Page 21 of Up from the Earth

“It is for you to bestow, mistress.”

Smiling, I wound my fingers through his heavenly soft fur, relishing the way it danced over my skin as I stroked down his back.

“Well, in honor of whom you represent,” I swiped across his ear playfully, “how about Cern.”

Looking up at me with those fathomless eyes, the rabbit sat back onto his rear legs and bobbed his head.

“K-er-n.”He enunciated in mental speech.“I like it.”

A small, profound joy lit up my heart, and I lifted him into my arms, holding him against my chest. I could feel the dual pound of our pulses mirroring each other’s—my a little fast to account for his and Cern’s a little slow to adjust to mine. And at that, we were bound.

Setting Cern back down, I sighed, glancing up ahead. “So, little one, would you like to tell me what comes next? Or will you be as cryptic as The Wolf?”

If a rabbit could laugh, he would have. As it was, the sound of his humming was lifted up, and he scurried around to face the path that led off to the right.

“I can also say what I know, mistress. And what I know is that we can go that way,”Cern angled himself so that he pointed between the stream and path, still cocked to the right,“or we can take the shortcut.”

I chuckled. “Oh, always the shortcut.”

Cern immediately scampered off through the bounding growth of moss and grass, and I had to hurry to keep up with him. I held the length of my dress, gripped in tight fingers, and ran off through the forest with a grin on my lips and a laugh in my heart.

But as we reached what I had to assume was the final destination, the thick clouds overhead, as well as the fog, became denser, oppressive. Darkness shadowed the forest floor, and I was delivered to a stone altar set in the center of a massive sacred circle. Plants surrounded the edges, delineating where it started and stopped. Most notable were the strange mushrooms I’d never seen before, white stems and caps with red globules that looked like individual bubbles of blood, ready to burst at any moment.

A chill worked over me, and I dropped the fabric I clutched so tightly. “This? What am I to…”

But the question faded away. I knew that Cern nor any creature could tell me. I was meant to follow this wherever Ibelievedit led. A test of mind and ability lay before me.

Approaching cautiously, I felt the change in the earth as my soles touched the stone. It wasn’t only nature here now. It was a constructed work, a place created by the manipulation of stone and chisel. While it certainly wasn’t “man-made,” it was the work of a being, my Beast King. Nature did not work in stone, and so this place was a union of both worlds.

As am I, I suppose.

I was a mortal, after all. However, something about that word didn’t seem to fit at the moment. I was not solely of nature in any case. I wore constructed garments, lived in buildings, but I was also a witch. I knew the natural cycles, I knew the phases, and I knew to respect the abundant life around me. My gifts, especially now as they were unlocked, also revolved around the natural order, holding a level of mastery over it.

He was here, my Beast King. I could sense him, and the altar called to me, thrumming with invisible strands of magic that demanded I touch them. Standing before the intricately carved altar—Celtic swirls and knots chiseled into the stone—I reached out. My hand trembled, my nerves on edge, and then I laid my palm against the cool surface.

Immediately, a crack of pain broke over me, the snap like a splitting oak. I sank to my knees, pressing my hands to my lower belly. It grew beneath my fingers, stretching and expanding as a flurry of movement swam inside.

The chirping birds were gone, replaced by the howl of my blood in my ears. I cried out, doubling over as I rounded more and more. I watched my belly, awestruck and racked with pain, understanding that something profound had changed when The Wolf had claimed me.

I was pregnant.

And about to deliver by the feel of it. The child within me kicked and growled loud enough to be heard outside my womb. The pressure within me was mind-numbing. There was nothing I could do in the face of the erupting, tremendous agony that tore through me. Frantically searching the circle for something that might lend aid or comfort, I found Cern’s eyes.

“I…How do I—Ahh!”

My abdomen clenched, and a wave of tension washed over me from very low all the way up my rounded belly and to my back. The rabbit hopped over, touching his furry head to my hand, where I planted it on the ground.

“Do not run from the sensations, mistress. Let go. Just let them happen.”

Glancing down at him, I wanted to argue, to scream and hiss. But I held those brown eyes, trusting, and slowly found my breath. All I could do then was nod. I clutched the edge of the altar with both hands, sinking low into my knees and spreading them wide. There was a moment of stillness before the next wave, but this time, I didn’t tense, didn’t try to escape my body.

There was nothing else as it hit, blocking out all perception beyond this moment. I breathed, groaning and moaning as my muscles contracted. They worked the life inside me down, down, down. One after the other, the surges pushed for me. A swirl of nausea sent my stomach roiling as a sensation of something twisting over a nerve in my back took focus.

It was too difficult to ignore, and I leaned to the side, heaving. I felt myself widen, stretching all the more as I did. The next wave was quicker, the one after that even quicker still. And I breathed, sinking into my hips and rocking.

Sounds I’d never imagined making left me—low and guttural and focused. Another change washed over me in an undulating wave that crested as my body instinctively ground down. I felt it there, at my core. Whoever we had created, who my body had carried in a flash of time that broke the rules, was coming.

“You are no longer the maiden you were, little beast, but the mother of something more.”

---