"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’s 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 unique, 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 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. Still, 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 among 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 head wrap, 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, alternating between a stick. 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. Thereafter, 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. Her soul flew from her body to a place where snow covered the ground, and three rivers converged.

In front of a church, she found herself 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 humans and others, 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 of the lodge—some amid the 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.

Next Chapter: Faded Glory