Free Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations by Eric J. Guignard (Editor) Page A

I was judicious and wise, more sorceress than witch, more goddess than sorcerer. I was Diana in her orb; Athena of the gray eyes; Venus in the heat of a luxurious bed. I was woman; one woman, every woman. I was birth mother, wet nurse, and shriveled, aged widow to all of Oz. I outlasted, I outperformed. I was never to die.
    I remember the moment I first felt my powers. I was thirteen, and my womanhood had yet to come upon me. There were four of us total, all girls; but I was the eldest, and it fell to me to lead. I was a natural at it. Mama was busy; Papa had abandoned us years ago, and Mama raised us all herself. She wasn’t perfect; she did the best she could to give us food, clothing, a roof. What if the small thatch hut leaked? What if it was damp in autumn and cold in winter? What if we huddled together near a small fire for warmth, our shivering bodies covered only by a tattered woolen blanket and a thin layer of lard and dry leaves Mama would smear on us? We were dry, we were fed (though not often well), we had a roof. What right did we have to complain?
    So Mama drank; it helped. And Mama could rage; oh how Mama could rage! Sometimes, at night, she would come into the room we all slept in, drunk on rye whiskey and full of wrath. I shared a straw bed with my youngest sister, Locasta, and I protected her as best I could. Mama favored us anyway, perhaps because we resembled her more, with our golden hair and pink skin; who can say. On the other bed of straw were my two middle sisters, Momba and Sally, as dark as we were fair, and somehow their raven hair and black coal eyes enraged Mama all the more. She used a broom on them, too often. It stung; I saw it in their eyes each night. But soon, perhaps too soon for those so young, they learned not to cry. It did them no good anyway, and such weakness—well, Mama abhorred such weakness.
    During the day, when Mama had gentleman callers come ’round, we would escape, deep into the woods. There was a special place we all went to, a virid, still pool surrounded by a tall grove of sycamore and elm. The three oldest of us would rush out of our shifts and wade into the cool waters; this was our joyful time. Locasta would always hesitate, timid and afraid of the sea monsters our other sisters teased her lurked under the water’s edge. I would patiently grab her hand, walk her in. I would smile, to reassure her. And she would smile back, a timorous, wan little smile; but she would never relax.
    Those happy moments were truly few; life was hard. But we were daughters of the North, the cold wastelands of Oz; we were used to hardship. And Mama could be sweet sometimes. On our birthdays she would give us walnuts and sing to us, pet us and hold us in her lap. I loved Mama in those moments, loved her with a ferocity I had never felt before or since. But those moments were fleeting; the drink, the men, they all came soon again, and life continued as it did before.
    Then, one day, in the woods, wading pell-mell in the water, I felt funny, felt strange, as if a warm shock passed right through me. There was a cramp, and a grimace of mild pain. And there, in the water, I saw something red, ruby red, thicker than water and lazily drifting toward the murky bottom of the pool. Blood. I gasped; my courses had come, but I did not know that then. I only knew fear, terror, but I could not show this to my sisters. And the other two, they did not know; they only grumbled as I rushed them out of the water and bundled them home. Locasta, I think she suspected, but she said nothing as we trod home as fast as we could. She only smiled, a paean to me, that same forced smile I still see every night in my dreams before I go to sleep.
    I told Mama about what had happened, and she was excited, powerful excited. She told me I was a woman now; that I was to stay home and help her in her work. I didn’t know what that meant, and I was sad to see my childhood slip away without any warning at all. But Mama said we