"Once a Goddess"

For eleven years Hathirekhmet was a goddess, and then they sent her home.

I hope this story never loses the distinction of having the longest idea-to-draft lag time in all my writing career, because it took its own sweet time -- more than seven years, in fact.

In the summer of 2001, I was working for Anthropological Literature, a service which indexes journal articles for scholarly purposes. On occasion, one of the articles I indexed caught my eye enough that I sat down and read the whole thing. (Shhhh, don't tell my boss.) Sadly, I've been unable to dig out the reference from AL, so I can't tell you the author or title or even the journal I got this idea from, but I know the article concerned Kumari, the living goddess of Nepal. Specifically, it looked at the difficulties faced by Kumari after her departure from temple life: having lived since their toddler years as sheltered, sacred figures, many of the young women have difficulty adapting to ordinary Nepalese life.

Which is not to say you should read this story as direct commentary on Kumari. I know very little about that practice beyond the one article; all the specifics in "Once a Goddess" are my own invention, built around the quasi-Egyptian society of the setting. I just wanted to explore that basic idea, the notion that you could live as a goddess for years and then be summarily booted out into the world, with no idea of how to live as an ordinary person.

Incidentally, it turns out that Ian McDonald wrote a Hugo-nominated SF novella called "A Little Goddess" based more directly on the tradition of Kumari Devi, which you can read in its entirety at that link, on the Asimov's website.

"Once a Goddess" appears in the second volume of Mike Allen's Clockwork Phoenix series (which previously included my story "A Mask of Flesh"). You can order it from your retailer of choice at that link, or seek it out in a bookstore near you.

Reviews

Mario Guslandi, SFSite -- Marie Brennan's "Once a Goddess" is the well told, compelling and compassionate portrait of a girl formerly acting as a goddess' avatar, trying to fit again in a normal life.

Amal El-Mohtar, SFSite -- "Once a Goddess," by Marie Brennan, tells the story of Nefret, a woman who, after eleven years of being the vessel of the goddess Hathirekhmet, is sent home to be an ordinary woman among ordinary mortals, expected to live a life of submission and domesticity to which she has not been trained. This is a compelling exploration of womanhood and coming-of-age rituals, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wolfen Moondaughter, Sequential Tart -- I greatly enjoyed Marie Brennan's "Once a Goddess"! It's an introspective, character-driven story that touches upon Egyptian culture, as a young woman deals with having lost her status as an avatar for a goddess. The sentiments expressed by the end were very wise and beautiful, and I feel truly enriched for having read it!

Starlady38, LJ -- "Once a Goddess" by Marie Brennan was inspired by a Nepalese goddess-avatar (Kumari Devi), but the story, which concerns what happens after a girl is no longer a goddess, reminded me variously of ancient Egypt, as well as of one of the most interesting and least known tropes of classical/Indo-European myth: the faded goddess. Helen of Troy is perhaps the example par excellence; she was once a solar deity, until time and misogyny downgraded her into a half-divine prize to be fought over by men. That the solar goddess in this story has a name that begins with H doesn't seem coincidental.

Findabair, LJ -- I particularly like this story for its simplicity. Brennan paints a society and a religion through the simple story of Nefret. I also really like what seems to me to be the philosophy behind it, because I agree with it: a human life is valued and should be treasured in spite of its imperfections. And I realise I'm putting this very na�vely, but it really isn't when you read the story.