The Lamia

2-19

Naga led them up the back stairs and straight out through an emergency exit to the back lot where she kept her car. In minutes they were home, safe inside, and Kore was with Sedna.

It took Sedna only an instant to go into her shaman dream and engage Kore completely with her mind. She had been waiting for this, and all Dema and Naga could do was stay out of the way.

Naga went out to get the vitamins she wanted Sedna to have for Kore. Dema just watched, staying tuned in and reassuring Kore with her more familiar presence. But Sedna was quickly winning Kore's trust. She got her fed, and into some better clothing. Dema too got out of the hospital robe and into her own clothes. Presently Naga returned with the vitamins, and Sedna got Kore to take some.

Both Dema and Sedna sensed that all this was happening a bit too fast for Kore. Naga knew it too. She left again, to go back to her clinic. Sedna had prepared the back room, the same one Dema had used when she didn't want Naga to know she was there. Sedna led Kore there and showed her the bed. She laid down on it gratefully.

Sedna left the room, wanting Kore to have the peace she craved. But Dema was reluctant to leave her sister. She didn't know how a night alone in this strange place would affect her.

Then, as she hesitated by the door, Kore looked over and beckoned to her. Dema closed the door, turned out the light, and joined Kore on the bed. Kore snuggled up to her, and they went to sleep in each other's arms.

They shared dreams of childhood, of romps together through forest parks and city streets, of quiet times with Sedna, of trips to the zoo with Naga. But some time during the night their dream shifted into the snake dream, and daylight found them both in snake form, long coils intertwined.

They awoke together, and Dema knew that Kore's mind was at peace. As Dema shifted to her human shape, Kore followed. They dressed, and Dema took Kore to the sitting room where Sedna was waiting. The three of them went to the kitchen and had breakfast together. Kore had not yet found her human voice, so Dema and Sedna stayed in the shaman dream as they talked, tuned to Kore's thoughts.

Dema knew that Kore was truly happy. It might take time, it might take a long time, but Sedna would bring her around, bring her fully out of the snake dream. She saw Naga's vitamin bottles on the kitchen counter, and knew that her mother would always be near at hand.

As Dema got ready to leave for work, and her thoughts began to turn in that direction, she realized with wonder that something else had changed. She knew, with the full certainty of her shaman intuition, that the pallor of the Lamia would no longer come over her unbidden. It had not been the ancient charge of the Lamia that her descendants would protect the innocent from evil, so much as her own charge to herself to avenge what had happened to her lost sister, that had made the cold fury rise in her when she learned of innocent new victims. She was free of that now. Kore was home.