She would never say where she came from...

[flowers_on_skin]

The old songs were the saddest. Songs about war, about death, about children who went away and never came home. The children were always leaving home. Eostre ha never had a good head for a tune, but she liked the words. They'd never sung hymns to her, not really (they kept those for their Carpenter king, the one who came after), but rockstars had always liked San Francisco with her golden gates.

Down on the shore, was sitting in the shallows, where the waves broke on the sand, with the girls playing. They loved the water, but you had to keep an eagle-eye on them, because if babies were part bird, then maybe they were part water-spirit too, and it never occured to them to push themselves up. With two fistfuls of Eostre's dress, Mack hauled herself to her feet, looking both delighted and dismayed at the soft, sinking sand beneath her feet. Flo sat etween Eostre's knees, splashing the surface of the water with the flats of both hands.

While her children played, Eostre found herself singing. A song about a girl who left, named Ruby...Rockstars liked San Francisco, and, once, Mick Jagger had almost, but not quite, had sex with a blond woman with eyes the green of ripening corn.

"Yesterday don't matter," crooned Eostre, off-key, her hand against Mack's back to steady her so that she didn't fall.