Valentine Story of Kokopelli’s Daughter

Posted on by Teagan Riordain Geneviene

February 14, 2026

 

winged hearts fly above Toronto by Teagan via Night Cafe

Hello, everyone.  I had hoped to have a new Valentine’s story for you (actually a substantial one) but that just wasn’t working out.  I picked it up and put it down, time and again for two years. This week I officially scrapped it.   However, as I’ve suggested to other authors, sometimes that kind of story will morph into something entirely different and wonderful.  In that regard my fingers are crossed.  That said, it is not often that a story-worthy holiday falls on one of my two typical posting days.  So, I’m rerunning an old Valentine’s short story.

If you know me at all, then you are not expecting a romance, certainly not a typical one anyway.  This is an odd little story I jotted down on impulse — ten years ago (Horsefeathers! I can’t believe it was so long ago!)  A few of you may have seen it.  Regardless, I hope you’ll enjoy it.  

Kokopelli’s Daughter and Valentine’s Day

Kokopelli on Golden Gate Bridge by Teagan via Night Cafe

Moments after sleep blanketed my tired mind, my eyelids sprang open.  I shot out of the bed and ran toward the kitchen in a state near panic.  As I skidded around the corner I flipped on the light switch.  I stumbled to a stop at the calendar that hung beside the refrigerator.  A moan escaped my lips when I saw the date — February 13th, but only for a couple more hours.

How could I have forgotten? 

Being Kokopelli’s daughter I unconsciously exert a unique magic on Valentine’s Day.  It’s a very tricky sort of magic too.  My father is a music spirit, but also the eternal trickster.  The magic of that genealogy is a dirty trick forever played on unsuspecting people through me.  The joke is also on me as often as everyone else.  It’s uncontrollable, and it gets stronger and stranger each year.

The picture on the calendar should have been a good enough reminder.  A bewildered boy holding one heart-shaped box of candy, greeted by two identical girls — it was a painful reminder of one year’s disastrous Valentine’s Day.  That year desires doubled on one side of a couple, but were cut in half on the other.  I was surrounded by angry twosomes… not to mention my own overly amorous date.

1955 February Valentine calendar

Another year I happened to be in Japan on Valentine’s Day.  I had no idea the gender roles for were reversed there in that women bought chocolates for men.  The magic that surrounded me on that day wreaked havoc, and not just roles, but men and women themselves were reversed for miles around me.

After that year I made a point of taking myself to some remote corner of the world on Valentine’s Day.  Yet somehow the date had escaped me.  The best I could do would be to simply get as far away from civilization as I could manage in the short time remaining before midnight.

I jumped into a pair of jeans and threw on a leather jacket.  I ran out of my “painted lady” Victorian home on Haight Ashbury.  I hurried down the stairs and vaulted into my yellow 1928 M-Type MG Midget.  I headed the Midget up the coast to Highway 101.  Even if I “helped” the car travel faster, I couldn’t get far enough away before midnight.  However, at least humanity would only be on one side of me.  The ocean would be on the other.

When the clock struck twelve, I felt it deep inside without even looking at my watch.  I pulled the MG off the highway and walked down to a deserted beach.  Sitting down on the sand, I gazed up at the cloudless sky.  With a groan I saw that fate conspired with magic to make things worse.  The moon was full.  There were formations on the face of the moon that some people referred to as the “rabbit moon.”  However, I knew the truth of that.  The shape on the moon was not a rabbit, but Kokopelli!

Rabbit_in_the_moon

I glared at the luminous orb.  Soft chuckling emanated from the heavens in return to my spiteful stare.  Then the trickster appeared beside me.

“Do you know, hija,” my father began.  “It was the twisted magic of this night that brought your mother to me.”

I answered with a silent gaze, waiting for him to continue.  I thought of my mother, Themis, the Greek goddess of Justice.  The odd mix of my parents gave me constantly warring impulses.  Because of Themis I was forever compelled to see justice done.  Yet my nature was also to be a trickster like Kokopelli.

“Play for me, hija.  Play upon the beautiful flute your mother gave you,” he urged magically offering me the flute I had left at home.

“You play far better than I could ever hope to play.  If you want music, then play for yourself,” I said irritated. 

I turned my head toward the moon which was suddenly and suspiciously devoid of “rabbit” like formations and shadows.  Abruptly his duplicitous intent sprang with clarity to my mind. 

“You would have me bring her to you!  Themis would never forgive me,” I admonished my father.

“If you play for me,” he urged purely devious.  “I will mix my greater magic with your accident riddled, enchanted emanations.  You could have a Valentine’s Day the likes of which mortals can only dream,” he pressed and then smirked when he saw the sharp expression on my face.  “And by dream I do not mean nightmares.  How hurtful that my daughter would think such of me,” he added with such a preposterous pout that I rolled my eyes.

“No?” he asked again proffering my multi-colored flute.

My answer was a loud snort.  Kokopelli began to play the flute himself.  He danced slowly on the beach as he played.  Fish began to summersault out of the ocean, flipping seafoam into moonlight glittered heart shapes before they splashed back into the sea.

fish jumping in ocean full moon by Teagan via Night Cafe

I felt movement at my side.  Turning, I was stunned to see my mother beside me.  Themis smiled at me gently, but fire smoldered in her eyes when she turned toward my father.

“Just one dance,” she whispered.  “Just this once.”

Kokopelli and Themis danced.  The flute appeared on the sand beside me.  Though it was untouched, the music continued.  I knew their dance would soon progress to movements no one wanted to see their parents make.

I strolled down the beach and out onto a jetty.  I heard the loud noise of something large as it slapped the water.  A great fishtail with scales shimmering in the moonlight, arced down to again slap the water.

Music from my magically played flute wafted to my ears.  I rolled up the legs of my jeans and strolled into the ocean.  Hundreds of tiny fish jumped into the air, also making heart shapes in the reflected light of the full moon.  I continued to walk and soon the water was hip-deep.  Then the large shimmering tail slapped the surface again.  A merman beckoned to me playfully.  I looked back down the coast and saw that Kokopelli and Themis still danced.

The magic that was part of me twisted fitfully on Valentine’s Day, but my father’s enchantment was holding things in place, at least for that span of time.  So I decided to seize the moment.

As I took the merman’s hand the tune of the flute trilled.

Tropical beach ocean late evening by Teagan via Playground

The End.

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Yes, the Rabbit Moon really is a thing.  To learn more, click here.  If you enjoyed this little ditty, the narrator made one previous appearance here at Teagan’s Books in a short story called Kokopelli’s Daughter.  It’s just a little flight of fancy.

Thanks for reading.  Friendly comments are encouraged.  Happy Valentine’s day — and hugs!

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Of course, here’s the obligatory shameless self-promotion…

Fiona Finch and the Pink Valentine

 

Universal Purchase Links

Paperback Universal Link:  relinks.me/B084P73L4C

Kindle:  relinks.me/B084NZFZ14

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This blog is entirely human-written.  Furthermore, the author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies to generate text.

This is a work of fiction.  Characters, names, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 and 2026 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene

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51 thoughts on “Valentine Story of Kokopelli’s Daughter”

  1. The premise alone is a gift, the daughter of Kokopelli and Themis navigating Valentine’s Day with chaotic inherited magic. The story does something quite clever in making the trickster mythology feel lived-in and personal rather than abstract. The ending with the merman is surprising in the best way. Ten years old or not, this holds up beautifly and deserves new readers every February.

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    1. I guess the bright side is that it was a boxful of candy rather than a single gift. LOL. Growing up I knew both male and female identical twins who played tricks on their dates. I was the “victim” of one prank in my earlier years at work (not a date), the head engineer came in one morning, called me by name and said good morning then went on through to his office. A little while later, it happened again. Feeling stunned in a Twilight Zone-worthy way, I followed him, to find twins laughing hysterically. The up-shot was that (a short time later, the twin started working there too) I could tell the two apart when no one else in the office could.
      Thanks for visiting. Hugs.

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  10. Thank you for this enchanting tale on Valentine’s Teagan!

    I don’t recall this story. It is absolutely lovely.

    Happy Valentine’s to you and the Scoobies!

    Misha sends this to you and the Scoobies. She says it was taken while she watched FLOW. HUGS!

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  12. Wonderful story, Teagan. I remember the character but I am not sure I had read this story before (or it has escaped my mind since reading it). I’m not that fond of standard romances, so I love this one. Thanks, Teagan, and I hope you are lucky with everything you’re working on. Big hugs and love to the Scoobies! ♥

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  13. Happy Valentines Day, Teagan. This is a delightful story, and brings back memories of a couple of trips up and down the coast highway (to and from San Francisco). One trip, during the gas crisis of 1979, ended abruptly as we were nearly out of gas and the station in Bodega Bay where we were forced to spend the night. If the name is familiar, it was the setting for Hitchcock’s The Birds. Romantic, it was not.

    Give the kitty girls a scritch from us.

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    1. Thanks, John. Living there was/is my big unfulfilled dream of about three decades. The setting (in one era/time or another) shows up in several of my stories (not all published). LOL, my brain seems to have fallen into parenthetical statement glitchiness. Need more coffee. Is the drawbridge up and the security system off at your place? Hugs. ☕☕

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    1. Hi, Brian. Thanks for the link. Okay… This is funny-weird… A few years ago I wrote a couple of chapters (in an unfinished novel) that included some mer-people. A thought kept coming to me of Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar under water. BUT I have never heard that song title before, OR seen his name connected with merman. It’s a weird world. 🤔 🐟🐙🐬🐋🐠. Hugs.

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        1. 😉 There’s a thought. It actually is around 2/3rds finished. I just got burned out in general, and then specifically to that story. However, the one that’s truly important to me (to finish) is also about that close to finished, (It’s a longer book though.) and I just can’t stop procrastinating… One of the characters is a goofy guy inspired by a character from a B-52s song. Maybe it needs a Toowoomba connection to get it started again. LOL. Do you have an equivalent of Area 51 there? Cheers.

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