My Mother Divinity [Unedited]

Chapter Fifteen

One Year Ago

Sally has figured out the truth.

She would still be used to George and Lenny having Jane at theirs, spoon-feeding her banana porridge, while she took the dog to the marshes for a stretch. Sometimes little Jane would have come with her in her polkadot wellies and yellow raincoat so she could splash around in the puddles but she's not little Jane anymore, and the dog is long dead. In fact, it's been about seven years since Sally even said a word to her daughter.

Ever since she ran off with that boy. Sally tuts to herself even to this day, thinking about all the needless arguments this whirlwind romance has caused - mind you, it doesn't differ much from the passionate affair Sally had once herself, going off to marry who she thought was the man of her dreams in Northern Ireland, of all places. And then she got pregnant, the man turned as sour as a lemon, and he bolted for the hills.

Jane's pregnancy brought back a lot of conflicting emotions.

She never even considered abortion or adoption despite being fresh out of high-school, no career in sight, hardly any money to afford rent - but the girl was stubborn and before Sally could bat an eye, many months had passed and Jane had swollen up the size of a watermelon, and there was no undoing it or parting with the baby then. Well, that's what she heard - God knows what's happening now what with the end of the world and all.

That was the final wedge between them: the birth of not just a harmless baby, but a new God. No, Gods, plural. Perhaps the fear and violence and slaughtering that seemed to happen overnight only brought Jane and her lover closer together, and drove her old mother further away. Whatever happened, Sally spends her days with the new dog now, Charlie, the overseas rescue retriever with one eye.

Charlie is a young bundle of energy and needs walked at least twice a day, but rarely does he get off-leash time - he's had a terrible upbringing in Eastern Europe and is fear-aggressive to certain triggers; if he were alive nine years ago, he would have hated the white vans or the men in fluorescent construction helmets from the city. Nowadays it's just tall people with beards or the sound of whistling so Sally does her best remembering to avoid humming the tunes she used to listen to on the radio.

Their latest routine has been a little off course; they usually tend to run down by the streams but there's been heavy rain and flooding and they find themselves seeking higher ground. Sally asks Charlie if he wants to try visiting the old abandoned farm outside the village. "You'd like a sniff around there, wouldn't you?" And Charlie only blinks his one remaining eye.

Nobody is a stranger to the tales of that farm - there have been whispers of bodies buried under the fields, homeless people taking fits like they're possessed by evil spirits, drunk teenagers straying too close to the boarded-up windows. Worried mothers snapping the necks of their chickens when their children get off the school bus and come down with a particularly bad cold. It's a world full of superstition but one thing is clear: they call that farm the home of the Gods.

This isn't a widely-recognised theory; it's really just the locals that made it up. Sally knows that at least one person did used to live there but even a decade ago, there was no car, no lights on, no sign of life at all. All the 'forbidden entry' signs have been trodden down by foxes and rodents but the message still stands: if you go too close, no matter who's around, you may lose your life.

But she's running out of exciting new places to take Charlie and it's starting to rain for, what, the fourteenth day in a row? Fuck it. Sometimes the Gods whisper in her ear like they would with any other but never have they explicitly warned her of any dodgy-looking cottages that might have any significance to them. Sally moves quickly, eager to avoid the misty dampness that will follow them on their journey.