Addison and Serada disputed the need for a 9 o’clock bedtime. After all, the sun just barely made its peace with the horizon, allowing for its passage, and leaving darkness in its wake.

Their parents considered and rejected their pleas. Ronnie, in her temporary guise as sole parent in the house, first looked to llhaesa for surreptitious, second parent reinforcement – Ronnie had no interest in being heavy handed with the children. Once llhaesa signalled silent agreement with a nod, Ronnie marched them off to get ready for bed. After all, they did not formally find bed the night before until the sun awaited the inevitable call to light the new day.

Just prior to Ronnie’s call of bedtime, both girls spent hours playing with the piano, this coming after llhaesa showed them some basic notes they could practice.

Ronnie disappeared up the stairs with the girls, while Llhaesa came up a minute or two later, deciding she could not set silently by and watch Ronnie carry the burden of parenting, even if she was pretending to be a friend and not the parent she actually was.

Llhaesa pitched in with seeing to it the girls washed, brushed their hair, brushed their teeth and changed their clothing, while Ronnie saw to the bedding, playing their favourite bedtime music (this was of some dispute, but the girls reached agreement after four or five nominations.)

An idea springing forth in her mind, Addison asked if llhaesa might share a story with them, instead of playing the music cd. Llhaesa looked at Addie and Serry and smiled, well knowing their love of a good story.

Ronnie kissed both and wished them a pleasant night’s sleep, while llhaesa closed the light and lie on the bed between her daughters, her mind searching out a track to take in assembling a story for them.

The story began to unfold, surprising even llhaesa as she shaped the adventure. The store that unfolded took fully a half hour in the telling, but it well satisfied her young listeners, who upon its end placidly accepted sleep as their immediate fate.

Once returned to the world of adults, who gathered for the first time without the children, llhaesa rightly suspected questions were not far behind. Anita found herself the least informed of everyone present, and became the first to speak.

“Llhaesa, please forgive me, but I feel at such a loss in terms of understanding what is happening here. Dolores and Ronnie have shared some things, but I really wish to hear from you, if you are willing to share.

Please know I love you. I loved you as Tim, and though Tim is gone or perhaps never really was, that does not mean my love evaporated with this change. Surely, some of you found its way through into Tim’s personality, and so I have known you in some way!

Tim was wonderful with the children, and from what I have seen, so too are you. I need to get to know you – you are still part of this family, even if um… circumstances have changed. Slightly.” At this everyone laughed. Once things quieted, Anita finished. “Share some things about you, share how you got here. Tell me about your family, about your life.”

“That is very kind, um… mom? Anita? How should I properly address you?” llhaesa found herself unsure of whether to call her mother in law ‘mom’ or use her real name, and she looked for guidance.

“Either works for me, llhaesa.”

OK… I am so used to mom; you have been mom; we will stay with mom, and yes… we are still family. The basics about me everyone knows by now.

I was 25 at the time – when sent here. You have seen that I am a musician by training, you have heard of my marriage on Arrhazon. How I got here, well, here goes!

Our world is very misogynistic. As I moved through college, the long time Chief of Government died under suspicious circumstance, his place taken by Brellian. I later learned this was murder by those acting on Brellian’s orders.

As valedictorian of my graduating class, my speech was rather… activist, my music play – all attendees at N’rellia are there for music, and the valedictorian performs right after their speech – rather cutting edge, and it received a good deal of attention, including the attention of the Chief of Government – Brellian. Brellian was vicious – actually, sick, but more on that in a bit. He would do anything to hold power, to achieve control over our society. He wished to roll back time, sending women cascading away from any chance at equality.

Big mouth me, well… I called him out publicly at graduation and later at concerts, revealing information few knew of that was rather condemning of Brellian.

I pushed too far in his eyes with my activism, and…

Brellian’s goons came for me. Using technology I am not as yet prepared to talk about – because I do not fully understand given I am on this world where it cannot be researched – my genetic structure was rearranged and masked, so too my memories – just as memories were implanted in people here of a fictitious Tim. Somehow… somehow something went awry in their process, and it opened a way for my mind to finally crack through the barriers. Once that happened, the masking protocol disintegrated. It would make fascinating research and reading – how the will to exist overrode everything done to me.

Backing up a bit, they came for me in our flat, immediately tossing Jahrae out. They held me there overnight. There was one skirmish before leaving, and I lost my first tooth in that moment. The next day they brought me to Brellian’s office tower downtown, and threw me in a room.

Minutes later, Brellian came in, ordering his goons to rip my clothing off me. He…” llhaesa was fishing through fourteen-year-old memories, but they still cut, severely and sharply. She lowered her head, caught her breath, looked up into the great strength of three sets of supporting and empathetic eyes

“He raped me. In my struggle against him and the guards, my second tooth was lost. I played to his ego, called him out as weak, asked him to dismiss his guards and then see if he could do these things. He went for it, he ordered them out, and charged at me.

I… flipped him over me – training by my mum! – slamming him into a wall. Both of us were naked given my clothes were ripped off and he disrobed to rape.” Llhaesa began to cry, though everyone saw how she fought against the tears. Ronnie jumped up and wrapped her arms around llhaesa, patting her back. After a minute or two, llhaesa began to speak again, though Ronnie remained and continued rubbing her back. “The memory of this is so damn weird. Brellian came at me again, and I quickly moved aside. He missed me and slammed into a chair. Enraged, he came at me again, and again I sent him over my shoulder into the same wall as the first time.

Wild beyond all rationality, he made one final attempt. He charged, I spun around; I use spins that are more involved at times when I perform, so spinning out of the way and to a better strategic spot just to the side was an easy move for me. The spin took me out of his path, but quickly lined me up to slam his face square on the nose with the palm of my hand. The strike clearly broke his nose, and there was blood everywhere.

A micro instant later, my leg came up and caught him in the groin. He was out, cold. Obviously, it was a short-lived victory. His goons watched, and came charging in, electrically stunning me. Thereafter, they resorted to their genetic machinations.”

Llhaesa stopped there; enough was on the table for a few moments.

She looked around the room, each of the other three faces reflecting horror, anger, sadness, and a hundred other emotions that know no worldly boundaries but which reach out to support one wronged, in the hearing of deeds that apparently sickeningly surfaces across the universe.

Dolores silently marvelled at how the other three women still saw each other as family, despite events with no parallel in human history. The lines of their family were drastically redrawn, but they still rallied to each other.

Anita stood, walked over to llhaesa, and stretched out her arms. Each of the others followed in turn, all physically giving comfort to accompany the emotional.

Anita still had questions. “Tell me about your mom, llhaesa.”

Llhaesa smiled, thoughts of her mum flooding into her conscious memory, sorting to what she might share. “My mum – Saehressa, pronounced sigh.ah.ress.ah – if only I approximate her in life. She is a loving, caring, nurturing, protective, strong, resilient, talented person and mother… there is not enough time in a day for me to pay her due justice.

My mum sang and read to me from the moment she knew of her pregnancy, and never stopped thereafter. On top of everything else she saw to – work, parenting, etc, she patiently worked with me on hours and hours of daily piano and vocals practice, and never once did she leave me feeling badly, that my practice was anything other than my own choice. She was there when I went to sleep, and there when I woke, always smiling.”

“Like you!” Ronnie blurted out.

Llhaesa smiled, and continued. “My mum taught me Aailhra – what you call reiki – at my request. We are both dedicated practitioners. She taught me to stand for equality, to work for it through peaceful means.

I am the second of two children, my older brother died before I was born, due to a tragic accident.”

Everyone winced over the loss of a child. A second later, they realised that llhaesa’s parents lost both their children, their faces reflected imagining such horror, the imagining rapidly reshaping into continued empathy.

“Most say my mum and I could pass for twins, even with 30 years of age between us. I would say that extends beyond the physical to our outlook in life as well.” Llhaesa decided that was enough, they got the idea.

“Llhaesa, did you write music, or did others write for you? Dolores asked.

“I wrote my own music, though I would occasionally play Arrhazonan historical classical music, depending on the setting and the audience and my musical mood. N’rellia well trains its students in the classics. As for my own writing, I can recall every song I have ever written, even now.”

“Have you ever wished to be a mom?” This question surprisingly came from Ronnie.

“Honestly, Ronnie, yes. Jahrae and I talked about co-pregnancies one day.”

“Co-pregnancies?” Dolores wished to know more after the introduction of this previously unheard of term; wishing to know more was likely true of everyone.

“On Arrhazon, artificial fertilisation is possible between lesbians. In a co-pregnancy, we would each have the other fertilised via a process that utilised a sample of our blood, and we would then carry together. We also talked on swapping eggs and carrying each other’s fertilised egg. All within the normal realm of future fantasy that lovers sometimes engage in, except tailored to the realities of our world. I suspect the former would have been our chosen path, or we would have taken turns carrying singly.”

“Wouldn’t being pregnant at the same time have been an incredible burden for both of you? How would you generate income once birthing neared?” Anita added this question.

“As a musician, this was not a worry. My hours were my own, while Jahrae was a student, headed into her last year at the time of my… abduction. And my income was already such that we were set for life.”

“At 25!” Ronnie again. “Wow!”

“Actually, I was set for life before meeting Jahrae at 23, though I also diverted large sums to Equal Rights, Equal Genders.”

“What do you think will happen now, llhaesa?” this from Dolores.

“I know not, but I do suspect. We have to tell the girls at some point, likely soon. Too many saw what happened, Dolores. I would guess the investigators have already found sufficient information such that they consider this a credible investigation.

They will be looking for us, electronically, physically, with every means at their disposal. Sooner or later, I will have to turn myself in.”

“Llhaesa, no!” Three voices called out as one.

“Not right away, but at some point, it is the only way your lives and those of the children will ever return to normal.”

Llhaesa surmised correctly, and as they spoke, investigators began quiet inquiries of Ronnie’s family in Vermont, some no more than 30 miles away.