Fellowship & Fairydust

~ by Adeel Ahmed

Rated PG-13 for violence and language

Author’s Note: These are excerpts from a series of stories by Adeel Ahmed. The world is an alternative history Earth where Mythology and humans with special abilities existed through human history. It combines fantasy, Wuxia and superhero genres into it.

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“Put that car down, young lady,” warned Mariam.

“But mom, it was in the way. Now we can park here,” said the pre-teen holding a van above her head.

“I said put it down,” Mariam repeated, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. 

Zenon dropped the car, the wheels bouncing roughly as it landed on the road. A car alarm blared in the air. 

 “Put it back properly.”

“Fine,” pouted Zenon, lifting the van again and gently placing the vehicle back down. 

Mariam sighed. Even as a baby Zenon was always an extraordinary child, invulnerable from the moment she was born. She ate only out of curiosity, cried out of boredom more than anything else, and she didn’t have to sleep. It was hell, and Mariam almost went broke paying for babysitters so that she could have some sleep.

Other than invulnerability, Zenon had never before displayed any powers.

Until a few days ago, that is.

It was super strength. Of course, it was. How could Mariam not realize this would happen?

And it was terrifying.

Zenon was a very kind, but aggressive girl. How could an ordinary woman control a Pantheon? Zenon was hitting puberty, soon to be a teen. Rebellion was inevitable. What would happen on the day Mariam argued with Zenon, and Zenon decided to get physical?

She would have to find a way, for her daughter’s sake. No other mortal woman had raised a half-Pantheon daughter with all the abilities of one that was full-blooded. There certainly were mothers raising children with super-strength, however, and many of them turned out to be normal. Mariam took courage from that at least.

“Mom. Right here. Look, look!” exclaimed Zenon excitedly, making a narrow parking space wider by pushing the two neighboring cars away.

“Zenon, honey,” exhaled Mariam, getting back into the driver’s seat.  “Get back in the car, sweety.” 

She let her mind drift back over the years as her daughter jumped in beside her.

Why did you have to die? Why does she have to be so much like you?

Mariam’s husband was dead. During his life,  he had visited her rarely, but those visits were blissful. She was just an ordinary woman, and yet he had chosen her. He was one of the few remaining gods of the old world to have re-awakened, among the most powerful of the old Greek Pantheon: Apollo.

At last, Mariam found a parking spot near the end of the mall lot; her vehicle barely squeezing into the tight space. Mother and daughter carefully left the car.

“I want to buy that new Mixer video game, mom,” Zenon chattered. “He was daddy’s friend, right? He’s so cool. ‘I am the night; I am a crusader. Die, evil-doer, die!’ I wanna become like daddy and meet him one day. Him and Gray-Blade…”

“No, honey. You’re going to tell me what clothes you want to buy today, and then you’re going to go to school in a few weeks,” stated Mariam sternly. Heroism took away her husband, and she wouldn’t let it take Zenon too, not if she could help it.

“I hate school!” Zenon whined. “The other kids are stupid suck-ups! They say nice things when they see me, but behind my back, they say mean things, that my chin is too big, my lips are like worms. They think I can’t hear them, but I can. The super-human and enhanced kids like me are nice, even behind my back. They treat everyone else really bad, though. They’re mean, and daddy told me not to be friends with mean people.”
    Mariam was astonished. If she understood correctly, her daughter did not want to be friends with the children who were mean to other children even if they treated her well. How many twelve-year-old girls would understand that? How many adults?

“You know, honey, you’re a very wise girl,” said Mariam, smiling down at her daughter.

“That’s not what my teachers say,” Zenon replied glumly. “They say I’m special. That’s what teachers call kids they think are retarded, right?” 

“Don’t use that word. That’s very rude, Zenon,” her mother lectured.

They walked through the sliding doors, and Mariam felt the air conditioning of the mall hit her like a punch.

Mariam cursed Zenon’s supernatural hearing as she pondered what her daughter told her about what she had overheard, all the backbiting and gossip that Zenon’s senses could detect.  A child should not hear these things, never.

But your baby girl is twelve, Mariam. Almost a teen. She’s not going to be a child for much longer. How will she handle the world then?

“Can you promise me something, baby?” whispered Mariam.

“I’m not a baby, mom.”

Not even a teen yet, and already she’s getting that attitude.

“You’ll always be a baby to me,” Maryam countered, desperately suppressing her feelings. “Can you promise me something? That you’ll never use your strength to hurt anyone? No matter how angry you are? No matter what?” 

“What about bad people? Daddy used to beat them up all the time. I want to be like daddy.”

“Daddy only hurt people to protect other people. He saved me many times when I was chasing a story. But he never crippled or killed anyone unless there was no other choice.” Mariam crouched down, making her level with her daughter. “If your mommy is in trouble, you can fight, okay? And when you grow up, if you still want to be a super-hero, you can do it. But only use your strength to protect people, all right? You’re going to be more than just invincible and strong. The scientists say you’re going to have all the powers of your daddy. Daddy wasn’t a bully. Jesus wasn’t a bully.”

“Why do you believe in Jesus, mom?” inquired Zenon. “My friends said dad was a god. People used to worship him. Then most of the Pantheon went into hiding, leaving just the weak ones in the wild with only creatures of Myth as worshippers. Few of them came back until recently, and almost no one worships them. Is it because Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad came? Did they scare daddy? Make him hide?” 

“Maybe you can ask the priest next time we’re in church, dear,” said Mariam with an amused smile. 

The tabloids often wrote about Mariam’s faith, finding it ironic that a devout Greek Orthodox Christian was in a relationship with a creature once worshipped as a god. But Mariam had many conversations with her husband on this (arguments according to her friends). He had told her that the old gods were a race of powerful beings, beings who inhabit this plane and other planes of existence. But God, to her understanding, was beyond the universe, only limiting himself once in the Body of Christ, with wisdom guided by His divine nature. Apollo had no divine nature; she knew this. He asked the same existential questions as every other human being on earth, but unlike Christ, or even any of the prophets, saints, and mystics, nothing answered him back directly. He held no otherworldly wisdom, merely a great intellect and power.  

“Mom, look at that man.”

A tall blonde man was walking toward her behind the chaos of the crowded mall. There were young, old, human and even human-animal hybrids here. This was the biggest mall in the city after all. Following the blonde man was a woman covered in fur with the head of a wolf. Both their expressions were in deadly earnest, fixated upon Mariam and her daughter.

What’s an Anthromorph like that doing here? These ones were military types, thought Mariam looking upon the wolf woman. 

Mariam recognized danger when she saw it. She experienced it more than once in her life, and every time her husband appeared and saved her.

Why here? Why in this mall? What could it possibly be? Was it her baby girl? Was it someone she angered from one of her stories? She didn’t do that anymore, no more investigative journalism since her husband’s death. Now she just wrote pretty articles about motherhood with an extraordinary child and Christian reflections on faith and culture. There was no reason for anyone to target her.

There was no Greek god to sweep in and save her now either.

“Zenon, run now!” shrieked Mariam, taking her daughter’s hand and bolting back out the door. 

“Mom!” cried Zenon, clutching Mariam’s hand as they rushed back out into the parking lot. She winced at her daughter’s tight grip. Poor girl didn’t understand the level of her strength. “There is a man hiding by our van. I can hear him breathing…”

Mariam glanced backwards. The wolf woman and the blonde man were gaining on them.

Mariam pulled Zenon into an alleyway. Security. She needed to find security.

“I don’t get it,” rasped a voice that made Mariam jump. She looked all around, but couldn’t see anyone. “You’re nothing special. Not even pretty. Trailer park trash would be a lot more fun to take to bed than you. Why the hell did a god ever want to marry a woman like you?” 

Mariam continued looking around her frantically, but she could not see anyone, anything. It was as if the voice was disembodied. 

“Please, I’m not a reporter anymore. I quit my job. My husband is gone. Please. There is nothing I have that you could possibly want,” begged Mariam. It was pathetic. She didn’t care; there was so much to live for, so much she needed to do, for that beloved girl holding her hand.

“You? You’re nothing. But her? Oh, she’s so much more, she would be the greatest of my collection,” stated the voice.

Then a gunshot rang through the air. Pain surged within Mariam’s chest.

Is this what it was like? Is this what her mother experienced in Kosovo?

A red light flashed in front of Zenon, and the pre-teen screamed. 

Her baby girl. What happened to her baby girl?

Mariam fell backwards, her head slamming against the concrete.

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Image Credit: David Liew