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Sophie pulled the Volvo 940 up to the deserted house on the south side of Seattle. Like most houses in this neighborhood, it was deserted and supposedly owned by some bank. At least, a bank was involved at some level in some complex ownership debacle. But any road, no one was coming by any time soon. The last residents had left more than enough behind for her to make herself and her little ones comfortable. Especially toys.

She exited the beige station wagon, its door closing with a clunk that didn't bode well, then, with a heave, closed the garage door. Glancing at the Chilton manual over on the workbench, she knew that she'd have to replace the alternator before they moved on. The unwelcome flickering light on the dashboard told her as much. This time she would cover her hair better. The gunk she'd gotten smeared in her dreads last time she went under the hood was a beast of a task to get clean.

But she couldn't take a chance on the car breaking down on the road when they moved. And they would have to move soon. They'd been in this house for two months. Too long, sitting in one place...

Walking up the three steps to the kitchen, she pulled off her shearling-lined jacket, then hung it on the peg by the door. She'd kept it clean by taking it off before even getting into the tent. Her pants and shirt, on the other hand, were ruined, bundled up in a garbage bag.

Never in a million years would that bloody mess come out. The replacements she now wore were stolen from that rich-bitch store in the Southcenter mall. It had taken some doing, but she'd gotten in, boosted the clothes, and got out to the car unseen.

A 20-year-old anglo woman with long brown dreads and bloodstained clothes walking through the mall, that was something someone would notice. But the same young woman in her underwear stealing clothes and a pair of sneakers? That was much easier for an enchanted kerchief draped over her hair to hide from people's sight.

Sophie's guts spasmed. Dropping the garbage bag by the door, she steadied herself on the kitchen counter, clutching her belly. She felt sick. The urge to vomit almost overpowered her. SOMETHING WRONG! DO NOT WANT! rebelled her guts. She gritted her teeth in an effort to keep herself from ejecting the foulness where she stood. Mopping the kitchen floor was the last thing she felt like doing just now.

Not yet, she forced herself to assert control. Must check on the little ones first...

"Darlings," she called out. "Mama is home."

The sound of sixteen padding little feet came running into the kitchen. Jimmy and Sally and Ketaki and Mei-Yun and Billy and all the other little ones came scrambling in from the living room and upstairs and cupboards and closets and all the places little children play. They ran to her and she was assaulted by the embrace of eight pairs of small arms. She gritted her teeth again, willing herself not to be sick.

"Did you miss Mama while she was away?" she asked. All eight heads nodded.

"Did you all play nice with your toys?" Again, they nodded as they held hands in a circle around her. They shared their toys.

"My little ones are such good children. Mama will bake you all cookies now. Go and play while Mama bakes." The stampede of little feet rumbled out of the kitchen.

Sophie gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, knuckles turning white with the strain. The foulness that burned in her belly, the smell of blood from the bag — if she didn't vomit right now, she thought, she might take her knife to her own belly and get rid of the evil and pain.

NO! I am my mother's daughter. I am the blood of her line. And I will see to my little ones first.

Going to the freezer, she took out a gallon ziploc bag full of little nuggets of cookie dough rolled in sugar. Sophie believed in large-batch baking. Besides, freezing the dough first made the cookies better.

As Sophie preheated the oven and prepared a half-sheet pan of eight cookies, her belly roiled with poison and evil. One of the little ones might wander in, and they could not be allowed to see her lose control in that manner.

When the cookies were done she put them on the cooling rack and poured eight little glasses of milk and set them around the table. When the cookies were cool, she put one each on a small plate, and set them around the table.

Steadying herself on the door frame, Sophie called out weakly, "Cookies..." Again, the stampede swarmed past her. The largest helped the smallest up onto their places at the benches. When all eight were seated, they looked to Sophie.

She beamed down at her darlings. "Well, go on." And she was rewarded with that most sublime pleasure, the sound of children nibbling cookies and sipping milk. "Enjoy, darlings. Mama needs to go upstairs and clean up after her day. When you're done, go play."

Sophie exited the kitchen, walking easily around the corner and up the first few stairs. Halfway up, her smooth pace turned into a frantic scramble. Stumbling through the door to the master bedroom she held it together long enough to reach the master bathroom, raise the toilet lid and, clutching the porcelain like the only stable thing in the world, allow the poison to pour out, beginning the agonized, wrenching process.

With every gut-churning heave, the bile and poison gushed from her mouth, and she remembered the crying junkie, the bloodstained tent, the abandoned warehouse...


***
Sophie dropped her pack by the post and shoved her jacket onto the protruding nail above it. Retrieving her med kit from the rucksack, she thrust her cell phone into the hands of the twitching young man who'd run up to her on the street, crying for help. "Call 911, tell them it's on the corner of Hubbert and 53rd, west side of the street, there's a mother in labor, a trained midwife is on scene. Go."

"Oh man, Jenny... Is she gonna..."

Sophie summoned the Dark Face to get his attention. "AMBULANCE, BOY!"

She let him run out towards the door to the parking lot and turned to the screams of pain from from the nylon dome. Mother of mothers, be with me now. Stepping inside the tent as she pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, she found a young woman, a few years younger than herself, screaming with the pain of childbirth. Her skirt and panties were in a pile by the entrance, her boots still on her feet.

"Oh, god it hurts, I'm gonna die," wailed the mother-in-the-making. She was frightened and in pain. And, Sophie could tell, high. "Please, help me! Please, oh God...." She cried, her arms flailing.

Sophie summoned the Bright Face, smiled, and whispered, "I am here with you. You will be fine. You're giving birth, that's all. Women been doing this a for long time. Breathe, don't fight it."

The girl giving birth stopped screaming and stared at Sophie dazedly until another contraction wrenched her. "Ohhhh.... It hurts," Jenny wept.

The Snow Angel reached out her rubber-gloved hand and took Jenny's. "I know," she said. She let the comfort of the Bright Face shine down on Jenny as she reached back into the mother-wisdom. Sophie reached into the primal pain, the agony that accompanies that most beautiful gift, birth.

The Snow Angel did not take away Jenny's pain, she merely showed her that this pain was something that her mother and every mother had known. That this was something women were made by the gods to be strong enough to endure. And as she held Jenny's hand, she reminded Jenny that she was not alone.

As Jenny continued to breathe and wince when the contractions came, Sophie began to sing the Seið trance, letting the ancient words and music take hold of her mind. As the magic song wove itself around her, she was simultaneously the one helping the young mother-to-be, and watching the scene. She felt the line of her mothers, reaching back into the deep past, watching and guiding her. Sometimes, and this was one of those times, Sophie thought she could feel the Goddesses watching.

Sophie sang as she lifted Jenny's butt and slid a silver space blanket under her to get her off the grimy floor of the tent. She softly stroked Jenny's belly, crooning the ancient song of birth, welcoming the new life that seemed in such a hurry to arrive. Welcome, little one. Life awaits, and we wait here to greet you, she prayed in a language Jenny couldn't understand.

Switching to English, the Snow Angel asked, "When did your water break?" She continued humming in between speaking.

Jenny winced. "T... two hours ago. But... UNGH... my m... mom said her family tend to have real short labors... " the young girl said, a frightened tone in her voice. Then Jenny arched her back and let out a great cry.

Sophie looked down and saw the crown appear. Not long now. At least it wasn't a breech birth or anything drastic like that.

The head was out. Reaching into her kit, Sophie grabbed a small blue vacuum bulb and suctioned out the baby's nostrils and mouth. She noticed that the umbilicus was wrapped around the baby's neck. With quick, gentle movements, she lifted the lifecord up and over the skull.

"You're doing wonderfully, Jenny. Almost there..." and with one last cry of anguish, Jenny's daughter was born.

"Your daughter breathes," the Snow Angel said, and Jenny's tears of pain became tears of joy.

Sophie held the baby girl in her arms, wiping the little one clean with gauze from her pack. This was the moment that she was born for. This was why the gods had long ago touched the line of her mothers. She was here on this Earth to usher in new life to the world.

But still deep in the Seið trance, Sophie saw all too clearly the brand new life in her arms. The baby girl breathed, but barely. The smack that coursed through Jenny's veins pulsed through the lifecord into her child. A junkie giving birth to a junkie. Jenny looked away from her, and Sophie could tell it was because she knew.

Reaching deep within herself, Sophie sang a song of cleansing. Singing for two, she reached out to both mother and daughter. Jenny gasped and her daughter cried out as the magic touched them. The song gently but firmly pulled the heroin and the toxic crap it had been cut with from them both, all to be swallowed up by the Snow Angel, packed down into a small knot of poison within her angel belly.

When the song ended, Sophie turned her face away as she settled the poison down. In not much time, it would burn and become unbearable. But for now, she maintained the Bright Face, pulled up Jenny's T-shirt, and placed her daughter on her belly. "She's beautiful," Jenny wept.

With a stern but loving visage, Sophie dug into the classics. "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children. And opium is bad for you," said the Snow Angel.

Jenny, through her tears, realized that somehow, she didn't understand how, but somehow she and her daughter were clean. That if they were taken to the hospital right now, the one thing she would not have to face was the nurses and social workers finding heroin in her newborn daughter. "How...?"

The Snow Angel shushed her. "Do you understand?" she asked.

Jenny sobbed and nodded her head. She didn't understand how, that didn't matter. All she could really focus on was stroking the howling bundle of perfectness clinging to her, starting to suckle at her nipple. Sophie smiled and sang the mother-song as she unfolded another silver-foil emergency blanket to wrap over mother and child. Sophie continued singing as, with a final push and groan, Jenny delivered her afterbirth. Sophie collected it into a ziploc and placed it at Jenny's side for the trip to the hospital. She tied the birth-cord off once it stopped pulsing. Sophie continued singing as she began to clean Jenny up.

By the time she heard the ambulance siren in the distance, Jenny had picked up where Sophie left off, singing the words of magic as her heart remembered them, close enough to the words Sophie sang to have an echo of real strength.

Sophie kissed Jenny on the forehead and whispered, "Keep singing, Jenny. The ambulance is here. Let me go see to them." Making her way out of the tent, Sophie pulled off her rubber gloves with practiced ease, folding them neatly into another ziploc bag. That left her shirt and jeans and sneakers stained with the birth fluids. She would deal with them later. For now, she listened to Jenny sing her mother-song, closed her eyes, and smiled. Thank you, Mother of mothers.

The father of Jenny's child came running in, chivvying the ambulance crew along towards the tent as they wheeled their gear-bags in on a gurney. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! Over here! She's hurtin', yo!"

Sophie walked slowly towards the EMTs, saying in an exhausted voice, "Daughter and mother are both okay, afterbirth is delivered, cord is tied, Mom's name is Jenny. You take it from here." With a nod as they trotted past, the female EMT went to Jenny's side while her male partner prepped the gurney to accept Jenny and her daughter.

Leaving the professionals to their work, Sophie turned to the young father looking on nervously. He was as young as Jenny, the hair barely a dirty smudge on his chin. With the trance still upon her and the opium roiling in her belly, she could smell the high on his breath from the other side of the tent.

This was his fucking solution? His girlfriend goes into labor in this stinking shithole and all he can come up with is to get the both of them high? To give a little baby not yet born its first fix, secondhand through her mother? This guy's about to become a father and he can't even manage to call 911 but has to flag down a stranger on the street for help?

Sophie's fury washed over her before she could think. Advancing on him with a purpose, she grabbed him by the collar and belt. Catching him by surprise, she thrust him backwards until she slammed him up against the warehouse wall. He shrieked when the hand holding his belt grabbed him by the crotch violently.

Sophie let loose the Dark Face as she snarled up at the dazed young man. She summoned every fearsome, cauldron-stirring, lost-child-imprisoning hag from every fairy tale she knew as she watched him squirm in her grip. He looked from left to right, twitching like a cornered rat. As Sophie tried to decide whether or not to gut him right there or just rip his balls off, her victim didn't even try to fight her off, only to shield his eyes from the blood-stained monster about to eat him.

Sophie heard the Mother-Voice whispering in the distance that he was someone's son as well. He had made bad choices, and found himself with a pregnant girlfriend in a dark and dirty place, but once even this wretch had been someone's precious baby.

"You have a daughter, boy," snarled the hag.

From deep within his frightened and confused high, the young man focused on the nightmare witch with the terrifying grip on his balls growling up at him. "D... Daughter?" Then his gaze turned to the dirty camping tent in the decrepit, collapsing shell of a warehouse. "Jenny..."

Sophie paused. Doped-up and scared as he was, in his one clear moment his first thought was of the girl and their child. The Mother-Voice whispered that there might be hope for him yet. And Jenny & her daughter would need him to be in much better shape than he was.

Summoning her strength again, she sang another song of cleansing, this one by necessity a shorter, less gentle one. She couldn't take the poison from his veins into herself, and would probably be disinclined to do so even if she could. The boy froze with a combination of pain and surprise as Sophie burned the drugs up within him. Her song was like the grinding of red-hot rocks in his ears, and even more intense in his veins.

When she snapped her song to a close, she backed off on her grip slightly. Sophie knew his sweat would smell like ash for a day or so, but like Jenny and their daughter, he was now clean. A low moan escaped his lips. As he focused his eyes on the radiant Snow Angel in front of him, he heard her ask, "What is your name, boy?"

"Thomas," he answered, so stunned at what had just happened he didn't quite know how to ache properly. And besides, the Angel's beautiful halo was bright and soothing all at once.

"Life is hard, Thomas, and there are no promises," cooed the Snow Angel. "But right now, you and Jenny and your daughter are clean." Thomas looked down at the fearsome beauty addressing him. In his heart, he knew she spoke the truth, as impossible as it seemed. Because angels didn't lie.

"You don't want to be here, you don't want Jenny to be here, and you don't want your daughter to be here, do you?" asked the Snow Angel. Thomas vigorously shook his head no.

"THEN PULL YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, DADDY!" growled the hag. She released her grip and he pulled away from her to run after the gurney. Glancing back over his shoulder, Thomas saw the chick in dreads walking the other direction, deeper into the warehouse, holding her jacket and rucksack away from her body.

Forgetting everything but Jenny and the squirming baby on her breast, he wept as he climbed into the back of the ambulance to sit beside her and the female EMT. Finding a place out of the way but next to Jenny, Thomas lied without thinking. "Let's go, she'll meet us at the hospital." He had no doubt that whoever the chick in dreads was, they would never see her again. And grateful as he was for the help... he was okay with that.

"Hey baby, remember how we talked about going to my Aunt's place in Corvallis? How she said we could stay with her, and she has a doctor friend and everything? How she said I could help out getting the place back into shape? Remember we talked about that?"

Thomas didn't mention Aunt Hannah's one condition: they don't show up high, no drugs with them or in them. Two hours ago, when Jenny went into labor, that wasn't an option, nor was it likely to become one. Now...

Jenny smiled down at her child as Thomas continued to stroke her hair and ramble about organic gardening. "Would you like that, Hannah?" Jenny asked her nursing daughter.

"Hannah," Thomas whispered through his tears of joy. "My daughter's name is Hannah."

***

Sophie finally stopped vomiting up the poison, along with everything else in her stomach. She flushed the toilet, hanging on to the bowl long after it had refilled. Eventually she crawled to the sink, dragged herself partly upright, and washed her face with cold water. She turned off the faucet and leaned weakly on the counter, dully watching the droplets running into the drain. After a little more time, she had recovered enough to brush her teeth.

Pushing herself to her feet, she walked unsteadily to the master bedroom door. She glanced around the door frame and down the stairs. Her little ones had resumed playing. Though none of them spoke a word, the sound of toy cars and Nerf guns emanated from downstairs.

They hadn't noticed a thing. She'd given them cookies and then told them to go play when they were done with them, and they'd done exactly that. "My little ones are such good children," Sophie whispered, a hint of bitterness in her voice.

Sophie called down the stairs to Billy, the oldest at 9 when he joined her little family. The boy came running to her. "The bag I brought in. The clothes are ruined. Please take them out to the back and burn them in the firepit. Not the bag, it's plastic. Can you do that for Mama?" Billy nodded and ran to do as she asked.

Clutching the walls for support, she dragged her weary self to the shower. "Gonna need to get another cell-phone," she thought as she undressed. Then she turned on the water, adjusted the temperature, stepped under the spray, and did her best to think of nothing at all for quite a long time.

Later that night, after her little ones cleaned up all their toys and put them away for the night, Sophie lit a single candle in the living room. Once that was done, she led her little ones into the living room, all except little Timmy, whom she carried.

She settled to the carpet in front of the blazing fireplace, putting Timmy down to join the semi-circle that sat facing her. Along with Timmy, she'd carried a large, old book, bound in leather. When Sophie opened the book, the light reflected from its pages glowed on her face. The children sat attentively as she began reading to them, the story they'd heard so many times. "This is the story of Holda the Seið Women, & her daughter Berta..."

***

"No, mother! Please do not do this, you know they cannot be trusted!"

Holda stopped her preparations, paused, and turned to her daughter. A lone candle flickered in the cottage they shared together. Berta's sweet face, creased with worry, looked up at her. Where Holda's hair was dark black, her daughter's was honey brown.

"This has gone on for long enough, my bright-faced child. Enough pain has been caused. I will make peace with them."

Berta scowled and turned away. "They call you baby-killer! They say you murdered Gude and her baby! After all you've done..." Berta almost burst into tears thinking about the accusation.

Holda was struck by the pain of it as well. There was a time when Seið women were called wise, when mothers would bid them to come attend the births of their children with wisdom and the old magic. A baby blanket woven by a Seið Woman, white linen warp and silver weft, this was powerful magic. Softer than linen, stronger than jute, woven with the symbols of love, strength, and protection, this was a treasure and a good omen all in one.

There was a time when the Seið Women would trade their woven blankets, finer than any other hand could weave, for tools they needed, spices and goods from far off lands, brought by traders who traveled along the old Roman roads. There was a time when the villagers would offer gifts to the Seið Women in order to cultivate their goodwill, and that of the gods to whom they spoke. And in return, the Seið Women would heal animals and people, bless crops, and bring the blessing of the gods to their people.

To walk the Seið path was to live apart. But they had always been welcome at the celebration hearthfires.

Then Gude and her baby died in birth.

Holda had raised her daughter deep in the forest. Berta knew the ways of plants and animals. Even at her young age, she was versed in the Mother's wisdom of birth and the nature of death, the cycle of the two. Like her mother and her mother's mother before, Berta was a daughter of the Seið, touched by the gods.

And at a young age, Berta understood: Sometimes newborns, be they puppies, calves, goslings, or babies, just did not live. It was the way of things. Life, death, circles, cycles — the Seið Woman attended to things in their season. When the young were born, they were there to ease the passage. When the elderly died, they were there to ease the passage.

When the newborn died, this was tragic, but not unknown. But for a mother and baby to both die in childbirth, a birth attended by a Seið Woman... Avoiding such calamities was one of the reasons for sending for them in the first place.

Holda reached out a hand to her daughter's shoulder. "Their grief has blinded them. For so long have we worked miracles. They believed there was nothing we could not do, if only we willed it. But we know what can be changed and what can not be. Nothing on Earth could have saved Gude or her child, no magic, no prayers, no balm. What the gods decree is final, and their wisdom decreed a sad day. We understand this. But Gude was young and strong, and they just don't understand."

Berta was unswayed. "They chase us with the very dogs whose sires and dams you tended. They call you a witch, a black sorceress. The call me devil-child."

"Yes. And have I not visited vengeance upon the village? Have I not cast spells to make their milk curdle and their grain rot? Haven't wounds festered and broken bones refused to knit at my will? Have I not sins enough on my hands as well?"

Berta turned to her mother, confused. Holda quickly pulled her into an embrace, one that Berta eagerly returned. "Oh my dear child, don't you see? It is for you that I do this. The gods taught our mothers of old the Seið to heal, not to wound. We were not put on this Earth to cast dooms and speak spells of vengeance. We were put here to welcome babies to their first breath.

"My mouth burns with each hurting spell I speak. I tire of scrying for nothing more than the next pack of hunters with murder in their hearts. And I would have you grow to womanhood without this blood feud."

Holda stroked her daughter's hair. "And besides, with peace I can give you the one thing all the magic I know cannot."

"I want nothing that you cannot give me, mother," Berta said sincerely, snuggling deeper to her mother's bosom.

Holda smiled. "Not even friends to play with?"

As if a dam burst, Berta began sobbing, burying her face in her mother's dress. Holda hugged her even tighter. For some time now she had know of her daughter's secret desire, the longing she tried to hide whenever her mother was looking.

Though she had never said so out loud, Holda could see how Berta watched the village children play. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see how still her daughter sat, quietly hypnotized by the running and laughing, the throwing of balls back and forth. The games went on undisturbed as mother and daughter observed, hidden in their white cloaks of unseeing.

But more than anything in the world, Berta ached to join in. Holda had needed no magic to scry this truth.

Rocking her daughter, Holda sang her the ancient mother-song. It was song every mother sang to her crying child, the one she knew in her heart. But Holda sang the primal tune, taught to the line of her mother by the gods, the first mother-song.

So soothing a song was this, even the magical heart of a sobbing Seið daughter, emptying her eyes of tears when her secret pain was spoken, was brought to ease in time.

Holda rocked her daughter as she whispered the song to its close. "We will make peace with the village, my daughter. I will summon all the black spells I have spoken, all the bad will and intent they have prayed against us, all the anger from both sides. I will seal all our sins in this bag, the one we wove together when I first taught you to spin. And then I will seal the bag forever, bonded with my blood and that of their representative.

"And we will forgive each other, the Village and I."

Berta smiled and cuddled deeper into Holda's arms as her mother continued. "Once again, we will heal and teach, spin thread and weave cloth. The gods will speak to us so that we may be agents of prosperity, not wrath.

"And you, my bright-faced one. I promise you will have toys and friends to play with. For you, I would risk anything. And to you, I make this promise."

Berta whispered "Can you really do it, Mother? Have you... seen it?"

"No, my daughter. We do not scry our own futures. This I have taught you, and I have not done otherwise. But I am strong, and I seek to put an end to pain and hate, to cleanse the world of suffering that nature did not ordain. The gods will smile on my efforts, this I feel in my heart."

With a kiss and a shared smile, Holda released her daughter and returned to preparing her things. There would be a few items to bring, but more she needed to calm her mind. What she would attempt, she knew, could easily kill her if she let her resolve slip or her attention fade. The hates that she and the village both had set into motion would not submit willingly to imprisonment in a cloth-of-silver-and-gold bag.

Holda sighed silently to herself as she spared a moment to think on the bag she would use. The warp was the golden thread her hand had learned to spin at her mothers' knee from flax retted in running water, a song of changing sung into the every twist of fiber. The weft, that was silver thread, magically spun by her daughter's hand from flax left to rett in nightly dew. To learn to spin flax into linen took time and practice. But the touch of the gods was the birthright of the Seið women. Holda had taught her daughter the song that her mother had taught her, the song that Holda herself remembered listening to as she watched her mother and grandmother spin the simple fibers into thread of brilliant silver.

The silver thread that formed the weft of the bag was the product of Berta's spinning, from beginning to end, without help. As Holda sat outside of listening distance to spin the gold thread for their bag, she would try not to think of her daughter's progress, or wonder how it was going. Nor, each night, did Holda inquire how her daughter was doing.

Not until the the night Berta met her mother by the full moon and produced an impeccably spun skein of silver thread, sparkling brightly beneath the silver moonlight, did Holda see how well her daughter had learned the lessons her mother had taught her.

Holda had taught her daughter the lore and the songs of the gods, magic that was theirs to bring to the world by birthright. Holda had taught her the way of the beasts of air, land, and water, the wisdom of plants and their cultivation and uses. And Berta had learned the songs of life and death, of birthing and expiring, in tune with the rhythms of the world.

But the spinning of flax into silver thread was a mighty working. It was a changing of the ordained world. Still, such changes were also ordained, and how they might be accomplished. The spinning of flax into silver sufficient to weave a bag with her mother was a testing point in a Seið daughter's life. To accomplish this task was a demonstration of readiness to learn greater, deeper mysteries, gold-thread spinning among them. And Holda was rightly proud of her daughter when her daughter presented her with the silver thread she'd woven, fine, strong, bright, and seething with magic.

Holda had so many other plans for a bag like the one she and her daughter had made. But then Gude and her baby died in childbed.

Holda and Berta could weave another bag as strong and enchanted as this one. But without peace with the village, Holda feared her daughter would have no future save to be hunted.

And for her daughter's sake, she would risk anything.

When the items she needed were gathered, Holda took her string belt and tied it over her white dress, low over her hips. Red warp and white weft, every twist of fiber, every weave of thread, had been sung over. Threads twisted one way, then others countertwisted, laid out in the proper numbers sacred to the gods. In front and in back, 12 red cords fell to just below her knees. Holda remembered when her own mother had tied her first belt around her waist. When her daughter's belt day came, she would not be hunted like a beast. This Holda vowed.

When she was ready, Holda held out her hand and Berta took it. Together, mother and daughter walked out the door of their lonely cottage deep in the woods, past the burbling brook that spilled into the pool just beneath the outcropping where the cottage stood. Together, they began walking to where Holda would meet the representative of the village, where she would capture their sins forever.

Mothers of my mothers, Holda prayed to herself, be with me. And with my daughter.

***

Sophie's voice lilted as she recited the tale for her little ones. They sat unmoving, did not shift or fiddle or let their attention wander. They all paid close attention as Sophie read. Her little ones were always so well behaved.

"And so did Holda take her daughter Berta to the place where the peace was to be made. Where she and the village blacksmith would meet and forgive..."

***

Berta held her breath with wonder and worry as the last notes of her mother's song came to a close. The shrieking winds and howling hates that had swirled about just moments ago all seemed sucked into the magic bag. High above in the tall tree, Berta's mother sat braced and panting, exhausted with the effort she had just put forth. High up with her on the other side of the trunk, the village blacksmith held on for dear life, having witnessed, closer than most mortals ever would, a working of a most powerful magic.

But it was done! Berta beamed with silent pride, for her mother had done just what she said she would. She had summoned all the sins and crimes that both she and the village had visited upon each other and trapped them in the silver and gold bag she and Berta had woven together. Though she had barely prevented herself from being swept from her perch and thrown to the forest floor by the raging winds of magic she had wrestled under her control, though her lungs heaved in the wake of so heroic an effort, Berta's mother had done it!

Berta watched as her mother took her knife and, after saying a brief prayer, made a small cut on the palm of her hand. Holding out her hand to the blacksmith, she said "Let us forgive one another, and let our daughters know peace and the blessings of the gods."

Berta smiled with anticipation, expecting the large bearded man in the tree to follow her mother's gesture, and seal the peace. But Berta's smile was turned to horror as the huge man suddenly lashed out and struck several blows to the side of Holda's head with the bottom of his fist. Still reeling from the spell she had cast, Holda was caught by surprise. She dropped her knife, and swiftly followed it tumbling to the base of the tree.

"MOTHER!" screamed Berta, as she watched Holda fall. She made to throw off her cloak of unseeing and run to her mother's side when she saw the snarling hulk of the blacksmith make his way down from the high branches. His eyes held murder, and Berta froze with terror. She wanted to run from the big man. She wanted to run to her mother. Like a rabbit making very still, hoping the looking predator might not see her, she pressed her hands over her mouth and silently cried.

When he'd made his way to the ground, the blacksmith stood over Holda's inert body and spat. Taking a large hammer from somewhere under his cloak, he grabbed her by her dress and dragged her to the tree. Holding the unmoving Holda up against the trunk with one hand, he fumbled in a pouch at his belt with the other. Producing a long iron nail, he held it over her heart in his left fist and raised his hammer in his right.

"This is for my sister, you murdering witch!" he hissed. With one powerful blow he drove the nail through Holda's heart and into the trunk of the tree.

Mother and daughter both shrieked with agony. Berta's cry lasted after Holda's brief death scream. Berta wanted to run more than ever, but all she could do was close her eyes and hold her hands over he mouth so that she didn't cry out again and give away her location.

Berta could hear the blacksmith's boots crunching around in the snow, but dared not look to see what he was doing. She only hoped he would not stumble upon her by accident.

"My sister, witch. She was my sister," Berta heard him say. "Never again will you do this to honest folk such as we! And if my nail is not strong enough to hold you in place, I'll make sure that mouth will never speak another black spell!"

Berta screwed her eyes closed even tighter and tried to shut out the terrible sounds his hammer made next.

Then she heard him call out, "I know you are out there, demon-child! I know you can hear me! We will hunt you down! I will kill you and nail you to a tree like your bitch mother here! You will not grow up to be a blight on the land like she was!"

Berta hugged her knees and ground her teeth and tried to make herself as small as possible. Even after she heard the blacksmith's footsteps walking away, she dared not move. She dared not open her eyes, for fear of seeing what had become of her beautiful mother.

In her pain and anguish and grief, all Berta could do was squeeze herself into a silent little ball. She stayed there without moving, without making a sound as the snow began to fall. The snow continued as the weak winter sun dipped over the horizon, and still Berta remained curled into a little ball. Every ounce of her terrified being went into squeezing herself smaller and smaller. It was full dark, long after moonset, when even Berta's night vision was not enough to see clearly, before she turned and ran directly away from the tree where her murdered mother's body hung.

Sobbing, shrieking, unable to even see where she was going, Berta fled. She ran until she collapsed in tears, then picked herself up and continued running until she fell again. This went on until she could run no more and could only cry and scream for her mother.

And it was only when she had not an ounce of energy left to cry and scream for her mother that she fell asleep as the first hints of dawn peered over the horizon.

***

Spohie's little ones were all sitting up straight and listening closely. They hadn't moved a muscle since she began reading.

"From that moment Berta, the daughter of Holda, was alone and hunted," Sophie read. "A child still, she had neither her mother's strength, nor experience, nor learning. Raised in the forest, Berta knew all too well the fate of young cubs who lost their mother too young. And so she began a life with fear, hunger, and cold as her only companions.

"Berta dared not return to her mother's cottage, for she was terrified that the hunters would find her there, though she did ache for something familiar. Returning to the cottage would mean either passing close to the village and risking the hunters' dogs, or wandering too close the the site of her mother's murder, which she could not bring herself to do."

Sophie was warmed from behind by the fireplace and from in front by the magic radiating from the book. "Instead, the Daughter of Holda found an empty cave and made her home there. Even though she had her knife, she was too small to hunt, and Berta survived on what she could dig from beneath the snow, or the few animals she could sense that died not of disease. Berta was hungry and cold for months, and child of her years not descended from the line of Seið women would surely have perished that winter.

"But Berta did not perish, and survived to see the thaw. For food, she found a stream that swam with fish. Her hands were nimble and she had learned much in her too-few years at her mother's side. Still, she had to be discreet and avoid detection by the villagers..."

***

Standing right on the edge of the stream, Berta concentrated on wooing the fish into her corner of the stream where she could trap them behind her crude wickerwork. She sang softly to the fish, the magic dancing from her lips in the late mountain afternoon. Her mother, a fully grown and trained Seið Woman, could have easily whistled a bounty of fish from the river, but Berta was neither fully grown nor fully trained. Seið daughters matured quickly, and Berta was wise in many ways well beyond her years. But for all her knowledge and skills she was still very much a frightened little girl.

At first, trying to sing the fish into her trap made her think of her mother, and the tears choked her until she could not sing. Now, though her heart ached, necessity and hunger had overcome grief. And so her song, though beautiful, had a sad tone.

From behind her, Berta heard a branch snap and someone cry out. She turned and saw a young boy her own age fall from a tree slightly uphill from her and tumble downhill towards her. Startled, she lost her concentration and the fish she'd been wooing swam off.

At first Berta was annoyed that her fishing had been disturbed, but then she was suddenly terrified that she had been discovered by villagers coming to kill her. Quickly scanning the area, she neither sensed nor heard anyone else except the groaning boy.

Satisfied that there was no one else coming, Berta made her way to his side. He was bleeding from a head wound. Reaching out to his life, she felt it weakening. Without help, he would surely expire. Not quickly, but surely by the next dawn.

Although this boy came from the village that had murdered her mother, she knew she would not let him die. She was her mother's daughter, and to heal was as calling of the Seið. Berta placed her hand over his heart and began to sing. Berta sang a song of life, as strong and clear as her small voice could. She felt the boy's life strengthen, his cracked bones knit together and his wound close.

When she was done, Berta stood over the lad and took a good look at him. He was blond, with round features, and smelled strongly of wood smoke.

The injured boy was the first person she'd touched since... the killing. She'd reached out to his life, sung to it, and healed him. Now she didn't know what to do. He certainly would have people looking for him eventually. Berta knew she should flee, and yet...

The boy opened his eyes. They were browner than his hair, and he had what Berta thought were large ears. She continued looking at him as he came to full consciousness. "Am I dead?" he asked.

Rolling her eyes, Berta picked up a small pebble and flicked it off her finger. The boy cried out as it struck the side of his head. "Not unless that was a ghost-pebble," she said.

Rubbing the site of his correction with his hand, the boy scowled slightly. Berta withheld her smile because she could tell his scowl was one of embarrassment. Her urge to smile left her when he sat up and asked, "Are you the Witch's daughter?"

Drawing herself up straight she announced "I am Berta, daughter of Holda the Seið Woman. And if you say the word 'witch' one more time..." She glowered at him so as not to burst into tears.

"I... I meant no offense! It's just..."

"Just what?" Berta demanded, her voice gruff.

"I'm sorry," he muttered with downcast eyes.

Berta turned to head towards the forest and her cave. She would have no fish for dinner tonight, or anything else, and she knew she would begin crying the moment she was out of the boy's sight and hearing. The clang of the blacksmith's hammer began to ring in her head and she made to run to where she had left her cloak of unseeing to keep it dry.

"My mother died as well," she heard the boy say, and she stopped in place. She could not stop the tears that slipped from her eyes, but she did not sob aloud, and she kept her back to him so he could not see her face.

"She didn't do magic, she was just a charcoal burner's wife. She drowned."

Berta said nothing, all her strength going into not weeping loudly enough for him to hear. She got her breathing under control as her mother had taught her, and asked "What were you doing up in that tree?"

"Listening," he answered. "I heard singing."

Berta walked to the tree where her white cloak lay. With her back still to him, she asked, "What is your name, boy?"

"Franz. Uh... Franz, son of Jöerg the... charcoal burner," he ended weakly.

"You should head home, Franz. It's getting late and it's a long way back to the village."

"Oh, my father and my sister and me, we don't actually live in the village. You can't build a charring mound in the village and besides there's no wood to cut so you'd have to drag it all from the forest anyway. Which is why that's where we live. I mean, we live close enough to the village because that's who buys our charcoal. But a lot of times the villagers treat us like we don't belong because we live out in the forest..." he babbled.

Berta turned towards him and stopped him continuing with a gaze. "...what I mean is, it's too not far," he finished.

Berta turned toward the woods, preparing to drape her cloak over her shoulders. "Do you live far from here?" Franz asked.

Without turning again, Berta gestured all around her. "I am home," and she donned her cloak.

"Isn't it cold at night?" Franz asked.

"Yes," she said, and she pulled the hood up over her head and disappeared from his sight.

***

Sophie concentrated, willing her voice to read the words. The story was hers by birthright. But the book was not, and as with all tasks she demanded of it, the book was an unwilling partner.

"It was indeed a cold and hungry night that Berta spent in her cave, a night filled with tears and mourning for her mother. The next day she did not venture from her hiding place, but remained wrapped in her cloak. But the following day, Berta steeled herself, and ventured to the stream once again.

"When she arrived at the bend in the stream, Berta found a small pile of charcoal by the tree where young Franz had fallen. With it was a flint and an old, well-worn firesteel.

"Berta heart was warmed by Franz's kindness, although her body was still chilled to the bone. The boy had been lied to by his elders, told all manner of untruths about Berta and her mother. And still he had given what gift he could to her.

"Berta, for the first time in her life, had a friend."

Sophie paused, cleared her throat. The end of the page almost dared her to turn it. Sophie knew that once a story was started, it had to be finished. And she'd read this one many times before. Clearing her throat, she turned the page, and read.

"Then the hunts resumed, with the blacksmith leading the hunters. With dogs and torches and murderous will, the hunts resumed.

"And Berta lived in fear. The coming of summer brought no rest for her, for the hunters and their dogs kept her from ever knowing true peace. And as the hunters' forays became more frequent, Franz's gifts of charcoal left by the tree of their meeting became less, though they never stopped altogether.

"Summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter. Only by the magic in her veins did Berta survive that long. But with the coming of cold and snow, she grew weaker and hungrier. She knew that she would not survive the winter. Even if the hunters did not find her or she did not starve, the wolves were getting harder to sing off every night. Soon she would not have the strength to repel them and they would feast on her."

The ancient text almost glowed on the page as she read them. Written in a hand that would give Church scholars trouble, this story, and so many others the book contained, were her birthright. And Sophie would not give in to the book's resistance, but willed it to show her the words in English.

"Tired of crying herself to sleep in her lonely cave, Berta settled on a desperate plan. For two days and nights she fretted over attempting it. What if it did not work? What if it drained all her strength and she failed? Then she would die.

"But Berta knew she would surely die if she did not try. So gathering herself and all the strength she had left in her small body, she headed out for the tree, not of gifts, but of sin.

"The Daughter of Holda began the long walk, deeper into the woods, towards the site of her mother's murder..."

[CONTINUED]



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