"Well, perhaps you should read the poem to me. Maybe I'll recognize it."

"Yeah, that's what we thought, too. Okay, here goes." Sightlessly Aphrodite held up the sheet of paper with the poem on it. I took it from her and started to read:

Ancient one sleeping, waiting to arise When earth's power bleeds sacred red The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise

Here Grandma stopped me. "It is pronounced t-si s-gi-li," she said, with special emphasis on the last word. Her voice sounded strained and she spoke almost in a whisper. "Are you okay, Grandma?"

"Go on reading, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya," she commanded, sounding more like herself. I kept reading, repeating the last line with the right pronunciation:

The mark strikes true; Queen Tsi Sgili will devise He shall be washed from his entombing bed

Through the hand of the dead he is free Terrible beauty, monstrous sight Ruled again they shall be Women shall kneel to his dark might

Kalona's song sounds sweet As we slaughter with cold heat

Grandma gasped and cried, "O Great Spirit protect us!"

"Grandma! What is it?"

"First the Tsi Sgili and then Kalona. This is bad, Zoey. This is very, very bad."

The fear in her voice was totally freaking me out. "What's a Tsi Sgili and a Kalona? Why is it so bad?"

"Does she know the poem?" Aphrodite asked, sitting up and taking the washcloth off her face. I noticed her eyes were starting to look more normal and her face had gotten some of its color back.

"Grandma, do you care if I put you on speaker phone?"

"No, of course not, Zoeybird."

I pressed the speaker button and went over to sit on the bed beside Aphrodite. "Okay, you're on speaker now, Grandma. It's just me and Aphrodite here."

"Aphrodite and me," she automatically corrected me.

I rolled my eyes at Aphrodite. "Sorry, Grandma, Aphrodite and me."

"Mrs. Redbird, do you recognize the poem?" Aphrodite asked.

"Sweetheart, call me Grandma. And, no, I don't recognize it, as in having read it before. But I've heard of it, or at least I've heard of the myth, passed down from generation to generation in my people."

"Why did you freak out about the Tsi Sgili and the Kalona part?" I asked.

"They are Cherokee demons. Dark spirits of the worst type." Grandma hesitated, and I could hear her rustling around with something in the background. "Zoey, I'm going to light the smudge pot before we speak any more of these creatures. I'm using sage and lavender. I'll be fanning the smoke with a dove's feather while we talk. Zoeybird, I suggest you do the same."

I felt an awful jolt of surprise. Smudging had been used for hundreds of years in Cherokee rituals--especially when cleansing, purifying, or protection was needed. Grandma smudged and cleansed herself regularly--I'd grown up believing it was just a way of honoring the Great Spirit and of keeping my own spirit clean. But never in my life had Grandma ever felt the need to smudge at the mention of anyone or anything.

"Zoey, you should do it now," Grandma said sharply.

Chapter Twenty-two

As always, when Grandma told me to do something, I did it. "Okay, yeah. I'm going. I have a smudge stick in my room. I gotta run and get it." I gave Aphrodite a look and she nodded, shooing me toward the door with a hand flutter.

"Which herbs?" Grandma asked.

"White sage and lavender. It's the one I keep in my T-shirt drawer," I said.

"Good, good. That's good. It's personal to you, but its magic hasn't been released yet. Good."

I rushed back to Aphrodite's room.

"I got the pot part covered," Aphrodite said, handing me a lavender-colored bowl that was decorated with three-dimensional grapes and a vine that twined all the way around it. It was absolutely gorgeous and looked expensive and old. She shrugged her shoulders at me. "Yeah, it's expensive."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Okay, I have the bowl, Grandma."

"Do you have a feather? From a peaceful bird, like the dove, or a protective bird, like a hawk or an eagle would be best."

"Uh, Grandma, no. I don't have any feathers." I looked questioningly at Aphrodite.

"No feathers here, either," she said.

"No matter, we can make do. Are you ready, Zoeybird?"

I waved the small wandlike stick of tightly woven dried herbs until the fire went out and smoke began to waft gently from it. Then I put it in the purple bowl and set it between us. "I'm ready. It's smoking perfectly."