Chapter One: Circle
Helen stood several paces from the open doorway. After a moment of contemplation, she turned and started in the opposite direction only to turn again and stop after a few steps. The actions brought her to the spot where she began.
A sudden gust of wind blew her white hair into her face. She didn't mind. The air was warm but crisp and reminded her of home. After a moment, she closed her eyes, whispered, "okay," and walked the remaining distance to the grass-roofed house.
She stopped when she spotted Lin Coe through the doorway, knelt before two piles of clothes; one folded the other not.
"I think I've never known anyone more domesticated than you."
At the sound of her friend's voice, Lin turned and smiled.
"One of these days, you really must tell me what such words mean."
Helen stepped out of her shoes and into the house.
"It means you act like an old married woman when you don't even have a mate."
"Can I offer you something to drink?"
Helen shook her head, "No. I just wanted to say goodbye before I left."
"And how long will you be gone this time?"
"I won't be coming back."
"But why? Don't you like it here?"
"Yes, but you know I can't stay. There are too many things I have to do and staying here doesn't make them go away. It just puts them off."
"I am sad."
"As am I; but you knew this day would come."
Lin nodded.
"Shall we have a party before you go?"
"I think not. Besides, the only one I really care about leaving is you. I mean, the others have been nice but they're just friends."
"I don't understand. We are friends, are we not?"
"Yes... that and more."
"Come. Sit."
Helen knelt beside Lin and rocked backward to sit on here heels. The low table was the only furnishing in the room. Thin cushions were positioned around it; six in all. There were times when Helen missed some of the amenities of her old life. Chairs were one of them.
"Do you remember when I said people would come?"
"Yes."
"Well, they will begin arriving tomorrow."
"Is that why you're leaving?"
"Part of it. I don't think it would take much to provoke me into doing something rather evil if I stayed. I don't care for them. In fact I don't care for them at all."
Lin shook her head.
"Always mysteries with you."
Helen smiled.
"Yes. But you know as well as I do that's the way things have to be."
She lowered her head and fell silent. Lin scooted along the floor until she was beside her. She placed a hand on Helen's leg.
"I find it is best to just say what I must."
Helen tilted her head to one side and opened her eyes. A single tear trickled down her cheek.
"How do you know?"
They leaned together and hugged while Helen wept. When it felt like she had no more tears, she pulled back, pushed her fingers through her hair, and sat straight again.
"Tell me what you must tell me, Helen and then it will be done."
"Could I have some of that wonderful tea you make?"
"Sure."
Lin rocked back on her feet, stood and walked to a small basket on a shelf that ran the length of the north wall. From it she extracted two dried leaves.
"Two daughters," Helen started. "You'll have two daughters. The youngest will be named Paal."
Lin nodded approvingly, "After my mother?"
"Yes. The other will be named for me."
Lin returned with two wooden mugs. One she handed to Helen, the other she kept for herself.
"Why will I name my child after you? Helen is not a name of my people. In fact it's the only name we will not use."
Helen shrugged.
"I don't know. That's one of the things no one has ever explained to me. I don't understand the significance of my name. In fact, in all the years I've lived here I still don't know why Helen is a forbidden name."
"Well," Lin sipped from her mug, "it's not really forbidden. And once you arrived we all understood the other Helen would come soon to close the circle."
Helen squinted and shook her head quickly.
"Try to put that in a way that makes since."
Lin's smile brightened her eyes.
"I forget you don't have our memories. While you are us, you are not us and many of the things we know and take for granted are things you don't know at all."
"And there's that whole not making sense thing again, yes?"
"Yes." She folded her legs beneath her and turned around to a wicker chest. "Let me show you this."
From the chest she pulled a large, leather-bound book. A layer of dust covered it. Helen recognized it immediately.
"How do you have this?"
Lin turned back to the table, opened the book and placed it where Helen could see.
"So you know about the book?"
Helen nodded, more confused than before.
"If you have the book then you've known who I was all along."
"I've never read it. Grandmother gave it to me with certain conditions. The first is, never to read it. The second is, keep it and give it to the elder Helen. Now I know my child will be one of the two but...."
Helen reached across and closed the book.
"Tell me about the two Helens."
"Well," Lin turned up her mug and finished the last of her tea, "you know that we have no written history. In fact, we have no books, save this one. All of our history, everything we know of our past, is in spoken lore and our genetic memory."
Helen nodded again.
"Well, in all that collective history, there are only two Helens. One is called death's daughter; the other his mother."
"You're not making sense."
Lin smiled.
"That depends on your perspective."
"No," Helen tilted her head to one side, "that depends on whether you're making sense."
"Actually, there is just one other thing I need to know. Are you my child's granddaughter or is she yours? If you are her's then she will give birth to the one called death. If not, then death is your son and will be my mate."
Even before she stood, Helen began to weep again. Not the uncontrolled sobs of earlier but the slow, mournful tears of painful lose.
"You," Lin went on, "never said from whence you came. I've always known it was not from our time. But I didn't know if it was from the before or the not yet."
Helen stood at the doorpost looking out across the fields that surrounded Lin's home. She sighed, closed her eyes and tried to decide how to say what she knew she must.
"My son," she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "David is the name I gave him, was precious to me."
"The ones who are coming; who will be here tomorrow; he was raised by them and believes himself to be one of them."
She placed her hands over her belly.
"But he came from my womb and his blood is my blood. And the children you have with him will be Apita; not mixed breeds. Because even though I'm from another place and another time, Apita blood belongs to me as well."
***
Lin Coe sat on the rock outcropping, legs crossed, eyes closed, head back with her face turned skyward. Helen told her they would come on this day. But the day was nearing its end and still, they had not arrived. So as the sun slipped lower toward the distant horizon, Lin continued to wait.
Her patience was rewarded by a sound like a clap of thunder followed by the low rumble of heavy motors. To this, Lin opened her eyes and watched as two dark objects descended toward the desert floor, below her and some twenty kilometers distant.
Lin stood and hopped down from her perch to begin the trek to the landing site. As she walked, she found herself remembering Helen's words and she spoke to herself aloud.
"Why do you hate these people, so, my friend? What did they do to you that was so horrible?"
She sighed and made the rest of the journey in silence but continued to ponder her friend's words.
