by Susan Sey
In spite of the high-tech makeover, though, it still felt like a kitchen Lila might live and work in. Potted plants marched across the sill, while a filmy set of honey-colored curtains made the most out of whatever sun found its way into north-facing windows. Terra-cotta tiles the color of freshly baked bread marched across the floor at a diagonal, the center taken up by a geometric mosaic. The jagged, inlaid pieces didn’t render a picture so much as suggest one. Goose had to squint hard before she decided it was a stag in front of a full moon.
“Lila?” Rush called.
“Up here.”
Goose turned to find a pretty circular staircase in black wrought iron tucked into the corner. Rush waved at it. “After you,” he said.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered, threading her way carefully up the tiny, wedge-shaped steps.
“You’ll see.”
They emerged a moment later into a sitting room that made Goose want to toe off her shoes and have a cup of tea. And she didn’t even like tea.
The wooden floors shone like spilled maple syrup, the gleam broken up by the warm expanse of a blue-and-gold woolen rug. A fire snapped in the pretty hearth that took up most of the far wall, while two dormered windows framing breathtaking views of the lake occupied the adjoining wall. Built-in bookshelves ran above, beside and between the windows, while a thickly cushioned bench ran beneath. Plants hung from the ceiling in front of the glass, bushy with the kind of good health that Goose had only ever seen in magazines.
“Hello, dear,” Lila said, rising from the window seat. She padded across the floor on bare feet and took Rush’s hands in hers. “Blessed be.”
She turned to Goose and held out her hands. Goose took them automatically and received kisses on both cheeks with surprised pleasure. “Blessed be, dear.”
“Ah . . . same to you,” Goose said.
Lila indicated a little love seat facing the bench and curled into her sunny window seat again, feet tucked neatly under her like a cat. Goose and Rush sat. It was a tight squeeze for two tall people, and the hard press of Rush’s thigh against hers sent a hot spark of awareness dancing in her stomach.
“Something’s happened,” Lila said, reaching for a delicate china teapot on the low table between them.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Rush asked.
She handed him a steaming cup of tea. Goose wondered if she had cups and pots at the ready all over the house, or if she’d been expecting them. “Asking.” She handed Goose a cup, which she took and balanced on her knee.
“Agent di Guzman and I went down to the old mines yesterday,” Rush said.
“Really?” Lila turned cool eyes on Goose. “Looking for pitchforks?”
Goose glanced at Rush. “Ah . . .”
“We’ve moved somewhat beyond pitchforks at this point, Lila,” he said. “But it’s nice to know you’ve got my back. Thanks.”
Lila blinked at him. “You’re most welcome, Rush.” She leaned forward, her eyes direct and intense. “You always have been.”
He patted her hand, and she stared at him like he’d conjured a bouquet of tulips out of thin air. She turned to Goose again with considerably more warmth. “Whatever you’re doing, Agent di Guzman, you have my permission to continue.”
“Um, thanks.”
“So, the old mines,” Rush said. “We’d heard kids were partying down there and went to check it out.”
Lila raised her steaming cup to her lips. “And?”
“And there was nothing there.”
“Nothing?”
“No beer cans, no cigarette butts, no used condoms.”
“So that’s the good news out of the way.” She tipped her head. “What’s the bad news?”
“There was nothing else, either. No footprints, no tracks, no nests, no burrows.”
She set her cup onto the coffee table with a soft chink. “Well, now. That is unusual. Nature abhors a vacuum.”
“Exactly. But this was no vacuum.”
“Oh, dear.”
Goose listened as Rush described what they’d found in the old mine. The rough-hewn bowl on the low, flat rock. The traces of blood inside.
“Somebody’s using the Stone Altar,” Lila said, a tiny V creasing her brow.
“The Stone Altar?” Goose asked. “That was an altar we found?”
“Before it was a mine, it was an ancient structure our people used to honor the lunar standstill.”
Goose blinked at her, startled. “The lunar what now?”
“The lunar standstill,” Rush told her. “It’s an astrological phenomenon that occurs once every eighteen-point-six years. It’s a two-week period when the moon takes both its lowest possible route and its highest possible route through the night sky.”
“It’s also the time at which the moon rises at the northernmost point on the horizon of which it’s capable,” Lila said. “And when that happens—” She paused, gave Rush a significant look. He gave her a go-ahead shrug.
“And when that happens?” Goose prompted.
“It sends a beam of light directly down the mine shaft that illuminates the Stone Altar.” Lila sipped her tea. “The last one was in 2006.”
“Oh my God,” Goose said, wide-eyed. “I’ve heard about this. I thought it was destroyed or ruined or something.”
“No, just closed.” Lila wrinkled her nose. “I find the whole thing a little too Indiana Jones, to be frank. It panders to thrill seekers rather than true believers, and that’s not an element I’m interested in attracting to Mishkwa.”
Goose frowned as the argument she’d heard between Lila and Einar the other day started to make a great deal more sense. “Einar disagrees, though, doesn’t he? He thinks the Stone Altar is a potential moneymaker for the family, doesn’t he?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Lila sighed. “My father owned the piece of land on which the Stone Altar sits. It was part of his original claim, and thanks to Einar’s willingness to meet the government’s requirements for retaining that claim, it’s still in the family.”
“But you don’t want to open it to the public.”
“You’ve been there,” Lila said, shaking her head. “That place is dangerous. Plus I don’t care for the Stone Altar. I never have. It doesn’t feel sacred to me. We hold our rituals outdoors. Why would we suddenly go underground for the sake of something that happens once every twenty years?”
“Rituals?” Goose asked. She had a bad feeling about this conversational turn. “We?”
“Our coven, dear.”
Well, shit. RAC Harris was going to have to update his file on Mishkwa. She made a mental note to send him an e-mail, ASAP. In the meantime, Goose turned to Rush. “Her coven?”
“Oh. Sorry.” He extended a polite hand toward his aunt. “May I present Lila Olsen, Mishkwa Coven’s pagan high priestess?”
Goose pinched the bridge of her nose. “I was given to understand Mishkwa didn’t have witches anymore.”
Lila shook her head and smiled. “We keep a low profile but we’re here.”
“Do you call yourself witches?” Goose asked. “Or am I supposed to say ‘pagans’?”
“I prefer ‘pagan’ myself, but I’m not a stickler for vocabulary.”
“And you?” Goose turned to Rush. “What do you prefer?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I lost religion when I lost my folks.” He shifted his attention to Lila. “But if we can get back to the subject at hand? Who’s using the Stone Altar, Lila?”
“I have no idea,” Lila said, frowning. “Our worship is moon-based. Why would we put ourselves underground when Our Lady’s face is in the sky? When Our Lady’s light could fall on our skin?”
“Maybe because somebody’s calling on magic Our Lady wouldn’t approve of. Magic that prefers the dark. Magic that requires blood.”
Goose poked her hand into the air like a slow student. “I’m sorry, why aren’t we looking at Einar here? I know he’s your relative, but he’s also the one with a long-stand
ing—and financial—interest at stake. All logic dictates taking a hard look at him first.”
Lila waved that off. “Oh, heavens. Einar doesn’t believe in the Stone Altar. He just wants to turn a profit from it. What Rush is talking about is something else entirely. Something far more disturbing.” She frowned. “Far more disturbed.”
“She’s right,” Rush said. “Einar believes in money, not magic. Black or otherwise. But somebody on this island is taking the dark arts seriously. Seriously enough to try their hand at bloodletting, anyway.”
“Our ceremonies don’t involve any sort of ritual bloodletting,” Lila told Goose as she sent Rush a disapproving look. “As my nephew very well knows.”
“I do know that. Just like I know there are always a few folks who think they ought to.”
“I can’t believe that anybody on Mishkwa would dabble in this sort of thing.”
“Somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to practice alone, Lila. You’ve got to wonder why.”
She shook her head again. “I have no idea.”
“I think I do.” Rush turned to Goose and said, “I think your counterfeiter is hedging his bets.”
Goose stared at Rush. “You think my counterfeiter is covering his tracks via black magic?”
Lila stared at her. “Your counterfeiter?”
He said to Lila, “Goose was sent here to investigate the possibility that somebody is smuggling high-grade counterfeit money into the U.S. from Canada via Mishkwa. That means somebody on this tiny island thinks they’re special. Faster, smarter, more talented than normal people, and therefore exempt from the rules binding normal people.”
“Both activities would take a certain personality type,” Goose murmured, struck. “A drive for power paired with a disdain for the rule of law. The sort of person who’d—”
“—buck generations of religious tradition to dabble in black magic.” Lila sighed. “For money. I see your point.”
Goose frowned. “Okay, so let’s assume for now that Mishkwa really is our point of entry, because I do think at least that much of our original theory holds up. It’s a very convenient location with a surprising amount of international travel going on.” She looked back and forth between them. “Can we rule out Yarrow’s involvement?”
“Yarrow?” Rush stared at her while Lila pressed her lips together in disapproval.
“I gather she’s had a troubled adolescence,” Goose said carefully, “including a brush with the law of which no record exists.” She held up a hand to forestall Lila’s no-doubt-pithy comment. “She let it slip herself, Lila. I had to check it out. It’s my job. Now, I have no interest in digging out painful details I have no business knowing, so just give me the broad strokes, okay? Is there any way she could be connected to people who might use her exile on Mishkwa to turn a profit?”
Lila sent her a scorching glare that actually comforted Goose a great deal. No matter how troubled or angry, a kid couldn’t be completely lost when somebody believed in her the way Lila clearly believed in Yarrow.
“She was arrested,” Lila said stiffly, “never charged, and for reasons that are, as you mentioned, none of your business. It’s her heart that was broken, not the law. But if it sets your mind at ease, you should know that her parents have strictly forbidden her access to the outside world while she’s here.”
“No cell phone, no Internet access?”
“None. Which means that even if she were somehow mixed up with a bad element, she’s had no way of communicating with them, let alone arranging to meet them. Not that she’s been off-island even once since she’s been here. Not without supervision.” Lila shook her head. “And to answer what will surely be your next question, her parents have also asked me to keep her strictly separated from our religious tradition as well. The chances of her having any interest in the Stone Altar, let alone the motivation to explore it, are extremely remote.”
“Fair enough,” Goose said. Yarrow had never felt right as a suspect to her, anyway. But somebody had, and since she was already way deep into Lila’s red zone, she went ahead and pitched. “Tell me again why we’re not looking at Einar?”
Lila waved that off with a weary shrug. “Einar may be impulsive but he isn’t stupid. I’m sixty-nine years old, Agent di Guzman, and when I retire, he stands to inherit everything he wants. Why would he risk his freedom to buy something he’s going to get for free in a few years anyway?”
Goose absorbed that. It was a fair point. Einar struck her as showy, not self-destructive. His regard for his own comfort seemed extremely healthy, and likely far outweighed his impatience.
“You’ll ask around, then?” Rush said to Lila. “Discreetly?”
“Of course. But again I doubt any of my people—our people—have been involved in anything so unsavory as blood sacrifice.”
“You think it’s gone that far?” Rush asked, his eyes sharp on his aunt. “Actual sacrifice, not just ritualistic bloodletting?”
“Like pricking fingers or cutting palms,” Lila told Goose before she could open her mouth to ask. Her utter stupefaction must’ve shown. “Blood is life, and as such is a powerful and sacred offering. You don’t have to kill to make it.” She pursed her lips and said to Rush, “Though I think the person in question must have killed. Or will soon. He—or she—may not have taken human life yet but perhaps animal life. If you’re hungry enough to spill blood for power, you’re hungry enough to kill for it.” She came to her feet. “I’ll ask.”
“Thanks, Lila.” Rush rose and Goose followed suit.
“Blessed be, nephew. Blessed be, Agent di Guzman.”
“You, too,” Goose said, and accepted the woman’s cheek kisses with less surprise this time, and a bit more grace. A quick, dark movement beyond Lila’s shoulder caught her attention. To her surprise, she saw Yarrow kneeling by the fireplace, a piece of kindling in her hand, her dark eyes fixed on the leaping flame.
“Hey, Yarrow,” Goose said, with a guilty heart. How much had the kid overheard? “I didn’t see you there.”
Lila turned and said, “Yarrow! Goodness, child, how long have you been there?”
Yarrow didn’t turn. She poked at the shimmering blue-yellow embers and a shower of sparks danced up the chimney.
Lila sighed and rolled her eyes at Goose. “She’s got her earbuds in. I swear it’s like living with a deaf person. When I want her attention, I have to flick the lights.”
Rush walked over and tugged on the thin wire that disappeared into the harsh black of the girl’s dyed hair. An earbud popped out and she looked up. “What?”
“We have preseason conditioning tomorrow at three.”
Yarrow rolled her eyes. “Great.”
“You coming?”
“Do I look like an idiot to you?”
“That’s a trick question, isn’t it?” Rush gave his cousin a good, hard stare. “Let’s try that again. The ski team, to which you belong and of which I am the coach, is holding preseason conditioning tomorrow. Will I see you there, Yarrow? Yes or no.”
She heaved a sigh. “Yes, Ranger Rush. I’ll be there.”
“Good. Ferry’s at two. I’ll pick you up.”
“What, you don’t trust me?”
He handed her earbud back. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”
She rolled her eyes so hard Goose feared she might overbalance and tumble into the fire. Rush just shook his head.
Suddenly a high whine filled the air, a vibration that buzzed inside Goose’s chest, her ears. It rattled the books on the shelves and Lila’s teacup in its saucer. Goose grabbed Lila’s arm.
She’d never heard that northern Minnesota was particularly prone to earthquakes or anything, but logic dictated that little bitty rocks poking up in the middle of large bodies of water couldn’t be the most stable things in the world.
“What the hell is that?” she asked.
Lila shook her head and peered out the window.
“That boy,” she sighed.
Goose loo
ked, too, and saw a little black-and-yellow prop plane zip over the harbor. It tipped its wings in a jaunty salute and roared off over the house in a full-bodied wash of noise that even Yarrow heard. She popped out the earbuds herself this time, and scanned the sky with an intensity that drove impending natural disasters straight out of Goose’s head.
She didn’t smile—of course not—but Goose’s heart wrenched at the eager joy in the girl’s dark eyes when she said, “Einar’s back.”
Chapter 12
YARROW HAD learned a few things during her exile on the Rock at the End of the Fucking Earth.
First, Sunday evenings were Lila’s favored time frame for cleaning the tea shop. Extensively. What she was cleaning for, Yarrow couldn’t actually say. Like there was going to be some huge rush on tea come Monday morning. Like commuters would be rolling through demanding their scones and lattes.
Only wait, there wouldn’t be any commuters because there weren’t any fucking cars. Or, Jesus, any people.
The sheer lunacy of expecting customers appeared not to factor into Lila’s decision to prepare for them, however. Thus Sunday nights were spent diligently filling sugar bowls and making up tea bags and topping off the honey pots.
At least they were until Yarrow learned to disappear.
Lucky for her, she’d had plenty of practice disappearing. It had been a little easier back home, of course. There were crowds, for one thing. For another, she was invisible at home. Had been since the day of her brother’s diagnosis. Getting lost was a snap. She could hop the light rail to the Mall of America, a bus to Southdale. She could be at a mall, a movie theater, a library or any one of a dozen coffee shops on the university campus in minutes. She and Jilly had passed for freshman, easy, and—
Pain slid in, vicious and greasy, and she stopped. Backtracked. Then carefully, deliberately, she ripped the thought out of her head. She couldn’t go back to that place. Never again. Even if it existed—the past as she remembered it—she wasn’t the same girl she’d been. She couldn’t go back there, and what was worse, she didn’t deserve to. If the past was gone, it was because she’d destroyed it. What was done was done.