The Spirit Walker (BOOK ONE): The Ripple

Chapter Seven: Grandmother Spider

The building Calum leads me to is a massive, round structure. Thick smoke curls from the center of its slate-shingled roof, and twists into the azure afternoon sky.

An old woman greets us at the door. Her wiry hair is so long that her braid brushes against the floor. Her age is reflected in the twisted length- it is black at its end, shot through with gray at the small of her back, and white as bleached bone by her face.

"Grandmother," Calum greets with a respectful dip of his head.

The woman is tiny- impossibly so. There are probably roller coasters she'd be barred from riding. She stands on her tiptoes and stretches up surprisingly toned arms to lightly cup Calum's cheeks in her leathery palms, the movement fond, her eyes filled with love.

She says something to him in that strange, foreign tongue, her voice firm, and then lightly slaps his cheeks. She points a long, bony finger over his shoulder. He nods his head, and turns to me.

"You will go with Grandmother, now," he says, and I gulp.

I am to meet these women alone.

For a moment, I am terrified. A heartbeat later, I feel gratitude. It will be easier to trick them if Calum is not standing by my side, watching my every movement.

The tiny old woman presses her hand against my back, and pushes me forward into the dimly lit bowels of the building with surprising strength. We go through an archway made of wood columns carved into totems of snarling wolves,  and then wind down a long, curved corridor. The woman- so short she only reaches my shoulders- is silent.

In the distance, I begin to hear chanting- a low, hypnotic sound. The hairs at the back of my neck begin to rise. If Master hadn't ripped the cross Mama had given me off my neck the first night he had taken me, I would probably be reaching for it now.

Not that I have much faith in God, anymore.

The old woman holds out her arm, gesturing for me to stop before a large basin of water made of granite and carved with stylized images of trees, animals, and a river. It vaguely reminds me of the holy water basin at the Catholic cathedral my great-aunt insists we attend at Christmas. She dips her hands into the water and splashes it over her face, murmuring softly to herself as though in prayer. Then, she gestures for me to do the same.

The chanting echoes off the stone walls.

I mimic her actions, but I must perform some step of the ritual incorrectly because she scrunches up her nose and clucks her tongue in disapproval.

Nevertheless, her hand is at my back again, pushing me around the basin with surprising strength toward another archway, its entry-point covered by a colorfully woven tapestry.

She pulls the material aside, and then thrusts me within when I do not move through on my own.

There is a great fire roaring in a steel vessel at the center of the room, surrounded by a ring of water. A circle of six old women sit on fabric poufs around it, swaying from side to side, their gnarled old hands joined together as they chant.

As soon as I enter the room, the chanting abruptly stops.

The old woman steps past me and takes her place among the circle. The gaze she pins on me over the hook of her nose carefully measured, calculating, and shrewd, but not unkind.

I stand in silence, my sweaty palms clasped together in a white knuckled grip.

Then, another one of the old women steps forward. Her face is vaguely familiar- an itch at the back of my mind that I can't quite scratch. She is taller than most of the others, and wears her hair in two neat braids. The blue, green, and black plaid sash she wears across her chest is an exact match in color and pattern to the scarf she gently draws back from the skin at my neck.