The Skinwalker’s Daughter

By

Monica L. Patton

THIS IS A TALE OF DESTINY AND DYNASTIES and how it all began with a whisper from the North…

Prologue

1867

It was hot and humid that day, stickier than usual but then that could be said for most days in the Bayou. Still, a cold drink would have been perfect right about then, but my sister Cora had a thing about me running in and out of the kitchen, which I had already done twice. So I suffered in silence and went outside to see what my other sister was up to.

I didn’t get very far before Cora yelled out my whole name, “Leanna Christine Belle.” I had left the screen door open. She had a thing about that too. Cora was the oldest, not old-old, but cousin Perry joked that she was turning into a spinster. Tall and handsome, in a good way, Cora was more mother, than sister. I yelled back sorry, and closed the door.

My sister, Georgia, was on the porch, sitting in the rocker, dressed in her Sunday best. That would have been fine if it was Sunday. Add that to Cora’s list too. At first glance, my sisters and I look nothing alike. Where Cora is tall, Gigi’s almost a foot shorter, and I fall somewhere in the middle. It was the same way with our coloring. Cora had pale skin, just like the picture of our mother above the fireplace, Georgia, a deep brown and mine, middlin’ still but if one looked long enough, they’d see we had the same light brown eyes.

Georgia was my favorite sister if one is allowed to say such things. Even though she was closer in age to Cora, She didn’t mind getting down on the ground to play jacks with me. I was hoping she would play that day. I walked to the banister and leaned over it with my legs up in the air. Whatcha doing Gigi? I said, calling her by her nickname. “Waiting”, said Gigi. I asked her, for what? Gigi corrected me saying not what but whom. I rolled my eyes. Gigi had graduated from the eighth grade and thought she knew everything.

I see-sawed on the banister, wondering who was whom? We hadn’t had company in almost two winters. Not since that colored soldier came through with the news that the war was finally over. After that, folks started packing up and heading either North for a fresh start, or South, to find family members who had been sold off. Now the only people around were mean old Mr. Robicheaux, who was almost blind, and cousin Perry, who was, well, cousin Perry.

Okay, I said. Who is whom? Gigi looked at me with a faraway look in her eyes and answered “The man from my dreams.”

When Gigi spoke like that, it wasn’t good.

Cora called them premonitions. I called it crazy talk. I didn’t mean anything by it, but back then, my eleven-year-old mind had a hard time understanding the real world let alone the spirit one. Gigi had been talking crazy just before our father died. I never knew my mother but something tells me Gigi was probably talking crazy then too.

I ran inside the house yelling Cora’s name. When Cora and I came back outside, Gigi was standing up, staring out at something in the distance. Cora and I fixed our eyes in the same direction.

It was a large white wolf and its body seemed to ripple as it got closer.  Fur peeled off, by the handful while four legs became two. Its snout withdrew inside itself, making a mouth. Its forelegs grew longer, sprouting fingers and the fur on top of its head changed into beautiful, long, white hair. The wolf who was now a man was naked as the day he was born and when he stopped in front of the steps, he opened his mouth and said "Hello."

Cora fainted, I screamed and tripped backward over the rocker, and Gigi just stood there, grinning from ear to ear. Cora wasn’t down for long, probably because of my screaming. When she came to, I crawled to her side. Who are you? Cora asked him. The man walked up the steps and placed a kiss on grinning Gigi’s forehead then kneeled down and said, I am a whisper from the North, a shadow of what was but you may call me Charlemagne. He then looked behind her at me and said, don’t be afraid, Leanna, I won’t hurt you.

How do you know my name? I blurted out. He laughed and said I know the names of all my Queens. He stood up and in a voice that was sweet on the ear, said, Georgia the dreamcatcher, Cora the counselor, and Leanna the scribe, Daughters of a stolen people, The blood of a Skinwalker runs through you. Long ago we walked the earth as kings, our bodies changing at will, but our magic has diminished and our animal to call--trapped within our flesh.

Then Charlemagne got all serious like and said, It was prophesied by the shapeshifter, Armand Jean Du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal of colonial Quebec, that from the remnants of New France, three sisters with the blood of the changeling asleep inside them,  will restore the clan. A queen will emerge, and give birth to a son, the chosen one, who will be a leader among men and give rise to the new age of the skinwalkers. Daughters of the new world, you will usher in our rebirth.

Cora said, mister, how about we find you a pair of pants first.

Chapter 1

The Beast Within

        "Sit still, Meena. You know my hand isn’t steady as it used to be." Said Oma to her fidgety granddaughter as she finished applying the ceremonial paint for the initiation ritual being held that evening.

"I’m sorry, Oma." Said Meena. "But it kinda itches." She scratched at her face, smearing a symbol.

Oma smacked her hand away. "Meena." She shook her head and went about fixing it.

"Sorry." Said Meena, shrugging her shoulders. She shut her Great-grandmother Leanna’s hand-written, leather-bound journal. "I’m bored. Do I have to reread this? Nothing has changed since the last one hundred times I read it."

"That’s not true." Oma stood back, admiring her work. Meena’s arms and face were covered with Celtic, Germanic, and Voodoo markings. "You’ve changed. The stories should have a deeper meaning because they have a deeper understanding."

"I do, and that’s what scares me."

Oma smiled. "What is there to be scared about, petite?" She ruffled Meena thick tresses. "You have been preparing for this day since you could walk."

"What if I don’t have an animal to call?", said Meena under her breath.

That’s foolish. You are a direct descendant of Leanna, the Scribe. You will have an animal. A strong and beautiful animal."

"But, Oma…"

Oma cut her off. "No more of this talk. This is not the time for uncertainty. You have a long night ahead of you, and I still need to plait your hair."

Meena voiced no more reservations. She sat there quietly in her thoughts as her grandmother weaved flora throughout her hair. Even though Oma loved and supported her more than her mother did, she still expected much. She and her brother Harvey were the first twins ever to be born in the clan. From day one, they were looked upon as special, and even now, Meena did not wholly understand why.

Countless hours of combing through Leanna’s journal did bring about a growing awareness, but specific passages still escaped her. Leanna wrote of the Queen and her consort. Two halves of a whole that would make the clan whole. Meena clutched the journal to her chest to contain the dreaded fear that she would never understand and that she was unfit to inherit the duties of clan historian.

Oma put the finishing touches on her granddaughter’s hair. Meena stood up, looking every bit like a pagan princess. The simple white shift dress she wore enhanced her young beauty.  

"There are only twelve flowers in her hair. Are you trying to anger the Gods?"

Meena’s heart dropped as she turned around to see her mother in the doorway, sporting her perpetual frown. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another, She silently remarked.

Oma rolled her eyes. "No, Freya! If you would just hold your horses, you’d see that I have the last one in my hand. Oh, Wotan gives me strength."

Freya circled her daughter, giving her another once over. "Fine, just fix it already so we can go."

Oma crossed her arms. "Fix it what Freya?"

"Lunch, I hope. I’m starving."

Meena laughed at her brother, who was also covered in paint.

Freya whipped around. "Didn’t I tell you not to move until it was time to leave?"

"But I’m hungry."

Freya threw her arms up. "You just had a big breakfast."

"What about the second breakfast?" Harvey said, rendering his best hobbit impression.

Meena laughed again

Freya cut her a look.

Meena stopped.

"Dammit, mother, do you know how much I’ve had to endure prepping this fool with his sensitive skin?" Freya gestured to her son. "I had to reapply the symbols three times!"

Harvey shrugged. "I can’t help; I’m delicate." He replied as he winked at his sister.

Meena quietly chuckled so as not to earn another one of her mother’s disapproving looks, but at 13, her brother stood five feet, eleven inches already, delicate, did not come to mind.

Freya sighed. "Fine, mother. Fix it please before I kill them both. Tonight, this family has a real chance at power. I need everything to be perfect."

Oma shook her head and muttered under her breath, "Oh, Wotan. What did I do to give birth to such a selfish and overly-dramatic child?

"Mother, please. We’re going to be late."

Oma wove the last flower in Meena’s hair, and when Freya seemed satisfied, all four departed. They trekked deep within the forest, past where the shifters burned their dead, to the heart of the land--a giant sycamore tree. Dating back long before Leanna and her sisters inhabited the area, the tree served as an altar for the deity Wotan, a pre-Christian, Frankish God. Meena and her family stopped and prayed, then left an offering of fruit before continuing.

They finally arrived at a domed sweat lodge made up of volcanic ash and cement. Etched on the surface of the outer walls were Voodoo and Old Norse markings. A towering totem pole, carved with mammalian predators, stood guard over the sacred place.

Clansmen whose children were of the Biblical age of accountability were present. Like Harvey, some of the initiates were happy and confident of calling forth their animal, but most were afraid.

If a family went generations without an immediate member having the ability to shift, then they were for all intents and purposes--human.

Humans had no place amongst changelings.  

By committee proclamation, they were stripped of their memories and cast out.

Meena didn’t want to be part of the forgotten ones. She loved roaming the over 200-acre wood, her clan called home. She sent a silent prayer up to the Gods to bless her this night.

The door to the lodge opened. An adept, came out, calling for the children and one by one they lined up as their families bid them, un bon changement. The tribesmen settled down for the long wait with their chairs, bedrolls, and picnic baskets.

Inside, the children were directed to sit cross-legged around the sacred fire pit. Robed in a white billowy dress and headwrap, The high Priestess began the purification ceremony by constructing a circle around the children using a mixture of cornmeal and sea salt. As she chanted a prayer of protection in Creole and vulgar Latin, her disciples passed out small cups of a concoction of roasted Yaupon leaves, beer, and honey called black drink. The Priestess left an opening in the circle for one of her devotees to deposit a caged chicken near the fire pit. When they exited, she sealed the ring with her remaining disciples inside to assist her.

Outside the circle, the apostle stood behind a tall conical drum and alternating between a stick and his bare hand, began a steady one-two beat. The disciples within the circle kept time, changing in rhythm as the high Priestess released the chicken from its confine and drew a blade across its throat.

She drained the animal’s life force into a silver bowl, then in succession, anointed the children’s forehead with sandalwood oil and blood; whereafter, they consumed the black drink while the disciples blew incense smoke over their heads and on their faces. The Priestess then sat down and slowed her breathing, taking in the vapors from the crushed leaves of cannabis, sage, rosemary, mugwort, and juniper. A disciple poured water over the hot stones, and the smoke from the potent mixture billowed up, creating a haze throughout the room.

For two days, Meena sat alternating between sleep and wakefulness, but her dreams were empty. On the third night, when her stomach feasted upon its acid, and her heart threatened to leap from her chest, she slept, and her soul flew from her body to a place where snow covered the ground, and three rivers converged.

She found herself in front of a church, erected on vast grounds with smaller buildings dotting the land around it. Meena walked through the walls of one such building, into a dormitory room furnished with twin beds and matching desks apiece. There was one occupant in the room, a young man, athletically built and near to manhood. Meena hovered over his bed, not knowing why she was there, but she knew that somehow they were connected.

The young man sat up. He stared at her and smiled. "Brother Castor said you would come."

Surprised, by his admission, Meena’s subconscious slammed back to wakefulness, and the sight of contorting bodies greeted her.

All around her skin shedding, bones breaking as the Priestess’s invocation provided a counter tempo to the children’s anguished cries. Meena watched with horror as her brother pitched forward on all fours. Somehow she could feel his pain as his back buckled, and his appendages reformed. A movement on her right redirected her attention. It was a young girl in mid-transformation, emitting cries that would pierce even the hardest of hearts.

Meena tried to make out, her animal, but the girl’s body vacillated between human and other, never settling on one. When the girl finally stopped convulsing, her canine paws braced the ground as her very human head threw up the contents of her stomach.

Meena looked at her brother again, but in his place stood a Jaguar with fur, a rich golden-red tan and abundantly marked with black rings, enclosing one or two small spots.

When a disciple opened the door, her brother bounded out.

Freya murmured a prayer of thanks under her breath, tearing up with joy and relief when her son returned to his human form. Oma wrapped a blanket around him, all the while checking to see if her granddaughter made it out safely as well.

More children stumbled out the lodge; Some amid change and some with their heads down, crying, scared and ashamed.

Meena was the last to exit.

She struggled with her tears as she approached her family. Oma’s heart sank, but she met her granddaughter halfway and wrapped her arms around her. Meena went toward her mother, but Freya had turned away in disgust, dragging her prized son.

Meena followed her grandmother home, ate a light dinner, bathed then went to bed. Quietly, she cried herself to sleep with the hopes that she would wake up and discover it was all a nightmare.

Chapter 2

The Inheritance

Hawthorne, the Committee President, sat back in his chair, attempting to look mildly sympathetic as Freya prattled on about the importance of her family. She sounded like she was stumping on a campaign trail instead of pleading for her family’s welfare. Hawthorne shook his head and thought, humility did not sit well with Freya. She was arrogant and belittling, but beautiful.

The kind of beauty that never warmed, and he was obsessed with it for a long time. He wanted to possess Freya, but she had other designs. Even though she stoked the embers of his affection by occasionally allowing him into her bed, she chose Arnaud, her half-human cousin, once removed.

Half-human or not, Arnaud was the most powerful shifter in their time and easy on the eyes too, but he had no ambition, and to Hawthorne, that’s what did him in. Hawthorne knew he would never be called handsome. Out of ten, he would rate a four at best, but what he lacked in looks he made up for in ruthlessness.

When he got wind of Arnaud’s preference for male company, back then, an offense by both humans and Changelings, Hawthorne presented Arnaud with a choice: leave on his volition or as a forgotten one. By morning Arnaud had vanished, and now as he sat there listening to Freya carry on, it gave him some pleasure knowing that the fate of the half-breed’s child rested with him.

"...And in consideration of my family’s dedication toward teaching and preserving the clan’s oral history…" Freya said as she sat in the chair, placed inside the crescent outline of the conference table. "I feel that it would better serve the community if we were to remain on our ancestral land."

"Why should we treat your family differently from any other inferior family?"

The President chuckled as he looked over at his younger brother, Maximilian, the committee’s unofficial bulldog. Maximillion hated Leanna’s descendants like the Hatfields did the McCoys. He descended from the House of the dreamcatcher, and as long as he could remember, there had always been a power struggle between the two bloodlines.

Freya’s face lit up. "Do I have to remind you whose family started this committee?"

Maximillion stood up; His Mister Peabody glasses were pushed far down on his aquiline nose. "And do I have to remind you that those days are long past? You can barely transform yourself. Your family is more human than shifter, and your only use is waving to the ignoramuses from the harvest festival parade float."

Freya shrieked as she gripped the edge of her clutch bag. Her nails grew to claws, tearing it.

The room erupted with noise.

Hawthorne banged down on his gavel. He looked at his brother. "Max, sit down." Then over to his former lover. "Freya. Calm down.

Freya glared at him.

Hawthorne smiled tightly. "Please."

Freya took a breath and smiled tightly back at him.

The treasurer spoke; a petite, bottle blonde with hazel eyes and fair skin showing only a hint of African heritage. "Freya, no one is going to displace your family," Olivia smiled at Oma, who also sat on the board. Still, in this instance, she might as well have been Switzerland. "...but the committee must appear to be fair in its dealings with such delicate matters. If the board is open to hearing it, I propose a compromise."

Olivia was from the house of Cora. Cora always kept the peace between her sisters, and her children’s children followed suit.

All assembled either nodded or voiced their consent.

Olivia continued, looking directly at Freya. "Remove your daughter from the house."

Oma didn’t mean to, but she cried out softly.

Freya sighed and closed her eyes, thinking no matter the outcome, embarrassment followed the family.

Olivia softened her tone. "I know that it’s not a palatable option, but it is far better than the alternative. Some believe a complete return to the old ways would grant the clan their full powers again. Your daughter’s continued existence without penance would add to the unrest.

Freya sneered. "Don’t talk to me about the old ways; Bread and circus to keep the masses tethered while progress is left in the hands of a few—kind of like at present.

Olivia looked at her, unmoved. "Is your indignation spent? You’re being thrown a lifeline Freya--your call."

"Freya, Please," Oma called out to her daughter. Oma was visibly frail; her continued presence on the committee was questionable. What Olivia was presenting gave them time to position Harvey to sit on the board. With her acting as regent, until then.

Freya nodded.

Olivia looked around the room at the committee members, then to Hawthorne. It was the job of the President to put it to vote.

Hawthorne projected his voice above the crowd. "With a show of hands, all in favor?"