Mother

All I ever wanted was to eat my Mother. We are what we eat, and we eat what we are. It’s the cycle of life; as guaranteed as the eclipse of the twin moons, as instinctual as emerging from the catacombs. All Daughters are raised with the understanding that, if chosen as a successor, they will consume their Mother and leave nothing left. It is the natural way. Daughters deal in what is natural and naked. But I am not natural. My primordial destiny felt out of reach, like the spindly tree branches grasping for the moons. It was obvious my sins didn’t end at being the runt of the litter. I didn’t belong. I have only four limbs, and only two eyes. My throat is narrow, my teeth are dull, and my chest bears only one pair of breasts. But the worst, most damnable of all: my back is barren. Only pale, unblemished skin clinging to my spine. My Sisters, just as our Mother, had backs dotted with beautiful, yonic stomata. My tallest Sister was blessed with the most, virginal and puckered tight. She would always incessantly flaunt herself, preening her delicate flaps of skin. On the other end, I was cursed to possess just but one birth canal, cleft inconveniently between my hind legs and hidden amongst vulvic folds. How could I ever sustain a colony? A Mother that consumes more than she creates will doom a bloodline. Should I have been shown mercy, I could have been swallowed whole by Mother, dissolved back down into the black lifeblood in hopes of producing a better Daughter. Or I could’ve been dismembered alive by my Sisters, divided equally among them as a treat after a long, gruelling lune of pre-birthing. Eaten not as flesh to reincarnate, but as meat to fill their bellies until the next nascent. As Mother says, you can’t feed your womb if you don’t feed your body. But a fate far worse felt inevitable. The ultimate perdition, and what I feared most, was exile. To be cast out, too anomalous to eat, left to rot as unconsumed flesh. Shunned from the bloodline, unworthy of even the sweet embrace of Mother’s stomach. And yet, she had kept me in her brood. Mother was merciful. I thought perhaps she could see something in me that I couldn’t. Some flicker of potential she was mulling over. Mother’s wisdom was as plentiful as it was mysterious. Our first pre-birthing ritual began on luna minora’s waning crescent, far sooner than I would have wanted. But on that night, we were graced to tread upon the Fertile Glade: hallowed ground encircled by tall, pillar-like trees. Mother was radiant under the plenilune light, undisturbed from the canopy of branches surrounding the clearing. She was just as the moons: full, round and unabashed to pierce the darkness. Mother’s flesh, pale as milk, made the impending spectacle all the more captivating. Kneeling in a row on the mist-laiden grass, my Sisters and I were blessed to bear witness. Mother let out a guttural rumble, her skin bubbling and rolling. I was transfixed by the depth of her stomata, ruckling and dilating as gelatinous orbs emerged like black pearls with a pop. They slid down Mother’s corpulent hills of flesh—leaving dark, wet trails—and plopped onto the ground with a splat of fluid. Her entire body rippled in waves, pushing out the stragglers with admirable strength. After her delivery, her many legs buckled in exhaustion. Her body fell, the mist blooming around her from the impact, but we did not dare approach her. Watching from afar with great reverence, I studied the gaping orifices on her back, winking and seeping. I thought, perhaps I was just a little premature. Maybe my skin was just too tight, and my stomata were waiting to blossom. Maybe that’s what Mother saw in me, maybe there was hope yet to serve my purpose. I looked at the litter before me, imagining a future where I could be as fruitful. While a few of the newborns stayed pacified in their fetal sacs, many more began to hatch. They wriggled and rolled on the foggy ground, the thin blanket of mist coddling their skin from the dry atmosphere. They stretched out their limbs, grasping at the air, and opened their eyes to the dark, star-speckled sky. The younglings’ chorus of gurgling, burbling, and clicking echoed through the forest. They cried out for the warmth of Mother, shrieking at the unfairness of their own existence. Their cacophony melded into a discordant dissonance, intertwined with a subtle but painfully noticeable ringing in my ears. As the din swelled, I felt my whole body quake. Even the trees were shivering. The crescendo climaxed with a loud crack, a dozen trees encircling us splitting at the base of their trunks. The raucous children finally fell silent. From within each bisected tree, a soft red glow emanated from the brood tunnels below. From the largest tree trunk, a hand snaked out and grasped the barkーa hand like mineーand out came the Caretaker. His presence always felt surreal and ineffable, because it was more than just a hand. He had the same defects as I did: only four limbs, only two eyes. We shared the same long black hair, and the same ten fingers. But the differences were undeniable. In the same spot as my misplaced cloaca, he possessed an extra appendage. But strangely, it didn’t seem to have a purpose. It never moved in tandem with his arms to wrangle Mother’s new litter, and it never appeared to function as an antenna or proboscis. It always just swayed gently as he walked, knocking against his thighs. As always, he wasted no time wrangling together the newborns. He assisted those still encased in their thick membranes, and pacified the more aggressive younglings that were testing out their fresh claws and teeth. The Caretaker gingerly took them into his two arms and slid them down into the ruptured tree trunks, one by one. The warm, wet walls of the brood tunnels beneath the earth kept the babies safe, as they were swallowed into the catacombs. I remember my awakening, floating in the liquor of Mother’s womb. The memory has waned since then, but I can still recall how the world looked from inside. Everything was a blur of shadows, veins pulsing overhead like black lightning against a red sky. It was a sanctuary of warmth, every contour of my body wrapped in a blissful yolk. I remember being fed to the brood trees, feeling weightless yet secure as I descended. Darkness surrounded me until I reached the caverns, aglow with luminous stalactites and smoldering oil lamps. With the piercing of a claw into my sanctum, a rip, and a squelch of fluid bursting forth, I was born. Even before hatching, there were signs I was defective. Most younglings can free themselves of their membrane casings, clawing and biting their way into the world—only to be hit with the cold air and realize they had just destroyed the one safe haven they had ever known. When a child struggles to shake loose their yolk, that’s when the Caretaker takes action and rids them of the remaining placental scraps. However, for my awakening, I did not try to free myself. Life inside was heaven; how could I ever want for more? But once detached from Mother, had I not escaped, my birthplace would’ve been my tomb. Were it not for the Caretaker, I would have starved. That is where my memory begins to fade, blurry like the world through the womb. It resonates in my mind as a dream; all of my movements were automatic and I accepted every new bizarre facet of the world without question. Listening to Mother’s voice resounding through the catacombs, enlightening and edifying us to the ways of nature. All of us that return to the surface remember this: the underground is both a nursery and a crypt. All that reside there grow to be cannibalized, consumed by their own progeny, or their own Mother. We learn that we are both alive and dead; alive in the moment, but destined to die. It’s only a matter of time until one becomes the other, and the cycle repeats. It is reflected in the sky, as the lunar phases wax and wane. The pale light of moonfed becomes the sepulchral darkness of moribund, only to rise in nascent when the moons brave the sky again. On that night we were blessed by both, beaming with light. As one of the Daughters, it was important to witness Mother’s miracle of creation—to understand the weight of life, of our impending duties—and to witness the Caretaker. He serves the most important role in the colony, second only to Mother herself. The firstborn of all neo-Mothers, he is tasked with corralling the younglings in her stead, the one who brings them Mother’s milk. Once the chirps and cries of the newborns faded into the brood trees, the Caretaker turned to Mother. Approaching her, he gave us a nod in silent acknowledgment. We had been told that Daughters should not expect to ever receive more than a passing glance from a Caretaker, as we are a reminder of their inevitable usurpation. And yet, his eyes always stopped on me. With only binocular vision between us, we couldn’t pretend our gazes didn’t meet. It was clear our similarities never ceased to perplex him. Ironically, fewer eyes had made his emotions easier to notice, and yet harder to read. Was it confusion? Astonishment? Disgust? The rest of his face never betrayed his stoicism, and before I could study his features any further, he returned to Mother’s heaving body. He knelt at her side, gently caressing her. Mother’s girth deflated with a suspirious groan, yielding to his touch. He spoke to her, just audible enough for us to hear his silken sibilants. The tension in Mother’s body melted away, and she lay there in repose, relaxed and content. The Caretaker returned to his earthen portal and climbed back in. But before joining the younglings, he flashed me one last inscrutable look. He snapped his fingers again, and like a flower blooming in reverse, the trees resealed themselves to stand erect as they were before. After the creaking and crunching of treebark, only silence was left in the wake of Mother’s labour. She clicked twice with a baritone warble and poised her limbs to stand. The muscles and joints unfurled in her legs, femurs and tibias untangling. Bearing her great weight on her knees and elbows, she rose from the fog. Her ascent was crooked, stilted, laborious. We all knew Mother’s reign was coming to an end. The unspoken reality weighed on us as the mist weighed on the grass. My Sisters and I averted our eyes, mine looking to the moons. Luna minora’s crescent peaked out like a sickle on the horizon, but luna majora stood high and luminous. She appeared as a milky disc amongst the void. And yet, right at the blade’s edge, I could tell the waxing gibbous had just begun. There was only a quarter left before moribund. I had no time to waste. Mother turned her back to us, signaling the end of the ritual, and slowly hobbled away. My sisters followed suit, dispersing out of the clearing in the opposite direction. I stayed still, my eyes still fixated on the moons. My Sisters chittered and stifled laughs, but had learned not to waste time questioning “the runt’s” strange ways. As their silhouettes melted into the dark forest, I rose to the balls of my feet and quietly followed Mother’s footsteps. I envied her gait, however stiff and creaking her movements had become. I watched each leg move synchronously, her many rows of teats—swollen with sacred milk—swinging as pendulums. I tailed her cautiously for about ten paces, but stopped in my tracks when I heard her speak.

Chapter II “Do you seek an audience with me, my Daughter?” Mother’s voice felt empty, as if her larynx forbade her natural speech. Without moving an inch, her head swiveled backwards to witness me. I fell to my knees, just as I had been taught: quiet, swift, and diligent. I kept my head down, waiting for her permission. In my periphery, I could still see her eyes trained on me, head unmoving as her body twisted in tow. She sank her hulking mass low to the ground on folded legs, the crackling of her cartilage nearly making me flinch. But I swallowed my nerves so as to not disrespect her. “Speak thy will, child.” My heart leapt. It felt too apathetic, too perfunctory to be granted her attention so quickly. But what ran my blood cold was hearing her voice again. It was more vacant than I had realized. My ears were deprived of her polyphonic tone, no second voice echoing in harmony. And without the rhythmic clicks of her maxilla, the inflection of her words fell flat. I was left grasping to understand the intent beneath her monotonous timbre, wavering in the sliver of doubt between reluctance and bitterness. While my Sisters were born with the innate ability to speak and understand the mothertongue, I was damned to lack half of the proper anatomy. It was only through lunations of through embarrassing trial and error that I learned how to understand their intricate intronations and compound cadences. And yet, during most important exchange of my entire life, when understanding the complexities of the mothertongue mattered most, that knowledge was rendered useless. I could feel soul splintering away from my body, so I took a deep breath to suck it back in. I cleared my throat, and looked up to meet her many eyes. “Dear Mother, I know moribund is nigh. Your Daughters have all prepared themselves for pre-birthing… all but me,” my voice quivered, unable to mask my frailty. Mother’s eyes dilated, signaling for me to proceed. “I am corrupted, a genetic deviant,” my brittle voice began to crack, all of my fears and faults tearing through my mind, “I cannot keep up with my Sisters, I was cursed with a singular, lone birth canal that may never bear fruit. I cannot even speak the mothertongue—” “Because you do not possess the tongues!” Mother’s voice bellowed low through the forest, vibrating deep in my core. I instantly dropped my eyes to my lap, surrendering the discourse. “You do not possess the body of our kin. Not our limbs, nor our faces. You may not even share our souls. But even with your few eyes, you comprehend your own disfigurement. Have I not already seen your visage at every angle, every perspective, contour and detail in ways you could only hope to perceive?” Mother’s head slithered towards me, prolapsing from her body. She needed no second voice to express her ferocity. I scrambled to prostrate into the misty soil, praying that I had not defied my filial piety. With tremulous breath, I repented. “Your wisdom is boundless, Mother. You know every fiber of my being better than I. This is why I’ve come to you, I seek the untold truth… for what intent have I not yet been purged? My form holds no promise to serve my purpose. Bountiful Mother, I beg, share with me your wisdom. Help me understand what I cannot see.” Tension held in the air, thick as blood. Mother’s neck retracted back into her body as she repositioned herself, lying recumbent upon the soft moss. The change in demeanor confused me, but I continued to bow, the fragrant musk of Mother infusing itself into the mist caressing my face. She sighed heavily, hot breath wafting over me. Suddenly, her mandibles began creaking. Flexed the weak muscles, she began to again punctuate her words with maxillic trills. I was relieved for a moment, until I heard the slow, haunting thump of maxillary palp against her throat. I knew not what she would do next, but I braced for my blood to run cold. “My child, ever since the birth of our Caretaker, I knew the fault of your disfigurement lay not within you, but within me.” My blood didn’t run cold. It felt as though it didn’t run at all. My body tensed, every muscle fiber pulled taut. With all of Mother’s omniscience, how could she degrade herself so viciously to declare responsibility for my anomalous form? My breath blew gentle swirls into the vapor below me as words slipped from my lips. “I cannot understand.” Mother shifted her weight, then demanded, “Recite the tenets of Motherhood.” This invigorated me. It felt as though I had been preparing my entire life for such a moment, conditioned for a perfect recital at any time, anywhere. “A Mother must feed her body to feed her womb,” Mother nodded. “A Mother that consumes more than she provides will doom a bloodline,” She nodded again. “We are what we eat and we eat what we are.” Each line had been stitched into my mind since my awakening. Before ever climbing out of the caverns, we would hear the wispy echoes of her voice cascading down the catacombs. Deep and rumbling, ricocheting off every stone. Every lune, the tenets of Motherhood rang through my whole body and permeated my flesh. I can never forget them. “You have learned well,” Mother cooed, but her mood soured quickly, “alas, the sins of my past will never be forgotten. Not by my mind, nor my lineage. You are not of our kind, because I ate not of our kind.” I held my breath as though my soul would attempt another escape. The ambient trilling of night feeders evaporated, I could only hear the thumping of blood in my ears. Mother—my sublime, fruitful, divine Mother—had just confessed to committing the most abominable transgression. My mind protested, repelling every single word. Bursting out with a lungful of fear, I begged, “Mother, say it is not so.” It felt as though I were in a dream, with a glimmer of hope I’d awaken at any moment. I closed my eyes tightly, knowing that if I saw Mother before me she’d shatter any such delusion. I wasn’t ready to accept it. It wasn’t real. “With great shame, I speak it true. Had I not, I would be dead.” I raised my head an inch, parting my eyelids only enough to see her as a smear through my dewy lashes. I dared not to open them any further, I had only been strong enough to perceive her as vague shapes in the colour of her moonpale skin. It wasn’t Mother. The amorphous blobs I reshaped between my tear-laiden lashes couldn’t have been Mother. I held onto my last gasping breath of hope that this was all but a nightmare infiltrating my slumber. Then I heard this spectre sigh, and speak in Mother’s voice. Her second voice was woven in as well, and both had sounded too grave and despondent. Too candid, too taboo. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be my Mother. “We were being slaughtered. Another clan, fertile and strong, sought to expand their territory. I emerged as the lone survivor, a Daughter forced to grow up too soon. On the outskirts of what I once called home, I lay starving. Our colony, our heritage, was going to end with me. My death would have been righteous, to abide by the tenets. But the fervent drive to not yet leave this mortal coil disobeyed the sacred creed. And lo, in my time of need, a creature came stumbling through the fog. A creature that looked like you. It stood on hind legs, only four limbs, only two eyes,” Without thought of ramification, my head thrust upward to behold her. My eyes shot open, tears flecking away. My fragile pretense of denial crumbled before me. Mother was corporeal indeed, not an illusion I could foolishly spurn any further. Still, she looked so unfamiliar in her state. I’d never seen her so crestfallen, a penitent look in each of her eyes. She croaked weakly before resuming her confession, “Running frantically, it cried out just as a youngling mewls for its milk. My eyes had never lain upon such a spectre, but by its odor I knew it to be meat. On the cusp of extinction, I summoned enough strength to hunt it and eat of every morsel. My belly full after lunes of hunger, I collapsed. Digesting and gestating, I hoped beyond hope it had been enough, and against the odds, I birthed my own Caretaker. But when I noticed his visage was that of the alien, and not of us, I realized my moment of weakness had sullied the bloodline forever. So, I returned to the soil to languish, rescinding my life to atone for my selfishness.” She paused, the air pregnant with apprehension. Creaky breath hissed through her mouth and spiracles alike, as if the words she spoke seared her flesh. A grimace twisted her face into a cluster of eyes and teeth, warped by her heretical admission. It was the first time—whilst kneeling as one does before their infallible god—that I had felt the scales level between us. The weight seemed to shift with an agonizing truth: I was the consequence for Mother’s sin. I hadn’t wanted to hear another word, but she pressed on, “Yet, the Caretaker did all he could to forbear me from my grave. He braved the outskirts of the wartorn wasteland, scavenging carrion from our kin. From moonfed to moribund, I birthed more and more younglings that reflected my fallen colony. I had hoped that my transgressions had been forgiven… until you were born. In all my wisdom, I do not know how this affected you. Every moon has a dark side, where even I cannot see.” A great, welling sadness defiled her features. A face so beautiful, disgraced with regret. Her eyes glistened and held onto mine with desperation. She continued. “Despite his anomalous form—missing limbs, eyes, tongues—the Caretaker nursed me back to health. He proved his allegiance, proved his service. If he can fulfill his purpose, why not extend the same mercy to my Daughter?” Her piteous tone pierced me like a thorn. I finally had my answer, but it was far more bitter than my tongue could’ve ever fathomed. There was hope for me yet, but it felt so illusory. A Caretaker only required enough limbs to cradle Mother’s young, and enough strength to carry vessels of her milk. My duties would be far greater and far less attainable due to my cursed anatomy. Only one final question perched upon my lips, fearful to fly just as a fledgling peering below the safety of its nest. “What if I can’t fulfill my purpose?” Mother paused, her maxillae tutting softly in deep thought. Some of her eyes looked to the dark sky; some eyes appeared glazed over with no specific focus; and some of her pupils moved rapidly back-and-forth as though in deep sleep. She was meditating on my words, and took her time, as if to ferment my question into something more palatable. Eventually deciding there was no less bitter a way to deliver her answer, she finally said, “First, I must witness your potential for rebirth; if you can prove your worth to the colony and to our bloodline. I will deliberate in my stasis, and decree your fate at the dawn of nascent.” I wished I hadn’t asked. I had longed for these answers for many a lune, tired of the questions that gnawed away at my mind. I had felt that I couldn’t bear to live without the answers to my existence anymore. But now, with my fate sealed yet unspoken, a new fear crawled up my spine and bore its way into my skull like a burrowfly. My time of judgment had been ordained, and all I could do was comply and wait. Swallowing the shudder in my throat, I said: “Thy will be done, Mother.” I arose from the ground, my joints aching from the bondage of prostration. Bowing my head one last time, I turned and trekked back to my chrysalis. My feet knew the soil to be true, but my mind dissented from this new reality. My eyes saw the trees emerging from the fog, but my mind’s eye was stained with Mother’s sordid gaze. It was a miracle I had even found our resting pods, let alone climbed the fibrous web in my stupor. My Sisters were already sealed in their cocoons, no doubt dreaming of the impending ritual. Crawling inside my silken bed, my worries were assuaged for but a fleeting moment. It was warm and lubricous inside, the only illusion of safety I had after being ripped from the womb. I’d always hoped my cocoon would act as those of moths. They enter as a pulpous worm and emerge as a beautiful, winged beast, able to fly away as a vagabond with endless freedom. But it would never be so, just as I would never be pure from Mother’s sins. My Sisters, somehow born unafflicted—each born perfectly in Mother’s image—had both nascent and moonfed to cultivate their wombs. I had only one chance to stay in the colony, one single opportunity to prove myself useful. Peering down at my lone cloaca, I wondered if the ritual was even worth attending. But, I supposed it couldn’t hurt. I was wrong.

Chapter III I awoke to the sound of my Sisters’ musing and chittering, muffled beyond the seric fibers of my cocoon. They preened their vulvas and spoke excitedly amongst themselves, hungry for their first meal as prospective neo-Mothers. I peeled back just enough of my cocoon to look into the inky black sky. It was the cusp of luna minora. Her light was just starting to break meekly from the dark sky, as though she cowered before the luster of luna majora. I wondered if the moons had ever envied one another. While majora can hold her luminance for much longer, her pace is as ambling as dripping sap. Minora’s glow wanes every night, but has more freedom to carve her path through the sky. But despite their differences, they always come together in the eclipse and become indistinguishable. When they coalesce, they are equal. Unfurling the rest of my cocoon, my Sisters’ chattering abated. As I hoisted myself out and descended the webbing, my foot caught on a curled root. I collided with the soil, mist billowing from the impact. With the undulating shriek of my Sisters’ second voices, their laughter was twice as loud. I wobbled upright, gripping the web to stabilize myself. My body ached, my knees screaming, but I hadn’t a moment to lick my wounds. By the time I’d collected myself and swept off the debris, my Sisters had already pivoted to hike back to the Fertile Glade. Even after closing the gap between us, I couldn’t hold stride with them. But I preferred to walk alone. Their incessant banter would’ve quashed my inner monologue, smothering an eager flame. My thoughts were the last fragments of my life that were still in my control. I had no say over my birth, my body, my purpose, nor my fate. But my thoughts were my own, private and impermeable. My mind was a chamber of refuge where there were no consequences for what I kept clenched between my teeth. The fog became thicker the further we walked, but we didn’t lose our way. We were guided by the ambrosial musk of Mother. When we finally reached the edge of the Glade, the fog dissipated. It appeared to repel all but pure, clear air. We saw Mother, as pale and rotund as ever, but our entrance seemed to go unnoticed. Her eyes were glazed over as if in a trance, though she stood with her joints locked in place. The Caretaker knelt beneath her, massaging and tugging on her many breasts. It was true only two arms made his task more laborious, but it was still enough to serve his purpose. With every tender squeeze, Mother’s milk spurted into the oblong pods below her: dried husks of the mammarian bulb. Several had already been set aside, each full with moonlit cream. My own breasts began to throb, feeling heavier than before. Hearing us approach, the Caretaker shot us a glance, but did not break from his task. We knelt in a row once again and waited. At first, my chafed knees stung as I sat, but the dew-laden moss soothed my skin. The pain in my abdomen persisted, but I tried to ignore it. Once the last vessel had been filled to the brim, the Caretaker removed it from beneath Mother’s withered teats. He carried them to a nearby brood tree that had already been cracked open. He tipped each husk into the trunk and it glugged down Mother’s milk. The sharp, impatient clicks of my Sisters insulted my ears, but I couldn’t pry my eyes from the Caretaker. I was awestruck just as the previous lune. Beneath his gossamer skin—blue veins trickling throughout—his muscles flexed and relaxed in a steady rhythm as he lifted the husks, poured the milk, and repeated. Once each husk was emptied and set aside, he looked over his shoulder to Mother. Despite bearing no maxillae, two clicks popped from inside his mouth, and Mother clicked back in approval. Turning back to the tree, he held out his hand above the lip of the bark. The earth hummed beneath the brood tree, a deep, pulsing thrum growing steadily louder. After a long slurp of suction, a spindly hand—tesselated with clusters of knuckles—popped out to take hold of the Caretaker. It proved to be a task that required both arms, the emerging creature’s many phalanges slick and slippery. It was a worker, its lanky limbs dripping with milk. Anointed, it stepped into the Glade and presented itself before her. It prostrated silently, only inches away. Closer than I had ever been to her since the Caretaker stole me away to the brood caverns. Mother peered down at her child, blessing it with one last moment of reverie before distending her jaw. It dilated to the width of her own girth, her throat spiraling into darkness where moonlight couldn’t reach. Her mandibles and maxillae splayed out like quivering spider legs. Once her jowls met the ground, tongues unfurling into red carpets, the worker crawled in. After disappearing into the abyss—leaving only a patch of milk-sodden grass in its wake—Mother’s lips sealed around it. She tipped her head towards the sky with a gulp. Within moments, the sloshing of fluids and sizzling of flesh dissolving churned from within her, and her mighty jaw shrank to its original amphibious shape. While Mother took a moment to gestate, my attention drifted to the Caretaker. When my eyes found him, his own flicked away. He had been looking at me, too. I was sure he was already privy to the root of his own defects, and that he had accepted it. I wondered what had compelled him to keep our Mother alive. Perhaps it was his naivety, a newborn, unaware of the taboos he was enabling. Maybe it was the burning instinct to survive, or the drive to obey his purpose. Fresh out of the womb and wired to serve. Was I a reminder to him of their grievous mistakes? Mother’s weakness, and how he sanctioned it? But I couldn’t pass any blame; he had not asked to be born any more than I had. I wanted nothing more than to assail him with a litany of questions, but his duties were not to speak, only to aid. With a jolt, Mother stirred from her stupor, a guttural moan reverberating in her throat. Her skin started to roll like waves, each cloaca throbbing with every ebb and flow. They puckered and pulsed, stomatic folds pleating and flowering at a steady tempo. The undulation of her body quickened, black fluid dribbling out with every sphincteric contraction. The Caretaker stood poised beside her, watching carefully. The dull roar gurgling from Mother’s throat climaxed in croaks again and again, vesicles of tar discharging just as last time. However, these looked smaller and more delicate. Cupping his hands, the Caretaker scooped up every sac before they hit the ground, and cradled them in his arms. A rasped sigh declared the end of Mother’s delivery, and she fell into the mist with a meaty thud. In unison, I and my Sisters each held out an appendage awaiting our share. The Caretaker started with the eldest, handing each of us our own black orbicle. When at last it was my turn, he looked upon my hands for a moment too long, before laying the last sac in my palm. Our fingers brushed together in a way that felt deliberate. As I inspected the new mucilaginous whelp, it felt heavier than I expected. And despite its relative size to the previous litter, its diameter was greater than the length of my hand. Looking closer, its opaque membrane had a gauzy window of translucence. Inside was a curled, tumorous chunk of grizzle, an engorged lump inlaid with shiny black beads. It was a fetal sac. Unborn potential, ideal for pre-birthing. I couldn’t help but admire Mother’s skill to reincarnate just one worker into so many embryos. The Caretaker returned to Mother’s side, hands behind his back. He pretended to skim his eyes evenly between me and my Sisters. Mother’s gaze had nothing to hide, her many eyes divided equal attention between us. On cue, my Sisters unhinged their jaws. They swallowed their eucharists whole, then poised themselves to meditate. This was my first obstacle. My jaw could not open wide enough to eat mine whole. The pupil Mother had pinned on me constricted to a slit, I didn’t have the time to falter. Bringing the sac to my lips, I squeezed it in hopes of condensing its size, but it only bulged between my fingers. The thin skin of the sac burst, amniotic fluid flowing into my mouth. The sudden squelch broke my Sisters from their torpor. Their eyes shot daggers at me, but I didn’t care. It was their loss to have not savored such a sacred meal. The ichor of Mother’s womb tasted divine: an unctuous, savory nectar. The juices dribbled from the corners of my mouth and rejoined under my chin in thick droplets. I sucked more into my cheeks, the endometrium soft and syrupy. After a few gulps, the fetus landed on my tongue. I could feel the faintest pulse of blood within it before crushing it with my molars. Its flesh gave way easily between my teeth, grinding into a filmy pulp. I swished the luscious slurry to and fro—savoring every morsel—then slurped the last dregs into my gullet. Licking and suckling the juice from my fingers, I was disappointed there wasn’t any more. But if I were successful, to consummate the ritual, I wouldn’t have to wait much longer for more. It was time to join my Sisters in meditation, so I opened my palms to the sky, relaxed my shoulders, and closed my eyes. There was no silence. Moonfeeders snaked through the long grass just beyond the clearing. Aphids skittered in the grooves of the trees. Laceworms carved tunnels beneath the sapwood. They scuttled and scurried, slinking and slithering. Distant echoes, nearby rattling. I could hear breathing, my Mother’s, my Sisters’, the Caretaker’s, my own. Inhale, and the air is sweet. Exhale, and the air is calm. I felt peace and anticipation while basking in the moonlight. I was glowing, shining, resplendent. Feel the natural cycle, the natural rhythm. The soil, the air, it was all singing. Humming. Thrumming. Beating. Pounding. My heart, my blood. Systole, diastole. Chambers beating, vascular pumping, booming in my ears, down my neck, through my arms. Sanguine rivers spilled through my spine, my hips, my legs, my belly, my loins. Pain. Pain deep inside. Aching. Burning. Twisting. A flicker of hope, it’s just gestation. Acids frothing, inevitable pain. Guts bubbling. Gestating pain. Expected pain. Roiling, panging, cramping—no, incubating. Rebirthing. Reincarnating. My shoulders unclenching, fists uncurling. Ignore it. Saliva welling, a swallow, a flavour. Succulent, ambrosial. Desire. Hunger. Soon. Soon, more will come. Digest, gestate, rebirth, reincarnate. This is Motherhood. Fertile, fecund, flowing. Mother’s milk, pale as moonlight. A swelling bosom, billowing teats. My breasts, ripening, filling. Plump, buxom, engorged. Tumid, tender, sore. Pain. Aching pain. Seething pain. No. Calm, focus, concentrate. Digest. Gestate. Rebirth. Reincarnate. Pain. Bloating. Throbbing. Knotting organs, raw welts, gouged wounds, wretched agony. Pain. Pain—A sound. A grunt, a burst, a gasp, and the slurp of skin against skin. My eyes opened. Shaking off the daze, I turned to my Sisters. Everyone was staring at the other end of the line. The eldest had succeeded, the fruit of her labor plucked from the ground and held delicately in her claws. A hushed chorus of swooning and chittering applauded her. I leaned and craned my neck, anxious for a better look. I could see a black, wet streak of fluid that had burst from a pink, winking stoma. She lifted the fetal sac and peered into it as though beholding crystals and pearls. Mother nodded in approval, and within an instant, my Sister popped the sac into her maw and began the cycle anew. She returned to the lotus position, and the rest did in kind. I followed suit, trying to ignore the pain burgeoning within me. I closed my eyes and listened to the world around me again. Moonfeeders rustling, aphids crawling, laceworms burrowing. I listened to the breeze whispering beneath the drum of my heartbeat. Peaceful, tranquil, placid, limpid. A steady beat, a steady mind. Digest, gestate, rebirth, reincarnate. My stomach bubbled. Was this the beginning? The transmutation, the metamorphosis? Pressure grew inside me. Larger, fuller, a waxing gibbous. Developing, brewing, blossoming—then another sound. Several wet pops this time. I heard more crooning, trilling, and the thrum of satisfied gulps. Focus, no distractions. Be one with the world, feel the soil, feel the air, feel the life budding inside. Cells dividing, from germinal, to embryonic. Proliferating, amassing, splitting. Splitting like skin torn asunder, coalescing like cauterizing flesh. The pain. The pain was in my womb. Was my fruit growing too fast, ossifying and maturing too soon? The pain raked at my insides, as though it was clawing through muscle and bone. The agony was too much, and I cried out. Snapping from my trance, I gripped my stomach, digging my nails into the tender skin: an external distraction from the internal torture. My Sisters paused the ritual—some holding their spawn, some straining mid-labour—all staring at me. I doubled over, a sob ripping my throat. The Caretaker rushed to genuflect at my side, his hand upon my shoulder. Through tears, I could see his eyes were dark as moribund. He coaxed me to recline for inspection, and I complied, spasming with pain. His eyes explored me and landed between my hind legs. With apprehension, I looked down. There was a pool of blood. The grass was slathered in a deep red, tiny chunks of black diffused throughout. I felt a movement, something thick squeezing through my birth canal. I thought my youngling must’ve been hatching from within me. Without a second thought, I unfurled my longest finger and plunged it into myself. I scraped out the fleshy jelly from within, and lifted my hand. There was no embryo, only black globules engulfed in blood. All stood still; my Sisters, Mother, the Caretaker, myself, suspended in time. We waited for a sign of life, a tremble, a coil, anything. But my spawn didn’t stir. It just sat smeared on my fingers, nothing but clotted viscera. The tension in the air dissipated, leaving us in silence. I did the only thing I could and brought the coagulum to my lips. The initial scent was sanguine and rich as I sucked it from my fingers. But instantly I recoiled, my face puckering from the flavor. It betrayed its succulent fragrance with the taste of iron: metallic, astringent, and sour. I tried to force it past my uvula, but gagged in revulsion. I purged my meal, black ejecta splattering across the glade. Within the puddle, I could see the molten remains of the fetus I had eaten. It hadn’t gestated at all.