Morgana DeVille's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The stranger in the doorway did not move. Morgana counted the people inside the hut and the drops of blood left in her vial. Six settlers. Six drops. One horned woman she had not called and could not name. The serpent lay by the ashes. The alligator lay across the threshold. Neither reacted to the woman, and that told Morgana something. Whatever she was, the swamp already knew her. Morgana did not. She had to learn before the woman spoke first, because whoever spoke first set the terms. She stepped away from the hut and crouched at the water's edge. She cut her thumb again. One drop. Five left. She pressed the blood into the reeds and asked for a small thing this time. Something quick. Something that could run at a woman's heels and see what a woman was. The mud stirred and a dark shape uncurled from it, fox-shaped, three tails trailing a low smoke. It sat on its haunches and looked at her with yellow eyes. Morgana pointed at the hut door. Follow her, she said. Come back and tell me what she eats. The fox slipped past the alligator and vanished inside. Morgana waited by the ashes. The horned woman came out then. She walked past Morgana without stopping and stood at the clearing's edge, watching the reeds. The fox trotted at her heel. It did not growl. It leaned against her calf like it had always been hers. Morgana understood. The swamp had sent the woman the same way it had sent the hut and the serpent. Not as a servant. As a neighbor. Morgana walked to the edge and stood beside her. Up close the woman smelled like wet stone. Morgana said, you can stay, but the people inside are mine to protect. The woman turned her head. Her eyes were calm and old. She said one word Morgana did not know, and the fox trotted off into the reeds and came back dragging a dead marsh rat. The woman laid the rat at Morgana's feet. Then she walked to the hut, ducked through the mouth, and sat down among the settlers as if she had been waiting for them to arrive. The man with the knife did not raise it. The others shifted to make room. Morgana stood in her clearing with five drops of blood, seven people under one roof, and a neighbor she had not chosen but had, for now, accepted. She had guessed. She had guessed right. The camp held.