Efhi - The Spartan Girl Who Did Not Know How To Die - Part 1a

A story (maybe a ghost story? Maybe not?) Here it is, as told in the Little Cherine Series of novels.

Prelude

“I have not come to you with hopes nor with pleas to hold your powers from harming a new form of life. I am here to tell you the story of a child who does not know how to die.”

The forms that surrounded the guide-messenger could not be bothered to take shape, but he sensed their willingness to listen, more out of boredom that out of any wish to postpone taking action. Too many years, too many turns of entire galaxies have passed for much of reason and the need-to-be-logical to have survived as recognisable signs of intelligence and grace. Mostly what remained were pricklings of curiosity. The messenger hoped his words would also reawaken their ancient blessed ability to feel the emotions of others.

“When you set me as Guardian of the new race about to achieve sentience, I was not warned of the possibility that the birth of a child would re-inspire me to carrying out my duties as Guardian so many hundreds of millions of years later. Well, I am awakened and I have waited through moments of wonder, waiting to be certain of what she portends. I will speak of that later.”

A glow formed in the center and the image of a child of Terran ancestry took shape. It was a child of three years. Her form was slight and shapely to her hips, but from there, the legs were withered and too frail to be of use. Her hair was dark, despite the glow surrounding her, and it floated like fine thin petals of liquid darkness untouched by gravity.

The image rose to float above the setting the messenger created for the ancients to see what his words described. He waited until they had recovered from their first sight of a material world in over five billion years.

The people were known as Spartans. Their philosophies were harsh, but meant to ensure the survival of their people. All children born to them who were not the same as all other children, they were killed by being thrown off the edge of a cliff, to fall upon the rocks below. Some claimed it was a humane way to end their lives, for being newborns, they had no ability to feel pain. Of course all knew this was a lie meant to ease their own feelings of guilt, for it would be worse to allow such ill-shapen infants to live and become a burden on their society.

Efhi (Ευχή) was born with atrophied legs and she should have been thrown off the cliff at birth, but her mother had recently become widowed and living in the mountains alone, she kept her daughter alive. Her three years were lived in a cocoon of love and tenderness, carried on the back of her mother during the day, so that they would never be separated.

Then Spartan warriors combed those same mountains for escaped prisoners and they saw the child. Furious with the woman, they made to grab the child, but she grabbed her daughter to herself and leapt off the edge of the cliff.

The body of Efhi lay within a vee of rocks, crushed by the impact, plus the weight of her mother. The sun, the rain and nature in general, conspired to create a cocoon out of the remains of her mother, protecting and hiding Efhi - and within that darkness, the soul of Efhi lay sleeping for over two thousand years.

The soul slept, but it seems the universe teased at it, altering what it was in unique ways.

I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love - and should some of it be true for our reality, I hope you will love our Cherine.

Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου

(Alexander Zenon Eustace)

^{11th November, 2019}

• posted: 11th November, 2019
  
  
  
  
  

  This story is taken from the Little Cherine series of novels. If you wish to read the Little Cherine Series from the first book, Book 01 to Book 04 are posted on most Steem platforms. Use this link button to open the LC Book Index:

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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