To Be Chosen By A God

Chapter 18

                The next morning went a little more smoothly.  When Chelsea collected the former concubines, they quickly got dressed and headed down with her to the kitchen.  Micah had been looking a little worn lately, so she made his favorite; pancakes.  She set the girls to making the orange juice after showing them how it was done.

                When Micah came down, everything was waiting for him.  “Mmmmm…. Pancakes.  You’re too good to me, Chelsea.”

                “You were looking a little worn and I thought you could use something to give you some extra energy.”

                “Thank you.” 

                As everyone was finishing breakfast, the youngest of the women spoke up.  “Mas…  I mean Micah?”  He looked over to her.  “Are you still willing to see if you can find our names in our memories?”

                “Of course.  Would you like me to try now?”

                “I….”  She didn’t know how to respond.

                “It’s ok to say yes.  My energy has been recovered, so now would be a good time to do it.”  She nodded so he stood and walked over to stand behind her.  She started to tremble as he placed his hands on either side of her head.  “I need you to relax.  If you stay tensed like this, it will be harder to find your name.”  He heard her take a deep breath in and felt the tension slowly leave her.  “That’s good.  I am going to enter your mind so you may feel my presence.  I want you to try and think of your earliest memory.”  He was met with a memory of her with Luther.  It disgusted him and she could feel that disgust through this bond that was created for him to look at her memories.  “Go deeper than that.  How about the first time you went to Luther’s temple or maybe walking in a meadow, or dipping your toes in a stream?”  His suggestions helped her to go further in time.  A village kid was calling to her.

                “Laura.”  They said at the same time.

                “My name is Laura.”  She said with a smile as Micah withdrew his hands from her head.

                “It’s nice to meet you, Laura.”  He gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze.  “Anyone else want to see if we can find your name?”  When he was met with silence he moved back to Chelsea, gave her a kiss.  “I’ll see you at lunch, then.”  He turned and headed up the stairs.

                While Chelsea gathered the plates and cleared the table, the girls helped by pulling out the large pot she used for heating water and also began bringing in buckets of water.  They helped her with the morning chores and also the food preparation.  They opted to stay downstairs while she took lunch up to Micah.  As she was setting everything on his side table, Micah received a call from Luther.  Chelsea glanced over at the image of the god of disease, but quickly hurried out of his line of sight.  He was inquiring after his concubines and asking if they were giving him any problems as well as suggestions on correcting any behavior problems.  Micah firmly let him know that they were being perfect and no such action would ever be necessary.  Chelsea suddenly clutched her abdomen and grunted with the pain.

                “What’s wrong?”  He looked over at Luther with suspicion who shrugged.

                “I’m ok, it’s just a couple days early is all.”  He looked at her curiously and then understood.

                “Luther, unless you have anything else to say, then good bye.”

                “Good bye, Micah.”  Chelsea looked over at the god of disease as his image faded out and he had an amused expression on his face.  She didn’t understand it and didn’t have time to process it as waves of cramping pain assaulted her, worse than any she had ever had before.  Micah was next to her in an instant with his hands on her lower abdomen and lower back.  After a few moments, the pain faded and she breathed a sigh of relief.

                “Thank you, Micah.  Those were stronger than they usually are.”

                “It’s ok.  I had thought……”

                “I can’t believe he would do something again so quickly.”

                “I don’t know.  Strategically, it would be the perfect time to do it when we think he’s been cowed.  That call was strange.”  He rubbed her face.  “You seem to be fine though.  How about we don’t say anything about that call to Laura or the others?  They don’t need to know that he was checking up on them.”

                “I agree.  I’ll be back up in a little bit to collect the tray.”  He smiled and kissed her lightly.

                The rest of the day went without incident.  Chelsea was able to show the former concubines how to spin and they spent the rest of the afternoon spinning.  That evening at dinner, Chelsea bit the inside of her cheek hard.

                “Ow!”

                “What happened?”  Micah asked.

                “Oh, I just bit the inside of my mouth really hard.”  She put her finger in her mouth and rubbed where she had bitten and pulled her finger out.  There was a little bit of blood on her finger.  “Great.  It was bad enough to make me bleed.”

                “I can fix that.”  He smiled and leaned in for a kiss.  He started lightly and slowly deepened the kiss.  When they parted, the pain was gone.  She was surprised at how such intimate contact with him could heal her so well, but knew she shouldn’t be as he had told her that after she had burned her hand with the lye.

                “Thank you.”

                “Any time.”

                “You can heal?” Laura asked.

                “Mostly minor things.  It requires me to be fairly intimate.”  She nodded thoughtfully.

                “When I first got here, I wasn’t used to how sharp the knives were and I cut my hand.  It was my first day here so he had to practically hug my hand for several minutes.  It was pretty awkward.”  Chelsea admitted.

                “I remember.”  He smiled.  “It wasn’t awkward for me.  Well, except for the thoughts going on in your mind about me healing up my little maid and cook.”  Chelsea blushed beet red in embarrassment.  “Don’t feel poorly.  It’s my fault I made you feel that way.”  He kissed her hand and then explained to the former concubines.  “Chelsea was very devoted to me as her god.  I needed her to see me as someone she could come to love, not someone to just worship in person, so I was trying to make her angry at me.  I only succeeded in making her fear me and it led to a disastrous result where she ended up sticking her hand in lye because she couldn’t read the warning label and was a combination of too afraid and too stubborn to say anything about it.  That was a difficult healing but it broke down her walls and we were able to communicate more effectively afterward.”

                The former concubines helped Chelsea clean up and afterwards the five of them went to the sitting room where he read and the four women spun.  As Chelsea was spinning, her thread snapped.  It was something Micah had never seen happen with her before.  She was annoyed but quickly fixed the break and continued on.

                The next morning, the dark brown haired former concubine requested Micah help her remember her name.  The process took longer and the things he saw in her memory made him glad she was no longer Luther’s concubine.  Eventually, they said her name together.  “Whitney.”

                “My name is Whitney.”  She said with a smile as tears began to run down her cheeks.

                “It’s nice to meet you, Whitney.”  Chelsea replied with a smile as Micah gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze.

                “How about you?  Would you like to try?”  Micah asked the oldest of the three women.  She shook her head and they continued their day as normal.  As Chelsea was cleaning up the breakfast plates, she knocked over a half full glass of water.  Frustrated with herself, she mopped up the mess and when she turned with a small stack of dishes, she stubbed her toe and dropped the plates, breaking them.

                “Ow!”  She complained as she rubbed her foot.  She looked down at the mess, dejected and began gathering up the pieces. 

                Micah had not gone far when he heard the crash and came back in the room.  “What happened?  Are you ok?”  He knelt down and shook the fragments from her skirt that she was using to gather up the pieces and then waved a hand, causing them all to reform.  “They won’t hold their shape, but it’s easier to clean up this way.”  He explained.

                “I’m just so clumsy today, Micah.  In the space of only a few minutes, I’ve knocked over a glass of water, stubbed my toe and dropped the dishes.”  Her voice was beginning to get thick and he knew that meant tears would not be far.  He wrapped her in a hug and drew her onto his lap.

                “Sometimes we have bad days.  Things will get better for you today.  I’m sure of it.”  As they stood up, they heard a loud tear as the tiniest burr in the wood of the table leg had caught ahold of her dress, causing a rip.  Her eyes filled and he quickly hugged her, burying her face in his chest as he stroked her back.  When she was done crying, he mended the cloth with his power and they both went about their days without any major incident.  She had had such good luck lately that she just chalked it up to a run of bad luck.  The next day was worse as she ended up slicing her hand while making lunch and spilling boiling water all over herself as she was making dinner. 

                With the cut, she was going to be going up to see him soon anyway so just had him heal it then, but with the boiling water, it was her screams of pain and the sudden panic he could feel from the other three as they tried to help Chelsea.  He was there in an instant, surprising the former concubines with his appearance out of thin air.  He quickly made all of the water disappear so that it couldn’t continue to cause damage and then put his hands on her where she had been burned.  He smoothed his hands along the affected area while she wept.

                “What happened, Whitney, Laura?”  He asked while he worked on his beloved.  The third woman was busy trying to heat more water to boil the noodles they had created for dinner.

                Laura knelt down and pulled Chelsea’s head onto her lap and stroked her hair while Whitney explained.  “She was showing us how to make stuffed noodles and she had put a pot on to boil some water to cook them.  She then went to cut up some meat to have with it and when she turned to start stuffing some of the noodles with the meat, she brushed the handle of the pot and it caught around her dress and pulled free of the stovetop.  It happened so quickly we didn’t even have a chance to warn her before it happened.”  She bowed her head and looked as if she was waiting to be disciplined for being unable to stop his companion from being harmed.

                He gathered Chelsea into his arms and sat on the kitchen floor with her on his lap and just held her.  Her skin was healed but the trauma and remembered pain had not left her.  He rubbed her back while she attempted to calm herself.

                “Let me finish that.”  He said to the oldest.  She looked over at him, worried that he was upset with them, but only saw care on his face.  He made a gesture and the food became plated and two of the plates were placed in stasis domes.  “Go ahead and have dinner, ladies.  We’ll join you when she’s ready.”

                “What’s happening, Micah?  I’ve never been so careless before.”  She whispered.

                “I don’t know, love.  Everyone has bouts of bad luck, it’s just that yours seems to all be happening at once.  Do you think you can eat?”  She nodded so he let her get up and he took their plates to the table and ate.

                The next day, as Chelsea was bringing down the laundry, she tripped on the blanket she was holding as some of it had dropped low and she didn’t see it as she was walking down the stairs.  The sudden pull caused her ankle to turn painfully and she began falling.  She tumbled down the rest of the stairs bruising herself and breaking a few ribs.  Micah had taken to watching her due to this string of bad luck and got to her in time to see her come to a stop at the bottom of the stairs unconscious from all the blows to her body.  He scanned her to ensure moving her would not be disastrous and took her into their sitting room for privacy while he healed her.  The three women had come rushing in at the commotion and when Micah saw them, he waved them away before taking her into the sitting room.

                He laid her on their dream couch and began working on her.  It was an hour later when Whitney knocked on the door.

                “Yes?”

                “Chelsea told us that using your power as much as you have lately can be draining.  I brought you some of her honey cakes to help you.”

                “Thank you, Whitney.”  He took one of the offered cakes and ate it quickly.

                “Is she going to be ok?”

                “She broke a few bones, bumped her head a few times and has a lot of bruising to her whole body.  A healing like this will take some time, especially with her unconscious.  If she were conscious, I could be a little more intimate with her, and the healing would go a little easier and quicker.”  He leaned down and kissed her brow.  When the bones were set and beginning to heal, he picked her up and laid down with her on top of him like they would usually lay on this couch.  He continued to rub her back and kiss her cheeks or forehead while she continued to heal.  “I just wish I knew what was going on.  It’s like she’s been cursed with bad luck…..  But Griffin wouldn’t do that.  The only time he’s seen her was at the Summit and there’s no way he would have done it with so many other gods watching even if he hated her that much.”

                Whitney stayed with him while he held Chelsea, occasionally offering him more honey cakes to replenish what he was using while he healed his beloved.

                “It sounds like something Master Luther would do to teach us a lesson.  But he hasn’t seen her since the Summit and this would have started sooner.”

                “Can you watch her for me, Whitney?  I need to contact someone.”

                “Of course.”