by P. C. Cast
I felt an awful jolt of surprise. Smudging had been used for hundreds of years in Cherokee rituals—especially when cleansing, purifying, or protection was needed. Grandma smudged and cleansed herself regularly—I’d grown up believing it was just a way of honoring the Great Spirit and of keeping my own spirit clean. But never in my life had Grandma ever felt the need to smudge at the mention of anyone or anything.
“Zoey, you should do it now,” Grandma said sharply.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As always, when Grandma told me to do something, I did it. “Okay, yeah. I’m going. I have a smudge stick in my room. I gotta run and get it.” I gave Aphrodite a look and she nodded, shooing me toward the door with a hand flutter.
“Which herbs?” Grandma asked.
“White sage and lavender. It’s the one I keep in my T-shirt drawer,” I said.
“Good, good. That’s good. It’s personal to you, but its magic hasn’t been released yet. Good.”
I rushed back to Aphrodite’s room.
“I got the pot part covered,” Aphrodite said, handing me a lavender-colored bowl that was decorated with three-dimensional grapes and a vine that twined all the way around it. It was absolutely gorgeous and looked expensive and old. She shrugged her shoulders at me. “Yeah, it’s expensive.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Okay, I have the bowl, Grandma.”
“Do you have a feather? From a peaceful bird, like the dove, or a protective bird, like a hawk or an eagle would be best.”
“Uh, Grandma, no. I don’t have any feathers.” I looked questioningly at Aphrodite.
“No feathers here, either,” she said.
“No matter, we can make do. Are you ready, Zoeybird?”
I waved the small wandlike stick of tightly woven dried herbs until the fire went out and smoke began to waft gently from it. Then I put it in the purple bowl and set it between us. “I’m ready. It’s smoking perfectly.”
“Waft it around you. Girls, both of you need to concentrate on protection and positive spirits. Think of your Goddess and how much she loves you.”
We did as Grandma told us. Both of us were fanning the smoke gently around with our hands as we inhaled slowly.
Maleficent sneezed, growled, and jumped off the bed to disappear into Aphrodite’s bathroom. I can’t say I was sorry to see her go.
“Now keep the pot close to you while you listen carefully to me,” Grandma said. I heard her draw three deep cleansing breaths before she began. “First you should know that the Tsi Sgili are Cherokee witches, only do not be deceived by the title ‘witch.’ They do not follow the peaceful, beautiful ways of Wicca. Nor are they the wise priestesses you know and respect who serve Nyx. A Tsi Sgili lives as an outcast, separate from the tribe. They are evil, through and through. They delight in killing; they revel in death. They have magical powers granted through the fear and pain of their victims. They feed on death. They can torture and kill with the ane li sgi.”
“I don’t know what that means, Grandma.”
“It means they are powerful psychics and can kill with their minds.”
Aphrodite looked up at me. Our eyes met and I could tell we were thinking the same thing: Neferet is a powerful psychic.
“Who is this queen the poem talks about?” Aphrodite asked.
“I know of no Tsi Sgili queen. They are solitary beings and have no hierarchy. But I am not an authority on them.”
“So is Kalona one of the Tsi Sgili?” I asked.
“No. Kalona is worse. Much worse. The Tsi Sgili are evil and dangerous, but they are human and can be dealt with as any human can.” Grandma paused, and I could hear her drawing in three more deep cleansing breaths. When Grandma began to speak again, her voice was lowered, as if she was worried about being overheard. She didn’t exactly sound scared. She sounded cautious. Cautious and very, very serious.
“Kalona was the father of the Raven Mockers and he was not human. We call him and his twisted offspring demons, but that’s not really accurate. I guess the best way I can describe Kalona is as an angel.”
A cold chill went through my body when Grandma said the words Raven Mockers; then I realized what else she had said, and I blinked in surprise. “An angel? Like in the Bible?”
“Aren’t they supposed to be good guys?” Aphrodite asked.
“They are supposed to be. Keep in mind that the Christian tradition says that Lucifer himself was the brightest and most beautiful of the angels, but he fell.”
“That’s right. I’d forgotten about that,” Aphrodite said. “So this Kalona was an angel who fell and turned bad guy?”
“In a way. In ancient times, angels walked the earth and mated with humans. Many peoples have stories to describe this time. The Bible called them Nephilim. The Greeks and Romans called them Olympian gods. But whatever they have been called, all of the stories agree on two points: First, that they were beautiful and powerful. Second, that they mated with humans.”
“Makes sense,” Aphrodite said. “If they were so hot, of course women would want to be with them.”
“Well, they were exceptional beings. The Cherokee people tell of one particular angel, beautiful beyond compare. He had wings the color of night, and he could change form into a creature that looked like an enormous raven. At first our people welcomed him as a visiting god. We sang songs to him and danced for him. Our crops thrived. Our women were fertile.
“But gradually everything changed. I don’t really know why. The stories are too old. Too many of them have been lost to time. My guess is that it is difficult to have a god live among you, no matter how beautiful he is.
“The song I remember my grandmother singing tells that Kalona changed when he began to lie with the maidens of the tribe. The story goes that after the first time he bedded a maiden, he became obsessed. He had to have women—he craved them constantly, and he also hated them for causing the lust and need he felt for them.”
Aphrodite snorted. “I bet it was him feeling the lust, not them. No one wants a guy who’s a man ho, no matter how hot he is.”
“You’re right, Aphrodite. My grandmother’s song said that the maidens turned their faces from him, and that’s when he became a monster. He used his divine power to rule our men while he defiled our women. And all the while his hatred for women grew with an intensity that was all the more frightening because of his obsession with them. I heard an old Wise Woman speak once, and she said that to Kalona the Cherokee women were water and air and food—his very life, though he hated that he needed them so desperately.” She paused again, and I could easily envision the look of disgust on her face that was mirrored in her voice as she continued her story.
“The women he raped became pregnant, but most of them gave birth to dead things, unrecognizable as infants of any species. But once in a while, one of his offspring would live, though it was clearly not human. The stories say that Kalona’s children were ravens, with the eyes and limbs of man.”
“Eeewww, the body of a crow and the legs and eyes of a man? That’s disgusting,” Aphrodite said.
A shiver passed through me. “I’ve been hearing ravens, a lot of them. I think one of them tried to attack me. I swiped at it, and it scratched my hand.”
“What! When?” Grandma snapped.
“I’ve been hearing them at night. I thought it was weird that they were making so much noise. And . . . and then last night something I couldn’t really see flapped around me, like a nasty invisible bird. I hit at it and then ran inside the school and called fire to make the cold it brought with it go away.”
“And it worked? Fire chased it away?” Grandma said.
“Yeah, but I’ve felt eyes on me ever since.”
“Raven Mockers.” Grandma’s voice was hard as steel. “What you’ve been dealing with are the spirits of the demon children of Kalona.”
“I’ve heard them, too,” Aphrodite said, looking pale again. “Actually I’ve been thinking how annoying they’ve been the last few night
s.”
“Ever since Professor Nolan was killed,” I said.
“I think that’s when I started noticing it, too. Ohmygod, Grandma! Could they have had something to do with Professor Nolan and Loren’s deaths?”
“No, I don’t think so. The Raven Mockers lost their physical forms. They only have their spirits left and can do little harm except to those who are old and very near death. How badly did they hurt your hand, sweetheart?”
Automatically I looked down at my unmarked hand. “Not bad. The scratch went away in just a few minutes.”
Grandma hesitated before saying, “I have never heard of a Raven Mocker being able to really hurt a vibrant young person. They are mischief makers—dark spirits that take pleasure from annoying the living and tormenting those at the cusp of death. I do not believe they could cause a healthy vampyre’s death, but they could be drawn to the House of Night by the deaths of those vampyres, and have somehow become stronger because of them. Be wary. They are terrible creatures, and their presence is always an ill omen.”
As Grandma had been talking, my eyes had wandered back to the poem. Over and over I kept reading the line Through the hand of the dead he will be free.
“What happened to Kalona?” I asked abruptly.
“It was his insatiable lust for women that eventually destroyed him. The warriors of the tribes tried for years to overpower him. They simply could not. He was a creature of myth and magic, and only myth and magic could defeat him.”
“So what happened?” Aphrodite said.
“The Ghigua called a secret council of Wise Women from all tribes.”
“What’s a Ghigua?” I asked.
“It is the Cherokee name for the Beloved Woman of the tribe. She is a gifted Wise Woman, a diplomat, and often very close to the Great Spirit. Each tribe chooses one, and she serves on a council of women.”
“Basically they’re High Priestesses?” I said.
“Yes, that’s a good way to think of them. So a Ghigua called the Wise Women together, and they met in secret in the only place where Kalona would not eavesdrop on them—a cave deep in the earth.”
“Why wouldn’t he hear them there?” Aphrodite asked.
“Kalona had an aversion to the earth. He was a creature of the heavens, which is where he belonged.”
“Well, why didn’t the Great Spirit or whoever make him go back to where he belonged?” I said.
“Free will,” Grandma said. “Kalona was free to choose his path, just as you and Aphrodite are free to choose your paths.”
“Free will sometimes sucks,” I said.
Grandma laughed and the familiar happy sound made my insides relax a little. “Indeed it sometimes does, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. But in this case, the free will of the Ghigua women is what saved our people.”
“What did they do?” Aphrodite said.
“They used the magic of women to create a maiden so beautiful, she would be impossible for Kalona to resist.”
“Created a girl? You mean they did some kind of magical makeover on someone?”
“No, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, I mean they created a maiden. The Ghigua who was the most gifted potter formed a maiden’s body from clay, and painted a face for her that was beautiful beyond compare. The Ghigua known as the most gifted weaver in all the tribes wove long, dark hair for her that fell in waves around her slim waist. The Ghigua dressmaker fashioned a dress for her that was the white of the full moon, and all of the women decorated it with shells and beads and feathers. The Ghigua who was the most fleet of foot stroked her legs and gifted her with speed. And the Ghigua who was known as the most talented singer of all the tribes whispered sweet, soft words to her, giving her the most pleasing of all voices.
“Each of the Ghigua cut their palms and used their own blood as ink to draw on her body symbols of power representing the Sacred Seven: north, south, east, west, above, below, and spirit. Then they joined hands around the beautiful clay figure and, using their combined power, breathed life into her.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Grandma! The women made what was basically a doll come alive?” I said.
“That’s how the story goes,” she said. “Young lady, why is that any more difficult to believe than a girl having the ability to call forth all five of the elements?”
“Huh,” I said, feeling my cheeks getting warm at her mild rebuke. “I guess you have a point.”
“For sure she has a point. Now be quiet and let her tell the rest of the story,” Aphrodite said.
“Sorry, Grandma,” I muttered.
“You must remember that magic is real, Zoeybird,” Grandma said. “It is dangerous to forget that.”
“I’ll remember,” I assured her, thinking how ironic it was that I could doubt the power of magic.
“So, to continue,” Grandma said, drawing my attention back to the story. “The Ghigua women breathed life and purpose into the woman they called A-ya.”
“Hey, I know that word. It means ‘me,’ ” I said.
“Very good, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. They named her A-ya because she had a piece of every one of them within her—she was, to each Ghigua woman, me.”
“That’s pretty cool, actually,” Aphrodite said.
“The Ghigua told no one about A-ya—not their husbands or daughters, sons, or fathers. With the next dawn, they led her out of the cave to a place near the stream where Kalona came every morning to bathe, all the while whispering to her what she must do.
“So it was there, sitting in a little patch of morning sunlight, combing her hair and singing a maiden’s song, that Kalona saw her, and—as the women knew he would—he became instantly obsessed with possessing her. A-ya did what she had been created to do. She fled from Kalona with her magical speed. Kalona followed her. In his fierce need for her, he barely hesitated at the mouth of the cave into which she disappeared, and he did not see the Ghigua women who followed behind him, nor did he hear their soft magical chanting.
“Kalona caught A-ya deep within the bowels of the earth. Instead of screaming and struggling against him, this most beautiful of maidens welcomed him with smooth arms and inviting body. But the instant he penetrated her, that soft, inviting body changed back into what it had once been—earth and the spirit of woman. Her arms and legs became the clay that held him, her spirit the quicksand that trapped him, as the Ghigua Women’s chanting called on the Earth Mother to seal the cave, trapping Kalona in A-ya’s eternal embrace. And there he still is today, firmly held to the bosom of Earth.”
I blinked, like I was surfacing after a long underwater dive, and my eyes found the poem lying on the bed beside the lavender pot. “But what about the poem?”
“Well, Kalona’s entombment wasn’t the end of the story. At the moment his tomb was sealed, each of his children, the terrible Raven Mockers, began to sing a song in a human’s voice that promised Kalona would one day return, and described the horrible vengeance he would take against human beings, especially women. Today the details of the Raven Mockers’ song are pretty much lost. Even my grandmother knew only snippets of what it said, and only that from words whispered by her grandmother. Few people wanted to remember the song. They thought it bad luck to dwell on such horrors, though enough of it has survived by being passed from mother to daughter that I can tell you it spoke of the Tsi Sgili and the bleeding earth, and how their father’s terrible beauty would rise again.” Grandma hesitated as Aphrodite and I stared in horror at the poem. Finally she said, “I’m afraid the poem from your vision is the song the ravens sang. And I think it’s a warning that Kalona is about to return.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“It is a warning,” Aphrodite said solemnly. “All of my visions are warnings of a tragedy that could happen. This one really wasn’t any different.”
“I think you’re right,” I said to Aphrodite and Grandma.
“And aren’t Aphrodite’s visions warnings that, if heeded, prevent the terrible outcomes from occurring?” Grandma said.
Aphrodit
e looked doubtful, so I answered for her, making my voice sound much surer than I felt. “Yes, they are. Her vision saved you, Grandma.”
“And several other people who would have died on the bridge that day, too,” Grandma said.
“All we had to do then was figure out how to prevent the accident from happening the way she saw it, so that’s all we have to do with this warning, too,” I said.
“I agree, Zoey. Aphrodite is a vessel of Nyx, and the Goddess is clearly warning you.”
“She also clearly wants you to help us,” Aphrodite said. “It was you who I saw reading the poem.” She hesitated, looked at me, and I nodded, understanding what else she wanted to say to Grandma. “When I copied the poem, it came out in your handwriting.”
I heard Grandma’s small gasp of surprise. “You’re quite sure of that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I even got one of your letters and double-checked. It’s definitely your handwriting.”
“Then I must agree that Nyx wants me to play a part in this,” Grandma said.
“That’s not surprising,” I said. “You’re the only Ghigua Woman we know.”
“Oh, sweetheart! I’m not a Ghigua Woman. That’s something an entire tribe votes on, and besides, there hasn’t been an official Ghigua Woman for generations.”
“Well, you’ve got my vote,” Aphrodite said.
“And mine,” I said. “And I’ll bet Damien’s and the Twins’, too. Plus, we’re kinda a tribe all our own.”
Grandma laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t think of arguing with the will of the tribe.”
“You should come here,” Aphrodite said suddenly.
I looked at her in surprise, and she nodded her head slowly, deadly serious. I listened to my gut instinct and knew with a sickening thud of my heart that Aphrodite was right.
“Oh, Aphrodite, thank you, but no. I really don’t like to leave my lavender farm. We’ll just talk on the phone or instant-message each other and figure this out.”