Dweller snarled, “Look who is near to us. An Earthian Member. This is not your locus, Member. Yours is over there, among that shabby pile of Earthian trash.”
“I am where I am,” the Gardener whispered. “I am weary of them. They are noisy sometimes. I like it better here.”
“Why, it’s a little weeper,” sneered Darkness. “Not like the rest of them.”
“Not like them, no,” whispered the Gardener. “They want only to go on. I want to end.”
“Soon you may have your wish,” giggled Drinker.
“Oh, if only that could be,” murmured the Gardener. “Can you make it happen?”
“Ah, yes,” chuckled Dweller, emitting a belch of fire. “We intend to make it happen.”
“But Earthians don’t want to die,” the Gardener persisted.
“They’ll try to stop us,” sniffed Darkness. “They and the Gentherans…”
“The Gentherans?”
“Dweller has seen Earthian Members mixing with Gentherans. This means they are plotting together,” said Drinker.
“They’re always plotting,” breathed Gardener. “I want to destroy them, and myself…”
Drinker whirled slowly, a ragged spiral of torn skin, dark with bruises, wet with blood. “We have learned that Gentherans watch intently over certain people…”
“Our Sources hired Thongals,” giggled Darkness. “Very sneaky Thongals to find out what people the Gentherans are watching over. The Thongals found two of them among our people: one feeding a ghyrm on Cantardene, one feeding the umoxen on Fajnard. They are dead, or will be soon. Perhaps you can find others for us…”
“What are the Earthians and Gentherans plotting to do?” moaned Gardener, in the little god’s weary voice.
Drinker gaped hideously. “Whatever it is, we’ll stop it.”
The three turned toward one another, put their heads together, murmuring. Gardener drew apart. Soon we found ourselves a distance away, the dragonfly around us.
“They suspect,” said the Gardener. “And it seems they have identified some very important people.”
“Are those gods real?” I demanded.
“I am one of them, Gretamara. We exist, but we are not real in the sense that a tree is real or a rock is real. If all the people in the universe were gone, the rock or tree would still be there, but we deities exist only while our people do.”
“My parents believed there is only one god,” I insisted.
“Oh, I believe there is One,” the Gardener agreed. “A being larger than any mortal god; a being that encompasses the universe without being dependent upon it, preexistent and postexistent, a being so vast only a fool could claim to know its purposes, One who sets all into motion, then waits…”
“Why did it create the K’Famir?” I interrupted angrily.
“I did not say ‘create.’ The K’Famir are not a creation, they are a consequence, as are we all, Gretamara. Health or disease, pleasure or pain, joy or grief, all are consequences of the creation of life: All are possible. If no room is left for the possible, it is not life, it is mere repetition. Within our race, we encompass the scale from great good to absolute evil; we have had great leaders and philanthropists, and we have had serial torturers and killers. These last, mankind has regarded with sick fascination, trying to understand them as human beings. They should not try, for they are not human beings. Body shapes are only that, a shape, but when evil inhabits us, it is the same evil that inhabits the K’Famir. If you believe all humans have a capacity for good, then you must identify those who have none as something other than human. Only death ends them.
“The One god does not meddle in its creation, but we mortal gods often pretend it is our business to do so. We cannot move a straw upon a mortal world, but we can move ourselves from place to place…”
I asked, “How did we get here if you cannot move a straw?”
The Gardener smiled. “Where is here? Did I move you? Or did I merely whisper in your ear to see what I see? Now I shall whisper again, and what wonder! You will somehow be moved to Chottem, to Bray, to the house of Stentor d’Lorn, to find whatever secrets it holds and whatever darkness it hides.”
I Am Margaret, at a Birthday Party on Tercis
On the day of the birthday party, we loaded the food into the wagon and drove across the bridge toward Billy Ray’s farm.
“How many of ’em this year?” Jimmy Joe asked me.
I sighed. “The only ones left at home are Benny Paul, Sue Elaine, Trish, and the two little ones, plus Mayleen and Billy Ray.”
“Humph,” said Jimmy Joe. “Seven of them and six of us. Thirteen. Suppose that’s an omen? I suppose their contribution to the festivities is hamburgers? Someday I must taste one.”
When Mayleen and Maybelle were little, I had mentioned that hamburgers were an old Earth tradition for summer gatherings. I had never tasted a hamburger on Earth, nor had I at Mayleen’s, even though she provided “hamburgers” at every birthday party.
This year would be no different, I saw as we approached, for Billy Ray was lighting the fire, using lots of coal oil. Mayleen, standing among billows of ugly, smelly black smoke, slapped the meat patties on the grill. They both came over to help us unload the food we’d brought from home, leaving the smoke and the flames to sort it out between them. Later, we each took one of the resultant “hamburgers,” covered it with a bun, then lost it over where Uncle Billy Ray’s dogs waited with their tongues out.
Maybelle had made salads; I’d brought fried chicken and two birthday cakes. The two little ones ate like starving creatures and went to sleep under the picnic table, icing all over their faces. As soon as the food was gone, Benny Paul pulled Til away, and Jeff followed them, his feet dragging. Trish and Sue Elaine sneaked off after. I watched the departure with
