by Coralie Moss
“I like him too.” But living with my grandfather while trying—eventually, at some undetermined day in the future—to have a dating life?
“Anything else you want?”
“Just to tell you I love you and I’m proud of you.”
“I love you, Mom. And I’m proud of you too.”
Tomorrow, Monday, I had to go to the office. Showing up for our jobs was a foundation of the new normal I agreed to with my boys. I almost called Kerry then double-checked the time. That both Harper and Thatcher had answered my phone calls before nine in the morning was a miracle.
If I reached far enough and held tight to the bed post, I could coax my laptop off the desk and read through emails in bed. Mission accomplished, I texted Thatcher that if he wanted to win points, he could make a pot of tea and bring me a breakfast tray.
A mother could hope.
After a long string of tear-filled, laughing emojis, he texted, “Sure.”
I smiled, opened my laptop, and went right to work.
Chapter 15
Even though it was Sunday, Alabastair had already written his report from last night’s mission and cc’d me on his email to Maritza. After transporting me and Jasper to my house, he’d returned to the Pearmains’ where he spent two hours interrogating the fairy sisters, Peasgood, and Hyslop. The two young men, who had met the sisters during a break in their druid training, were captured right off the ferry as they arrived on Salt Spring Island, which I already knew.
What they’d left out was the sisters had accompanied their new boyfriends on the same ferry. The fairies were able to cloak their appearance, follow the vehicle as it re-boarded the ferry for Vancouver Island, and ride atop the SUV’s roof all the way to the Flechette estate.
The two were captured on surveillance cameras and made into fountains. They’d seen Peasgood and Hyslop similarly turned into lawn ornaments but missed the action when the hidden folk were hauled off the night of Meribah’s big reveal.
Peasgood and Hyslop were able to add the threats made by Meribah and her crew. The brothers had been given the choices to act as spies and live, answer questions and remain on the estate as statuary, or keep their mouths shut and be killed. Instead of following through, Meribah switched course and tried to use the hidden folks as bargaining chips.
For my sons.
The last note Bas made was in regards to the two sisters. Némophilie and Silène, of Clan La Fleur, wished to make contact with their families. He would await Maritza and Malvyn’s decision.
I hit reply, thanked Bas for keeping me in the loop, and scanned my unopened emails. The instructions for signing into the meeting room for my first virtual class were straightforward, and the day’s topic, timely: The Use of Blood in Spellwork, Level One, Section One.
How could Meribah’s blood have stayed active for decades in the wards ringing my property? I wanted to understand the mechanics of whatever magical chemistry was at work. Also, what it meant for me and the occupants of my house that her blood was in the root cellar. I scribbled a note to ask if there was a way for me to determine who else’s blood might be mixed into the soil and if I needed magical means to determine the answer or if it was a simple matter of sending samples to a lab, such as the one for Magicals only at Grand St. Kitts.
The next email was Kerry filling me on what to expect Monday: farmers and orchardists who needed help harvesting bumper crops of perishable vegetables and fruits and concerned citizens with questions about a proposed public set-up for islanders to do bulk canning. I had long supported that idea, but we weren’t the agency to tackle the necessary inspections. Our purview was the farms and organic farming practices.
My belly gurgled. I picked up my phone to read a text from Thatcher.
“OMW”
“What do I feed Jasper?”
“NVM”
The jangle and clank of a full tray sounded down the hall and stopped. My door knob turned very slowly, released, and turned again.
“Jasper, push,” said Thatcher. He and the cat stumbled into the room. “Sorry for the delay, Mom. Everybody’s getting a slow start today. Sallie needed Jasper’s help.” He balanced the tray on my desk chair, after placing a book across the dip in the seat cushion. “But I called Shamaha, and she explained this stage of the withdrawal process. Sallie’s purging the poison, and she needs to soak.” He sat on the edge of the bed and patted the quilt bunched at my feet. Jasper hopped next to him and rubbed his head under Thatcher’s chin. “Is it okay if she uses your bathtub?”
“Of course,” I said. I was going to ask if Shamaha had anything else to say about caring for Sallie when one of my phone’s alerts went off. I handed the phone to Thatch. “Can you answer this? I have no idea what icon to tap.”
Thatch had that know-it-all teenager smirk happening as he thumbed the front of my phone and put it to his ear. “Hullo?” He nodded. “Sure thing.” He handed the phone to me. “I think it’s Tanner, but the connection’s really bad.”
Thatcher shouldered Jasper, to the cat’s obvious delight, and left my bedroom, closing the door behind.
“Hello? Tanner?” I pressed the phone tight to my ear.
“Calli.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at a portal hub, and there’s a bit of traffic jam.”
“Are you at the one in Seattle?” I asked. Show me a place once, and I was an expert.
“No, Montreal,” he answered. And paused, his breath catching on an inhale, “How did you even think to ask?”
“Because I landed at the one in Seattle last night. Twice”
“Calli, I have so many questions and not nearly enough time to ask them. I’m waiting in line for the portal back to France.”
Back to France?
“I have questions too,” I said, and because today was the day for me to get shit done, I pushed. “The other night, you left without saying anything. Wes had to go to the hospital with me because I was so upset, and when we got there, it was too late to see Abi and Cliff. By the time I got back to the hospital the next day, they had been discharged into Jessamyne’s care and taken Goddess knows where.”
“I know,” he said. Though the phone connection wavered, those two words came through crystal clear. In my upset with Tanner, I stood too fast and sloshed tea all over my sheets.
“What do you mean, you ‘know’?”
“I followed Jessamyne to France.”
France. I had never been to France. And now I wanted to tear the country apart until I found my friends and saw with my own eyes they were safe. “But couldn’t you have stopped her? I mean, how could she transport two elderly people all by herself?”
“She used her magic and the portals, and brought Cliff and Abi to her mother, Ni’eve. And I couldn’t stop her because I was stuck in my wolf.” Tanner blew a long breath out of his nose. “Calliope, change of plans. I’m coming to you first. Cliff and Abi are with my teacher. They’re getting extraordinary care, better than anything any of us could provide. And it’s going to take some time before the other druids I contacted for help to get back to me.”
I wanted Cliff and Abi home, in their own beds, in familiar surroundings. I wasn’t so sure today was the day to hash out relationship parameters with Tanner. “I’ve got a class at noon and a houseful of people.”
“I’ll keep myself busy until we can talk,” he said. “Please, give me a—”
Our call was cut off. I was staring at my phone’s blank screen when a shout of, “Tanner!” came from the back yard. I swung my legs off the bed, stripped it of tea-stained sheets, and stuffed them into the washing machine. I even managed to whip a fresh bottom sheet onto my mattress. I left the top sheet for later.
That was fast. Proper incentive was everything.
I ducked into the bathroom to brush my teeth and pee and walked out of the house and into the chaos of men, building materials, and flat-ship boxes from Ikea. Tanner was at the crabapple tree, embracing Wes, with Thatcher waiting his tur
n and Christoph waving from the back of the truck.
Tanner’s gaze met mine. There was nothing wishy-washy about the message.
I was next in line for a hug. I kept it brief. Both of us, barefoot on the ground, connected our bodies in a familiar way, but I wasn’t ready to tug on the desire flickering between us.
“Breakfast over?” he asked.
“Nothing made or served yet,” said Christoph. “If I can get an extra hand or two, I’ll put on the apron and we’ll see what an old bird can rustle up.”
“Would you like to shower?” Tanner’s usual scent was masked by all the other scents he’d picked up on his travels, and my nose wasn’t happy.
“Yeah. And I need clean clothes.” He plucked at a shirt I’d never seen him wearing, sniffed, grimaced, and pulled it over his head. “And what’s all this?” he asked, waving the shirt toward the house and the truck parked on the grass to the side of the driveway.
“I think Casa Calliope is about to get a bunkhouse.”
“I don’t want to sleep in a bunkhouse,” he said, affecting a shudder. “What’s a guy got to do to sleep in the house?”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Shower, shave, and brush your teeth, for starters.”
“I’m on it.” Tanner shot me a tentative grin and loped to the house and up the porch stairs. I wanted to latch on to this easy-going, playful version of him, but when we’d parted ways at the Pearmains’, I wasn’t at all clear about what would happen the next time we met. I still wasn’t.
“I have class today starting at twelve,” I said to Wes. “If you need anything, I’ll be in my room.”
“Expecting any other visitors?” he asked.
“No, but not expecting visitors doesn’t appear to mean much around here.”
Wes laughed and returned to his clipboard and the pile of lumber. I took a long inhale as I passed the newly stacked two-by-fours. They smelled of possibilities and fresh starts.
Christoph was in the kitchen, aproned and at work.
I slid onto a stool to fill him in on my day. “I let Wes know I have my first video class today, noon until six or so. I’ll be in my bedroom. Come find me if you need anything.”
“What’s the topic?” he asked. My grandfather was getting to know my kitchen, judging by the ease with which he was sorting bowls and ingredients.
“Blood,” I answered. “I think the official title is something like How to Use Blood in Spellwork.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Very much a witch thing. And shamans.”
I leaned my belly into the counter’s edge and planted my elbows. “The night of my party, before you flew down off the roof, Meribah said her blood was in the wards protecting the house, which was one of the reasons they split apart for her so easily.”
“I’m listening,” he said, cracking eggs and separating the whites into a stainless steel bowl and the yolks into a glass container.
“My house talked to me last night.”
He cracked the fourth egg. “Was that the first time?”
I shook my head. “House showed me a couple of images too. The first one communicated very clearly she will not approve any alterations to her underlying structure. A bunkhouse is fine. Lots of guests are fine. But no messing with her bones.”
“Duly noted. What else?”
“Meribah’s blood is also in the root cellar.”
“How did it get there?”
“I have no idea, but I need to know,” I said. He handed the metal bowl and a whisk to me, and I beat the egg whites while I continued. “You can’t imagine all the places my mind has gone, wondering if Meribah knew my mother or my aunt or had anything to do with Mom’s death.”
Bringing egg whites to stiff peaks was a good way channel the frustration that had been building over the many unanswered questions roiling in my head.
“Let me help you,” Christoph said, gently prying the whisk from my grip. He peeked into the bowl, declared my job done, and folded the egg whites into the waffle batter. “Do you have a plan?”
“At work, I take soil samples. Lots and lots of soil samples. I’m going to do the same thing in the cellar: map out a grid, take samples, label where I got them, and get them tested.”
Christoph nodded while deftly pouring batter into the waffle iron. “And your class, what time does it start?”
“Noon.”
“You better grab breakfast and get going,” he said. “You don’t want to be late for your first day of school.”
* * *
My water bottle and a cereal bowl of yogurt and granola to my left, my laptop front and center, and plenty of pens and paper to my right. I was ready to listen and take notes. I signed into the class without a hitch and said hello to the other witches-in-training. I didn’t recognize the woman greeting everyone as their avatars arrived at the virtual classroom, but a flutter of excitement had me clapping in front of the screen when L’Runa was announced as our instructor for this module.
L’Runa had helped Rose lead my ritual of initiation and performed the same role at my Blood Ceremony. Intuition told me she knew about blood.
The statuesque witch came into view, her brown skin radiantly lit and her mass of matted white braids hanging to her shoulders, upper and lower arms. Shelves rose behind her, stacked with feathers, large crystals, and an array of dolls that seemed created for ritual purposes, not hugging. When L’Runa lifted her head, opened her eyes, and smiled at the camera, there was warmth and depth in the pale blue.
“Welcome to your first lecture on the uses of Blood in Spellwork. My name is L’Runa, and I will be your lecturer today.” She closed her eyes briefly then opened them again. “We have a lot of information to cover. Let’s begin.
“Blood is vital to life, whether you are human, animal, mammal, Magical, or any combination thereof. Our blood carries our DNA, our ancestry, and our stories. Our blood also carries clues to our magic. It is those clues you are going to hear about, and it those clues that will form the basis for your blood-based spellwork.
“Every piece of information you can glean from a Being’s blood is information you can use to help sustain and enrich their life. Conversely, every piece of information you can glean from a Being’s blood is information you can use to help end their life. I’m going to let that sink in for a moment.”
L’Runa closed her eyes and pressed her hands onto the surface of her desk. The ghost of a smile wafted across her face.
“One of my missions is to assist you with understanding that when we deny that darkness exists alongside light, we deny our capacity both for wrongdoing and for redemption. I know those are heavy things to think about. We are by nature curious Beings, and for too long, what we once called the Dark Arts were hidden away from the cleansing capacities of light. I want you—all of you—to understand that to practice spellwork that contains blood as an ingredient is to dance a fine edge between life and death.”
My skin crawled with goosebumps. L’Runa was a force of nature, and her words drove home the message I had been getting ever since the day I first stepped onto the Pearmains’ property and was met with hollow silence.
L’Runa did not let up much during the next five or so hours, aside from giving us breaks to use the bathroom, stretch our bodies, and get what food and drink we needed. Every time we reassembled, she delivered more information, while regularly reminding us of our individual and collective responsibilities to hold the knowledge and use it well.
The last lecture covered menstrual blood. She added insights that expanded my scant knowledge of the meaning and purpose behind the Blood Ceremony. L’Runa emphasized the importance of the monthly Moon ceremonies and spoke openly about including the transgender and others who identified as female but who might not have the physical equipment required to produce menstrual blood. I made notes to ask Tanner if the mentoring session he and others ran were making similar changes to their curriculum and structure to accommodate everyone, no matter their gender identification.
By the time the class wound down, my head was filled and overflowing with the magical and the practical.
Chapter 16
I said goodbye to my classmates and signed out of the classroom. L’Runa sent me a private message with her email and phone number and urged me to contact her if I had any questions or wanted simply to talk.
I had many questions. The marrow in my bones prickled with the sure knowledge answers to some of those questions lay in the cellar below my feet. Before I descended into that dank space, I would switch my witch’s hat for my scientist’s collection bag.
But first, another landscape waited. I swiveled my chair to face my bed, interlaced my fingers, and stretched my arms overhead, twisting to each side to get the stiffness out of my spine.
Tanner had tiptoed in at five and asked if he could nap. He lay on his side, his back to me. The same pair of cut-off sweats I’d pulled from the boys’ pile of clean laundry the morning after the party covered him from his hips to above his knees. He wore an oversized bleached white T-shirt. The loose way the shirt draped over his shoulder and ribs did nothing to quell my imagination.
I gathered my bowl and spoon, dropped my things in the kitchen, and made another stop at the bathroom. I’d sensed the house growing quiet during the final hour of L’Runa’s lecture, and the note on the counter explained why.
“Mal and James invited us for dinner. We took Jasper. The house is yours until ten.”
Three and half hours for questions and answers. I’d take it.
Dried yogurt and flakes of oatmeal wouldn’t rinse out. I left my bowl to soak, shook the scrunched up dishrag someone had tossed in the sink, and draped it over the faucet.
The house was profoundly quiet. I poured a tall glass of beer, savoring the hoppy tang on my tongue, summer’s warmth on my skin, and the complete lack of human noise. I walked the inner ambit of the house. The front door was locked, as was the sliding door to the back porch. I flicked the lock and stepped out to survey the results of the activity I’d tracked in the background of the hours-long video call.