“Can’t I hug my own child,” I asked tears running down my face.

“Don’t worry, she is safe, I shall look after her. I brought her to say goodbye and for you to know that the time she was with you was the happiest part of her life. You’re a good mother, Catherine.”

“Might I ask, who you are, milady?” I was aware this female figure was something special, the energy around her and the aura she had was something else.

“Yes, Catherine, I am sometimes called the Shekinah, but I have other names as well.”

“But–I’ve encountered you before–you threatened to take one of my children–so that’s what this is all about is it? Come to rub it in?”

“Please, Catherine, you are overwrought as one would expect from a recently bereaved mother. No we haven’t met before, and I certainly would not do any such thing as to hurt a child.”

“So can you give her back to me, then?” My heart rose for a moment.

“I’m afraid I cannot, this was Billie’s time, so nothing you could do would prevent it coming.”

“But–I’m sorry, I don’t believe in fate and such things except by dint of genetics.”

“Ah, that as well, they didn’t tell you that the injury triggered a brain aneurysm which would have burst the next time she’d taken violent exercise or shaken her head. Would you have preferred she’d been playing with one of the other children and have them think they’d killed her?”

“But if you’re a goddess, couldn’t you have prevented all that?”

“We are sworn to uphold the fate of humanity, to observe and not interfere.”

“What about the blue light? Is that you or the other woman who threatens me?”

“That came from me, Catherine, it is granted to special souls like yourself.”

“Special in what way? You mean transsexual?”

“No, special in the amount of love you have to give anyone who seems in need. Your light shines brightly in a world of darkness.”

“Oh.”

“Not many women would adopt seven needy children–but you did. Not many would forgo the fame that some of the healing you have done would bring–but you did, because you could see the greater view.”

“What about all the people I’ve hurt–I’ve killed people–I’m not special, unless you consider it applies to mass murder.”

“Your modesty is very becoming, Catherine, sometimes we have to operate in Geburah, where justice is sometimes hard on those who don’t observe the rules of life.”

“I don’t understand,” I was totally out of my depth.

“Sometimes we have to be the tough parent because we know unless we are, our children will suffer more by our not exercising control.”

“Yeah, but killing people–nice people don’t do that, do they?”

“Each time you did so to protect someone you loved. In putting your loved ones at risk, they had put themselves beyond the protection of our love and into the sphere of Geburah, where justice may be dispensed. It is cause and effect.”

“Can you please find someone else to be your executioner next time?”

“It is nothing to do with me, they bring it about on their own heads. If it wasn’t you, they’d cause someone else to do it. We all have freedom of choice, we can either do as we are meant to, or do other and pay the consequences.”

“So, in becoming an abhorrent in the eyes of God and so on, am I paying the consequences now–having all those I love taken from me as punishment?”

“Punishment? Why should we punish you?”

“Because I mutilated my body and chose to have a relationship with a man.”

“Catherine, what are you talking about? What you do to your body is your free choice, we are only interested in your spirit, your soul and you have one of a female. In fact it’s so strong in you that it hindered your development as male anyway. You are fulfilling your destiny, part of which is to be the mother of some needy souls.”

“Are you saying, I was meant to do all this–changing my sex and so on?”

“You had the freedom of choice to do it, you chose to do so and were rewarded with the power to heal those whose destinies you weren’t affecting.”

“If I stop people dying, surely that’s affecting their destiny?”

“Some of them weren’t meant to die until much later. Misfortune or stupidity meant they were at risk before they fulfilled their part in our overall plan.”

“Overall plan? What overall plan?”

“I’m afraid that is not for you to know about.”

“If you didn’t threaten to take my children, who was the other woman?”

“The Lillith, she fooled you into thinking she was me, did she?”

“Who?”

“Never mind, if you don’t know, it matters little, I grant you the power to send her away if she should trouble you again.”

“Why can’t you just stop her full stop?”

“I’m afraid things don’t always work the way humans think they should.”

I bit my tongue, I felt a respect for this woman/goddess thing and I suppose she was respecting me.

“What do I have to do to get rid of her?”

“You will know if the occasion arises.”

“Might I embrace my child one last time?” The tears started again.

She motioned Billie to come to me, we hugged and I kissed her. “I’m okay, Mummy, really I am.”

“Please take good care of her?”

“You can rest assured of that, now you must return to the world of the material.”

“Where am I now?”

“Farewell, Catherine.”

“Bye, Mummy,” called a little voice.