Hidden

Sylvia began humming again as she finished fashioning the smudge stick. It was only when she’d completed the weaving of grass and lavender that she realized the song she hummed had changed from lullaby to a much different tune: “Song for a Woman Who Was Brave in War.” Even though she still sat, Sylvia’s feet had begun to move, beating out the strong rhythm to accompany the rise and fall of her voice.

When she realized what she was doing, Sylvia went utterly still. She looked down at her hands. Woven within the sweet grass and lavender was a blue thread that was strung and knotted with raw turquoise. With a jolt of clarity, Sylvia understood.

“A Goddess Bundle.” Sylvia spoke the words reverently. “Thank you, Earth Mother, for this warning. My spirit heard you, and my body obeys.” Slowly, solemnly, the old woman stood. She walked to her bedroom and took off her sleep shirt. Opening the armoire that rested against the raw pine walls, Sylvia took out her most sacred regalia—the cape and the wrap skirt she had made when she first learned she was pregnant with Linda. The deerskin was old and a little loose on her slight body, but still smooth and soft. The green that Sylvia had spent so much time mixing and then dyeing had remained the color of moss, even after three decades. Not one of the shells or beads was loose.

As Sylvia began to braid her silver hair in one long, thick rope, she began to sing the “Song for a Woman Who Was Brave in War” aloud.

She looped silver and turquoise earings through each earlobe.

Her voice lifted and fell in time with the beating of her bare feet as she strung necklaces of turquoise around her neck, adding one on another, so that their weight felt familiar and warm.

Sylvia circled her thin wrists with cuffs of turquoise and smaller, thi

Only then did Sylvia Redbird pick up her smudge stick and a long box of wooden matches, and walk from her bedroom.

She let her spirit guide her bare feet. Her spirit did not take her to the bubbling stream that ran behind her house where she usually greeted the dawn. Instead Sylvia found herself in the middle of her wide front porch. Continuing to follow her instincts, she lit the smudge stick. With graceful, practiced movements, Sylvia began circling herself with the scents of sweet grass and lavender. It was when she was engulfed in smoke, foot to head, and singing a Wise Woman’s war song, that Neferet stepped from a pool of Darkness, materializing before her.

Neferet

Sylvia Redbird’s voice sounded like chalk screeching on a blackboard. “By your own belief system it is impolite not to welcome a guest.” Neferet raised her voice so she could be heard over the old woman’s horrible song.

“Guests are invited. You have no invitation to my home. That makes you an intruder. According to my beliefs I am greeting you appropriately.”

Neferet curled her lip. The old woman’s singing had ended, but her bare feet still beat out a repeating rhythm. “That song is almost as a

“I think many things, Tsi Sgili,” Sylvia said, still wafting the thick wand of herbs around her as she danced in place. “At this moment I am thinking that you broke an oath you made to me when my u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya first joined your world. I call you to task for that.”

Neferet was almost amused by the old woman’s insolence. “I made no oath to you.”

“You did. You promised to mentor and protect Zoey. Then you broke that oath. You owe me the price of that broken oath.”

“Old woman, I am an immortal. I am not bound by the same rules as you are,” Neferet scoffed.

“Immortal you may have become. That does not change the Earth Mother’s laws.”

“Perhaps not, but it does change how they are enforced,” Neferet said.

“An oath-breaking is only one of the debts you owe me, witch,” Sylvia said.

“I am a goddess, not a witch!” Neferet felt her anger rise and she began moving slowly closer to the porch. The tendrils of Darkness slithered with her, though Neferet sensed their hesitation as wisps of white smoke drifted down, seeming to melt around them.

Sylvia continued dancing and waving the wand around her. “The second debt you owe me is greater than an oath-breaking. You owe me a life debt. You killed my daughter.”

“I sacrificed your daughter for a greater good. I owe you nothing!”

The old woman paid no attention to her. Instead she paused in her dance long enough to bend and place the smoking herbs at her feet. Then she lifted her face and opened her arms, as if embracing the sky. “Great Earth Mother, hear me. I am Sylvia Redbird, Wise Woman of the Cherokee, and Ghigua of my tribe, that of the House of Night. I beg mercy from you. The Tsi Sgili, Neferet, who was once a High Priestess of Nyx, is forsworn. She owes me an oath-breaking debt. She is also the murderess of my daughter. She owes me a life debt. I invoke your aid, Earth Mother, and call both debts due. The payment I demand is protection.”

Ignoring the tendrils of Darkness that were cowering around her, Neferet approached Sylvia, climbing the steps up to her porch as she spoke. “You are vastly mistaken, old woman. I am the only goddess listening. I am the immortal to whom you should be begging protection.”

Neferet stepped onto the smoke-filled porch when Sylvia spoke again. The old woman’s voice had changed. Before it had been powerful as she evoked the one she called Earth Mother. Now her voice had gentled, become softer. Her arms were no longer spread. Her face no longer raised in supplication. Instead her dark eyes met Neferet’s gaze steadily. “You are no goddess. You are a mean-spirited, broken little girl. I pity you. What happened to you? Who broke you, child?”

Neferet’s anger was so intense that she felt as if she would explode. Threads of Darkness forgotten, she struck out at Sylvia, wanting to co

With a movement so quick it belied her age, Sylvia lifted her arms defensively before her face, meeting Neferet’s blows.

Pain burned through the Tsi Sgili’s body, radiating from her hands. Neferet shrieked and jerked back, staring at the bloody marks left on her fists, burned in the exact shape of the blue stones in the bracelets that circled her withered arms.

“You dare to strike out at me! A goddess!”

“I strike at no one. I only defend myself through the stones of protection the Great Mother has gifted me with.” Never breaking her gaze, and keeping her turquoise and silver swathed arms raised, the old woman began singing again.

Neferet wanted to tear her to shreds with her hands. But as she circled closer to the Cherokee she could feel the wave of heat that radiated from the blue stones in which she was covered. It was as if they pulsed with a fire equal to her own fury.

She needed the white bull! His frigid Darkness would extinguish the old woman’s flames. Perhaps the odd energy she wielded would surprise him, and he would, again, lend Neferet his alluring might.

Controlling her anger, Neferet stepped back, outside the ring of smoke and heat that engulfed Sylvia. She studied the old woman, watched her dance, listened to her song. Old. Ancient. Everything about Sylvia Redbird said she, and the earth power she was wielding, had been here for a very long time.

The white bull was ancient as well.

This Indian would not surprise him.

“I will deal with you myself.” Still meeting Sylvia Redbird’s gaze, Neferet lifted her hands and, without so much as flinching, used her sharpened fingernails to gouge the wounds already formed by the old woman’s protective turquoise. Her blood flowed freely, spattering the porch. Neferet shook her hands, raining scarlet through the smoke cloud, dispersing it, and painting the old woman with bright dots of red, which were a garish, stark contrast to the earthy greens and blues she wore. Then Neferet turned her hands, cupping her palms and letting her blood pool there. “Come, my Dark children, drink!” The tendrils were hesitant at first, but after the first taste of Neferet’s blood, they were emboldened.