“You do not feed like me…” She said but I could hear the question in her tone. I shook my head with a deep swallow. “Blood does not move you? Why?”
“I…I’m not like that I guess. I’ve never been. My…my brother told me to promise that I would never drink blood and if I ever had the desire, to go to him first. He didn’t want to taint me I guess.”
“Taint?” She repeated, voice barely above a whisper as the rain continued to drop. “You haven’t been living all of this time because of…taint?”
The soft pitter patter sounds of the rain dropping into the water were soothing but filled the awkward silence between us. I truly had no answer or response to that. She was offended. I just managed to offend my great great former ancestral self.
“You come from a special lineage of some of the oldest magic to ever exist that it’s no longer called magic. It simply just…is…” The sound of water gently rippled against the surface. Dark hair emerged in the kinkiest of textures before a face appeared. Her eyes blinked away the water cascading down her face as she stood like the first black woman ever created. Her unambiguous features from the full lips, dark skin, almond shaped eyes, to the wide nose and hips. Then another appeared before another emerged. One by one, black women rose from the water and stood as illusions around us until we were surrounded. Some looked like they belonged to ancient kingdoms to tribes that probably still remained hidden from today’s world.
“Are they…me in a past life?” I whispered, as if I didn’t want to disturb them but their eyes staring directly at me was unnerving.
“Gaia is the mother of life, the mother of earth and without it, there is no magic,” she said “We are the mother of it all…every time the body dies, another is chosen and the cycle repeats…over and over, and over again. Each cycle draws to something…the sun for birth, fire, power. Water for healing, intuition, and guidance.”
Her voice melted like butter in a pan as the rain continued. I looked around at each woman as more continued to multiply in the distance, stretching back miles in the water.
“What about the moon?” I questioned. “If you’re earth and it pulls its powers from the sun and water. What about the moon?”
“The moon came later when it crossed paths with earth,” she said with a solemn tone.
“So how was I chosen?” I asked, almost blurting it out. She smiled.
“I met a man on my nightly walks where I noticed the moon was not in the sky…When he attempted to approach me…We…”
She didn’t finish but I could see the veins thicken against her skin as they trailed her arms and neck. This is the same story as before; the same story Namir and I came across in the library. Gaia walked the earth when there was no moon in the sky. She was going to tell me she was in fact the moon and it’s the reason for the white hair. I’ve heard all of this already and it's frustrating hearing it directly from the source because it only reminded me that I still didn’t know what I was doing.
Her white hair began to shift as the ends slowly curled and twisted amongst itself, forming full locs as each strand locked, weaving like a tightly braided basket until her head was full of beautiful free forming locs that draped down her body.
“What happened? Fight, have crazy violent sex, what?” I asked with a toss of my hands. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“We…collided,” she said with a small smile. Every woman around us began to disappear, one by one until it was just us, thelight rain and the thickening silence in between. “He shifted into a beast afflicted and tortured by his own magic. A cross between man, a beast, and the moon… I was driven by my natural instincts as a young woman filled with bloodlust and…I reacted,” she concluded as if it was natural. “The moon vowed to find me each and every time I was reborn, disrupting my lineage and cycle. That is why our hair is white. It is the mark of the moon so that he may always find me. Water, sun, earth, and now moon…. That is the birth order, but because of what I did as earth...”She paused as I saw the regret in her eyes.
“You drank from the moon,” I said, realizing what she was saying. “You drained blood from the moon…”
“I am forever bound to the moon as Gaia. We are one and the same now. There is no earth without moon and no moon without earth,” she admitted. “I can pull and draw my power from the moon and have the most energy at night but…because of what I am, because of what you are…Gaia will never be the same.”
She broke the cycle because none of these other women looked like vampires. It was only her and I and it would be like this for the rest of eternity because of what she’s done. So with that man being the moon, did that mean I met Ayira as the sun? If I were to drink from Ayira, would that break the cycle or just start a new curse? What did all of this mean?!
“Water draws to you,” she said as she reached down, pulling droplets of water from the grass as the liquid bubbles floated up in the air before bursting. “Water will always be able to talk to you. The sun guides you, giving you purpose and rebirth of life. Earth is who you are, grounded, home, and living, not just being alive, but the moon…” she finally said. Her voice was deep and almost distorted as her skin began to add layers of lines to ageherself. “Your spirit, your emotions, and soul are dominated by him. The moon will always find you in this life and the next.”
“Have I met the moon…already?” I asked.
“You have.”
My mind began flipping through the countless amount of people as I repeated the words in my head. I will always be able to speak to water. My mind went to Asha the moment I saw her face floating on the surface of the water in my mind. Isis’s and her Aunt showed me how to draw water to me. The sun will always guide me. If it wasn’t for Ayira being with me…I wasn’t sure if I would have gotten this far. Earth…the most grounded, most poised person I know being Souxie but could switch to show an array of emotions. No, that can’t be right. The moon…A man that turned into a beast afflicted by the moon. Flashes of Namir went through my mind like a picture book as his eyes showed the crescent moon, and his teeth snarled at me…Turning me over on my stomach, violently pinning me to the ground with his teeth showing and my fangs drawn… He was the beast. He was the man she met many moons and suns ago. She met a werewolf and drained his blood! I looked at Gaia who slowly nodded, seeing I was coming to the realization.
“Did…did you and this man. This… werewolf, love each other at some point?” I asked with a deep swallow, almost afraid of the answer. Gaia simply smiled. She wasn’t going to answer that, but something tells me it didn’t end on a good note. So Namir was the moon this entire time, not me. I started to speak, wanting to ask more questions but stopped when I noticed the water dry up as the grass reappeared. Gaia took my hands to flip over as the rain continued to come down in light but steady drops and studied the lines in my palms. When her thumb slid down onto the damp pale skin of my palms, I could see her eyeing the blue vein that trailed dark lines. She suddenly turned myhands over and laid hers out as they looked identical. Almost to the point where they could have easily been swapped down to each line, wrinkle of the knuckles and exact nail shape. Gaia was mimicking her body to be exactly like mine in real time.
“If I am reliving a life, I’ve…already lived…what is wrong with me?” I asked, trying not to sound too emotional. Her eyes softened ever so slightly as I sniffed. “Why am I not like you?”
“Because your eyes are open, but you are not awake. You hear everything but you are not listening. You are Gaia but you only focus on the moon when you are much more…You are this… Maggie Grey woman, but you are vampire,” she dragged with a dark whispery tone. “You are hungry but do not eat. You aren’t nourishing the very essence of you… You only know part of yourself because the other, you ignore. Why? Why do you deny the very thing you are? You will never be whole until you do. You will always walk this earth unbalanced, unhappy, and unsure because you choose to ignore what you are meant to be, and what you already are. So human of you…no magic…” she said as she looked me over and read me like the worst book she’s ever picked up. “No sense of spiritual connection…You can’t even recognize me even when I present as you. You’re looking at yourself and asking why, are you not like that? What happened to you, Gaia?”
I blinked and found myself staring directly into my own eyes, looking at my own complexion, my features, and the same expression she mimicked.
“I…I don’t know what to say,” I admitted, feeling so defeated. My body suddenly tilted with that woosh of unbalance that I felt like I would tip over at her words. “How can I become what you are? What I’m supposed to be?” I snapped. I didn’t want tosound impatient, but I’ve heard enough. She simply smiled as if she was waiting on me to say those exact words.
She squeezed my hands, but her gaze felt distant, and her smile began to fade.
“You are mother to all…Prey to none…” she whispered to herself, lost in her own thoughts. It was as if she was trying to remember something from long ago, but I feel like I’ve heard of that before.
