How Miracles Are Born

"It is when yin rises, that light is not whole.

But darkness has place, here Goddesses console.

Increase now our power for life to control

Sacrifices are made, we claim breath for this soul."

***

She knew this one by heart.

Suraya read other bedtime stories to 4-year-old Mireya in her pink and gray dolphin-themed bedroom each night, but this one had pride of place, and a night of enchanted tragic remembrance...

The sound of my heart’s grief threatened to pull me into a maelstrom of unknown making. Reese had always been my heart despite naysayer’s predictions that a young teen couple had little chance of marital success. We endured. We disagreed and nearly came to blows. We had no huge joint bank account by any stretch. Still, we loved. Now, emotion overtook him where he stood next to the papered examination table, my belly exposed while I became stone. The on-call doctor concluded findings after the third ultrasound screening in the darkened cubicle of Estwyn NHS Trust Hospital in East Ealing.

The ultrasound technician said there was no heartbeat.

At 39 weeks and big as a proverbial house, there had to be a heartbeat. Silence permeated that sterile space with its white hygienic and disinfectant everything. Even when the doctor and technician spoke, their words hung on antibacterial vapor. Had they read my file, they would know this wasn’t my first time. Or my second either. Not something I would divulge now. Painful secrets are the ones you keep close. Devastation on top of devastation would stop my heart, and he was already breaking.

This hospital busted at the seams every day, understaffed and under-resourced. Patients on trolleys constantly lined the hallways, as porters in smart crisp linen tops with blue epaulets and healthcare assistants in pale blue pinstripes weaved between them. Patients tolerated oversights and marathon wait times. The abysmal working conditions made it understandable. I was no exception.

But what I wanted was a damn heartbeat and knew I would do anything to get it.

“Suraya, I’m so sorry, but we’ll need to get you admitted to the labor ward for induction. It’s the safest and best—”

I put my hand up right in front of his face.

The baby hasn’t moved since last night. A stillness haunts, screams through me, and chokes me at the same time. Everywhere I look, a black veil occludes half my vision, but I dare not say anything to be bombarded with more tests.

Silent tears race down my husband’s cheeks. My ride-or-die dude catches his second wind.

“Tell me what’s gotta happen next, Doc,” Reese says, pulling him aside. His thick Philly accent a game-ender. Instinctively, he knew what would happen if that doctor kept talking.

Channeled rage in me is unstoppable.

I have nothing against medics. They’re just such a cerebral lot who forget one simple fact:

As much as they want to, they can’t know everything.

My baby ain’t coming out dead.

As I lay in the ward bed with darkness etched around the window, I close my eyes and summon ‘The Circle’ the proper way I was taught many, many moons ago. My mutterings go unheard as Reese slumps in the faux leather bedside chair in fitful sleep. I breathe out a time-suspension chant I haven’t used in an eon and pray it somewhat works.

I suspect there’s a new moon tonight and I might catch hell for being long-term MIA, but I soundlessly slip on my clothes, grab my purse, and blend invisible to the exit. I’m sure a few consequences could be worse for a woman than losing baby number three, except maybe losing baby number four.

***

“That’ll be £18.75 for you, Miss.” The Filipino cabbie is polite, but I can tell he’s already worked too long today. His voice sounds haggard, like its already preparing for successive jobs for the rest of this arduous night, after successive arduous nights.

“Here you go,” I pass him a fifty-pound note. “Keep the change and take an hour off,” I add.

His face visibly brightens. “You need me to pick you up after your…erm…I don’t mind waiting around.” Trepidation creeps in his voice. I’m sure because of how isolated and dark this area of Harlington is, and of course how maximum pregnant I am.

“It’s alright,” I say making it up as I go along, “I got friends wait—meeting me here.”

Even though his expression says he doesn’t buy it, he hands me his business card and drives off. One sacrifice down. I had no money left. Who knows how many more to go?

Hold on little one. Hold on!

It’s still difficult for me to see and the torch on my phone doesn’t help much. I can ill afford a slow walk on the narrow, winding path towards Hounslow, but a misstep would be worse.

Ash and sycamore leaves blow rustles with the mid-autumn winds. I wish I could take comfort in what they were saying. At 7 yrs. old, I spoke the language of the trees, but school kids can be hideously cruel, and I stuck out enough as it was.

Stop talking to the trees. They stop talking to you.

As I make my way towards greater darkness, a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach nearly doubles me over.

“Unnnggh! Mmmmmmmmm!!!” I wait for it to pass and for the first time, doubt finds me.

Did the summons really work?

What if I get there and I’m all alone?

I can hear Reese now calling me outta my name for this life he had no knowledge of. This life I buried. So, why should it bother to save me and what I want?

“Aaaaaaahhh-haaaa—Ohhhhgoddessno! Nooo!!!” The intensity brings me to my knees.

“O ye of little breath,” says a soft voice with bare feet.

Mama Taitu who infused my dreams for years became quiet desolation and the saddest of all to see me abandon 'The Circle' because she understood. Her crisp yellow linen robes smell of cardamom and ginger as she lifts me firmly to my feet.

“There isn’t much time Suri.”

Missed hearing that pet name only she used.

“Take a real deep breath, Hon. They are waiting.”

That breath in Mama T’s hands lifts us both skyward and we fly past treetops, looking down, glimmering like stars above. A purity reminiscent of long-ago moments that my eyes can’t stay open to see.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I awaken, but I can feel nine Sistren. They circle counterclockwise around the stone slab on which I lay chanting the songs of Oyá, Goddess of the Wind and Air. I have been stripped of all clothing save a blanket. It’s a relief to feel. It has already begun.

The Mother Yew tree, wizened and gnarled, presides as omniscient while the High Priestess Ashanti brings a clay cup to my lips. I know it will taste of every vile herb and root, but complaints don’t exist in the coven. Never did and never will. I drain the fluid as the highest in the order holds my head, her hands wreathed in silver bracelets and rings with crystals that dance light orbs from the small fire of the enclosure we are in. Her eyes are kind and her hair grayer than I remembered as a young one.

I smell dampness and earth and want to lay inside the song. Wise women of this summoning wear an array of golden-hued robes and tighten the ritual circle. Only the High Priestess is in white. It is easy to know without question, that the night belongs to Oshun, the Goddess of Sweet Waters. She watches over all children. My belly feels like a lead weight but as the Sistren close around, their hands sweep along every inch of me gifting the power of their love, a divine magic all its own.

“Too long have you been away from us, “the Priestess whispers, her palm warm against my scalp.

So, my hair is gone. Expected, I guess.

I push thoughts of explanation to Reese far from my mind.

A pale-yellow robe and lemon-yellow robe offer hands and arms, then straddle my sides to help me walk. There are members of the covenant I wouldn’t know due to my lengthy absence.

Palo santo aroma wafts from the fire that heats a small cast iron cooking pot. The memory it flashes, I cannot question. Someone saying years ago, how “Palo santo bark held back the dark abyss people fall into when about to have a nervous breakdown.”

My circumstance is undeniably dire, and I know it but if anyone can help…

Shuffle steps toward the fire and the Priestess throws in copal resin that hisses and sparks against the burning wood, releasing an ethereal sweetness. The part of the ceremony that caused me to run all those years ago and not look back. I could not bear it.

“We all take life in one form or another, Suri. Whether cow, fish, yam, or herb. These things were alive until we touch and take them,” Mama T had rubbed my back as I cried the first time. “Someday,” she explained, “we too shall become sacrifice.”

I watch as the lock of Daddy’s hair, Mama’s pearl necklace and the only clear photo I have of her that I keep in my purse are placed in the sacred flame. Numbness overtakes as each adherent removes drum, bell, and rattle from their robes and rhythmically beats, rings, and shakes.

A piercing blue crystal amulet is placed around my forehead covering my third eye, ajna chakra. As my eyelids grow heavy amidst the continuous tributes to Oyá, five chickens and three rabbits are brought bound within view on the bare brown earth. The skill of the High Priestess unparalleled. Not one animal struggled or suffered, but I lost awareness soaked in blood, screeching silent “I’m sorrys” inside.

Praises to Oshun fill every space and pull me back to presence.

“Move your legs, Suri. You’re almost there.” The same two-robed Sistren are beside me, but Mama T holds my gaze as she beckons me to step into the river. My heart pounds a hammer in my head and the last thing my feet want to do is move. I am gently pressed forward to the Priestess in waist-deep water. Surrounding air is a curtain-thick shroud as the body of Ashanti becomes the vessel for Oshun. My legs start trembling and I cannot make them stop. They threaten to make my body an involuntary vibrating mass of tissue, but there is a firm kick from my belly. Everything melts away. Hope now has proof. Bless the Goddess!

Another presence full of mirth, light, and heaven’s joy draws closer. Songs sung become even sweeter. And with a splash, she is there, held eye to eye in front of me. The only dolphin I have ever seen in my life. My whole body spills light and laughter. I thank the Goddess over and over, and over again. All the Sistren come in close and hold me firmly. I am unable to move. The sacrificial knife flashes tiniest glint before being plunged into the belly of the dolphin for its heart, a final sacrifice. The entire circle holds me as I weep into oblivion.

I remember only three pushes from beyond thick thunderclouds, and a mass of blood and flesh not moving at all. Lifeless. Grateful modern witches have charged devices with video recording options. I have evidence that remains forever hidden. Soft prayers and incantations as a large plum-sized bloody heart, still pulsing, came nearer as the Yew tree bowed its branches in blessing. A faint, shrill wail, gurgly and growing in strength as I reached out toward her and whispered…

“…Mireya! Mommy, you whispered Mireya, right?!”

“Yes, sweet one I did.”

“Cuz my name means miracle. And you never told,” said the sing-songy voice.

“No, little one.”

“And you saved 'The Circle' and—”

“—And in 25 more sleeps, I’ll be home with you and Daddy,” said Suraya.

In the background, a door clicks shut. There's a rough-cut woman in a crisp tan uniform, who wears a holster with Beretta and badge.

“Time,” says the prison warden gently as she reaches toward the laptop screen, quartz crystals on two rings of her outstretched hand.

“Baby, remember we are everywhere and nowhere and cannot be stopped. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Love you Mir-Mir!”

***

Supernatural practices rarely lay in compliance with statutory laws. In this case, that of a protected species of dolphin whose carcass left multiple DNA traces but only one confession.

However, from every echelon of society those who have knowledge, and who are desperate enough for an outcome, seek out someone who knows how to summon the covenant. Who do the difficult things to achieve the miraculous secretly craved.

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