2-17

Throughout the process of helping Kore through the ordeal of recalling her dim past, Dema had continued their twining, caressing embrace, and stayed in the snake dream with her. At times Kore had become quite agitated, but now she was relaxed. There was a problem, however. In recalling her original downfall, Kore had become aware of the nature of her addiction, and was now determined to end it. But the drugs she had ingested in her last encounter were wearing off, and the physical craving was returning. Kore was still more snake than human, and Dema worried that her snake mind would not be able to overcome the cravings if she left her alone.

Besides, she had not come here just to get acquainted. She had come to bring Kore home. There was more work to be done before that would be possible. Still deep in the snake dream together, Dema began gradually transforming herself to semi-human form, trying to coax Kore to follow suit. She was pleasantly surprised when her sister slowly did so. She watched as Kore, following her example, dream-shifted her face from snake to human shape, then arms and hands, then upper torso. The Lamia's cloud of white hair appeared. Dema was shifting them out of the snake dream into the shaman dream. All the while they continued their intimate embrace, with their intertwined snake bodies gradually shifting form until the embrace they were sharing was human.

But when Dema made the final shift to her normal coloring and warmth, Kore could not follow. She could not complete the transformation and become fully human. She had lived too long in snake form, and her spirit retained too little awareness of her earlier self.

Nor could she respond when Dema spoke to her with her human voice. She had been so long alone, so long a snake only, that she had forsaken the power of speech. It was still taking every bit of shaman skill that Dema could summon to enable them to communicate at all.

Still more persuasion was needed before Kore eventually consented to let her sister take her home, where their grandmother Sedna could care for her and attempt to wean her from the drug need and restore her humanity. But Dema made her see that she would need this help to beat the cravings that would come. So at last she succeeded, and two human figures, one dark, one pale, both naked, left the nest of paper and rags behind and climbed down onto the ledge that led out of the drainage system.

Dema had of course been unable to foresee how the encounter with her snake-sister would turn out, but she had a plan. It could work, if only Kore would continue to follow her. She made her way back the way she had come. As they left the big chamber and the light dimmed, she summoned her snake senses to more easily find her way. She knew that Kore had done likewise as a matter of course. Presently they came to the side tunnel that went under the street outside Naga's clinic. Here she stopped and gave Kore another warm, human embrace, then shifted to snake form and entered the tunnel. Kore followed. Dema was relying on her shaman awareness to guide her now. One of the drainpipes that emptied into this passage came from Naga's clinic. That was the one she wanted.

Trusting her senses, she chose one and crawled into it. The pipe was barely big enough, and there would be no turning back. Nor is it quite natural for a snake to crawl in a perfectly straight line, as they must now do. But she allowed no hint of such concerns to enter her mind. Kore must trust her, and follow. Dema felt a small wave of relief as Kore entered the pipe behind her.

It was not a short distance, and there was an unexpected jog after they were many yards into it. This had not shown on the drawings she had studied. But as she maneuvered past it, she almost wished there had been more of them, for it temporarily gave her better purchase to move her body forward.

She sensed that they were under the building, that the sub-basement floor was only inches above their heads. She kept on. Presently, she was there. The drain opening with its steel grate was visible above her. Angling her head up into the downpipe, she pressed against it. It was heavy, but she was able to move it up and out of the way. She was thankful that she'd had the foresight to free it up when she'd been there the day before.

Dema crawled up out of the drain and relished the relief of flexing her long coils across the open concrete floor. She watched as Kore, too, worked her way out of the pipe. Then she shifted to human form, and held out her hands to Kore. In a moment, her pale sister was standing before her, and they embraced once more.

Dema was thrilled with her success, but Kore was not so happy. Her mind was still more snake than human, and held an instinctive fear of this strange place with its many human scents. But there were rat scents too, and one could live where there were rats. She relaxed a bit, and followed her sister.

Leading Kore by the hand, Dema walked over to an old laundry cart she remembered seeing here. Digging through it she found old bedsheets and towels. Then, better yet, she found some old hospital dressing gowns. She wrapped herself in one, and draped another around Kore.

Again leading her sister by the hand, she went to the little room that was the custodian's office and switched on the light. Kore cringed a bit at the sudden brightness, but she was soon all right with it. Dema sat her sister in the one chair, and seated herself on the desk. She picked up the telephone and dialed her mother's office. It rang just once.

"Naga."
"Mother, this is Dema."
"Dema! Where are you?"
"This is going to sound strange, but I'm here in your building. I'm way downstairs in the sub-basement, in the custodian's office. Can you come down and see me? There's someone here I want you to meet."

"I'll be right there." No questions, no hesitation. Dema realized how much she really loved her mother.

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