“So it is agreed then”.
Alice looked around, searching for approval. The circle had
gnashed their teeth at each other for some time, and now Alice finally felt she
had the foothold to put this issue to rest.
Alice expected affirmative nods, but instead was faced with
grim silence and red rimmed eyes. They all knew what had to be done, but none
of them could say it out loud. They were all mothers, everyone of them, and
they, better than anyone, knew the costs.
It was Alice who had originally proposed the idea to the
group. Times were scarce, and life wasn’t getting any easier on their account.
They would all have to make it happen. In secret. Their power was in secrecy, and
they all knew it; it lay in the mysterious unknown, the ultimate unknown, that
of beginnings and creation, creation and life, life and consciousness, things
not easily trifled with.
Alice produced a knife from her garments, and with a savage
twist cut her own hand, allowing the blood to drip into the metal bowl in front
of her. She passed the knife to her left, and in turn each of the women did the
same. So it was decided, a pact of blood, a promise of unspeakable things,
necessary things, a reminder of sacrifice.
For they also knew the costs of war, the price of rape, and
the murky depths that follow naturally from the degradation of the human soul. They
knew the great evil that lays dormant in these spaces from birth in the hearts
of men, the sound and the fury of prideful sin. They knew it just as well as
they knew their fathers, their husbands, their sons.
And so they would lay their sons to rest, born but not for life,
a dark damp secret. They could protect
the core, rebuild, but first everything had to change.
Each women left the circle feeling uneasy and hollow.
