Why the Earth has an Axis
As Hermia, goddess of turning the earth, lay on her bed to die, she called her only daughter Lillian to her bedside. Hermia grabbed Lillian's hand and pulled her into a huge bearhug, and spoke these words softly into her ear.
"It will now be up to you to turn the earth, my lilly flower" She called her by her nickname. "I have faith that you will never reveal the secret location of the earth turning wheel to anybody! Even those you think you can trust. You never know where evil may be lurking." Right before she closed her eyes to die, she whispered that the wheel was behind the plum tree on the gondough hill. The gondough hill was just beyond the castenfor woods.
But Lillian was not faithful to her mother, and 5 minutes after Hermia's body had been buried beneath the waters of the majenzek river, she ran to find her cousins Cade and Wyatt. Their father, Harlon, was the god of the clouds and Hermia had been his sister. He was mourning her death and was too sad to notice his son's running off without him.
The 3 children ventured out in the direction of the castenfor forest, and arrived there wiothin 2 hours. After walking about 20 yards into the forest, they came across a deep, mucky creek with tall, tangled weeds growing on the bank.
"How are we going to get across Lillian? I don't know how to swim!" Wyatt whined.
"Why are you asking me?" Lillian looked at him in disgust. She hated to be responsible for the thoughts, actions or ideas of anyone but herself. She always felt that if she told someone to do something, and it went wrong, she would be blamed for it and she didn't want to deal with that guilt. And, to be honest, Lillian didn't know how they were going to get across either!
"Because you,re the one who made us come with you!" Wyatt snapped. Lillian sighed. She was still responsible for her cousins even when she didn't try to be!
"Why don't we find some old logs and build a bridge?" She suggested. But as they turned to go look for some logs, a cold rush of air behind them got their attention. The 3 of them turned around and saw 3 figures standing before them. One was an older woman that looked like she was in her llate 40's, early 50's. The other 2 looked like they were 14 or 15. One was a girl one was a boy.
"Hello there. I'm Coritha, goddess of the swamps." The older woman said smiling and stroking her tangled black hair. "And this is my daughter Anya, and my son Jaspen."
If the children would have had more common sense, they wouldn't have told her where they were going and what they were trying to find, after she had helped them across the river.
So little did they know, in the hour it took them to get through the forest and to the top of the hill, Coritha, Anyaa and Jaspen were following them the whole time and listening in on their conversations.
"Wyatt, Cade, come on!" Lillian said as she walked around the plum tree. there it was. The massive wooden wheel was firmly planted into the ground and was as tall as 3 Lillian's and was was as big around as 10 basketballs!
"Alas my revenge is complete!" Coritha suddenly shreiked, running out from behind the tree and trying to push the wheel. "Anya, Jaspen, help me!" The kids helped her push the wheel, making the earth turn very fast! The kids were knocked to the ground withevery turn of the wheel, and no matter how hard they tried, they could not stop Coritha.
"Coritha!" Cade yelled, getting knocked against the plum tree. " Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you?"
"You? Nothing. But her mother? She gave me a reason to do this!" She raged pointing at Lillian.
"What? What did my mother ever do to you? I don't think she even knows you!" Lillian yelled defensively. She had always hated it when people critisized her mother.
"Well, if you must know, 14 years ago, Hermia got the wheel stuck. The part of the earth with the most wetlands was facing away from the sun and 1/2 of my swamps, m,arshes, muddy creeks and ponds froze!" Coritha said angrily. Her face was cherry red and her icy blue eyes seemed to freeze your thoughts with just one look.
Coritha spun the wheel until a loud crack split the air. The wheel was broken.
"Coritha you've broken it! That was Auntie Hermia's wheel and now you've gone and broken it!" Wyatt yelled it disbelief. Coritha shot him a smug smile and ran off into the woods with Anya and Jaspen at her heels.
Lillian knelt to the ground and started sobbing. She sobbed so hard and so loud that up in the sky, zeus heard her and came down to see her, and to ask her if she knew why it was still light out at 9:00 at night. He figured that sghe would know since hermia had been her mother.
"Now Lillian, what's all this crying about?" he asked softly, kneeling down beside her.
"I disobeyed my mother and now thewheel is broked." she sniffled, pointing at the wheel. Zeus looked at the wheel and clucked his tounge at her.
"Well Lillian, as dissappointed in you as I am, I will help you because I know how important it is to earth." Zeus replied helping Lillian to her feet. "Now, there is a price for you to pay for not following your mother's rules. You must give me the key to earth, so that I can go anywhere at anytime!" Lillian agreed and they got to work.
First, zeus cut 10,000 oak trees and formed a pole out of them. Then, he stuck it through the center of the earth. Lastly, he put a motor on one end of the pole and they watched it spin, slowly, all by itself.
"Zeus! This is amazing! Thank you so so so much!" Lillian said happily, hugging Zeus and handing him the world key. Everything seemed like it was finally going to work out until Zeus went home.
The children were still playing by the pole, when Zeus accidently dropped the key and it hit the pole! The pole and earth were turned sideways a little.
"Zeus! What have you done?! We...we worked so hard and... you just..." Lillian stammered, about to burst into fresh tears. Zeus had come down again to apoligize, and was standing in front of her, looking down at his feet.
"I'm so so so sorry Lillian! I promise that this was an accident! I would never ever do something like this on purpose to anybody! Well, except Haides and maybe Coritha. But definitely not you. Please forgive me!" he pleaded. lillian couls see that he was truly sorry and told him that she did forgive him.
"Hey Lillian" Cade called, running up to her. " It actually looks pretty cool!" Lillian took another look around and saw that it really did look cool! Maybe it was for the better that the key fell. Maybe it was symbolizing the start of a new era. The start of a new earth turning goddess.
* * *
And to this very day, Zeus and Lillian's crooked pole still sticks through the crooked Earth and Lilllian watches over the pole, and watches for keys, falling from the sky.