So Long Been Dreaming (32 page)

Awakening Moon, sun-turning 2

I should rejoice in the renewal of life, but with this Awakening Moon my heart is sad. Always before one of my daughters has been with me to share this special time. Now they are all gone. My youngest daughter married last harvest and moved to a village across the lake. I miss her. My dear old man, Tree, says I should be glad to be done with that cycle of my life. But if I still crave the company of children, he is sure that my co-wife Sun Fire would be happy to share. He says this with a smile when he sees my long face, and truly the children left in the compound are more than a handful for us. But though I love them all – including my widowed sisters – it isn’t quite the same. I pray that Tukta’s marriage will be a happy one, and blessed with healthy children. Oh Mother, how we need healthy children.

Awakening Moon, sun-turning 7

Today our Benefactors confirmed our worst fears. Earth is now a fiery cloud of poisons, a blackened cinder. When it happened, our ancient soul-link with Earth Mother enabled us to sense the disaster even from this far world across the void. Tallav’Wahir felt it too. But we told our foster planet mother that our life patterns were sound. Our Benefactors would help us. Such a tragedy would never happen here. There was a great outpouring of blood and grief at the Mother Stones all over the world. The land ceased to tremble by the time the ceremonies ended.

Leaf-Budding Moon, sun-turning 3

The star shuttle arrives with our new wards tomorrow – twenty-one of them for our village. What an honour to be given so many. Dra’hada says that the crew won’t awaken them from cold-sleep until just prior to their arrival. When they are led out, they will be disoriented, and we will have to be patient with them. Dra’hada has assured me that our implants and theirs have been attuned to the same frequency so that we can communicate easily, and that is a relief. I wonder what these new people will be like. I am excited, and maybe a little afraid too. All the wars and urban violence we’ve heard about, I hope they can adjust to our simple ways. It’s been a long time since our Benefactors have brought settlers to Tallav’Wahir to join us. We desperately need these newcomers. Tallav’Wahir is kind, but there is something in this adoptive environment that is hard on us too. We aren’t a perfect match for our new home, but our Benefactors have great hopes for us.

Leaf-Budding Moon, sun-turning 4

It is moonrise, and it’s been an exhausting day for all of us. I was near the front of the crowd when the shuttle set down on the landing pad. I thought I was prepared for anything. How wrong I was. They are so alien. It is hard to believe we are the same species. The situation on Earth deteriorated so fast that the ship was forced to gather what survivors were available without delay. There was no time to select the suitable. The sorting will have to be done here, I suppose, and that is unfortunate. Culling is very stressful for everyone. Most of the people assigned to our village were dazed and confused, but some were angry too. Maybe they were afraid of our Benefactors, and that might account for their rude behaviour. Filthy lizards indeed. They are an unsettling addition to our village, and the land feels it too.

Leaf-Budding Moon, sun-turning 5

Dra’hada says, even though they look and act so differently, they all come from a large city called Vancouver. We have three staying in our family’s compound. When I first saw the young woman given to us, my heart pounded like a drum. I’d caught only a glimpse of her in profile, and I thought my daughter Tukta had returned to me. Then she turned to face me and the resemblance vanished. It was an unsettling experience nonetheless. Her features at times still remind me of Tukta’s, but in no other way are they the same!

This girl is of medium height, golden-skinned, and very, very thin. She was wearing tight black pants, and black boots with high heels that make her walk funny. She also had on a black shirt, very sheer – I could see her tiny nipples pressed against the fabric. Over that she wore a black leather jacket with lots of silver chains. Her hair is short, spiky, and blue. She has a ring in her nose and several in her ears, and a pudgy baby that cries a lot. She told us her name was Sleek. Jimtalbot, one of our other charges, says that isn’t her real name, just a “street name.” I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I’ll wait and ask him later.

Jimtalbot is one of the few older adults left in our care. Unlike Sleek, he has pale skin and grey streaks in his short brown hair. His face is a bit puffy, and his belly soft. Dra’hada says we will have to watch him because his heart is weak. Jimtalbot told me that he was a professor at the university. He has lively blue eyes and is very curious about everything. I like him the best of the lot.

Our third fosterling, given into Tree’s care mostly, is a sullen, brown-skinned youth whose “street name” is Twace. He wares a bright-coloured cloth tied around his head and baggy striped pants. I don’t like his angry eyes or the colour of his aura. It is filled with red and murky grey patches. When he looked around our compound and saw the neat round dwellings with their sturdy mud walls and mossy roofs, the thatched stable for our woolly beasts, and the shady arbor where my loom sits, his mouth curled in contempt.

They are abed now – finally. Tomorrow we will have to get them suitable clothing and bring them to the Mother Stone on the knoll. I hope they won’t be too frightened by the adoption ceremony.

Leaf-Budding Moon, sun-turning 6

We tried to prepare our fosterlings for the proceedings, but no amount of assurance on our part seemed to ease their minds. All were anxious, and some had to be dragged screaming and cursing to the Mother Stone while an elder made the cut for the required blood offering. Sleek was one of the worst. She kicked and clawed at the men who brought her forward, and no amount of assurance on my part could calm her.

When we returned home, Sleek was a mess. Her arms and face were bloody, and her alien clothes were ruined. I saw my neighbours’ pitying glances as we took her away. My widowed sister and my co-wife, Sun Fire, helped me strip off her clothing and get her cleaned up. I was so ashamed for our family.

“Ignorant savages, cannibals, leave me alone, goddamn you!” she shouted at us as we washed her.

“It’s all right, daughter, calm down. Come now, it was only a little blood; it didn’t really hurt to make the gift. No one is going to eat you. The blood was given to the Stone so that our foster planet mother could taste you. Now She will know you as one of her own. We all make such offerings; it is one of the ways our Benefactors have taught us to commune with the soul of the land. Such traditions were practiced on Earth once – didn’t you know that?”

“Screw traditions – and the lizards,” she snarled and threw the new dress I was trying to hand her to the floor. “I want my own clothes – what have you done with my things, bitch?”

“Don’t talk to your foster mother like that,” my sister said. “Show her more respect.”

Sleek opened her mouth to reply, but I spoke quickly to forestall another outburst. “I’m sorry, Sleek, but it was necessary to get rid of those alien things. They aren’t in harmony with life here. You must wear and use the natural things provided by
this
planet now. Their manna will help you commune with Tallav’Wahir. These ways may seem harsh to you at first, but they are important. Our elders and our Benefactors know what is best for us – truly they do.”

Sleek gave me a withering look, but took the simple dress I handed her. While the fabric was over her head, I heard her mumble something about ignorant savages talking to dirt. “Our Benefactors know best,” she mimicked as her head cleared the opening. “Well, they’re not
my
benefactors. You people are pathetic. Damned lizards have you humans living like primitive savages while they fly around in their spaceships.”

Her words were meant to cut, but I thought I saw tears in the corners of her eyes, so I bit back my angry response. “We know about the high technologies,” I told her quietly. “We use what you would call computers, air cars, and other technical things too. But to help you make the repatterning, we decided that a simple lifestyle would be best for all of us for a time. There is no shame in living close to the land in a simple way, daughter.

“Our Benefactors teach us that technology must never interfere with our Communion with the Mother, lest we forget the Covenant, grow too greedy, and destroy our new home.”

Sleek’s face flushed a deep crimson, and she probably would have said more rude things to me, but at that point her baby began crying in the yard outside, and she took that as an excuse to leave us. When she was gone, my sister Sun Fire and I looked at one another in exasperation. Her behaviour could try the patience of a stone.