Being a Green Mother Read Free Page A

virtually her mother, for Luna spent more of her time here than at her own home.
    Luna tried in vain to show Orb the auras she perceived, which she said manifested as shimmering glows around and through all living things, while Orb had the same frustration when trying to have Luna hear the songs of nature. “It’s the Song of the Morning!” she would exclaim at dawn. “Can’t you hear it, Motheaten?”
    “Look, Eyeball—if you can’t see the auras as plain as day—!”
    But the other magic Pace had promised Orb had not materialized. She could hear the music, but could not make it. Oh, she could sing, and with fair effect considering her age, but there was no magic. She was glad that her father had not told her mother about her misadventure with the sprites of the river—at least not about the cause of it, which was her ability to hear the Song of the Morning. She heard that song every morning now, if she was awake, and it was always lovely, changing a little with the nature of the land and the season, so that there was always a refreshing novelty about it. If only she could make music like that!
    “Daddy …” she pleaded one day.
    “Maybe the hamadryad can help you,” Pace said.
    “The what?”
    “She taught the Magician his first magic,” he explained. “She’s a tree-nymph, like a sprite for a tree, and she befriended the Magician when he was a baby. We used to take him there to visit her for an afternoon, when he lived with us. They seldom deal much with our kind, but Luna’s the Magician’s daughter, and you are very like her, so maybe she will meet you. I know your mother will be glad to take you there, just for a visit.”
    “Oh goody!” Orb exclaimed, hugging him.
    So they went for a day to the cabin near the swamp that they maintained as a vacation house. Niobe made sure that both girls were wearing their polished moonstone amulets, for the Magician had given them these for protection, and there could be dangers in the swamp.
    The swamp was impressive. The trees expanded their bases near the water as if to embrace as much of it as possible, and magic surrounded them. Luna kept exclaiming as she saw the interactions of their auras, and Orb as she heard their separate yet interactive melodies. Niobe evidently perceived neither, but realized that the girls were not teasing her.
    They came to the giant water oak. “Hamadryad!” Niobe called. “Do you remember me? You trained my son, the Magician.”
    The dryad appeared, perched on a stout lateral branch. She smiled cautiously; she remembered.
    At that moment Orb suffered a recurrence of her vision-dream. She was walking down the aisle with the strange man, and the globe was turning, dead. Who was the man, and what had happened to the world, and how did she get involved with either? She tried to turn her head to see the man and managed a little, catching a fleeting glimpse of his profile. He was no one she knew now. And the world—she was responsible, in some fashion. She knew, and was horrified.
    “I have brought the Magician’s daughter—and mine,” Niobe said, jolting Orb out of her vision. “Will you meet with them?”
    The dryad peered down at the two girls. Luna and Orb, coached on this, smiled like twin moons.
    The hamadryad nodded. She would meet.
    “I will return in two hours,” Niobe said.
    Orb turned on her in alarm. “You are leaving us here?”
    “The dryad will not approach an adult,” Niobe explained. “Only a child. But you are safe here; she will not harm you, or let you harm yourselves, if you do what she says.”
    Uncertainly, the girls watched Niobe retreat. They knew she would not put them in any danger; she was extremely fussy about that sort of thing, and her definitions of risk could be pretty annoying. Such as eating too much candy, or playing in deep mud. Still, the swamp seemed awfully big and dank.
    When Niobe was gone, the hamadryad came down the tree. She did not exactly climb down, she walked down. It