Page 105 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

Every War Had Them

The women who got here first.

Some of them were scarcely more than girls.

Others wore maps of memory across

their aged skin, long silver hair cascading

like water down their backs.

They found one another in these fields,

learned to make families out of each other

when their own loved ones were nowhere

to be found. I know this because in those

early days, I had grown close to the ways

of the spirits inside these meadows.

Styx may not have understood this yet,

but I had learned to be observant

as all children of dark situations do.

So I watched at first as the women

gathered and sat together in circles.

I watched as they told stories

and sang songs from where they came.

It was these vibrant tales and lyrics

that drew me closer to them every day.

And when one day

I was finally close enough,

they did not fall silent.

Instead, they simply shifted

and made space in their circle for me.