SEVEN - She's Here

“Now, you get out of here.  The last thing we need is your negative spirit,” Bertha said as she threw a wet towel at her. She then turned to soothe the laboring girl, like a mother blowing a daughter’s scraped knee.

“You just relax now.  Breathe. And I’ll be back in a minute.”

She was striking in appearance. A few considered her beautiful, most people thought she was peculiar, or even abnormal.  Her ivory skin hinted iridescence, fairylike.

The Diofe sat in a rocking chair, looking small and still. His head bowed, his eyes closed and his whole body pointing in the girl’s direction. A minute would pass, and he would open his eyes and look at his hands. When the girl writhed in pain, he would glance up at her. As she caught the smile in his eyes, she would settle as if his glance balmed her soul. 

I could see his spirit going out to her, soothing.  Something of the amber mist swirled about him and over to her.  His nimbus sparkled in the color of an emerald. I could see it but doubted if anyone else could.

Hours later, as the full moon gaze in through the window, her skin glistened with lavender-platinum hue. 

“It seems so much easier now than this morning, somehow. I feel  . . . helped.”

The girl looked up at me. Her body tensed.  Her head jerked back.  I looked out at the full moon high in the sky, at its strongest altitude, its climax.

“There is room in the Bowl for you, you know.  You can come, raise your own daughter,” I said.

She didn’t say anything. I noticed her knuckles were white as they fisted the sheets.

“Breathe!” Bertha charged back in the room throwing a towel at me. “Why are asking her questions?” It’s time to push!”

I held the confused baby girl in my arms, so precious and beautiful, and a bloody, screaming mess.  She dazzled me with those willful violet eyes, for a moment looking through to her spirit. She wouldn’t blink, so she wailed.

I laid her on her mother’s chest while we three stood watching mother caress baby for what felt like an eternity.

Bertha snatched the bowl of salt from the bitter cousin who was standing in the threshold again. I turned to the Diofe and saw him smiling. With face aglow, the Diofe held out his arms to take her. As he reached for the baby, she got quiet. Her eyes opened wide to take in what she could of his beaming face. He cleaned her with the towel, rubbed little precious down with salt and swaddled her in a silk blanket. He walked to the bed and placed the newborn baby girl in her mother’s arms. Settling down, the baby took a deep breath in.

“Arous,” the girl said stroking the baby’s face.

“A beautiful name,” said the Diofe.

“It’s okay to call her that?”

“She’s your daughter,” he said.

The Diofe sat on the bed with the young mother’s head in his lap. He hummed and stroked her hair. She slept. I took the baby from her mother’s limp arms. I placed the baby in the basket. The light from the full room streamed in through the open windows. A compassionate breeze cooled the room. The fan blade purred as it swirled about the ceiling. Inviting and reflecting the energy of the moon’s strongest rays, the white curtains fluttered. The Diofe had taken his chair and placed it beside the large bed. He reached under the covers to grab the girl’s hand and put it in his lap so that he could continue to hum and caress her palm.

“She’ll be gone, soon, Miguel. To chase Ricci.”

“I wish she’d come with us.”

“In the City, people will love her. Idolize her. She’ll almost become a myth. Nothing like the contempt thrown at her here.”

“And, Arous?” I asked. “Edalwit will be happy to have friend.”

“Arous will be happy to be with us for awhile. We’ll need to teach Edlawit well about grace. She’ll need it for herself and for Arous.”

“And the Thirteen?” I asked.  “We need to train them both how to fight. And their gifts. And how to find the third.”

“Miguel,” he said almost laughing. “You get everything out of order. First we must teach them about themselves.”

“And about you,” I said. Several thousand years ago, I would’ve been ashamed that I didn’t put him first. Now I knew him too well to be ashamed of my own short comings.

He paused and looked over at the baby girl in her basked watching us.

“Arous,” I said. “You have a friend, Edlawit. Who is fire and longsuffering and loyal and strong.”

“Arous,” he said. “Arous the stubborn. Arous the brave. Arous of the Thirteen.”

In the basket, a set of determined eyes gazed at him and then trembled to sleep.