The Fern Tender (3 page)

     He liked the sound of the song though. He felt content now that she was home, back with them. He sat on the side of the bed listening to her happiness, filling himself with the moment. He was cherishing his time with her tonight because teaching the jaguar circle tomorrow for the girls in the village meant she’d be gone all day. Then later this week she’d be gone again for a few days at the Spring in the Ferns, deep inside the Colony.

     Her panties were resting on the floor by the dresser. He was always intrigued when he saw the writing, probably some type of custom in the Capitol he thought. Glancing down he could read only one of the smudged and stained words, MY. Like the other men in the Colony, he too was slightly shy about his ignorance and which letters made what words. He didn’t want to ask her what the other two words spelled - TAKE, PUSSY. Even though his lack of understanding sometimes frustrated him and her brilliance could be intimidating, he loved her and loved his life as a man in the Colony.

     She lingered a few extra minutes with the hot shower. There was something about the force of the piercing hot water dancing on her skin, and something about knowing he was right outside that made her want to procrastinate, to savor her transition back to reality. Maybe because she loved him listening and loved him deeply. Maybe because she knew her fate and no amount of cleansing could ever change it.

Chapter 2

A Good Man

     Waves of sunlight streamed into the ancient valley weaving through the prehistoric pine trees then coming to rest on Lillian’s house. She opened her eyes and snuggled closer to David. He was a good man. Even though the Colony Elder’s Board permitted him two additional wives, she knew she was his favorite. Feeling the breaths of his deep morning sleep against her breast was peaceful. This was a time she could forget her chosen and stressful role, forget their fate, and forget his other responsibilities. She could lie with him in this early morning, living in the moment.

     Long ago as the Colony was still evolving, still discovering its importance and its understanding of magic, the birth rate began shifting dramatically towards many more girl babies and fewer and fewer males. Not only did the girls outnumber the boys by a factor of three, the intelligence of the girls was dramatically different as well. The exaggerated differences didn’t stop there either, by the time the girls in the Colony turn 18 they are expected to have mastered geometry, algebra, physics, philosophy, biology, alchemy, differential equations, and most important of all, magic. A typical educated woman in the Colony’s only village, Lyons, would have the equivalent of five or six master’s degrees and above all was also expected to understand the basis of consciousness or what movies and books in the Capitol called life’s mysteries - magic. Males on the other hand, were builders, caregivers, and in a crass sense - breeders. Both sexes had evolved into a race of stunning beauty and proportion, mirroring the idyllic surroundings of the Colony.

     This imbalance of females to males meant polygamy was imperative to the survival of the race. It also meant that the women in the Colony were frustrated with the lack of intellectual and sexual equality in their mates. The males didn’t have the intelligence or consciousness to know anything other than the lot they were given. Most women however were very aware of their lack of choice in companionship.

     Long ago, in order to insure a sustainable and stable community among such a contrast in the genders, sex was relegated to once a month during a waxing quarter moon. The moon and its cycle dictated not only sex, but a large part of life in the Colony. The cycles of nature were as important to the people of the Colony as smart phones were to the outside world.

     What the few outsiders that came into the Colony saw of married life was simply this: the men were very busy one night a month visiting all of their wives, and the women were frustrated the other 30 or so days. Because of the lack of sexual contact, unspoken outlets of female sexuality had emerged. Wood circles, casual meetings of two or more women in the forests clearings that surrounded the village, and bathing together in the river eddies when the children were at school were some of the more well worn traditions in which the women of the Colony indulged. In the Colony, these outlets were cultural necessities for married women given the lack of choice and the strict rules around male/female sex. This disparity was reality for Lillian.

      “Time for breakfast!” Lillian called to her family from the stone floor in her kitchen.

      Alena, her daughter, walked in the kitchen still in her nightgown. Rubbing her hands across her biceps to warm the sharp chill of the morning from her skin, she asked “What is your lesson for the jaguar circle today, Mom?”

     The jaguar circle was by far the most anticipated time of the week for all the 9-10 year old girls in the Colony. “Not sure yet, I’m thinking we might get out of the classroom and maybe take a walk during the lesson today, but I still haven’t settled on the equations we’ll do yet,” replied Lillian.

     David, overhearing the conversation as he shuffled into the kitchen added, “Andrew saw the big male jaguar last week in the back canyon near the palms.”

     Lillian, listening carefully and in a satisfied tone, responded, “Good to know that Alpha 3 is still using his own territory and leaving the younger males alone.”

     The three of them together in the kitchen discussing the day appeared warm and solid, like any other family readying themselves for the day ahead. Today though, they all felt a certain sense of anticipation, whether it was learning the magic of nature, teaching it, or living it.

     Today was the day David would live his own differential equation, by visiting his two other wives. For Alena, that meant walking to her grandmother’s house after her lessons to spend the night listening to stories and taste testing the cauldron of stew they would make together. For Lillian, the thought of being alone with David tonight made her heart both race and ache.

     There were no men outside the Colony like her husband. None that ever made her feel so complete and so broken at the same time. After her time with him, he would walk the mulch lined paths to his two other wives that were owed his body and his seed.

     Her mind began to focus now on her lesson for the day. Teaching was always a good break from her reality and her frustrations.

     Later that day at the school in the center of the Colony, the girls stormed in from lunchtime in the courtyard and flopped into their desks. Even though she only taught one class, and usually no more than three or four times a month, her lessons and her status as the Fern Tender were important enough that she was provided with her own room. For most of the girls this was their favorite time of the school week. This was where it all came together; their studies with the other teachers in biology, math, and magic all melded together and was applied under Lillian’s close instruction.

     The room was inspiring. It had jars of spiders, pig noses, snails, snakes, and other creatures resting on massive shelves that shot up to the ceiling. Butterfly and insect collections lined the back wall. A gigantic stuffed jaguar sat in the corner and navigational tools, and dusty books, models of the universe all crammed into tight places. It was an historical space that hundreds of fern tenders had graced before Lillian. All of them leaving their mark in some way. The treasure chest with all the gemstones found in the Colony from a Fern Tender several hundred years ago was a favorite. Then there were scrolls on math, magic, and philosophy that they loved perusing.

     Unique and independent, the generations of Fern Tenders decorated the room with their own values, leaving behind what they felt was most important for the girls to know. Lillian was no exception. Her math equations spread across every inch of the chalkboard. The chalkboard was her text book.

     The room had a staircase leading down to a stone walled basement. This housed the archives of all the Fern Tenders. In the wooden cabinets were the notes and the ideas of the women who taught in the room. Bones and skulls from all the animals in the Colony were stored here on the biology tables. Between the candlelight, the subterranean setting, and the bones, it was perhaps the spookiest place in the Colony and the girls loved to visit it and scare themselves with dark games of hide and seek.

     Lillian was a good teacher. She was the quintessential model of a Fern Tender and they all aspired to be like her one day. Her beauty and style engaged the girls. Taking her post most weeks with full confidence she held court, grabbing their attention and keeping it with a perfect mix of humor, instruction, and challenge. And her students responded to her sincerity with good questions and hard work.

     Lillian began this lesson with a question. “Can someone tell me our constant?”

     All the hands went up. Wanting to move quickly through the review, Lillian settled on the girl at the top of the class and perhaps the one who would eventually take her post - Edie. “Our ferns.” exclaimed Edie.

     “Correct. And and our variables?” Lillian asked.

     “Predator and Prey,” Edie answered.

     Lillian continued, “And the solution we are protecting?”

     Again Edie answered with total confidence, “Deterministic and constant.”

    “Thank you Edie, now will you explain in conversation and not science the relationship we as a community are destined to maintain?” Lillian, was distracted today and not feeling creative enough to give another girl a chance so she let Edie continue.

     “Well, basically our lot of ferns deep inside the Colony are the last of their kind anywhere. We view them as sacred and secret, more than plants, they are bundles of energy that sustain the harmony of the world’s cultures and peoples. As we’ve studied, they create a mysterious thread of balance, that is stable now and hasn’t been reset for many many generations. “

     Edie continued, “As the men from the Capitol fought back the invaders from the South, our Colony became a battleground and thousands of acres of ferns burned, never to be regenerated. And with the fire, the sacred energy source of harmony in the world was almost lost forever. Fortunately our neighbors in the Capitol were victorious, and since then have set aside Our Colony, and our way of life with the ferns and jaguars, as sacred and protected. In exchange for our land and way of life, and being surrounded by the Capitol, our purpose is to live our whole lives within the Colony and maintain the last of the ferns both for our survival and for balance in the outside world.”

     Edie took a quick breath and went on, “Every president since the last collapse has made a secret promise to us that he or she will never provoke or induce wicked deeds on the rest of the world.” 

     Edie took another fast breath, then enthusiastically added, “They do a pretty good job, but to me from what I’ve heard their leaders just aren’t that smart and are kind of lazy. Seems like a mess out there to me.”

     Lillian, stopped her and quipped, “OK, Edie thanks for that but let’s stick to the official teachings of the Colony.”

     Edie got back on track, “Furthermore, our Fern Tenders are chosen for their tour of duty at 10 and 30 year intervals depending on their age. They cannot serve after hitting their 36th birthday. They then retire to the Elders board. All must be of the highest intelligence, consciousness, and beauty the Colony has to offer. So really, your job as Fern Tender is to maintain harmony on local scale and in a natural way. Pretty much this means you make sure that the fern monkeys don’t kill off the last ferns by eating their fronds. Keeping harmony means using nature to solve problems and our natural solution to that problem is jaguars. So, as long as our jaguar population is healthy and balanced, they will either hunt or chase around the fern monkeys enough to keep the ferns constant.” 

     “Good Edie, and what about other variables?” Lillian said approvingly as Edie stayed on task.

     “Well, there’s the weather, other animals, and even the unseen or what we call the ebb and flow of our own good energy, our different abilities to reason through probability - or what people outside the Colony call magic.  I mean really Miss Lillian, you have a pretty hard job with keeping track of predator, prey, constant, weather, and magic. Get one wrong and we may lose the world’s balance, harming our existence and ultimately our protector’s existence as well.”

     “Thank you Edie, and let’s remember our constant, the truth.” She replied, “That our ferns contain the fractals of all goodness and beauty in life. And keep in mind you’ll also learn about the Spring and The Wheel within the ferns next year.”

     “Now back to our ferns, so what are fractals, girls? They all replied over each other; shapes like triangles that form our world - the shape of nature.”  Lillian’s thoughts drifted slightly when she thought about her own triangle, as inappropriate a time it was to think about what David would do to her own triangle, she still let the thought run its course and wash across the tops of her thighs.

     "OK", she spat out shaking her head slightly at the slight diversion, “What we as a community of women do here in this colony is deal in probabilities. Our magic is simply applying the truths and discoveries of math and biology. We distill our knowledge of nature and the hidden laws of the universe. This gives our people an edge over our outside and natural world."