Marked

by P. C. Cast

  Drum . . .

  Thinking the word reminded me of powwows Grandma had taken me to when I was a little girl, and then, my thoughts somehow breathing life into the memory, I actually heard the rhythmic beating of ceremonial drums. I looked around, squinting against even the weak light of the dying day. My eyes stung and my vision was all screwed up. There was no wind, but the shadows of the rocks and trees seemed to be moving . . . stretching . . . reaching out toward me.

  “Grandma I’m scared . . .” I cried between wracking coughs.

  The spirits of the land are nothing to be frightened of, Zoeybird.

  “Grandma?” Did I hear her voice calling me by my nickname, or was it only more weirdness and echoes, this time coming from my memory? “Grandma!” I called again, and then stood still listening for an answer.

  Nothing. Nothing except the wind.

  U-no-le . . . the Cherokee word for wind drifted through my mind like a half-forgotten dream.

  Wind? No, wait! There hadn’t been any wind just a second ago, but now I had to hold my hat down with one hand and brush away the hair that was whipping wildly across my face with the other. Then in the wind I heard them—the sounds of many Cherokee voices chanting in time with the beating of the ceremonial drums. Through a veil of hair and tears I saw smoke. The nutty sweet scent of piñon wood filled my open mouth and I tasted the campfires of my ancestors. I gasped, fighting to catch my breath.

  That’s when I felt them. They were all around me, almost-visible shapes shimmering like heat waves lifting from a blacktop road in summer. I could feel them press against me as they twirled and moved with graceful, intricate steps around and around the shadowy image of a Cherokee campfire.

  Join us, u-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa . . . Join us, daughter . . .

  Cherokee ghosts . . . drowning in my own lungs . . . the fight with my parents . . . my old life gone . . .

  It was all just too much. I ran.

  I guess what they teach us in biology about adrenaline taking over during the whole fight-or-flight thing is true because even though my chest felt like it was going to explode and it seemed as if I was trying to breathe underwater, I ran up the last and steepest part of the trail like they’d opened up all the stores at the mall and they were giving away free shoes.

  Gasping for breath I stumbled up the path—higher and higher—fighting to get away from the frightening spirits that hovered around me like fog, but instead of leaving them behind it seemed I was running farther into their world of smoke and shadows. Was I dying? Was this what happens? Was that why I could see ghosts? Where’s the white light? Completely panicked, I rushed forward, throwing my arms out wildly as if I could hold off the terror that was chasing me.

  I didn’t see the root that broke through the hard ground of the path. Completely disoriented I tried to catch myself, but all of my reflexes were off. I fell hard. The pain in my head was sharp, but it lasted only an instant before blackness swallowed me.

  Waking up was weird. I expected my body to hurt, especially my head and my chest, but instead of pain I felt . . . well . . . I felt fine. Actually, I felt better than fine. I wasn’t coughing. My arms and legs were amazingly light, tingly, and warm, like I had just slipped into a bubbly hot tub on a cold night.

  Huh?

  Surprise made me open my eyes. I was staring up at a light, which miraculously didn’t hurt my eyes. Instead of the glaring light of the sun, this was more like a soft rain of candlelight filtering down from above. I sat up, and realized I was wrong. The light wasn’t coming down. I was moving up toward it!

  I’m going to heaven. Well, that’ll shock some people.

  I glanced down to see my body! I or it or . . . or . . . whatever was lying scarily close to the edge of the bluff. My body was very still. My forehead had been cut and it was bleeding badly. The blood dripped steadily into a gash in the rocky ground, making a trail of red tears that fell into the heart of the bluff.

  It was incredibly weird to look down on myself. I wasn’t scared. But I should be, shouldn’t I? Didn’t this mean I was dead? Maybe I’d be able to see the Cherokee ghosts better now. Even that thought didn’t scare me. Actually, instead of being afraid it was more like I was an observer, as if none of this could really touch me. (Kinda like those girls who have sex with everyone and think that they’re not going to get pregnant or a really nasty STD that eats your brains and stuff. Well, we’ll see in ten years, won’t we?)

  I enjoyed the way the world looked, sparkling and new, but it was my body that kept drawing my attention. I floated closer to it. I was breathing in short, shallow pants. Well, my body was breathing like that, not the I that was me. (Talk about confusing pronoun usage.) And I/she didn’t look good. I/she was all pale and her lips were blue. Hey! White face, blue lips, and red blood! Am I patriotic or what?

  I laughed, and it was amazing! I swear I could see my laughter floating around me like the puffy things you blow off a dandelion, only instead of being white it was birthday-cake-frosting-blue. Wow! Who knew hitting my head and passing out would be so much fun? I wondered if this was what it was like to be high.

  The dandelion icing laughter faded and I could hear the shining crystal sound of running water. I moved closer to my body, able to see that what I had at first thought was a gash in the ground was really a narrow crevasse. The living water sound was coming from deep inside it. Curious, I peered down, and the sparkling silver outline of words drifted up from within the rock. I strained to hear, and was rewarded by a faint, whispering of silver sound.

  Zoey Redbird . . . come to me . . .

  “Grandma!” I yelled into the slash in the rock. My words were bright purple and they filled the air around me. “Is that you, Grandma?”

  Come to me . . .

  The silver mixed with the purple of my visible voice, turning the words the glistening color of lavender blossoms. It was an omen! A sign! Somehow, like the spirit guides the Cherokee people have believed in for centuries, Grandma Redbird was telling me I had to go down into the rock.

  Without any more hesitation, I flung my spirit forward and down into the crevasse, following the trail of my blood and the silver memory of my grandma’s whisper until I came to the smooth floor of a cave-like room. In the middle of the room a small stream of water bubbled, giving off tinkling shards of visible sound, bright and glass-colored. Mixed with the scarlet drops of my blood it lit up the cave with a flickering light that was the color of dried leaves. I wanted to sit next to the bubbling water and let my fingers touch the air around it and play in the texture of its music, but the voice called to me again.

  Zoey Redbird . . . follow me to your destiny . . .

  So I followed the stream and the woman’s call. The cave narrowed until it was a rounded tunnel. It curved and curled around and around, in a gentle spiral, ending abruptly at a wall that was covered with carved symbols that looked familiar and alien at the same time. Confused, I watched the stream pour down into a crack in the wall and disappear. What now? Was I supposed to follow it?

  I looked back down the tunnel. Nothing there except dancing light. I turned to the wall and felt a jolt of electric shock. Whoa! There was a woman sitting cross-legged in front of the wall! She was wearing a white fringed dress that was beaded with the same symbols that were on the wall behind her. She was fantastically beautiful, with long straight hair so black it looked as if it had blue and purple highlights, like a raven’s wing. Her full lips curved up as she spoke, filling the air between us with the silver power of her voice.

  Tsi-lu-gi U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa. Welcome, Daughter. You have done well.

  She spoke in Cherokee, but even though I hadn’t practiced the language much in the last couple years I understood the words.

  “You’re not my grandma!” I blurted, feeling awkward and out of place as my purple words joined with hers, making incredible patterns of sparkling lavender in the air around us.

  Her smile was like the rising sun.

  No, Daughter, I am n
ot, but I know Sylvia Redbird very well.

  I took a deep breath. “Am I dead?”

  I was afraid she would laugh at me, but she didn’t. Instead her dark eyes were soft and concerned.

  No, U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa. You are far from dead, though your spirit has been temporarily freed to wander the realm of the Nunne ’hi.

  “The spirit people!” I glanced around the tunnel, trying to see faces and forms within the shadows.

  Your grandmother has taught you well, u-s-ti Do-tsu-wa . . . little Redbird. You are a unique mixture of the Old Ways and the New World—of ancient tribal blood and the heartbeat of outsiders.

  Her words made me feel hot and cold at the same time. “Who are you?” I asked.

  I am known by many names . . . Changing Woman, Gaea, A’akuluujjusi, Kuan Yin, Grandmother Spider, and even Dawn . . .

  As she spoke each name her face was transformed so that I was dizzied by her power. She must have understood, because she paused and flashed her beautiful smile at me again, and her face settled back into the woman I had first seen.

  But you, Zoeybird, my Daughter, may call me by the name by which your world knows me today, Nyx.

  “Nyx,” my voice was barely above a whisper. “The vampyre Goddess?”

  In truth, it was the ancient Greeks touched by the Change who first worshiped me as the mother they searched for within their endless Night. I have been pleased to call their descendents my children for many ages. And, yes, in your world those children are called vampyre. Accept the name, U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa; in it you will find your destiny.

  I could feel my Mark burning on my forehead, and all of a sudden I wanted to cry. “I—I don’t understand. Find my destiny? I just want to find a way to deal with my new life—to make this all okay. Goddess, I just want to fit in someplace. I don’t think I’m up to finding my destiny.”

  The Goddess’s face softened again, and when she spoke her voice was like my mother’s, only more—as though she had somehow sprinkled the love of every mother in the world into her words.

  Believe in yourself, Zoey Redbird. I have Marked you as my own. You will be my first true U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa v-hna-i Sv-no-yi . . . Daughter of Night . . . in this age. You are special. Accept that about yourself, and you will begin to understand there is true power in your uniqueness. Within you is combined the magic blood of ancient Wise Women and Elders, as well as insight into and understanding of the modern world.

  The Goddess stood up and walked gracefully toward me, her voice painting silver symbols of power in the air around us. When she reached me she wiped the tears from my cheeks before taking my face in her hands.

  Zoey Redbird, Daughter of Night, I name you my eyes and ears in the world today, a world where good and evil are struggling to find balance.

  “But I’m sixteen! I can’t even parallel-park! How am I supposed to know how to be your eyes and ears?”

  She just smiled serenely. You are old beyond your years, Zoeybird. Believe in yourself and you will find a way. But remember, darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.

  Then the Goddess Nyx, the ancient personification of Night, leaned forward and kissed me on my forehead. And for the third time that day I passed out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Beautiful, see the cloud, the cloud appear.

  Beautiful, see the rain, the rain draw near . . .

  The words of the ancient song floated through my mind. I must be dreaming about Grandma Redbird again. It made me feel warm and safe and happy, which was especially nice, since I’d felt so crappy lately . . . except I couldn’t remember exactly why. Huh. Odd.

  Who spoke?

  The little corn ear,

  High on top of the stalk . . .

  My grandma’s song continued and I curled up on my side, sighing as I rubbed my cheek against the soft pillow. Unfortunately, moving my head caused an ugly pain to shoot through my temples, and like a bullet through a pane of glass, it shattered my happy feeling as the memory of the last day overwhelmed me.

  I was turning into a vampyre.

  I had run away from home.

  I’d had an accident and then some kind of weird near-death experience.

  I was turning into a vampyre. Oh my God.

  Man, my head hurt.

  “Zoeybird! Are you awake, baby?”

  I blinked my blurry eyes clear to see Grandma Redbird sitting on a little chair close beside my bed.

  “Grandma!” I croaked and reached for her hand. My voice sounded as terrible as my head felt. “What happened? Where am I?”

  “You’re safe, Little Bird. You’re safe.”

  “My head hurts.” I reached up and felt the place on my head that was tight and sore, and my fingers found the prick of stitches.

  “It should. You scared ten years of my life from me.” Grandma rubbed the back of my hand gently. “All that blood . . .” She shuddered, and then shook her head and smiled at me. “How about you promise not to do that again?”

  “Promise,” I said. “So, you found me . . .”

  “Bloody and unconscious, Little Bird.” Grandma brushed the hair back from my forehead, her fingers lingering lightly on my Mark. “And so pale that your dark crescent seemed to glow against your skin. I knew you needed to be taken back to the House of Night, which is exactly what I did.” She chuckled and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes made her look like a little girl. “I called your mother to tell her that I was returning you to the House of Night, and I had to pretend that my cell phone cut out so I could hang up on her. I’m afraid she’s not happy with either of us.”

  I grinned back at Grandma Redbird. Hee hee, Mom was mad at her, too.

  “But, Zoey, whatever were you doing out during the daylight? And why didn’t you tell me earlier that you had been Marked?”

  I struggled to sit up, grunting at the pain in my head. But, thankfully, it seemed I’d stopped coughing. Must be because I’m finally really here—at the House of Night . . . But the thought disappeared as my mind processed all of what Grandma had said.

  “Wait, I couldn’t have told you any earlier. The Tracker came to school today and Marked me. I went home first. I really hoped Mom would understand and take my side.” I paused, remembering again the awful scene with my parents. In total understanding, Grandma squeezed my hand. “She and John basically locked me in my room while they called our shrink and started the prayer tree.”

  Grandma grimaced.

  “So I crawled out my window and came straight to you,” I concluded.

  “I’m glad you did, Zoeybird, but it just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I can’t believe I got Marked, either. Why me?”

  “That’s not what I mean, baby. I’m not surprised you were Tracked and Marked. The Redbird blood has always held strong magic; it was only a matter of time before one of us was Chosen. What I mean is that it makes no sense that you were just Marked. The crescent isn’t an outline. It’s completely filled in.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Look for yourself, U-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa.” She used the Cherokee word for daughter, suddenly reminding me very much of a mysterious, ancient goddess.

  Grandma searched through her purse for the antique silver compact she always carried. Without saying anything else, she handed it to me. I pushed the little clasp. It popped open to show me my reflection . . . the familiar stranger . . . the me who wasn’t quite me. Her eyes were huge and her skin was too white, but I barely noticed that. It was the Mark that I couldn’t quit staring at, the Mark that was now a completed crescent moon, filled in perfectly with the distinctive sapphire blue of the vampyre tattoo. Feeling like I was still moving through a dream, I reached up and let my fingers trace the exotic-looking Mark and I seemed to feel the Goddess’s lips against my skin again.

  “What does it mean?” I said, unable to look away from the Mark.

  “We were hoping you would have an answer to that qu
estion, Zoey Redbird.”

  Her voice was amazing. Even before I looked up from my reflection I knew she would be unique and incredible. I was right. She was movie-star beautiful, Barbie beautiful. I’d never seen anyone up close who was so perfect. She had huge, almond-shaped eyes that were a deep, mossy green. Her face was an almost perfect heart and her skin was that kind of flawless creaminess that you see on TV. Her hair was deep red—not that horrid carrot-top orange-red or the washed-out blond-red, but a dark, glossy auburn that fell in heavy waves well past her shoulders. Her body was, well, perfect. She wasn’t thin like the freak girls who puked and starved themselves into what they thought was Paris Hilton chic. (“That’s Hott.” Yeah, okay, whatever, Paris.) This woman’s body was perfect because she was strong, but curvy. And she had great boobs. (I wish I had great boobs.)

  “Huh?” I said. Speaking of boobs—I was totally sounding like one. (Boob . . . hee hee).

  The woman smiled at me and showed amazingly straight, white teeth—without fangs. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that in addition to her perfection she had a sapphire crescent moon neatly tattooed in the middle of her forehead, and from it, swirls of lines that reminded me of ocean waves framed her brows, extending down around her high cheekbones.

  She was a vampyre.

  “I said, we were hoping you would have some explanation about why a fledgling vampyre that hasn’t Changed has the Mark of a mature being on her forehead.”

  Without her smile and the gentle concern in her voice her words would have seemed harsh. Instead, what she said came off as worried and a little confused.

  “So I’m not a vampyre?” I blurted.

  Her laughter was like music. “Not yet, Zoey, but I would say that already having your Mark complete is an excellent omen.”