"You only light that when you're upset." Laida is watching the smoke rise from the incense. "Have I upset you?"
She is masterful, this woman I love. Not afraid to confront head on when the indirect path does not work. I do not understand why she wants to betray me, but I can feel how intent she is on doing it.
I breathe in the resinous aroma of the incense and lay a hand on Laida's shoulder. "Why do you want Grandmother Spider to speak to you? She brings pain as much as enlightenment."
"What is wisdom without pain?" Laida is tense under my touch, and I have seen her sit this way when the captain is near, but never when we are alone. She is nervous?
"Are you in need of her wisdom?"
"I wish to understand you. To know what it is you do when she speaks to you, what that feels like. What she says."
An image of a wolf takes shape in my mind, I see it clothed in the still warm skin of a sheep, roaming among the flock. Getting the feel of them. Finding their weaknesses.
Let her in. Trust me.
Suddenly I see from the vantage of a great height, watching the wolf as it watches the sheep.
She will know me, and I will know her, and she will become one of us. Or she will reject us, but I will still know her -- I will know her heart.
It sounds good, except that either way Laida will know how to Weave.
She will know the mechanics, but she will read only what I let her read, and I will never speak through her again if she rejects my ways.
But the damage that she could do ....
She does not know how to build the Weaving Room, that is your Fleet's secret ... and mine.
This is not about me at all. This is about the enemy seeking to understand our methods, trying to reach inside the Weaving and pull our secrets out.
The captain must know.
"Wait," I hear, and it is Laida's voice as I turn to go, but it is also the larger presence, the voice of the goddess, and for her, I stop.
But it is not easy to stay in the room. The woman who has shared my bed has to be a spy. The captain should know of this. The Fleet is in danger.
"Wait," my lover says, and I hear her word echoed again in that of the Spider Woman, who I trust and believe in. I have faith in Grandmother Spider, even if all my training -- and my heart -- tells me this is not the way.
There is a resounding quiet in me. No voice of the goddess to sway me one way or the other and I realize she is giving me the freedom to act as I must.
She is not the goddess of duplicity, despite the webs she weaves. I do not understand why she does not want me to expose Laida for what she is, but I will honor it.
Teach her, Grandmother Spider says.
I try; I reach for Laida's hand, but it hurts, this raking pain across my heart, and I pull back. Then I feel something in me go quiet, as if Coyote has reached deep into my heart and licked it into submission. I know Laida plans to hurt me, to hurt those I care about. Yet the great ones wish me to teach her, and I owe everything I am to them.
Laida is watching me, her look unguarded, and in it, I see all that she has hidden for so long. I think Coyote has rushed inside her, too, is taking away her skill at lying and misdirection, taking it back unto himself. Laida's soul lies open to me, and I see how faithfully she serves those who would destroy us.
Too much time is spent hiding. Nothing can be hidden in the threads, not by her, not once she stops pretending. Teach her to weave. Grandmother Spider does not sound happy at my reluctance.
My Fleet training tells me to walk out of my quarters and get security, bring them and the captain back to interrogate this woman I have let get too close. My heart tells me Laida will only hurt me more if I don't stop her.
But the part of me that belongs to the Weaving, that was marked by the Spider probably before I was even born, hears a stronger voice. I move behind Laida, press her hands to the loom, and together we weave the pattern. I would pray that this won't be the first step in a betrayal of all I hold dear, if I had any other god to pray to than the ones that have led me here.
"Ouch," Laida whispers, pressing back against me, and I murmur an apology as I ease up on her hands.
I must report her.
I must destroy her.
Teach her, the voice resounds, and I am sure Laida must hear it too.
I feel Grandmother Spider filling me, am only half in myself as I give Laida all I know. When the small loom is exhausted of its secrets, I take her to the Weaving Room. The part of me that wants to weep is silenced by the memories of home: my mother's singing, the smell of corn and chilies on the grill, the taste of fry bread and lamb as I lean back against my grandmother and feel her hand on my hair.
I have not felt this safe in so long.
My other Grandmother pulls me into her, her presence warm like the fires that burned all winter in my grandmother's Hogan.
Laida murmurs, "Yes. Now I understand."
"You see the pattern, but you do not understand," I say to Laida, but it is the Spider talking through me -- her voice is calm, while I wish I could rail at Laida, yank her away from the pattern and spit upon her.
"I understand enough," Laida says as she pulls away from me and runs out of the Weaving Room.
The songs in my head are silenced, the smells and tastes of home erased, and I am alone with my goddess. "She used us," I say before I weep.
It was necessary, Grandmother Spider says, and then she is gone, and I am left to ache in peace.
***
Samuel finds me in the upper observatory. The planet below us is beautiful, and I stare at it as if it can fill some part of me that is empty now.
"Are you all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
He leans against the bulkhead, his shoulder grazing mine. "You don't tend to stand for hours staring out. Your eyes are normally focused inward."
"It should have stayed that way." And then I might never have let a traitor in.
"I know Laida requested a transfer."
He knows more than I do. But I am not surprised. For her plan to work, she must take the wisdom she has gained back. To our enemy.
"That has to hurt," he murmurs.
I look at him in surprise. Laida and I kept our relationship a secret; she said it would be best and I did not question even though there was no real reason to hide. I wanted her for myself, wanted to keep her to myself. Did she choose me for this because of that? Because I was known to be lonely ...vulnerable?
"I saw her leaving your quarters quite a few times."
I nod -- a safe thing to do, a gesture that will convey whatever he thinks I should feel.
"You don't want to talk about it?"
I should talk about it. To him. To the captain. There is a traitor taking the secrets of the Spider back to the other side, and the deep sickness in my gut wars with my faith that Grandmother Spider can control Laida. I feel as if I'm being split apart.
I will talk, must talk. I open my mouth to tell Samuel the truth, but I start to cough, as if my tongue is coated with spider webs.
Reaching for him, I feel my eyes fill with the tears I should be empty of. I have never cried so much, and here I cry again even if Grandmother Spider will not let me tell him why.
He holds me and for a moment I am safe in the hogan of the Singer who taught my grandfather to make the sand paintings, the same old man who held me when my grandfather died before I could get home to him. I feel his wiry strength in Samuel, relax at the gentleness in his voice.
Finally, my voice works again, but all I can think to say is, "I loved her."
He does not reply, just turns us so we can stare down at the planet again; its greens and golds and browns are the same color as the pattern I taught Laida.
***
"Heading?" the captain asks, and I flinch at her voice.
I still feel guilty that I have not told her of Laida's treachery. Or of my own.
"Unclear," I say and I go deeper into the thread, seeking the way for us t
o go in the darker patterns. Suddenly I feel a presence with me, and for a moment I think the captain is speaking to me, no longer willing to sit and wait, but it is not her voice. It is Laida's, and she is forcing her way into the pattern I am weaving, her intent clear as she rips through old threads to get to me.
She should not be able to do this. Grandmother Spider said --
Peace, child. She will not be able to do it again.
I try to settle. I know somehow we can speak across the webs. "Do not do this," I say, and I want Laida to listen, want her to let the Spider fill her and give her peace.
She laughs and the trill of her cruel humor sets the Weaving to vibrating, and for a moment, she owns it, runs wild in it, and her intent is clear. There is no love in her.
Go deeper, my Grandmother says, and both Laida and I dive -- she to find my secrets, and I to seek inside her, trying to find anything that is good, or sweet, or the least bit like the woman I love.
And I do find her. She is there, a small piece of innocence in a soul that has chosen a different path. I can feel the Weaving calling out to her, trying to bring that tiny part of her out. And for one shining second, I feel the woman I love calling back.
And then I am shoved out of her, and I feel sorrow permeate the threads. It is a choice. I cannot force you. Grandmother Spider speaks and she does not speak to me.
Laida's innocence speaks back. "Help me," it says even as the rest of the woman clamps down on it.
Suddenly, I can hear the resonant chant of a Singer, and it grows and swells inside the pattern. It is a song of the Blessing Way, and it fills me with peace and in the distance, on our enemy's ship, it fills Laida, too.
I can see it in my mind, two Laidas, one smiling and reaching for the yellow thread of sun and corn. The other Laida is scowling, and she clutches the darkest threads, turning them to ash as her progress is interrupted by a sudden jutting of energy that manifests as sandstone walls and gaping canyons between her and the Laida who can love.
Now, little one, choose.
I realize the goddess is talking to me this time, and I feel hatred for Laida fill me. She used me, and I can see the threads she has not already razed starting to fray. She is not at home in the Weaving, no matter what she thinks. I can destroy her.
The innocent Laida watches, no fear on her face. "They made me do it," she says and her face shines with love.
The dark Laida struggles. "No. I did it because I wanted to."
I do not know which Laida is real. I do not know what to do.
So I let go and sing the answer into the weaving. "This is not my choice. This was never my choice." This web, this loom, this life of interlocking threads belongs to my goddess. I am her hands, but Grandmother Spider must choose the way now.
I see the two Laidas united, smashing together like rocks when the side of a mountain slides. I feel Grandmother Spider's sorrow when the woman who emerges is still dark, is still our enemy, and I realize that she, too, did not know what might happen once Laida had a choice. And that like me, she hoped it would be another outcome.
I hear the sounds of the Blessing Way start up, then die away, as if they have been strangled.
My lover gazes across the endless valley of threads at me and whispers, "You should have killed me." And then she chooses the path that shines the brightest for her, the dark path, and the Weaving would ring with her resolve if she were really still in it.
It is all an illusion, I hear, and it is not the Spider's voice. I think Coyote has come to play.
Laida must believe her movements are hidden from me; she does nothing to keep her pattern safe. She no longer appears to see me, even when my eyes meet hers full on. But I can see her. I can follow the way she whips the false threads this way and that.
I know where her ship is going. I can read the plan she has -- that her fleet has -- and it is dark and full of destruction, and if it were real, it would bring the war back and make it worse than it ever was before.
"Adzaa," the captain says, and she touches my shoulder, startling me into remembering she is still here.
She has never called me by my first name before. I was not sure she could even pronounce it right, but it rolls off her tongue, and for a moment, I hear my mother's voice in hers.
"Are you all right?" Her voice holds concern, and I wonder if I thought she disliked me because it was true or because Laida manipulated me into believing it.
"I'm getting a hint of the heading now. It may be a while before it resolves."
"Whenever you're ready." She lets go of me, and I hear her firm, calm steps as she walks toward the door.
"Captain?"
She stops walking.
"I know it is hard to trust, when you can't see where the pattern is going, or even that there is a pattern."
"I trust you, Adzaa. But sometimes ... it's difficult to have faith."
I understand what she means. "I will be as quick as I can."
"I know you will." The door opens and closes, and I am alone again with the Weaving.
Laida continues to work, and Grandmother Spider rolls out the thread, letting my lover wind herself up in her own evil.
"I love you," I say to Laida for the last time, as I watch a war that will never happen being woven on her loom.
[Note: previously published in witches&pagans #23 Reprinted here with permission of the author.]
Chicken Abductions: A Fowl Tail: Recent Alien Abductions in Lexington, Kentucky
by Jordsvin
Tales of this sort have been told in our most ancient legends. Although astonishingly similar in many respects, until recently neither the stories nor those who told them were taken seriously by “mainstream” science and religion. In fact, even when identical accounts were related by individuals who were together at the time in question, they were seen as being feather-brained or even trying to exploit their narratives in order to build up a nest egg.
Almost all of them begin with a chicken in its coop, sleeping soundly on its perch. Suddenly, it sees a bright light, and an enormous featherless, beakless biped seizes it and puts it into some sort of indescribable vehicle or vessel, which follows the biped into a strange place full of never-before-seen gadgets. The freakish biped (whom many surmise to be in the service of some unspeakable Deity, such as Cluck-Niggurath, the Black Hen of the Coop with a Thousand Chicks) then performs unspeakable medical procedures on the helpless bird (or birds, as in many cases more than one bird is taken and they are able to corroborate each other’s experiences). Following this, the creature replaces the hapless fowl into the vehicle, and transports it back to its coop, where it is placed back on its perch while its flock mates sleep obliviously on. Finally, to the poor bird’s immeasurable relief, the alien, along with its accompanying vehicle and strange, bright light disappear as swiftly and inexplicably as they appeared.
Many times the shock of the experience causes the victims to temporarily forget what had happened to them, although they usually experience, for a long time afterward, frequent disturbing and disorienting nightmares based on the alleged occurrence. Some of them, however, unable to face the implications of their ordeals, put the whole event down to nightmares born from eating too much scratch feed before roosting time. In an attempt to establish credibility with their incredulous neighbors and loved ones, the returned abductees can often point to such things as an odd dust covering their bodies, shortened beaks and toenails, feet and legs coated with an unknown greasy substance, and even strange irremovable bands or bracelets with mysterious, untranslatable symbols attached to a leg or even a wing. Some victims even claim to have been visited, shortly after their abductions, by mysterious black roosters who threatened to harm them or other members of their flock if they did not keep what had happened to them an absolute secret.
Some who shared their experiences with others subsequently flew the coop under suspicious circumstances, never to be seen again. Their flock mates, of course, suspected fowl play. Others became quite fl
ighty, even to the point of insanity. A certain number put down these journeys as Astral or Shamanic in nature, and have founded sects dedicated to Thoth, Horus, Athena, Quetzalcoatl, and other Deities who share, at least in part, our avian image. But from the physical point of view, most returned abductees experienced improved comfort and physical health, many reporting that they had never felt so healthy in their lives! Despite very understandable concerns stemming from their exposure to unknown substances, few hens claim to have noticed abnormalities in their subsequent hatchlings, despite their understandable fears of their eggs having been permanently addled.
Is there a factual basis to these ongoing and persistent accounts, told in many different places and times by members of some of the most prestigious and well-respected flocks in the world? If so, why are these strange beings, evidently of extraterrestrial origin, continuing to carry out their nefarious abductions and what might they be doing with the data and tissue samples that they are collecting? The world may never know!
Author's Note: tonight I caught my adult bantams (it’s much easier to do it while they are asleep), trimmed their beaks and toenails, banded them, dusted them for mites and other external parasites, and oiled their feet and legs as a precaution against scaly leg mites, then placed them back in their cages. To think that they might conclude that I am a beneficent avatar of the Great Bird Archetype brings me both pleasure and amusement.
Explanation
by Diotima
“Order! Order! Will you all come to order?” Zeus’ stately call went entirely unheeded amid the myriad voices -– some discordant, some cloyingly sweet -– that reigned in the desert. The elder god was already feeling out of place as it was -– why couldn’t they have met where they always met?
“Where you always met, you mean,” said the one-eyed god who stepped up to him.
“We were meeting in the halls of Olympus long before you were even thought of, in your frozen wood!” he responded.
The Shining Cities: An Anthology of Pagan Science Fiction Page 2