Free The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk

you had after carrying on with Mr. Superstud here?” Maya kicked her foot toward Rio’s ghost. “Who was, may I remind you,
my
boyfriend at the time?”
    “That was no accident. That was an ancestor knocking at the door, wanting to be Rachel.” Johanna stretched, yawned, and winked. “Maybe ‘accident’ isn’t the operative term here. Maybe I’d better just say that my line is susceptible to intervention from the dead. Otherwise how do you explain Rachel herself, a fifty-year-old medical doctor, no doubt acquainted with the facts of life, getting knocked up by a twenty-six-year-old
combatiente
in the Guadalupano Liberation Front?”
    “She was following the bad example of her elders.”
    “Speak for yourself, girlfriend.”
    “I was quite youthful when I had Brigid. In my mid-forties. And I would have had her by you”—she turned to Rio—“if you hadn’t had that vasectomy in prison.”
    “You were practically menopausal,” Johanna said. “But that’s beside the point, which is that Rachel’s little dalliance gave us Madrone, and your fling with—what was his name?”
    “Carlos.”
    “Right. Anyway, he gave you Brigid and, through her, Marley, rest his soul, and Bird. And without them all, the odds would be even worse.”
    “The odds of what?”
    “The odds that our next lifetime will be the restful, pleasurable, tropical idyll that I am in the process of planning instead of a miserable starved sojourn in some Millennialist-infested breeding pen.”
    “Our
next lifetime?”
    “You, me, and Rio, our little karmic trio. That rhymes, did you notice?”
    Maya looked at Johanna with suspicion. For just a moment, she seemed to have a sheaf of colored brochures in her hand, as if she’d just come from some astral travel agency. Were there agents in the afterlife who could get you special deals on accommodations in the next? Did they offer group rates?
    “How can you be making plans for my next life,” Maya asked, “when I’m still in the middle of this one?”
    “I’d say tail end, not middle,” Johanna countered. “You’re winding down.”
    “I’m not dead yet. Anyway, haven’t we stored up enough karmic good points in this life to have assured some comfort in the next?”
    “That is exactly what nobody seems to grasp about this karma business. It’s not a simple matter of cause and effect, reward and punishment. It’s aquestion of what’s available. You see, as long as life for the majority of souls on this planet is just a long round of starvation, misery, torture, and early death—and believe me, outside this fortunate watershed that is an apt description of the state of affairs—as long as only a few live in comfort while the masses scrape along in want, then all us returning souls have to take our fair share of shifts among the hungry. You think this life you’ve lived was tough? Let me tell you, it was just R and R between the ones where you never get a solid meal two days running or you die before your first birthday from drinking bad water.”
    “Johanna, you’re not cheering me up.”
    “I didn’t come to cheer you up. I came to warn you. This next year is a pivotal time, one of those hinges that open or close the doors of fate. Watch out!”
    “What do you mean?” Maya asked. She sat up and opened her eyes, but the room was empty.

    Madrone quietly pushed open the door and entered Maya’s room, bearing a very old tray commemorating the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana, back in the last century. Upon it rested two of Maya’s favorite Chinese cups, eggshell-thin, grass-green, with a pattern of butterflies on them, and a brown chipped teapot.
    Maya observed her closely. She looked rested, but there was still a pale undertone to the hue of her warm skin that spoke of deep fatigue.
    “How are you this morning?” Madrone asked.
    “I’m still alive. What do you think of that?”
    “I’m glad somebody is,” Madrone said, carefully placing the tray and