Readers rejoice! You get an extra blog post this week because some things I’ve been thinking about for awhile can no longer be left unsaid.
Last night, I had the great joy of attending a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, a coproduction of Drag Daddy Productions and the Chicken Coop Theatre Company. There were gender swapped roles, sequins, drag queens, fantastic singers and dancers, and many moving moments. All around, an incredible reimagining of a classic show. And it left me wondering a lot about one of the main characters, Judas Iscariot.
If you’ve seen the show, you know that it is very difficult to not feel pity and grief for Judas. But feeling bad for Judas is not often the first response we have to the man who betrayed Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, Christians have for centuries been vilifying and demonizing Judas. Taking the gospel writers at face value, we have assumed that we know his full story: that Satan entered him, that he was tempted by riches, and that he betrayed one of his closest friends.
But when you watch Judas as imagined in Jesus Christ Superstar, we see a completely different story, and as I left the theatre last night, I couldn’t help but feel that we have gotten Judas all wrong. Judas, as portrayed so brilliantly last night by performer Myranda Thomas, is relatable. He is so human, so honest, so heartbroken, so pitiable, so tragic. Today, I keep coming back to the thought that we have done such a disservice to this man.
What if Judas was not possessed by Satan, and tempted by riches? What if instead, Judas was pragmatic and conflicted? What if Judas wanted to believe, but he just couldn’t get there? What if Judas was pulled into a plot by powers he could not fight off alone? What if Judas was pressured into something he did not want to do? What if Judas was trying to save himself? What if Judas was trying to save Jesus from himself? What if Judas just wanted things to go back to the way they were before?
At the risk of spoiling the show, Judas takes his own life because of his deep guilt and pain over what has occurred. When the cast sings “so long Judas. Poor old Judas”, it is a somber, reverent moment that filled my eyes with tears. Poor old Judas indeed. We have made him an enemy, because we do not want to face the things about ourselves that he represents.
Bernard Cornwell, writing from the perspective of his character Uhtred of Bebanburg, a pagan warlord who is living through the Christianization of Britain in the 9th century CE, wrote a line about Judas that has stuck with me since the first moment I read it: “The god had to be nailed to a cross if he was to become their savior, and then the Christians blame the man who made that death possible. I thought they should worship him as a saint, but instead they revile him as a betrayer.” To Uhtred, this seems like a contradiction, and honestly, the more I think about it, I’m on Uhtred’s side.
But that doesn’t preach well, nor is it an easy lesson, nor does it give us a model for our own behavior. Maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe Judas is supposed to force us to look in the mirror, to see the ways in which we too are tragic, and conflicted, and self-preserving, and scared of change. To dismiss Judas as the worst of sinners, to “revile him as a betrayer”, to harbor disdain for him does no justice for Jesus, a victim of state-sanctioned violence. Furthermore, we imperil ourselves when we do not feel Judas’s internal conflict, when we take the gospel writers at their word without considering the forces of power and oppression that were also acting upon Judas that fateful night when he kissed Jesus in the garden. When we ignore the systems that created Judas, opting to supernaturalize his choices, we ignore how the systems that we uphold and participate in now create impossible choices for people. We are less likely to see Judas as human, and anyone else like him as human too.
I once heard that the test of Christianity is not loving Jesus, it is loving Judas. We cannot do that if we continue to vilify him. Poor old Judas. He deserved better than to die of shame and regret. We should all remember that on Good Friday.
Astrid closed her eyes that night, wanting for sleep, but the spirits were restless. They were arguing. The spirits never wholly agreed on anything. For every spirit who encouraged, there was one who tried to convince you otherwise. For every wise voice in the chaos, there was one who was always irrational. Then there were the ones who only wailed, their crying only broken by their screaming. She listened deeply to the ones who were crying tonight. She heard at least seven. Their piercing sobs drowned the other voices as she drifted down to them. They were young. She shifted her thoughts, focusing on the ones who argued. They are trying to break us! This spirit was old, like the earth, like the woods. They are trying to survive. This one was old too. She sounded like the fire. Like the moon.
Astrid. She opened her eyes, lifting the cover from her as she rose from her bed. She crept through the house, lifting her cloak from the hook rail at the door. She exited without a sound. Astrid, the Skuld called again. She moved through the empty streets as quickly as she could.
The woods at night were haunting. The wild magic was lively at night, and the forest creaked with power and memory. The spirits were more active too, drawing strength from the darkness and the shadows. The arguing grew cacophonous, but Astrid pushed all the words away, putting them from her mind. She was not as practiced as the older Bairns at sorting out all the meanings. She pressed onward through the forest, the leaves crunching underfoot. The animals fled before her, rustling the debris on the forest floor as she moved along the path, downward towards the grove.
The Skuld was waiting for her when she arrived. She looked tall, otherworldly, thin, almost transparent. She was glowing, a silver fire in the night. The moon was sailing high above the trees. Its bright light shone down upon the grove, and the ground was perfectly visible even though the night was deep. Astrid studied the scattered bones, the sticks, the single flower that had bloomed at the edge of the grove, alluringly red. Astrid cleared her throat and stepped forward, feeling empty, ready to receive the instructions or the wisdom that she would be imparted.
“Your brother is trying to touch the wild magic,” the Skuld said.
She thought of Asmund crouching in the dirt, asking her questions. “He knows that it does not choose boys.”
“Then why does he ask?” she said.
Astrid let go of the defensiveness that bubbled to the surface. “He asks because he is my brother. He admires me.”
The Skuld nodded as if she already knew this. “You are too close to them, Astrid.”
She swallowed her denial. “Too close to my brothers?” she asked, stalling the conversation to buy herself time to think. There was no arguing with the Skuld, but the conversations did not always end where one thought they would.
“They can all feel the wild magic when you use it,” the Skuld said.
“Of course,” she said. “Anyone can.”
“We should not share it with men,” the Skuld continued.
“I do not share it, Skuld,” Astrid said, the defensiveness creeping back into her spirit. “I have not shown them anything. I have not taught them how to catch it.”
She nodded. “I know, Astrid,” she said. “Promise me that you won’t.”
“I promise,” she said, without hesitation. Fear began to replace her defensiveness. This was not a scolding, this was a warning. But against what?
“We must protect them, Astrid,” the Skuld said. She came forward, her eyes pleading. Her face was smooth and pale, like fresh bone. She had tears in her eyes.
“Who?” Astrid whispered.
“The men,” the Skuld said, as if it was obvious. “The men and boys.”
Astrid’s questions rose before she had time to think about the implications of the answers to them. “From who?”
The Skuld stiffened, pulling back from her, swallowing hard. She closed her eyes. “From the spirits.” She whispered.
Astrid felt a surge of wild magic move through her. Protect the boys! The spirit was fresh, young, new. The voice was lost in the chatter of the arguing.
Her curiosity overcame her. “Do you know why there are so many boys in my family?” she asked.
The Skuld tilted her head, regarding her with ice-white eyes. Her hand drifted to her rune stone pouch at her belt. “Have you asked?” she said.
Astrid shook her head. “Not directly.”
“And why is that?” she said.
Fear. Fear hovered over Soledge. It was always lurking. “Why should my family have so many, so easily, when there are other women who birth six or seven girls, each time hoping against hope to have a boy?”
The Skuld was pulling her rune stones from her pouch. She cast them to the grass at her feet. The wild magic danced across them, burning the surface with a flash of light. The flame. The tree. The man. The womb. Astrid listened to the spirits, then lifted her eyes to the Skuld.
“To give you love for them,” she said. “They are part of your family so that you will care for them.”
The spirits chattered. Protect the boys! Astrid inhaled the scent of the forest to ground herself to the world. Her mouth was wet with longing to float away, but she resisted. “Every boy is precious,” she said, “but not all the Bairns feel this way.”
The Skuld was gathering her rune stones. “No. Some of them do no see any value for boys and men, other than the obvious.”
She nodded. “They make twice as many girls for us as they do boys.”
The Skuld nodded. “But you know their value, don’t you Astrid?” she asked. Her eyes seemed to burn holes through Astrid’s heart. She nodded vigorously in reply. “Good,” the Skuld said, dropping each rune stone into her pouch with a clink.
“Without boys, we would have nothing,” she said. “They are just as essential as the girls.”
The Skuld continued to nod her head. “Do not forget this, Astrid,” she instructed.
Astrid’s thoughts went to the name written on her white stone—her true name, given to her by the wild magic. “I will not forget,” she vowed.
She wandered the empty streets of Soledge until the moon began drifting down towards the horizon. The clouds she had called with the wild magic were moving closer. She could taste the coming rain. The air was wet and thick. Tomorrow would be a perfect day to sleep. She began to meander home, but the presence of a Bairn gave her pause. She moved towards her sister, drawn to the apothecary. She went quietly, feeling the pull of the wild magic, like a thread connecting them, tying them tighter together.
Ama was in the street, her white robes and white hair shining, swirling. Astrid approached curiously, wondering why she was out here in the middle of the night. Who was she spying?
Ama did not turn to her as she came to stand beside her. “Have you seen her?” she asked.
“Hrist?” Astrid guessed. It was her shop that Ama was standing outside of.
Ama shook her head. “Her granddaughter, Edda.”
Edda was wild, fiery, feisty, brave. She loved and she hated with ferocity. “Yes,” she said. “I see her when I am in the shop.”
“Freya and Sif have been watching her,” Ama said.
“And you’ve been watching her?” Astrid asked.
Ama smiled. “Just tonight,” she said. “I was curious.”
“Why?” Astrid asked. “The spirits call those whom they will. There is no pattern. No reason.”
Now Ama did turn, staring shocked, her mouth hanging open, her brows creased. “No reason?” she asked.
Astrid made an apologetic noise. “It does not seem so, to me.”
Ama’s expression smoothed and her eyes searched Astrid’s. The wild magic scattered, and Ama’s hair cooled to dark brown. “Have I told you about when I was called?”
“Some,” she said. Ama had been called at a time of upheaval, of fighting and loss. Of treachery and betrayal.
“We lost so many Bairns, gained so many new ones in such a short time,” Ama reminisced. She shook her head, looking away from Astrid. “The old Bairns I knew, some of them—Aelffled, Brynhilde, Thordis, Iduna—they were soft most of the time. They were only ironlike when they were filled with the wild magic. And there were others—Mjoll, Ulfrun. They were wild like the wild magic itself. Then there was Helga, and me, Sif and Freya. New Bairns. Afraid of our call. Afraid of what would happen to us if we were too soft or too hard. Afraid of being carried off, or stamped out.”
Astrid could not imagine Sif and Freya ever being afraid or soft. Helga was as protective as a mother, and Ama carried doom with her wherever she walked. Astrid felt like a rose among thorns when she was with them. They were all steely, and tough. All grit and little love.
Ama squeezed her lips together, closing her eyes against the memories. “Edda is like Freya,” she said.
Freya. Dark Freya. Astrid was in constant awe of her. She was hard, sarcastic, powerful, angry, proud, fierce. “Is that why Freya watches her?” Ama nodded. “Has she been called?” Ama nodded. “But there’s a man!” Astrid said.
Ama only nodded her head again. “She has not chained him.”
“Why?” Astrid asked, too loudly. Her question echoed around them, and the spirits laughed, repeating her words.
“Would you chain a man if the spirits spoke to you?”
And then Astrid understood why Ama was standing in the street, watching Hrist’s house. She was checking in on the girl, wondering if she would try to refuse. One could only refuse for so long before the call became too hard to ignore. “No,” she said. But it was easy for her to say this. There were no men who had taken her eye before she was called.
Ama sighed, turning away from the house. “My sister will chain your cousin, if she has a boy.”
Astrid wondered why Ama was telling her this. “What?” she asked. “Is she…?” When Ama nodded, she scoffed. “She is too young for that.”
Ama shrugged. “She is afraid of the spirits,” she said.
She felt a slither of bile in her throat, imaging Lodvik chained to a 15 year old girl. “And if she doesn’t have a boy?” she asked.
Ama shrugged. “She might chain him anyway before someone else does.”
This was common practice. Men were in high demand. For every girl that wanted to be a Bairn, there were always two or three that wanted a man instead. “Sigmund will be chained soon,” she said. Ama had offered a glimpse into her life; the desire to return the gift overcame her.
Ama smiled. “I like your brother,” she said. “He seems like a good man.” Astrid didn’t know how to response, other than to smile and nod. “I hope his woman makes him happy.” She continued. “We could use more of that in Soledge.”
Astrid couldn’t argue. Fear always lay in wait for them.
Sometimes when I am outside in the garden or doing yard work, especially if I’m planting something new, or digging out something old, I think about this certain man I never knew. His name was George and he lived a long time ago somewhere in northern Indiana. He had a farm and a wife named Ellen and a dog and rifle and a horse, and wooden porch on the front of his house where at least once in his life he posed with friend, and at least once posed by himself, and few times posed with Ellen and their daughter Ethel. I only know who he is because there are photographs of him (and Ellen, Ethel, the dog, the horse and the rifle), standing on that wooden porch. He looks proud. Content. Weathered. Tough. He looks a lot like my grandfather. He was, after my grandfather’s grandfather.
I think about him when I’m gardening and planting because most of those pictures were taken outside, sometimes with the rifle and sometime with the dog, and sometimes with the horse. He posed in his fields and on his porch for reasons unknown. We don’t know who took the photos of George and Ellen and Ethel. What did he plan to do with the photos? They ended up in a box in the basement of my parents house 100 years or more after they were taken. I wonder if he imagined that’s where his memory would go to rest one day, and I wonder if he would have worn something nicer if he had known that these photos are how he would be remembered.
I think about George and wonder what his life must have been like on that farm. Tilling, planting and harvesting, before modern machinery was affordable to a farmer like him. I wonder what kept him up at night. It doesn’t seem like it would be anything like what keeps me up at night. What does a farmer born in the late 19th century worry about? The weather. The harvest. The winter. Sickness. Spoiled food. Vermin. Maybe that’s why he had the dog. That’s almost certainly why he had the rifle. Dgos and rifles are excellent deterrents for rats, raccoons, opossums, moles, groundhogs, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and mice.
I don’t ever worry about vermin. Or spoiled food. I sometimes worry about sickness, especially after 2020, but I never worry about the harvest or the weather. I don’t like the winter, but I know I’ll survive it. I’ll have enough, and if I run out, there’s always more at the store.
Maybe George worried about different things: Ellen, when she was pregnant. Maybe he worried about the baby, Ethel. I can understand that worry. I’ve been through the uncertainty, and even with midwives and hospitals, it’s still unnerving. He must have worried about his son-in-law in 1917, when he went to Europe, to war. I don’t know if I’ll ever have that worry, but even if I do have a child in the armed forces one day, that’s a long way off. That kind of worry is farvremoved from me, just like the worry about the harvest,
I think about George (and his dog and his horse and his rifle) when I’m gardening because it’s the closest I’ll ever get to living the same kind of life he lived. I think about him being dirty and sweaty, sore from laboring, standing over a wood fire stove when it’s cold, or on the porch in his rocking chair if it’s hot. I think about him ending his day in the field usually around the time I’m just heading outside. I think about him because he’s a mystery and he’s familiar, and he’s a part of me. I think about what he must have sounded like, how he laughed, if he sang. I think about him and wonder what he would say if he knew I was thinking of him.
My mom never knew George, but my grandpa did. I never knew George’s daughter Ethel, and my mom has few memories of her (she died when my mom was very young). I know a few stories about Ethel, and her husband Fred, but I don’t know any stories about George. I know my grandpa’s brother was named after George, but I never knew him either. The only memories that have come down to me of Geroge are the photographs which Mom and I sifted through one recent afternoon. One day soon I’ll take them out of that box and I’ll put them into an album for safekeeping. And maybe when my kids look through the pictures one day, they’ll think “I wonder what his story is.” And George’s memory will live on.
I think it’s true. An onion has a thick outer skin that protects the rest of the bulb. Each layer is thick, until you get closer to the center, where the heart of the onion flakes apart if you touch it just right. It has visible roots and a crispy, paper-thin layer that can’t possibly hide what is underneath.
Yes, I actually am like an onion, more than I care to admit.
But I am tired of being thick and protective.
The things I aspire to be are actually like an onion, too. Maybe that sounds weird to you. Let me explain.
I want to be fragrant, even if it’s off-putting to people. I’d love to be unapologetic about it. An onion does not care if it offends with its flavor. Why should I?
I want to be soft, like onions sautéed in butter, until all the sugars they contain start to brown. I want to be cooked down to my essential elements, shedding the weight of all the things that are not me, like an onion sheds it’s water in the skillet.
I want to be constant. Onions can hang around forever until they start to rot. If you leave one long enough it’ll grow using nothing but the air around it and the sunshine that silently shines through the kitchen window. Yes, I’d love to have the power within me to grow tall and strong.
So, an onion I am. And an onion I’ll strive to be. Complex. Strong. Not for everyone. I’m okay with that.
I know sometimes you get sad, and it feels like there isn’t really a reason. I get that way, too. I just wanted you to know that you aren’t alone in that. It may feel so silly, because you have nothing to be sad about. But I’ve learned something that may help you feel less broken for this unexplained sadness that sometimes gets you down: You aren’t sad “for no reason”, even if it feels like you are.
No, you’re sad because it’s raining. Or it’s winter. Or it looks like it is about to storm. You’re sad because pets die, and stuffed animals get left behind, and there are kids who still have to sleep with nightlights. You’re sad because there are kids with no nightlights, or adults to care about them. You’re sad because even on your best day there are still people who are hurting. You’re sad because you care.
Because the planet feels like it’s slowly dying. Because maybe your kids will one day live in a world without polar bears and elephants. Because no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get your tomatoes to ripen, or your houseplants to thrive. You’re sad because despite all the lovely little things around you, it’s all fleeting. Those blossoms will fall. The trees will lose their glorious color. The days will shorten and it will be dark. For a long time.
You’re sad because governments and corporations and revolutions and non-profits, no matter what they say, don’t really seem to care about all people. You’re sad because you want everyone to feel the same love and tenderness that you feel from those in your circle, but not everyone has a circle like yours. You’re sad because despite our best efforts, people are still homeless, and people still starve, and people still can’t get life-saving medical care, and people are still dying with no one to come to their funeral. You’re sad because all of that is inside you, and sometimes it’s just too much to know. Too heavy to carry.
Because the sun will set. Because another hurricane will hit. Because someone will be disconnected for not paying their electric bill. Because somewhere, there is a mother who will refuse to pick up the phone when her son calls. Because there is never enough money for those who don’t already have enough. Because those who have too much will never be willing to share enough of it to make a difference.
You aren’t sad “for no reason.” You’re sad because you’re human, and because you love other humans. You love the planet and all its beautiful, wild wonders. You love day and warmth and light because that is how you were made. And when those things diminish, fade, are obscured, retreat, are hidden…well, that makes you sad.
And you know what? All of that is perfectly okay. I just thought you might like to hear it from someone who knows.
My summer plan is to publish a collection of novellas set in the world of my novels, The World Between and The Chaos Within. The three stories span a great length of time. One takes place before the events of either book, one takes place concurrently to both books, and one takes place after the events of the second book. Below is a short excerpt from one of the novellas: A World Without Magic.
Ethaen smiled broadly as he watched Yunnae’s eyes widen. The silk and lace that Rudanya had laid out before her was astonishing. Even he hadn’t expected Aunt Rudanya to bring back fabrics so fine.
Ethaen’s aunt abruptly cut her off before she could wiggle her way out of picking the fabrics for her wedding gown. “If you don’t like these, I can go back to the shop.”
“Oh! No, it’s not that…” Yunnae looked to Ethaen for help, but he was only smiling encouragingly. “It’s…it’s just that, I…Mistress Rudanya, I can’t afford this cloth.”
Rudanya cast an accusatory gaze towards her nephew. “Did you tell her she had to pay for her gown?”
He smiled widely. “Certainly not, Aunt Danya.”
Yunnae relaxed her face, letting the frown that was forming melt away. “I’ve never worn anything this fine before. It feels…”
“Regal?” Rudanya offered, in place of whatever Yunnae had been about to say.
“Extravagant?” the younger woman squeaked, questioning her own words.
“It’s a wedding, my dear!” Rudanya said, putting an arm around her shoulders. Yunnae, to her credit, did not stiffen in the embrace. “I want you to look like a bride.”
Ethaen rose from his chair near the window. “No use arguing with her, beloved,” he said, coming to Yunnae’s other side. “Besides,” he said softly near her ear, “I think this one is lovely.” He touched the pinkish-lavender silk on the table. It had a cutting of white lace laid upon it.
“I do love the lace,” Yunnae said. “I just don’t know about the silk.”
Rudanya traded out the pink silk for the eggplant. “Better?”
Yunnae looked to Ethaen. “What are you wearing?”
He smiled. “No one is going to be looking at me, my dear.”
Yunnae blushed, bowing her head slightly. “I’ll be looking at you,” she said softly.
Rudanya smiled, remembering how it felt to be in love, and still feeling the old jealousy of not having had the love she wanted. “Eggplant, then?” she asked, wanting a final say.
“It’s my favorite of the three you’ve brought,” Yunnae answered, sounding almost apologetic.
“I can go back to the shop, Yunnae,” Rudanya offered again.
“No!” Yunnae said. “It’s wonderful.” She nodded to herself, as if trying to believe her own words. “I’ll look stunning, I know.”
Rudanya smiled at her. “Yes, you will.” She laid a tray of buttons on the table. “We picked these out as well.”
Immediately, Yunnae’s eye went to the button with the purple stone in the center. “Oh my,” she breathed, picking it up and examining it.
“Gaelta picked that one,” Rudanya said.
A laugh escaped Ethaen. “That’s surprising. She usually isn’t tasteful.”
Yunnae set the button on top of the fabric and lace she had picked. She didn’t even look at the other buttons in the tray.
Rudanya smiled. “I’ll have the dressmaker come tomorrow. What time will be best for you?”
“I have duties with the sick starting at dawn,” Yunnae answered. “Then Contemplation at midday. And I have kitchen duties after that.” She paused, thinking. “I don’t think tomorrow would be the best day. Can we do the day after? I’m not as busy then.”
“Of course,” Rudanya said, writing down a note to hand off to their housekeeper, Heila. “Day after tomorrow, then. We’ll get you measured and have some designs drawn up for you. Is your mother coming?”
“Oh,” Yunnae gasped, as if she had nearly forgotten she had a mother. “I…um, no. I haven’t spoken to her.”
“You haven’t spoken to her?” Ethaen repeated, curious.
“I wrote her a letter,” she began, feeling ashamed.
“A letter?” Rudanya asked. “Does she not live in Celeth-brac?”
“No, Mistress…”
“Please, don’t call me that. Rudanya is perfectly fine.”
Yunnae hesitated before agreeing with a nod. “Yes, Rudanya,” she said slowly. She looked to Ethaen for support and found him smiling encouragingly. She nearly melted at the sight. “She and my father were part of the ithil trade, in the Delta, before Malir stopped running ithil ships. They decided not to come home.”
Rudanya’s lips thinned into a tight line across her face. “They just left you here?” she asked. Ethaen was pleased that she had managed to hide her disgust, but her disapproval was plain in her tone.
“With the Priestesses, yes,” Yunnae answered. “They write to me from time to time.” The way her eyes lost sparkle indicated that she knew this was a weak defense.
“Well,” Rudanya said, “let’s hope they decide to come this way for the wedding.” She really didn’t know what else to say to the woman.
Ethaen looked out the window at the position of the suns. “Yunnae, you don’t want to be late for lessons.”
“Oh! No, of course not. I didn’t realize the time,” she said hurriedly. She kissed Ethaen on the cheek and quickly moved towards the parlor door. In the doorway, she turned. “Thank you for everything, Rudanya.”
“Of course, dear. You’re one of us now. We’ll take care of you.”
For the first time that afternoon, Yunnae smiled brightly; then without another word, she was gone.
Rudanya stared at the spot she had vacated. “It still amuses me that she’s as devoted to you as she is to The Seer. I’m surprised you were able to pull her away from her goddess.”
Ethaen, who was now more practiced at hiding his god-like nature, laughed as if he were a man. “To be honest, it surprises me as well.”
“What about your sister, though? Any luck pulling her out of…” As she caught Ethaen’s glower she let the end of her question die on her lips. “What’s the matter?”
“We paid a price for what we did,” he whispered. “She doesn’t understand it had to be this way.”
Rudanya leaned closer to her nephew. “Does this have anything to do with Jamir?”
Ethaen knew he could trust Rudanya. The partnership between his father and his aunt had kept his uncle’s whereabouts secret for much longer than he had expected. Certainly, The Great Maker had known what he was doing, but Ethaen had never been as sure. He was a traveler, and in all his travels he had seen a multitude of secrets leaked. Rudanya and Malir were as silent as a tomb on the matter. “We didn’t mean for the Concealment to happen. We were only trying to save him.”
“Did you tell her that, before you and Hadlam destroyed that Witch?” Rudanya’s eyes narrowed.
Ethaen slowly shook his head, thinking of how the Red One had burnt to ash under the current of the power they had used against her. “Raelin doesn’t know about Uncle Jamir,” he answered, his soft whisper barely filling the air between them.
“Ethaen, you know what she did, what she helped you do, is slowly killing her,” Rudanya said. She was not angry with her nephew, but she didn’t understand why he had needed her help. Ethaen’s powers hadn’t been Concealed like everyone else’s. Why would such a powerful Mage need the assistance of a barely trained novice? Rudanya had never figured it out.
“I’m not a Mage, Aunt Danya,” he said, an answer to her unasked questions.
She drew back from him, uneasy, her skin prickling with fear. “I know. You’re something different, Ethaen. Something more powerful than I understand.” She paused, letting go of her fear for a moment. “Why did you need her?”
He smiled ruefully, then looked away from her, towards the table where the fabric for Yunnae’s gown still lay. “It took everything I had to hold the world together, and to keep Hadlam from being torn apart as he funneled all that energy into the Red One.” At the Witch’s true name, Rudanya frowned. “He could have never held all the power on his own, Aunt Danya. He would have destroyed himself.”
She nodded, suddenly understanding something that had eluded her before. “Raelin can See, can’t she? That’s why you chose her and not Malir?”
Ethaen nodded, still gazing at the bolts of fabric laid out, the lace delicately draped across the top of each one. “That’s what attracted me to the Priestesses. They don’t fully understand what it is they do, but they tap into that same Deep Power than Hadlam speaks of.”
“The power you can use,” Rudanya added.
Now Ethaen met his aunt’s eyes. “I can’t help Raelin unless she wants to understand. I’ve tried.”
“I know,” Rudanya whispered. “We’ve all tried.”
Ethaen grew thoughtful. “I had hoped Paetir would stay. I tried to convince him not to get on that ship.”
“Did you?” Rudanya asked, seeming to come out of her own thoughts.
“She’s better when she’s with him, don’t you think?”
Rudanya rocked her head side to side while she was thinking. “In some ways. But there’s still that…darkness inside her.”
“It’s not darkness,” Ethaen countered, almost before she had finished her sentence. “No, Aunt Danya. It’s not darkness at all. Raelin has seen the Deep Power. She craves it, but she can’t find it anymore. That’s what’s wrong with her.”
“Well, how do you and Hadlam find it?”
“We’re different,” he explained with a shrug. “And the Deep Power is different now. It surrounds us. It moves through us. It was hidden under the Magic before the Concealment. It was like falling, or diving into a river. Now…” he exhaled. “Now, the only way to find it is to fall inward, inside yourself.”
“Like the Priestesses,” Rudanya murmured.
Ethaen smiled, pleased that his aunt had made this connection. “Exactly.”
I started this writing blog as a way to make myself write more often. I have found it to be cathartic, healing, energizing and inspiring to sit down at the computer, and this “what will I write next for the blog?” As I reflect on a year of intentional writing, here are a few things that come to mind.
“Writing is an act of vulnerability.” I went through a series of difficult personal experiences in 2022, and I can see where all of these hardships come through in the stories and poems that I wrote. Before I started this blog, I told my friend that it was scary to put your thoughts on the page, because it’s like “showing your tits.” He replied that yes, writing is always an act of vulnerability. After publishing The Circle, my sister-in-law joked with me that as she was reading it, she thought “God, what happened to Sarah?” But she went on to say that writing isn’t always about the author, but the author can reveal things that are true about the reader. Reading, then, is also an act of vulnerability. Whenever we choose to engage with writing, whether we are the ones penning the words, or the one reading the words, we take the risk of being stripped bare.
Ideas are easy. I have been surprised by how simple it is for me to come up with an idea for a story. Perhaps this will not always be the case, but over the past year, whenever I sat down to write, there was always something that was easily there, like my mind was an endless filing cabinet of folders. Even so, sometimes the execution of the idea was difficult. I would start to write, only to find that the idea was falling a little flat as I wrote. Or I would write out a scene, and realize that the idea I thought was great was not itself an entire story. I’m not new to these challenges. The problem of having good ideas and poor execution plagued the writing of my first novel, The World Between. I wanted this blog to pay respect to all the unconnected pieces, and I’ve glad that I was able to give some of the stories that didn’t go anywhere some exposure this year.
Weekly blog posts are harder than I imagined. The energy it takes to keep up this level of creativity is sometimes not possible. Thankfully, I had a well of past projects to help me keep to my goal of posting every week. I am hoping that I will be able to continue this pace, but I am also not going to worry myself too much if I have to cut back. As I look ahead to new projects- like 2 short story collections, releasing audiobooks and perhaps doing a second book of poems- this blog might have to evolve. But I also anticipate that this blog will continue to be a springboard for my new ideas- even if they might not pan out.
The Quick and the Dead 