Reclaiming Earth

Chapter 1 – Can We Find Her? Rael felt the cold grass under his shins as he knelt down by the pond. There were a few stars still out, but the Eastern sky was beginning to fade to silver, and he had come out into the garden to get the early light in his eyes, as he had done every morning for as long as he could remember. Goosebumps rose on his bare torso as a light breeze caressed the mountainside. The flowers he had planted were beginning to bloom as spring began to give way to summer, and they now opened one by one as the dawn approached. He closed his eyes and sent out his strongest gratitude and submission to the One who made the beautiful Earth he was kneeling upon. He silently requested courage, strength and wisdom, and felt a Presence in the wind, swaying the trees on the ridge above the house. He smiled, eyes still closed. "Thank you." He whispered. "Rael!" He turned and saw Blaide walking down the path through the trees toward him. Her youngest child was wrapped against her chest, asleep, and her dark hair hung in a heavy braid over her shoulder, swinging with her long strides. "A bit early for a visit? Where is your man, wench?" He made his voice sound serious, but she threw a stick in his direction and grinned. Rael stood up as she approached, towering a full head and shoulders above her, and met her with a sideways embrace and a kiss on the crown of her head. Her hair had the pleasant scent of rosemary and geranium and her face was hot against his side, after her brisk walk over the ridge. "I want breakfast, or I won't have milk for this one." She pointed at the sleeping baby. "Your wish is my command. Sit down and rest. And seriously, where is Jared?" He offered her a seat at the wooden table in the courtyard, as well as a tall glass of cold spring water. She admired the pristine factory-made glass, free of scratches, and asked where he had found it. It had been in the house before he renovated it, one of a set of six, wrapped in a 2024 newspaper inside an airtight cedar chest. He picked berries, tomatoes and leafy greens from the kitchen garden as she cheerfully explained that her husband had taken their five elder children hunting, little number six had wanted to stay with her grandmother, and number seven was too small to be away from her mother, so Blaide had decided on a short walk in the forest, and at the last moment turned down the path to his house. Rael excused himself to put on a shirt and grab a large loaf of crusty, hot bread out of the oven in the kitchen. He placed the steaming bread, soft goat's cheese, ripe tomatoes and berries on the table and took her hand. They bowed their heads in gratitude for the food, then fell to with gusto. Rael remembered just in time that a nursing mother should not have sage and took the herbal tea he had made back into the kitchen, making her a separate pot of chamomile and fenugreek. The bread was heavy and good, full of seeds and raisins. Blaide ate six pieces, and Rael couldn't help but smile. She wiped her mouth and looked down at the infant beginning to stir, unbuttoned her tunic and latched her in her sleepy state. The sun rose and colored the landscape golden, and Rael admired the little dark-haired girl drinking peacefully, safe in her mother's arms in a completely different location than where she went to sleep. Blaide seemed to read his mind, sensing the longing for a family of his own. "We'll find her. You know we'll find her." Rael looked down, and then locked eyes with her across the table. There was anxiety in his face. "Will we? Will we be able to keep her alive? Will she even want me? Will she be able to fall pregnant? Not miscarry? The city girls are barely human any more, Blaide, I'm terrified it won't work, and I will never be a husband or a father." Her gray eyes looked intently back into his. He seemed completely comfortable sharing his fear and vulnerability with her. Not a typically masculine trait, but it somehow contributed to his attractiveness, rather than detracting from it. "Rael, look at reality. You're... six-foot-eleven? Your testosterone levels are obviously good. You know how to care for a woman, your father taught you boys all the right things, if Jared is any indication to go by. The Earth under our feet is full of electric healing energy, the plants are full of healing nutrients, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountain spring water, love and connection is in the very air we breathe. All these things will combine to heal and restore her from the shell of a girl she is now, living wherever she might be, among toxic chemicals and constant electro-frequencies of the wrong kind. We can help her, if we can just find her. The Hackers will help us. If we help them get a girl, they will help us get ours. A wife for you (hopefully) and a second girl for our tribe. The elders are even talking about convincing them to let us keep their girl until she is of age and in better health. You know how they treat their women." Blaide grimaced in disgust. The Hacker tribe the next mountain range over, had managed to save a wide array of technological devices from the Great Disaster of 2030, but they retained almost no knowledge of the natural world, they had no connection to the One who made it, they treated their women and children disgracefully, and Blaide had point-blank forbidden the elders to help them unless they received education from her first. "We couldn't help Sarah," Rael threw back, a little more harshly than he meant to. Blaide dropped her gaze. Rael’s elder brother Seth had lost his wife Sarah, after she had miscarried for the fourth time. This was when the elders began stepping in and increasing the age of marriage and childbearing for girls, to eighteen. Blaide had tried to help her sister-in-law recover, but an infection had ravaged her body, and despite all the powerful antibiotic concoctions and poultices Blaide and the elder women of the tribe could formulate, she had passed away 21 days after losing her child. "She wouldn't listen to me, Rael. I told her to wait, I did my best to explain her fertile days to her, how to use the full moon to synchronize her cycle, which seeds to eat on which days...but she was desperate to be a mother, to prove her worth to Seth and to the tribe. She should not have been trying to fall pregnant so soon after miscarrying." Rael replied, more softly, "I know you tried, we all tried. I’m sorry." Blaide leaned back in her chair and switched the baby over to the other breast. He had wanted Blaide as his wife the moment he saw her, but they were too much alike, with dark hair, slate-gray eyes, long limbs and deep, intense personalities. There had been fears that they shared genetic similarities which could affect the gene pool, and the elders had asked Blaide to marry Jared, Rael's elder brother, instead. His smaller build, though still tall and masculine, green eyes, dusty blonde hair and easy-going nature, reassured everyone that they would be genetically compatible and able to have children and contribute to the tribe's numbers, which had been dwindling for years. Rael and Blaide agreed to remain friends, and Rael forgave his brother, encouraged their union and there was never a prouder uncle than when their first child was born 11 months later. As he had gotten to know Blaide, he realized they had more of an intellectual connection. Jared often complained good-naturedly that she was like the female version of Rael, intense, dark, wildly passionate about learning and knowledge, a walking library of information, physically strong, mentally hard as a rock, though warm and emotional much of the time. It turned out for the best and the seven strong, intelligent children who were now in the world because of this wise choice, were evidence. But Rael couldn't help longing for companionship and connection, someone to share his life with the way Blaide and Jared shared theirs. Blaide surprised everyone by having twin boys at eighteen, followed by an unplanned single baby at nineteen, then she insisted on keeping a good gap and fell pregnant with twins again at 21, had another singleton at 23, and now she had little number 7 at 25. Her children were perfect copies either of her or her husband, with no mixtures of any kind. The eldest identical twins were green-eyed and blonde like their father, the third boy had dark, straight hair, gray eyes and the emotional intensity of his mother. The younger twin girls were fair like their father, as well as the three-year-old girl, and the baby of the family was dark like Blaide. This baby, though, was nothing like any of her six siblings. They had been strong and intense from birth, lifting their heads from a young age, hating sleep, not wanting to miss out on anything. They all walked and talked early, and generally enjoyed being with their father and going on adventures. Little number seven was soft and calm, she almost never cried and was content to be in her mother's arms, observing the world through wise eyes which were not changing color as expected, and Blaide thought it possible they would remain pools of deep cobalt blue, rather than turning gray or green as she grew up. Rael offered to walk back over the ridge with them, but Blaide thanked him and declined. She asked for some of his Holy Basil as hers seemed not to be thriving, and he pulled a few plants out by their roots and wrapped them in a wet handkerchief, suggesting she plant them under her tomato plants, where his had been doing well. She thanked him, and would have kissed him on the cheek, but he stood straight, feeling the need to keep his face away from hers. He had made peace with being her brother-in-law and trusted friend, but sometimes he had to keep a tight hold on that. He watched her climbing the ridge and disappearing into the trees with the baby on her back now. They disappeared into the woods without looking back.