A.k.a. Goddess

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

The Grail Keepers’ Bedtime Story

L ong ago, before accepted history began, there lived a Great Queen with nine powerful daughters. Their powers lay in their beauty, in their truth, in their abilities to heal and create and protect. Their powers lay in their skill at dance and art and sports and poetry.

But their greatest power lay in being women.

Because the world needed them, the Great Queen sent her daughters in nine different directions to be queens in their own right. And she gave them each a finely crafted cup.

“Pour your powers into these cups,” she instructed, “and share them as you will. But if ever you find yourselves in danger, a victim of fear or envy, hide the cups so that your powers can live on, even though you be forgotten.”

Her daughters agreed, and off they went. For a long, long time they ruled as beloved queens—queens of the North and the South, of the East and the West, of the Heaven and the Earth and the Underworld. They married and loved and bore children. But all things change, wheels turn, and eventually, as the Great Queen had predicted, men began to fear and envy their powers.

One queen was imprisoned by soldiers.

One queen was denounced by priests.

One queen was outlawed by a senate.

One queen was erased by scholars.

One queen was exiled by her father-in-law.

One queen was overthrown by her stepson.

One queen was betrayed by her lover.

One queen was forgotten by her son.

One queen was deserted by her husband.

As each queen found herself in danger from fear and envy, she asked her own daughters to do as her mother, the Great Queen, had instructed. She had them hide her cup, so that the powers she had poured into it could survive, waiting to be found and shared if ever the world again became ready for them.

The cups wait to be discovered.

The cups wait to be united.

The cups wait to change the world.

They are waiting still…perhaps, my daughter, for you.

Chapter 1

T he light over my front door was out again. I noticed it as I carried my damp gym bag up the shadowy outer stairs. I’d have to call the landlord.

Then I climbed high enough to see that my door stood open several inches.

I knew I’d locked it.

Someone was in my apartment.

For a long, dumb moment, I just stared. Then I backed down the steps as quietly as I could. Don’t get me wrong. I come from a long line of strong women—WACs, suffragettes, ladies who disguised themselves as boys to fight alongside soldier husbands in ancient wars. And, trust me, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my family and woman power.

But there’s a huge difference between strength and stupidity. Our brains are our best weapon, or so my sifu—instructor—used to say. I reached and unlocked my car, and all but dove inside. I hit the lock button, only then using my cell phone to call 911.

Then I sat there on the phone, fumbling my key into the ignition in case whoever was in my apartment might force me to flee by automobile.

Or maybe to run them over. Who can say with hypotheticals?

The cops got there barely ten minutes later—not a bad response time—and I disconnected from the nice emergency operator. I cracked my window, but the two officers only nodded in my direction before heading upstairs to check matters out. I waited, staring unfocused at my faint reflection in the car window—late twenty-something, long brown hair pulled into a wet ponytail, eyes too serious. What felt like forever later, a second blue-and-white cruised into my parking lot. As its female officer got out, I could hear her radio crackle. A male voice said, “Someone’s trashed the place, but it seems empty. We’ll look around to make sure.”

Trashed the place? My place?

Weirdly, instead of feeling hurt or violated, I simply felt…disbelief. My apartment was safe. How could someone trash it?

The policewoman tapped on my car window. Despite having watched her approach, I still jumped. “Ms. Sanger? Officer Sofie Douglas. Could I ask you some questions?”

I was still tense—so much for the relaxation benefits of swimming thirty laps at the gym. But her being female made her more approachable. She was black, shorter than me and about my age.

As a gesture of confidence, I climbed out of the car.

“Is your name really Margaret Sanger?” Officer Douglas asked. “Like the lady who made birth control legal?”

“No,” I said, not for the first time. “Not Margaret.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Dispatch said you identified yourself as Maggie.”

I saw her writing it down. “No e.”

She scratched out the e. Hey, at least I don’t dot my i’s with hearts or smiley faces.

“Maggi’s short for Magdalene,” I said.

Officer Douglas blinked at me. “You mean like Mary Magdalene?”

Lights appeared above us, from my apartment’s bedroom window, and my head came up to track it. “That’s the one.”

“So what do you do?” she asked. “For a living, I mean.”

“I teach comparative mythology at the college.”

She stared. “You can major in that?”