“I am Aggie One Feather. Welcome. Have you ever been to sweat before?”
“Witch version. Not Cherokee. We’ll work around it. What feels right from both practices, blended to help Jane. Yes?”
“I suppose....” Aggie didn’t sound all that certain.
But Molly did. “Thank you, Eli,” she said. “But you need to go now. We’ll handle it.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Molly said. “This is women’s work.”
“Technically, it’sTsalagiwork,” he said.
“True. But also, technically, it’snotmen’s work and it’s alsonotmilitary work,” Molly said with asperity. “Honestly, Eli. Your energies are all wrong. You might cause problems with ceremonial aspects of this. We can handle this. Please go away.”
“You may wait with my mother, Eli,” Aggie said. “She was making breakfast when you called. Pancakes.”
Eli didn’t reply. He just turned on a heel and left the sweat house. I could smell his frustration and worry over the scent of burning wood. And I caught a whiff of Alex on the air as well. I managed to get my eyes open a slitwhile the women finished ruining my clothing, and I found Aggie in my blurry vision. “No more cats.”
Aggie laughed. “How is Kit-Kit?”
“She’s Molly’s familiar now,” I said. “She adopted her.” Which might imply that Molly had adopted Kit-Kit or that Kit-Kit had adopted Molly, which was closer to the truth.
“My mother said Kit-Kit was supposed to keep you alive, someday,” Aggie said, reminding me of the prophecy warning.
“Mighta already happened,” I said, remembering the lightning that had struck me. Kit-Kit had been there and I had survived. “Or if it hasn’t happened yet, then she’ll be there when I need her.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Molly said. “I’m Molly Everhart Trueblood, earth witch with a touch of moon magics. I am honored to be seated before your hearth. That’s an old witch pleasantry, which means you’re in charge and I’m your willing and helpful assistant.”
“Except where Eli was concerned.” I could hear the laughter in Aggie’s tone.
“Men. Always underfoot.”
Aggie laughed and I felt the two women move toward accommodation until Aggie said, “You are pregnant. I can’t let you stay for a sweat. It’s bad for pregnancy. I’m sorry, but you have to go. You can’t stay here.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying the whole time. I’ll be in and out. Mostly out.” She patted her baby bump. “Casandra Evangeline Jane Yellowrock Everhart-Trueblood is demanding.”
And a witch,I thought. Cassy’s parents didn’t yet know if she was a double-gened witch like Angie, or a single-gened witch like Molly. Either way, she would already be demanding. I remembered Molly pregnant with Little Evan. Her tantrums and emotional outbursts had been spectacular.
“It is against my best instincts, but if you are certain...”
Molly said, “I’m good. I promise.”
“Then I offer you welcome in the sweat house of theTsalagi.”
“What herbs will you put on the fire?” Molly asked.
The two women talked herbs and herbal concoctions and herbal reactions and herbal interactions. They talked ceremony. And all the while, Molly drank from a gallon bottle of Gatorade. The blue kind that always made me want to barf. Just looking at it made me all gaggy.
“I’m thirsty,” I said. “But none a’ that blue stuff. Just water.”
“Soon, Jane,” Aggie said soothingly. More tentatively, she asked Molly, “What do you know about Jane?”
“Everything,” I said. “More than you do.” I tried to focus on Molly, but she was blurry in the firelight. She was dressed in one of Aggie’s coarse white shifts, and so was I, my once-pretty clothes in a heap by the fire, as if to be thrown in and burned. My weapons were nowhere in sight, and I knew that Eli had taken them with him. To Molly I said, “Aggie saw me half-shifted, and we’ve talked while I was under the influence of whatever stuff she gives me to drink, so she knows what I am. How old I am. But she doesn’t know about Beast.”
“Beast?” Aggie said.
“That’s my story to tell, I suppose, since you’re not yourself,” Molly said, settling to a log seat, her baby belly less obvious beneath the sweat clothes. “When Jane was five years old, her father was murdered by two white men. They also raped her mother, all right in front of Jane. She went to live with her grandmother, who helped her track down and kill the white men. The old bat made Jane help in the killings, according to the War Woman way.”
