Chapter XV
Goddesses’ Basecamp
I turned toward the clackclackclack of something trotting across the ice and a haruff behind me. The smirk on the goat’s face caught my eye first. So familiar. Simpering almost. Then the horns. Twin spirals, twice as wide and double the height of the grinning beast. How did it not tip over from the weight? Yet it balanced effortlessly on four tiny hoofs that capped four spindly legs with laughably knobby knees. Only when it stamped one hoof, sending a fissure cracking its way across the plateau toward us, did I look at its eyes. Three. Two of a normal goat—though the vertical slits of the irises of its species make goats appear alien in the canon of mammals, and devious—then add a third eye in the midst of its forehead and, well . . . I stifled a snort, sensing, aptly, that this particular goat was not to be trifled with.
Hyena bowed to the animal, dipping her head and shoulders low so that only the top of her wild mane faced that wicked, closed-lipped half-smile.
I hurried to my feet.
“Your Grace?” I tried, wondering about the familiar countenance of the goat.
“Must we do this again?” the goat bleated, rolling two of its eyes, “I thought we’d covered this previously.”
“Oh, of . . . of course,” I stammered, “though this time, I am not sure how this works?” I flipped through the fairytale library in my head. Three Billy Goats Gruff? No.
“It’s time. Follow me,” The goat said, turning tail swiftly as if it had nothing on its head at all.
Hyena and I kept up as best we could, exchanging wide-eyed glances as the goat navigated sheer ice cliffs and vast crevasses without the aid of wings. When we caught up to the animal, poised on the peak of a barren outcrop of rock, I was stunned to see a white field, stretching as far as my eyes could perceive, littered with the ruins of airplanes and ships.
“She is still alive, hurry, there isn’t much time,” the goat said crossly.
“Who?” I asked. My hearts started a wild beat—tong, tong, tong, tong—and my mouth went dry.
“You know who, Focus, move!” Then muttered under its breath, “we need to work on that forgetfulness.”
I flew the rest of the way, trusting I would know it when I saw it.
Talons gripped the window ledge where the cockpit had been blown apart. Finger-tipped wings covered us both as I leaned in and put my lips on Charlotte’s—already turned a shade darker than the eyes that stared, locked on something past the aurora, past the stars. I pressed hard, an ache rising in the scar on my lip. I drank, pulling the last breath from the body deep into my own, holding it there, counting, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine . . . then exhaled, feeling her abdomen swell in equal measure to the deflating of my own. I softened my lips, but didn’t let go. Breathed again. And again. And again.
My eyes shifted focus, reeling back from beyond the stars to the aurora, the tops of the wings, the face that hovered over mine. The blue-black-blue skin, twice as dark as the color of my son’s. Eyes, same; cheekbones, nose—a shape I could already see would be his someday. Asmeret? No, not anymore. Still Asmeret and yet . . . did the one who was once Asmeret say it, or did the name come on the wind?
Ara helped me stand.
I pulled the wolf-lined hood up over my frozen hair.
“Charlotte,” Ara said to me, or was it the ice, “give me your hands.”
We stood face to face, as if in front of a mirror, and placed our hands on the others’—palms flat, fingers intertwined.
Ara closed her eyes. Chanted in a lost language.
I had lost my ability to think. Instead I felt the heat in Ara’s hands, shapes burning into my flesh, and gasped.
Our hands released.
I inspected the interlaced spheres that wavered and rose just off the surface of my palm, tiny sparks exploding in its center.
Ara grew, looming over the wreck of The Amelia; extended a wing.
I retrieved the box that was wedged between the remains of the passenger seat and the shattered dashboard instruments. Climbed on Ara’s back.
Picking up Hyena, we made our way toward basecamp.
The goat was nowhere to be seen.
We flew low over the tents, all of us curious, scanning, trying to understand. From the ridge and from far up in the air, the circles of tents looked like one being—a central, pulsing, breathing light that rippled outward in circles, replicating itself, expanding with every exhale. Closer in was a different picture. Darker. Disturbing. Tents were enclosed with fences, some territories smaller than others. The fences were makeshift. Scavenged materials from airplanes and ships. Banners and flags of all colors and shapes marking off sections. Factions of goddesses. In parts there was evidence of sabotage. Tents scorched and torn. What had happened here?
I knew—not directly, not specifically, but the sight was familiar. So obvious. The whole of history fluttered like maps made on parchment, centuries stacked in layers so thin that the print from all previous centuries bled through the skins. Patterns matched everywhere, cycling over and over as the pages flipped. Why would it be any different for the gods and goddesses?
I dropped through the oculus roof of the central, pulsing dome—an act of blind faith as I couldn’t see inside, coated as it was with a thick layer of frost.
I descended; spiraled past the hearth fire—moved by its beauty—setting my passengers down on the platform and folding my body back down to size.
A phrase rippled through the crowd in every language ever made: The Ash Girl, The Ash Girl.
The whispers ceased when I took Charlotte’s hand in mine. Clutched the other in Hyena’s mane.
Together we looked at one million goddesses staring back. Silent. Still. Ready.
Hestia broke the spell, sweeping over to us. First, helping Charlotte off with her cape. “Too warm in here for such a garment,” she exclaimed with a wink and a grin. As the cloak fell to the floor, it shook itself out—twitching its ears and testing its legs; she was a beautiful specimen—the arctic wolf immediately took a seat on Charlotte’s feet.
Hestia belly-laughed at the surprise on Charlotte’s face. “Your Guardian needs to touch you as much as it can.” Then Hestia nodded toward the front of the stage.
Charlotte followed her gaze. The goddess before her had long orange-red-orange and black striped hair and wore a crown of gold fire on her head. Three tiny silver birds swooped in and out of the flames.
Frieda.
Or the one who had been Frieda, once. (Had been Helge too, to be precise.)
Charlotte ran into their arms.
Hestia kneeled in front of Hyena, taking that gargoyle face in her crabbled hands. “You are magnificent, indeed. Your ancestors are very proud on this day.”
A rumble came from the beautiful beast that sounded like love.
Hyena padded off to join the rest of the Guardians, which had come down from their play in the auroras for the gathering. White Wolf followed reluctantly.
At last Hestia stood in front of me. Kissed me on both of my eyes and then my forehead, which caused my sight to flip inward for a moment—where galaxies erupted and flashed back to darkness in dizzying succession. “Welcome home,” she said.
I kneeled before her.
At this signal, one million goddesses bowed to their High Priestess.
All except one.
Athena dropped from the top of the dome in White Raven form. She planted herself, looking down on me, puffing out her chest and snapping the powerful beak open and shut in a slow clap.
The entire dome shook, making the hearthstone overhead begin to sway and buck like a ship in a swale.
Then the goat appeared, as if out of thin air.
“If you’ve something to say, dearie, spit it out,” the goat bleated at Athena, still smirking as if chewing on something delicious.
White Raven opened her beak, inhaling, while one million goddesses braced themselves for the terrors, covering their ears. Dropping to the floor. They kept their eyes down as best they could, though none wanted to miss the show.
I rose and spoke before Athena could scream, “Pallas Athena . . .”
The bird stopped dead at the formal address.
“Greek Goddess of Justice and Wisdom and our most skilled and experienced strategist, you led the victory in the last great war between human nations. We need your sight and your skill even more now.”
Athena shook before Ara into full battle dress, having been called into her material body by the spirit of Ara’s words. She bowed her head, ever so slightly, toward the winged goddess.
“It was them,” she said, tossing her head toward the crowd.
A collective gasp rose, as every goddess stood.
“It was the women, not us,” the goddess I recognized from Lydia’s story as Skaði shouted, stepping forward. “Their courage, ingenuity and grit is something we’ve never seen in all of our times, we merely gave them their power back. Helped them remember who they are.”
“Then we shall do it again,” Ara called out to us all.
Cheers and HYAAs and all manner of whoops filled the dome as Ara turned back to address Athena. “We will need a strategy to take it to scale. The war we are fighting has no fences, nor borders or flags. No territory to mark—no tents to burn down.”
“All respect HP, but I think burning tents is exactly where we need to start,” Athena declared.
Ara raised an eyebrow.
The goat grinned, showing three rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“Call all of the huntresses and markswomen,” Athena said to Skaði. “Tell them to circle up outside, around the Snake’s Egg, and wait for the HP’s signal.”
Ara looked confused. “Snake’s Egg?”
Athena winked. “It’s a myth; one that has turned into a bit of an ‘inside’ joke. They say the Great Mother, in shape of Snake, laid one perfect egg in her nest,” she spread her arms and turned slowly, “and you’re standing inside. We say only a goddess or their guardian can enter, and get out alive.”
I laughed. The egg in my bag. Perhaps it had been a homing beacon. Perhaps Athena had already included me, although it sounded more like a threat in her mouth. I had so much to learn, I would need wise guides and powerful allies.
The goat stamped a hoof, tossing that rack as it shooed every goddess out into the half-dark. “Let’s go. Move out!” the goat shrieked, baring her teeth, poking a dawdler with the dagger-tip of a horn.
The fire goddesses spread out, lighting the tips of the arrows. The one who lit mine flushed a deep pink.
“We’re all in it now,” I smiled at her, “Thanks for the light.” Then I drew a deep breath. Hollered . . .
“Nock!”
“Draw!”
“Release!”
Hundreds of arrows flew through the air, inflaming their targets—the first row of tents gone in seconds, then the next and the next and the next.
I closed my eyes. I could see the whole scene as if from the constellation of the Great Huntress Who Rides the Sky.
It was beautiful. Rings of white-blue-white fire spreading out from One source, transforming poison into new life.
In the shadows Athena found me shading my eyes from the glare. White Wolf growled in alarm as Three White Hares popped out from behind Athena’s legs. The animals shared among them three ears, each hare with a full pair, connected together in a sort of triangle at the head.
“I’ve been looking for you since 1939 of the Common Era,” Athena said.
“Me?” I asked, a tiny bit terrified, reaching down to stroke the wolf’s head.
“You are the Princess of Air, yes?”
“Ummmm, depends on who is asking?”
Athena laughed, so deep and booming, the goddesses nearby looked to the sky for the lightning that would surely follow. “Fair enough. My plans for you haven’t always been, shall we say, altruistic.”
“I prefer making my own plans,” I replied.
“Ahhh, a true daughter of Athena!”
“Respectfully, I believe I get that from my father.”
Athena snorted. “Ah, yes. I had forgotten how attached human girls are to their fathers.”
“Really? That seems strange, coming from you. I had always heard you were your daddy’s favorite.”
A flash of something like sadness, something like regret, passed through the gray eyes. “That was my sister. It was always her. She’s gone now,” Athena grinned through the pain. “And my dad ate my mother in one bite, so it’s been tough to let that one go, you know?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I was talking to a three-thousand-year-old goddess who had been hunting me for half of my life. Could it get any stranger than this?
“Look, Princess, I am going to do what I can going forward to follow her lead—she’s family,” Athena said, nodding in Ara’s direction, “but I am my nature, nothing more, nothing less than what they say about me. I can’t truly change, if they don’t.”
“They?”
“The humans. Which you still are, mostly. And I find myself in a tricky situation.”
“Which is?”
“I need your help.”
White Wolf flopped down on the ice, letting the Three White Hares nestle down in her ruff. I took in the sight, curious. Looked into Athena’s eyes and decided.
“What do you need me to do?”
The following morning, stripped bare of all of their belongings, their trappings and tools, costumes and jewelry, urns and looms, having lost everything except their gifts and their names, the goddesses assembled once more inside the Snake’s Egg.
The ritual was one of indescribable grace, but I will say this—
Imagine Ara, the golden tree blooming on their skin—liquid leaves and tiny round fruit hardening in the velvet-smoke air, covering them with sparkling gold and crystal beads that jingle when they riffle their wings. On their head they wear a crown of spiraling antlers given by the Great Antelope, between which a small moon arcs back and forth slowly moving through its phases. They hold the staff of the High Priestess, taller than the crown, topped with three, intermingled spheres—transparent bubbles, spinning on their axes—and in the center three more intermingled bubbles, and so on and so on.
Charlotte, beaming, stands to their right in a gossamer-armor dress and golden helmet atop which sits the Medusa’s head and the snakes. A sword with the word Will inscribed on the blade, swings from her hip.
The goat, to their left, smirks that smirk, blinking its third eye with every name the High Priestess calls.
“Pallas Athena. Origins: Greece. Goddess of Wisdom, Initiation, and ReStorying,” I call.
Athena raises an eyebrow at that last, “ReStorying?”
“Hush,” I smile. “Say the thing.”
“Today I give my Self back to One and take my true name, Ara. I offer my gifts in service to all.”
“The High Priestess sees you, Ara,” Then I thump the end of the staff, hard on the stage. In response one million goddesses huff three, short breaths: Hu Hu Hu
And so it went until every goddess had claimed the One Name, except for Hestia.
Hestia addressed the High Priestess, “I can hear the One’s voice again. I shall stay here, and keep my name. It has always been spoken pure, clear, and true, and served all well. Let the people, all of Ara, know the name, Hestia. When they are most lost or confused, they need only call it out with love in their hearts and an answer will come. One step toward and they will be met.”
“It is so.” Thump. Hu Hu Hu.
The High Priestess turned then to me, Charlotte Williston, Princess of Air, The Ash Girl, while the rest watched. AraFrieda, Goddess of Fire and Ice, Steward of Lands Where North Meets East, held their hands over their heart. My High Priestess began, “Today you become Goddess . . .”
I interrupted, “No. I’m sorry. I can’t.” The idea had taken hold, the plan Athena proposed.
Ara, forgetting the decorum befitting their crown, leaned close to me and whispered, “What are you doing?”
The goat rolled two of her eyes, the third one didn’t look surprised.
“I can’t. Not yet. I’m not finished.” I looked at the one who was once Athena, then back at Ara—spoke to Asmeret, who I suspected was still in there, somewhere way, way, beneath the tattoos and the staff and the crown, “I have some coins I still need to spend.”
The High Priestess looked to Hestia, who nodded.
Then to AraAthena who shrugged and grinned, “It was her choice, she’s human, don’t look at me.”
Some time later, there is really no way to calculate, while Charlotte set out in her wolf cloak to recover The Amelia, Hestia gave Ara the signal.
“It’s time,” The High Priestess called.
The excited chatter stopped. Waves of goddesses dipped their heads and waited.
Silent. Still. Ready.
The High Priestess stood at the center of the stage and held the staff aloft toward the hearthfire storming in its glass cage. They held their breath and closed their eyes. Hyena leaned against their legs, bracing them all, for what, Ara wasn’t entirely sure.
Their whole body started to vibrate as the wand came to life in the High Priestess’ hands, pulling the storm out of the hearth . . . no pulling it through the hearth . . . a rush of light, wavering blue-blue-greens, purples, and pinks, funneling down through the hole in the roof, through the glass cage, through the three endlessly spinning spheres, through the staff and through the High Priestess, spinning a web of every-color thread, then sweeping the million goddesses (give or take) up in its net, back out the roof the way that it came.
Arrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Read the BLOG for the author’s commentary and orienteering to the story
Dig into the MAPS for annotations, links, and tarot tutorials related to this chapter
Reflect and share your own story based on The Ash Girl themes with these QUEST(ions)
Continue reading the NEXT CHAPTER
Share 3x3x3 with the buttons below!
