by Coralie Moss
I should have been making that suggestion, instead of gawking at the man’s backside. Pulling out my phone to compare the images, I shook my head. “Let’s start with the oldest section of the orchard.” I showed the pictures to Tanner. “The trunk of this tree is too gnarled to be less than fifty, sixty years old.”
“Lead on.” He dipped forward in a mock bow and swept a half-circle with his hat.
“Let me check on Cliff and Abi first.” I followed the wrap-around porch to the front of the house, my boots’ wide heels echoing dully on the weathered boards, and squeezed Abi’s hands and then Cliff’s. I quietly promised I would figure out whatever was happening on their land then completed a circuit of the porch, satisfied nothing was obviously amiss. “They’re the same. Any idea when your contacts will get here?”
“Within the hour.”
“Do you think we should stay here and wait, in case…?” I slid my hands into my back pockets and shrugged. The air around the house and grounds remained unnaturally quiet for a summer day.
“I’ll know if anyone steps onto the property.”
I started to ask how, wavered my foot over the bottom step, and closed my mouth before giving in to the crush of curiosity. “How?”
“How will I know if we have visitors?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You’re an Earth witch, right?”
“And you know that because…?”
“Because the pentacle glowed green,” he said, “and there’s dirt ground into your knees and the palms of your hands.”
I looked down. Okay, he paid attention, and some of the clues were pretty obvious. “So your powers of observation are good. What else?”
“Druids are connected to the earth as witches like yourself are, but…differently. I knew when your car crossed the property line. As long as my feet are on the ground—this ground—I’ll know if others do too.”
Later, I’d ask him why he waited to show himself to me. For now, I would keep him within eyesight. “You ready to go look for damaged trees?”
At his nod, I turned my back to the farmhouse and contemplated the two paths. I chose the one bordered with reddish-purple fireweed and trailing curlicues of vetch and indicated Tanner could go first.
Chapter 3
The trail soon sloped toward a trio of ponds, each edged with plump, brown cattails. Past those, the ground rose into a shoulder-like ridge that eventually connected the property to one of the island’s tallest mountains.
Pausing at the crest of the valley, I shielded my eyes and scanned the area. “There.”
The south-facing slope, where winter frosts nudged boulders at random and generations of deer carved narrow trails through the meadows. The older trees had long since ignored the directives of annual pruning and instead twisted and turned with the pull of the sun and the push of the wind.
I paused at the first wild rebel, caressing its patchy, lichen-splotched bark. The lowest limbs were suspended in a cathartic dance, the upper ones covered with ripening fruit.
“We’ll start here,” I said. “We’re looking for trees with wide trunks that may have split.”
“Ashmead’s Kernel.”
“What?”
“It says this tree is an Ashmead’s Kernel.” Tanner reached over our heads and pointed to an apricot-sized apple with a blemished, dull green skin. “Not very pretty on the outside, but one of the oldest varieties grown on the island. And one of the tastiest,” he continued. “This trunk’s in good condition, and I don’t see evidence of pesticide use or other topical residue on the leaves. Let’s keep moving.”
I swept my gaze across the uncut grass. “Look at the ground too,” I reminded him. “In the photographs, it looks like someone—or something—was digging near the bases of the trees.”
Tanner kept his lead along the path. I lagged behind, running my hands over the roughened bark of every tree we passed, gathering tidbits of their lives through my fingertips. I smiled to myself, giggled softly, wished I could take off my boots and meander, eyes closed and senses open. The orchard’s occupants had triggered my witchy curiosity, making it difficult to stick to the plan.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
I shook my head. “These trees have stories to tell, and if we weren’t here on such gruesome business, I’d still be hugging old Ashley back there and listening to what she had to say.”
“Ashmead,” Tanner corrected me with one eyebrow up, and the side of his mouth quirked in a half smile.
“Ashmead,” I echoed. “Got it.” The sudden trill running along the bones in my chest had nothing to do with tasty apples and everything to do with the timbre of Tanner Marechal’s voice.
Focus, Calliope. Focus.
My inner compass didn’t warn me soon enough. Fingers trailing lightly over low-hanging fruit, sun-warmed apples releasing their scent and inciting thoughts of desserts—apple crumble, apple pie, Marechal a la mode—I stumbled on a rock and fell to my knees.
“Ouch!” I went to press myself to standing, only to be diverted by a swath of flattened grass. Rocks the size of my head and larger, loosened from some prior event, rolled away easily when pushed. “Tanner. Get down here.”
I clambered forward on hands and knees to where roots, bent like the knuckles of a giant hand, plunged into the dense, dry soil. The center of the tree’s trunk was split and slightly hollowed, its interior darkly shadowed.
“Whoa.” I used my flashlight to illuminate the grotto-like opening. Fresh gouges on the outer bark, close to the ground, confirmed a match with one of the photographs. Gouges meant claws—or thick nails—and perhaps a struggle, and it wasn’t clear to me on first look whether the struggle had been to get in or not get pulled out.
Leaning forward, the cool air hovering inside the trunk cast a wave of goosebumps over my neck and down my back. I hadn’t come to the orchard prepared to find severed heads, and I wasn’t prepared to come across the bodies formerly attached to the heads. If there had been a fight here…
Strands of hair and bits of faded fabric snagged on the interior surface confirmed that possibility. Tanner kneeled, his thigh pressed against mine, and added his light. Two-by-fours, roughly cut and splintered by use, framed a hole in the ground. Below that, a ladder made from thick branches disappeared into the inky darkness. I inched closer until my head and shoulders were inside the trunk. Shining the light over the ladder, I counted the horizontal pieces of wood. The top two were lightly gouged and the rest descended to a depth of at least ten or twelve feet.
“I think we should see where this goes,” I said, claustrophobia and childhood trauma be damned. I had a lead to follow, and Tanner was much too broad-shouldered and tall to maneuver through the opening. “Whatever was here—is here—feels benign, like their work is done.”
“How can you tell?” he asked.
I wiggled backward until I was fully out of the tree and could sit. A clump of sticky spider web, stretching from inside the trunk to the back of my head, set my skin to crawling. Tanner reached for my ponytail, removed the stringy mess, and wiped his fingers on the grass.
Pressing both hands to the ground, I closed my eyes and surfed for input. Every point of body-to-earth contact buzzed softly. “Bees. Happy humming. Like they’re getting ready for sleep at the end of a long work day.”
I lifted my palms, blinking at the transition and the oddness of not actually seeing any bees.
“Happy humming?” Tanner stared, his voice echoing the skepticism telegraphed by his posture.
“Yes.” I nodded hard, once, certain of what I’d felt, though uncertain of the why. “When I explored the area near the salt circle,” I continued, eager now to share because honestly, when was the last time I’d talked about my magic with anybody, “I felt nothing, like the ground had been…vacated. Here, it’s like the tree and the ground are happy, content. The feedback I get is these trees, this entire section of the orchard, is being cared for. Nourished.”
I was practic
ally bouncing in place.
“So we have a section of the property that feels dead and a section that feels alive.”
“Very alive,” I agreed. “But I wouldn’t say dead, more like asleep.”
“Which could be a side effect of the catatonia spell.” He’d put it together before I did, but I was seconds away from the same conclusion. He continued, “I’m betting you’ll fight me on going into that hole, but would you agree to wait until the other agents are here? Please?”
I could give him that much, but joy, and one small success, made me ambitious. “In the meantime, I’d like to look more carefully at every other tree in the area.”
Tanner stood and offered his hand. “Agreed.”
He snapped a photo and noted the tree’s approximate location. I put my hands on the trunks of others nearby. We found two more with hollowed cores, both with wood-framed entrances to tunnels of similar depths. And both trees matched the photographs sent anonymously.
“Tanner, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
We had meandered far out of sight and sound of the farmhouse and outbuildings. The apple trees in this section were gnarled to the point of appearing exhausted, unable to bear the weight of fruit-laden branches. None were completely dead, and most had at least a few branches—shiny green and optimistic—reaching straight to the sky from limbs propped by rotting crutches or stacks of large stones.
“These don’t look so healthy,” he offered.
“Or maybe they’re just very old. And tired.”
The terrain was rockier, and the angle of the afternoon sun created more shadows and shade. The bee-like humming I heard at the first tree had morphed into a steady drone of sound.
“A heartbeat,” I whispered. “A very slow heartbeat.” A very slow, melancholic heartbeat.
Tanner slid his thumb down my forearm and took hold of my wrist. “Calliope, stop. What did you just say?”
I didn’t turn to look at him, but I did stop, softening my knees and spreading my fingers, palms down. He released his grip. I blurred my gaze, loosened my joints until my body was a more fluid conduit of information and followed the beat. The ground gave a series of slow, rolling undulations and settled. I held my breath.
This was it; this was what I had been waiting for. The earth was talking to me again, and the beat was faint but present.
“Did you feel that?” I turned to face Tanner.
Gold sparks flickered at the tips of his hair, along the exposed skin of his arms, and around his eyes. “Yes.”
“It’s like this part of the orchard is alive, not just the trees and the bees but…everything.” Scanning my memories, I could find nothing that mirrored this moment. At least nothing I could verbalize. But I’d felt this before, and that achy, uninhabited place in my heart leapt. Whether in hope or recognition, I wasn’t sure.
More faint reverberations made their way from the ground into my legs. My joints loosened in anticipation of another undulation, another clue, another connection. Instead, the beats thundered closer to where we stood.
“Those’re my agents,” Tanner said. “Be right back.”
I floundered then sank to the ground. When I’d seen the salt circle and pressed my hands to the nearby dirt, I was certain the lack of sensation meant my magic was weaker than ever. Now, I was ready to reverse that opinion. Something was alive under this very ground, and its life-beat had reached up and made a connection to mine. I stroked the crushed grass, ran my hands over desiccated clumps of moss, murmuring to myself and to whatever might be listening.
“I’ll protect you,” I whispered, giving the ground another pat before standing, wobbly-kneed and covered in hitchhiking grass seeds, at the sound of approaching footfalls.
Tanner squeezed my elbow and let go. “Calli, this is Wessel Foxwhelp and Kazimir Wickson. Wes, Kaz—Calliope Jones. She’s with the island’s ag commission.”
The men had firm grips and clear eyes. Wes’s brilliant red hair flopped in tight curls around his ears and across his forehead. Kaz stood shorter than his two coworkers, with a wrestler’s build and an unstoppable grin.
“How’re Clifford and Abigail?” I asked.
“Resting,” said Wes. “We got them into their beds. River and Rose are here too.”
Both Tanner’s eyebrows lifted. “Rose tagged along?”
Kaz crossed his bared his forearms over his broad chest and shrugged. “River wanted her for medical support. We agreed it was best to encase the Pearmains in a slow-release sleeping spell, given their age. Those two’ll stay with them until they’re awake and settled. River’s promised to let us know if they say anything.”
“Thanks,” Tanner said, before turning to me. “Ready to show these two what we found?”
At my nod, we retraced our steps to the first tree.
“Kaz, how are you with tight spaces?” I asked, comparing his height and girth to mine.
He grinned, coppery flashes igniting his irises. “Live to get myself stuck, Calliope. Extracting me gives that fellow something to do.” He winked at Wes. “Where would you like to begin?”
“Right here. It’s the tree closest to the house and the road.”
Kaz was on his knees in a moment, pocket flashlight in his teeth, peering into the trunk and down the shaft. His head circumscribed most of a circle as he scanned whatever lay underground. “Tunnel,” he proclaimed, once he’d crawled backward and gotten off his knees. “Looks like we might have a waystation.”
“Waystation?” I asked.
“Think of it as a stop on a rail or subway line.”
I pivoted to scan the orchard and note the locations of the other trees in question. I pointed toward the first one we stumbled on. “Any chance the tunnel heads in that direction?”
Kaz nodded. “Sure does. And then it heads over that-a-way.”
He gestured toward the third tree, out of sight behind a slope in the land.
“You up for exploring?” I was so, so ready.
“Aye, but we’ll need to come back tomorrow. With equipment. Which means we need to stay the night.”
* * *
The tiniest bit deflated and with another complaint to review, I left Tanner and his cohorts to work out amongst themselves who would do what, given the twists in the orchard investigation. I didn’t get to meet River and Rose. They were occupied inside the farmhouse with working healing spells on Cliff and Abi and made it clear they could not be interrupted.
On my final stop before home, I parked near the outdoor farmer’s market in the center of town. I was reaching for my stash of cloth shopping bags when Tanner knocked on the passenger’s door and planted his elbows on the window opening. He’d ditched his hat, pulled his hair into a low ponytail, and donned a pair of sunglasses, sending a quiver straight to my knees. The man was achingly handsome.
And my addled hormones were responding. Strongly. “Hey.”
“Do you have time to talk?” The obsidian glass shielding his eyes couldn’t mask the concern drawing tight lines across his forehead and to the sides of his mouth.
“I do,” I said. “But I missed lunch, and I really need to pick up some things for dinner.”
“I’ll help. Then we can go eat.”
“We?”
The lower half of the serious face cracked into a smile, and he lifted his glasses. “Agent Jones, would you care to have dinner with me this evening so that we may review the events of this day and discuss how our offices might proceed to work together on this investigation?”
I thought about his offer for all of one-point-five seconds. “Sure.”
Summer’s crush of tourists meant I had to lock my car. I divvied up the bags and let Tanner follow me to the stall selling apple cider mini-donuts. Munching on a couple of treats would stave off my hunger and give me time to think about dinner. I paid for a half-dozen cinnamon-and-sugar covered confections, nabbed the one on top, and offered the greasy paper bag to Tanner.
“Dessert first?” He peered at
me over the top edge of his sunglasses. The glow I’d seen at the Pearmains’ was present in the golden sparks glinting in his faceted eyes.
I’d had my feet in exam room stirrups first thing that morning, silently swearing off intimate encounters with magically-enhanced men, and here I was, losing my resolve at the earliest opportunity. And what was it with the sparkles? Was it a druid thing?
I’d ask another time. Instead, I answered, “Always.”
Belly growling, I ate another donut while I collected and paid for a bag of basil and paper produce boxes of wild, sweet strawberries and yellow raspberries. I never tired of the bounty of the island, and to touch, taste, and smell all the life around me was a welcome respite after my encounter with a chest freezer loaded with death. I shuddered and pinched off another sugary bite.
“May I?” Tanner held a cloth bag open. I deposited my purchases, and he followed my methodical pace, asking. “Do you feel obligated to buy something from each merchant?”
“Am I that obvious?” I moved to the next stall and was about to bury my nose in the cleft of a plump heirloom tomato when my phone vibrated.
“MOM,” read the first text, followed quickly by “PIZZA” and “Dad says he needs our help this weekend.”
Funny how my sons always had time to communicate when the topic was their hunger. Tanner moved ahead to a tent displaying desserts while I texted Thatch and Harper.
“CHORES”
“DO THEM”
“HOME SOON”
I looked up in time to see a smiling young woman with chin-length hair and a spiked collar place a lattice-topped pie into a box. Her profile was familiar and her name was on the tip of my tongue, though I couldn’t retrieve it. Tanner handed over a credit card while I searched my brain.
“This okay?” he mouthed, pointing at the box being wrapped with string.
I nodded and waved my arm in the direction of the bank of shops and restaurants flanking the side of the temporary market. I ordered two pizzas to go at the Italian place and found an empty table where I could sit and wait. My unexpected dinner companion cast a long glance over the milling crowd before heading in my direction.