Marked

About two breaths later Stevie Rae stuck her head out from behind an old oak that was not far from the sidewalk and said, "Is she gone?"

"Thankfully." I shook my head at Stevie Rae. "What are you doing back there?"

"Are you kidding? I'm hiding. She scares the bejezzus outta me. I was coming to meet you and saw the two of you arguing. Man, she actually tried to hit you!"

"Aphrodite has some serious anger-management issues." Stevie Rae laughed.

"Uh, Stevie Rae, you can come out from behind there now." Still laughing, Stevie Rae practically skipped over to me and linked her arm with mine. "You really stood up to her!"

"I really did."

"She really, really hates your guts."

"She really, really does."

"You know what that means?" Stevie Rae said.

"Yep. I don't have any choice now. I'm going to have to take her down."

"Yep."

But I knew that I'd had no choice even before Aphrodite tried to scratch my eyes out. I hadn't had any choice since Nyx had placed her Mark on me. As Stevie Rae and I walked together in the gaslight-illuminated richness of the night, the Goddess's words repeated over and over through my mind: You are old beyond your years, Zoeybird. Believe in yourself and you will find a way. But remember, darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.

Chapter Twenty-three

"I hope the rest of them can find it," I said, glancing around me while Stevie Rae and I waited by the big oak tree. "It didn't seem this dark last night."

"It wasn't. It's really cloudy tonight, so the moon's having trouble shining through. But don't worry, the Change is doing really cool things for our night vision. Heck, I think I can see as good as Nala." Stevie Rae scratched the cat affectionately on her head and Nala closed her eyes and purred. "They'll find us."

I leaned against the tree and worried. Dinner had been good-- seriously yummy broiled chicken, seasoned rice, and baby snow peas (one thing I could say for this place, they could really cook)--yeah, everything had been great. Until Erik had come by our table and said hi. Okay, it wasn't really a "hi, Z, I still like you" hi. It was a "hi, Zoey." Period. Yep. That was it. He'd gotten his food and was walking with a couple other guys the Twins called hotties. I will admit that I didn't even notice them. I was too busy noticing Erik. They came to our table. I looked up and smiled. He met my eyes for a millisecond, said, "Hi, Zoey," and walked on. And all of a sudden the chicken didn't taste nearly as good. "You just hurt his ego. Be nice to him and he'll ask you out again," Stevie Rae said, bringing me and my thoughts back to the present under the tree.

"How'd you know I was thinking about Erik?" I asked. Stevie Rae had quit petting Nala, so I reached down to scratch the cat on top of her head before she started complaining at me.

"'Cause that's what I'd be thinking about."

"Well, I should be thinking about the circle I have to cast but have never cast before in my entire life, and the purification ritual I have to perform, and not some boy."

"He's not 'some boy: He's some fiiine boy," Stevie Rae drawled, making me laugh.

"You must be talking about Erik," Damien said, stepping out of the shadow of the wall. "Don't worry. I saw the way he was looking at you at lunch today. He'll ask you out again."

"Yeah, take it from him," Shaunee said.

"He is our group expert on All Things Penile," Erin said as they joined them under the tree.

"Quite true," Damien said.

Before they could make my head hurt I changed the subject. "Did you get the stuff we need?"

"I had to mix the dried sage and lavender together myself. I hope it's okay that I tied them like this." Damien pulled the smudge stick of dried herbs out of his jacket sleeve and handed it to me. It was thick and almost a foot long, and right away I smelled the familiar sweetness of lavender. He'd wrapped the bundle tightly together on one end with what looked like extra-thick thread.

"It's perfect." I smiled at him.

He looked relieved, and then said, a little shyly, "I used my cross-stitch thread."

"Hey, I told you before you shouldn't be ashamed that you like to cross-stitch. I think it's a cute hobby. Plus, you're really good at it," Stevie Rae said.

"I wish my dad thought so," Damien said.

I hated hearing the sadness in his voice. "I wish you'd teach me sometime. I've always wanted to learn how to cross-stitch," I lied, and was glad to see Damien's face brighten.

"Anytime, Z," he said.

"How about the candles?" I asked the Twins.

"Hey, we told you. Easy..." Shaunee opened her purse and pulled out green, yellow, and blue votives in correspondingly colored thick glass cups.

"Peasy." From her purse Erin took a red and purple votive in the same kind of colored containers.

"Good. Okay, let's see. Let's move over here, a little way from the trunk, but close enough that we're still standing under the branches." They followed me as I walked a few paces from the tree. I looked at the candles. What should I do? Maybe I should...And as I thought about it, I knew. Without stopping to wonder how or why or question the intuitive knowledge that had suddenly come to me, I simply acted on it. "I'm going to give each of you a candle. Then, just like the vamps in Neferet's Full Moon Ritual, you're going to represent that element. I'll be spirit." Erin handed me the purple votive. "I'm the center of the circle. The rest of you take your places around me." Without hesitation I took the red candle from Erin and handed it to Shaunee. "You'll be fire."

"Sounds good to me. I mean, everyone knows how hot I am." She grinned and shimmied to the southern edge of the circle. The green candle was next. I turned to Stevie Rae. "You're earth."

"And green's my favorite color!" she said, happily moving to stand across from Shaunee.

"Erin, you're water."

"Good. I used to like to lay out, which involves swimming when I needed to cool off." Erin moved to the western position. "So I must be air," Damien said, taking the yellow candle

"You are. Your element opens the circle."

"Kinda like I wish I could open people's minds," he said, moving to the eastern position.

I smiled warmly at him. "Yep. Kinda like that."

"Okay. What's next?" Stevie Rae asked.

"Well, let's use the smoke from the smudge stick to purify ourselves." I set the purple candle at my feet so I could concentrate on the smudge stick. Then I rolled my eyes. "Well, hell. Did anyone remember matches or a lighter or whatever?"

"Naturally," Damien said, pulling a lighter from his pocket. "Thanks, air," I said.

"Don't mention it, High Priestess," he said.

I didn't say anything, but when he called me that a shiver of excitement tingled through my body.

"Here's how you use the smudge stick," I said, glad that my voice sounded way calmer than I felt. I stood in front of Damien, deciding that I should begin where the circle would be started. Realizing that I was eerily echoing my Grandma and the lessons of my childhood, I began explaining the process to my friends. "Smudging is a ritual way to cleanse a person, place, or an object of negative energies, spirits, or influences. The smudging ceremony involves the burning of special, sacred plants and herbal resins, then, either passing an object through the smoke, or fanning the smoke around a person or place. The spirit of the plant purifies whatever is being smudged." I smiled at Damien. "Ready?"

"Affirmative," he said in typical Damien fashion.

I lit the smudge stick and let the fire burn the dry herbs for a little while, and then I blew them out so that all that was left was a nicely smoking ember. Then, starting at Damien's feet, I wafted smoke up his body while I continued my explanation of the ancient ceremony.

"It's really important to remember that we're asking the spirits of the sacred plants we're using to help us, and we should show them proper respect by acknowledging their powers."

"What do lavender and sage do?" Stevie Rae asked from across the circle.

While I smudged my way up Damien's body I answered Stevie Rae. "White sage is used a lot in traditional ceremonies. It drives out negative energies, spirits, and influences. Actually, desert sage does the same thing, but I like white sage better because it smells sweeter." I'd made it to Damien's head and I grinned at him. "Good choice, Damien."

"Sometimes I think I might be a little psychic," Damien said. Erin and Shaunee snorted, but we ignored them.

"Okay, now turn clockwise and I'll finish up with your back," I told him. He turned and I continued. "My grandma always uses lavender in all of her smudge sticks. I'm sure part of the reason is that she owns a lavender farm."

"Cool!" Stevie Rae said.

"Yeah, it's an awesome place." I smiled over my shoulder at her, but I kept smudging Damien. "The other part of the reason she uses lavender is because it is able to restore balance and create a peaceful atmosphere. It also draws loving energy and positive spirits." I tapped Damien's shoulder so he'd turn around. "You're done." Then I moved around the circle to Shaunee, who was representing the element fire, and I began smudging her.

"Positive spirits?" Stevie Rae said, sounding young and scared. "I didn't know we'd be calling anything more than the elements to the circle."

"Please. Just please, Stevie Rae," Shaunee said, frowning through the smoke to Stevie Rae. "You can not be a vampyre and be afraid of ghosts."

"Nope. It doesn't even sound right," Erin said.

I glanced across the circle at Stevie Rae and our eyes met briefly. We were both thinking about my encounter with what might have been Elizabeth's ghost, but neither of us seemed willing to talk about it.

"I'm not a vampyre. Yet. I'm just a fledgling. So it's okay for me to be scared of ghosts."

"Wait, isn't Zoey talking about Cherokee spirits? They probably won't pay much attention to a ceremony done by a bunch of vampyre fledglings whose non- Native American-ness outweighs our High Priestess's Cherokee-ness four to one," Damien said.

I finished with Shaunee and moved on to Erin. "I don't think it matters that much what we are on the outside," I said, instantly feeling the rightness of what I was saying. "I think what matters is our intent. It's kinda like this: Aphrodite and her group are some of the best looking, most talented kids at this school, and the Dark Daughters should be an awesome club. But instead we call them the hags and they're basically a bunch of bullies and spoiled brats." Wonder how Erik fit into all of that? Was he really just `whatever' about the group, like he told me, or was he into it more deeply than that, as Aphrodite implied?

"Or kids who have been bullied into joining and who are just along for the ride," Erin said.

"Exactly." I mentally shook myself. Now was not the time to daydream about Erik. I finished smudging Erin and walked over to stand in front of Stevie Rae. "What I mean is that I do think the spirits of my ancestors can hear us, just like I think the spirits of the sage and the lavender are working for us. But I don't think you have anything to be afraid of, Stevie Rae. Our intention is not to call them here so that we can use them to kick Aphrodite's ass." I paused in my smudging and added, "Even though the girl definitely needs a good ass-kicking. And I don't think there will be any scary ghosts hanging around tonight," I said firmly, then handed Stevie Rae the smudge stick and said, "Okay, now you do me." She began mimicking my actions and I relaxed into the familiar sweet smoke as it drifted around me.

"We're not going to ask them to help us kick her ass?" Shaunee definitely sounded disappointed.

"Nope. We're purifying ourselves so that we can ask for Nyx's guidance. I don't want to beat Aphrodite up." I remembered how good it'd felt to toss her away from me and tell her off. "Well, okay, I might enjoy it, but the truth is that doesn't solve the problem of the Dark Daughters."

Stevie Rae was done smudging me and I took the stick from her and carefully rubbed it out on the ground. Then I returned to the center of the circle where Nala was curled contentedly in a little orange ball beside the spirit candle. I looked around at my friends. "It's true that we don't like Aphrodite, but I think it's important not to focus on negatives like kicking her ass or pushing her out of the Dark Daughters. That's what she would do in our place. What we want is what's right. More like justice than revenge. We're different than her, and if we somehow manage to take her place in the Dark Daughters, that group will be different, too."

"See, that's why you'll be the High Priestess and Erin and I will just be your very attractive sidekicks. Because we are shallow and we just want to knock her bobble-head off her shoulders," Shaunee said while Erin nodded.

"Positive thoughts only, please," Damien said sharply. "We are in the middle of a purification ritual!'

Before Shaunee could do anything more than glare at Damien, Stevie Rae chirped, "'Kay! I'm thinkin' only positive things, like how great it would be if Zoey was leader of the Dark Daughters!'

"Good idea, Stevie Rae," Damien said. "I'm thinking the same."