The Mockingbird's Ballad

Good," Mama Bear began. "Your time of the moon came before your last birthday, in the fall?" was her question. Lou looked back at her mother, who nodded her head at her daughter.

Yes, ma'am. October," Lou answered, a bit perplexed.

"You're not a child anymore. Haven't been since that day. Now you've gone and decided an adult thing. You go to be with warriors."

Mama Bear turned from looking at nothing in the darkened yard to gaze into the face of her only living woman grandchild, her legacy. "Take care with your moon time out there. Take this." She handed Lou a small well-filled bag of leather. "At the beginning of your time, take two pinches in coffee or water each day of your moon days. It will help you during that time - less hurting. When you leave I'll have a larger bag of dried moss from the riverside Live Oak. Use it in your drawers with a woman cloth. Change it when it's soiled, and bury it." Her gaze returned to front, towards the river.

Lou looked at the side of her grandmother's serious yet kind face, "Yes, Grandmother. I'll do as you say."

"Now we go up to the creek to the morning place."

Once on the bank side at a slow moving spot, grandmother, granddaughter and mother sat without talking until the glow of the lighting eastern sky announced that sunrise would be there in a few minutes.

Girl, take off your clothes and lay them here." She patted a place behind where Lou sat by her. "You need to take the waters and get the blessing of the Great Being, Uneque. It greets you as you welcome it. My people's spirit way needs to be honored as you take the path you have chosen." She continued as Lou stood to undress. "Girl, you remember how I taught you to purify yourself going to the waters?"

"Yes, ma'am." She looked at her mother as if asking for permission, something Nancy Bird had ever experienced from her tomboy daughter. Nancy smiled and said, "Yes, Mockingbird, Bear Woman is right."

Mama Bear looked at Lou's fourteen-year-old girl body as she undressed. It had a good start at being a woman's body but some way to go. Her low hair was fine and sparse, and her breasts were just beginning to take form. Her nipples were small and dark brown. Her stature was slim but not skinny. She had good muscle tone and firm arms, calves, backsides and thigh muscles. Her flesh was light red/brown. Mama Bear's childhood color was nearly like her granddaughter's. In the sun it looked coppery. Lou hummed a chant Mama Bear had taught her years ago. She lifted up hands full of creek water and opened her hands over her head seven times, saying "Ah-Ho" each time. When she finished, she slowly walked out of the water to where she had sat by her grandmother and mother and, methodically, she dressed. Big chill bumps covered her from head to toe, and she gave a full body shiver as she sat down at her place.