Crossings

Prologue

         I have been summoned by a bunch of pitiful prophets to talk about how I saved Dana from the evil.  So I’ll tell you a shortened version of the story; I’ll even give you my emotions since you people don’t want a perfect hero who never weeps or feels remorse. Well actually, I know that you do want a perfect hero but I’m not perfect and I’m barely a hero so listen up and stop calling me from the Juday after-world, I’m at peace there. I hate prayer it keeps me up, keeps me from enjoying the afterlife, and eventually I have to answer you because unfortunately I do still care.  I have never been good at ignoring pain and duty. So here’s the story of how I saved Dana.
         My daughter was dead and I was forced to live once more on the planet Dana, after being surrounded in the endless peace of nothingness, alive due to the death of my daughter’s sacrifice, my poor child, my Creana, daughter of the sea foam, her heart as pure as she believed mine to be.  I didn’t want to be reborn; I was tired of battles and endless pain as were all of my warriors, I had emptied my black bottle of its poison that kept me going long past the point where my body would sleep, it was tiredness that had allowed me to crawl into death.  I wanted peace and annihilation, I craved them but both were denied to me by my daughter.  I stood alive but not well, in a world that was taken over by the evil I gave my soul to end, cradling the flesh of my once perfect daughter but I was not allowed to cry, a warrior never cries, especially a woman in a world of men as Dana once was before I changed things. 
         My rebirth opened the passages from the living world and the dead, my very existence created an imbalance that lead to all the closed afterlife doorways being opened.  I had lost the last battle and here I was called upon to fight again, weaker than before, but I had time to think in the eternal nothingness of dust, time to listen to my lost children cry and I had finally realized my faults.  Me, the goddess as some foolish people called me, their warrior, their divine power, all I had been was arrogant and stupid. I had relied solely on the support of the militia; neglecting the hearts and powers of those simple folks who wanted nothing more than to live in peace.  This time all of creation both dead and alive, civilian, and solider were joining hands together to banish the darkness and I led them all.
         I finally knew that alone I was unable to bring back the light. My lover, my friend, the light half of my soul, my James, and my two siblings, that’s how I felt about them even though in truth  we were not siblings; I was royalty, reborn on Dana, guarded and looked after by John and Jamal; my best male friend Dion who was actually a reborn form of my son though I had never understood the soul I created until he became my friend and almost lover, and my best female friend Hope who was in charge of the library of fate. I don’t think my daughter realized that calling me forth would bring her back into existence, I didn’t realize it either, I held my dead daughter and suddenly she regained her power to live, a slight ways away from me taking her form from random atoms that ghosts used when they materialized.  I embraced my daughter greedily, happy that she had come back, desiring to keep her safe forever and instead knew that she would have to fight beside me and my other allies previously mentioned or the light would never return.  Together, the seven of us went to the shrine of Zeldar.
         Zeldar had been one of the physical vessels for the idea of soulmates.  His shrine allowed souls to join together at will.  The great seven, we didn’t name ourselves this but it was how it was recorded after we all went to the great beyond, were initiated in our powers; we were strong enough to become Juday or Lightened ones. When our bodies had died, we would not be reincarnated on the plane of existence we currently occupied; that was our price for our powers, all magic has a price, and ours was to never return to Dana once our still mortal flesh perished. 
         Since we were so powerful, we were able to use the shrine of Zeldar to cement the soul bonds and loose our individual identities.  We become one power source, with seven minds and seven bodies but all directed towards a central will, my own.
         Erik was the leader of the darkness, or to simplify it, the evil.  He had once been my childhood friend, my boyfriend, my fiancé, and my lover but though I did not know it he was also my brother in the eyes of the universe and the sin of our being together was too great for the balance of the world. I am not supposed to reveal the divine secrets to the mortals who read this, but I have never cared for doctrine and so I shall state the truth.
         The lightness was a group left over from the first era before the evil came, and we were dedicated to keep off the chaos and not interfere in the eternal struggle of good versus evil.  We were too powerful to be left unchecked so every female was given a male with the same power as she herself had. If those two evenly matched powers got together, then the balance was destroyed for if one went to chaos the other could follow and their power would go unchecked.  If a Lightness turned dark, it was the responsibility of that person’s soul mate, for lack of a better word, to kill the other end of her power.  Though Erik and I were innocent of knowing what we were to each other the universe found out the truth and tore my beloved away from me on my wedding night.  I did as any young, betrayed woman would do, and walked in vengeance for many years but after awhile screaming at the world gets tiresome and the sins and sorrows of the world weigh down your heart until you have to repent and come back to the fold you thought you had escaped.
         Erik never had repented and for a time I had been seduced by evil as well but I overcame dark desires, how dark I got is a matter that most people know and if they don’t I will not enlighten them, when I banished the evil in my own heart I ascended to Juday, Erik was weak in his trust for the universe and understanding of its balance so he floundered in the darkness, I watched him swim far away from me and hated it.  Erik, my lost one, why could you not see where you were heading, why couldn’t you see that the darkness would be your undoing. He was so powerful, so strong, so conniving, he became my most dreaded foe but I never wanted to pit myself against him, I tried over and over again to save him, I did everything, even let myself be killed to avoid his death but I couldn’t hide from the truth anymore.  I gathered the seven to me and we were assembled for one purpose, to kill my Erik. 
         The seven knew we had to find Erik directly, if we killed the leader of the evil the light would win the war because the rest of his army would be too confused to fight without him.  Most people become weakened by their lusts when the evil takes control of them.  I became distracted with torturing and fighting to the point where it was hard to concentrate on bringing the evil to an age of light while I was under the evil’s sway but Erik never lost his ability to love, or his desire to rule.   
         Erik ran to fight me as I ran to fight him and although I wanted to weep in sadness he ran eagerly, his once gentle eyes filled with madness and death, if he was going to loose he would take me with him, he wanted to kill me, he wanted to hurt me, and I knew watching him run to me that he couldn’t be saved. So there we were facing each other across the battlefield, two sword lengths apart.
         I like to say that Erik’s breath was taken away because I glowed with the light of the stars, the moon, the sun, candles, and the soul of all that was right in the world; I was beautiful in the light.  You people reading this story probably assume that I was vain, that I was a selfish thing and at times I was vain, I wanted men to find me desirable that isn’t why I tell you of my beauty.  I was Jeday and that means that the purity of the heart creates your physical identity if I had had a physical flaw it would have meant that I myself was imperfect.  I am what I am, disobedient perhaps, but still a child of light who sacrificed herself more times than I care to remember to save Dana.  My hair was golden and my skin was white, my eyes swirled with the light of every planet in creation and if a mortal looked into my eyes he or she would be driven insane.
         In contrast, Erik was dark, so dark he sucked the light and color from the world.  He was dressed in dark black skin and skulls, covered in the blood of those he had to wade through to meet me. His hair straight, fine, and a shiny black, but his skin was like leather and his eyes were all pupil; all darkness, his eyes looked like a black hole.  He was still beautiful to me, even twisted by the evil and deformed by dark light he still made my heart beat and my knees go weak but it wasn’t enough, his beauty didn’t distract me it only made me feel bad about what had to be done.
         Erik looked at me, I remember his words; I’ll always remember them.  “I would give you one more chance to be with me, but you’re contaminated with the radioactive light of the old folks.” He laughed then, his voice full of unadulterated joy that hurt my ears to hear.
         I am told that my face was remote and serious; I know that I tried to keep my emotions from showing and that I had had practice not showing emotion.  I  hated everything about what I had to do.  “You may not give me another chance, but you will always have one in my heart.” I told him, my voice so cold it hurt me to hear it, but I couldn’t let real emotion in my voice or I’d end up crying, “If you ever choose the light over the dark, you know I will be there to help you through the transition.” I told this to my Erik, as if I was better than him, as if I hadn’t walked in the same darkness as him.
         “And what good will that do me?  The universe itself declares that we cannot be together.” Erik replied laughing, “I however, choose the dark, the dark gives you the freedom to do whatever you want.” I heard him and a part of my agreed with him but I couldn’t say that; I couldn’t appear weak or his soul would be lost.
         “No matter what side you choose, you can do whatever you want.  Your problem is that the light requires you to pay for what you do.  You forget that you pay, no matter what side you choose.” I was being honest when I told him this for in truth, I cannot lie, no matter how much times I long for it, but just for all you who read my writings, know that I omit information and add information to keep you from the true story.  Whether all that is written about me is the truth is up to those who read this writing; I don’t want people assuming they know everything about me because they read a few of my personal writings.
         “Enough talking, I don’t know why I ever loved you.” Erik shouted and gathered the darkness that was his to command, throwing it at me.  His laughter had been a clever trick to hide what he was doing.
         I had seen the trick so I didn’t move or seem to summon my powers. I  stood and held my palms outward. The evil could find no purchase on my body.  “I have accepted that darkness has a place in this world, so it can no longer conquer me.”
         Erik lost it and started screaming, “You can kill me, but evil shall live on forever and it will rule this universe again, of that I can promise you.”
         “I do not seek to destroy what cannot be destroyed.” I replied, “I seek only to restore the balance of the world. When evil or good rules fully the balance has been lost and the universe suffers.”
         Erik kept throwing darkness at me, trying to kill me, but nothing he did could touch me.  I walked forward then and hugged him.  He screamed in pain and terror because the light brought him a conscience and he saw all that he had done.  The light also ate and fought with the darkness of his soul, burning him and cleansing him.  I was burned as well, although the stories say that the darkness didn’t touch me. I held on so that Erik had some chance of being saved.
         Erik was crying as he looked into my face, “I’m sorry, but I can’t change, not even for you.” He told me, “I love you but I can’t live with you alive and out of my reach, in the arms of another man, I refuse to live like that.”
         I finally started crying, it’s the only time I cried about Erik that it wasn’t a sin, that it was allowed.  I used my tears as a weapon telling him, “Please, accept the light; please don’t let the darkness consume you. Please, please don’t let your body die to be reborn over and over again as a dark soul.”
         Erik, my Erik, was burning alive, his contaminated flesh melting from his bones, “Accept the light, please accept the light.” I begged knowing that if he didn’t he would lose his soul, his identity.
         Erik stroked my face then, “You are the only person I regret leaving.” He whispered and died.
         I wanted to cry again, but I couldn’t there was still a battle to be won.  It is said that the power of the seven broke the evil up and splintered it so that every person had a piece of darkness in their hearts. No one saw me cry, but everyone knew that I wanted to, or they should have if people hadn’t started believing that I was a saint or warrior of some kind. 
         At the end of the battle, I and the rest of those who had ascended to Juday left the world and went to the next realm; that’s a nicer way of saying that every one of us had horrible and terrible deaths.  I left behind an ancient book of knowledge that had all the spells and rituals and truth about the world written down in it.  Knowing the danger of such knowledge, every word of the book was written in languages from another dimension all together, pretty clever if I do say so myself. The book was then placed in the cave of knowledge, protected by the spirits of all the faithful followers of me, by the way I never thought they were all these ancient holy people, I respected every one of my followers but don’t get the idea that they were the wisest people in the world.  I knew who the deep dark, the only true god would send to find the book and when, because I’m special like that but I took that secret with me into the next world.
         For those of you who don’t know who I am it’s Zyle, my real name can’t actually be pronounced unless you speak the language of the Juday, none of the Juday or Jeday can have their true names spoken without destroying the fragile forms of the mortals who hear it. 
         Since the muses have summoned me to actually predict something or reveal something I’m not going to tell you all about my life.  Instead I’m going to tell you of one born of two twins who is going to be born, he will usher in the light how and why is my secret to keep but don’t worry children of Dana; the evil will not live forever. I still have influence on things, even if I am dead.


Crossings

Part One:
Two different worlds

Chapter 1

         Hannah Troy was a welcome edition to the family but her timing was unexpected.  Hannah’s mother, Tracy was at a New Year’s Party, two weeks before Hannah’s due date and had gone into contractions.  Her husband, Richard had rushed her to the hospital and gotten her a room.  The water had broken at the hospital and the labor was long and painful. 
         Tracy, screamed and wailed during the pregnancy as her husband Richard held her hand and had her concentrate on her breathing.  Tracy had refused to take medications because she had read some article that claimed it was bad for the baby, two hours into the labor and she wanted the medicine but was too proud to admit it. 
         At the end of the labor, the child came out covered in blood and goop, the doctor wiped the baby off, cleared its air passages, and handed it to the mother and father so that it could scream in their arms and not those of the annoyed doctor who really wanted to get to his other patients as soon as possible.  The mom looked down at her baby girl, and didn’t noticed how squished up she was, all she saw was her daughter. 
         “You’ll light the world, Hannah Faith Troy.”  She told her daughter before the doctor took her away into an isolated incubator.  Her husband had compromised with his wife, originally she wanted Hannah to be named Faith Pilgrim Troy but the father refused saying that he didn’t want his child made fun of in school so she had a normal first name. Hannah went home with her parents, secure and loved and determined to make sure they didn’t sleep as long as she had the lungs and voice of a demon. 
         The crib she slept in was a present from the baby shower. She had a mobile on top that sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, little star.” She had the best baby clothes that garage sales, hand-me-downs, gifts, and some actual stores could provide.  She was colicky and cried constantly at the beginning but her parents bore with it, picked her up and comforted her as she cried.
         Her mom even made up a song for her daughter, in the light soprano voice she had inherited from her mother.  She sang, “Hannah faith, daughter of eve, stop crying now.” Over and over again, once tired she handed the squaling infant to her husband.

         Gaia held her belly as it moved without her intention, the child that she had unintentionally fed lay in her stomach, trying to be born at this exact minute.  Gaia was a slave because her few powers weren’t enough to make her a ruler of anything. The gods were the leaders here and she was nothing but a worshipper.  She bit back her bitter smile at the thought and looked at where the moon probably was; it was almost full but not quite, the child she was giving birth to was like the moon, not fully formed.  The sky was black and dark with the bitter sulfur clouds that blocked the sun and moon’s light. She knew the phase of the moon only because the tide of the black river was affected by the moon.  Her labor was supposed to be one month from that night but it was Ares’ child and the children of the gods were known to be born early.
          Gaia wasn’t the queen of the king Ares. She was a lowly slave, meat, both literally and figuratively for whoever wanted her; shapeshifters, vampires, and hellhounds lived in Dana and they were known to bite or suck blood from slave women.  Gaia’s job was to grow mushrooms and other plants that were able to grow in the dark.
          They weren’t like the plants of Earth because they weren’t green.  The plants of Dana, her world, needed blood to grow as well as a special soil.  Touching the soil left blisters on the arms of the people touching them and the plants needed to be sprayed with a unique chemical or they couldn’t be eaten.  Gaia worked in the fields, killing chickens to spread blood and spreading the soil over the land.  Her hands were covered with blisters and her back ached constantly but she kept working; she had no choice.  The darker gods could touch the soil without getting blisters as well as the darker slaves but she was not one of the damned, she smiled at that thought, her soul wasn’t damned but her life was damned to be painful.  After an hour of work she could rest ten minutes to drink water.
         Over many days of work, Ares had seen that she was fair of face, skinny, healthy, and apparently docile so he had lain with her.  It wasn’t rape, the slave who was chosen to sleep with the king received one month without work and Gaia willing went with the king.  After all, she was only thirteen the first time and hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to lay with a god.  She had been his special one for over three years and now she was pregnant with his spawn because the potion she normally used to prevent births hadn’t worked.  She was bitter that his seed had taken root and wanted nothing more than to hurt him.  Even though he showered her with gifts, even though he had told her over and over again that he loved her, she knew that all he wanted was a woman who would let him do anything to her in bed.  A consort to Ares would never put up with his antics in the bedroom.  Gaia still couldn’t believe she had let him dress her up as a cow that one time with only a small swatch on her bottom free for his penetration.  She just didn’t understand why he wanted to bed a cow.
         He had decided to stop sleeping with her three months before she had realized she was pregnant because he had started paying attention to her cousin Lilith.  He had dumped her for being too old, then she had found out she was pregnant, now she’d be damned if she was going to carry his seed into life.
         Gaia had her child in secret while her twin sister Isis pretended to be her. It was her mother’s greatest secret that she had had identical twin girls. Most twins were separated and eaten by the masters because it was said that twins had secret powers that were too dangerous for slaves to possess.  Isis could see the desires, hopes, and possible futures of everyone she touched.  Gaia could cloud the mind with illusions.  Knowing that these powers could be useful to the slave community, Isis’s and Gaia’s mother, Elena had hidden the fact that she gave birth to twin girls and the girls used this to their advantage, everyday they changed who would work and who would hide.  Isis had seen her sister’s pregnancy and taken over her sister’s work until her time to give birth came.
         Gaia had felt the pain of childbirth and walked to the shores of the black river.  The river was polluted with poisons, blood, machines of mass destruction, and run off from the bitter soil.  The fumes of the river were bad enough that none of the leaders or gods would go to its edge.  It was here by this bitter stream that slaves had been going for generations to kill the unwanted life in their bellies. A child that was dunked into the river’s water shortly after birth was sure to die then be eaten by whatever poisonous fishes and algae grew there.
         Gaia felt the pain again and wondered if she would be killed with the force of expelling this unwanted burden from her.  She carried a knife in her hand both to cut the umbilical cord and to kill the child when it was born, she wanted to kill the child of Ares as soon as it was born, that man deserved no offspring from her or any other slave.
         Gaia thought then and started laughing, if he had known she was pregnant with his child he would have sentenced the child to death because he was worried about anyone who had the potential to be as powerful as him.  Or maybe he would have ordered the child to be taken from her and raised as a god, it depended on his mood, either way the birth would benefit him and not her. 
         Gaia couldn’t scream as another strong contraction rippled across her middle, because that would let her be discovered so she bit her lip and prayed silently to Zyle, sort of like the patron saint of slaves due to her powers of vengeance, “Oh, great warrior give me your strength to bear this pain in silence.” She thought and felt the glow of Zyle, although she seriously doubted that anyone was listening, all the praying in the world had yet to bring the sun to shine again on this cold and bitter world, if the fires from inside Dana hadn’t been so strong no one could have lived at all, and maybe that would have been better.
         The child came then, ripping from her womb, cut from it by the hands of Gaia, the afterbirth streaming from her legs.  Gaia was careful to wipe the gunk from the baby’s face then bring it up to her face, her knife posed to kill it after saving it. Gaia stood with the baby in her hand poised to kill it, ready to kill it; then she lowered her hand.
         “I’m sorry, but I can’t kill you.” She told her son, holding it; it was her son, not an entity to be destroyed but a real life that she had helped create. 
         She tucked the baby in her dress and held it to her, she looked back at her home and knew that if the child was anywhere close to Ares he would be discovered and she knew that running away was certain death if discovered.  It was at that moment that her sister Isis came to her.
         “I thought you would have killed it by now.” Isis told her sister, she had just finished her work in the fields.
         Gaia started crying, “I can’t kill him, I don’t know why but I can’t do it, even knowing he is a product of rape, even knowing that he has been poisoned with the evil of Ares.  I look at him and all I see is my baby.”
         Isis looked at her sister then at the baby, “Let me hold him.” She demanded.
         “Only if you promise not to kill him without my permission.” Gaia told her sister, shielding the baby with her body as tightly as she could.
         “I promise; I just want to see my nephew.” Isis told her sister and held her hands out for the child.  Gaia handed him to her gently, carefully, and lovingly. “What do you see in his future?”
         Isis closed her eyes then, “I see greatness in him, he has the power of Ares but he also has the heart of his mother and the powers of our line.  He is not as evil as I feared.”
         “What am I going to do, sister?” Gaia asked, “I can’t let him be discovered by Ares or he will die, I can’t kill him, and if I send him away he will die from lack of care and food.”
         Isis touched her sister then, “Run, run fast and far, I will take your place in captivity and make sure no person believes you gone, when he is old enough not to need milk, give him to one of the free people and all will be well.”
         “I can’t let you do that.”
         “You have to, sister.” Isis told her, “For the sake of your son.”
         “Even for my son, I will not willingly leave you.”
         Isis smiled and shook her head, “When you return take my place for an entire year and we’ll be even.  Or if I ever have a child you will do the same for me.”
         “You know I would do anything for you.” Gaia told her sister, holding her child again, already looking towards the future.
         “So run, that is what I want from you right now.” Isis said laughing, but the laughter never hid the worry in her eyes.
         “I’ll leave this very night with nothing but the clothing on my back. Until we meet again sister.” Gaia whispered and meant to start her journey but Isis touched her shoulder.
         “What are you going to name my nephew?”
         Gaia shook her head then, “I can’t give him a name, someone else will find him and name him as is meant to be.  All he is to me is my son.”
         Gaia embraced her sister and left that night, staying close to the dark river, hiding to keep her baby and herself out of sight, knowing that no one but slaves would go by the black and twisting river.  The trees along the edges ate travelers who didn’t know how to protect themselves so Gaia had to be careful not to edge too close to the roots no matter how tired she was, especially since they could move when the moon was full. 
         When a follower of Ares came by, Gaia had to hide herself in the river’s water, keeping her son above her head because of the toxins in the river. After 3 months of living this way, Gaia was sick and frail, the poison and vapors of the river almost killing her. Her son was getting sick, slowly and Gaia knew that they would both die if they remained by the river much longer. 
         Gaia was holding her son in her arms, nursing him and singing to him, in the slave language when she looked in the sky and saw a Zyle bird.  The birds were pure white, and big enough to carry children, they were also supposed to be the left over messengers of the great warrior Zyle.
         Gaia stood up holding the baby, “Great bird, come to me I am in need of aid.” She called out.  The bird came to her, “By the power of Zyle who made you I ask that you help a woman in need of aid.” The bird bowed its head to her and cawed, but although Gaia knew the words of asking she did not know the speech of birds and could only shrug at the bird.  “Please take my son away from here, take him to a place where he will be protected and sheltered.” She demanded.
         The white bird picked up twigs and began trying to make a basket of them.  Gaia understood what he was doing and helped him twist sticks together.  When the basket had been made, it looked like it would float on the river and was tested first without the baby then with the baby within it. The baby was then placed in the basket and the Zyle bird perched on the top of the basket to guide it to safety. 
         “Gwendra, spirit of the blasted river, please give my son a safe trip. Please let him know that I loved him as much as I was able.” She called out to the river.
         The river glowed in a small path, barely large enough to carry her son but it was enough and the basket was floating freely.
         “Goodbye my son.” Gaia cried in sorrow. “Grow strong and live long.”
         The basket traveled safely along the top of the stream, guided by the Zyle bird to its master’s home and Gaia watched her son go far from her. 
         The Zyle bird, guided the basket into the middle of a cave town.  The town was hidden from the dark rulers that plagued that world, a small pocket of resistance for people who believed that the light would some day return.  It was surrounded by an actual forest filled with sunlight during the day.  The clouds that gathered over the rest of the planet keeping it in darkness were kept at bay by the dead elders of Hectate’s clan, when she felt her death coming she knew that she too would give her body over to the protection of her people, it was the duty of the leader and high priestess. 
         Her daughter was named Heleana for the moment but her name would change to Hectate, which meant high priestess when she turned twenty-one if she was powerful enough and willing to be the leader.  Hectate knew her daughter had the healing touch and could see the future already at the tender age of five months, her powers often extended to moving objects with her mind or healing people without trying.
         Hectate was not the actual mother of Heleana, but only the adopted surrogate.  All female children with powers that the parents couldn’t control were sent to Hectate to raise because she knew how to keep said powers under control. Hectate already thought of Heleana as her daughter, her mother having died giving birth and the father leaving volunatarily to go into another tribe.  When a child was given over to the Hectate to raise the parents often left the village so that they would not unconsciously hinder the learning of their child. 
         Hectate was sitting by the river because she knew a baby would be coming that day carried by the Zyle bird, she had seen this to be true in her looking glass.  Her white bird, Zyle’s shadow or puntanaslezyle was pushing the basket of a small boy.  Hectate took out some food from her pocket, a few dew berries, recently harvested, to feed her bird, “You did good Zyle’s Shadow.” She told him in her language and pet him as he flew away to the perch she kept for him in her cage. She then bent down and picked up the baby.
         The moment she touched the baby she saw the scene of his birth and every event he had seen in his life up until that point.  She knew this child was the child of Ares and knew that he was filled with half of the darkness of his father. More than that, his eyes were not the blue of a normal baby but yellow as a hawk’s eyes.
         Hectate considered killing him just as his own mother had but knew before going for her blade that she could not.  The child was half darkness but she could also sense light in him and a possible future of compassion and love as well as a possible future of bloodshed and violence.  She saw no future in which he hurt those who raised him and she knew that she would never be able to tell the village who his father was or teach her new son the darker powers he owned.
         She picked the child up and carried him into her cave where her daughter was sitting, she would take charge of him until he turned ten and had to move into the men’s cave, until then she would treat him like her son and make sure none of his darker powers came into being. That night she gave him the name Kalibunga which meant cabbage in her language.  Since there was no sunlight all plants were precious and often children were named after them.  Kalibunga was also a cabbage that although it could be raised and cared for to the point that it would only used sunshine when left on its own it would eat meat, children and small animals.  The first part of his name, Kali, was a way to describe the balance of the world; that one word summoned up the entire golden rule. 
         Kalibunga was too long for Heleana to say so his name became Kali and soon no one called him anything else.  The two children were very close during childhood.  It was no shock to Hectate that at the age of three Heleana told her mother, “Someday I will have children with Kali.”
         Hectate knew that they had been destined to find each other in this life time. She knew that they could have a future with children if things worked right.  She watched them grow up together and never told either child who their real parents were, especially Kali.

         Hannah Troy dreamed of a waterfall as huge as the one in Niagara Falls, although she had only seen the waterfall in real life she had often seen it used in movies, she had yet to journey out of the grand state of Ohio.  In her dream she was watching a young boy across the waterfall on a tightrope.  His younger brother was on the tightrope with him, trying to keep up with his footsteps but unable.  His mother screamed, “Get off the rope or you will fall.” His young female friend screamed out, “The water will get us.”
         Hannah became the boy and suddenly she was a he falling into the water before. She/he had a glimpse of the water rushing up to meet her and suddenly the dream was in black and white she/he had an endless glimpse of the rushing water then darkness.
         He/she/they was in a cave with people that were invisible to him at first.  “Let me go back to my family.” Hannah and the boy cried as one.
         A man’s voice quiet calmly told him, “I’m sorry but you can’t return to those people anytime soon, you have to stay with us for now.”
         “My brother will be so worried.”
         “Your family is dead; the water rushed from the waterfall and all of your old life is dead.”
         The dream then moved forward in time, as dreams are wont to do, the boy was a man.  There was a threat of nuclear war brewing and the old people of the cave who knew magic knew it was time to warn the human world.  By this time, the boy had forgotten his old life and was sent forth to save his old kind.  The people of the cave couldn’t take the light so the boy was sent out alone to convince the humans of their danger.
         The next image was of the city and a girl who looked familiar.  The boy was ignored by the people he came to save.  He was sleeping outside in the cold and a girl came up to him, it was the same girl he had seen before and he remembered the day in the waterfall.  The location switched to the courtroom in which the girl was his key to negotiations to save the human race and the end of the dream showed the people from the cave shaking hands with the president.
         Hannah woke up shaken that she had dreamed about being a boy, she would have been more worried if she had been older than five but at five she accepted the dream was just weird.