Being a Green Mother Read Online Free PDF Page B

consent, the girls did not tell Niobe of the adventure with the Gypsies, knowing that only mischief could come of this. They came many times thereafter to the hamadryad’s tree, and slowly Orb learned to make the music of the kind her father made, and Luna learned to paint with the aura.
    But of the Llano Orb could learn no more. She didn’t ask her folks, because then she would have had to tell them where she had learned of it, and that could have gotten awkward. Anyway, she doubted they knew. The Magician surely knew, but he was unapproachable; even Luna, his daughter, didn’t dare bother him when he was deep in magic research, which was all the time. So Orb endured with private longing. One day, some day, she would go out herself in quest of the Llano!

– 3 –
TINKA
    Orb stood at the wake, feeling cold. Blenda, Luna’s mother, was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Technically Blenda had been Orb’s half sister, for both of them were the daughters of Pacian, but she had been easier to think of as an aunt. Blenda had been the most beautiful woman of her generation, but she had aged rapidly in the past few years. Whatever researches the Magician had been doing had taken the life-strength from both himself and his wife; now she was dead, and he was old. It was hard to believe that he was Niobe’s son!
    Orb and Luna were seventeen, going on eighteen, supposedly at the prime of maidenhood. It was said by others that they were beautiful, though not as much as their mothers had been. That was hard to appreciate in this hour of bereavement. What was the point of beauty, when a person still had to age and die?
    Abruptly the Magician crossed to Orb. “We must have music for the wake,” he said.
    Orb quailed. “Oh, I couldn’t—” For though she had never been truly close to Luna’s mother—and Luna herself had not been as close as both of them were to Niobe—the grief of this termination was on her.
    “She liked your music,” the Magician said. “She will not hear it hereafter.”
    Orb glanced wildly about, seeking some escape from this duty, and caught Niobe’s gaze. Niobe nodded. Orb would have to do it.
    She fetched her harp. She had been given this when she was twelve; it was from the Hall of the Mountain King. It was magic, and it amplified her talent enormously. Her father’s music embraced the listener when he touched; hers extended beyond touch. She had not realized that Blenda was even aware of it.
    She played on the instrument, then sang. She had intended a sad song, but it came out happy, to her dismay; it seemed that something other than her own will was guiding her. In the old days, she understood, wakes had been happy affairs, all-night parties, but now they were more somber, and certainly she did not feel festive. But she found herself singing a song of light and joy, and the Magician was smiling, and somehow, amazingly, it seemed right.
    Then Luna painted a picture of her mother, in her youthful beauty, and it was the loveliest of portraits. This would go with Blenda, in such manner as it could. She would travel to Heaven with treasured things.
    After the wake and burial were done, things did not return to normal. The Magician decided to move to America, and of course Luna would go with him. This hardly cheered Orb; Luna had been her closest companion all her life. But what was to be, was to be. The two girls had a tearful parting, and then Luna and her father were gone. Oh, they had promised to keep in touch, and to visit back and forth, but Orb still felt bereft.
    There did not seem to be much point in staying home, now. Orb’s father Pacian was over seventy and was slowing down; she rather feared that he would be next and she hardly cared to witness that. So she approached Niobe about the possibility of traveling, apprehensive about her mother’s response, but to her surprise it was positive. “By all means, dear,” Niobe said. “It is important for a girl to get some