Extract from story Dark of the Moon, by Yvonne Navarro
A.D. 1229
Someday, hundreds of years in the future, the long-gone people of this beautiful desert canyon would first be called the Anasazi - the Navaho word diné or dineh - which, depending upon pronunciation, means either "enemy ancestors" or "ancient people who are not us." In later centuries, their descendants would object to the term and instead use the word hisatsinom, or sometimes moqui or moki - meaning "the dead" - and the region itself would be called Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
At the time of this telling, because this knowledge was not within their reach, the future Anasazi called themselves simply the People, and they lived in harmony with the great Earth beneath them and with all that was upon it. Such had been the way for almost two thousand years and would, they believed, be the way for millennia to come. Mother Earth would provide for them, and they would respect her, and all would live in balance and peace.
But something would come seeking to destroy that prosperity, and someday, in a future place and era beyond their present comprehension, that beast would be called vampire...
Tonight the People watched the Medicine Father walk out of the moon-soaked desert with the infant in his arms.
The Medicine Father was tall and lithe, an uncommon thing among a tribe whose members tended to be no more than ten hands high. Already thirty winters in age, most of the People considered him old, yet his lean, tense muscles were outlined by the cold lunar light, and there was nothing about him that suggested he was aging. In fact, it was quite the opposite - while others among the tribe had padded their bodies with fat in the abundant hunting times of the past several seasons, the Medicine Father had kept his sinewy form by fasting several times a month during private ceremonies in the kiva. Still, the bitter winds whipping across the canyon and crawling up the sides of the cliffs seemed to have no effect on his lanky form.
Or, oddly, on the child.
He had been gone for one full season - longer than ever before, long enough so that many had wondered if this time he was dead, perhaps killed by a bear or a dark spirit. But such was not the case, and he stood before them now, thinner but no less imposing. There was a hide draped over one shoulder, and it was beneath this shield that he had placed the child, but the wind break seemed more a thing of obligation than necessity. The babe neither shivered nor tried to burrow against the Medicine Father's shoulder for warmth. The People stared at her as he approached them, and she stared back, unaccountably quiet for a child who would have been expected to squall in hunger and cold. They knew it was a girl child because the Medicine Father had woven cactus flowers into her black hair; that she should have such long hair and be so young was yet another peculiarity.
Her eyes were black and solemn, oversize for her brown, childishly round face. Everything about her was a mystery - she was clearly too old to have been born to the Medicine Father and a woman during his absence, and never had he made an indication of taking a wife. In fact, it was generally accepted that he had spent these last many months in a period of isolation in one of the great kivas to the south, and while no one from the pueblo had actual proof of this, word that the tribespeople had from the residents there insisted that the Medicine Father had received no visitors during his seclusion.
So where, indeed, had this girl child come from?
They gathered around him reverently, waiting for his words of wisdom and enlightenment. He was descended from a long line of shamans, and his word would be accepted without question. His mother, White Flower, a wizened and bent woman of more than fifty summers - one of the oldest of their tribe - stepped forward to a place of honor, but she waited with the rest of the People for the Medicine Father to speak. No matter where the child had come from or who she was, if it was in accordance with the Medicine Father's wishes, it would be White Flower who took charge of the girl child and cared for her, who raised her to womanhood and trained her in the ways and traditions of the People.
For a long while the only sound that dared to disturb the silent circle of men and women around the Medicine Father and the child was the sigh of the night wind as it slipped over the rocks of the cliffs and through the bristly bushes that struggled to survive in the crevices between the boulders. Not even a coyote - usually so plentiful - howled across the distant desert, and if somewhere a hawk was ready to hunt, it stayed its flight for just a few more moments. The torches spaced here and there along the walkways cast a warm, orange glow on the waiting faces.
When he was ready, the Medicine Father hefted the girl child high over his head, then turned in a slow circle so that all could see her. "I bring you this child, who shall be called Dark of the Moon." The child hung in his arms without struggling, without smiling.
Her gaze was as immeasurable as the sky above her, as impenetrable as the eyes of the Medicine Father himself. "She is born of my loins and the powerful and protective great Grandmother Spider," he continued. All eyes widened in awe and looked upon the girl with new respect. "For many winters I have waited for her birth, for it has been foretold by many of the spirits that someday it will be her duty to save the People - each and every one of us - from an evil which cannot be named." Although it never raised in volume, his voice carried across the desert and echoed against the cliffs, reaching every ear. The words swirled through those who had gathered and seemed to hover in front of them, raising fine bumps of dread along the expanses of skin not covered by leather or cloth.
The Medicine Father lowered Dark of the Moon until he could rest the child upon one hip, then slid the hide from his shoulder and let it fall to the ground. He pushed at it with the toe of one foot until it was straight, then set the girl child down on it and swept the gathered people once more with his gaze. He knelt and placed his wide hand over the quiet babe's head, his fingers long enough to nearly encircle her skull, then pulled his hunting knife free of its beaded sheath. His voice was softer when he spoke again, but no one had any difficulty hearing his words.
"Tonight we place the mark of the protector upon her, one line going down to represent her connection to the great Mother Earth, and another going across it, to signify the balance of Grandmother Spider and the other great spirits."
And as his knife rose and slashed the shallow lines into each side of the down-covered skin of her neck, and as her red, rich blood flowed against its silver blade and onto the thirsty desert soil...
Dark of the Moon still never uttered a single cry.
© 2003 Yvonne Navarro. Taken from Tales of the Slayer volume three, published in the UK by Pocket Books November 2003. Reproduced with kind permission of Pocket Books.
