Mother

A hot breeze from Red Mother’s crater trickled through the bars of my cell window, barely strong enough to move whatever hairs remained on my head. The gentle wind was miserable and full of sulfur, like my damned soul.

The Sister of Lamashtu hovered nearby. She was tall and lean, like me, with bone-white skin and a bald head, also like me — though I had little choice in that regard. Her purple hood was pulled far over her face, hiding all but her pale, pink lips. They were peeled back in a sneer as she gazed at the pitiful form of the convicted murderer.

“There is still time,” she rasped. “Mother will treat you kindly if you repent.” Her crippled finger pointed to the black mountain in the distance as it spat orange flames. “Mother knows all. Deny her, and your death will linger.”

“Death lingers regardless, priestess,” I replied. “It happens every moment, rain or shine, sun up or sundown. It never leaves.”

The Sister placed her hand back in her ample sleeves. “Then give your family solace. The village will be kinder to them if you show remorse for your crime.”

“I cannot show what I do not feel. My confession should be enough.”

“You hide—”

“I’m bored,” I cut in. I finally turned to the priestess from watching the storm clouds drift in the sky. “Tell the magistrate I will not repent and be done with this. Waiting for death is exhausting.”

The Sister’s pink lips pressed in a line, but she knocked on the heavy wooden door of my cell. A slot opened. “We are finished here,” she said to the bailiff outside.

With a grunt and a jangle of keys, the heavy door opened, letting in a weak torch light. The magistrate walked in in exquisite lavender robes and gaudy, golden hair bound in a ponytail, trailed by a cluster of attendants. 

“So, shall we see a temptress burn alive?” he simpered. “It’s been ages, I hear.”

The Sister only nodded. 

The magistrate tittered with glee, tapping his ringed fingers together. “Very well.” He composed himself, trying and failing to bring weight to his authority. Though years older than me, he gave the impression of a young boy seeing his first set of teats. “By the power of Anu and the Father Kings of the Thousand Thousand Nations, I hereby sentence you to the embrace of Red Mother.” 

He practically floated from the room to wait outside. 

Two bull-faced bailiffs walked in, heavy with muscle but light on intelligence, to haul me roughly to my feet and drag me down the cold steps of the prison tower. The Sister droned last rites as I was escorted into dark daylight.

Storm winds picked up, whipping my grey prison tunic and the cloaks of the villagers who showed up. Hundreds lined the expensive stone path that snaked up and around Red Mother’s mountain walls. The twelve Sisters of Lamashtu stood in silence with their skull staffs.

“This damned soul will walk the Womb’s Way for the murder of a beloved and respected businessman,” the magistrate called out. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who rolled their eyes at my victim’s description. “Her rebirth will cleanse your homes of the pollution her crime has left,” he continued. “Will anyone step forward to be her Conscience?”

Wringing her thin hands, a greying, middle-aged woman quickly stepped away from a pair of girls clutching each other’s shoulders. “I volunteer,” she said into the wind.

The magistrate waved his manicured hand, and the woman fell into step next to me as we marched.

I walked in silence at the head of the procession, not wanting to marvel at the growing landscape as the path rose higher. I would not be a romantic about my last moments; the endless, rolling hills were full of goat shit, the Boundless Skyline that sparkled in the distance was built on the backs of women slaves, and the towns in between were crumbling and full of rapists. Well, one less one, at any rate. I cast a sidelong glance at my Conscience.

“Are you going to speak or just enjoy the view?” I said to her.

“Why won’t you atone?” she replied, her hands red and irritated from wringing. “It would be a boon for us.”

“Have I not done enough?” I spat. “I have nothing left for you, mother. Whatever’s left belongs to that fat bitch, now.” I nodded towards the volcano that grew the closer I walked. My legs were starting to numb.

My mother looked over her shoulder at the growing procession, her wilted hair falling over her eyes. “They all judge me.”

“As they should,” I said.

She leaned in closer. Her breath wreaked of rum. “Think of your sisters. What life will they have if they are tarnished by your sin? No man will want them.”

I grabbed a fistful of my mother’s hair and threw her to the ground. “You dirtied them!” I shrieked.

A bailiff kicked me away. I tumbled, but he picked me up and forced me to resume my march. My mother recovered, fixing herself as if she tripped. 

I was halfway up the mountain when the winds picked up in earnest, blowing me around the higher I went. The encroaching storm clouds were hefty and dark. I struggled to walk. My mother fought the high winds to hold me. Though repulsed, feeling my mother’s strength felt good. It had been so long. In those final moments, I allowed her to guide me up the path.

“Anu will forgive me,” she said. “Anu will know my heart.”

“Your heart isn’t the problem,” I replied.

She grunted in disgust. “Even now, you hold on to your new ideas from the East. You think my mind is sick.”

“You brought that man into our home after father died. You ignored what he was for fear of being alone. That fear twisted you, and your daughters paid the price.”

“They are strong,” she said. “They can survive this, but only if you repent.”

I shoved her away and continued up the path alone. My mind, so close to ending its own journey, was not replete with beautiful memories. I heard many times that one’s life played out when approaching death. Mine was oddly blank.

The path wound to the crown of Red Mother, where it ended in a long platform that extended over the edge of the rocky crater. As rain started to fall, the immense heat from the lava pool sizzled the air. My mother, followed by the bailiffs, the magistrate and his coterie, the Lamashtu priestesses, and the villagers able to finish the trek, crowded together against the growing gusts of wind. My sisters shoved their way to the front. For a moment, seeing their tiny hands entwined nearly broke me. But then I met their eyes. The defiance in their stares filled my heart.

The magistrate stepped forward, forced to shout over the howling wind. “Before we deliver her to our Great Matriarch, the prisoner is allowed final words so Enlil might copy them into the Tablet of Destinies. Prisoner?”

The magistrate backed away, leaving me to stand alone at the center of the platform. 

What words could I say? That, due to our laws, I, a woman, could not raise a hand against my mother’s lover? That night after night, when he snuck into the room my sisters shared, I was forced to hear their quiet pleas and silent sobs? That our watchmen were powerless to arrest him because the word of two scared little girls forced to do womanly things was no crime? They won’t hear of it. For them, I was a jealous lover who murdered a successful trader. Not a sister who saw the blood of two little girls in their sheets and cut his privates off while her mother drunkenly slept in the next room. They don’t want to hear of my fierce pride, that I would die willingly for my sisters.

Red Mother rumbled. The onlookers backed away, except for me. Seeing the crowd’s fear, I was light with vigor.

“I regret nothing!” I screamed into the moaning storm. “I would gladly relive that day, again and again, for all eternity, even if it meant I would feed Red Mother until the sun goes dark!”

Though the village knew what we lived with, the men hurled names at me. The women said nothing. But some, I thought, watched me with a veiled admiration.

With one last look at my sisters, I turned and walked towards the searing heat of molten lava. But as I braced myself to jump, a pair of small hands grabbed me, pulling me back.

I turned to find my sisters’ faces streaked with tears and determination. They clung to me with a strength born of desperation, refusing to let me fall into the abyss alone.

“Stop it,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

“She’s not the murderer!” The littlest one shouted.

“It was us!” The other one said. “He was a disgusting man!”

My mother’s pitiful wail echoed across the mountaintop. “See what you’ve done?” she cried. 

“No!” I shouted. The winds became a tempest. It was hard to be heard, but I could not let them admit guilt. Their admissions would be considered legal, and my sacrifice would be for nothing. “They had nothing to do with it.”

The clouds cracked with thunder, and the ground grumbled in response.

The Sister of Lamashtu who interviewed me stepped forward. “Red Mother speaks her displeasure,” she said aloud. “The prisoner has lied! Seize the little harlots.”

I stepped in front of my sisters as the bailiffs rushed towards them. My mother’s wails became painful sobs.

“Do something!” I said to her. 

The bailiffs grabbed my sisters. I kicked and clawed, but I was imprisoned for too long. They barely felt the attack from my weakened limbs.

“They colluded with one another,” the magistrate declared. “Red Mother will have a mighty feast!”

I jumped on a bailiff’s back as they dragged my sisters to the edge of the platform, slapping and biting where I could. I turned and looked at my mother, who sat on the floor alone, crying like a child. At that moment, I couldn’t be angry with her. She was too pitiful, too much a creature of her own guilt, to help anyone. I wasn’t sure what she could do, but I knew before we died we needed our mother.

“Mother, I’m sorry!” I called through the wind. Her sobs lessened. She looked at me through the rain. “Years ago, you lost the love of your life, and I wasn’t there for you. I judged you when you turned to drink, thinking you were weak. You weren’t weak. You were in pain, and I treated you harshly. I’m sorry. But please, we need you!”

She sat on the ground, unmoving. I turned back around. Through the sheets of rain, I saw the edge come closer. One of the bailiffs lifted my youngest sister with a meaty arm and readied to throw her over.

Then, a cry came from behind us.

My mother, barefoot and wet, sprinted for the platform. With a last look, she threw herself into the air, her cloak and robes flapping. Time slowed. In that sluggish moment, I saw her eyes, brown and beautiful as they always were, now sharp and clear. The foul creature she was becoming, which made her curl in on herself, had disappeared. She was a mother again, comfortable in her decision to repent her sins. She jumped into the volcano without a scream. No one moved.

The storm abated. The skies cleared. The rumbling ceased.

Red Mother knew who carried the sin.

I fell from the bailiff’s back and grabbed my sisters in a protective hug.

His mouth moving like a dying fish, the magistrate found his words. “Mother has accepted our sacrifice,” he said in disbelief. “The prisoners are freed.”

 The Sisters were quiet beneath their hoods. The weight of what happened, that they misinterpreted our powerful Matriarch, that a woman would get away with murdering a man, weighed on them.

“Seems our village is cleansed,” said an old crone. Many women nodded their heads. The men looked away.

Without words, I grabbed my sisters and walked them back down the path. No one stopped us. 

As the skies turned pale grey, I heard the whispers of the women who followed and felt their eyes on my back. Word would spread of what happened here, and the Thousand Thousand Nations would one day know my name.

A bloody change would follow.

With Red Mother at our backs, I held my sisters in my arms as we walked home.