Chapter 23 - Vyanya
Hours later, Sage sat in the backseat of a minivan being driven by a Van Crimson male whose name she didn’t know.
Paisley was next to her, dressed in pajamas, asleep in her car seat, and Frannie was on the other side of Paisley, also asleep.
Mina sat up in front. In the very back seats were two young cousins and their dad, all asleep.
The skies were dark, and they were all quiet. They’d been driving through Serenity for an hour, waiting for the signal that it was their turn to enter the estate where the vyanya would be held.
A cellphone rang and the guy driving answered it, then said, “Got it,” and hung up.
“We’re next,” he said. “And last.” Arrivals were staggered to avoid drawing attention to the event.
Sage leaned forward, trying to lose herself in the moment.
A vyanya was sacred, always dedicated to Rhen, always held in the same location, and always mysterious and awe-inspiring.
This would be her fourth vyanya, and Paisley’s second, but Paisley had been an infant the last time and did not remember.
Not all foxen attended each vyanya. Nana White never did.
They drove west on the old highway, then veered onto a hidden road and followed it through alternating forest and cow pastures until they reached a massive and dramatic gate, built from tree trunks and meant to replicate the gates into the Meadow that Slinger Van Crimson, a Vvyndicate member and notable foxen author, had seen in a dream.
The Vvyndicate owned this property and always had.
Deep in the heart of the estate full of forest and fields of undeveloped land was a ravine, and at one end of the ravine was a geophysical feature known as the Throne of Seven Foxes.
Foxen considered the land sacred, gifted to them by Rhen.
They drove through a gate and Sage scanned the trees, knowing they were being watched by Vvyndicate security, but she saw no one. They parked under a massive White Oak tree. Sage got out and stretched, then gently shook Paisley awake.
“We’re here, vi,” she said.
Paisley woke slowly, rubbing her eyes.
“Vyanya time,” Sage said, smiling.
Paisley wiggled her arms and legs, waking up quickly now. She craned her head to see out the window, singing, “Vyanya time, vyanya time.”
The others got out of the van and Sage put Paisley’s shoes on, then unbuckled her, thinking she would keep Paisley right next to her, they could hold hands while they were being suited up—but Frannie ran over and picked Paisley up and ran off with her into the night.
Sage sprinted after them. They followed the well-maintained forest trail to where it met a twelve-foot-high privacy wall, and then they followed the wall around to the door.
Inside the door was a short corridor, which dumped them out in a large, circular, open-air yard with a bonfire burning brightly in the middle.
The fire threw warm light on the surrounding circular privacy wall, which was lined with trees, and tended garden paths.
They were in the Forecourt of the Females, a sacred place open to all female foxen, and the beginning space of each vyanya.
Nearby was the Forecourt of the Males, where they would do their own rituals, and the two groups would meet up in the Opencourt for the run.
In front of Sage, Frannie and Paisley abruptly stopped to stare all around.
The yard was dimly lit by strings of fairy lights along the top of each fence-like wall.
The pink and purple lights threaded through boughs of fragrant flowers, and the wood smoke smelled citrusy, like someone had tossed dried orange peels onto the fire.
The trees created a high canopy with stars and the moon peeking through, and dozens of their family members mingled near the flowers.
Sage, Paisley, and Frannie couldn’t shift, so they, and the others who couldn’t, were provided with fox suits which they donned in the Forecourt.
The vyanya started now.
Sage’s Aunt Bristol gave a whistle, and everyone quieted down and moved to one covered section of the wall, where several body suits and robes were hung.
Sage followed Paisley and Frannie, but Rissa grabbed her hand and pulled her another way.
“You’re with me,” she said. “Mina is taking care of Paisley. Now strip.”
Sage stripped down to bra and panties, her eyes on Paisley.
Mina was also watching Paisley like a hawk, and that gave Sage some measure of comfort.
If Khain showed up, Sage would grab Paisley and run, while the females who had no young would gather around Khain to tempt, fight, or distract him until the females with young escaped the area.
The males would come in fighting, and that was the signal for the females to break and run, although Sage knew Mina and Rissa and the others would never leave the males to fight Khain alone, even if that’s what they were supposed to do.
Khain would kill or enslave all who stayed to fight, but most likely, the mothers with young would get away.
That’s how it'd been done for millennia. That’s what foxen were taught from the moment they were born, from parents, in school, and in pup-tales.
Rissa smacked her on the arm to get her attention, then winced and rubbed the spot she’d smacked, saying.
“Paisley’s okay, she’s good. Now let’s get you suited up.
” She snatched Sage’s clothes from her and gave her a crimson-colored bodysuit and a hair tie.
Sage pulled the suit on, then tied her hair in a ponytail.
Rissa fastened the back of the bodysuit.
Sage pulled on black gloves and shoes, then Rissa brought a robe, helped Sage into it, and fastened the corners of it to specially added buttons on the bodysuit.
Sage’s eyes were on Paisley, as her suit was put on by other females.
Bristol whistled again and they began to chant.
Uruh oo uruh ee
Voxen you, vixie we, voxen vu and vixie ve
Paisley looked around at all of them in wonder, a true picture of absolute innocence. Sage smiled, especially when Paisley realized she knew the words to the chant, and she joined in, her face shining with joy.
We bind the reeds and lash the tails. We fix our mind and bend our ears.
The request be given, if it be true. Prepare to receive, if you are, too.
Uruh ee Uruh oo
Sage had sung this song to Paisley before she’d been born.
It also was repeated in several of Paisley’s handmade baby books that they still read every night.
Out here in the open air, with the trees and the walls and her family and clan all around, the words took on a mystical quality that soothed Sage’s heart for the first time since she’d learned her daughter had been taken.
Uruh ee Uruh oo
Uruh oo uruh ee
Chant over, the females broke apart, most of them walking to the far wall, where supply chests had been stacked.
“Be right back,” Rissa murmured, and she followed the others, leaving Frannie, Sage, and Paisley, along with three other cousins, standing with their robes tied on, looking vaguely like the squirrel suits used for base jumping.
Paisley dropped to all fours and ran around the enclosed area eerily like a fox. “Mama, mama, look at me,” she said.
Frannie hurried over to her, handing her gloves and saying, “Paisley, you’ll ruin your hands. Put these on.”
Sage only watched, her heart full and needing at the same time.
The others returned, all of them carrying baskets laden with ornamental grasses, flowers, dried foliage, branches, and stems. Rissa was barely visible behind her basket full of little bluestem and switchgrass, plus goldenrod, Black-eyed Susan, marigolds, smooth and white aster, chrysanthemums, Sweet Autumn clematis, dahlia stems, ironweed stems, and hydrangea branches.
Rissa came to Sage and began to weave bundles of meadow grasses into the robe, using craft hooks and clamps.
After several moments, more women came and helped Rissa, and soon Sage’s hood was up, and her robe was heavy and fragrant.
She couldn’t see Paisley, but she could hear her laughing and singing, ‘vyanya-time, vyanya-time’.
The women around her broke apart again, all of their eyes on her. Paisley, in the cutest little fox suit Sage had ever seen, said, “Mama, you are a beautiful fox.”
Sage smiled and wiped away a tear. She walked to a mirror on the wall and stared, as Paisley came up next to her and held her hand.
Standing, they looked like two people wearing finely textured, natural and elaborate, hooded fox costumes that draped down their backs and the backs of their arms, with grasses for fur undercoat, goldenrod for texture, and Black-eyed Susans for golden-orange highlights.
The ‘face’ was accented with zinnias, and dark coneflower centers served as ‘eyes’. Stiff grass formed sharp, upright ears.
They turned to see their beautiful flowing tails, made from fountain grass plumes layered with amaranth flowers, and a bit of white Dusty Miller at the tip.
Sage smiled at her daughter, and Paisley smiled back, then ran off to check out Frannie’s suit, leaving Sage watching her go, looking like a fox made from flowers.
Paisley dropped to all fours, then trotted around in a circle around Frannie, then Frannie dropped down too and they chased each other.
When they moved, their flexible suits relaxed in a way that made them look like actual foxes—beautiful, whimsical foxes made out of the very flora and fauna of the area.
The women laughed beautifully and encouraged the antics of the girls. More youngsters dropped to their hands and ran through the area yipping and whistling, bringing more laughter and calls.
When the laughter settled, Sage could hear male laughter and similar yipping coming from the men’s nearby Forecourt.
Bristol brought an oversized bouquet of seasonal grasses and flowers and put it in Sage’s hands—her offering to Rhen.
At 5’8’’, Aunt Bristol was taller than most of the women in their clan.
She had chin-length brown hair, an angular face, and regal bearing.
Bristol kissed Sage on each cheek and said, “This will be brought to the Throne for you, but it must be handled by you and spoken over by us all first.”
Sage looked at the bouquet, full of Illinois fall flowers, and brought it to her face. She smelled each flower and spoke over it saying, “Lovely, thank you, lovely, thank you, I offer the best and most beautiful to Rhen.”
Bristol smiled. “All are from your garden at the Inn.”
Sage didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t tended her garden plot at the Inn in years. Was it overgrown? Or tended to by others?
From somewhere nearby, an ear-splitting whistle reached them.
“It’s time,” Bristol said, and she squeezed Sage’s hands, then stepped back and stripped naked.
She folded her clothes neatly, then shifted into a slim red fox with curious eyes and a luxurious tail.
The others around them also shifted, until only a handful of them, all in fox suits, were left standing.
Someone yipped, and then they were all yipping and whistling and laughing, with some barking and shrieking, some whines, howls and yelps.
From nearby, the males answered, and the yips and shrieks became intense.
Sage had her eyes on Paisley, pleased to see that Paisley never lost her delight, even when some of the cries sounded scary.
On all fours, Paisley yip-yip-yipped along with the females, straining toward the open doorway, as they all left in a unit, 30 or so foxes, and 12 non-shifting foxen females in fox-suits.
Outside, the males streamed out of the male enclosure in a similar way to the females, but only with—Sage counted—14 foxes and 23 non-shifting males in fox suits. The night was dark and cold and their breath steamed above the groups, lit up by moonlight.
The way was lit by strings of lights and they all streamed into the forest, merging and mingling.
Once in the forest, they followed the trail.
Sage lost sight of Paisley, and she was okay with it…
for a little while. They ran on, Sage sometimes on all fours, but mostly jogging on her feet.
Her suit was heavy, but comfortable, and if she got too hot, she lowered the hood and opened her arms wide, allowing the breeze to cool her from the suit’s ‘belly.’
Foxes surged ahead and some lagged behind, and the most energetic ones ran forward, then dropped back to circle around again, and the yipping, shrieking, and howling only increased. They left the forest and crossed a meadow, where wild foxes gathered at the edges, scoping them out in the moonlight.
“Yip yip yip!” Sage called to them.
A wild fox broke the cover of the forest, running toward them, then a group followed, streaming into the meadow, joining the foxen and running with them.
One wild fox brushed Sage’s leg. She yipped at it, and it yipped at her, then laughed like a maniac and pranced around her, before taking off at a run.
Sage grinned and followed it with her eyes, until she lost it in the darkness.
More wild foxes came from everywhere, yipping and whistling and laughing, and they lifted the moment from magical to ephemeral.
Grinning wildly, Sage dropped to all fours and bounded like a fox, her chest loosening for the first time in hours.
She found her daughter, running on all fours next to a wild fox the same size as her.
Sage ran in between them and yipped at both of them.
The wild fox laughed recklessly, ‘eee-heee-heeee-heeeee-heeee-hee-hee’ and Paisley imitated the sound, which made Sage giggle.
With the laughter, something snapped inside her—some brittle piece of hurt she’d been nurturing and protecting, some broken piece of herself she didn’t want to let go of.
Sage slowed and stood up, touching her chest, then hugging herself, as the hurt piece fell away and she was able to trust again.
“Okay,” she whispered into the cool night air. “Okay.”
She would trust that Paisley had not been violated, that there was some reason for their lives being the way they were, and it was not forever, and that someday foxen would have the opportunity to live good lives.
They would break the Tether, or the vod would kill Khain.
There would be no reason to hide anymore, and they wouldn't be stuck in Serenity.
Someday…