I/we are Beast. Better than Jane. Better than big-cat, Beast thought. We are more.
“Yes.” My voice dropped, a low growl of sound. My place. My den. Mine. This was the cave from before. Long before. The rounded, damp roof of stone, the walls melting like wax. The pillars reaching up and down. Light glinting through the darkness. The scent of burned herbs and wood smoke. The drums. The smell of blood and fat and earth and the sweat of the People.
“Search out the differences, Jane. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you remember.”
I stood on four legs and two. The shadows on the wall merged into one, a form with no certain shape, both cat and human, furred and skinned, four pawed and two footed. A shadow shimmering with black motes of light.
I turned slowly, walking in a circle. My breath a pant. Seeing. On one wall were circles and swirls painted in soot and fat and crushed pigments. Carved into the stone were arrows pointing to the right. Lines parallel. Lines like waves—the symbols of the People. And there were paw prints. They padded across the rounded stone roof of the world, big-cat paws in the red of old blood. Human footprints walked beside the paw prints, up and over the roof of the world. Side by side.
I reached out a hand/paw and touched them. They were cool to my touch. The paw and footprints had not been here, the last time I was here in the flesh, as a child of four or five. This was the cave of my being. Evidence of my life. There were also white man symbols, brought here since Jane had been alpha, diamonds and stars, signs and ciphers, and an image of a cross that burned.
My eyes followed the paw prints up across the walls, onto the roof, and into the far corners, where the light did not burn so brightly, where shadows crouched like spiders and hung like bats. And there I saw the hands. Hands did not belong in this place. The Cherokee did not mark rites of passage or lay claim to the caves, not as the ancient white man did. They did not make handprints on cave walls. The hands were not of Jane or of cat. They were other.
“Hands,” I whispered. “Hands on the roof of the world.” I tilted my head to see them. Blue hands in circles of white. White hands in circles of blue. Pigments, signs of ownership applied to the walls of my soul house. I growled low, pulling back lips to show killing teeth.
I could see how it had been done, how each kind of handprint had been made. For the blue handprints, pigments had been crushed and mixed with fat or spit. The paste had been applied to the hand and the blue prints pressed against the walls. For the white handprints in circles of blue, the pigments had been crushed and sucked up into a reed. A hand had been placed on the cave wall, and the pigments had been blown over it, leaving the un-pigmented print. It was as if to say, I have been here. This is my place.
“Woad,” I said. “Woad.” And I struggled upward from the darkness as I understood. Woad. Yes. Woad. Woad was a European herb, an invasive herb that took over gardens, an herb used to make blue dye. Gee did this. Gee used woad to mark my soul house.
I fought the pull of the heart of the world. I tried to stand, but the weight of the world was great, holding me down. “He came here. He marked my place.” I growled, exposing killing teeth, my tongue finding them blunt and human. Hands fisted, blunt nails pressing into palms.
“Relax, Jane. It’s okay, Jane. You are safe in your soul room. You are safe here. And we can make him go away.”
I looked up, seeing the handprints. And beside one was a pink flower. A rose. It hadn’t been there a moment past. I tilted my head, studying the rose, considering its meaning in this place of my soul. It smelled of roses and wormwood, sweet and bitter both. And it was put there with magic—witch magic. Evangelina had set her spell on me, tracing the lines of the Mercy Blade’s magic. Beast snorted, a hacking blend of anger and amusement. “Fire,” I whispered. “I can make them both go away. With my fire. The fire in my soul home.”
“Fire is dangerous, Jane. Let’s think of another way.” She sounded fearful.
Beast is not afraid. Beast is strong. “Fire,” the word was growled.
“No, Jane,” she crooned, “I want you to step away from the place of the soul. From the place where the hands are printed on the ceiling. I want you to come back to me, to us, to yourself, here in your house.”
“House is not mine,” I said. “Cave in the heart of the world is mine. Is ours.”
“I know,” she soothed.
In the cave at the heart of the world, I/we stood, the weight of the world heavy and thick against us. Our shadows rose with us. And they merged, merged, part tlvdatsi, part Dalonige’i Digadoli, part cat, part human. Our shadow was beautiful. Fearful. Deadly. The flames in the fire pit danced and rose. Water dripped. Drums beat faster, deeper, the beating heart of the world. The I/we of Beast, we whispered. Together we are more than big-cat and Jane.
We bent to the fire.