I dearly wanted to know what was going on between those lines, but I had a feeling it was a bad time to ask.
“So,” he challenged, looking at the others. “That’s what I’m bringing to the table. Now what’re you all gonna pony up to save a human life?”
I was equally caught between gratitude and feeling uncomfortably like I’d wandered into someplace I didn’t belong.
Tamar spoke up. “If we get a lead on the person involved, I can offer them some protections--even to getting a ritual circle together to hold an active ward around them, if it comes to that.”
“Like a spiritual filibuster?” I asked with weak humor.
“Pretty much,” she replied, like it was completely ordinary. “And these vultures that you describe hanging around, they might be a genius loci or egregore formed out of the relationship between the person and the demon. If we could get a bead on them, it might be possible to trap and bind them, and then we could maybe force it to give us information.”
“Oh, sure,” muttered Joe. “No one treats the hermetic witch who’s waterboarding spirits like she’s a loose cannon.” Everyone ignored him, but he noticed me trying to hide a smile, and he glinted with pride.
“We need a way to check out a lot of people without it seeming weird.” Cherry still had an edge to her voice, but apparently she was still in on the planning. I had the sense that she didn’t like to be left out of anything she found intriguing. She turned to me. “Is there anything you can think of that would make someone stick out at all if this demon was tracking them?”
I thought it over. “It’s hard to say for sure, but--cold!” Of course. “Yes. It’s so hot out, it should be obvious. If there’s anyone who seems like they’re colder than everyone around them, like if they’re wearing a hoodie or something. Or even if they just seem cool when everyone else is sweating. That’s probably the most obvious thing, if their experience is anything like mine. Also, I used to smell ozone, like it smelled like a storm was coming, if he was near. I don’t know if that one helps just for finding the right person, but maybe for knowing if he’s close to someone.”
Tamar rested her chin on her hand and drummed her fingers on her cheek. “I got an idea how we could make that stuff easier to spot. Gimme a bit to figure it out. Cherry, you can help me out with that. Sara, you could too.” I noticed that Sarafina--that Sara--brightened at being called on.
“Here’s a thought,” said Cherry, her upturned, catlike eyes sparking with excitement as she worked out the plan in her head. “We make an event of it. Just like all the other events that are going on this weekend. We go to the pavilion. We make a few signs. Come up with some clever name for it, some concept. We offer divinations for free. I mean, whoever can. For each one, we look for any messages we’re getting about them. If this person has a sense something’s up, they might come seek us out to get answers.”
“I can do that,” said Tamar.
“Me too,” I said.
“I want to help,” said Sara, “but I can’t read cards or anything. I’ll think of something else.”
“Looks like we’ve all got marching orders,” said Joe.
It wasn’t much of a plan yet, but it was something. And I didn’t have to do it alone. That alone was a huge relief.
Tamar herded Cherry and Sara off to work on whatever her idea was. I offered to go with Joe to talk to the land spirits. I was burning with curiosity, of course, but it also seemed like Cherry might like it if someone else was around when he did it. He accepted, and seemed glad for the company.
“We need to collect some things,” he said, leading me to his tent. He vanished inside, then re-emerged a minute later and handed me a jar of honey and a glass bowl and plate. He carried a gallon jug of water and a teacup in one hand, and stuffed a plastic baggie with his other hand into his jeans pocket. I noticed he was wearing a Transformers t-shirt, his only clothing nod to his camp’s theme. I have to admit that I kind of love that it’s no longer a big deal for a grown man to wear an 80’s cartoon t-shirt.
He set off toward the pavilion and I fell into step beside him. “You don’t seem like the kind of person I’d expect to be into fairy stuff. If you don’t mind my saying.”
He slid me a sidelong glance and gave a cynical little laugh. “Because I’m not an Anglo new age girl?”
“I don’t mean--I just mean that you strike me as more likely to be skeptical. Like, really practical. Questioning all of...this.”
“This is practical,” he said, gesturing with the water jug. “You’ll see. And who says I’m not skeptical? It’s a pretty useful trait when dealing with fae spirits. Those fuckers can be consummate bullshit artists.”
I laughed, startled, and he grinned like he was really proud of himself. “Okay, fair enough.” Then I got a little bolder. “Why is Cherry so pissed about you doing this?”
His face closed up and I regretted asking. “She cares about me. And she thinks it’s too dangerous to deal with them.”
“Is it?”
He shrugged and made a face. “Nothing’s safe. You can crack your head open in the bathtub.” He glanced at me again and saw I was still waiting. He sighed. “It’s easy to fuck up if you don’t know what you’re doing, and it’s always navigating a minefield. Actually, it’s like going into a rough neighborhood to ask a street gang for information. If you take the time to learn who’s who and what’s what, and you show respect, and you don’t go out of your way to be stupid, you might be able to come out the other side okay and even get what you went in there for. If you don’t, it can be a quick way to get yourself hurt or killed.”
I mulled that over as we passed the pavilion and went into the Goblin Market. “Look for masks,” Joe instructed me, pawing through the costume tables with his free hand. “Any kind.” I joined him in the search, and we turned up about half a dozen of them, from a couple of gaudy Mardi Gras-style domino masks to a blank white face to a rubber monster mask to a couple of cheap plastic Halloween ones.
From there we headed back to the camping areas and wove our way through the tents. Joe was shameless about asking people for things. We collected a baggie of eggshells, a damp wad of paper towels stuffed with used coffee grounds in stained filters, a Sharpie, and a couple of danishes, which looked awfully tempting. Finally he zeroed in on a camp where someone was adding real milk, not powdered creamer, to their coffee, and asked them to fill the teacup. The guy who obliged, a skinny dude with huge ears and a beard that consumed half his face, followed it by holding open his arms. Balancing the teacup, Joe entered into a cautious hug, and then the guy turned to me and offered me the same. He smelled like sweat and weed smoke, if you can believe it.
We pressed on and as soon as we were out of earshot, Joe rolled his eyes. “Fucking hippies.”
“Glass houses.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love it here,” he said. “And I love these crazy people. It’s just, the hugging thing. Cripes. Can’t I love them from within a reasonable amount of personal space?”
“You’re awfully young to be a curmudgeon.”
“It’s an art,” he said. “And I’m a prodigy.”
I chuckled. “Can’t argue with that.”
We passed beyond the camping area. At the farthest end of the field here was a tree line, beyond which the woods grew thick. Joe prowled along the edge until he found a slight opening and beckoned me to follow him with a jerk of his head.
“It’s not likely anyone’ll come back here,” he said. “Too hard to get through the brush here. That’s good for us.”
“Really,” I said, my voice dry, as I struggled to find my footing and keep my balance with my hands as full as they were.
“Trust me, we’re going to want an undisturbed space for this.”
“We also probably wanted some tick repellant.” It was getting hot out, and I was feeling sticky from our hike across ca
mp. It made me grouchy.
“Oh well,” he said cheerfully, picking his way through some kind of half-dead scratchy growth.
It was slow going, as Joe maneuvered with the teacup of milk held out in front of him, and sought each step with care. I started to itch and imagined myself covered with poison everything.
At last, we reached a clearing. There were a couple of large mossy boulders, and tender ferns poked up through all the matted leaves and twigs and things on the ground. Joe set everything down with care on a flat surface of one boulder, and I did the same. He scouted the ground, studying it, and then pulled a tangle of string out of his pocket. He measured it in half, marked the halfway point with the Sharpie, and handed me one end. “Over there,” he directed me, and I walked my end to the place he indicated. He walked in the opposite direction, and when the string was fully extended, he gestured for me to put it down as he put his down. He found a sturdy but slender stick and stuck it deep in the ground at the midpoint of the string, and then tied the middle of the string around it.
“Now,” he said, coming over to me, “hold up your hand.” I did, and he placed his palm against mine. His hand was warm and the unexpected contact made me shiver a bit. He didn’t seem to notice as he studied our hands. His fingers, I observed, were long and slim like a pianist’s. There was a streak of marker along his thumb.
He nodded, satisfied. “Our hands are pretty close in size,” he said. “That’ll do.” He turned away, pulled out a pocket knife that he snicked open, and selected another stick from the ground. He shaved each end into a rough point and then broke the stick in half. He handed me one as he closed and pocketed the knife, and he had the plastic baggie in his hand when he pulled it back out. He opened it and withdrew two smaller baggies, wrinkled and soft with age. “Hold these,” he instructed, and I cupped one in each of my palms. He propped the baggies open, produced a small glass bottle of brownish liquid from his pocket, and poured about half into each bag. It had a sharp, earthy smell that got stronger as it mixed with the stuff in the bags.
He took back one of the bags and sent me back over to my end of the string. “Use the stick to make a hole, just a couple inches deep,” he said. “There are two different things in the bags. Put one of each in the hole, cover it loosely, and then go clockwise and make another hole three hand spans away. Use the string to make sure you’re making a half-circle as you go.”
I obeyed, digging the point of the stick into the crumbly loam. The bag contained pale brownish balls of tangled threads that I realized were pieces of root--dried, until recently. It also contained dark hard balls of what seemed like clay. I picked out one of each, dropped them in the hole, covered it up, and measured my way around to the next one.
We worked in silence for a couple of minutes, and when we were about halfway through I said, “So what are we planting, anyway?”
“Heather root,” he replied. “Harvested by a hedge witch friend of mine who cultivated a fae garden, and dried in the heat of the summer solstice sun. Perfect for magical uses, especially when creating gateways between our world and the fae realm.”
“Huh.” There was so damn much I needed to learn. “And the clay balls, what are they for?”
He laughed. “Clay? No, those are rabbit droppings.”
“Oh, gross!” I wiped my fingers on some leaves on the ground, disturbing a small beetle, who scuttled out of the way of my wrath. “What the hell, Joe?”
“Relax,” he scoffed. “A little poop isn’t going to kill you, and rabbit dung is important for feeding fairy circles.”
“Do I even want to know what godawful thing you poured on that stuff?” I squatted on my haunches and glared at him. He continued to work, paying my little tantrum no mind.
“It’s nothing bad. Just an elixir brewed from mushrooms grown from spores cast off at other fairy rings. Chemically, it’s similar to gibberellic acid, which comes from fungi and starts germination in dormant seeds. But this has a little esoteric kick to it, which makes the growth and flowering process go fast. Also important for our purposes.”
Grudgingly, I went back to planting, though I was now determined to wash my hands for an hour as soon I returned from this bizarre little errand. “So we’re making a fairy circle?”
“Yup.” He sounded very pleased with himself. “It creates a doorway so that the land spirits and we can communicate with each other. The heather eases their travel through. And the gifts we’ve brought them show respect, so they’re more likely to listen to us and be willing to help.”
“Are you a hedge witch too?” I wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but it sounded like something to do with faeries and land spirits and folk magic.
“Nah.” He grinned. “More of a chaos magician. Loosely speaking. It means I learn what I need in order to get shit done and I don’t have to get stuck in any one way of thinking. Like I said, practical and skeptical.”
“How did you learn to deal with the fae?”
“Done there?” He stood up abruptly, brushing off his knees. “Now, the final one here in the center.” He pulled up the stake with the string and used the hole for the last planting. “Crush up the eggshells and mix in the coffee grounds, would you? Kind of a mundane touch, but I find that man-made fairy circles last a little longer if you feed the earth you planted in. Accelerated plants, even magically-harvested ones, tend to suck up a lot of nutrients.”
I tried a different tack. “Do you normally carry all this stuff with you? The roots and the elixir and everything?”
He shrugged. “I knew we were going to be doing something magic-based while we were here.” He hesitated, then added, “And, you never know.”
I waited for more, but he seemed to be done talking about it. Silence fell again as I patted a scoop of our makeshift plant food onto each small mound and he arranged the teacup of milk, the plate with the danishes, and the bowl filled with honey in the center of the circle. He collected the masks and sat cross-legged, drawing symbols on the inside of each one with the marker. Finally, he sent me over to the boulder to sit and wait while he poured the water first on the mound at the center and then clockwise over the mounds that described the circle, muttering some kind of incantation to himself as he did, and finishing it with some ritualistic-looking gestures.
He came over and sat beside me. “Now,” he said, “we wait.”
I drew my knees up and hooked my arms around them. He did the same. “What are the masks for?”
“Some fairy circles are closed. They open a doorway, but the spirits can’t go anywhere outside the circle. This one is open. They like that--it’s no longer easy for them to leave their realm and move among humans in a tangible way, without some kind of passage like this. Even then, they’re reluctant to go anywhere that they’d be seen, because they know that humans can tell that they’re different, and then the humans get scared, and scared humans panic and lash out. Creating a glamour to blend in and seem human is a pretty advanced skill and most of the common fae don’t know how. So I enchanted the masks to give them a human seeming. Or at least, close enough to pass for normal in a place like this.”
“Wait a minute.” I quirked an eyebrow at him. “You’re better at creating glamours than a faerie is?”
“Don’t romanticize them,” he retorted. “They’re not, like, a higher form of life. There’s a lot of gradations. Some of them are more primitive than people. Also, it’s a lot easier for a human to create a human appearance because we know it so intimately. It would be just as hard for me to enchant a mask to make us pass as fae spirits as it is for most of them to create a human disguise.”
Now that was an interesting idea. “Could you do that?”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound too certain.
“So what happens when we let them out and they look human? Aren’t we kind of responsible if they cause trouble?” The disturbing thought occurred to me that if th
ey really were dangerous, maybe I was bringing about the very thing I wanted to prevent.
“Racial profiler.” He shot me a sly grin. “They might stir things up a bit, but they’re not likely to do anything that would keep us from inviting them back. And it’s not like they eat human flesh. Usually. There’s only so much they can do from their realm, so if we want their help finding this demon, we need to let them out to scout around in ours. If it makes you feel better, the fairy circle is pretty temporary. It’ll be dying by the time we all leave on Monday, and the fae know that if they don’t get their asses back in time, they’ll be stuck here until they find another way back.”
Monday. Shit. I’d been thinking so much about trying to thwart this demon that I’d managed to forget about the fact that I had no idea what the hell I was going to do when I left here. All the anxiety came rushing back in, twisting into a hard ball in my gut.
“What is it? What did I say?” His wry, smirking grin vanished and his face grew gentle, his brow wrinkled.
“Nothing. You didn’t say anything.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s just that I came here on a whim from New Orleans, and I don’t know what’s next. After this weekend.”
“That was bold,” he said. “Just finding your way here, when you didn’t even know anyone. Making friends right off the bat. If I didn’t know your story, I would’ve thought you came here all the time and I just had never met you. Hell, if it was me? If I’d actually showed up in the first place? I’d still be sitting by my tent, twiddling my thumbs and feeling like a jackass who didn’t belong.”
“Well, I do feel kind of like a jackass who doesn’t belong,” I said. “But everyone’s so nice here.”
“Goddamn hippies.”
We both laughed.
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 12