69 - History Repeats

Maia wasn’t certain what she was going to do yet about her persistent feelings of frustration and unhappiness. Keeping busy and getting occasional artificial happiness boosts from A.C.E. wasn’t in and of itself a long-term solution; she felt she had to make some changes in her life to make it one she enjoyed living. She knew what she wanted—a life partner—and she believed that having one was the key to making her burdens easier to bear and would ease her loneliness. The types of emotions she experienced with Reid on her vacation were not ones she wanted to live without anymore. But she had no idea how to go about finding someone permanent, given the circumstances of her challenge and how far she had yet to go. But until she knew exactly what to do, she was determined to live in the present and take pleasure in what she already had—her children.

So when it came time for Zak’s birthday, Maia celebrated it with great happiness and pride.

Happy birthday Zak!

Unlike all but Maia’s earliest children, Zak had no supernatural powers—he was fully human like his father. But he naturally still enjoyed doing most of the same things all her other children had done in the past, including playing on the seesaw with his invisible IF, Jester.

Shortly after Zak become a child, Maia’s infant quadruplets with Mickey became rambunctious tots. 

Happy birthday Elise, Chloe, Brielle and Ian!

Maia definitely had her hands full during the time it took to teach the skills necessary for her little quad toddlers. (Quadlers! xD)

But they settled down easily whenever they played with their IF dolls: Ties, Snaps, Buttons and Zippers.

And Maia took that time to stay connected with her older children and encourage their interests.

Soon, her triplet teens were off to attend prom. Ian was voted Prom King and Cookie was crowned Prom Queen.

And eventually it came time for the teen’s birthdays, and afterwards, their graduation day.

Happy birthday Phineas!

Happy birthday Sibyl!

Happy birthday Cassandra!

Happy birthday Rune!

Happy birthday Crystal!

Happy birthday Cookie!

All the kids had done well in school and graduated with honor, and Crystal was named class valedictorian.

Phineas was going to pursue a career in sports; he hoped to become a famous athlete and write an autobiography on all his successes someday. Rune was artistic and planned on being a self-employed sculptor. Sibyl was intrigued by the physical sciences and still enjoyed collecting many different rock specimens for analysis. Crystal learned how to scry through a crystal ball and decided to use her psychic knowledge to help solve crimes as a private investigator. And Cassandra and Cookie were excited about opening their own bakery; Cassandra would grow the fresh ingredients and do the baking while Cookie would take care of the cleaning, as well as the sales and marketing.

They all had bright futures ahead of them, and Maia told them how proud she was of them all as she hugged them goodbye.

Once they had left, Maia knew it was time for the repeating of yet another ritual, that of checking out Isak’s daddy donor list and choosing the father for her next child. She called up Derrick Dean, who was the local Egyptologist and a curator at the Simsonian Museum of Discovery. He was working after-hours doing inventory on a new shipment from Al Simhara, so Maia agreed to meet him there.

After Maia spoke with Derrick for awhile, he offered her a tour of the relic displays.

                           

Maia was amazed at the age of some of the museum pieces, and Derrick was quite knowledgeable about their history and shared some interesting anecdotes about how he had acquired some of them personally from their ancient tombs. He seemed pleased at Maia’s interest in the subject, and was curious to hear of some of Maia’s own adventures in Al Simhara when she revealed she had traveled there.

Maia made no mention of her kidnapping to him as that particular story was a part of her history she didn’t want to repeat to anyone, but it was a subject she couldn’t help but recall in her own mind. So many of the artifacts were familiar to her from the time of her imprisonment and they brought back some intensely dark memories. Instead, she focused on telling Derrick the tale of her son Seth and their night spent in a tomb where he had slept in a sarcophagus.

Derrick became very animated then. “I’ve managed to procure a sarcophagus for our collection here! It’s not yet available for viewing to the public, but would you like to take a peek?”

Maia agreed, and Derrick took her past the rope barricade and into a private room to view it.

“Majestic, isn’t it?  And look at all this gold; truly it is a resting place fit for a king! It was long believed by the ancient Egyptians that their deceased would be reborn into the afterlife from a sarcophagus such as this.” Derrick said as he carefully wiped off a bit of the dust that still remained on it.

Maia remembered how Seth too had been reborn, in a manner of speaking, after being freed from his mummy curse in just such a place. It was a symbol of rebirth as much as it was one of death, and it led her to wonder if this sarcophagus in particular could be a place of new life as well...

Mischievously, Maia whispered her idea to Derrick.

He seemed a bit shocked at first, but he quickly took to her plan.

It was a rather unusual place to woohoo, and a cramped one, but it got the job done. Maia went home feeling quite adventurous, and was happily certain that she was pregnant once again.

But after she went to bed for the night, Maia slept restlessly.  Perhaps it was due to the negative memories of her kidnapping and the fight for her escape which her visit to the museum had brought to mind, because she had dreams where she relived that history.

 

But then the dream of mummies and fire inexplicably changed to a more familiar dream of a warm embrace near a campfire.

Half-aware she was asleep and having her recurring dream, Maia tried waking herself up before she reached the part where it became a nightmare. She cried out over and over again in an attempt to free herself from it, but she couldn’t escape; she could only scream as she burned.

Maia kept on shrieking in her dream until she finally managed to scream herself awake.

She sat up and rocked herself for long minutes until she finally grew calm enough to try to fall asleep again. 

And as she exhaled deeply, she breathed a name into the dark with longing—the name she had cried out in her dream...

“Samael.”

Author’s Note: Every night I burn, Every night I scream your name
Every night I burn, Every night the dream’s the same...