Mother Earth Mystery

His throat tightened, some part of him dreaded the answer even as he forced himself to ask the question, "What do you mean...go against her?"

"The old bitch had this crazy idea of a new age society made up solely of women. She and the others used men...like bulls. Then they moved on. I suppose that in itself ain't all that bad. I guess you could say that men have used women for sex for thousands of years. But the other...it was unthinkable. The girl babies were welcomed, raised to carry on their crazy elitist society. But the boys."

He paused, a pained look crossing his face as he whispered, "They killed them. The women who attended the births. She would not tie off the umbical cords. They bleed to death before they even took their first breath. But Crystal wouldn't let them do that to our baby. She could not be sure if it was another little girl or a little boy. But she knew if she had it there she would not be able to stop them. She went to a hospital. Maybe she would have even stayed there...waited for me. But that bitch had Gaia. She could not leave her daughter to be raised alone by her mother. So she left our son with this woman and followed her mother. For Gaia's sake."

"I wanted to keep looking. Honest, I did. But she had left a note with Gerard. She begged me to take him home. To raise him. To love him as she was forbidden to do, but did anyway. She promised that in turn she would watch out for our Gaia. She said if I ever loved her then I should do this for her."

"I did it, but I never for a moment stopped thinking about them. Crystal and Gaia." He looked up at the door, his face frozen in a tortured expression. "I found out ten years ago about Crystal's suicide. The note she left was addressed to me. Full of bullshit about how she had failed me, failed to keep Gaia safe. I tried then to the girl, but it was useless. That bitch knew how to hide what she considered hers. I went through half my daddy's fortune on private detectives."

"But you did find her. How?"

The man laughed, "Fate, if you believe in that sort of shit. She was already performing with the Cirque de Majique. Gerard and I had tickets. The minute I saw her I knew it was her. Then when I looked the name up in the program and saw Gaia...well, there was no doubt. One good thing about the crazy bitch was her penchant for unusual names. I thought about telling her then, but decided that I should get to know her before springing this sort of thing on her. Besides I wasn't sure how well all that brain washing shit had worked on her. I couldn't afford to bring her into the family...not if she might hurt Gerard. He was off to college then, so I got a job as security with the troop. Actually, I bought my job with them, but no one knows that. And I watched and waited. Watched my own child."

He stared at his hands for a moment, "I watched her kill men. You are right. I should have told someone. I didn't catch on right away. I mean that Congressman I knew what she did, but I thought the bastard deserved it for what his son did to her. But then I pretended; I turned a blind eye. Three men died before I figured it all out. But you have to know it isn't her fault. Her grandmother...that crazy bitch...she turned her against men. All men."

Eli shook his head, "Not all men. It seems to me that she trusted you. Something inside of her knew she could even if she did not know why."

Tears spilled out of those blue pools then. "You think so? I know it is too late, but I'm here for her now. Hell, I'll do anything. The best doctors. The best lawyers. Maybe we could get her sent to a hospital somewhere. Insanity, right?"

Eli did not know what to say. The man in him was glad that she had an alley like this man. But the profiler recognized that what she had done was murder, not something to be dismissed easily with a flimsy excuse of child abuse.

Thankfully he did not have to respond. At that moment the double doors opened and a doctor stepped into the room.

"Agent Harris?" he asked as he extended his hand.

Eli took it. "What happened, doctor? Why did she collapse?"

The man shook his head solemnly. "I'm afraid that the woman is very ill. Leukemia. Stage four. There really is not any hope. She must have been ill for years. I don't know how she could have possibly performed, not a strenuous job like hers. Not...what she did."

The man blanched at the truth. What he meant was clear...not murder. But at that moment Eli did not care. The man's words were ricocheting through his mind, bouncing off walls into feelings that did not bear closer examination.

The other man stepped forward then, "But there has to be something you can do. Blood transfusions. Marrow. Something?"

"We have already given her three pints of blood just to stabilize her. And a marrow transfusion requires a close match. Her blood type is not that easy to find. We would need a close relative."

"I'm her father. I can have her brother here in a few hours. Anything you need. Cost is no object."

The doctor shook his head sympathetically. "I'm sorry. Perhaps if she had come to us a year ago, even a few months ago. But she is too weak now. The procedure would kill her just as surely as the disease is."

"But it's worth the risk, right?" the man pleaded.

"I can't advice it. It could actually shorten what little time she has left. And it is not without pain. As it is we are barely able to keep her pain controlled with the drugs. I just don't think it would be a good idea."

Eli watched as the man he had known less than twenty-four hours slumped to the floor. His face buried in his hands as great retching sobs shook his body. "No," he screamed. "I can't lose her too. Not like Crystal."

Eli sank to his knees next to the man. "Thomas," he pleaded using the man's name for the first time. "Pull yourself together. You are here now and for whatever time she has you can be that father, the daddy that the little girl in this journal longed to know. You can give her that. You can share memories of the mother she fears she has forgotten. But you have to be strong to do any of that."

The man's sobs slowed as he wiped the tears back from his face. "It's best isn't it? If she lived, she'd spend the rest of her life in jail wouldn't she."

Eli nodded wordlessly at the truth that both of them knew.

The doctor, who must have witnessed hundreds of other grieving families, cleared his throat. "Do either of you know someone named Eli? She keeps calling for him."

"I'm Eli," he answered quietly.

The doctor quickly hid the shocked expression on his face. "Yes, well. I don't want her disturbed with any questions right now. But if you want to sit with her for a bit, I think that would be alright."

Eli looked at the man who was her father. The man, who by all rights should be with her now. "Go. Go to her. Just promise me that you'll tell. Tell her about me. Ask her to see me."

Eli nodded and followed the doctor through the door and down the corridor.

***

Over the past year, Gaia had come to accept the pain. Her mind had developed tricks to keep it at bay. Meditations. Visualization. She would run through the meadows. Dance along a deserted beach. Her favorite had always been wallowing in a huge mud puddle. The sticky substance clinging to her skin, sucking her down.

But now it the pain that was sucking her down. Deeper and deeper it called to her. This pain would not be denied. But it was not just the physical pain of a body betraying her, shutting down. It was not the weight of her 'sins,' if there were such a thing, certainly the justice that she had exacted from those vicious, greedy men was no sin.

It was the pain of a broken heart that did her in now. Why was it only in the final hours of her life that she had met a man worth fighting for?

Her mother had told her stories as a little girl, forbidden stories of white knights and shining armor. Gaia knew those stories were her mother's homage to her father. She had been a teenager when she learned the truth of that love...and the betrayal that it had caused.

Her mother had stood accused of helping another to commit a similar crime...saving a male child. Her grandmother had stood coldly, harshly sentencing her only child to death. A syringe had been prepared even as Gaia clung to her mother pleading for her life. But her grandmother had order the others to drag her from the room.

It was the last that Gaia saw of either of them. When the others locked her in the camper to return and watch justice being served, Gaia had performed her greatest feat...an escape through a high window, pulling herself up and squeezing through the tiny space.

She had run to town, told the authorities what was happening. But by the time, they got to the camp her mother was dead. Despite her pleas, they believed the story of a suicide. They had though decided that she should remain in the care of a foster family while they investigated the situation. Her grandmother had been livid. She belonged with her family, she asserted. The woman might have won guardianship eventually, except that Gaia did not stick around...making another escape.

At barely fifteen, she had lived for months on the land. It was one of the good things about Mother Earth, if you knew her, she cared for her own. She feed herself from the fields were wild berries and dandelion greens grew in abundance. She lived in caves craved into the side of mountains thousands of years before man ever roamed these lands. It was a wonderful time in her life. If only she had remained there...but the harsh winter sent her seeking other means.

She had ended up in Vegas. And where others might have fallen prey to the pimps and drug dealers who roamed the streets, she had been raised by the most devious of all...her grandmother had long ago taught her to avoid men. She had lucked into a job working the props of a Cirque troop. And over the months and years, she had learned to soar...soar with the best of them. But there would be no more soaring...not in this life time.

She felt the warmth and strength envelope her hand and she smiled. Her voice weak and hoarse, she whispered, "Eli, you came?"

He leaned over so that she could see him. He smiled but it did not reach his eyes. Those beautiful pools of mud that had stolen her heart.

"How are you feeling?"

"I've been better," she tried to laugh but nothing came out. "I need to..." she wanted to say 'explain,' but what explanation could she offer.

"I think you already did. Your journal." He squeezed her hand, "I can't give you any absolution. It isn't mine to give. But what I can do is tell you none of it changes what happened last night. You gave me the most perfect night of my life...and I will always remember that."

He brought her fingers to his lips, brushing them lightly across her knuckles. "I also want to tell you that waiting outside is your father. He has been watching over you...Thomas. When he found you, he just did not know what to say, how to tell you. After all your grandmother had done, he wasn't sure you would want anything to do with him. So he waited and watched. He'd like to see you. Get to know you. Spend some time with you. If you'll let him."

Gaia's eyes filled with tears. If only she had known. Her father had been close all along. He was the one person that she had turned to. That she had trusted. She was too weakened by the illness and by his news to speak, but she nodded. "Will you stay with me for a few minutes first?"

***

Eli Harris stared out the window of the tiny cabin he had rented for the week. It had rained for the first three days he was here. Great torrents with huge drops. Winds that howled. Howled just as Thomas had when Gaia finally slipped quietly from this earth.

Eli had finished his enquiries as quickly as he could in London. He had changed his ticket, catching the first flight back to America he could get. He still had time left on his vacation and he certainly did not want to return to small barren apartment that he rented in Quantico.

His friend Jason had been bugging him for years to get away. Try some fishing. Get back to nature. Do something besides just reading for change. It had been easy enough to have Jason arrange the rental for him. From the moment that he arrived, Jason had known that something had happened, but being a true friend he had kept his questions to himself. Maybe one day Eli would tell his friends about the beautiful soul who had held his heart so tenderly...even though she killed other men.

But for now, he had a promise to keep. He tossed aside the socks that he had worn all morning to keep the chill of the bare wooden floor from his toes. Stepping from the door of the tiny cabin, he walked into the bright sunshine of an early spring morning. He walked carefully down the rough wooden steps, mindful of splinters. Right now the splinter in his heart every time he thought about her was enough pain to deal with.

He stood on the bottom step for several long moments. For the little boy who had spent his childhood cossetted safely indoors with books, afraid of every germ, the idea was ludicrous. Why would someone want to do this?

But how many times over those few precious days had she called him her 'muddy puddles'? It might not sound like the sexy of pet names between lovers but when she said it there was a reverence to the words that left him aching for more.

He closed his eyes and took a small leap off the bottom step. The cool, sticky goo oozed through his toes. He lifted one foot to look at it as it clung to his skin. He put that foot back down, feeling the thickness envelope him once more. He repeated it with the other foot. Then he jumped up and down, turning around and throwing his arms about like a man possessed.

And for that moment he was free...Mother Earth embraced him and rejoiced with him in her servant that had been Gaia.