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Author's Note: The following snippets were written for fic challenges #11.

Mother Is The Name of God
by Tara LJC O'Shea

Ruby watched River dance with wide blue eyes.

Night had fallen, but that didn't seem to deter her new friend at all, as she held out her skirt and spun in lazy circles to a tune only she could hear. The hodgeberries they'd gathered jumped with each step, and landed back in the bowl of her skirt. The moon was rising, painting everything with cold white light. The stars winked out from behind the clouds above them, and a warm breeze blew through the hills, making the trees rustle. Maybe that was music, Ruby decided. Maybe that was music enough for dancing.

They had wandered away from Doralee's watchful eye. Walked to the edge of town where the berries grew wild and River had gathered a skirt-full, telling Ruby a story about when she was little and how she and her brother had stolen fruit from a garden that they couldn't ever go back to, now. Ruby had come here with Cora, before Mamma had killed her. They used to play in the thicket, making forts and houses among the branches and staying outside in the sun until they were brown as nuts, their fingers and mouths stained red with berry juice.

She remembered Cora's blood. It made her head buzz like a hive, drowning out her words.

River stopped dancing and knelt in the dirt at her feet. "Mothers are supposed to make the monsters go away," she said—l