LONGLISTED IN UNCHARTED MAGAZINE'S 2024 CHAPTER EXCERPT CONTEST!

Three women approach motherhood in a futuristic matriarchy where people live in harmony with nature, and art is currency.

27-year-old Deer isn't sure she wants to have kids. After all, the Motherhood Voyage requires women to travel to a faraway planet, Sister Earth, to lay their eggs. But ... all her friends are going.

As the takeoff date nears, she begrudgingly joins in Mating Season festivities. Then, an ominous dream warns her that Sister Earth isn't the innocent childhood planet of her memories, but home to a disturbing secret.

As Deer's intuitive abilities falter and she struggles to hide what she knows from the wise women Sages, she must find a way to save her children from the fate carried in her maternal lineage-even if it means telling a truth no one wants to hear.