#gabbi

To grow up as a woman in the service of the Cailleach was a privilege. The sign of the ancestors was not just painted on her back in dirt as a baby, but also painted into her name, into her very being. Gabrielle Hart, named for Gabriel, one of the twelve. She had the blood of believers, and the faith too.

  She grew up in a wheelchair, trodding the very same ramps that Gabriel had fashioned for him back when the devout were new. It was easy to access the world when one followed in another’s footsteps, or push strokes. And, in much the same vein, her career followed an easy trajectory too. Not Gabriel's, though. She wasn’t one of the twelve. Goddess bless her, she wasn’t worthy of that. Her aunt’s, instead. Delilah Hart was a beautiful, powerful woman, and Gabbi wanted to be just like her.

  She was good in school, but great in religion class. She always knew the right answer, always raised her hand and waited to be called. Some days her hand was sore from how long it had been in the air. Those days, her father would give her the first scoop of dinner. For my bright girl.

  Her mother smiled, too, but it was more tense. Aunt Delilah was proud, though, and so was her father. Gabbi could tell. And that was good enough.

  The week before her eighteenth birthday, Gabbi woke up and her mother was gone. She didn’t know where, nobody knew. Gabbi refused to believe she’d ran away until the night before her coming of age ceremony was to take place, when her mother came through her window, woke her up in the dead of night. Come on, gabbi. We have to go. But she didn’t want to, wouldn’t turn her back on the Cailleach like that.

  She screamed when her mother picked her up, tried to move her. She pleaded and wailed like they did at church, begging to be saved and not stolen. And the Cailleach heard her prayer. It woke her father, along with the neighbors. She was rescued, got to stay, and she got her ceremony in the morning. The marks looked so right on her hand. She never spoke of her mother again. In fact, nobody did. She’d passed the test. Mother hadn’t. 

  But she didn’t need that woman to center her faith. Her Veilmother, her aunt, was there to guide her spiritually. Delilah was bright in her belief, strong in her words, fervent. She was scary to some, compelling to all, but to Gabbi she was nothing if not aspirational. The worked together often, especially as gabbi grew into an adult within the congregation. She wrote speeches that spoke to solidifying faith, to becoming morally right, to aligning oneself with the veiled one. When she wasn’t doing that, she was speaking to all the followers, to her network and family. Have you prayed today? Has she blessed you?

  She works to strengthen hearts, to recenter souls. It is always tragic  when someone leaves the fold, and she tries to ensure they do not.

  It’s a good thing her mother didn’t get her that night. So many people wouldn’t have been helped.