Greer stopped, brought up short by the possibility. “I don’t know. Abel might know. No—he wasn’t even here yet when Pat showed me the books. Maybe Nidia.” Before Hannah could voice any more thoughts, Greer was out the door and on her way to the Ruins.
Hannah watched her go as one might a small whirlwind that churned furiously across the ground. Shaking her head, smiling silently to herself, she went back to her medicines.
In the big kitchen of the Ruins, Greer cornered Nidia and interrogated her about the long forgotten books. Nidia did remember them, fragmentally. They were a treasure of Pat’s, but something Nidia’d never had much interest in. If the people before the Shift were so intelligent, why did they abuse their world so and ignore the warning signs of the planet’s violent retribution? No, she had no idea what had become of the books.
About the time that Greer could feel her frustration reaching a flash point, Abel came into the kitchen for his noonday meal. Immediately Greer captured him and questioned him as she had Nidia.
“I don’t remember such things,” he said to Greer’s line of questions. “I have never seen them. How old were you when you saw them?”
Greer tried to remember. She was quite small. It was some time before Abel came to the Ruins. She said as much to Abel and he shook his head.
“I would be surprised if they still existed. Pat never mentioned them to me. Very few things have survived the Shift and the Bad Times unless they were as rocklike as the Ruins. I would imagine any such things as you describe are long destroyed.”
Greer felt frustration seep into her blood, cold and toxic, weighing her down. Although part of her screamed out in protest, she felt she had no choice but to agree with Abel’s dismissal of the subject; no one else would know more than he or Nidia. Resigned, yet still worrying at the possibility, she went back to her tiny hut and Hannah.
“I don’t believe this is the end of it,” she told her friend. “There must still be books somewhere!”
Hannah, unfamiliar with the subject, tended to reiterate Nidia’s question. “Did they know so much more than we? At least we know not to destroy our own world. Perhaps it’s best if we don’t know more.”
“I don’t believe that,” Greer said. “If we do not know how the earlier people failed, we may make the same mistakes in our ignorance. If we make the same mistakes, then we are a doomed society. We can only reach our true potential by recognizing our limitations, then transcending them.” She fixed Hannah with a determined look. “If there are any books in this valley, I will find them.”
The next day Greer was set to take a solitary, meditative walk to the spring. It was still and would always be her favorite place for being quiet, restful, and reflective. Before she could take up a piece of fruit to take along as her breakfast, however, there was a hesitant knock on the open door frame.
“Come,” she said absently. Hannah had already gone to the wild meadows beyond the orchard to gather herbs, leaving Greer to wonder where she had hidden the fruit. There had been some in a bowl last night ...
“My Lady?”
Greer turned from her questing to see one of the newer young women standing in the doorway. She was a very tall woman with dark, almost black skin. She had large features—a wide mouth, wide nose, and a strong, square jaw—and beautiful almond-shaped yellow eyes. Where her large frame and powerful features might seem masculine to some, her eyes were deep wells of Goddessness. She had struck Greer so on their first meeting.
“Asherah,” she said, remembering easily the woman’s name. “Come in. Are you all right? You seem disturbed.”
Asherah’s agitation was obvious. The woman’s eyes, clear and magical, shifted nervously and she wrung her hands.
“My Lady,” she said, uncertain how to start. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
“Sit down,” Greer suggested, offering her Hannah’s chair. As Asherah sat, she took her own chair. All thought of the spring and her search for books was gone. “Now,” Greer said, “what is it?”
Asherah seemed half frightened. Only Greer’s considerate attentiveness finally coaxed the words from her.
“I—I have a disagreement,” she said cautiously. “With your man—Abel.”
“Abel?” Greer was surprised. He normally got on well with everyone. “What disagreement?”
Asherah struggled on. “I wish to ... to work on the sanctuary. I have ideas.” Then her face closed up. “He told me there was no place for me there.”
Greer kept hold on the flare of her temper. “Did he say why?”
Asherah nodded. “He said there were already men enough working on it and that the plans had been drawn.”
“That much is true,” Greer said. “Tell me what you wish to do.”
Asherah took a breath, then plunged. “I dream about it! I dream rooms and walls and wide windows. I’ve drawn what I dream. I know I could build what comes to me.”
“May I see what you have drawn?” Greer asked.
Instantly Asherah was on her feet. “I’ll go get them.”
“No.” Greer stood up. “I’ll go with you. We’ll look at all you’ve got.”
Surprised by Greer’s encouragement but pleased, Asherah beamed. She led Greer past the Ruins to the makeshift huts that were being thrown up as fast as people came to the valley. They were barely hovels, made out of rock and brick and whatever materials could be found. They would never do for winter but Abel’s crews were working on permanent homes even as they threw together the temporary ones and worked on the sanctuary, as well. The whole area was alive with construction.
Asherah’s place was a tiny hut of rock and sticks and rough cloth, hardly more than a tent. She ducked inside the slash of a doorway and stood aside for Greer.
Greer was struck by the contrast. One side of the small area—the living side—was neat and tidy and almost austere. The rest of the place was a kaleidoscope of materials—bark, cloth, charcoal—strewn and piled all about in a jumble of restless creation. It reflected a dynamism that searched wildly for perfection.
“These?” Greer asked, touching the strewn bark drawings. “These are the things you dream?”
“These were the first,” Asherah said, unrolling the unwieldy, brittle bark as far as possible. “You can see I was confused, my dreams were shadowy. I had trouble remembering clearly. As I drew, though, the images became stronger and the more I drew during the day, the more clear and bold my dreams became at night.”
Greer followed the evolution of the drawings. The first were vague, unsure. Lines melted into shadowy spaces and the distinction between structure and space was murky at best. Then the drawn lines began to take on a sharper edge; walls became distinct from open air, structural design began to emerge. Greer looked from drawing to drawing, saw shapes evolve and felt the hair at the back of her neck prickle and rise.
“And after these?” she questioned, because she knew there were more.
“After these,” Asherah said, “I began to use cloth.” She drew out a pile of strewn cloth and lay one after another out on the floor for Greer to see. “This windowed area became very important, it seemed. See how it is open here and here? And these arches—I am not sure how they would be built, but I felt them strongly. On this one—” and she rolled a new cloth over the first—“I could feel the inner chamber. See, I drew in the pedestal where stands the two-sided crystal. I see this as a great chamber, the center of the sanctuary. Behind here would be the private rooms where you and your people would live.” She stopped and turned to Greer, anxious for the Sibling’s reaction. She’d gotten so carried away with her own plans, she had forgotten to see if the other woman might be taking offense at her presumptions. Greer’s intent expression told her nothing.
“Is this the last, then?” Greer asked. “Is this drawing the last you’ve done?”
Still unsure if Greer’s interest were sympathetic or critical, Asherah shook her head. With shaking hands, she drew out the last cloth, carefully fol
ded within another, secreted away.
“This is the last,” she said and presented it, like an offering, to Greer.
Greer took the cloth, still folded, and held it in her lap for a moment. Her fingertips hovered over it, feeling the energy from it like a living thing, as if small, sharp currents arced from the material to her palms. Did Asherah even know what she had created upon this cloth? Greer commanded the woman’s yellow eyes, saw the glittering, catlike depth of them, the swirls of flame in them and knew, yes, that Asherah was aware. Greer unfolded the cloth and laid it reverently upon the ground.
The sanctuary leaped to life from the cloth, its sharp, bold lines strong and clear, its spaces open and airy in the breezy, flowing design of its walls. The building was at once the strength of men, of bone and muscle and sinew, and also the warmth of women, soothing and receptive. It was a haven, a meeting place, a ceremonial, a home. Beneath Greer’s fingers the drawing throbbed like a living heart.
“Great Goddess,” Greer breathed. She drank the drawing in with her eyes, ingesting it, breathing it deep into her lungs, into her blood. She felt as if the form of her own body smudged and smeared, melting into the drawing, or the drawing into her. Lines of distinction faded into gray shadows, line becoming form, solid becoming images. The world of cloth and charcoal swirled into the world of brick and air and back again.
“My Lady?” Asherah queried softly.
Greer drew herself forcibly out of the shadow world and breathed the air of the valley of the Ruins. She passed a hand tentatively across her face, then turned to meet Asherah’s gold eyes.
“My Lady,” Asherah said again. “What—what do you think?” She nodded to the drawing.
“I think,” Greer said, dragging in a steadying breath, “that this is my home.”
The two women found Abel at the brick fields near the spring. Almost forty people were preparing bricks to dry in the sun while Abel taught and counseled the newest to the trade. Greer asked him for a moment, then led him away from the workers to a quiet place near the stream.
“You know Asherah,” she said, and Abel nodded to the woman. “She has designs for the sanctuary. I want them incorporated into the construction as completely as possible, short of tearing it down to the ground and starting over.”
Abel flicked his eyes to the tall woman, then back to Greer. “As you wish,” he said.
Greer stewed a moment. There was a rigidity about Abel that she hadn’t seen before, a closed-mindedness. She could not name it precisely, but she didn’t like it.
“Asherah,” she said, not taking her eyes from Abel, “would you please wait for me at my hut? Abel and I will be along shortly to talk with you and the builders.”
Nodding uncertainly, glancing from the Sibling to her lieutenant, Asherah took her drawing and left. She had no desire to be witness to the upcoming confrontation.
“Come sit with me,” Greer said, and led Abel to the spring where the water babbled softly and the black lava served as seats. She took a place on the glossy rock and gestured Abel down next to her.
“Tell me how it was when Asherah came to you.”
Abel looked mildly defensive. “She said she had ideas about the Sanctuary, that she wanted to work on it. I told her the plans had already been drawn and I thought she probably would not care much for brickwork. For all that she is a tall woman, she is slight and those bricks are weighty. I doubted she could work as well or as fast as the men.”
Greer frowned. “Is there some deadline we must meet?”
The question shook Abel. “No, but I assumed you wanted it done.”
“I do,” Greer nodded. “But a temple to the Goddess will not be built by disregarding the dreams of Her people.” She sighed heavily and took one of Abel’s hands in her own. “When you were my stepfather, you shared with me the dream that brought you here. Now is the time that we are actually building that dream. Have you forgotten what it felt like to hold that in your heart? Have you lost that ability to share that with another?”
“I carry your dreams,” he said stiffly.
“Mine are not the only ones that count,” Greer said softly. “This is not only about what I want or what I need as the Sibling. This is about all the people who are drawn here, all the people who have visions of Her. The sanctuary is important but the way it is built is just as important. The two cannot be separated. A temple built on a timetable of unrealized dreams is no temple for the Goddess.” She paused, pleading to Abel with her eyes. “Do you see what I am saying, Abel?”
He moved restlessly, shifting his seat on the rock. She thought he might pull his hand from hers, but he didn’t.
“Yes, I see,” he admitted slowly. “I had thought to do those things you charged me with and they were my concern. I guess I had viewed the accomplishments as the primary goal.”
“Do you see now that accomplishment is only part of the whole? That accomplishment and the manner of accomplishing cannot be separated?”
“I—I think so.” He met her eyes. “Remember, Greer, that I have little Goddess sense in me; I am only lightly touched by Her hand. The things you speak of often make less than full sense to me.”
Greer smiled, relieved but sad. “You have more than you think, Abel, or I would not have trusted you to carry out my plans. But please try to remember this conversation. The new order of the Goddess cannot be built upon the broken dreams of Her people. Be less concerned with time and efficiency, and more concerned with valuing our siblings. The Goddess will take care of the rest in Her own time.”
“As you wish,” Abel said, but this time she heard conviction in his voice. She searched his face—so much older, so lined with responsibility now—and knew he would commit himself to even those things he did not quite understand. She squeezed his hand.
“Can you come now to the sanctuary? Or must you stay longer to teach your new brick-makers?”
“These new ones are learning fast,” he said. “I can come.”
Together, Greer, Abel, Asherah and Ankutse pored over the two drawings of the sanctuary. Once Asherah explained to the men the things that Greer had understood intuitively, the men began to plan out a working combination of what had been and what would be built, and Greer noticed enthusiasm creeping into the discussion. The east wall, already built to the specifications of David, the stargazer, and validated by the performance of the equinox, would need no alterations. The south wall, already chest high, would need to be knocked down several courses in order to allow for the windows of Asherah’s design, although no one was quite sure how to build in the arches that her drawing showed. The west and north walls would need few changes, primarily because they were now to be interior walls instead of exterior, so much larger was Asherah’s design than the original. Once doorways were knocked through them and wooden jambs installed for strength, they could be continued as planned.
Ankutse, in particular, was fired by Asherah’s designs, and he was quick to take hold of an idea and carry it further, adding details that even Asherah had not seen. He also applauded her use of cloth as drawing material. Although less smooth than the bark due to the irregularities of weaving, the cloth was supple and manageable, as well as enabling vastly larger drawings, and Ankutse asked Greer if some weavers could be dedicated to making drawing cloth only. Discarded drawings could easily be washed out or dyed over so the cloth could still eventually be sewn into clothing and Greer quickly agreed. Spurred by the blood-stirring forces of creativity, Ankutse and Asherah fell into an enthusiastic discussion of designs and methods, leaving Greer and Abel free to walk away shaking their heads in amazement.
“I apologize to you, Greer,” he said as they neared her hut. “Witnessing those two on fire with imagination, I see how closed I had been. I was wrong to disregard her.” He met her eyes. “I will pray to the Goddess that my mind always be open to new things.”
Greer regarded him solemnly. “I think it is something we all must be reminded of from time to time. Thank you, Abel.”
When Hannah returned from her gathering, she had Kyra and Zak, Nidia’s son, with her. Almost twice Kyra’s age, Zak was still devoted to the younger child and the two were often seen together sharing chores or play. Now they helped Hannah sort out her harvest of greens.
Kyra already knew the names of most of the plants, having accompanied Hannah on gatherings before. Zak, however, was new to this vocation and plied Kyra or Hannah with questions about each type.
“What does this do?” he asked about a pretty green spearleaf.
“That’s mint,” Kyra answered authoritatively. “For soothing stomachs and making medicines taste good.”
Zak smelled the leaf and wrinkled his nose at the strength of the aroma. “Oh, yeah. I know this one. My mother uses this sometimes in cooking.” He pulled out another, with a serrated purple leaf. “Uh, oh. We got this one by mistake.” He laid the plant aside in a separate pile and returned to his sorting.
Hannah and Greer exchanged looks. “Why is that one a mistake?” Hannah asked the six-year-old.
Zak dismissed the question with a grown-up shrug. “That one’s no good for anything. It’s just a weed.”
Hannah picked up the “weed” and laid it carefully in the palm of her hand. “Who says that?”
“My mother,” Zak said. “She said there’s no use for that one, not cooking or dying or medicine. It’s just a weed.”
Hannah held the small plant, choosing her words carefully. “Apparently,” she said slowly, “your mother hasn’t tried everything, because I know a very good use for this plant.”
“You do?” Zak looked surprised.
Hannah nodded. “Yes. I use it in my medicines. No, it doesn’t cure anything, your mother is right about that, but it has a property to it that acts as a thinning agent and it keeps my thicker potions from hardening in the crocks. It preserves my medicines so they last much longer.”
“Oh,” Zak said. Obviously the explanation was of little interest to him. “What’s this one?” he said, holding up another plant.
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