it had not been difficult to forgive caracal for what was truly an accident. she had nursed little ava, checked her over. but her mate was committed fiercely to what felt like a punishment — for them both. his absence was immediately stark and noticeable, even though he shirked not a moment with their eight children.
heda had very few moments alone with caracal, taken here and there. the familiar pressure of his body somewhere near her own each night was how she soothed herself with such tiny seconds, and now it was gone. she told herself that surely god had led him to seek absolution, and as his wife she should not question.
but her heart hurt, if only a little. plans for a visit to the mainland began to form in her head as she gathered heads of sea-lavender with which to refresh the den, singing softly as she plucked the nodding purple spires.
He loves his mother like he loves God.
She is a beautiful, ethereal being to him. There is a distance there. She’s been largely preoccupied with the littler babies and he was taught to fill that absence with God, and so he did.
Caracal’s absence in the nighttime is different. It feels like a thousand tiny pricks to the hide, some kind of punishment for what he cannot understand, that was never explained to him.
Even the sweet smell of lavender, which he associates with them both now cannot be savored. He creeps over and places one paw on his mother’s arm to get her attention if he was not seen under the sea of flowers.
“Mommy, hab you seen Papa?”
little, sweet judah. heda put down the plucking of lavender and covered his small toes lightly with her own pale paw. "papa is off hunting, i think," his mother said in a voice that wanted very much to believe and to be jovial.
the story of why caracal was not with them every night wasn't something heda thought she could explain. "do you want to help me with these, judah?" she asked, her golden eyes brightening as she set down several stalks before him.
good work in the service of god had always settled her soul before. she saw no reason why she should not seek it now.
“Ok, mommy.”
He hangs his head. Daddy was already gone at night, why would he leave during the day too? Was he tired of hanging out with him? Maybe Judah was too boring, or perhaps it is simply in the nature of family to ebb and flow like the sea. Mommy hadn't seemed to mind herself, so maybe it shouldn't be treated as such a big deal.
Judah still felt off about it, though.
He noses into the lavender, reaches for a strand of the purple-covered plant and kneads it thoughtfully with his teeth a moment before placing it with his mother’s growing harvest.
“Mommy?” He again returns to Heda’s side, pushing his face up through the fold of violet. “What is 'evil'?”
well. it was certainly a question and perhaps not one that heda had expected to answer. and why not? she did not like feeling so ill-prepared, but took her son beneath her arm as she worked, the scent of lavender now rising pleasantly from them both.
"evil is the opposite of good. people who hurt on purpose, or kill, or mean to bring hatefulness: those things can be called evil."
one stalk, laid beside the first. a third.
"i think lots of wolves don't actually know what evil is until they see it." she looked down at judah, wondering why he had asked but expecting that in his own time, he might say it.
The fix of two-toned eyes hold his mother, vast and deep as the concept struggles to root in his young mind. It becomes a black and white idea. Evil is the opposite of good. It’s inverse. His thoughts bubble.
“Does God stop evil?” is asked next. The turning aside of evil, should it reside on their island. “Do good things go evil, or evil things go good?”
Not once will his stare break from Heda.
steadily did she gaze back at her son. there was a kernel of understanding in heda, that to lie would be easier, to follow the poisonous narrative of omnipotence.
"no," heda said at last, and quietly. "god gives us the strength to help ourselves when bad things do happen. i believe evil can become good, and i don't think anything that's ever truly good can be evil," came her rejoinder, musing as she and baby judah delved into a theology not yet touched.
“The babies are evil,” he implies and blinks. He states it so matter-of-factly and with such a blatant inflection, the way only a child can. He is oblivious of the severity of this claim. It simply is. Mal and Dinny had been whispering it since the birth of the babies. He hadn’t agreed. He’d wanted them to be his own. But it had stayed in his thoughts, and now he was believing it, too.
evil? evil? "judah?" came her flustered rejoinder, for he had spoken confidently. and heda was speechless.
after a few rapid blinks of her golden eyes, the mother gathered herself; "babies can't be evil because babies don't know sin," she said softly, firm in her belief on that front. but she continued to study her son, keeping her tones even. "why do you say they're evil, sweetheart?"
“Evil! Yeah,” he repeats with such a coolness. Before going on to explain simply, “They huwted. On purpose. Demons.” He learned the word from his siblings, who had called them such on many occasions.
“But God gives strength. He can turn evil good?” He looked into his mother. Is that how it worked? But there was another question.
“What age does sin come, mom?"
judah stumped her again! heda didn't like this talk of the babies being demons, no matter what their murky beginnings suggested. they were here now, they were hers, and as far as she felt, they were siblings to her birth-children. "not demons, sweetheart. demons hurt and destroy. they're only little wolves, like you and dinah and malakai and simeon."
but she wanted to hear judah's words, and now he surfaced with a question she could not rightfully answer. "i'm not sure. but i imagine it's not till you're a grown-up. babies and kids, you're still learning how to be good."
heda kissed his small head.
His mother kissed. Judah blew air between his lips until they started flapping and sunk down beneath the swath. With his one golden eye he peeks up at her through the violet. Dinny and Mal were small and can see things from his perspective. How could mom see anything but the lavender from up there? She didn’t know there were weeds sprouting just underneath, or that some flowers grew thorns.
“I learn how to be good,” he declares after some thought.
"but you are, judah! you're very good," heda assured, reaching forward to 'boop' his nose softly with her own. "now, i want to gather some eggs for dinner. do you want to help me?" she asked, wanting to give her boy the choice of joining or exploration.
slowly she stood, glancing out to sea as she always did.
the thorns of the flowers, overlooked.
The poke spouts a giggle, “Ok, mommy. I stay very good.”
“And I find the yummy eggs!” He announces, nose breaching up through the lavender. A gallop takes him down towards the rocky shore with clutches of seabirds. Set aside are his worries- though they are not forgotten.
<3
judah would find the eggs. heda would follow, her voice reaching in a psalm toward the ears of god.
salt and green and lavender; birdsong. ocean.
her home.
their home.