Bedtime Story

By Megan Messinger

"Don't be scared a' the dark, Ani, there's nothin' there. He did? Well, ferget what Shiz said. There ain't no such thing as bogles. Shh, don' cry so, Ani. Oh, I know! Howsabout I tell you 'bout why us humans can't see in the dark. Did you know that mortals used t'be able to see in the dark, like cats? No? Well, you'll like this 'un, Ani, 'cause it's about the goddess we named you fer.

"Now, lemme see.... The gods are all around us. They're in trees an' streams, in clouds an' stones. Near three thousand of 'em, all told. Two 'a the goddesses are named Theara and..."

"Annica."

"Who's a-tellin' this, Ani? Anyway, yer right. Theara and Annica. Now, Theara's the goddess of music an' poetry. She's real pretty, dresses nice, sings better'n the birds, an' writes long poems about heroes and what they done made 'em into heroes in the first place. She lives in a big palace under the sea.

"Annica is her sister's opposite. She keeps her hair short, nose like a hatchet, dresses like a man, lives on the sun. But there no better goddess to pray to when yer goin' huntin' or explorin'. She rides across the sun on her fire-horse, named Embyr. That's a beast kinda like yer pony, but not so fat and with a mane and tail made 'a fire. Annica rides Embyr across the sun, an' deep under the sea, too, t'visit her sister.

"Now on the sun and on the stars live serpents, bigger than our house, meaner than a wolf, an' dumber than a chicken. Annica likes t'hunt these vipers down, kills 'em so they don't do no harm. Once in a while she gets hurt. One a' the serpents'll whack her with its tail, or bite her, maybe. When that happens, Annica is carried by her servants down under water. That's where her sister-goddess, Theara, lives, remember. Theara takes moonlight and winds it 'round her sister's hurts till they're all better. Then Annica goes right back and starts killin' serpents again.

"Once, a very, very long time ago, Annica was fightin' a serpent on the sun. This 'un was ten times taller than our house, and not dumb at all. Oh, no, this was a canny one, and it held its own against the goddess for four days an' four nights. In the end, though, Annica killed it, but she was sore hurt. Problem was, it was Midwinter night down here on the earth, an' all the people was out celebratin' an' carousin'. It wouldn't do for us mortals to see the goddess wounded an' bleedin' ichor. Theara saw her sister's plight, stranded on the sun, with no moonlight for healin', an' no way to come down without bein' seen. So Theara up an' cast the biggest spell ever since Creation. She made it so us humans can't see a blessed thing in the dark. An' since Midwinter night is the darkest night of the year, we was all good as blind. So Annica came down, an' Theara took the silver-soft moonlight an' fixed her sister up fine. Annica went back up to the sun, an' got the body of the serpent she'd killed.

"'Well, serpent,' she said, 'if I hadn't been immortal you'd a' killed me. You was the smartest, canniest, biggest one a' yer kind, and a good fighter.' Annica respected that, an' so she hung the body of the serpent in the stars, where he always points sailors eastward, bein' as that's where the sun rises.

"An' so now that we can't see in the dark no more 'n fly, Annica comes down every night to see her beloved sister. That, by the by, is why it's always foggy in the mornin' round here. Annica comes down durin' the night, 'cause it wouldn't be right if us mortals was t'see her, an' she rides her flamin' hot horse under the water. Horse's mane an' tail turn the water into steam, an' come mornin' the steam's cooled a bit an' turned into fog.

"Don't be scared 'a the dark, Ani. It's jes dark 'cause the goddess is passin' by. She's near in the night, visitin' her sister, who lives in our own Beleren Bay. If you ever feel there's bogles under yer bed, think about Theara, and how we never had nothin' to be scared of afore she cast that spell. An' if she didn't do nothin' else when she cast her spell--didn't create no bogles, that's fer sure--why, then dark is just like day. An' don't let no one tell you different, 'cause you're named for the sister 'a the one that done it."