by Sharon Joss
“Samhain, then,” said Rhys.
“Yeah. All Hallow’s Eve,” agreed Lou. That’s gotta be it. There’s a void moon that night. It’s too big a coincidence. I’ve got to stop that ritual.”
“If it’s a demon, I can banish it.” I said. “Before it has a chance to do anything.”
“You gave me your word that you’d stay away from them, Mattie.” Lou snapped. “I’m holding you to it.”
“Not all demons are the same,” Rhys said. “There is no way to tell whether you have enough juice to stop it. Lou is right. The ritual has to be stopped before this thing comes through.”
“I’m just trying to help,” I said. Besides, you said yourself; I’m already on their radar. I can’t just stand on the sidelines. You need me.”
“Listen Mattie,” Lou said. “John and Liddy have dedicated themselves to the study of the dark arts and the use of sorcery to achieve their goals. Whatever it is they think this creature can give them, you can be assured they’ll sacrifice anyone or anything that stands in their way. Once the ritual begins, it will be too late. And you can be sure the site will be protected from outside interference.”
“How do you expect to stop them,” Honey asked. “You can’t have them arrested. Even if you knew the names of everyone in the cult, you can’t very well kidnap the whole coven.”
I nodded. “She’s right. They’re not breaking any laws until a demon answers their summons, and by that time, it’s too late. We need a plan.”
“Stay out of it, Mattie.” Lou lay back against his pillow. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He looked exhausted.
Honey stood. “It’s late. I need to get home.” She had dark circles under her eyes, too. “All this talk has me worried about the boys.”
“Be careful,” Lou said. “Keep your doors and windows locked. Remember, the Fewkes aren’t finished with you yet.”
“I think about it every day.” She slipped on her coat. “Get some rest.”
As soon as she was gone, Lou said. “You’ve got to get me out to that ritual site, Rhys. I’m the only one that can stop this. I’ll be out of here tomorrow morning. If I’m in position a couple hours before midnight, they’ll never know I’m there.” His eyes fluttered and closed. A moment later, he was sound asleep.
“If their plan was to keep Lou out of the way, they did a good job of it,” Rhys said. “He’s lucky it wasn’t permanent.”
“This time,” I agreed. “You know he can’t do this by himself. I have an idea.”
“What do you have in mind,” he asked.
“Let’s go check out that ritual site in the daylight.”
CHAPTER 13
FRIDAY WAS GORGEOUS. Warm temperatures, low humidity, and a soft breeze made the weather feel more like summer than fall. Rhys didn’t have classes, and with my hours at work cut back, I was off, too. We rode our bikes out to Knutt’s Apple farm, cruising slowly along Plank Road near the orchards until I found a dirt track that looked familiar. We parked the bikes in the shade of the same blue spruce where Lou had parked his Subaru.
Dried cornstalks cackled in the breeze as we walked up the double track. Somehow, the distance seemed further in the daylight, and the lack of cars or any sign of life had me feeling uneasy. Finally, the road curved left, as I remembered, and we caught sight of the barn. In the daylight, the long-abandoned structure was a ramshackle affair. So old, that the roof had partially collapsed—not a trace of paint remained.
I spotted the trail Lou and I had forged through waist-high thistles, and led the way, glad for my leather jacket to fight the thorns. The air grew eerily still, the quiet broken only by the rough call of a crow flying overhead. I couldn’t help but feel we were being watched.
We passed the barn, and I paused to get my bearings. The apple orchard stretched before us to the top of a rise about a quarter mile away. Once we reached the trees, the thistles disappeared and we made better progress. I showed Rhys the break where the wire had been cut, and we exited the orchard. The trees and mixed scrub thinned as the land rose beneath our feet.
At the crest of the hill, the old cemetery stretched out before us in a shallow vale—neglected and long forgotten. Most of the headstones had been toppled. Many lay broken. Halfway down the hill, the large tomb I remembered dominated the graveyard. Sheltered beneath a stand of overgrown evergreens, it loomed over the boneyard like sentinel. Instinctively, Rhys and I walked angled our way toward it.
In the deepest shadows, moss and lichen covered the stone walls of the crypt. I shivered in the sudden chill, but there was nothing supernatural about the place. At least, nothing I could sense.
Wordlessly, Rhys pointed out the inscription, scarcely visible through the thick moss:
E M. PENFIELD
1775 - 1794
The epitaph beneath the date was illegible.
“That’s an old one,” I said. “Maybe even one of the original homesteaders.” I made a mental note to have Blix look it up.
We stepped out from the shelter of the memorial, and made our way toward the scraped-out circle at the bottom of the vale.
On closer inspection, there were actually two circles, one within the other. The outer circle circumscribed an area of bare dirt some fifty feet across, surrounding an immense yew tree. The tree appeared to be of great age, with a gnarled and twisted trunk wide enough to drive a car though.
The entire circle, including the area beneath the tree had been cleared of detritus, weeds, and stones, and raked smooth. The smaller, inner summoning circle had been marked off with dark river stones. The inner circle also included the great yew, although it was positioned so that the tree was nearer to one side of the circle. Near the base of the tree, a stone platform had been built up, using several of the old marble headstones stacked on top of each other.
“That altar wasn’t there when Lou and I were here before,” I said. My voice sounded oddly muffled in the silence. As we drew closer, my feeling of apprehension grew. In the shelter of the vale, the sun felt warmer. I took off my leather jacket and tied it around my waist. “There’s something not right about this place.”
Rhys scanned the low hills around us with a critical eye. “They picked a good spot. No road access and no neighbors. The only way in or out is on foot. Be tough for anyone to sneak in without being spotted.”
Instinctively, I moved toward the tree.
“I wouldn’t cross the line of the outer circle,” Rhys said. “They’ve done to an awful lot of preparation here.”
“What’ll happen if I do?”
He shook his head. “Maybe nothing. But if Lou is right, and the cult has been layering up some sort of power reserve, our sorcerer friends would notice a disruption. It might be warded.”
I held Lou’s coin at the edge of the dirt circle, at the point where it met with the overgrown grass. Other than the glow it possessed when I held it, the coin did not react. Cautiously. I held out my hand to the invisible plane defining the outer circle. The crescent moon scar on the palm of my hand tingled. I wiped my hand on my jeans. “I think you’re right.”
I stared up at the tree. Yew was a pretty common tree, but it wasn’t native to upstate New York. I’d rarely seen one so big. It must’ve been planted a long time ago.
“What are you thinking?” asked Rhys.
“Why did they build the summoning circle around the tree? It doesn’t make sense. Why not just make the circle smaller?”
“Maybe they’re using the tree as the vessel to store their power.” Rhys rubbed his jaw. “If Lou were here, he could tell us.”
The longer I looked at the setup, the more certain I became that there was something really wrong about that tree.
“Look.” I pointed to the large crypt monument. “That tomb looks like it was built to face the tree. It could have been built the same time the tree was planted” I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and snapped a few pictures of the circles, the tree, the tomb, and the altar. “Do you think they’re plannin
g a human sacrifice?”
“I do. That setup tells me they’re playing for keeps.”
“If Lou was their intended victim, they’ll try again. He’s helpless in that cast.”
“Lou is tough, Mattie. He’s one of the cunning folk.”
I frowned. “Honey said the something similar. I don’t think it means what I think it does.”
“It’s a term from Roman times, used by common folk to describe a white wizard.”
“He’s a witch?” I shook my head. “That can’t be. Lou doesn’t have a lifeline. He’s not human.”
“No, not a witch—definitely not human. Lou comes from an ancient line of wizards--like the Merlin. Cunning folk have a single purpose—to root out wielders of malevolent magic and destroy evil. In ancient times, they removed curses and hexes. They are driven to seek out and destroy those who practice the dark arts. It makes perfect sense that he could have become a cop. John and Liddy must suspect what he is. This is a feud that won’t end until one of the parties is dead.”
“Lou can’t walk. He can hardly move. We’ve got to help him, Rhys.” I was getting angrier by the minute. “They’ve ignored him for years. If they’re making their move now, it’s got to be something big.”
“Tomorrow night is a void moon. We’ll need to check the exact time. This ceremony they’re planning could very well have been in the works for years. Come on, I’ve seen enough here.” Rhys and I retraced our steps back to where we’d parked the bikes.
Overhead, a mob of angry crows attacked and harried a lone hawk out of their territory--the raucus sounds of their cawing must’ve carried for miles.
“We only need to disrupt their focus long enough so that the summoning loses momentum and the power dissipates. Let it build, and then cut it off mid-stream. They won’t have time to rebuild the power layers and use them the same night. They’ll have to start over. That will give is more time.”
“If we could get our hands on some dynamite, we could just blow this place up,” I said. I was only half-kidding. “That’ll stop them.”
“There’s my warrior princess.” He pulled me close and kissed my forehead. “No explosives.”
“Flaming arrows, then. We could shoot them right at the tree. That should do it.”
He laughed. “Possibly. Reynolds already thinks you’re a fire bug, it might bring the cavalry down on us.”
“Hey, the Sheriff likes me.” But Rhys was right. My mind raced. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ve got to talk to someone, first. I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”
“Still don’t trust me, eh?”
I grabbed him by his shirt, pulled him close and kissed him. It was a good kiss, long and deep. “I trust you with my life, Rhys, and that’s the truth.”
And then I told him about the dreamspider, Luçien Bold.
All of it. From the first dream of guilty pleasure to the deepest shame I’d ever experienced, and my unrepentant joy at seeing his bones picked clean by Dave’s piranhas.
“I hated myself. I felt dirty and stupid. I’d invited him into my dreams, and it was my fault I couldn’t make him stop. I thought if you knew what I was really like, you’d be disgusted with me, just like I was, and that you’d think I’d wanted it to happen. But you never said a word; you never pushed me, even though I knew you wanted me.”
I found a rumpled tissue in my jacket pocket and blew my nose. “I felt so ugly. I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t stand to be touched. But after a while, you convinced me that your feelings for me were real. And that in your eyes, I was something special. And you were so frikking great and I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve you.”
He wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb.
“I wasn’t going to tell you, Rhys. Not ever. I didn’t want it to change things between us. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really do. Trust you.”
And then it was as if the dam broke and all the words came rushing out. “And I wish I were immortal, but I’m not and I’m terrified you’ll leave and even more scared that you’ll stay with me until I’m old and ugly out of some sort of warped loyalty. And it won’t be right because even if you loved me enough to stay, it’s not natural and--.”
He pulled me into a big bear hug.
He spoke softly, into my hair, his words for my ears alone. “You talk in your sleep, sweet thing. I figured it out that first night. You relived it every night in your dreams. It didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make your pain any worse. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. They needed to die.”
I melted into him, his words a balm for my soul. ”Thank you for saying that.” My lips trembled.
“I hoped you’d tell me someday. That you did today means more than I can say. Nothing will ever change the way I feel about you.”
Feeling at peace for the first time in a very long time, I nodded mutely.
“Like you said, I’m immortal. We’re different. I can’t change what I am. Whatever you decide, for however long you’ll have me, I am yours, Mattie. You said you trust me with your life, and that means the world to me. I want you to know that I trust you with my death.”
CHAPTER 14
IT WAS DUSK when Rhys and I got home. We parked the bikes out front, and walked up to the porch together. A cloud of will-o-the-wisps appeared from nowhere. As they had the previous times, the tiny lights swarmed and pelted us like manic confetti.
Rhys and I just stood there, grinning like a couple idiots, our hands held out in wonder as they danced around us. It was like a fairyland.
“They’re at it again,” Rhys’s expression was like a kid at his first carnival. “What are they saying?”
Loosa-loosa-loo. Loosa-loosa-loose.
“Same as before,” I said. “Can’t you hear them? They’re all saying it at the same time, so it kind of echoes.”
As sudden as they appeared, the lights zoomed up and away. Like campfire sparks into the night sky.
So cool. “This is the third time. It’s got to mean something. I keep meaning to ask Charlie about them.”
We went inside, still a little dazed. I slipped out of my leather jacket and hung it on the coat rack in the entry hall. “Honey told me the Senequois believe that will-o-the-wisps are some sort of mystic spirit messengers.”
“I didn’t realize you and Honey were such good buddies.”
“I like her,” I admitted. “She’s been a lot friendlier since I started working with Lou.”
I told him about Honey being one of the original Penfield witches and that the Fewkes had been stalking and intimidating her since Nate’s death.
He gave a low whistle. “It really puts Lou’s so-called accident in a whole new light, doesn’t’ it?”
“Yeah, it does. Except for Honey, none of the Penfield Eight are still alive. I don’t think she has many woman friends.” Neither did I, come to think of it. I didn’t hang out with the other parking control officers anymore. Heck, I hadn’t been asked to join the department’s fall bowling league this year, either. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d stopped in at the Stick and Stein for beer after work. Honey had been out of the coven for years. We had more in common than I’d originally thought.
“If those women we saw in Growlers are representative of the cult, I can see why.”
Something clicked into place. “Growlers Pub is less than a mile from that old farmhouse house Charlie and I cleared. The realtor told me it had been a foreclosure. Vacant for years. What if it belonged to the Fewkes?”
“Easy enough to check,” said Rhys.
“I banished a named djemon from that house. It was playing poltergeist with the light bulbs, slamming cupboards, and generally scaring off buyers. Maybe it wasn’t just for spite. What if the previous owners knew about the trapped spirits?” The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. “What if the house and the Penfield witch cult and the summoning
ritual are all connected? What if the will-o-the-wisps we saw tonight really are spirit messengers, trying to warn us?”
“You want to talk to Charlie.”
“I think it’s about time, don’t you?” I reached for my jacket.
“I like the way you think, lady.”
* * *
We found Charlie at home in his brown and white cabin in the Shore Happy Motor Court, a dismal collection of one-room cottages built decades ago as seasonal employee housing for the amusement park. Most of the buildings had decayed to a somewhat less than seedy state—Charlie’s being a notable exception. A layer of white quartz gravel kept the weeds at bay in the front garden. Black wrought iron trimmed the solid oak front door, and red and white striped curtains graced the windows. Red plastic flowers in the window boxes gave the cottage a dignified look that made the other cabins seem drearier by comparison.
Inside, a colorful orange, red, and yellow wool rug covered polished wood floors with a primitive geometric pattern. The main living and seating area consisted of a worn brown recliner and small sofa. Beneath the front window, a fake fireplace warmed the room with cheery simulated flames. On one wall, a cabinet disguised the pull-down Murphy bed. Opposite the window, a built-in banquette, sink, two-burner hotplate and countertop refrigerator made up his kitchen and dining area.
Annie lay curled up in her sheepskin-lined doggie bed next to Charlie’s recliner, her gaze fixed on her master. I asked Charlie about the will-o-the-wisps. “When it happened to us that first time, you said it was a warning.”
“An omen, if you like.” Charlie answered, nodding.
“Honey Briscoe told me that the Senequois people believe that these lights are spirit messengers. She told me that the message can only be heard by the person who is meant to receive it.”
When he wasn’t wearing his security guard uniform, it was much easier to believe that Charlie was a shaman of the Senequois people. Dressed simply, in a faded pair of old jeans, a button-front red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and an old pair of scuffed moccasins, his voice and bearing proclaimed him still very much a man of his people.