The Mantis Variant - Book One - 17. Chapter 17 - Lahari, Part Two

The next morning, while the three women were getting ready to head back to the mystic's, a spark of inspiration struck Agrell.

"Maybe Lahari can use the crack in the bedrock that now leads to the underground, as a passage up to see her dads. Since her hidden path is blocked, she's stuck in the stairwell and doesn't have any way back down to be with her people."

"Whoa, whoa!" Dozi interjected. "We will not be offering my home to be used by a monster from the underground as a thoroughfare!"

"Hey!" snapped Ilya with a scowl. "Don't say that!"

"Yeah," Agrell agreed, "Lahari is not a monster."

"You both know what I mean!" Dozi retorted, and she plowed on. "I've already opened my home to both of you, with the understanding that it's secret. No one besides you two knows I live here, and I don't want anyone else privy to it, especially not some Bio-Shift child from the underground!"

"She's not a child," Agrell responded. "She's an adult."

"Even better!" Dozi barked, her voice thick with sarcasm. "A full-grown Bio-Shift, with who knows what powers! You think I want them sneaking through my home in the middle of the night?"

Dozi stormed into her kitchen, and the other two women could hear her banging around in the cupboards.

"Ugh!" she exclaimed from the other room. "Fine." Dozi returned with two meat pies. Her shoulders were drooped and she was frowning. "Fine," she repeated.

"You're going to let her use your home to see her dads?" Agrell asked.

"Yes!" Dozi said dramatically, and she rolled her eyes. "We can tell the three of them about my home, I guess. I know you're both right," she conceded before either of them could say anything else. "Yes," she repeated, "we can tell the mystic that his daughter can return to the underground through my home."

She changed subjects.

"These are my last meat pies. Skinny girl, you and I can split one and we'll grab something else on the street, or maybe from the mystic when we head back to get you patched up again," and Dozi nodded to Ilya as she handed her one of the pies.

When she and Agrell finished their shared meal, Ilya offered some of what was left of hers, but both insisted that she should finish it.

"Might not find something as substantial out in the city," Dozi said, "and you need the energy for recovery."

Soon the three women were out in the grey light again. They made their way through the Spritehood at Ilya’s slower pace, but before long, arrived at the mystic's apothecary.

"We found a way to get Lahari back to the underground!" Agrell declared as they entered.

Dozi told the mystic and his husband what happened in the lower part of her basement home, and Agrell explained in detail what she saw below. Dozi was a little reluctant but shared with the men the location of her hidden door behind the old fan cage.

"Oh, I don't know how to thank you," the mystic said, with tears flowing down his round cheeks. He took her hands in his and proclaimed, "Your generosity is boundless!"

Dozi was surprised by the action, but she did not pull away from him, as he bounced in place with his enthusiasm.

"You've been caring for Ilya," he continued, "and now you're going to share your home, so that my little moth can still come up to see her daddies. You are so kind!"

"Yes, yes," Dozi confirmed. She gripped his hands and pulled him from the backroom. The two of them stepped into the front of his empty shop.

When she was alone, he asked her, "What is it, my dear?"

"I want to be a Demifae," she declared. "If your girl is gonna sneak through my house, I want to be made a Demifae in exchange."

The mystic looked horrified and pulled his hands from hers.

Theolan popped through the door behind them and saw the expression on his husband's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "What happened?"

"I want to be more than I am," Dozi replied to him, and she repeated herself. "I want to be a Demifae."

Now the mystic's husband looked appalled. "How could you ask something like that?" he snapped at her.

Dozi was taken aback. She scowled at them. "What's the fucking deal with you two?" she barked in reply. "You're already a Demifae," she proclaimed to the mystic. "This is what you do, isn't it? I just want to be more than a human, and I won't be denied," she added.

"Oh, honey," the mystic said, and his tone softened, "I don't do that anymore."

Both the men became more gentle, and Theolan hugged his husband close, as the mystic explained.

"When my own precious, brilliant, young daughter began to change," he said in a calm voice, "I suddenly realized that what I was doing was so terribly wrong. I have not practiced my trained arts," and he said the word with disdain, "since my little moth began to change. Lahari opened my eyes, revealed to me the error of my ways. Shifts are people, Dozi," he continued, and his voice was full of compassion.

"I have not used a photonova gland for any purpose in almost a decade. No, I'm sorry, my new dear friend," he said, as he took her hand again. "I cannot make you a Demifae, and if I could go back with the things that I now feel, I would not have been part of the spell that made me one. A person, someone's child, someone's beautiful child was murdered for the enchantment, and all I am now able to do is hold my breath for a long time. That's it; all I can do is hold my breath. Is that worth the poor Shift's life?"

The mystic stared into Dozi's eyes. "There are people out there right now," he went on, "who want to kill Shifts for their photonova glands. There are people who would murder my beautiful, incredible, powerful daughter, and then cannibalize the very part of her physical body that makes her so unique."

He squeezed her hand. "I can't change your mind for you, Dozi, but please reconsider your intention to become a Demifae. Every Shift was someone's baby. I realize that not every child is loved, and it's very common for Shifts to be ostracized or disowned by their families when their abilities are revealed," he paused, "but would you murder someone? Could you take the life of another, and all for a measly power like mine? Is that worth it?"

Dozi did not say another word. She and the two men returned to the back room.

"I want to go tell Lahari the good news!" Agrell declared as they entered.

The mystic's face broke into a beaming smile. "You are our heroine!" he proclaimed.

"Don't call her that!" snapped Dozi. "As if she's not quite a hero because she's a woman. Diminishing her willingness to try and save your daughter is disgraceful." She shot the men a disgusted expression and turned to Agrell. "You're a hero, skinny girl."

The mystic brought his hands to his mouth in shock, and he squawked in an apologetic tone through his fingers, "I didn't mean it like that at all!" He looked from one person to the next. "And in fact, I do believe you’re correct," he added, turning back to Dozi.

"I've never loved the word heroine," he declared, "and you've just given me an explanation for why I'm allowed to hate it. Thank you for enlightening me!" He seemed delighted, bowed to her, and then corrected himself. "Agrell, you are our hero!"

"Why don't I take her to see Lahari," Theolan recommended, "and you can patch up your patient here," he added to his husband.

"Thank you, Agrell," the mystic said with his eyes shimmering as he tried to hold back his tears of joy.

As Theolan and Agrell headed out into the grey day and made their way toward the water's edge, she said, "I kind of expected Lahari to come home to you two last night when it was dark. You haven’t seen her?"

"No, she didn’t visit us, and I wish our place could be her home," he said with regret in his voice. "I absolutely adore her, but she’s just not safe in the city."

"It seems strange that she didn’t come see you two last night," Agrell wondered, as they stepped up to the railing above the tunnel.

"This time, I'll stick around," he stated to Agrell, "so you don't get lost again."

She climbed down, entered, and pushed the hinged door that kept access to the outside a secret. Lahari was on the other side of it. Again, Agrell found the young woman's unique appearance both incredible but also frightening. She did her best not to stare at Lahari.

Agrell informed her about Dozi's home and the new subterranean crack that led into the Biological Shift underground.

Lahari asked, "Why are you helping me?"

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do," Agrell replied, "help the people who I can?"

"But why did you risk your life for me? You abovelanders are often killed if you're caught in the underground. Don't you know how dangerous it can be for someone like you?"

"I just wanted you to be able to see your dads."

"I don't think you understand," Lahari stated. "You need to stay out of the underground. If those Bio-Shifts you saw at the well caught you, you'd have been killed," she reiterated. "Listen to me. If I wasn't alone when we met, you would have been killed. If I was with anyone else when I found you, you'd probably be dead now."

"You mean when I found you?" Agrell asked.

Lahari looked at her, but the black quills around her pale blue face made her expressions indecipherable.

Agrell added, "I wanted to find you another way between the city and the underground."

"But why are you helping me?" Lahari implored. "I'm a monster, according to most abovelanders. I was 13 when my powers began to develop, and that was also when my body started to change. Kids used to call me dragon skin, grey girl, the ugly urchin." She stared at Agrell with her sparkling yellow eyes. "You look like every person who ever talked shit to me, insulted me or called me names, and you normal people can be cruel, vicious. I was immediately accepted into the underground with my fellow changed Shifts."

"I'm glad you were able to find a new home," Agrell replied in a pleading tone.

"I should be allowed on the surface!" snapped Lahari. "I should feel safe walking the streets. I should be allowed to visit my fathers anytime I want, day or night."

"I'm so sorry that things are this way," Agrell said. "I didn’t know it was like this. I did not even know there was an entire community underground when I got to the city two days ago."

There was a pause in their conversation.

"Two days?"

"Yes," Agrell confirmed, "I just arrived two days ago after I ran aw…" but she caught herself, and her voice fell silent.

"Ran aw… ay?" Lahari finished for her. "Ran away from what?"

Agrell did not reply.

"Go on. Tell me," urged Lahari.

Agrell sighed. "My family," she whispered.

Lahari laughed. "So, you're one, too?"

"One what?"

"You're an outcast," Lahari declared, "but at least you look like a person. You didn't have to join us freaks below ground."

Agrell could feel her positivity waning. "Don't call yourself that," she said in a quiet voice. "I don't think you're a freak. Would you tell me," she asked Lahari, "what happened with your family when you changed?"

Lahari clicked her tongue. "My dads are both good enough, but my mother is a piece of shit. A lot of the folks down here have shitty families."

Then Lahari asked Agrell, "Whatcha got? When I was 13, my mother tried to scrape off my changing scaly skin with a serrated knife. That didn't work, so she started whipping me with a piece of thin chain that she heated in a fire. Ada was already with Theolan at that point, and when they learned everything about my change and how my mother was torturing me, they killed her and dumped her body in the Grey Shallows." Agrell was more than a little startled by this admission, but Lahari asked, "What about your parents? What'd they do to you?"

Agrell wanted to tell Lahari how sorry she felt for the abuse she suffered. She wanted to let her know that her fathers were each twice the parent her mother had been. Agrell even wanted to say that it sounded like Lahari's mother got what she deserved.

All she mumbled in reply was, "I'm not supposed to talk about it." Dozi's warning to refrain from sharing information about her past was fresh in her mind.

"Keeping secrets doesn't make friends," Lahari commented. "Really though, you and I can't possibly be friends. Maybe we can be acquaintances, though. That only works if you share." Lahari then asked, "Do you think there is a single thing that you and your skinny, pretty, normal-looking self has gone through that is even remotely close to what it's like being a Biological Shift? You can go anywhere you want at any time of day. No one looks twice at you. You're boring and common, just like everyone else up there."

Agrell decided that Lahari's argument made sense, and instead of following Dozi's advice, she wanted to connect to Lahari and tell her about herself. "I'm from the Lovegood community," she stated, and Lahari's tone changed.

"Another escapee, good for you." She sounded almost impressed. "Well, I'd say your story is more than just that you ran away from your family; you got away from Messiahs."

Lahari's first words stuck in Agrell’s mind.

"Another?"

"Yeah," Lahari confirmed, "we've got a few ex-cult members down here, and old Auntie Peg is from there too. She's got a shop near my father's apothecary."

"What does that mean? People keep using that word," Agrell said. "I don't even know what it is."

"I'm just saying that you're not the only one who's ever left the Lovegoods."

"N-no," Agrell stuttered, "th-that's not pos-possible."

"Well, now I don't know what you mean," Lahari replied. "You're not the only one who's left the Lovegood cult."

Agrell was more shocked by this information, than most other things that she experienced in her few days of freedom. She needed clarification.

"Other people have left the community before me?" she asked, and she made a deduction. "They lied to me?" Agrell whispered, more to herself that the other woman.

Lahari took a breath to ponder the details she was learning about Agrell.

"How did you escape?" she asked, and her voice was gentle.

Dozi's recommendation prickled in Agrell’s mind, but she now stated conclusively, "I ran away. I didn't know some of the secret things about the community where I grew up, until very recently, and then I felt like they were not who I always thought they were. I couldn't be a part of them. anymore. They kept so much hidden," she added in a tone of disbelief.

Lahari remained quiet, and her yellow eyes were fixed on Agrell, who continued.

"I feel like I was inadvertently part of horrible things," and her voice broke, and she choked down a sob. "I feel responsible for the actions taken by my community, and I want to make a difference. I want to make up just a little for the bad things they do."

There was another pause before Lahari asked, "What was it like growing up?"

"Structured!" Agrell blurted out. "I mean, every minute of every day was accounted for, there were obligations we needed to fulfill daily. Everyone in the community needed to be fed, our farm needed tending, and every day there were," but Agrell's voice faded.

Her little cousin's corpse was barely cold in the ground, if they even buried the poor child's body. He was dead only a matter of days, and sorrow was still burning in Agrell’s heart from the ritual.

"There were group things we needed to do every day," she said quietly, but she said no more about it.

Then Lahari asked in a soft voice, "Do they do things to girls?"

Agrell did not understand her question. "What do you mean? Everyone is made to work hard."

"No, that's not what I'm talking about. How do I put this delicately?" Lahari was feeling more compassionate than she expected about the abovelander, and she elaborated. "Was there ever anything that involved you being naked, or a man being naked with you?"

Agrell was stunned by the question. "No! Modesty is a pivotal foundation to our community. Everyone wears the same clothes and does their hair the same way. Being," and she whispered the word, "naked was basically against the rules."

"So you're telling me that they are not doing weird sex shit to kids?"

Agrell paused, attempting to understand this strange line of questioning. "I don't think so," she said in a meek voice.

Lahari tilted her head to one side. "You were never part of any sort of naked ritual or anything?"

Agrell took a sharp breath. "There was nothing like that."

Lahari's expression was unreadable. "You've already realized that they lied to you, in what sounds to be a major way. What things are going on up there unchecked?"

"They killed my little cousin," Agrell whispered. "I guess he was a Shift. He was just a little boy," and she started to cry. "Then I ran away." Even through her tears, she thought it better to keep the details of the ritual to herself.

When her sadness subsided, Agrell apologized. "I'm sorry. It's all still so fresh in my mind." She wiped away her tears.

"They just did this, didn't they?" Lahari asked gently.

Agrell nodded. "Please don't tell anyone where I'm from," she pleaded. "I don't think that's good information to get out."

"I understand, and I think that's wise," Lahari agreed.

Agrell decided to focus on their immediate situation. "Do you know about that underground well with magma below it?"

"I do," Lahari replied. "It's actually at the bottom of my stairs, where the cave-in is most severe. The well is directly under the Messiah Tower, but very deep beneath the earth."

"Do you think that you will be able to use that crack in the rocks in Dozi’s home to go back and forth between the underground and seeing your dads?" Agrell asked.

"That all depends, if it's hidden, it may suffice. This passageway," and Lahari waved her blue scaly hands at the hall that led to the stairs, "has been very convenient because it is indeed hidden from you abovelanders, but also, none of my fellow Bio-Shifts know about it. I suspect it's just a matter of time before someone finds that major crack in the bedrock and fixes it," Lahari paused. "Or more likely, we post centuries at it to guard people against entering the underground. Some belowgrounders desire for all of us to sever ties with anyone on the surface."

"Well, that seems extreme."

"Coming from an ex-cult member," Lahari said with a spiny-faced smirk, "that's a very serious criticism, and I happen to agree with you."

"Why do people keep using that word?"

"Which word?" Lahari asked.

"Cult," Agrell replied, testing the word for the first time. "Everyone keeps saying the community is a cult, but I don't even know what that word means."

"It's kind of difficult to define," Lahari began. "The term applies to lots of groups who hold extreme beliefs, and insist their members do the same. Those people that I just mentioned who want us all down here to pretend that the world above doesn't exist, they're kind of a cult. Let me ask you, were you close with your family?"

Agrell furrowed her brow. "We put more focus," she started, but she paused and caught herself. "They put more focus into being part of the community, than about families. My mother was always around," she added in a dejected tone.

"Unpleasant lady?" Lahari asked. "What about your father?"

"There was only one man we called father, and everyone called him that. I don't think he was my real father; actually, I'm not sure who my father is."

"I knew it," Lahari declared. She ran her fingers over the spines on one side of her face and sighed. "There's some freaky sex shit happening there, I'm sure of it."

Agrell took a breath. "The more people I talk to, the more I realize how little I understand," she conceded and continued. "Everyone lives together. Everyone calls everyone else cousin if they are close in age, or elder if they are older. And we all called our leader father. It was never impressed upon us with any importance that we should know who our biological fathers were; he was our father." Agrell felt like she was divulging too much information, and decided to try and change subjects.

"What was in those bundles the others were dropping down the well?"

Lahari did not hesitate to reply. "Our dead," she declared. "As a community, we decided long ago to remove the opportunity for anyone to find our corpses and steal our mantis glands. You may not know this, but a fully developed mantis gland does not decompose, so even when our bones are dust, the crystalline gland remains. By dropping our dead into the lake of fire, we prevent more people, like those from your ex-community, from becoming Messiahs."

Agrell's guilt gripped her soul like a crushing vice of iron. She choked back the sobs that threatened to send her into another fit of tears, and said, "I'm so sorry that your people have been victims. I felt such a sense of wonder for the world when I was leaving my home, but in a matter of days, I have been shown how horrible people can be to each other."

She took a deep breath and continued. "I think that's why; I think that answers your question. I've seen people be so horrible that all I want to do is help those in need."

Lahari seemed to consider Agrell’s words.

Looking into her yellow eyes, Agrell added, "I don't think you're a monster."★