Jack sat on a small wooden bench in a shady spot of Ayarasco's arboretum, fanning herself with a palm leaf and wishing she were confident enough to go about naked. For the last half hour or so she had wandered the winding paths of this secret parklike area, admiring the exotic variety of trees and bushes the old man had cultivated himself by hand, but that was about the upper limit of her energy before needing to sit and rest. She was getting big now, much bigger than she had ever thought possible, even with the experiences of her first life, assisting two separate wives and a mistress through their various pregnancies. Everything about the entire experience seemed so much different, more immediate, more intense, and more bewildering from the mother's side and, yes, though she was still frightened by the prospect of actually giving birth, mostly Jack was just ready for it to be over. It was the middle of summer, she was slow, footsore, and front heavy, easily tired, and even more easily irritated. She was sweating from folds and crevices she had never suspected existed on a woman's body and her bladder was about the size of a pea, which meant her unborn son must be destined to become a marksman, because he unerringly kicked it at least once every hour and sent her waddling for the bathroom as fast as she could go.
Jack could feel herself getting wound up again, unhappy and cranky, not unusual for her these days, but she made a conscious effort to just let it go, to uncoil her mind and her muscles and let the stress evaporate into the humidity all around her. Leaning her head back she examined the interlocking canopy of tree branches above her through slittled eyes, a small smile she did not yet quite feel on her cupid's bow lips. The arboretum was a fascinating place, all the more so because it had been crafted by one man and his miraculous powers, yet remained a total secret to all of 21st century America, especially the inhabitants of Seattle, Washington, upon the edge of whose city it was built - - or perhaps Jack should more properly say, grown. Besides, if she couldn't leave her troubles behind while here, then where could she? Because there was more than just the arboretum to distract her. There was the hedge maze and the water wheel, the steam lodge and the rock garden, the sunstone and the aviary and so many other wonders clustered in this little place just one small step to left of normal space, just one giant leap outside of day-to-day reality. She should be grateful, she realized. Ayarasco had hidden here from all manner of troubles, not least of which was DeMorrell and that damned stone she had made from the idol. Now, he extended an invitation to this sanctuary to her.
Jack sat up a little straighter, feeling calmer now. She had come outside, leaving the ultra-modern conveniences of Ayarasco's deceptively primitive-looking hut, to commune with nature, perhaps even to meditate as she had once learned to do while travelling Indochina, and that was what she was going to do. Struggling to a standing position, Jack paused to get her balance and then moved out of the shade, into the sunlight, heading further down the path. Mustering her courage, and deciding the hell with propriety, she took the hem of her summer dress and lifted it up over her head. A moment later she let it drift like a blue and white cloud down to the ground behind her. More often than not, Ayarasco went about naked or nearly so, clad only in a loincloth and woven sandles, so why couldn't she? Nodding to herself in a satisfied way, Jack dusted her hands off as if the dress she had just discarded were dirty rather than spotlessly clean and enjoyed the feel of the sun upon her skin. It seemed as if even the baby could tell the difference, warmed by the sun and stirring into activity from its womb-sleep. Jack seemed to recall that a fetus in the third trimester could detect shifts in light and temperature through the mother's womb. Ayarasco had returned from one of his many trips to the outside world with baby books for her to read. Jack decided they must have done her some good.
Approaching a reflecting pool near one side of the trail, Jack bent as far forward as her belly would allow and examined herself. The girl in the reflection was pale, too pale, less of an earth mother and more of a swiftly waxing moon goddess, her gibbous belly nearly full. Her posture seemed to almost shrink from the direct sunlight and her long, white-gold hair was frizzy and not very well kept. Most noticeable, there were shadows under her eyes and in her heart. Yes, she had good reason, Jack consoled herself. Not many grandfathers wound up in the body of their derranged twenty year old girlfriend. Granted, not many gradfather's had twenty-year old girlfriends, but was that Jack's fault? Even fewer got raped and impregnated by geriatric crimelords. Only one, in fact. You guessed it, Jack Merlin is our man - - or was. Yes, there was darkness in her. Even now, it was feeding, growing, gestating, but there was also light. So why did she shun it? First, DeMorrell had kept her in his subterranean prison, a slave to darkness, but even after she had won her way free she had promptly re-imprisoned herself, working indoors, then going home to her tiny apartment, blinds closed, lights low, afraid anyone would see her and know what had become of her, the once mighty Jack Merlin, afraid to see and know herself.
Well, no more, Jack decided, then unexpectedly, she laughed. It was an alien sound to her ears, sharp and bitter. Was it really as simple as that? All she had to do was to decide to be free? To be alive? Jack hoped so. Other than chosing to aid Ayarasco in his battle against her despoiler it was one of the few choices left to her. Carefully getting down onto her knees, Jack put her cupped hands into the cool waters of the pool and brought them to her lips. She drank, thirstily, as if she had not tasted water in a long, long time. With what remained she bathed her face and neck. The water was cold and refreshing, inside and out. Hands returning to the pool, she drew more of the life giving liquid and splashed her shoulders, chest, and belly. The quick cold splash against her skin brought goosbumps up on her arms and shocked her once pink nipples, grown so dark over the last month, into hard, pebbled cones. Jack gasped, but it quickly melted into laughter, real laughter this time. Over and over she lifted the water from the pool and bathed herself with it, upending double handfuls over her head, rubbing it into her thighs and belly, cleansing beneath her breasts and the back of her neck, behind her ears and along the line of her collarbone, even the backs of her knees and the bottoms of her feet.
When she was done she did not try to dry herself or even to move. She sat there, legs curled under her to one side, a hand tenderly cradling her belly, the other hand combing through her damp hair, and basked in the sunlight, feeling the water bead upon her skin like diamonds, scattering the light until she was suffused with it. She was warm and comfortable enough to close her eyes. It was several minutes before Jack realized she was staring at nothing in particular and gently humming an old lullaby. It was a tune her nanny once sang her to sleep with back when she had been a boy, a long, long time before she had ever dreamt of being a man and a father, much less a grandfather. Opening her eyes, the entire world seemed new to her once more. She could never escape the horror of what had happened to her, but neither could she remain blind to the sweetness of life so long as she stayed in a place of beauty and wonder such as this.
Clumsily clambering up from the ground, Jack turned to a new path she had never seen before. Irregularly shaped paving stones led off down a winding trail walled in by hanging vines decked with white blossoms. Bright bars of sunlight arrowed across the path at an angle and Jack briefly worried she might already burn from her exposure to the sun, but her concern swiftly dispelled. Yes, the books Ayarasco had gotten for her also warned that pregnant women got sunburn more easily, and yet Jack was somehow full of confidence that nothing in this place would hurt her, not even the sun itself. Instead, the light seemed to almost caress her, swirling about the curves of her body, imbuing her with its immortal luster, nourishing her just as it nourished the flowers. Smiling, Jack reached out hesitant fingers and plucked one of the heavy white blossoms. Moving with a gracefulness she did not yet realize she possessed, Jack placed it over one ear and threaded the broken stem into her hair.
Wandering down the gradually spiralling path, Jack realized that the column-like uprights between which the flower bearing vines were stretched were not in fact trees, nor were they posts. They were carvings, strange grinning or snarling or weeping faces, their features full of intricate detail and hidden shapes, all stacked one on top of the other. She was reminded of the stereotypical totem pole most Americans associated with the art of peoples native to this land, but those were typically of wood and these stone carvings corresponded to no cultural tradition she had studdied or was even aware of, though they did bear some traces of Mayan, Incan, and even Moche design motifs. Jack was fascinated. It was as if the artistic and technological development of the first Americans had been allowed to continue uninterrupted by the arrival of pillaging Spaniards until it had culminated in statuary such as this. She could tell some of the totems depicted familial connections, father to son, father to son, while others were transformative, moving from fish to bird to jaguar to, drawing the deepest response from her, man to woman. Some seemed to follow chains of emotion, amusement to confusion to fear to anger to violence to regret.
Further still, the spiral ever tightening around her, the pylons, as Jack came to think of them, began to meld the various themes, laughing warrior became the weeping jaguars, furious infants became forgiving mothers, and so on. Briefly, Jack imagined that the many face with their many pairs of eyes could see her and was surprised to note she felt no shame. Nora had been a beautiful young woman and now, for better or for worse, pregnant or not, that was her new reality. She was beautiful and in the process of doing a beautiful thing, bringing new life into the world. It was thoughts such as these that Jack comforted herself with as she unexpectedly stepped into the center of the spiral, the hidden heart of the pylons. She gasped. It was a small clearing, no wider across than twelve or so feet at its radius, and at its center sat the birthing stool. To one side of it Ayarasco sat cross legged, busily carving or whittling or some similar activity. Jack couldn't be sure, all her attention was rooted upon the birthing stool. Pausing his work, Ayarasco looked up at her with kindly eyes and smiled.
Noting the old man's frank admiration of her form, Jack felt a warm blush tint her face, neck, and even the tops of her breasts, but she made no move to cover her nakedness. She noted that Ayarasco was also naked and, though he was old as the hills, his back bent and face seamed with age, she felt a brief thrill to realize in a way she never had before that his body was still lithe and muscular, hard and smooth and dark as polished wood. His gaze had weight and force, just as when Jack had first met him, though the focus was different this time. She knew he found her desirable, even though she was bloated with the child of his enemy, and this also gave Jack a strange thrill, at once both repugnant and delicious.
"You know," Ayarasco said casually, only a faint note of teasing in his voice, "among many peoples, when a woman wears a white flower in her hair it is to let men know she is accepting suitors."
"What?" Jack said stupidly, a hand vaguely reaching up to her hair, until she remembered, "Oh! This? No, well, no, I, it was just a silly thing I did. The flower was beautiful."
"Yes," Ayarasco nodded in agreement, his voice deep with hidden meaning, "the flower is beautiful."
"Ayarasco," Jack was suddenly nervous, not quite uncomfortable, just uncertain of what to say or do, of what was expected of her. She trailed off, unable to stop her lips from smiling, but also unable to articulate what she was feeling. Indeed, she was not quite sure what it was she was feeling. Ayarasco silently regarded her, his expression neither expectant nor impatient. In a way, it frustrated Jack because he gave her nothing to go on. No conversational toehold upon which she could gain purchase to sidestep the discussion. She deicded to try again.
"I am very grateful you brought me here, especially to this place, it's so beautiful. The pylons are amazing, and you have been wonderful to me, but...," here she cupped the massive bulge of her pregnancy, "I can't. Not like this. I mean, I don't even know if I want to, but I probably could do it, just to show you how grateful I am, how much everything you have done means to me, but right now I wouldn't even know how."
The last part was a tiny white lie. Jack and two of the three mothers to his various children had been avid lovers up until almost the day of birth, but Ayarasco need not know that. Really, Jack was more than a little bit flustered by Ayarasco's interest and by her own interest in his interest. As an aging adventurer, Jack Merlin had once slept his was though an impressive string of beautiful young companions, the last of which was Nora Volancort, the woman whose body she now found herself trapped inside. Typically these relationships began with Jack eyeing them up and down much the way Ayarasco had just been eyeing her. Until now, it had never occurred to Jack that she might one day become the object of another aging adventurer's still active libido.
Ayarasco's good natured laugh dispelled Jack's fears even as it left her feeling somewhat hurt. She was embarassed to realize that for the first time her nascent female vanity had been stung. Yes, her belly was humongous, but she was beautiful anyway, a young woman in the full flower of youth and fertility. How dare he laugh like that? Jack had always found her own pregnant partners to be uniquely lovely, all curves and soft skin, ripe and inviting. She couldn't do much more than cover her prominent breasts with her palms so that was what she did, her brows drawn together in vexation, plump lips pursed up into an angry pout.
"I apologize, my dove," Ayarasco seemed geniunely contrite, though he couldn't resist one last chuckle, "Do not be angry. You are beautfiul just as you are and I would dearly love to share the friendship of thighs with you, but I have brought you here for greater things!"
Ayarasco fluidly rose from his crouch and Jack could see he was indeed interested, his penis was semi erect and pointed right at her, but his dark eyes led her own back to the center of the clearing - - and the stool. Jack's entire body tensed. Her fear and her arousal were both submerged beneath a strong wave of trepidation. She no longer feared what was to come and accepted that this was her given role in the coming battle, but she was still just as nervous as any other young woman about to give birth for the first time. She swallowed hard and turned back to the old man, "Is it time? But I don't even feel anything, you know, no contractions and whatnot!"
"No, little flower, it is not time yet," Ayarasco approached her with a smile, took one of her trembling hands in his own, placing his other hand upon the mound of her swollen belly. After a moment, head bowed, eyes closed in meditation, his eyes once more met hers, "It is not time yet, but soon. I brought the stool here, I brought you here, because you are ready now. You have shed your clothes and bathed yourself with waters from the sacred pool. You are reborn, free of your past. Now you may concentrate upon your future."
"When do you think?" She looked at Ayarasco through veiled eyelashes, unsure what answer she wanted to hear.
"Soon. A few days," the old man shrugged, "Tomorrow perhaps. A week at the most."
"I don't even have a name picked out," Jack mused softly.
"In the old days it was bad luck to name a child too soon. Much could happen, sickness, weakness, sudden death," Ayarasco's eyes grew far away, briefly reliving the old days, "A child was named for the day and month of their birth. Only when it was reasonable to assume they would live were the omens consulted and a name given."
"Well," Jack placed her hand over Ayarasco's upon her belly, though whether the gesture was friendly or romantic even she was not sure, "I won't be naming our little boy Sunday or Tuesday or anything like that."
"Our little boy?" Ayarasco echoed, his heavy brows lifted in surprise.
"I have several children, Ayarasco, but it looks like I'm going to be mommy this time, not daddy," Jack smirked and shook her head in amused resignation, "This child's true father is you devil-man. He's evil, and my son is going to need someone to teach him how to be a real man. If anyone is going to be his father, it's you."
Ayarasco took his hand from Jack's belly, made a fist of it, and clasped it to his chest just above his heart, "I am honored, little flower. I promise to teach him well."
Suddenly shy once more, Jack decided to change the subject. There was something in the grass where the old man had been sitting. She indicated it with her eyes, "So what have you been working on there?"
"Ah, yes!" Ayarasco held up one hand as if just remembering. Striding over to the spot, he crouched to retrieve what she had originally mistaken for a piece of dark wood. The play of muscles in his still firm buttocks and well toned thighs caught Jack's eye but she forced herself to concentrate upon what was in his hand, not what was dangling between his legs as he returned to her.
"A gift," he said, holding out something long, flat, and serrated. At first she had thought Ayarasco had been whittling or carving. She realized now she was wrong. He had been flaking. It was a large knife made of obsidian and polished to mirror relfectivity.
"For me?" she replied, confused.
"No, for the little warrior inside you," Ayarasco said with a sort of grim formality, "Once he kills the devil-man with this then I will truly be his father."
