“They are goddesses too?” Britt asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes, and they need to be freed as well. Can you do again?” Neith asked. “It needs to be done with the hand of a mortal.”
Britt took in a large breath and exhaled through her mouth. “I don’t know,” she said. “You came after me, I didn’t have a choice. I don’t want to get bitten again.”
“You must do it again,” Neith said. “Our time has come. This needs to happen now.”
“There’s a fire upstairs,” Britt said urgently. “Can’t you just tell the others to follow you out?”
Neith shook her head. “They can’t follow, they need to be free. And you must do it.”
Britt thought of Skylar and all she had done to help the world. If she could do this, it would be her own small contribution.
“Oh, this isn’t where your story ends, dear one,” Neith said, reading her thoughts. “You have dreams of following Teresa, and that calling awaits.” She smiled tenderly, like a mother, and Britt’s eyes filled with tears, thinking of her own mother.
Neith said nothing more, only picked up the knife from the floor and handed it to Britt. “They will all come forward, knowing what is to take place.” As her words hung in the air, the snakes drew closer to Britt, forming a circle.
Again Britt took in breath and exhaled through circled lips. “Okay,” she said. A waft of smoke swept into the room.
“It has to be now. It helps if you yell,” Neith said.
Britt’s eyes widened. Stabbing and yelling? This is completely unladylike.
“Sound is a vital component for life,” Neith said. “Making sounds of pleasure or of pain are vital for well-being. You’ve been living your life too quietly.”
Britt could agree with that. “Okay,” she said again. She growled softly and Neith laughed from her belly. The sound shook the walls, and the glass shards on the floor rose in the air from the vibration. When she stopped, they crashed down.
“Try that again,” Neith said.
This time Britt reared up from the bowels of her being and screamed a high-pitched girl scream.
Neith winced. “Better,” she said. “That one had a bit more life to it, but it was filled with fake emotion, as if it is what’s expected of you. Let us hear what’s not expected of you.”
Britt clenched her fists, one around the knife. A low growl in her chest sank to her belly and she let out a sound that surprised her—an angry moan that quickly spiraled in a circle that consumed her. Her rage over her mother’s decline, her stepfather’s treachery, and her feelings of being alone all unleashed and found their voice in the moment. She screamed and cried and slashed her knife at each of the snakes that came forward. Blinded by her emotion and oblivious to how many she cut, she continued thrashing and slicing until all the snakes fell to the ground and Neith called for her to stop.
Britt collapsed to her knees. She felt a release.
A hiss filled the room, and for a moment she thought her job wasn’t done. But then she realized the sound wasn’t a hiss but a sizzle. The carcasses of the snakes disintegrated into fine mist and disappeared. Iridescent skins lay on the floor as the only remnants of their existence. In each of their places, a woman took form. They had all been trapped.
Another woman stepped forward. She was similar in appearance to Neith. The gold shimmer hung over her body as well. “Thank you, brave warrior princess,” she said. “I am Uriela. And thanks to you, I am free of a curse that followed me from Atlantis to Egypt and all the way here.” She gestured to the women all standing in a circle. “We all are free.” She stepped back among the others, all of them marveling at their own bodies.
The women joined hands and formed a circle, with Britt standing in the middle. The soft glow of the serpents they’d once been still loomed in their abdomens, bright enough to shine through the gold mist. The illuminated snakes danced back and forth across their bellies as the women raised their hands to the sky. As if the ceiling had opened above, golden rays of light rained down upon them.
The energy of the circle was electrified; Britt felt the raw power run through her. She felt alive with the light tingling down her arms to her fingers. Her snakebite now had a line of gold ore running through it. The gold energy crested in her own abdomen and shot up her body like a force she’d never known. It came out the top of her head, and tiny stars could be seen around her crown.
“The Kundalini,” Neith said and smiled. “Welcome to the sisterhood.”
The light faded and Britt caught her breath. “Where will you go now?” she asked the group.
“We will return to the stars with our sisters of the sea,” Neith said, waving her hand near Britt’s hair. “We have been away from our home for far too long. Thank you again, dear one. Take to heart that you have done your part to help many worlds at once.” She took Britt’s hand in hers and showed her the bite. Britt’s eyes widened; the bite had become a ring of three doves.
“You are a granddaughter of the Great Mother of Air,” Neith said. “You now take your rightful place among us all.”
They all raised their hand in farewell, and Britt watched as the gold mist around them grew brighter. It engulfed them all, and eventually they faded and were gone.
In the silence they left behind, she collapsed to her knees to process all that had happened on a normal street in New York on a Sunday morning. The thought of church services popped into her head. She remembered being forced to wear her Sunday best with her mother. When she was much younger, she’d tried to find the humor in church, convinced Jesus loved a good joke. But too often she’d been banished to the vestibule for laughing at her own silliness. She missed that girl. Somewhere in her teens, she’d lost her laughter—right around the time her mother’s memory started to fade.
“It’s time to bring her back, don’t you think?” a familiar voice said in the corner.
Britt jumped to her feet. The image of her mother stood, radiant and luminous, before her.
“Mother!” She raced over to embrace her, only to realize that her body was a projection in the gold mist.
“This is my subtle body, I think they call it,” Talia said.
“Is it really you?” Britt asked in wonder.
“Consider this my resurrection,” Talia said. “Although my body still breathes back home.”
“How is this possible?” Britt asked.
“Al used dark magic to trap my soul in that serpent. It gave him great powers to manipulate energy and control the elements. Over time, my memory left my body and remained here.”
“He certainly didn’t conquer the world, living in Beatrice’s basement in his forties,” Britt said, scowling.
Talia smiled. “Black magic always eats at the neglected parts of the sorcerer. That which hides in shadows becomes malignant.”
“Now you’re free,” Britt said, smiling. “I can go home.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Talia beamed. “I can’t wait to give you a hug, my divine daughter.” She reached out her hand and it wafted through Britt’s body.
Britt shuddered. “I felt you.”