by R. Lee Smith
And she did have a lot on her plate. Olivia gave her a goodbye wave that turned into a hello for Ellen. “It’s nice to see you,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve been around, but I know how it is. Settling in and…and all that.” She shifted on the bench to allow Olivia to begin the examination. “I’m doing all right, I think, but I did want to ask about stretch marks? Not that I’m going to be in a bikini anytime soon, but Mudmar already thinks I’m ugly as sin on Sunday, and now he says I’m coming up ‘stripey’.”
Olivia looked up from Ellen’s belly in honest surprise. “He thinks you’re ugly?”
Ellen laughed, actually reaching out to pat Olivia’s head as if she were a dog that had just performed a trick. “God, you’re sweet. Yes, he thinks I’m ugly. Still. You know, I used to model…sort of off-off-off-media. Shots of me from the hips down in Bayer’s Blue Jeans, and shots of me from the neck up for Oxy Extra-Medicated. The closest I ever came to real celebrity was being elected Little Miss Cherry in the Sandal County Fruit Festival.” She shook her head, smiling over Olivia’s shoulder at the far wall. “But Mudmar still thinks I’m little and clammy and bald…and flat-faced. I never thought I’d meet a man who wanted me to have a bigger nose.”
“That’s…I mean…I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, the good news is, he thinks you’re ugly, too.” Ellen patted her head again and then stood up and smoothed down her loose-fitting flannel shirt. “I hate feeling so shallow, but if he’s going to cheat on me, at least he’s consistent about his standards.”
“Is he?” Olivia asked, struggling to rise to her feet. “Cheating on you?”
“Well, perhaps that was a poor choice of words. Yes, he’s got a girl on the side. The same girl he’s had for about fifty years, I guess, since he said he’s been meeting her in secret since he was fledged and now I have a pretty good idea of just how long that is. In a way, he’s cheating on her with me. I don’t mind. He loves her. Imagine not being able to live with the person you love. And he’s very open about things with me. He says that if I want to be with another man after the baby is born, he won’t stop me, provided I take precautions. We’re very civil about our infidelities…we’re practically British.” Ellen waited until Olivia had settled herself on the examination bench. “Do you need to catch your breath? I could take you back to your room.”
“I can find my way. I’m okay, really,” Olivia assured the other, smiling. “I just need to sit here a while and count my blessings after listening to all those troubles. All I have is a sore back and a tiny bladder.”
“Well…if you’re sure.” Ellen stepped back and looked uncertain.
“I’m sure. Scoot.” Olivia chuckled under her breath. “Practically British,” she repeated, shaking her head.
Ellen smiled. “Duruna is going to move in with us pretty soon, I think. I invited her. To help me with the baby, as an excuse. How British is that?”
“Are you done?” a timid voice called. “It’s me, Beth.”
Ellen and Olivia exchanged farewells, and then Ellen retreated, nodding at Beth as she slipped sideways through the narrow doorway. Beth stood awkwardly on one leg, rubbing her foot against the back of her knee and performing curious little washing movements with her hands that made her look, in the uneven lighting, a little like a raccoon.
“Come in, Beth,” Olivia began, and motioned her towards the bench, feeling only a weary sort of gratitude that, whatever this problem was, it couldn’t have anything to do with a baby at least. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so.” Beth sat down and clasped Olivia’s hands with a look of such wide-eyed longing that she appeared more like a child of twelve than the woman she was now. “Make me pregnant!”
7
“What do you mean, make you pregnant?” Olivia echoed, aghast. “Who do you think I am?”
“Please, Olivia!” Beth urged, squeezing her hands to the point of pain. “Please, I’ll do anything you say!”
Olivia forced herself to calm down, and when she spoke again, it was with gentleness. “It’s not a matter of doing what I say, Beth. You told me yourself you couldn’t.”
Beth dropped her gaze, and a moment later, she released her grip on Olivia and folded her hands in her lap. “Because of the abortion,” she agreed. She looked up again, her eyes huge and hopeful. “But you could help me, maybe? You could use your magic powers.”
Olivia wanted to laugh, and it was only by the fiercest of internal battles that she managed not to do so. “I don’t have any magic powers,” she said, when she could trust herself to speak. “I keep making the most ridiculous crap up, and it keeps coming true, but I swear I’m not doing anything.”
“What about the dream you had?” Beth asked. “That was magic.”
“It can’t be magic if you don’t mean to do it,” Olivia insisted.
Beth’s whole body seemed to crumple, starting with her face. “You won’t help me,” she said in a quavery voice.
“I don’t…oh hell,” she muttered, and sat down beside her. “Tell me about the abortion. Maybe it wasn’t so bad as you thought.”
Beth gave her a brief glance that told Olivia at once that it had been exactly as bad as she thought. She fiddled with her hands for a short time, and tensely began, “I was thirteen, and a junior counselor at summer camp for little kids. Jim was one of the real counselors. He was twenty-eight.”
Beth paused and slid a glance her way, scouting for disapproval. Olivia frowned, but said nothing. Beth relaxed minutely and continued.
“We had sex a lot. Every night of camp, and sometimes in the middle of the day, if we had the chance. It hurt at first, but he told me it would, and then it got better and I liked it. Two weeks later, the little-kid camp closed and I went home. I realized I was pregnant when I started throwing up a lot. I told my mom I had the flu, and she didn’t suspect anything. I was afraid to say anything to anyone, and I didn’t even know how to contact Jim.
“Then my birthday came, and he called me. I guess he got my number from the camp files. He said he had a present for me, and he wanted me to sneak out and meet him. So I did. After my party, I knocked the screen out of my window and climbed out. I ran about three blocks away and he picked me up and took me back to his place. His present was some sex stuff, and he tried it out on me and took a lot of pictures.
“When he was done, and before he took me home, I told him I had skipped my period. I was afraid that he would say he wasn’t the father, or just throw me out, but he listened to me and said not to worry. He drove down to the all-night supermarket and got a pregnancy test. It was positive. I started to panic, but he said he would fix things.
“Three weeks after that, he came to my house and introduced himself to my mom and dad. He said I had been so helpful during summer camp that he wanted me back to help with the fall camps. He had brochures and everything. My mom and dad agreed to let me go. I packed my camp stuff and they drove me to the bus station. I took the bus one block and got off. He was there. He took me to his house.
“He gave me a leather kit like you can buy in craft stores, the kind where you make your own moccasins? He told me to put it together, and then he made some phone calls. That night, he woke me up and put me in the car. He never told me where we were going or what was going to happen. He took me to a building. Another man brought me into a little room and strapped me down to a table. He gave me a shot. I was scared and crying, because now I realized what was going to happen.
“Then he brought out a machine, like a vacuum cleaner with a…a roto-tiller on the end. He stuck it up inside me and started moving it around. It hurt. I was screaming and struggling, and he was swearing at me and slapping at me, and finally Jim grabbed my hips and pinned me down. All this blood came out, and it just kept coming out.
“The doctor stuck a towel between my legs, and Jim picked me up and carried me back out to the car. I cried all the way to his house. I bled all the way, too. That night, I had the most painful cramps
I’ve ever had in my life. I was screaming and rolling around for hours. I bled all over everything, and Jim stood there and smoked and watched me, looking all sweaty and scared. Finally, the blood stopped.
“Three days later, he took me back to the doctor. The doctor shoved a little flashlight up me and looked around. He said, ‘It’s like the craters of the fucking moon up there.’” Beth grew quiet, staring off into the wall. “I don’t remember much, really, but I remember him saying that. And the way he said it. Kinda laughing a little, you know? Like it was…funny.”
“Beth—”
“So Jim took me back to his house. I kept crying and couldn’t stop, and finally he hit me. Then he got all sorry, and apologized about everything, and then he put me in bed and did some sex to me. He kept telling me that it was fine now, that I’d never have to worry about getting caught again.” Beth stopped and it took a few seconds for Olivia to realize the story was done.
“You never told your parents?” she asked.
Beth shook her head. “I went home with my new moccasins and said I had fun. I never saw Jim again and I never went back to camp.”
“But you never saw a real doctor, either?”
“What was the point?” Beth ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “Olivia,” she said hesitantly. “I didn’t ever plan to be here, but now that I am, it’s like God gave me a second chance. Wurlgunn is—” She uttered a high, incredulous peal of laughter. “He’s the most amazing man I’ve ever met. He’s not too bright and he’s so clumsy, but he loves me so mu-uh-uch.” She folded into tears, still trying to speak. “I used to think he was a monster. I thought he was ugly. Now I think he’s beautiful. And he thinks I’m beautiful. Me! If Vorgullum opened up the mountain tonight and told me I could go home, I would still want to be with him and I want to have his babies. Please!”
“I just don’t know what you think I’m going to do.”
“Maybe you can’t do anything.” Beth knuckled at her eyes and looked at her hopefully. “But I know that no one else can. So I thought that, if you tried, maybe something would happen. If nothing does, well, I’m no worse off than before. I just figured, you know, what could it hurt?”
Olivia closed her eyes briefly, but took Beth’s hand. “I’ll try, okay? But nothing’s going to happen. I’m not magic.”
“Sometimes you are,” Beth said, so trustingly that Olivia found it difficult to meet her eyes. She sat on the bench beside Olivia and closed her eyes, waiting, holding Olivia’s hands to her stomach.
Oh Jeez. I don’t know what I’m doing, Olivia thought despairingly. She didn’t want to simply fake it, not at the expense of Beth’s faith, as misplaced as it may be. Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to recall just how it had felt to be suffused with power, as she had been when she confronted Mojo Woman, but there was nothing. Nothing.
Great Spirit, Olivia thought, afraid to say it out loud, in case nothing happened. Or in case something did. Great Spirit, I know I’m not magic, but if you heard me before, please hear me now. Please.
No reply, not even in her head.
After several minutes of silence, Olivia got ready to tell Beth to forget it and go home. Despite the lanterns set around them, the cavern had become almost brutally cold, and Olivia could feel her skin prickling with gooseflesh. She started to say something…and couldn’t. Her breath continued to blow easily in and out of her lungs, and surely her heart continued its steady beat, but the rest of her was locked into place. She couldn’t move.
“Behold me.”
Olivia’s eyes wrenched open and saw the winged woman of moonlight and stars, looking lean and strong despite an obvious pregnancy near to term. She tried to gasp and couldn’t, tried to flinch back and couldn’t, tried to give trusting Beth some kind of warning and could only sit there silently as the Great Mother of the Moon gazed indifferently down at them.
Not a hallucination. Not a dream. This was happening. This was Urga.
“My mate sends me,” Urga said. “What do you require?”
Olivia cut her eyes at Beth, but Beth’s eyes were closed and her features strained with concentration. She wants a baby, Olivia thought, doing her best to make those thoughts clear.
Urga looked at Beth. She came forward without walking, floating like the moon across the sky. She reached down, a vaguely finger-like growth protruding from the meaty lump of her hand, and touched Beth’s flat stomach.
Beth jerked, gasping, then cried, “I felt that, Olivia! You’re doing it!”
“She is cold inside,” Urga observed. “Jagged as an empty chasm. There can be no child for this woman.”
It was wrongly done, Olivia protested.
Urga smiled at her. It was not a comforting sight. “It is the way of things for evil to be done to those who do not deserve it. If not for wickedness in the world, of what value would virtue be?”
Without miracles, Olivia countered, who would have hope? Urga’s smile seemed to slip, and Olivia took advantage of the indecision. This woman has faith in me, that I will somehow be able to restore her. I know I don’t have that power, but I believe that you do. Please, Urga, all she wants is to be able to follow your example, to be a faithful mate and a devoted mother.
“My example,” Urga echoed, still so cool, so far removed from the things she said. “I have no interest in the desires of Bahgree’s children. Let her strike bargains with you. Let her fill your wombs.”
You made her mortal, Olivia argued. She’s long dead now.
“Nothing born of power dies forever,” Urga countered, and threw Beth an expression of extremely mild irritation. “But why should I concern myself with this human? The spawn of my ancient enemy are none of my affair. When she is cured of her injuries, what is to prevent her from inciting her fellows to beg me for favors?”
She won’t know that it was you at all, Olivia replied, and could not quite contain her exasperation with Beth and the whole Olivia-the-Great routine. She’ll blame it all on me, and I’ll have to deal with her fellows and their favors.
Urga actually seemed to consider that. “So. It is not this woman’s plea at all, but your own?”
Yes, Olivia told her. If you can do this, if you can help her, then that’s my plea. Please help her, Urga.
Urga’s empty eyes narrowed. Her lipless mouth curled in an awful, clay-like smile. It was a terrible expression, terrible because it was cold and loveless and somehow full of scorn. “Then I may not refuse. So be it.”
The brilliant aura that surrounded Urga began to flow along her body, collecting in her fingertips. The light grew until Olivia had to close her eyes, and even then, the light penetrated her mind and turned it all to cold, white pain.
Olivia heard Beth let out an ear-splitting scream and she opened her eyes in fear. Urga’s hands were inside Beth, and the light was flooding off her body, filling Beth from within. Beth’s skin began to glow faintly, pulsing with the beating of her heart. Her head was flung back and her nails dug little moons in Olivia’s hands. On her face was an look of purest rapture.
“What damage was done here?” Urga wondered to herself. “I feel ended life. I feel the terror of a child and the pain of the child she carried.”
Can she be healed? Olivia asked uneasily. Urga’s words had been spoken with absent-minded interest, not with any real depth of emotion, and even now she seemed only to be standing idly by to watch Beth teem with living light.
“All things are within my power that come of woman’s creation.” Urga removed her hands from Beth’s body, and the blonde slumped over with her head in Olivia’s lap. “Such cruelty,” she said absently. “Not unexpected from one of your treacherous kind.” Urga paused, and then touched her hand to Olivia’s brow. “Daughter of Bahgree, my mate and master desires you to be happy, and as it pleases me to see him pleased, I have done as you requested. This woman is healed and shall conceive.”
Olivia sent her thanks, but Urga only dropped her hand to her side, unaffected.
“You are mortal,” the apparition said simply. “Your time upon this world is swift and forgettable. You are not worth my jealousy for all that my eternal mate yearns to have you clasped in passion. Yet his will is great and I must obey. Therefore, know this: He has commanded me bear his son through you, and so it shall be. My hand shall be upon you the night you bring forth.” And with that, Urga stepped back and slowly faded away.
Olivia felt the curious block that had prevented her from speech and movement break, and she realized that Beth was hugging her and crying with happiness. She patted the woman awkwardly as Beth alternately praised and thanked her.
“Go home, Beth,” she said at last, trying to peel the small blonde off her. “Go home and be with Wurlgunn.”
Beth stumbled up, took a lantern, started to thank her again, and then fairly flew from the room.
Olivia gathered the other lights and went back to her birthing chamber, exhausted and depressed. Again, the threat of destiny, of forces beyond her control loomed over her like a sword suspended by a thread. By this time tomorrow, the whole tribe would think that she had healed Beth’s barrenness.
Just what she needed, more worship to take up her time while she worried about the Great Spirit and his clasp of passion.
8
The females of the tribe took turns staying with Olivia during the last few days of pregnancy. No males were to be allowed near until after the baby had been born, and then, only Vorgullum would be permitted to see him. The tribe as a whole would not be able to view either mother or child until three nights had passed, a tradition born of too many years when three days meant the difference between knowing a child might live and giving it time to die.
Olivia was bored, hurt, and so tired she sometimes fell asleep while eating. She rarely moved out of bed except when her bladder demanded it, and even then she only moved just as far as the washroom canal. She began to have what Tina too-callously dismissed as Braxton Hicks contractions (“Nothing to worry about,” she kept saying, just like Olivia’s uterus tying itself in a pretzel knot every ten minutes all damn day for three days running was on her list of medical complaints just under stubbing a toe), and then to leak embarrassingly from her breasts. Any flicker of joy she had ever managed to feel for her impending motherhood collapsed under the combined weight of leg cramps, backaches, varicose veins and bone-leaden exhaustion, until all she wanted in the wide world was for this to be over.