Hazel sat across the fire from her mother. She watched her poke one of the pieces of wood to adjust it with her walking stick. It had been days like this. Her mother just staring into space. When her mother noticed her looking at the blue veins that had stained her hands since the parting of the Red Sea she quickly adjusted her robe over it. Her mother was pale, she’d never tanned but she was even paler then usual lately. Under the deep hood and in the black robes she wore she often thought like she looked like one of the mystical warriors from the series of movies she’d watched, and not one of the good ones. Like she was lost to darkness. She looked to the woman she’d designated Mrs. Moses who met her gaze. Hazel didn’t jump when she heard nosy nanny as he’d called Moses’s daughter start talking, mostly because she was so used to the girl never shutting up, or poking into her business.

“Hazel, you will love our home. Grandfather will call a grand feast in honor of our return. Then when we tell him what your mother did at the Red Sea! Oh, he will speak of her glory.”

Hazel nodded along with the girl who looked to be the same age as her. She’d had friends like her in school that had to fill the silence with noise. Which was fine because she’d get to home and get peace and quiet, but here there was no end. She looked at Nosy Nanny, whose name was Hollipah and smiled. It was the best way to deal with her.

“This fish, I’ve never tasted it like you cook it. It is so crispy and this coating on it.”

“It’s pan-fried.”

“Who taught you to cook it like this?”

“My big sister, she loves to cook.”

“Not your mother?”

Hazel snort-laughed

“My mother! We’d be lucky if we weren’t throwing up in the morning, that is if we could get it down in the first place.”

She glanced towards her mother, but her jibe hadn’t provoked even her mothers dulled green eyes into looking towards her. Hazel looked back down the fire.

“Your mother is so calm. If I said such things, she’d box my ears and slap me until I cried.”

Hazel’s voice grew quieter.

“My mother has never had to hit me to get her point across. Most of the time one look is enough. I miss when she cared.”

Nosy Nanny matched Hazel’s tone.

“Mother says she is just contemplating silence.”

“My mother is never silent.”

Hazel removed the last batch of fish from the cast iron skillet that was totally anachronistic to the time they were in but she didn’t care, she liked her fish fried and her mom was not saying boo about it. She put another piece on her wooden plate and did the same for everyone. Her mother’s fish was picked at but not eaten. Hazel looked at her mother.

“Is something wrong it?”

The robe of her mother’s hood shifted as if she was shaking her head. Hazel sighed and went back to her perch and ate her fish in three bites.

“Hazel, did you even chew that?”

Hazel looked at nosy nanny.

“Yes. I’m just feeling umm”

Hazel touched her abdomen. She pulled the cast iron frying pan off the fire and dunked it in the waters of the Red Sea to cool it then she dried it off and hung it from her pack. She took some cloth from her backpack and moved away from the camp. She pulled the sleeve back of her own desert robe and swiped her hand over her wrist and she started tapping commands into her holo-display. She brought up a video she’s saved. Originally, she’d had to watch it for history, but she’d kept it. It was a documentary about the Mars Humanitarian Relief mission her Aunt Maria had led. She swept her hand up and moved the hologram to a spot just in front of her and wrapped her arms around her knees. She smiled when she saw her Aunt Maria’s face show up. She had the volume low so the noise wouldn’t carry. She was so engrossed by the video she didn’t notice someone sneaking up on her.

The video was getting her favorite part, the battle. It had been broadcast system wide in ultra-quality. She watched the Endeavor and her escort pop into existence with a flash of blue and white. Then the energy weapons started lighting up space around Mars. The fighters launching looked like a swarm of angry bees. The terrorist ships started exploding in quick fireballs as their fusion cores expired. Hazel heard a gasp behind her, she jumped and looked. It was nosy nanny looking over her shoulder. She swept her hand over her wrist and the holo-display vanished instantly. Hazel was almost yelling now.

“Hollipah, you nosy little…”

Her middle sibling came rushing staff in hand only to find Hazel about to punch Hollipah.

“What has my sister done now?”

“Peaking where she shouldn’t! You know what happened to people who peaked at Sodem!”

“I have no time for bickering girls, keep it down, mother is trying to sleep.”

Hollipah stepped back. Her brother shook his head and shrugged. He leaned his staff over his shoulder content there was no danger to the girls other then themselves. He wandered off towards their camp.

“I should punch your nosy nose!”

Hollipah was much smaller than Hazel and was cowering at this point. Hazel had quite the temper and being six feet tall and being mostly muscle she cut an imposing figure.

“I am sorry, Hazel, I just saw the light, I thought there might be a fire.”

Hazel growled and clenched her fists. She was more pissed at herself for giving into her desire to see her family over the need to conceal their technology.

“You just should not have seen that.”

“You are the Lord’s messenger like your mother.”

“No, no…”

Hazel threw her hands up.

“You can make light appear from nowhere.”

“I can also turn into a wolf, none of these things should shock you.”

“What was happening in the light?”

Hazel sighed and sat on the low rock she’d found and motioned for Hollipah to join her. The smaller girl sat beside her, but not too close.

“Why are you always around me?”

“I haven’t known many girls my age, and you are so brave. I watched you fighting the demons, I have never known a woman to fight. I thought maybe…maybe I might learn something. Or we could be friends.”

Hazel put her face in her hands.

“We are friends.”

“We are?”

“Yes, I’m just… frustrated with my mom and everything. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch.”

“What?”

“So upset and hard to deal with. You have been a good friend.”

Hollipah moved closer to Hazel.

“Would you tell me what the light was showing? Was it the war in Heaven? Were those angels fighting?”

Hazel smiled at the thought. Her Aunt Maria an angel. She shook her head.

“No”

Hazel looked at the sky she looked for Mars, her mother had trained her in identifying celestial bodies as they were very important to the Wolf-Born and their customs.

“You see that star right there the one that doesn’t twinkle?”

Hollipah nodded.

“It is not a star, it is another world like the one we’re on. Its red. Where we are from people live there and some bad people were making them starve. So, my Aunt, my stepmom and my sister stopped the bad guys, and brought the innocent people food.”

“They are made of metal?”

Hazel shook her head again. This was so hard, how her mother must have struggled with her in the 29th century on the first few days!

“No, they are like chariots that go through the black between worlds. The have big weapons on them, and the bad guys they had chariots with big weapons too. So, they fought a battle.”

“You describe a battle in the heavens with chariots.”

“I guess I sort of do.”

“Then are they not angels?”

“No…you know what, sure, they’re angels and they have chariots that they do battle on.”

“My mom has a chariot. Its this beautiful purple color. She doesn’t like the color because it used to be black before…well a battle.”

“Is your mother really the daughter of the Lord?”

“Maybe”

“Then you are the granddaughter of the Lord! Did he give you this light?”

“Uh, no, actually, this one uh came from…never mind.”

“Please tell me, I am so curious.”

Hazel sighed.

“It came from the Church of the Dark Mother, they gave all of use free ones, top of the line. Err, the best.”

“What is this… Dark Mother? I have heard the name whispered about your mother.”

“She is my mother.”

“Truly? She is a false Goddess like the Egyptians worship?

“No, uh…I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, it could make things so much worse.”

“I will keep it secret.”

“Well, if you don’t the Lord will be very angry and I’m not just saying that.”

“She is not a false Goddess. You haven’t seen her in her true form. That army that came after us? If she were herself… she wouldn’t have needed any of us to help her. You see… in about… twelve hundred years the promised messiah will come, the Lord’s only begotten son. The covenant with the Lord will be fulfilled, he will save all of Abrahams children. Which you are one of by the way. Then another covenant will be pronounced by a messenger. That the Lord’s daughter will save creation and all of its children. That… is supposedly my mom. So, like, she is the covenant that the Lord promised, which is why your father called her the fifth covenant.”

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“You speak like a prophetess.”

“Nah I just read it in a… um, some scrolls.”

“You can read? Women are allowed?”

“Yes, everyone reads where my mom is from, you get in trouble if you don’t learn.”

“Are you scrolls like the ones your mother refers to from the Lord? The white scroll with gold lettering, and the strange small, neat writing?”

“Yes… no. There are physical copies, but I used this.”

Hazel waved her hand over her wrist and the holo-display flashed to life. She tapped a few things and Hollipah just stared in awe. She brought up the copy of the Book of Shadows that had been on the holo-tablet when she got it.

“You, see?”

“So many words.”

“This is just where we left off in my lessons.”

“What does it say?”

“This is the bit about the time my mother fought demons in… a place far from here. ‘And so the Dark Mother was brought to the place of birth of the maiden. She came to smite the darkness that infested the place of the maiden’s birth, so that she might be born in purity. The Dark Mother did do battle with the beast of hunger and corruption. The child that should have never been. She smote the creature of darkness. The Lord declared in his wisdom that no life shall ever bloom from the spot. In an act of mercy she laid hands upon the man that was poisoned by the thing of darkness. By the Lord’s will he was healed. The daughter of the man saw the laying of hands and asked: Dark Mother how may I lay my hands and heal the sick. To her replied the Dark Mother: Believe in my father, the Lord and all things are possible. The Lord spoke to the Dark Mother, he sayeth: A sickness still lingers. You must cut it out so that your daughter can grow in purity and holiness. With the blade of the devourer and torch the Dark Mother caved the sickened flesh of the land and purified it with flame. She declared: On this site I shall build a grand cathedral in honor of my father, the Lord. There shall I marry my husband, there shall my daughter be baptized in the name of her Grandfather, my brother, and the Holy Spirit.”

Hazel paused and looked at Hollipah who was staring at the text intently.

“It sounds like some of our stories.”

“Well it was sort of…well this is like… So the stories you know, and what you’re living through? That’s like the first part of the story, then there is the part about the messiah, that’s the second part, and the part about the Dark Mother, that’s the third part. As granted by the prophets.”

“Are you the daughter it talks about?”

“No…that is my sister Eyre.”

Hazel hit the picture archive and pointed at the holo-scanned copy of the picture of her mother, her sister and her aunt. Hazel pointed at each.

“This image, it is a painting, like the Egyptians do on their walls, you see this one in the middle with the black sword, that’s my mom, and that one there with the dark hair, that is my Aunt Maria, and this, the one with the grey streak in her hair, that is my sister Eyre.”

“And what is the darkness in front of them?”

“Like the army that came from the water.”

“Only three against so many?”

“My mother ended them all, at least according to the stories. I wouldn’t believe it… but I saw her do it again. She just wanted them gone… and they were.”

“If she is so strong and the Lord gives her such gifts… why does she walk as we do? Why did she not protect the people?”

“I don’t know. She is very sad. I think she rejects his gifts because she believes the Lord killed my baby sister.”

“That is not the Lord’s will, children die, it is sad, but it is life.”

“You know that, and I know that, but my mother, she… she used her gifts to punish people. Maybe he’s taken them away from her because she used them improperly.”

“Could I see more of the… war of the heavens?”

“It’s a lot of talking that you will not understand.”

“Why do you look at it?”

“Well, mostly because I miss my aunt, my sister and my stepmom. They are all in it, but I also like the battle.

“Please?”

Hazel nodded and tapped a few times and restarted the holo from the beginning. She shifted the display in front of the pair and she enlarged it so it was a few feet wide.

*****

A very tired Hazel and Hollipah were poked awake by Zipporah.

“You two, we should have left already, what were you doing at all hours?”

Hazel glanced at Hollipah.

“I was having very bad pain, she sat with me. I’m sorry its my fault.”

“When we get to the village, I will get you something. It will help. Now get up you two and let’s go. Camp is already packed except your tent.”

Hazel and Hollipah gathered up their things and collapsed their tent while the brothers, Zipporah looked on. Enid was still sitting on a stone walking stick between her legs and leaning on her shoulder. Finally, an hour after they were supposed to leave they were back on the path along the shore of the Red Sea. Hazel looked at her long silent mother and wondered how much longer this funk she had fallen into would last. She vaguely recalled something about vampires hitting a point in their existence where they believed it was pointless and would let themselves fall asleep and never wake up.

Hazel tapped Hollipah with her elbow while they walked. Hollipah looked at Hazel with tired eyes. She smiled at her. The huddled time under the blanket watching family movies and some of Hazel’s holo lessons had strengthened the bond between the two young women. The dressing down by Zipporah had strengthened it further. Hazel was starting to realize she had a new bestie. Sad as it was she would leave one day, at least the two could enjoy their time together.

“What is it, Hazel?”

“Have you noticed that bird?”

“Bird?”

“Yes, the brown one with black and yellow markings.”

“Oh, yes, I have seen them around on our journey.”

“It’s the same bird. It’s been with us since mom parted the Red Sea.”

“Perhaps she speaks to it. You told me she can speak to every living creature.”

“My mom is as prickly as a cactus. Nothing stays around her for long. Even my pet raptor.”

“What is a raptor?”

“I’ll show you after, her name is Daisy, it was so hard to get her licensed. I mean just because she has a few sharp teeth. Sure she likes to chew on things sometimes, but never people. But that bird, I wonder if it has something to do with mom’s condition?”

“It seems harmless.”

“It does, and I cannot feel anything from it good or bad. It’s like its not there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I can sense demons if they are close, hair on the back my neck stands up. I can also recognize spirits and natural animals, and that is none of the above.”

“You said she is the Lord’s daughter, perhaps he watches her through its eyes.”

“If he’s God and can see of all of creation at every point in time and space, like… wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of needing a bird?”

“We ran into that woman who could turn into a cat, maybe it is like hers?”

“No, I’d sense that too, and they can only turn into bigger birds, like Falcons and such.”

“I think we should just watch it.”

“Probably for the best, your mother and brothers already think I’m insane.”

“They do believe you are odd. Gershom likes you a lot, but he is also scared of you because you’re bigger than him.”

“I get that a lot. My boyfriend…we’ll go with that, back home, he’s about your size. Skinny, weighs nothing soaking wet, he spent forever trying to ask me out. It was cute.”

“Is a man like that not beneath you?”

“No, he’s funny, and he’s romantic. He treats me like I’m… like I’m worth being around. He has magic fingers, and he is honest. He loves me.”

“Magic fingers?”

Hazel scratched the back of her heads shifting the braids slightly, causing the beads at the end to click. Her cheeks reddened.

“We should probably talk about that when I’m showing you the holos of Daisy.”

Hollipah glanced towards their mothers and then her brothers and nodded.

“Oh, I understand. Will he be your husband?”

Hazel scratched her nose and shrugged after several moments of quiet contemplation.

“I don’t know. We’re young. And there aren’t many of…well I am special and often having children with people who are not results in having normal children. People like me are very rare so I should consider marrying someone like me. I mean, otherwise my people might die out, if I don’t. I mean I love him, but well the Elders are…they have good points. If I can even have children at this point.”

“Are you barren?”

“Let’s just say that I do not have a cycle anymore. I used to, but its stopped and mostly I’ve stopped. My body kind of…isn’t moving forward. It is really hard to describe but I should be twenty-five or twenty-six or something now, but I’m stuck like this physically and mentally.”

“But you said you had the monthly pains.”

Hazel scratched the back of her head again letting her hand slide down one of her braids and she touched the beads nervously.

“I lied to get some time alone. I do this thing, where I talk to the holo-tablet, I showed you and it makes holos. It helps me cope with…well everything. I can also record little messages to Miles that make me feel better, like I’m talking to him… And you were always around and…”

“You should not lie Hazel, especially about that. It is a sacred time.”

“You know I used to think that, because its what the girls in my village would say, but they are wrong. Its just the way our bodies work. Its not sacred, and it’s not impure. It is just part of being a woman.”

“But…”

“No buts, there is nothing magical about it. Men want there to be some crazy explanation then try to force it on us. Took me a while to get it too until mom drilled it into my head. Anyway, are we almost there?”

“We have still have many hours to travel.”

“Oh boy, I’m so excited.”

“At least your mother seems to be moving forward still.”

“Considering I was just happy she woke up this morning at all, I guess that is something to be happy about. Gah, this is the part they always skip in the epic stories. The boringness of walking from one place to the next place for days on end.”

“I do not mind, we have spent much time together, and I have enjoyed it.”

“You really are an overflowing cup of look on the bright side of life.”

“My grandfather says: ‘Enjoy the journey and the people on it with you, and then it will not seem like such a journey.’ He is full of those. He also says this about chores.”

Hazel laughed.

“I suppose he also says: Hard work is its own reward.”

“He does say this as well.”

“That is what my brother used to say, and my teachers, my sister, my aunt. Pretty much every single adult except my mother.”

“Perhaps grandfather is not so wise as I believed.”

“Depends on how he says them. If he strokes his beard and ponders first like he is considering the entirety of existence, then speaks it with a nod, he’s wise, or he’s senile and his memory is going. If he just says it, he read it somewhere.”

Hollipah laughed.

“You say the funniest things my friend.”

“I think I’m supposed to say something to that…what was it, oh yes, Thank you, I’ll be here all week.”

“Such an odd thing to say, you will not be here for a week, then we will be another week before reaching grandfather and it is only another day.”

Hazel shook her head, causing the colored plastic beads in her numerous braids to click together.

“It is… it is another joke. It is hard to explain.”

“I do not understand, but, another one of grandfather’s sayings is: ‘We do not need to understand everything, we just need to understand enough.’ He also makes no sense at times.”

“I think I’m going to like your grandfather.”

“I think he will like you; He tells many stories of humans that turn into wolves to defeat the darkness in our world. He says they are servants of the Lord.”

“I have always been taught by my mother, and the spirits that I have a place in the world, and that place is to destroy corruption before it can harm our world.”

“These spirits, what are they like?”

“Depends on the spirit, a wind spirit will be capricious, flighty, a water spirit can be as calm as a placid lake, or as angry as the story seas, there is a spirit for everything in the world, there are forest spirits this land here, it probably has a spirit. They can be quite friendly, mean, standoffish, or many things. My people’s spirit is the Winter Wolf. My mother’s people it was the weeping widow. The Egyptians its mostly their animal headed gods. Spirits come into existence out of belief in them. Some just are because they are part of the natural world. But if you had a carved animal when you were young and you believed it to have a spirt that could run wild across the plains, then it does. As they lay forgotten the spirit goes dormant, but it will always be there. For every child who has an imaginary friend there is a spirit that becomes manifest.”

“And you can see these spirits?”

“I can communicate with them, but to see them I need to go into the spirit realm. Because I am part spirit and part human, I can enter, but you could not.”

“So that is why you call yourself spirit-born sometimes.”

“Yes, sort of, I’m wolf-born because I am able to shape change but spirt born are descendants of wolf-born that have part of that spirit still in them. Many can communicate with the spirits, a rare few can enter the spirit realm.”

“Is your mother part spirit then?”

“My mother is…something entirely different. All of the spirits call her mother. From the kindest and gentlest to the vilest and evilest. All call her mother and none will harm her, or turn away her request for aid. I believe that is why she has a true-name. She is a wolf-born that has no wolf.”

Hollipah’s eyes drifted to the shorter woman who walked slower now, heavily leaning on the staff she used as a walking stick.

“I am sad for her.”

“Why?”

“Because she keeps her own council and mother would like to be her friend.”

“I think my mom, would be a bad friend right now. She is certainly being a terrible mother.”

Hollipah reached around Hazel’s back and pulled her friend close.

“If she is too weak to move on, you will be welcome by the village and by grandfather. He too speaks to iduama. Especially when he drinks some of the bogga tea.”

“What is that?”

“Grandfather calls it his guide. Men who drink it act strangely. They say the speak to the iduama and the Lord.”

“Iduama?”

“I believe this is what you call spirits.”

“Oh, so he drinks that sort of thing.”

“My people have similar rituals, for the spirit-born. Stuff like that doesn’t work on me. Not even wine does.”

“It must be good, you keep your mind clear and can enjoy the taste.”

“Well, it works really good when people don’t know it and I get into drinking contests.”

Hollipah slapped Hazel’s upper arm gently.

“Such deception is not worthy of you, Hazel.”

“Mother says something like that too. But she never stops me.”

“Ah, but does she give you the disappointed look mother’s give their misbehaving daughters?”

“Yes all the time.”

Hollipah laughed.

“It seems our mothers are not so different.”

“It would seem not, but at least yours is speaking to you.”

Hollipah nodded then put her arm around Hazel’s back again and pointed ahead

“You see the shadow on the low moon there?”

“Yes.”

“Cheer up my friend, that is our home.”

Hazel smiled. The pair heard Zipporah speak more loudly then normal.

“The village sleeps, let us take our rest as well, I am tired and there are still many steps to go.”

The eldest brother looked at his mother and his voice sounded annoyed.

“Here mother? It is so close.”

“Would you deny your mother rest when she asks it?”

“No, but we don’t need to set up camp.”

“You can sleep under the stars for all I care son, but you will set up our tent so that I may rest.”

There were grumbles and the boys began setting up camp. Hazel and Hollipah started doing the same. Hazel spoke quietly as they worked.

“Your mother isn’t tired is she?”

“She seems fine to me.”

Hazel shook her head.

“It is my mother.”

Hollipah nudged Hazel as they worked.

“It just means we have more privacy to watch more of your strange light.”

Hazel smiled broadly and nodded.