The hour had grown late, and Dema could tell that once again the metabolism of her altered body was slowing. Sedna was aware of this as well.

"Come, Dema, I must put you to bed. You can use the back bedroom. Naga comes home late, and leaves early. She never goes in there."

"Oh, yes. Mother mustn't see me in this state. She might want to put me in a hospital, run me through a battery of tests, and try to cure me with some modern form of medical treatment!"

Sedna walked her to the room, and turned back the coverlets as Dema undressed herself. Sedna brought a pitcher of water and set it on the nightstand next to the bed, but somehow, having heard Sedna's story, all Dema wanted was a sip. She slipped between the sheets and turned out the light. Her eyes, of course, stayed open.

Dema's eyes adjusted to the darkened room, and she could vaguely make out the high ceiling, the wood-paneled walls, the bookcases, the curtained window. But her mind was elsewhere, reviewing Sedna's story, and comparing it to the events of her dreams. There was something hauntingly real about those dream memories. Then without her quite being aware of the transition, she slipped into that dream, and the ceiling and walls became the inside of the ancient cavern...

This time, though, she seems less carried along by events, and more to be guiding them of her own volition. In her half-snake form she explores the vast cavern, crawling along the perimeter of its walls, winding her long coils in and out among varicolored stalagmites. Dim light drifts down from above, but there is no path upward, no way out in that direction. Not for her. She watches with a hint of envy as bats flit in and out of the well-mouth high in the roof of the cavern.

Her way must be the way of the snake. There are side-passages through which the other snakes come and go, but all are too small for her to enter. She realizes, without emotion, that she must shift fully into snake-form to use them.

So she does. In dreamlike fashion, she simply expects it to be, and it is so, with no sense of physical transition. With her skull narrowed, and no arms or shoulders to get in the way, the openings no longer look so restricting. She lowers her chin to the ground and slides down one of the side passages. Her forked tongue easily tastes the path that others have used, and before long she is through to the outside. The full light of day is momentarily blinding to her dark-accustomed eyes.

As Dema's eyes adjusted to the light, she realized she was seeing not the trees outside the ancient cave, but the walls of her room in Chicago. Morning had come, and a broad shaft of daylight was streaming in the window. She tossed back the coverlet, ready to swing her feet out. But her feet would not move.

She raised her head and looked down at her body, to find that overnight she had again grown more snake-like. Now from the waist down her body was entirely that of a snake, her legs and hips replaced with several looping coils. Above the waist her mammalian breasts had disappeared, and her skin was everywhere covered with scales.

With her dream experience still fresh, it felt entirely natural to flex those long coils and raise her body up from the bed. It was as if she had not really awakened, but merely shifted to another phase of the dream. She slid across the floor to inspect her face in a mirror. Her external ears were gone now, and her lips had become thin and hard. Her neck had lengthened too, so that her head swayed with a slow, snake-like rhythm. Quietly, she called out, "Sedna!"

Although for now her arms and hands remained, and she had not entirely lost her human voice, these new changes raised anew the fear that she would soon transform completely into a snake, and be unable to recover any semblance of humanity. She felt her mind edging toward panic. But her reptilian heart refused to speed up in response to her human emotion, and she remained physically calm.

Sedna came into the room. 

"Look at me, Sedna," Dema said. "In my dream I changed completely into a snake. What if that happens for real? What will I do then?" With her stiffened mouth and forked tongue she could not properly form all the words, and with her external ears gone she could not hear normally. But in her dreamlike state her awareness of Sedna's thoughts had somehow intensified, and she knew Sedna was understanding her, sensing her fears.

"In your dream, were you afraid?" asked Sedna.

"No, not at all," said Dema slowly, recalling. "I was calm and accepted it. I was totally cool with it. In fact I wanted it, I did it on purpose. But that wasn't me, Sedna."

"If it wasn't you, then who was it?" Sedna demanded. "You are you, Dema. Your thoughts and dreams, your memories, are your own. Tell me, in your dream, how did you feel? Was your dream-self in the same dream-state we share now?"

"Yes, I was. I mean she was. You know what I mean."

"Yes, I do. And yet she—you—willed herself to change, and did not lose control. Some call that 'lucid dreaming,' Dema. You remained lucid through the change, even though you were in the dream-state. What you did then, you can do now. And we know that then the Lamia returned to human form."

Dema made an effort to quell her fears. "Well it's true that my mind still seems pretty normal, even though I've been more or less living in this dreamland for days," she said. "At least I haven't started to think I'm a snake; I'm still me inside. I just hope you're right about the truth of the ancient lore and the lucid-dreaming business."

"The lore matters less than your own spirit, Dema," Sedna replied. "But come, you must be hungry. Your pallor tells me your loss of blood is not yet repaired. I'll make you some good rich chicken broth."

Dema followed Sedna to the kitchen, sliding effortlessly along the hall as if it were her natural mode of locomotion. While Sedna was busy at the stove, Dema opened the refrigerator. Her long forked tongue darted out and she tasted the presence of meat. Sure enough, there was a package of hamburger half hidden in the back. She took it out, opened the wrapping, and broke off a bite. It tasted very good. Then without further thought she took the whole three-pound lump in her hands and slid it into her mouth. Her jaw gaped open unnaturally wide and the mass slid easily down her long throat. It hadn't even occurred to her not to eat it raw.

Sedna was watching her. Dema suddenly felt embarrassed, and covered her mouth with her hand.

"It's okay, Dema," Sedna said with a smile. "You needed it. I'd almost forgotten it was there or I would have offered it to you."

"You're sure mother won't come today?" Dema asked, suddenly self-conscious about her appearance. "She would not be as understanding as you are, Sedna. I remember her telling me once that, if there was any truth at all in your stories of shaman's feats, there must be a scientific basis for it. I really fear that she'd want to rush me to a hospital for treatment or take me to a lab to be studied."

"Yes, she has often said as much to me," Sedna replied, as she poured a big mug of warm broth and handed it to Dema. "But there are things modern science with all its technology has no access to. Often the scientific attitude itself precludes attaining the state of mind necessary for shaman awareness and understanding.

"Naga has never been willing to open herself to that. She's not immune to our heritage, though. She has told me of investigations into altered states, which I think is the closest her science has come to understanding our way. It seems to me she is trying to explain her own inner feelings."

"I understand that, in a way," Dema said between swallows of the broth. "It's as if I've been sinking ever deeper into my own altered state, and been struggling against it."

Sedna frowned and said sharply, "Don't struggle! Accept it! Let it happen! That is the only way out."

Dema nodded. "I know," she said. "At times I think I am ready for that. But then the changes happen, and these nagging fears make me resist it."

"I do understand," Sedna replied. "But you can put aside those fears. You are bigger than they are. Then you will succeed."