Chapter Eighteen #5
Taking a deep swallow, I shook my head with a nervous laugh. I have to remember she is literally me but like…Jesus level me.
“No. No…” I let out quickly. “I wasn’t thinking that.”
“I want to show you something.”
I looked at her before carefully stepping out into the wavy grass that blew in my direction.
The blades of the grass invited me to walk, gently hugging my ankles and curling around my feet.
The air felt so light and clean that I almost felt like I could sleep outside.
There were no trees, just sand dunes that were now replaced with rolling hills of greenery.
Kneeling down, I reached to touch the grass as the blades anxiously reached for my fingers.
I could feel the vibrations of the ground trembling beneath me as I trailed my hand over the tips of the turf.
The ground was alive, and it was breathing, inhaling and exhaling at the exact same time as me.
I took in a deep breath as the grass pulled up in waves towards me before exhaling loudly back into the air.
The landscape slowly relaxed back down as I laughed.
Turning around, I started to call out to the woman, to myself but she wasn’t there.
Just the house with the sliding door open but when I turned back, she was standing right in front of me.
Her fangs were still drawn out, her white eyes blinking dark brown and her hair was weaving itself into another set of thick braids.
Her dark skin was suddenly peeling away from the nose as a deep honey brown complexion appeared, spreading across her face and eyes, down to her neck and hands.
“Water draws to me,” I blurted out as she continued to stare deep into my eyes.
“The moon…I think does that…” I looked down at my hands as I saw the first droplet of water splat against my skin.
Even the tiniest of hairs on my arm raised up before lying flat as if they were breathing and taking in air into my skin.
Looking up, I could see the rain trickle down, and each rain had a chime to it, like tiny whispers of bells falling from the sky.
I never heard anything like it. I tried to ignore the intense stare from her as I held my hand up to catch the rain but when I looked back at her, I could see her eyes slowly pull away from my neck and back at me again.
Slowly, she smiled but I didn’t…. Looking down, I felt the dampness of water creep up on the side of my feet as I looked down at the soaked grass.
Looking around, I could see the backyard that was grass just moments before was now swallowed by dark water that rippled around us.
I looked back seeing the house floating in the distance as a little boy stood in the glass window with a lollipop stick poking out the corner of his mouth.
He waved before running back into the house as if I planned on chasing him, but it looked like if I took one step off this mound, I would be submerged.
“What is this?” I asked in awe as I looked all around us.
We were standing in the middle of an endless lake on our own island big enough for our feet and bodies.
It was the same as before, the water pulling towards us before circling around.
I turned to look at Gaia as she drew her eyes back from my neck once more, this time, not as obvious.
“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, the light 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 age herself.
“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.”