4

There hadn’t been an attempt on my mother’s life since her pregnancy, and with us out of the limelight there seemed little reason to believe we were still in danger. But no one realized that Gabrielle Burns was still obsessed with us, stalking us, as she had the night of my birth.

She had dreamed of being a mother since she was old enough to play house, but Gabrielle suffered a miscarriage eight months into her first pregnancy. Complications left her barren. A few years later her husband divorced her, promptly married his mistress, and they had a child together.

Gabrielle became involved in a fundamentalist church where she formed the Cassandra Society, a group named after her unborn daughter, that lobbied and railed against the evils of abortion, extra-marital sex, birth control, artificial wombs and any sort of human intervention in the miracle of life.

She claimed that when she heard the first human clone was going to be born, her namesake, the Archangel Gabriel, told her that a great mission had been granted her. Cloning would doom mankind if she didn’t stop it. Humans would seek eternal life through their own means, forever trapping their souls in new bodies, never allowing those souls to reach God. Therefore, God was sending her to save humanity from itself.

Her first step was to send several urgent letters to Sarah warning her of the evil the clone would visit upon humanity. As March approached and it became clear that the clone would be born despite her warnings, Gabrielle changed tactics. First was a death threat. When that went unheeded, one of Gabrielle’s followers in her Cassandra Society posed as a nurse and tried to get into Sarah’s room with a silver knife. Nobody tied the attempt to Gabrielle until later.

That first attempt was foiled on March 5. Six days later, as news footage revealed, Gabrielle stood silently outside the hospital in the pouring rain as the devil baby was delivered. She did not join her colleagues and like-minded protestors who were screaming that doom was being born in the soulless child, for she knew it was a waste of breath. Gabriel had come to her that night in a flash of lightning and peal of thunder, bearing a message that the evil would be unleashed, and it would be protected by demons for four years, four months, and four days.

At the end of the time of his protection, the hand of God would scatter the demons, and Gabrielle was to strike down the Whore of Babylon and her unholy spawn. Her reward would be to become the Bride of Christ, and she would give birth to the child she had long desired – to the triumphant Christ Child himself.

The long-awaited four years, four months, and four days did not come soon enough for Gabrielle. A couple months before the appointed day, my mother and I met her in a park. While sitting on a bench feeding the birds on a Sunday afternoon, we were approached by a lanky, redheaded woman wearing a white dress. Her narrow face was mostly nondescript but for her large, dark eyes. The stranger asked if she could join us. Mom courteously encouraged her, and she sat next to me.

“You two look so familiar,” she said after watching the birds peck at our bread for a while.

Mom nodded. “I’m Sarah, and this is Adam.”

“Oh yes, of course!” she said with such false surprise that Mom wordlessly asked me to get off the bench and stand in front of her. “My name is Gabrielle. I’m about to be a mother too, you know. Isn’t it a wonderful thing, being a mother?”

“Yes it is,” Sarah replied, grabbing me from behind and tickling me. “Especially when you’ve got such a great kid!”

The woman frowned but then managed a faint smile. “Well, you’re all dressed up, aren’t you? Did you just come from church?”

“Uh-huh,” Mom responded. “We go to a Unitarian church. The minister there invited us while most were condemning us.”

“How nice for you. The Unitarians are very tolerant, aren’t they.”

It wasn’t a question, and Mom didn’t answer. Her eye had caught one of the stranger’s hands, which was clasped around something she couldn’t make out. But it had her attention.

“So many people are not that tolerant,” Gabrielle continued. “You never know what they’re going to do. They can take such a small thing as cloning and make it sound like it’s the end of the world.”

“Yes,” Mom said, “it’s people like that who’ll probably cause the end of the world. But I don’t think it’s the end yet.”

“No, not yet,” Gabrielle agreed. “But it will be a glorious day when it arrives and we can all be wed to God.”

Mom gave her a polite nod.

“But then you already are wed to God, aren’t you? The virgin mother?”

The question was so ridiculous that Mom didn’t initially notice the thorn of jealousy embedded in the woman’s voice. “Well, Adam can be a little angel at times,” she said, “but calling him the Son of God may be a stretch.”

“The son of whom, then?” Gabrielle asked, reaching out to awkwardly pet my head. I moved away from her, and Mom guided me to her other side.

“I guess that’s a question, isn’t it?” Mom admitted. “The son of his clone-father? The son of his clone-father’s parents? My son? Nobody’s son? But I don’t worry too much about his scientific classification – just so long as he lives a good, long, happy life. Probably the same as all mothers want.”

“Indeed,” the woman said. “That’s what all us mothers want.” She clenched her fist tighter in her lap, and we both saw a trickle of blood roll down her hand.

Mom stood up. “I’m sorry, but we have to go.”

“I’m sure we’ll meet again,” Gabrielle said, staying put and studying us over her blood-splattered lap.

Her eyes locked with Mom’s for a moment, and then Mom pulled me away.

Cassandra Society: A nonprofit pro-life group established in 2024 by Gabrielle Burns that opposes any manipulation of the natural process for creating human life.

Cassandra

Gabriel

Rosemary’s Baby












Bismillah: An Islamic ceremony held in some cultures when a boy is four years, four months, and four days old. It is the day he reads the opening words of the Qur’an, beginning his religious education.

Whore of Babylon

Bride of Christ

Second Coming

















Unitarian Church