The Gift of Sky and Soil (Father Sky Book 1)

by Gillian Zane

  I shook my head and held up a hand. I began to count on my fingers, what day was it? Hmm, I hadn’t realized it was that long. “One month today, actually.” I looked at Zeke and mouthed, “Happy Anniversary,” and he smiled.

  “You’ll get stronger too, but so will her followers,” I told Liam.

  “All Liam has met is the mother, who if it was like our meeting doesn’t explain much,” Zeke said.

  “Right, c’mon stop hovering and sit down, this is going to take a bit of explanation,” I said. Zeke went to the fridge and handed Liam and Lily a beer, they accepted but didn’t take a sip.

  “There seems to be a war of wills going on between two beings that created life on Earth. They are considered gods by most, but I got the impression they aren’t these all-knowing, all seeing beings. Life creators, but not omnipotent or is it omniscience?” I smiled and I could tell by the pull of cheeks that I probably looked slightly manic. Liam had raised the beer to take a sip, but he set it back down after my words.

  “Both, and I think omnipresence as well,” Zeke winked his geek side showing. “The mother, who you met wants to cull the human race and replace it with a modified version, which is what she was trying to recruit you to be part of. Humans with advanced powers, even though I don’t think she actually planned on these side-effects,” Zeke added.

  “The father, came to us after we rejected the mother, wants to retain life on Earth as it has been and fight the plan the mother has in place. He knows things will be changed, but doesn't support what the mother is doing. He is using us as tools to fight her, I don’t think he can directly intercede,” I finished.

  Liam and Lily both found their voice after that and fired off question after question. I tried to answer as many as I could, as best as I could, but truthfully there was a lot that I couldn’t answer. Questions that I desperately wanted answers to as well.

  I glanced at the clock and realized we had been talking most of the night, soon the sun would rise and start a new day. A new day with two new people on our side. That had to be good, right?

  “This is all a lot to take in, you guys should probably get some sleep. Let me show you where you can stay. You’ll have your own space. We can talk more about it over breakfast, well probably lunch,” I shrugged glancing at the window and the lightening sky.

  We left Zeke in the kitchen, and I led the siblings through the garden where they oohed and ahhed over the veggies, and I nodded as they asked questions about Zeke. I only had one cottage with two bedrooms, so they were stuck with that one. It was the most modern of my accommodations, having been added while my cousin ran the show. She had an obsession with tiny homes and wanted her own.

  “You don’t mind us staying here?” Lily asked, looking around the small space. It wouldn’t be a lot of privacy, but it was their own space, and they would have access to all the grounds.

  “You’re welcome for however long this ordeal goes on. And really after that, it's no big deal,” I gave them a tight smile because I honestly didn’t know how long this would go on. Would it go on indefinitely? A fight for a generation? Centuries? Would my kids be caught up in the madness? Would I have kids in the madness? Kids what the hell was I thinking?

  “Even though Lily wasn’t recruited? She’s okay to stay?”

  “I don’t expect everyone who gets recruited will be single and unattached.” I waved my hand in a flitting gesture that I hoped looked suave and not spastic, trying not to think of the fact that Lily wasn’t immune to the pollen and all of us were teeming with it. What would we do if she got sick? I couldn’t think of that right now, but I would bring it up to Zeke.

  “Thank you,” Lily said.

  “You’re welcome, get some sleep. I’ll round you guys up so clothes and leave it on your doorstep.”

  34

  For the second day in a row, I woke with Zeke’s body around mine. All it took was for me to stir slightly, and he cracked an eye open, his arms reaching around me, his body pressing to mine. He was erect, like he was most of the time since we had become sexually entwined. My perfect sexual companion. Finally, someone who could match my needs. All I could sense from him was lust and more lust. His fingers slipped between my legs, and I moaned and spread them so he could have better access.

  A moment later, I was on my knees, my back arched, Zeke buried inside me, his hand holding me steady by a firm grip on my hair, and I was in heaven. I had always liked it rough, but not too rough. With Zeke it was next level. The intensity of our joining stirred my adrenaline, which made me so much more in tune with everything around me. I hadn’t realized what was going on that first night we had come together in the garden, but now that we were expanding on our emotions and abilities, I could feel the changes with each thrust, with each awakening. He left himself open to me, as I did with him. I could anticipate exactly what he wanted, and I was pretty sure he could do the same for me. When I wanted it deeper, he moved and his cock filled me to the brim. I came within moments, pressing my back against his chest as I reared up, crying out as the explosion of feeling held me enraptured. Bright lights exploded in my vision and I was aware of where each one of my molecules was in relationship with Zeke’s. It was overwhelming yet exactly how it should be. He never broke the momentum, continuing to pound into me as I felt the crest never ebb, as I felt it go higher and I screamed through another orgasm.

  This time he came with me, his hot release entering my body, his mouth speaking my name over and over again. Zeke fell away from me, rolled back onto his pillows, pulling them over him and trying to pull me down with him to find sleep again.

  “C’mon, baby, more sleep,” he urged me to join him, but I wasn’t tired. I was energized. I stroked his hair a bit until he settled, and then I slipped out of bed and hurried into the shower. I didn’t want to lose this awareness. I felt amazing. If there were any doubts about what Zeke and I were doing, they were now eradicated.

  I padded into the kitchen, needing coffee desperately before I could function as a human.

  “I forget what it is like to be lost in the passion of human lust,” a male’s voice said from behind me. The voice didn’t startle me, I had expected it, but I hadn’t known when it would come. It was as if I just knew he was there, even though nothing physical had clued me in to his presence.

  “If I knew you were going to come and go as you pleased, I would have rethought my decision of choosing your side.” I poured a cup of coffee, not offering the god anything. He chose to visit before I had my coffee, I was going to be salty. Did gods drink and eat like humans?

  “Can’t stand the taste of coffee. Don’t know why you humans drink the stuff. Practically worship it.” He pulled up a stool, and I tried to look at his face, but it was impossible to hold on to a feature.

  “Did you just read my thoughts?”

  “You will get there soon enough. Who would have thought your powers would mimic mine? Your lover’s? The mother’s. The Creator has a way of mocking us, or is it just poking us to show us it exists and is aware of our ridiculous games?”

  “Your powers? That is what you mean mimicking?” There was a pressure in my chest that signaled my anxiety was rearing its ugly head. What did something like that mean?

  “How is your research coming?” he deflected, and I suppressed a sigh.

  The coffee was working, or it was just my fight-or-flight kicking in and pumping me with adrenaline making my anxiety fade into the background. I had to answer his question. He expected an answer.

  “You’ve been around for a long time, so has the—she, are you the same god in the Bible?” I asked. “The Quran?”

  “No and yes, some parts are exaggerated tales that I was involved in. There are somewhere others of my kind were mucking things up. There are some parts that are complete fiction, written by men for men to subjugate other men — and women. Religion has always been a good way to place people in neat lines and make them follow a particular path, give a certain amount of money, worship a ce
rtain king. Can I have one of those?” He pointed to the pastries I had picked up yesterday from a roadside bakery. I nodded, and pulled one out of the glass and placed it on a plate, and pushed it over to him. I guess that answered one question.

  “Warm it up, please?” He handed me back the plate, and I placed it in the microwave for thirty seconds, trying not to roll my eyes.

  “Your kind, what is your kind?” I asked.

  “My kind. Hmmm. There is a lot I do not know, which is hard to admit you must know. There is so much more than this one particular universe, but we are as old as this manifestation of this particular universe.”

  “What?”

  “Universes expand and then they contract. It implodes and explodes during a finite period of time, yet energy cannot be formed or destroyed, so when one universe implodes, another one explodes. Me and my kind formed with the explosion of this universe.”

  “So, what created you?”

  “We call it the Creator. The being behind the universe creations, if you use that terminology. I have no experience with it, but the story goes that our universe is one of billions, all created by the Creator. The energy that exists within the creator spawns universes like humans throw off skin particles. It is not known if the Creator does this as a conscience act, or if it is just a by-product of its existence. Yet, our kind that have devoted themselves to study have found patterns in the make-up of our universe that denotes and points an arrow to a divine plan. Some choose to believe, others do not, much like humans. We are not so far apart,” he shook his head and took a bite of his pastry.

  “We came into existence at the formation of this universe,” the father continued. “We were but children. As newborns, we were burning lights in the dark of space, until we aged and exploded into being, achieving the consciousness that we have today. The ability to communicate with each other was one of the first signs of our ability to separate ourselves from the objects, and one of our greatest achievements.”

  “What were you, like stars?” I was so turned around by his wording. Particular manifestations of particular universes and all that crap, I had to latch on to something. Stars. Like the book series I read as a kid, what's it and what nots. Next thing you know, he was going to tell me about the tesseract I had recently found out existed by watching a documentary about aliens. I was confusing myself. I needed to focus.

  “That could be a way to describe us, but it is slightly more complicated. It is the cohesion of a certain set of particles in a certain sort of way, we never manifest as stars like your scientist describe. It would all be too complex, and your English language does not have the words to describe it anyway. We are made up of the base atoms from the beginning of the universe which differ from today, just a collection of particles and atoms held together by what has been described as ether, or maybe a new description I am fond of, the Force,” he laughed, and I didn’t know what to think about a god using a Star Wars reference.

  “I think if you tried hard, you could explain it. English has plenty of words. I’ll give you a pass, though. Tell me how you got here. How did you come to be here on Earth?”

  “There are differing variations in our kind, some are more powerful, others are barely a blip. As power does something to each of us, some with great power tried to control and subjugate ones with less power, and there was an uprising. When we die, there is a great explosion of particles and some of us that had their focus on the stars and galaxies noticed changes to the nearby planets after a death occurred. The death of one of our own spawned what came to be known as life. Life was a new marvel for us, it reflected us in so many ways. We came together to experience these new lifeforms, and a great awakening occurred within my kind. We finally found a point of reason, of being, and within that creation we had become like the Creator ourselves.”

  “But one of you had to die to create life?” I asked stunned.

  “At first, but it was so new then, at the moment of initial creation. The war that had gone on since the dawn of time ended because of life. Not everyone was as amused as the majority of us, as some thought the act of creation was an abomination. They receded to the far reaches of the universe and haven’t been heard from since. Others found planets that had formed life and watched over them like overprotective parents. Others experimented, soon discovering it did not take a death to make a life, only pieces of one self, but a sacrifice must always be made.”

  “How many civilizations are out there like ours? Is that what you are saying? There is life on other planets?”

  “Life is everywhere, not all like yours, but a lot are very similar since we are all the same particles and we work within the same patterns. Others, the more scientific of our kind, came together to try new things. They worked in pairs and triads to form lush ecosystems, much like Earth.”

  “So, you and the mother came together and formed the life on Earth?” I was making conclusions to urge him on.

  “Yes, in a sense. It’s a little more complicated than that, but yes, the life on Earth—it is our creation, the mother and I spawned life on Earth.” He finished off the pastry. “The mother and I initially seeded the Earth, but there has been some involvement with others of our kind, especially as your race began to evolve in a complexity that was unique to the universe. The mother lost control when your kind first began to emerge from caves and picked up tools that shaped the Earth to your needs not hers. She has always been one to maintain control, and when her actions to keep your kind uncivilized got out of hand, some others stepped in at certain points in your history.”

  “What do you mean control?”

  “She likes certain trees in a certain location, animals in another, order and everything in a row, but now everything is all over the place. You should see how she freaks out over zoos,” he laughed, and my stomach twisted. “Which is ironic.”

  “You’re saying we’re like a zoo to her?”

  “Humans are fascinating creatures. Such short lives, but you live so passionately, for us who are long-lived it is a wonder. She believes that if everything is in its place, they will live better and more wholesome lives. Over the years, she has been worshipped as if she is the Earth, and she has come to believe it. She has tied herself intrinsically to the Earth and its inhabitants, mainly the flora. The destruction humans and the beasts that have been allowed to flourish to feed humans is taken personally by her, again it is ironic that her intervention is actually causing more harm than if we had allowed the humans to solve their own problems. Or so I believe.”

  “We think these plants that are excreting mass amounts of pollen are the key to what is going on. Is that what you mean, tying herself to the flora? What is it doing to the planet?”

  “She is becoming part of the planet, or it is what I believe. To create, we have to give a part of ourselves, especially if we create alone. That is why, initially, we came together for creation. We don’t lose large portions of ourselves, but we are not infinite. We can replenish over time, but it takes millennia. Some of my kind have extended themselves too far and have not been able to return. When we create, it is like a cup that is pouring, tip it too much and it is hard to tip it back upright, all the contents spill out into the other container. Or tip it just a bit, and you can keep your own cup mostly full. It has to be that perfect balance, that perfect pour. But the mother has done something different this time, I am not quite sure exactly what.” He shook his head.

  “But there are many accounts of her doing this before, many times the gods have tried to destroy humans. And not even accounting for the specific stories of the destruction of the population like the great flood, the random plagues… hasn’t she tried this a lot?”

  “There have been a few incidents in the past. A lot of them have been from outside interference. There was a point that a triad that was much more powerful than us set their sights on the Earth and messed around with life here, and we had to repair things in our own way. That was unfortunate. And there are times when a sp
ecies has to be culled, when their population is not sustainable. Which we have had to do at certain points in history, as well, especially when you were a less-evolved kind.” He shrugged as if it was another part of just being him. “The mother thinks of it like trimming browning and dying flowers off of a thriving plant. I appreciate each life and what it contributes, but that is where we have always segmented. It made for a good balance, especially when I did not intervene.”

  “Can you explain more about placing yourselves into different things? I think that is the key to solving this mystery,” I urged.

  “You see me here, right?” He held out his hand, beckoning for me to touch him, and I did. It was a human hand, and with that touch, I saw him. I saw his form, a middle-aged man with bland features, brown hair to his shoulders, sun-kissed tan skin, brown eyes, that seemed caring with the world behind them. Touching his hand felt no different from touching any other human hand.

  “I have coalesced pieces of myself together to form this persona, one of my incarnations. My cells have recreated themselves to form a human body. When I am done with this form, I will disperse and return this portion to the rest of me, but because I’ve made living flesh, some living pieces will remain here on Earth and decompose and add to the matter of life. I will lose a tiny portion of myself. It is nothing in the long run bundle of atoms here and there, but if I were to do this in many different manifestations at closer intervals, those little bits would add up. And the longer I stay within this form, the longer my particles become living particles, become accustomed to living within this form. And if this form were to be destroyed, I would lose this piece of myself, even the memory of the actions that I took within this persona.”

  “She’s manifesting as those plants!” I cut him off. “They are pieces of her, that has to be what is happening. That way she can make them do whatever the hell she wants.” I slapped my hand on the counter.