A Frozen Pond

A Frozen Pond:

A Talk With Mama

The little brown girl sat at the edge of the swamp, where a pier pierced it’s lonely way into the frozen swamp waters.

“Mama,” Angelique whispered, “it’s me. I need some advice…”

As always, Angelique felt her mind and senses expand. Ever since childhood, Angelique had seen spirits and been able to talk to them. Angelique had more friends among the dead than among the living, even after she had become an immortal. The dead normally feared the blood-drinker, but through it all, she had kept her mother Chanelle by her side.

“Baby…it happened, didn’t it? You pregnant?”

“Yes, Mama,” Angelique said. “It finally happened. If I were alive, I’d be in my thirties, but I guess I’ll always be sixteen, right?”

“I am glad you are alive, mon ami,” came the velvety voice that was a match for Angelique’s low voice. “I told you, if you have to serve the Scarlet Lady, I’d rather you be her bounty hunter for eternity than be dead. Death…is nothing you desire, trust me.”

Angelique had tasted it on her way to being awakened as a Messenger of Sekhmet, and her dead friends had always told her that the lowest meanest of the living was blessed beyond measure.

“I don’t intend to die anytime soon, Mama,” Angelique said. “But what should I do about these twins? How do I make sure they are ok?”

Angelique laughed.

“I don’t even know how to make the father be ok. He thinks the kids will be more like me than him.”

“Messengers? Black? Green eyed?”

“All the above, Mama,” Angelique said. “And I can’t tell him he’s wrong. There are, in Europe, the dhampirs, half vampires with the powers and skills of both. Would it be bad for Darren’s child to be immortal? I ain’t been pregnant for two months, and I am very comforted by the idea that my children won’t never die. I pray to God for my babies. I know their father does too, no matter what kind of doubts he has.”

“Their father is a good man,” Chanelle said. “He’s just tryin’ to do the right thing in a world where things are rarely that simple.”

“I know,” Angelique said. “He loves me. He says he want to be with me for as long as he can. He is preparing for fatherhood with the same…damn nobility that he always had. Determined to be the best man he can be for our babies. But I know he’ll love his kids. I’m not sure if he loves me, or loves me enough to deal with the fact that I drink blood to stay alive. Or that he can accept his children doing it.”

Chanelle was silent, and the cold pond felt colder with the ghost’s concern.

“Mama,” Angelique said, “what do you know?”

“Our family are strong dreamers, and now that I am dead, my power has multiplied. Time is not real. Space is not real. Your children…my grandchildren…they are important. More than you know. You have been and fought like a Messenger. You know mankind is surrounded by predators who are able to end them. As much as you hate people, my love, you will need to save as much as you slay. Our family is ancient, blood of the gods long before you came along. We are of the blood of Egypt. You ain’t the first Cavalier to hate mankind or to be traumatized by life, but you have to get past that, if not for yourself, than for your mortal kin who didn’t ask for any of this.”

“I did kina ask to be immortal, huh?” Angelique said.

Chanelle got closer, and the mist bound themselves into a tiny body filled with energy, the mother she remembered on a frozen pond.

“That will make the difference.”