Arundel Abrafo: The Ascensions, Part 1

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“Arundel Abrafo—At night, stay away from her,” the elders of Pemba whispered, thinking we did not hear them, but the young ignored the elders. They were enchanted by her allure, as was I.

“Do not be lulled by her charm and beauty,” elders echoed throughout the village near the wide sea and tall mountains. “They belie some sinister force that is most powerful at night.”

Young villagers, and many old, were captivated by Mother’s charm and green eyes framed in black skin. Her dreads, streaked with blonde tendrils, danced about her shoulders when she walked. Mother’s voice had a velvet lilt.

Just as many men had fallen in love with her in the previous villages where we had lived, so had I.

Perhaps, all boys are enamored of their mothers. That will always be true for me.

The warnings made no sense. Arundel was Mother. When she smiled at me my world was safe. When she sang me back to sleep with lullabies after I awakened terrified by nightmares—and there had been nightmares for months after the Necromancer War in Matmata—I would drift back into sleep and slumber peacefully on dream clouds with my feet dangling over the edges.

The warnings made no sense.

When we lived in Bongoyo and the food was rationed after the days of the Scorched Land Famine, we would often be short on food for days. I remember weeks of Mother denying herself food to feed me.

“You’re my growing boy,” she would say. I always ate, but Mother waited for lottery days to restock our meager pantry before she would eat.

I was ten. Mother was in her second ascension and still mortal. Immortality comes with the third ascension.

The warnings...

I recall Mother's ascension into immortality. It was a grand, midnight celebration, though with only the two of us, on a vernal equinox. We ate cream-covered pastries, apple and peach tarts, on a mountain. We toasted the night with sweet water from a cold stream.

Mother tested her new powers, including flight. Maintaining human form, she first flew solo, then took my hand and raced high into the air. She did not stifle her laughter when noting that I was scared out of my wits. I kept waiting for us to crash and die, but Mother's laughter, the wind, and the world swirling around us erased my fears. I was happier than I had ever been.

Happiness was to be short-lived.

During these first days of Mother’s third ascension—we were living in Tataouine—the unspeakable happened: a girl-child was killed in the woods while gathering fruit for an afternoon meal. She was found by a visiting monk. Many in our village knew of him. The monk was renowned for exorcising demons.

Mother and I had seen him at a bazaar and immediately sensed that he was an arrogant fraud. For whatever reason, he detested me from the moment he set eyes on me; but when the purported exorciser of demons met Mother's gaze, he wilted and rushed away.

Now, the death of this child was enough of a tragedy. The family's grief tore at my heart. The whole village grieved, but there was an added horror. The child's heart had been ripped out. Before we could even bury her body, we suffered another shock: the dripping heart was found one night on the top step of a chapel.

The next few days increased all misery. The monk made it worse. He stayed at the village's only tavern in an upstairs room, but he spent most of his time downstairs with the regulars. He stoked their fear and anger with tales of monster-hunting. In the monk's professional opinion, the child was killed by the Popobawa monster, probably living among the villagers and disguised as a human.

The monk feigned heated indignation that passed for righteousness among the tavern patrons. They rewarded him with more and more liquor. All feasted on drunken sorrow. In a climax of inebriation, the monk had a vision. He saw the killer. It was a vile-spirited boy that he had met at the bazaar. With further descriptions, the drunks zeroed in on me. I was the boy, the Popobawa monster guised in human form. The monk assured them: I was the monster who killed the child.

I was not, had not.

An angry clan made bold by inebriation, fevered grief, and foolishness clamored up the hill to our home, lighting the night with torches.

We heard bellows of curses before we saw those who emitted them. The monk's slurred words, we heard above all others.

"Popobawa boy, we are here to send you back to hell. We will rid this poor village of evil when we kill you. And I will not even pray for your soul."

Mother positioned us on the roof, which we accessed through the attic. My heart beat my chest until I thought the fear would kill me, but she soothed me.

"My Karim," she smiled, "nothing and no one will ever hurt you while I am near. Do you believe me?”

“Yes, Mother,” I affirmed.

She pulled me close and hid my eyes with a long, silken feather; it had shot from her wrist. Before the melee, I felt endless feathers rise to cloak her body and me. Mother grew into a giant bird, perhaps the size of a mountain. I felt Mother jet into flight then crash down, smashing the torches and mob. Her feathers were invulnerable to fire, and I was sheltered in a downy cradle. I heard and smelled, but did not see the blood bath.

I awoke from a heavy nap, in a daze, filled with cloudy memories. I looked around a room. I lay in a soft bed in an inn. A tall, draped window was lit by the sun. A wood-beamed ceiling was high overhead. I could hear and smell the waters of a sea. Mother was in human form again. She fed me warm bread, seared scallops, and stewed vegetables from the innkeeper’s kitchen.

After my stomach and mind were content, she told me about the lives she ended. Mother slaughtered every single person in the mob that came to our home to kill me. She ripped the monk, and all the others, to shreds with her beak and talons.

As Mother tasted the blood of the dying, their last thoughts flew like ghosts into her mind. She expelled most as quickly as they came, but one thing she refused to forget: It was the monk, the purported exorciser of demons, who killed the child.

Two days later, Mother had arrived by coach with a fevered child at Pemba's only inn. She was dressed in the brocaded fabrics and colors of the local, wealthy merchants. The lovely mistress had gold coins; therefore, she was not questioned when silent about kinsmen, the sick child, and anything other than weather.

Under Mother's loving care, I healed quickly. She had leased a spacious room. We frequently ordered a bounty of food. After the Famine, we always had hearty appetites.

Three weeks later, Mother purchased a house near the sea. For pleasure and income, she painted glorious pictures and sold them for small fortunes. She hired the smartest tutors of the village for me, and Mother’s boy grew into a young man.

Though many in the village learned to love us, the oldest elders still whispered, “Arundel Abrafo—At night, stay away from her. Her charm and beauty belie some sinister force that is most powerful at night.”

The warnings made no sense.