Good Mother no longer walked in the worlds, and there was a time of darkness. This was not the darkness of sunset and moonrise and starshine, such as you and I know come evening. In this dark time, the sun came out when she pleased. Some days she chose not to set at all, and burned the people and scorched their fields. Then she might disappear for months, and the land would freeze and the people as well. And this was not the worst of it.

In this shadow era, the ground was inconstant. Sometimes a forest would spring up overnight where people had been living, or else an orchard that was once abundant would shrivel into the earth. Rivers would flow suddenly from nothing and wash over the landscape and past the horizon, or the ground would bend and buckle, rumbling and shaking.

All the little magics that we take for granted in our daylight were undependable in the ebon age. Children might not come from a union of man and woman, and they might grow instead from a bird’s egg, or crawl up from a swamp into the home of some people too old to care for a child. This was most inconvenient, especially since no one could count on the bread rising or seeds sprouting. So there were many hungry children, and angry people fought over dust and sand.

One day a sorrowful fool was walking along the road, and sometimes he sank in the mud, and sometimes sharp stones grew beneath his feet and pierced the leather of his boots, but he did not cry out, for he had known no other way. Then the path he had been following became wetter and wetter, soaking through his footwear until it was quite clear that the lane was, in fact, a lake, and the fool was standing hip-deep among water-lilies and duckweed.

"Where’s the sense?" he cried out to the heavens. "Why should a path become a pond? Why should the night last until men are mad with blindness and bruised from walking into rocks, rocks they can’t see, rocks that go where they please, rocks that roll uphill and crush a man’s family?" Something like this had happened to the fool some time ago, but he did not know how long because it was impossible to reckon the days with the sun so unpredictable.

Nothing happened then, so the fool waded and splashed out of the lake and found a road, and whether it was the road he had been on, or some other road, he could not say. However, it was a road, so he put his foot on it, and as he did so, there was an arc of electric light across the sky. Before he had time to be afraid, a ball of fire dropped at his feet and went out, leaving only a small, puzzled girl child sitting complacently in the road, brushing ash from her shoulders.

As this did not seem any more outlandish than any other way he had discovered children coming into the world, the fool scooped her into his arms and was pleased.

"I will call you Jacks," he said, as this was the name of the daughter he had lost.

Then he went on down the road, but now he spoke to the child, numbering his woes, although this was not a thing that had occurred to him to do before. The child seemed to listen and even appeared to be nodding her head in agreement. As they were walking, the ground began to quiver and then it leapt up to become a mountain, knocking the fool off his feet and sending the girl flying from his arms.

She landed very rudely in a bramble, stood up and said, "It’s not right."

She stood even taller and shouted, "Nothing is right."

She stamped her foot. "You! Ground! You must stay always where you are and not move without reason. You! River! You must flow always in the same path, and not leave your banks unless you are too full to fit. And you! Plants! You have no excuse to move at all. You stay in one place and grow."

The girl went around and told grain how to be bread, and mud how to be brick, and grapes how to be wine, and sparks how to be fire. She set all the natural magics in place and told them they’d best not forget how to do what they were meant to do.

Last she threw her head back to the sky and said, "And you, sun, you’re the least reliable of all. From this day forth, you will come up in the morning to nourish the plants and give light to the people, and in the evening you will set so the earth can cool and people can sleep. You will do this every day without fail."

The sun laughed at her. "Who are you, infant, to command the sun?"

"I am Good Mother’s daughter, which reminds me: from this day forth, children shall come from their mothers’ wombs, and from no other place. I speak my Good Mother’s wishes."

Using her fiery strength, the sun flashed bright and tried to burn the girl, but Jacks had already taught silver how to be a mirror, and deflected the light harmlessly away. Then the sun flashed brighter and tried to blind the girl, but Jacks had already taught oak tree how to give shade, and she rested under the leaves and laughed.

"If I cannot shine when I please, then I will not shine at all," the sun said, and fell gracelessly below the horizon.

However, the girl had already taught the horizon about dawn, and eight hours later the sun had no choice but to come up again and paint the east with bands of color. Once she was up, there didn’t seem to be any point in setting again, until she was compelled to color the western sky at dusk, and once she got into this pattern of things, it was easier to go along than to argue.

Now that things had all been set right, Jacks went to the fool and reached her arms up to him.
"Please carry me, Father, for I am too small to walk."

And the fool did as she asked and made much of her as he went along the road, which did not move or change at all. "What a clever daughter I have," he said aloud. They went to a village where people were eating bread and drinking beer. The fool explained what had happened, and everyone cheered and made merry long into the night, and cheered again when the sun came up in the morning. This is how Good Mother sent Jacks to set the many worlds right, and how the people remembered that Good Mother was watching, and loved them.