It is the beginning of summer. Jake is halfway through his second year. I am just now home from a long day at the fields. By home though I mean at my neighbour's house across the street. The house is packed, and the conversation is lively. Jake and another toddler, Liana, teeter through the crowd as the rest of us sit around the fire. Baby Ivan gets passed around from person to person.

"So then the spider told the lord that they would go on the quest for him. But in return he had to grant the spider freedom to spin webs wherever they wanted." Bella's words ring out through the small room.

"I love spider!" Liana exclaims.

"Me too!" Davie responds. "They're so cool."

Right then there is a knock at the door. Which on its own is very normal, people come and go all the time. But there is something about this knock that is very deeply ominous.

"Open the door!" a booming voice calls out. I rise to obey.

Outside there is a knight dressed in gleaming armour, with a harsh expression on his face. He looms down at me from his tall height. Fear clenches my heart tight. This cannot be good. This cannot possibly be good.

"Yes sir," I manage to get out.

"Is the son of the king here?" he barks.

What kind of a question is that? Why on earth would the son of the king be at a rundown village hovel in the middle of nowhere? The king doesn't even have a - oh. Oh damn.

"He's not here," I lie, trying my best to keep my voice even.

"We have received word that he does indeed live in this village. If you do not hand him over then we will have no choice but to kill the entire village."

I try to keep the horror out of my face.

"He's here," I finally confess, "but ... why do you want him?"

"The king wishes to raise his bastard son in the palace with him, where he will have control over what sort of man he becomes, so that he can keep him away from those who seek to depose his majesty."

Oh. So this is a bid to stay in power. The king wants his potential if imperfect heir away from the hands of anyone who could dethrone the king and instate Jake in his place. Of course.

"Will we get to come along with him?" Jake needs his family. He needs us.

"No, you may not, because the king thinks it is best to keep the child away from any corrupting influences."

Of course he does.

"I will give you the son," I concede, because what else can I do? All our lives are on the line. "But," I press, "can you please give us four days in order to say goodbye?"

"Alright. You may have four days. But when they are finished, you must give over the child."

They leave, and finally, I find myself able to turn around. Everyone is looking at me, horrified. Except the babies, who are simply confused. And except for Amy, whose expression is unreadable, but there are tears streaking down her face. Nobody says anything for many moments, and I cannot find it in myself to say anything either, so I just gaze on.

"Who they?" Jake finally asks.

"They're bad men," I speak quietly.

I walk over to my sister.

"I'm so, so sorry," I tell her, tears welling up in my own eyes.

———

The next few days are spent not working, but rather taking Jake around to everyone in the village so that they can say goodbye to him. Jake doesn't quite know what's happening, a fact that both soothes me and breaks my heart at the same time. He's so sweet. He's so innocent. And all of that innocence is about to be ripped away from him in a few short days, and there will be nothing we can do about it.

"I love you Jake, we all love you Jake, always remember that," Old Woman Bettie tells him.

"No matter what, remember where you came from. Remember all of us," young Joseph presses.

"You're a good boy Jake. Don't forget that no matter what anyone tells you, you're a good boy," Sky avers.

Jake for his part is soaking up the praise and revelling in it. I hope he can hold on to these memories. I hope that no matter what happens, he can hold on to these memories.

Amy is holding Jake, and we are in Aliya's hut, surrounded by her friends and family.

"Do you know that, I helped you come out of your mother's belly, little one?" she asks.

"I in there?" Jake's voice is curious.

"Yes you were. And inside there you grew up to be big."

"Wow."

All at once, Aliya falls over onto the floor like a rag doll. We all look at each other in worry. But before we get a chance to do anything, she rises again. But the voice that comes from her mouth is not her voice at all. It is far stronger, far deeper, and far more all-reaching. It is so deeply maternal though, which is similar to Aliya's voice in that regard.

"Take the baby and his family into my forest," the ethereal voice speaks, "there you will be safe."

We are all silent for a while.

"Baby Jake?" Davie asks, "Do we take baby Jake into the forest? Will he be free of the king there?"

"Yes. Take the child into the forest."

"But who are you?" Little Emily asks, eyes wide.

"All will be revealed in time."

With that, Aliya sinks slowly to the floor. When she gets up again, she looks frazzled and disoriented.

"What happened?" she asks in a tired voice.

"I think you became a vessel for a higher being," I answer.

———

Davie, Amy, and I go to the forest with Baby Jake, each of us taking turns holding him. We do this on the morning of the day when the king's men are supposed to arrive, after we've said our goodbyes to the whole village. The forest is on the edge of the village and it stretches out and out throughout the lands, farther than we know.

But the forest is dangerous. It is ever so dangerous. There are knights patrolling it and traps they set for people to fall into. So we make our way with caution, watching where we are going and constantly keeping an eye out for any danger. Heaven knows that if we get caught now, it would spell the literal end of everything that we hold dear.

But still, we trust in the voice. We do not know who the voice is or why they talked to us. But we trust them to show us the way, and we trust them to keep us safe. Because there was something deeply motherly in there. Something so deeply motherly that it seemed to be the pure essence of motherhood itself. And there was something deeply natural, unimaginably ancient, so ancient that it felt like perhaps the first thing in existence.

And so we walk on, carefully.

"Tree so pretty!" Jake coos, pronouncing the r’s as y’s and not pronouncing the t’s at all.

"They sure are, honeybee," Davie tells him.

"I like here."

"So do I, Jakey, so do I," I agree.

Amy, as always, says nothing. But she does smile. And it's a small, fleeting thing. A small, flitting thing. And it's beautiful.

———

We've been in the forest a few days, surviving on wild berries, sleeping under leafy canopies. It's lovely, living here. Even though the nights get cold, they get so cold. I suppose we will have to sew cloaks of fur for the winter. We are almost getting used to it now. We are getting used to this wild sort of existence. It's a free sort of existence, much freer that anything I have ever known.

But then we see it. The king. Dressed in rock hard furs. Riding his tall, maroon, thoroughbred horse, eyes glinting hard and cold like the sharpened edge of a sword. He is flanked by knights on either side, and they are riding down the sloping hill.

They do not seem like they have seen us yet, so we quickly rush to hide behind a large shrub with many leafy branches.

"Hush," I tell Jake.

"Why?" he asks in a naive voice.

"Because the bad men are coming. The bad men who took Mama's voice."

We hide behind the shrub until we can see that the king and his men have gone away. We have to get away from him. We have to get somewhere safe. We emerge out from behind the shrub and quickly start walking in the other direction, Davie nodding at my plan to retreat somewhere safe.

Suddenly, an arrow whizzes by us. Jake screams. Amy's eyes go wide in panic.

"Peasants!" a voice calls out through an iron megaphone, "cease your futile attempts to flee and stay right where you are! Or this next arrow will find its target!"

We stay right where we are as a knight rides up to us, chain mail arnour glinting harshly in the light. He calls on his megaphone for the king to come. And this is it. This is finally it. We are going to die or lose our child or both.

The king gets closer and closer on his large, nimble horse. His eyes are hard with pure hatred. Jake is screaming in Davie's arms.

"Still yourselves!" A deep and ancient voice calls out all around us, seemingly from the ground itself.

The king and his knights halt their horses.

"Leave this family and their child alone!" the voice demands, maternal and protective and fearless. Jake stops crying. Davie holds him right.

Everyone is still for a moment.

"No," the king finally states. He moves his horse closer, and his knights follow him.

Yet in one sudden, terrible and glorious moment, the ground opens up and swallows the king and his party into it. I stare out in amazement, unsure of what to make of this all.

"We have to tell the others the good news." For the first time in years, I hear Amy's voice.

———

[If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.]