Blackfeather Woods my life and all seemed turned to clay

She knows, whispered the voices in her ears. Do it, for she knows what must be done. They had never spoken to clearly to the pale child before -- usually all she heard were whispers in foreign languages she did not understand, or a hundred voices speaking at once -- and she headed their call for they were spirits too. They knew what was good for the spirit child, she believed that, and so she stepped forward.

The caretaker went first to donate her blood. Squeaky followed soon after. Then it was the spirit's turn, who used her teeth to bite a wound a bit higher up on her leg. A place with less nerves and less lasting pain and inconvenience when walking, from where the blood trickled down to her paw pads so that it would drip onto the skull and merge there with the blood of her relatives.