The Fern Tender Read Online Free PDF Page A

enthusiastically added, “They do a pretty good job, but to me from what I’ve heard their leaders just aren’t that smart and are kind of lazy. Seems like a mess out there to me.”
         Lillian, stopped her and quipped, “OK, Edie thanks for that but let’s stick to the official teachings of the Colony.”
         Edie got back on track, “Furthermore, our Fern Tenders are chosen for their tour of duty at 10 and 30 year intervals depending on their age. They cannot serve after hitting their 36th birthday. They then retire to the Elders board. All must be of the highest intelligence, consciousness, and beauty the Colony has to offer. So really, your job as Fern Tender is to maintain harmony on local scale and in a natural way. Pretty much this means you make sure that the fern monkeys don’t kill off the last ferns by eating their fronds. Keeping harmony means using nature to solve problems and our natural solution to that problem is jaguars. So, as long as our jaguar population is healthy and balanced, they will either hunt or chase around the fern monkeys enough to keep the ferns constant.” 
         “Good Edie, and what about other variables?” Lillian said approvingly as Edie stayed on task.
         “Well, there’s the weather, other animals, and even the unseen or what we call the ebb and flow of our own good energy, our different abilities to reason through probability - or what people outside the Colony call magic.  I mean really Miss Lillian, you have a pretty hard job with keeping track of predator, prey, constant, weather, and magic. Get one wrong and we may lose the world’s balance, harming our existence and ultimately our protector’s existence as well.”
         “Thank you Edie, and let’s remember our constant, the truth.” She replied, “That our ferns contain the fractals of all goodness and beauty in life. And keep in mind you’ll also learn about the Spring and The Wheel within the ferns next year.”
         “Now back to our ferns, so what are fractals, girls? They all replied over each other; shapes like triangles that form our world - the shape of nature.”  Lillian’s thoughts drifted slightly when she thought about her own triangle, as inappropriate a time it was to think about what David would do to her own triangle, she still let the thought run its course and wash across the tops of her thighs.
         "OK", she spat out shaking her head slightly at the slight diversion, “What we as a community of women do here in this colony is deal in probabilities. Our magic is simply applying the truths and discoveries of math and biology. We distill our knowledge of nature and the hidden laws of the universe. This gives our people an edge over our outside and natural world."
         "Can someone tell me how they applied their magic recently?" She again gently shook her head in haste when she thought about her own magic and the power she wielded just yesterday on the unsuspecting guy at the coffee shop.
         “I found my cat with my magic,” shouted Edie again. Being the Fern Tender, meant the occasional gritting of teeth was required when working with Edie. Not only knowing that she was the top ranked girl in class, she was Alena’s half-sister. Edie was David’s daughter with his third wife.
          The whole thing could be maddening and humiliating to Lillian. She wished deeply that Alena was at the top of her class and in line to be the next Fern Tender, but knowing her math and probabilities the way she did, Lillian knew that Edie was firmly on track to take her place on her eighteenth birthday.
          “OK, explain your cat magic to us Edie," Lillian said trying to keep her irritation in its place by maintaining a light manufactured mood.
          “Well, last week during the lightning storm Josie went missing. After the lightning stopped she didn’t come for her dinner or to hop in bed with me like usual. So, I used the senses and