Being a Green Mother (34 page)

When it was done, the flower in Tinka’s hand had grown into a bouquet, and her eyes were fixed on it. “Now it is clear,” she said.

“Look at your son,” Orb said.

They turned to the crib and looked down. “He is beautiful!” Tinka said. Then she began to cry.

Orb held her, knowing that she had found another aspect of her developing power. Nature controlled vision; nature could remove it or restore it. The Llano was only a tool; Orb’s will and Tinka’s readiness had shaped it.

Then the baby awoke and began to fuss. Tinka picked him up.

“I will return often, until I am sure you can see always,” Orb said. “Call me when you want me.” Then she thought the new travel theme and turned the page to her room in Jonah.

Nat was gone, but she thought his name, and he appeared. “Oh, Nat, I went to her and I saw her baby and I cured her blindness!” Orb exclaimed. “I used a power of Nature!”

“I am glad for you.”

“I really should rest now.”

“Yes, you should.”

“Let’s go somewhere.”

“Anywhere you wish.”

Orb considered. “I—I wish I could see my baby. Orlene. Not to interfere. Just—” She shrugged. “But I don’t know how to tune in on someone who doesn’t think of me.”

“It can be done,” he said. “This variant of the theme.” He sang again, and it was similar to the attuning melody, but distinct.

Orb thought of Orlene and sang the variant. She felt the magic questing out in a search pattern, traversing the world at its own rate. Then it fastened on its object, and the connection had been invoked.

“But can I really go to her?” Orb asked uncertainly.

“Exactly as you just did.”

“But I don’t want to disturb her life. I just want to see.”

Nat smiled. “If you use the expansion-travel theme, but do not coalesce completely, you will be invisible and inaudible, like a ghost. In fact, that is how ghosts do it, but they are capable of no more, generally. This way.” He sang and faded out.

Orb tried it. Instead of expanding, she simply lost mass, until she stood with too little substance to be visible. Now that she was in this state, she was able to perceive Nat, similarly diffuse. “Oh, there are so many things to learn!” she exclaimed. Her voice was a mere shadow.

“But you learn them so readily,” he said. He was not whispering, but she knew that only she could hear him. They were on a slightly different plane of existence.

“Come with me to see my daughter,” she invited him.

“As you wish.”

Orb moved into the page-turning theme, orienting on Orlene, and in a moment was there. Nat stood beside her.

The little girl was in nursery school, waiting her turn on a swing. She was about three years old, wearing a smudged dress and comfortable little shoes. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, its buckwheat-honey hue matching Orb’s hair exactly. She was well fed and seemed contented.

Then the child raised her hand. Orb saw the serpent-ring on one finger. Evidently the ring was squeezing, telling her something. She looked at Orb, her eyes unfocused.

“She knows I’m here!” Orb exclaimed. “The ring told her!” Hastily she turned the page, back to Jonah.

Nat reappeared beside her. “That is a good protective charm your daughter has,” he remarked.

“I can’t visit her again,” Orb said, upset. “If she knows I’m there, then I’m interfering in her life.”

“But she is your child.”

“Not any more. I must let her have her own life. I can see she is well cared for; Tinka gave her to a good family. No, I must leave her alone.”

Then Orb turned to Nat, put her head into his shoulder, and cried. She could be the Green Mother, but she could not be a mother to her child.

The tour of the Livin’ Sludge continued, and its success continued. The magic enchanted audiences of every type.
But the group knew that their association was coming to a conclusion, because Orb had found the Llano and would in due course be assuming the office for which she was destined.

The abatement of the drummer’s addiction held; he was free of H. Orb did the others similarly. Their quest was finished, and they made plans for marriage and regular employment in the future. She sang to Jonah, enabling him to swim in water again; his curse, too, was done. He continued to serve the group, but it was understood that, after the tour, he would go his own way. She sang for Jezebel, making permanent the state that Jonah had enabled on a temporary basis, and giving her the power to control her form by day or night. The guitarist knew that she would never age naturally—but now she could age unnaturally, as desired. After he died of old age, she would go her way, but would never need to indulge men indiscriminately.

Orb visited the old water oak. The hamadryad recognized her, but would not approach. Then Orb sang a song of renewal to the tree, and the deadwood revivified and the leaves brightened. She had contributed perhaps a century to its life and strengthened the hamadryad accordingly. Then the dryad came down and touched Orb’s hand fleetingly in gratitude. It was enough.

Orb spent much time with Natasha, and her devotion to him became broader and deeper and more intense. He was everything she had wanted in a man, without realizing it until encountering him. He was always there when she needed him, but he never made demands. They visited far places and sang together, and the very heavens seemed to brighten and assume new significance. It had been a long time since she had loved a man, and she was glad that the interim was over.

Meanwhile, her powers of magic grew. She could make the weather change with little more than the thought of a given melody; a more involved effort had caused the pattern of the climate in the neighborhood of Betsy’s farm to become regular, so that there were neither droughts nor floods to destroy the crops. But once she had done favors for her friends, she became dissatisfied; there was too much grief and hunger and mysery in the world. The problem of drug addiction was not limited to the Livin’ Sludge, and the problem
of physical impairment not limited to Tinka’s blindness. How could she deal with these things on a spot basis, while neglecting their far worse aspects on the global basis?

So it was that as the tour came to an end, she arrived at her decision. She was going to take the office of Nature.

She told her friends aboard Jonah. They congratulated her, unsurprised. “You can still drop in on us, when you have time,” Lou-Mae said, giving her a hug. “We’ll always be your friends.”

“But have you told Natasha?” Jezebel asked.

“He said he could accept whatever I decided.”

“Men do say that, but they don’t always mean it. Better tell him soon.”

“I will tell him now,” Orb said. She turned the page and was beside Nat, where he waited for her on a tiny tropical island.

He smiled at her. “You have decided.”

“I have decided. I will give up the family and will assume the office of Nature. I will be the Green Mother.”

“Then I will have something to ask you, and something to tell you,” he said gravely.

“Ask me now, and tell me now,” she invited him.

He smiled. “These are not minor matters. Assume your office; then I will say what I must say.”

“But you said you could accept my decision!” she said, alarmed.

“And so I can and will. But I think you must make your decision on me after you make it on the other matter.”

“If you don’t want me to be Nature—”

“Please, I must not discuss that now. There is a thing I may tell you only when you have the office.”

Troubled, she gazed at him. “Suddenly I don’t understand you, Natasha!”

“I may say no more at this time,” he said apologetically.

“Then I will say more,” she said. “I love you and want to marry you. If you can not accept marriage to an Incarnation—”

“I think we shall have the proof of that soon enough.”

“If only you would tell me what is bothering you, before I—before it is too late to change my mind!”

He simply shrugged.

Nettled, she turned the page to a far place, the snowy top
of the mountain she had visited when her travels had been uncontrolled. There she spread her arms and opened her desire; she would be Gaea.

She felt herself expanding, not physically but psychically. Her awareness came to encompass all the world, every living thing in it, and every unliving thing. She permeated the globe, partaking of its nature everywhere. She
became
its nature.

Now the hunger in Africa was not a concept to her; it was part of her. The cold weather near the poles and the hot weather near the equator were aspects of her being. All the happiness of the world was hers, and all the suffering.

Now she knew why the prior Gaea had been ready to let the office go. It was such an enormous burden of responsibility! Suddenly the power she had acquired seemed inadequate to the job she had to do. How could one person oversee all the activities of the world? She was overwhelmed.

She felt herself tugged. She went where summoned and came to her residence in Purgatory. It most resembled a giant tree, but its appearance was malleable; it could be whatever she wanted. The prior Gaea had left it for her.

A young man was by the entrance. “I represent your staff,” he said. “I am a lesser Incarnation; we thought it best that I handle the transition, until you are comfortable in the office. The staff consists of souls trained to serve you; they will continue to serve, or will retire in favor of replacements you may choose.”

“Who are you?” she asked, surprised. “You look familiar.”

“I should; I have just interacted with you. I am Eros.”

“Eros! The—?”

“Incarnation of Love,” he agreed.

Orb decided to set aside the implications for the moment. “You know how this office is run?”

“I know how it has been run. All decisions are yours, but we will help in whatever way you require. Perhaps you will want to interview the other lesser Incarnations who work with you, such as Phobos, Deimos, Hope—”

“In due course,” Orb said. “I have one matter to settle before I get into it. Can you keep things on an even course for now?”

“If you direct, Gaea.”

“Do so. I will return shortly.” Orb knew she should get on into the mastery of her office, for it was important, but she simply couldn’t wait to settle with Natasha.

She turned the page back to the isle. He was there. “I am Gaea,” she said. “Now talk to me.”

“Now there must be truth between us,” he said.

“There has not been before?” she asked archly.

“There has not. I will explain. You must withhold your answer until you have heard the explanation.”

“I will withhold my answer,” she agreed.

“Gaea, I am asking you to marry me.”

Orb relaxed. She had grown afraid he had changed his mind! But, heeding his caution, she did not answer.

“Now I must tell you that our relationship has been based on a lie. I am not the man I have represented to you. The testing of the prophecy is now upon us.”

“The prophecy?” she asked blankly.

“That you might marry Evil.”

“But—”

“Spell my name backwards.”

Orb pieced it out. “Natasha. AHSATAN.”

“And punctuate it. Ah, Satan. That is the realization of the truth. I am an Incarnation, as you are now. The Incarnation of Evil.”

Appalled, Orb stared at him. Her worst horror was facing her—in the aspect of the man she loved.

– 14 –

“You are naturally confused,” Nat said. “That is why you must hear my explanation. The attempt to void a valid prophecy can be a treacherous thing. When the Incarnations ascertained that the prophecy relating to Luna’s relationship with Death and your relationship with Evil was valid, they were of course horrified. But it was not an absolute. It contained the qualifier ‘may.’ That meant there was doubt—and therefore room for negotiation.”

“Negotiation!” Orb snorted.

“In the course of protecting Luna from My interference, your mother compromised her position on you. She promised to guide your thread away from politics, and I promised never to harm you. It was understood that this represented her acquiescence to My interest in you.”

“Mother wouldn’t—!”

“Of course, upon reconsideration, she regretted this, as did the other Incarnations, especially Mars, when he learned of it.”

“Mars? Mym said you were a good man!”

“Not exactly. At any rate, I naturally inspected you more closely thereafter—and perceived your destiny as the Incarnation of Nature. Then My interest increased. I saw, too,
that you were very like your mother, in her prior session as an Incarnation. She was the most beautiful woman of her generation, a terrible thorn in My side, but I confess to becoming somewhat smitten with her along the way.”

“Niobe would never—!”

He nodded. “True, true. She would have nothing to do with Me. But when I saw how you resembled her, in appearance and mannerism, I knew I could be attracted to you as I was to her. Then it occurred to Me that a union between the Incarnations of Evil and Nature—”

“No!”

“Would give dominance of the mortal realm to Me. At last I had the opportunity to defeat Mine ancient antagonist. Therefore—”