Being a Green Mother (13 page)

Orb woke laughing—but as she realized where she was, her mirth turned to tears. Never again, those happy days!

Yet even this experience seemed to help her, as if a little more of her grief had been wrung out, and she was less depressed thereafter. After all, her memories were all she had of Mym now, and so were worth treasuring.

Orb had to remain in the house increasingly as her term advanced, for she didn’t want her condition generally known. This was awkward for Tinka, who was not apt at shopping alone. Finally they arranged to have groceries delivered, unusual as this was for this village. Orb preferred to be viewed as an eccentric, rather than to have her situation clarified.

But as the time of birthing drew near, she knew there were limits to secrets. The ring informed her that she was likely to need a midwife. Tinka made the arrangement and used the money Orb gave her to swear the old Gypsy woman to secrecy, and the midwife took care of the rest.

But as the contractions came, there was pain. Orb had decided to birth her baby the natural way, taking no medication, but realized that this was impractical; the pain was too much. So the midwife gave her medicine—and it had no effect. The midwife tried alternative medicine—with no better result.

“What’s the matter?” Orb asked the ring. She did not actually speak; she had learned to direct her questions sub-vocally. “Is there something wrong with the medicine?”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Wrong with me?”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Wrong with the situation?”

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Then she realized. “My protective amulet! It’s protecting me from the medication! Because that stuff could be dangerous.”

Squeeze.

“Should I remove the amulet?”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Then how shall I bear the pain?”

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

“There is a way?”

Squeeze.

“Something in lieu of medicine?”

Squeeze.

“A spell?”

Squeeze.

Orb asked the midwife for a spell to take her mind off the pain. The Gypsy woman obliged with a Spell of Analogy.

Orb found herself outside, in the mountain. Rather, she
was
the mountain, the air about it, the vegetation on it, and the water running through it.

But the mountain was in distress. A boulder had formed within it and was blocking the egress of a deep spring-fed river. Pressure was building up, and this was the focus of pain. That boulder had to be gotten out before the pressure cracked open the mountain.

“This is ridiculous!” Orb exclaimed. “I’m not a mountain!”

But the vision persisted, and after a time she gave herself up to it. She became the landscape and labored with its problem. She heaved—and slowly the boulder moved, squeezing down the channel, wedging past the constriction. She heaved again, and it nudged through, first a part of it, then the breadth of it, the riverbed straining and scratching but not breaking. A third great heave, and at last it cleared, and the water burst out and spattered down the slope, free.

She emerged from the vision. Her baby was out, and she was panting, her pain abating. The spell had gotten her through.

It was female, as the ring had foreseen, and in perfect health. Tinka put the baby girl in her arms. “I’ll name her after me,” Orb murmured, distracted by the wonder of this new life. “No, they’ll call her eyeball! Make it Orlene instead.”

Then she realized that she was being short-sighted. “I can’t keep her! I have no right to name her!”

“Name her anyway,” Tinka said.

The logic appealed.

Orlene was a delight. Orb nursed her and burped her and changed her diaper and joyed in being a mother. She wished
she could remain here forever with the baby. And why not? The gems from Mym’s kingdom represented a virtually inexhaustible fount of money.

But she realized in a moment that it remained impossible. Orlene would not remain a baby forever; she would become a little girl, and then a young woman. What kind of a life would it be for her, with no father, no family, no freedom? She needed legitimacy, a family, friends, school, a social life—everything that Orb herself had had, and could not pass on. The kindest thing she could do for her daughter was to relinquish her.

Then, abruptly, the ring squeezed her. She hadn’t asked it a question; it was trying to get her attention. “Something the matter?” she asked.

Squeeze.

Orb’s dread returned. “I have to leave now?”

Squeeze.

“But why? Surely a few more days with my child—”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Orb stood and pointed her finger, turning slowly, and when she came to the proper direction, the ring squeezed.

The direction was north. “Home?”

Squeeze.

“I’m needed at home?”

Squeeze.

“Something has happened?”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“
Will
happen?”

Squeeze.

Then suddenly she knew. “Daddy!”

Squeeze.

Her father was old and had been slowly failing. This could only mean that he was dying.

“But I could go home, then return here—”

Squeeze, squeeze.

The ring had always been right. She had tested it many times, idly. She believed it. It was better to make a clean break now and do what she had to do.

“Tinka, the time has come,” she said. “I must leave Orlene with you, but you cannot keep her. You must give her
for adoption to some well-to-do tourist family who will be able to care for her properly.”

“But I would not know who—” Tinka protested. “I can not even speak their language!” For they were speaking Calo.

Orb removed the magic ring. “Wear this. It will guide you: one squeeze for yes, two for no. When it tells you the family is right, give them the baby.”

The ring came to life, and the little snake raised its head and looked at her.

“Something else to tell me?” Orb put a finger down, and the snake coiled about it. “What am I forgetting? Something else I must tell Tinka?”

Squeeze.

“To help Orlene?”

Squeeze.

“My amulet! I’ll put it on her, to protect her!”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Then—?”

Squeeze.

“Then you? Give her you?”

Squeeze.

Suddenly it made sense. “You will remain with Orlene and guide her throughout her life?”

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

“Or at least until she grows up and can make her own decisions?”

Squeeze.

“Yes, of course. I know you will do what is right.”

Squeeze.

Then she removed the ring again and gave it to Tinka. “When you find the right family, put this ring on Orlene’s finger. It will fit.”

The girl nodded.

“And for you, for the time when you have your own baby—” Orb brought out her ruby. “This will make you rich. Your husband is an honorable man? I mean, he wouldn’t cheat you?”

Tinka nodded again.

“Then get his help when you need to market this.” Orb put the gem into the girl’s hand, then impulsively hugged her. “I fear I will never see you again. I love you, Tinka.”

Then the Gypsy girl began to cry, and Orb wept with her. But what had to be had to be, and in due course Orb departed, riding her carpet to the nearest airport, where she took an airplane home.

Pacian was indeed dying. Niobe greeted her tearfully. “Oh, Orb, I’m so glad you came home now! How did you know?”

“I had a ring that advised me,” Orb explained. “It couldn’t see my future, but it could see those who associate with me. I’m sorry I stayed away so long—”

“You’re adult now; you have your own life. But this—”

It was bad, but Orb was glad she had come home. It would have been so much worse if her father had died in her absence. The ring had warned her truly.

She put her hand on his arm, and sent him her music, and felt his own rise in response. “Remember when you told me of the Song of the Morning,” she said.

“Go find your song, Orb,” he replied. Then they held hands and the music intensified, until he lost power and had to sleep.

Two days later he died. Orb handled most of the arrangements, sparing her mother that.

But after the wake and burial, Orb had no inclination to remain. Niobe was able to handle the tree farm, and Orb did indeed have her own life to make. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother, for she did; it was that the happy years of their family existence, with Luna really a part of it, were over, and that was all too obvious.

“Perhaps you should go visit Luna,” Niobe said, as if reading her thoughts. “You could go on tour in America.…” For of course Orb had written home often, advising her family of her location. She had omitted a certain key detail of her past year, not from any desire to deceive her mother, but because she simply hadn’t known how to cope with the fact of an illegitimate baby. One day she would tell her mother, but not right now, not when there was grief enough already.

“I will visit Luna, and see about an American tour,” she agreed. Indeed, the notion appealed to her, for Luna was her closest companion and friend.

But first she visited her old friend the hamadryad. She
approached the old oak tree in the swamp and called out, but the dryad would not come down.

“But it’s me, Orb!” she cried. “Don’t you know me?”

“You have lost your innocence,” the dryad called from the branches.

Orb realized it was true. She had loved a man, and borne a child, and given it away; what innocence remained to her? Suddenly she was overwhelmed by that loss, not realizing how she had valued it until this moment. She sank down to the ground and wept.

Then the hamadryad came down and touched her momentarily. “It is the fate of mortal women,” she said. “My kind can never know it.”

Orb looked up, and the dryad was crying, too, for the loss she could never sustain. Orb reached out to her, but there seemed to be a barrier between them, and they were unable to touch.

“But can’t we still be friends?” Orb asked.

“From a distance,” the dryad agreed.

That seemed to be the best that could be salvaged from a mixed situation. Orb blew her friend a kiss and returned to her own kind. The things of wild magic seemed inevitably to retreat as a person became older and more experienced. That was indeed something worth crying about.

– 7 –

Actually it was some time, a year or more, before she made the trip to America. She had wanted to go immediately, but had not felt free to desert her mother right after Pace’s death, and then there had been requests for her music locally, and one thing led to another, the time frittering away. Then news had come of the Magician’s death, and that shocked her into action, so that she completed her commitments in good order and made the trip at last. Perhaps, she thought, she simply hadn’t wanted to let go of the last hope that her old life could be restored.

Luna lived in Kilvarough, the town that had imported the famous Irish ghost, Molly Malone. Orb mostly tuned out the journey across the wide sea, trying to focus on the future to avoid focusing on the past, and not succeeding any better than she usually did. Mym, Tinka, Orlene, Niobe, the hamadryad—all of these memories were painful because she knew she could never again know them as she had experienced them before.

But as she drew near, the thought of reuniting with Luna cheered her increasingly. With Luna, she knew, she could truly share, because of their closeness and the mutual spells of protection and immunity to having their futures read. The
Magician, Luna’s father, had gone to a lot of trouble to cloud their futures; now she wondered why. She also wondered about the news that Luna was dating Thanatos, the Incarnation of Death; that sounded grim indeed, and perhaps was one of the considerations that had contributed to Orb’s delay. No, that dating had begun after the Magician’s death; she was getting things confused.

Still, she remembered the old prophecy, dating from before their births: that Luna might marry Death, and Orb might marry Evil. Nonsense, of course; surely a Gypsy fortune telling, and though the Gypsies, as she well knew, could prophecy with the best, they tended to slough off when the matter was not important. Probably someone had made up something dramatic for the benefit of what she took to be a gullible tourist, and later the Magician, annoyed by that, had banned any further predictions. Certainly Orb had never had any truck with evil, and never would! Still, if Luna was actually doing it …

Luna met her at the airport. At first Orb didn’t recognize her. Then, shocked, she exclaimed: “Luna! What have you done with your hair?” For Luna’s clover-honey tresses had changed to chestnut brown, completely transforming her appearance. She was still beautiful, but different.

“Father made me do it,” Luna said. “He wouldn’t say why. But this is the way it must be for the rest of my life.”

“What an odd thing! And is it true that you are—?”

“Taking up with Death?” Luna laughed. She was obviously in excellent health, not likely to die at all soon. “Yes, it is true; you’ll meet him soon enough.”