Last Daughter of the Gods - 7

What happened after Mother visited was both unexpected and strangely liberating. My bail was posted, not by Father - no surprises there - but by an anonymous donor.

A limousine met me in front of the station and whisked me away to the downtown Hilton on Marquette Avenue where I was installed in a luxury suite by an attractive woman in a sharp grey blazer and skirt.

Naturally I assumed that Mother was the donor. It seemed like something she might do to deftly navigate the impossible divide between Father and me. But I was wrong.

My benefactor visited me after room service delivered a five-course meal fit for a queen or three. As we sat down together to eat, my impulse to discuss whatever had compelled her to post bail as well as provide the room and meal had to wait. Such a meal demanded my full attention. When I finally pushed my dessert plate away, I graciously offered my thanks.

She clearly was a woman of distinction, her bearing regal and yet approachable, her gaze kindly, almost motherly. "Your probably wondering," she began, "why I have gone to so much trouble to see you."

Although I nodded without speaking, I fairly held my breath with curiosity.

"But before I explain," she continued, "I would like to tell you a story that begins with once upon a time. Do you believe in once upon a time, Soma?"

In my eagerness, I nodded vigorously, surprised to discover how very much I believed. Could this woman who spoke with a twinkle in her eyes know just how much or why?

"Once upon a time, there were three brothers, rulers without kingdoms. The strongest of the three set his throne in the heavens atop Mount Olympus. Pretending magnanimity, he gave one brother the sea as his kingdom and the other, the darkness of the underworld.

"While the third carved out his kingdom in the deep places of the earth, the other two caroused and raped and bore many children and even more bastards. But since only death and the dead dwelt in the third brother's kingdom, he took no wife nor mistress and bore no children.

"In the darkness of his secret kingdom, he heard whispers of a woman with the lights and grace of an angel. She moved about the earth sowing fields of grains and orchards bearing every good fruit, her touch alone covering the land with luxurious growth.

"The third brother spied her from within his dark lair and in his loneliness and rage burst forth from the earth and took her by force to his kingdom.

"Every green thing that grew upon the earth shriveled and died in her absence and the people and animals that depended on the grains, vegetables and fruit of the land began to starve.

"When his brothers learned what he had done, they demanded her return, but he refused and almost provoked a war. But in the end, the three agreed that she would remain with him through the Fall and Winter and return to the land each Spring."

Of course I had known this story from my maidenhood, but I smiled and nodded as if learning something new, confident that she would eventually weave a tale that I did not know and would never have learned otherwise.

"Do you know why you have no siblings, Soma?"

As I shook my head my eyes watered with excitement.

"An oracle delivered during their wedding bands warned that they would bear a child who would one day overthrow His terrible kingdom. Until your conception, your Father never consummated the wedding bed for fear of you. For ten thousand years He resisted the passion and desire that ruled and ruined his brothers and Olympus both."

"Then why?" I whispered hoarsely, my tears blurring my vision.

She shrugged. "A moment of weakness, maybe. Or perhaps your Mother gave him one sly wink and a smile too many and before He could stop it, the moment of a long and fruitlessly imagined consummation began to unfold and His passion once kindled could not be extinguished. And so, Soma was born, and would have died when your Father witnessed you emerging from your Mother's womb covered in afterbirth had she not protected you."

I wiped the tears from my eyes with my hands, my heart still in my throat, a fire lit in my belly that I swear will never be put out.