From the Shores of Eden

by Shelley Penner

  By midafternoon they found a safe place to drink. Large trees near the shore offered relative safety for the night. The moisture from the river had allowed many food plants to endure. The human band spent the rest of the afternoon foraging, feasting and drinking as much water as they could hold.

  They might have stayed and settled there, but after four days disaster struck. As they rested in the shade through the late afternoon heat, they smelled a whiff of smoke. Gradually the air thickened into a blue haze.

  “Come!” Huda urged. “We must leave now. The Father is burning the savannah! Hurry! Follow the river.”

  They ran as fast as they could, but the flames ran faster, roaring through the trees, crackling through the dried grasses. Moki struggled, his twisted leg and deformed foot not designed for running. With the flames licking at his heels, he suddenly tripped and fell. Huda picked him up bodily and threw him into the river. He bellowed, “Into the water! Jump into the river!”

  He saw Lilith follow Moki in and then he dove in himself, hoping his other followers had heard him. They stayed in the water for over an hour, clinging together, breathing the cleaner, cooler air near the surface while the firestorm swept past and continued to burn until little remained except ashes. Then, stunned and disheartened, the clan gathered on the shore. Everyone had survived, but their green oasis looked charred and blackened.

  For most of the next day they travelled through a moonscape of grey. They came across dead animals who hadn’t reached the river in time. The cooked flesh tasted strange, but they felt hungry and the meat satisfied that craving for protein. They stayed within sight of the water, watchful for predators. When nightfall came, they found no safe place to stop, so they kept going. The moon rose three-quarters full to light their path. In the distance they could hear the deep roars of big cats and the maniacal cackling of hyenas, no doubt feasting on the carcasses of the dead.

  A pack of wild dogs came loping out of the darkness, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Moki spotted them first and gave a shout of alarm. The humans bunched together, caught in the open with no safety.

  “Remember what cattle do when threatened!” Huda advised. “Make a circle with the children in the center, our ‘horns’ pointed at the danger.” He pointed his sturdy digging stick at the nearest animal. “We make a large and intimidating group. After the fire, these hunters can find plenty of easier prey.”

  The wild dogs surrounded them, studying them with eyes trained for the hunt, searching for signs of weakness, injury or sickness. They preferred fresh meat if they could get it. They circled warily for a few minutes, then one of them gave a signal and loped away and the others followed, back into the night. For a time after that the humans travelled slowly, staying in formation with Huda, Laga and Reff walking backwards as rearguard. Dogs notoriously circled back on unwary prey.

  At last, shortly after midnight, the clan reached the end of the burn. The wind had shifted and sent the fire to the east, so ahead of them to the north lay dusty trees and scrub. They found shelter amongst a tumble of boulders and rested at last. Each of the adults took a turn standing watch in pairs. Huda sat thinking during his turn, considering the things Moema had told him about the nature of male and female energies and comparing it with the events of their journey. He had managed to keep everyone alive, despite log monsters guarding the river, wildfires and predatory dogs. Somehow, he had known what to do each time, and suddenly he realized that whenever immediate danger threatened, male energy took over — fear, action, defensive aggression. The journey itself was an act of male energy. And that was the purpose of keeping and passing on the Mother’s Secrets — knowing what to do in stressful situations, remembering the stories of the past so the experience of the ancestors could help their children and their children’s children survive.

  * * *

  For days clouds gathered on the horizon, building into tall thunderheads that sailed across the sky to temporarily block the heat of the sun. Yet no rain fell. The clouds passed on without spilling a drop. The clan kept moving north, foraging when they could find anything edible, using the river as a guide. Often they could not quench their thirst because log monsters haunted the shoreline, or because they saw obvious evidence that predators lurked nearby. Once they spotted a new kind of animal in the river, like a herd of huge, rounded boulders that moved, lifting blocky, squarish heads to open enormous, yawning mouths.

  After almost a full cycle of the moon’s phases, the clan had grown weary of remaining constantly on the move, sleeping poorly in places where they didn’t feel safe, finding little food in the drought-stricken landscape. They didn’t complain openly, but Huda sensed they began to doubt his leadership. Now, once again, thunderheads piled up in the distance, promising rain that never fell. As they followed the river valley, a line of cliffs rose up in the east and the valley gradually grew narrower, with a wide band of forest sandwiched between the rock wall and the shore of the river. Lilith looked up at the cliff as they walked along the shoreline. The lowering sun cast strong light over the rocks, highlighting the shapes and forms of the cliff face.

  “Look, Huda,” she said softly, pointing to a dark shadow. “Is that a cave?”

  “I think it is,” he replied. Suddenly he studied the area differently, assessing its potential. The existence of a cave where they could shelter at night could make this a perfect place to settle, as long as it supported the proper plants for food and medicine. The river plainly supplied a dependable water source even during an extended dry period. Now, if only it would rain. Huda heard thunder rumble in the distance. One of the children jumped up onto a hollow log, its insides eaten out by rot and insects but its shell still solid. It rumbled with the child’s footsteps as if in answer to the far-off storm. The sound triggered a sudden inspiring intuition.

  “Stop!” Huda shouted.

  Everyone froze, then turned to look at him, apprehensive, wondering what calamity he recognized that they had missed.

  “I know what we must do,” he said, breathless with excitement. “I know what has angered the Father so he burns the land and withholds the Mother’s rains. For generations we have honored the Mother with a Keeper to hold and pass on her secrets. But we have never so honored the Father, who also has secrets and wisdom to pass on. I know many of you felt Moema acted wrongly in making me the new Keeper, a man to hold the Mother’s Secrets. I know the women especially have felt they lost their voice in our community.”

  Several of the older females nodded, surprised that he understood their feelings.

  “Perhaps the Father feels the same way. From now on, I act as the Keeper of the Father’s Secrets. I will teach Lilith everything Moema taught me and, when ready, she will become the Keeper of the Mother’s Secrets and will in turn teach another. I will teach Moki to replace me when my time ends. Whenever we need to make important decisions, the four Keepers will consult with the knowledge of both Mother and Father, for only through a balanced combination of both can we find the wisdom of Truth.”

  The group gave a concerted sigh of relief that he had found an answer. “You have proven yourself an excellent Keeper, Adham Huda Lionkiller. Your wisdom has kept us safe and now it gives us hope. What do you think we should do to appease the Father?”

  “Perhaps he only needed us to realize and give him a voice. Or perhaps we must ask both the Mother and Father for the rains we need.”

  They looked at one another in bewilderment. “Our voices are small. How can we make them hear us?”

  “We must make a very big noise.”

  Huda moved to the hollow log and began a rhythmic pounding. It sounded like the thunder only closer and louder. With his digging stick in one hand and a piece of deadfall in the other, his drumming became louder. Moki caught the spirit and settled opposite him, beginning a counterpoint patter with the heels of his hands. One by one the other men joined in, until they lined both sides of the log. Others began banging rocks together or clapping their ha
nds in a matching rhythm, until everyone made some sort of noise.

  Huda glanced up at Lilith and said, “Now sing. Sing loud. Tell the Mother what we need, how her children suffer. Make her cry.”

  Lilith began with her usual humming. Then she started to move, swaying and then dancing to the pulsing sound, so loud the vibrations filled the world and commandeered their senses. Suddenly her voice cut through the deafening rumble, clear and sweet.

  “Halah-lahlah, Mama, hear us!

  Halah-lahlah, Fadah, see us!

  Your children are dying!

  Oh, please, don’t forsake us!

  We leave home and family,

  wandering in the desert,

  searching for water, searching for food!

  Halah-lahlah, Mama, hear us!

  Halah-lahlah, Fadah, see us!

  Our feet are burning, our throats are dry!

  Our stomachs are crying,

  no food grows in the dry.

  Halah-lahlah, Mama, hear us!

  Halah-lahlah, Fadah, see us!”

  Darkness fell and they continued their resounding appeal. Some of the elders collapsed in exhaustion, already worn by the deprivations of the journey. Suddenly a brilliant flash strobed the night, followed by a deafening crack of thunder that dwarfed their earthly tattoo. They froze in silence, wondering if the Mother and Father had answered their appeal with anger. An instant later, the rain poured like a waterfall from heaven.

  4.

  Leafy limbs stretch heavenward, branching into diverse paths, reaching for the divine light of understanding, drawing farther and farther from the salty truth of the roots. No two leaves look identical. Each knows the same sunlight from a different angle. Every breath of wind turns them in a different direction.

  * * *

  For millennia before the rise of humanity, the approach of the celestial wanderer provoked earthquakes, volcanoes, climate change and ice ages, even mass extinctions. But the rise of a species with verbal language, imaginative thinking and the ability to pass knowledge on to future generations gives her a name, Ashtarth, and a new kind of immortality. As their limited understanding grapples with the realities, they invent numerous mythologies to explain her — she becomes a fire-breathing dragon, a Rainbow Serpent, a martial angel, an angry goddess. With her reputation fixed in human folklore, even the distant appearance of the planet-sized comet becomes an omen of impending doom.

  THE MILK OF THE MOTHER

  Fourth Ritual: Circumcision

  THE COARSE BINDING of braided grass chafed the boy’s wrist, but his heart and mind soared free like his name…Shusha, Windspirit…like the hawk circling overhead, golden feathered, freedom exalted against the evening blue. The boy remained only distantly aware of the woman’s voice droning on, words to bind him forever as the rope bound him now. He waited, his heart a slow, steady drumbeat, though he knew this night would bring an end. For an instant he saw through the fierce, penetrating eyes of the bird…the broad, grassy sweep of Koru Col, shimmering in the changing light, slung like a blanket cradle between the rugged palisade of cliffs to the east and the saw-tooth chain of mountains to the west. At the head of the cradle a cluster of mud and wattle huts, the halavada of the Korudanai, hard etched in the evening light, cast long indigo shadows across the tumbled shoals of the river. And before one hut sat a woman and a boy, bound together by a grass cord. The hawk dipped suddenly then steadied and drifted westward, beyond range of the boy’s poor human vision.

  “Remember the lessons of childhood when you walk the spirit world,” the woman admonished him between strokes as she ground wild grain between flat rocks. A large woman, she remained strong but no longer young. The winds of grief had eroded her until only stark, granite endurance remained. “You must honor the Mother in all things,” she murmured. Her voice continued, slow, monotonous, easy to ignore. “The Mother holds the greatest power of all, the power to bring forth new life.”

  Shusha doubted the primacy of the Mother’s power, considering that the Father could erase the universe with a thought, or change the very landscape of existence with a dream. But he felt no desire to argue with her on this day.

  “Always remember the Law of Eden, that every act, every ritual, every word spoken, shall preserve the Mother as she was on the First Day.”

  None of this sounded new to Shusha, and his attention wandered once more. He watched the final chapter in the daily battle between light and dark. Across the valley, the wedge-shaped mountain, Noraku’s Blade, turned red with Moranda’s blood. Myth told of a time when no sun existed, and of a battle between two brothers over whether to light a torch or walk in darkness. When Noraku drew blood, the Spirit Father grew angry and condemned the brothers to walk separate paths so that now, by day, Moranda’s torch moved across the sky, lighting the way until he met his brother, Noraku, at the edge of the world where they quarreled each evening until Moranda’s torch was quenched, to be rekindled at dawn.

  As evening washed the last crimson stain from the sky, three ominous figures emerged from the deeply pooled shadows between the vadu, the shelters of the summer camp. Wooden masks hid their faces and they walked naked except for a coating of charcoal, decorated with blood and feathers. They advanced in ominous silence. Shusha rose, apprehensive now the moment had finally come. The woman thrust herself in front of him, tightening the leash which bound him to her. She shouted a defiant challenge, but the three apparitions swept down on them and thrust her aside. With noisy determination, she tried to fight them off, an outraged crow flapping and shrieking ineffectually. The Ghost-men quickly seized Shusha and slashed the cord, severing him forever from her protection. They dragged him roughly away.

  “Help! Help me!” she screamed. “Daga-dondakeetai is going to kill my son!”

  She clawed her scalp until blood ran down her face, but no help came. The men of the village had gone far away to a secret gathering place, preparing for an important ceremony. They would return to find their sons taken, for new cries arose now from other parts of the camp. Screams for help and wails of grief followed Shusha and the Ghost-men into the gathering darkness. Nevertheless, the boy felt a certain satisfaction as he stripped away the remains of the grass cord. Through the early part of the night the Ghost-men guided and chivied him across the valley floor in deathly silence, setting a hard pace, expecting him to keep up with their longer strides. He settled into an easy lope, offering his eerie abductors no resistance. By the time the moon crossed the valley and set behind the southern hills, the capture party reached the foot of the sacred mountain. They slowed, feeling their way up the rocky slope by instinct in the starlight. Multiple trails converged here, and the path hugging the wall of the cliff felt worn smooth by the passage of thousands of generations. This place remained profoundly sacred, strictly forbidden to females…and certain death for children.

  Shusha could hear others now, climbing the trail below, soft footfalls and labored breathing after the long run. Ahead, a deeper blot of darkness showed a cave gaping like a mouth in the face of the cliff, the trail a long, questing tongue. Shusha hesitated on the lower lip, but a firm hand thrust him forward and the darkness swallowed him. For an instant he seemed to float, utterly isolated and disoriented. Then he sensed a rhythmic throbbing, felt in the diaphragm more than heard, and realized the darkness remained incomplete. He could see an opening, a tunnel dimly limned in reddish light. He stumbled across the uneven floor and peered down the gullet. The throbbing sounded louder here, insistent, seeming to emanate from the very stones. With a shock of humbled awe, he recognized the cadence…the heartbeat of the Mother. Like a summoning, the insistent tempo drew him forth.

  He emerged from the Mother’s throat into a circular pool of firelight whose edges licked and lapped at a wall of blackness so complete it seemed as though nothing could exist beyond the ruddy wash of light. Yet the unfathomable dark held a sense of vastness, of timeless, elemental potency too ancient and alien to comprehend,
yet too profound to go unanswered. The Ghost-men guided him into place to the right of the fire, near the edge of the circle, where an ebony glacier of emptiness pressed against his naked back.

  Others began arriving, four more captive children, wild-eyed and naked, each with an escort of silent, spectral Ghost-men. Ushered to their places, the youngsters stood in a row, facing a semi-circle of their captors across the stuttering flames. One of the Ghost-men approached with a bowl of white, milky liquid, and the children drank without protest. The potion seemed thick and left a bitter numbness in the back of Shusha’s throat. Sudden warmth flooded him, tingling down his arms and legs. The thunder of the Mother’s heart seemed to grow and spill into him like liquid into a vessel, until his entire body throbbed with the immense vibration, as though her life blood pulsed through him. Reality narrowed to three points of awareness…the bright flickering of the fire, the intent stares of the Ghost-men, and the fact that his own heart rhythm was being subsumed by that tremendous beat. It ended abruptly.

  Shusha staggered as if a physical support had been removed. The hollow silence ached. Then out of the echoing void, dry, rattling footfalls slowly advanced. A chill of horror raised the hairs on Shusha’s nape and drenched him in a cold sweat. Daga-dondakeetai drew near.

  With a final clash and racket, an unearthly, skeletal figure leaped into the circle of illumination, ragged cape flaring like wings. The form the Ancestor had adopted looked avian and yet man like, so black it appeared to absorb the light, giving back nothing but a shadowy silhouette. It hopped and flew around the circle in a chaotic, flapping dance, as undisciplined as the wind. Bones, human and animal, encircled neck, wrists and ankles, clicking and clattering with each movement. The macabre figure froze, cocked a bright, rapacious eye at the children and hopped closer. They trembled and it leaped back, like a carrion bird startled to see signs of life in prey thought dead. Drums began a grumbling background patter, seeming small and pitiless after the comforting thunder of the Mother’s heart. The shadow-thing capered away and danced on, wildly, tirelessly, until the fire burned low and the drugged children swayed in a trance. The Ghost-men watched silently, a motionless backdrop to the frenetic Bone Dance. From the surrounding darkness, disembodied voices chanted, “Ha wola tal ho poda na ha nojan…the earth is the stomach of the sky.” Again and again the vulturine figure lunged at the children, again and again it backed off and circled until, at last, hypnotized by the relentless onslaught, they no longer flinched. Unaware of the blade that suddenly flashed in the firelight, they died, one by one, without a whimper.