"Your grandma's handwriting?" Aphrodite said. "Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"But that's impossible. I wrote the damn thing just a few minutes ago."
"Look, I practically transported here with Darius, and that should have been impossible, but I definitely did it."
"Yes, dork, seeing as there is no such thing as Star Trek."
"You recognized the transporter reference. You're a dork, too," I said smugly.
"No, I'm just burdened with geeky friends."
"Look, I'm positive it's Grandma's handwriting, but hang on. I have a letter from her in my room. I'll go get it. Maybe you're right . . ." I lifted my brows at her and added, ". . . for a change, and it just reminds me of her writing. "I started to hurry from the room, but on second thought stopped long enough to hold the paper with the poem on it up to Aphrodite. "Is this your normal handwriting?"
She took the paper from me and blinked several times to clear her vision. I saw the shock pass over her face and knew what she'd say before she spoke. "Well, shit! This is soooo not my writing."
"I'll be right back."
I tried not to overthink what was going on while I rushed down the hall to my room, flung open the door, and was greeted by Nala's "mee-uf-ow!" of disgruntled surprise as I interrupted her beauty nap.
It took me only a second to grab the last card Grandma had sent me. I had it sitting up on my desk (a much cheaper version of the one in Aphrodite's room). On the front of it was a picture of three grim-faced nuns (nuns!). The caption under them said, THE GOOD NEWS IS THEY'RE PRAYING FOR YOU. Inside it continued, THE BAD NEWS IS THERE ARE ONLY THREE OF THEM. It still made me giggle a little as I hurried back to Aphrodite's room, even as I wondered if Sister Mary Angela would think the card was funny or insulting. I'd bet on funny, and made a mental note to ask her about it sometime.
Aphrodite had her hand already out when I returned to her room. "Okay, let me check it out." I gave her the card and looked down with her as she held it open to the short note Grandma had written me. Then she held the paper that had the poem right up next to it and we looked from one to the other, comparing the handwriting.
"That is so damn weird!" Aphrodite said, shaking her head at the utter similarity of the handwriting. "I swear I wrote this poem not five minutes ago, but that's definitely your grandma's writing and not mine." She looked up at me. Her face looked ultra-white in comparison to the awful blood color of her eyes. "You'd better call her."
"Yeah, I will. First I want to know everything you remember about that vision." "Okay with you if I shut my eyes and put the washcloth back on my face while I talk?"
"Yeah, I'll even put some fresh water on it. Speaking of, drink some more out of that bottle. You look, well, bad."
"No wonder. I feel bad." She gulped down the rest of the Fiji Water while I rinsed out the washcloth again. After I folded it up and gave it back to her, she laid it across her eyes and settled back against her pillows again, absently stroking the purring Maleficent. "I wish I knew what this was all about," she said.
"I think I do."
"No shit? You have the poem figured out?"
"No, I didn't mean that. I meant I think this is all about that bad feeling Stevie Rae and I have been having about Neferet. She's up to something--something more than her usual brand of pain in the butt. I think she graduated to whatever it is that's going on now when Loren was killed."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, but I have to tell you Neferet had no part of my vision."
"So explain it to me."
"Well, it was short and unusually clear for what my visions have been like lately. It was a pretty summer day. I couldn't tell who it was, but there was a woman sitting in the middle of a field or, no, it was more like a pasture or something. I could see a little cliff not far away, and I could hear water from a stream or small river close by. Anyway, the woman was sitting on a big white eyelet quilt. I remember thinking that it wasn't very smart of that woman to have a white quilt out there on the ground like that. It was going to get all grass stained."
"It didn't." I spoke through lips that felt numb and cold again. "It was cotton, and it washed up easily."
"So you know what I'm describing?"
"It's Grandma's quilt."
"Then it must have been your grandma who was holding the poem. I didn't see her face. I actually didn't see much of her at all. She was sitting cross-legged, and it was like I was standing behind her, peeking over her shoulder. Only, once I saw the poem, everything else went out of the vision and I was totally focused on it."
"Why did you copy it down?"
Her shoulders shrugged. "Don't really know. I just had to, that's all. So I wrote it down while I was still in the vision. Then I came out of it, looked up at Darius, told him to get you, and then I think I fainted."
"That's it?"
"What more do you want? I copied the whole damn poem."
"But your visions are usually warnings about majorly bad stuff getting ready to happen. So where's the warning?"
"There wasn't one. Actually, I didn't have any bad feelings at all. There was just the poem. The field place was really nice--I mean for being all out in nature. Like I said, it was a pretty summer day. Everything seemed fine and dandy until I came out of the vision and my head and my eyes hurt like hell."
"Well, I have a bad enough feeling about this for both of us," I said, pulling my phone from my purse. I glanced at the time. It was almost 3 A.M. Crap! Grandma would be sound asleep. Also I realized I was going to miss all my classes today except for that very public scene with Erik in Drama class. Great. I sighed heavily. I knew Grandma would understand--I could only hope my professors would, too.
She answered on the first ring.
"Oh, Zoeybird! I'm so glad you called."
"Grandma, I'm sorry to call you so late. I know you're sleeping, and I hate waking you up," I said.
"No, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, I was not asleep. I woke hours ago from a dream of you, and I have been awake and praying ever since."
Her familiar use of the Cherokee word for "daughter" made me feel loved and safe, and I suddenly wished so bad that her lavender farm wasn't an hour and a half outside Tulsa. I wished that I could see her now and let her hug me and tell me that everything would be okay, just like she used to do when I was little and I stayed with her after my mom married the step-loser and turned into an ultra-religious version of a Stepford Wife.
But I wasn't little anymore, and Grandma couldn't hug my problems away. I was becoming a High Priestess, and people depended on me. Nyx had chosen me, and I had to learn to be strong.
"Honey? What is it? What has happened?"
"It's okay, Grandma; I'm okay," I assured her quickly, hating to hear the worry in her voice. "It's just that Aphrodite has had another vision, and it has something to do with you."
"Am I in danger again?"
I couldn't help smiling. She'd sounded worried and upset when she thought something might be wrong with me, but when it was just herself that might be in danger, then she sounded all tough and ready to take on the world. I really heart my grandma!
"No, I don't think so," I said.
"I don't either," Aphrodite added.
"Aphrodite says you're not in danger. At least not at this instant."
"Well, that's good," Grandma said, sounding very matter-of-fact.
"That's definitely good. But, Grandma, the thing is we really don't understand what Aphrodite's vision was about this time. There's usually a big warning that's clear. This time all she saw was you holding a piece of paper with a poem on it, and she felt like she had to copy the poem." I didn't mention the part about her copying it in Grandma's own handwriting. That felt like adding super weird to already majorly weird. "So she did, but it doesn't make sense or mean anything to either one of us."
"Well, perhaps you should read the poem to me. Maybe I'll recognize it."
"Yeah, that's what we thought, too. Okay, here goes." Sightlessly Aphrodite held up the sheet of paper with the poem on it. I took it from her and started to read:
Ancient one sleeping, waiting to arise When earth's power bleeds sacred red The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise
Here Grandma stopped me. "It is pronounced t-si s-gi-li," she said, with special emphasis on the last word. Her voice sounded strained and she spoke almost in a whisper. "Are you okay, Grandma?"
"Go on reading, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya," she commanded, sounding more like herself. I kept reading, repeating the last line with the right pronunciation:
The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise He shall be washed from his entombing bed
Through the hand of the dead he is free Terrible beauty, monstrous sight Ruled again they shall be Women shall kneel to his dark might
Kalona's song sounds sweet As we slaughter with cold heat
Grandma gasped and cried, "O Great Spirit protect us!"
"Grandma! What is it?"
"First the Tsi Sgili and then Kalona. This is bad, Zoey. This is very, very bad."
The fear in her voice was totally freaking me out. "What's a Tsi Sgili and a Kalona? Why is it so bad?"
"Does she know the poem?" Aphrodite asked, sitting up and taking the washcloth off her face. I noticed her eyes were starting to look more normal and her face had gotten some of its color back.
"Grandma, do you care if I put you on speaker phone?"
"No, of course not, Zoeybird."
I pressed the speaker button and went over to sit on the bed beside Aphrodite. "Okay, you're on speaker now, Grandma. It's just me and Aphrodite here."
"Aphrodite and me," she automatically corrected me.
I rolled my eyes at Aphrodite. "Sorry, Grandma, Aphrodite and me."
"Mrs. Redbird, do you recognize the poem?" Aphrodite asked.
"Sweetheart, call me Grandma. And, no, I don't recognize it, as in having read it before. But I've heard of it, or at least I've heard of the myth, passed down from generation to generation in my people."
"Why did you freak out about the Tsi Sgili and the Kalona part?" I asked.
"They are Cherokee demons. Dark spirits of the worst type." Grandma hesitated, and I could hear her rustling around with something in the background. "Zoey, I'm going to light the smudge pot before we speak any more of these creatures. I'm using sage and lavender. I'll be fanning the smoke with a dove's feather while we talk. Zoeybird, I suggest you do the same."
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.