging water buffalo, she splashed through the rippling waters, stomped up to the heavy door, and flung it open.

Ted, who was cooking up a storm, dropped a duck egg on the floor when he saw her silhouette looming in the doorway. "Shit," he muttered.

"You can say that again," Sadie snarled. "Where's Cynthia?"

"She's down on the beach looking for you. She's been worried sick," the master chef replied, scraping eggshell from the top of his bare foot. "You look awful. Where have you been?" he grunted. Sadie lunged for Ted and grabbed him by the frayed collar of his Armani suit coat.

"I have just born witness to the wrath of the almighty," she hissed in his face, her eyes bulging like the countless madwomen he had tried and failed to save from the modern snake pits.

"Sadie, now, why don't you just sit down at the table and I'll make you some nice nettles tea. You can tell me all about it," he cajoled in a voice he'd carefully cultivated for such crises.

"There's no use in it. You're going with me to the cove and see his handiwork for yourself," she ordered and grabbed both his wrists. Ted balked. "Come along, sinner--the tide waits for no man," Sadie raved. With amazing strength she dragged him over to the open door.

Just then, Cynthia charged through it. When she saw the condition of her beloved, she exclaimed without thinking, "Holy moly! You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"The holy ghost, you hussy! And he has just now brought his vengeance upon us!" Sadie's shrill voice pierced the mayor's eardrums. "Now, you will see for yourself." The zealot pushed Cynthia back out the door.

"See what, Sadie?" Cynthia asked in a voice she used with Emma when the child saw bogeymen lurking around the sleeping cottage.

"Sadie wants us to go down to the cove," Ted said and shot Cynthia a pitiful glance. The mayor switched into emergency mode. "OK, Sadie, lead the way," she obliged in a voice of calm resolve.

The trio marched down the beach with Sadie in the lead, still raving. Robin and her coven took a break from their telepathic exercise to watch the bizarre entourage.

"I wonder what they're up to?" Marty asked.

"Whatever it is, they better keep an eye out for the rising tide," Robin said.

"Maybe we should warn them," Claire said.

"I'm sure they're very aware of it. Besides, we got bigger fish to fry," Luka said.

"Yeah, if only they knew the half of it," Sashi said with a belittling snicker.

"Now, now. Just because we have a private line to the future doesn't mean we can feel superior to those who don't," Robin chided, only half-serious.

"Not that they would ever look down their noses at us for any reason," Loren bitterly muttered.

"To forgive is divine, mis companeras," Robin admonished and asked for a re-joining of hands. Out of the corner of her eye, she closely monitored the determined three until they disappeared around the point.

In the middle of the second chanting of the Sacred Syllable, a sustained scream echoed from the bowels of Hecate's Cove. The chanters jumped to their feet and loped down the beach. When they rounded the point, the tide was already filling in the nooks and crannies at the rocky base of Raven's Bluff. And atop the south point's outermost rock, Grace, the picture of robust health and serenity, perched with her arms around her knees, oblivious to the scene she was causing.

Sadie proclaimed, "It's a miracle!" over and over, while Cynthia and Ted pleaded with Grace to come down from the rock. "This is Mariana's favorite spot in the whole world!" Grace shouted over the roar of the surf and stood up with her arms stretched to the sky. As if someone had flipped a switch, Sadie ceased her raving; motherly instinct took charge.

"I know, dear! Now, please come down before we all drown!" she urged.

"You always think the worst, Sadie Morgan!" Grace, precariously balanced, scolded and shook her finger.

"Hey, Gracie, no use tempting fate!" Robin's voice rang out and echoed off the cliff walls. She forgot her fear of heights and started to climb up the slippery perch.

"I don't believe in fate, Dr. Walker!" Grace happily declared and turned to bask in the warmth of the Sun.

"What do you believe in, Gracie?!" Robin shouted back, clinging for dear life to a crevice.

Grace put her hands on her belly.

"I believe in possibility!" shouted into the wind.

A breaker crashed against her precarious pedestal and sprayed a waterfall of brine over everyone. Gasps followed by cheers reverberated inside the cove the moment they saw Grace had weathered it. Misha, who'd heard Sadie's screams all the way from the camas fields, splashed around the north point and waded over to the rock.

Grace beamed when she saw her. "Misha, please help me down," she sweetly said. With Robin's help, Grace fell into Misha's eager arms and whispered something in her ear. The ecstatic Amazon let out a whoop, kissed her angel, and carried her piggyback out of harm's way.

Chapter XIV

A general meeting was called at the Santee lodge during which Misha apologized in her best English to Cynthia and Fran. She didn't remember spitting on Ted, or else she surely would have apologized to him as well. Daily searches had come up empty, so Misha enlisted the help of Loren and Emma to track down the boy who'd saved her life.

Emma had a strong hunch that her brother had gone north to a secret hideout somewhere near Rocky Beach. The first few nights on steep and treacherous trails were dicey, because the further north they went the more predators they encountered. If not for Emma's uncanny ways with wild animals, they could have easily met their end in the jaws of a saber-toothed cougar, or worse, a pack of wolves who no longer feared humans.

On the morning of their third day out, what Misha took for a lone wolf was pacing the brush around the perimeter of their campsite, and in spite of throwing several rocks at the stalker, it wouldn't leave. Emma and Loren were down at the stream collecting the day's supply of drinking water, so the wary Russian decided to try her hand at negotiating with the large canine, whose sad black eyes she found so compelling. She inched her way close enough to see the remnants of what to her surprise looked like a dog collar with tags hanging around its badly scarred neck.

"Take it easy, boy," she murmured in the common language. With her heart pounding, Misha crept closer. "I won't hurt you," she softly repeated. The dog whimpered, crouched to his stomach and started crawling towards her. Misha got down on one knee and offered an open hand, palm up. With another whimper, the dog stretched and licked the tips of her fingers.

"Hello, fella. Where'd you come from?" she said and scratched between his ears. Misha recoiled when the dog jumped to his feet and boldly licked her face. Wagging his tail like mad, he ran circles around her, the tags jingling like sleigh bells.

The racket brought Emma and Loren running up from the stream bank; they found Misha laughing at the antics.

"That's Lyle's dog!" Emma shouted and scared the animal back into the brush.

"Was that a bull mastiff I just saw?" Loren, a dog lover since childhood, asked the Russian.

Misha, whose knowledge of large canines derived from terrifying folktales about wolves running amok in the remote villages of Kazakhstan, replied, "That dog had a collar, and that's no bull."

When Loren translated, bad pun and all, Emma bound into the brush, shouting, "Lyle! Where are you?!"

"The boy must be close by," Misha said the obvious, grabbing her bedroll.

"A stone age dog with tags...now I've seen everything," Loren muttered.

"After all we've seen, what's so strange about that? And who says it's the stone age?" Misha said with a knowing grin. "Let us blowing theez here popstands," she butchered one of Loren's favorite expressions.

With Emma in the lead, they followed what they hoped were dog tracks to the edge of a precipice overlooking a towering waterfall.

"Well, ain't this fine and dandy. I've seen a flying horse, a flying dog shouldn't surprise me," Loren said, peering into the deep ravine. "So where's this hideout you've been telling us about, Emma?"

"There," the girl pointed to the raging river below.

"I see no way, short of sprouting wings, that we're gonna get down there."

"We could take a flying leap," Misha quipped to Emma, who scowled because she hadn't understood a word.

"I'll walk this time around, if you don't mind," Loren said.

"There's a secret trail," Emma insisted.

"Maybe that's where Fido went," Loren said and suffered another scowl from Emma. "His name isn't Fido."

"What is it, then, little Miss Muffet?!"

Emma didn't appreciate that bit of sarcasm either. She placed her hands on her hips and sassed, "I'm not going to tell you."

"His name is Keeper," a familiar voice startled the girl. She spun around and rushed to her brother with open arms. The dog crashed through the brush and made a beeline for Misha, who froze in terror.

"I see you two have met," Loren said to the wary horse whisperer, who suffered a slobbery tongue bath.

"What is his name again?" Misha asked Emma between licks.

"Keeper," Emma proudly replied, having perfectly understood the common language for the first time.

"That's what his tag says," Lyle pointed out.

"Keeper," Misha repeated and inspected the battered piece of tin. The old dog barked and ran circles around her at breakneck speed.

"Wow! That sucker moves fast for a mastiff," Loren said to Lyle, who stifled a grin with his trademark frown. "This sure is wild country," she said to soften up the suspicious teen, who wore the .38 conspicuously behind the waistband of his baggy shorts. Lyle ignored the comment and motioned for Emma to approach so he could whisper something in her ear.

"Come on," Emma afterwards ordered Loren and Misha.

They followed Lyle through a patch of salmon berry bushes and out to a promontory overlooking the coastline. While Misha and Loren took in the grandeur of it all, Lyle directed his sister's attention to the dunes directly below. Emma couldn't believe her eyes.

"Camels!" she shouted at the sight of two heavily tasseled dromedaries tethered to a driftwood log. Lyle covered Emma's mouth with one hand and put the other on the handle of the .38.

"It's the enemy," he said and eased her back from the edge.

"Not our enemy," Misha countered in English. "Giving me the weapon now." She watched Lyle struggle between fight and flight. Just when it looked as if he would make a run for it, Keeper's bark distracted him. Misha snatched the revolver and emptied out the five bullets over the precipice. "You will not be needing for this," she said and returned it. "Will you show us the way down?" Loren asked the misty-eyed young man. He looked to his sister, who nodded enthusiastically.

With Lyle as their guide, they descended a steep and narrow ledge down to the river. He walked to the edge of the sapphire waterfall pool, and without any encouragement, threw the pistol into its deep waters.

Misha gave Loren the high five and shouted, "Our work here is done!"

"Happy hour, here we come!" Loren reciprocated with a little victory dance.

On the way to the dunes, Emma took Loren's hand. "Some day I'm going to have my very own camel, so I can explore faraway lands."

"You know, kid, you really should consider a llama. Much more dependable, gets better mileage, and is far less cranky."

"What's a llama?" Emma asked.

Loren pointed to the Angaran caravan making its way south on Rocky Beach.

Epilogue

Fourteen Summers came and went before the first class of novice priests was initiated into the Order of the White Mare. The entire population of Hecate's Cove and Taji (who trekked all the way from the great plains of the Buffalo) were all in joyous attendance inside the magnificent shrine Misha and company had built on Raven's Bluff. Robin, who led the festivities, gave a moving remembrance for all the pilgrims who died to make the dream a reality. Andrea gave a moving tribute to the town's most celebrated hero. Loren, who designed and wove beautiful robes for the occasion, had the honor of presenting one to each of the twelve initiates. After the ceremony, Ariel presented Sadie with the agate rune Mariana had taken into the battle that never was.

During the joyous celebration, one of the new priests slipped out onto the grand balcony and gazed at the beautiful face she saw in the Harvest Moon.

"I will make you very proud of me!" she shouted into the wind.

Grace, who overheard the vow, joined her daughter and said, "She already is, my angel, she already is."


           Rise and Shine.

If you have enjoyed Keeper's "When Amazons Dream - Dream III: In The Realm Of Possibility", then please be certain to e-mail her at  ghwriter[at]msn.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of  Keeper's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.