I accepted a drink from Cherry and sipped it. I was going to have to slow my roll if I wanted to stay sharp, but right now the drink was calming my nerves. “Because one of the land spirits found me and showed me a fae-cursed spot out past the pond. Anyone who walks on it, it curses them and makes them starve to death in a couple of days.”
Joe stared at me. “Hungry grass? Are you serious?”
I stared back at him and hope flared. “You know what it is?”
“I’ve heard of it. I didn’t think it was real. Or at least, that it was lost magic. Oh, shit.” He rubbed his face. “You’re sure that’s what they said?”
“Féar gortach. Hungry grass. That’s what they said it was called.” I leaned forward. “Do you know how to break the curse?”
He shook his head. “You might as well ask if I know how to call off a bomb strike. Well, at least now we know why helping Vivi is a big deal.”
Tamar looked skyward, calculating. “Let’s say that she stepped on it right after she got here. That’d be sometime midday yesterday. Since she’s still doing well enough that no one notices anything wrong with her, she might have a whole day left, maybe even two. But we should act like tomorrow night is when her time runs out.”
We were all quiet for a few moments as that sank in.
“I need to talk to her as soon as possible,” I said. “I need to ask her if she went up there. She could just have a crazy metabolism, right? And we need to make sure no one else stumbles onto it either.”
“I think I can put up wards around the grass,” said Tamar. “They’ll make people feel weird and bad the closer they get, until they’re just so freaked out by the area that they can’t stick around.”
“We can put up stakes around it, too, with twine,” said Joe. “I’ll make a sign that says ‘noxious weeds’ or something. Just to be safe.” He looked troubled. “I hope it’s enough.”
“What if we can’t break the curse?” Cherry sat in the chair beside me. “Seriously. What if we can’t get the counter spell in time? We need to focus on destroying the egregore. It might be the best we can do to save her.”
All of us looked at Tamar. She scowled. “Dionne wants to come. Here.”
“Great. We need all the help we can get,” said Joe.
“I just need her to give me some instructions. We’re more than capable of doing it without her bossing everyone around. Besides, the event’s been sold out for weeks. We can’t even get her in.”
“Oh, really? Just watch me.” Cherry picked up Tamar’s phone and held it out to her. “Just get her here. You know we don’t have time for this.”
Tamar’s jaw worked and she glared at her student, then snatched the phone and started texting. “Fine.”
“That’s a weird spot.” Sara sat cross-legged in the grass beside my chair. “Isn’t it? No one goes up past the pond, really. Isn’t the point of the curse to get humans to walk on it?”
“Maybe that’s the point,” I said. “Maybe something lured Vivi out there, to make sure she’d be the one to walk on it.”
“You think some fae are in cahoots with this demon?” Tamar looked up from her phone.
“They would almost have to be, wouldn’t they?” I said. “The person that the demon has his hooks in is the one who’s cursed by the grass. But also, the fae I talked to was clear that this is an act of war by other fae against the spirits of this land.”
“The question is, how would they benefit each other? What could a demon bring to a fae war?” said Cherry.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Can demons hurt fae?”
“If the demons have a way into the fae realm, sure,” said Joe.
I looked at him. “Didn’t we just open a nice swinging door into their realm?”
“Shit,” he said.
“We need to close it.” Dread curdled in my stomach.
“But then how do we find out how to break the curse?” said Sara.
“Shit,” said Cherry.
“He has a whole realm butt-up against ours,” I said. “A place all to himself where he could probably stash a whole bunch of his fae allies to lie in wait. Maybe that’s why he killed it and claimed it--so it would be sort of a foxhole for them.” A thought occurred to me. “If he throws in with them and crosses over to their realm, maybe he can take the souls of dead fae.”
“Shit,” said Joe and Cherry together.
“There’s even more to worry about,” said Tamar. “This particular crowd of people is ripe for possession, once night comes. People who try to do trance possession do things like ecstatic dance, playing heavy percussion rhythms, maybe dabbling in a substance or three. There are hundreds of people here who are gonna be doing those things just for fun this weekend. It’s gonna leave them vulnerable without them even knowing it. He possesses someone, we lose the advantage of the limits on what he can do in the physical world. And we might never figure out who he’s inside.”
My stomach roiled. Rosa said that spirits, even gods, avoid outright killing humans because of the kickback. Could he avoid that by using a human host to do it--and would it be a loophole for him to attack me?
“So,” Joe said, “some outside fae, maybe more than one, who knows?--anyway, this enemy fae is trying to invade. It’s staying on the mortal side of things, or maybe hiding out with the demon, to go incognito. But maybe also to draw out the land spirits who live here and force them to come into the mortal world, opening up a path. So that fae poisons the land.”
“And that’s more than enough to get the land spirits’ attention,” I said. “Meanwhile the demon somehow steers one of his own victims onto the grass to kick things off, and then he gets another soul when she dies.”
“And if or when the land fae retreat, the enemy fae and the demon can pursue them and follow them into their realm to continue the war there,” said Joe.
“Meanwhile Vivi’s death creates more hungry grass, and who knows how many more will be poisoned by it.” I put down my drink. I was going to be sick if I had any more of it. “What if he gets hooks in those people because they were cursed through Vivi’s death? How far could it spread before the curse is broken?”
“And he knows we want to stop him.” Sara hugged her knees. “He’ll come for us. Even Mari. Especially Mari.” She looked up at me. “Maybe he can’t touch you himself. But I bet nasty fae could.”
The sick feeling of doom wormed in my gut again, hearing my own fears echoed.
And then a worse thought occurred to me. “Could the demon kill the land spirits’ realm if they get in?”
“You mean double-cross the fae they allied with and steal the land?” said Joe. “Sure they could turn on each other. But this isn’t some small island pocket dimension we’re talking about. This is part of Faerie. It’d be like asking whether someone could explode the earth by invading New Jersey. He could probably do a lot of damage, but if he thinks he’s just going to destroy the entirety of Faerie, he’d better have scheduled a lot more than this weekend to do it.”
That was, in its way, reassuring. More or less. “So what can we do?” I said. “Interfering with the start of a fae war seems like a pretty tall order, but can we at least do anything to try to keep the people here safe? Can we delay things, somehow?”
“We can warn the land fae,” said Tamar. “If they know not to let themselves get drawn out into a fight here on this side, and they can help us learn how to break the curse, then what happens here might end up being nothing more than a bunch of saber-rattling.” Her phone made a sound like big temple bells. She checked it, and pressed her lips together. “Well, I hope you’re all happy. Dionne says she can get on the road soon. And is it easier to get her in if she shows up in the wee hours.”
“Sure, we could just bribe the gate volunteers,” said Joe, half-joking.
“We could just work the gates tonight,” said Sara. “The only people
on duty besides the rangers are a couple of gate volunteers working one of the overnight shifts.”
“They always need people for the overnights,” Joe agreed. “If we cover at least one of those shifts, we can smuggle her in. Then we just have to keep her out of sight, or get hold of a wristband for her.”
“On it,” said Cherry.
“I promised to do an overnight shift,” I said. “I’ll sign up if there’s a slot.” At least Mr. Frosty wouldn’t be pissed at me, loath though I was to damage my emerging reputation around Morph as a flake and a mooch.
“So I guess we’re doing this, then.” Tamar heaved a resigned sigh.
When we had everything we needed to ward the hungry grass, we trooped off together into the gathering gloom. Sara and Cherry went together to check the volunteer station for open shifts and to see if Vivi could be roused. I led Tamar and Joe down the path near the pond, their flashlight beams roving the ground before us like bloodhounds sniffing a trail.
I saw the willow tree and touched their arms. We slowed almost to a stop, and the two of them played their lights over the grass until we saw it.
The skin on my arms prickled. In the twilight shadows earlier, everything had been a murky dull color. But under the sharp gaze of LED flashlights, it was obvious that something was very wrong with this patch of ground. The grass wasn’t just brown dead grass--or if it had been, it was changing quickly. Now, it looked pale, sickly, with a grayish cast. The reddish spatters were the color of rust, but they still looked livid against the pale gray. The grass around the edges of the spot was dying, wilting and going brown. Was it my imagination that the spot looked a little bigger than before? I couldn’t be certain.
“Let’s get to work,” said Tamar.
We hammered spare metal tent stakes into the ground around the spot with a rubber mallet, leaving a generous space between our circle and the edges of the hungry grass. On each stake, Tamar had used a marker to carefully draw tiny symbols that would help create a boundary that the malevolent energy of the hungry grass couldn’t cross. We collected long, slender sticks and stuck them into the ground too. We’d brought a roll of twine and ran three strands of it, tying it to each stick in turn, to form a physical fence. Joe and I had cut up a couple of cereal boxes and written on the inner sides with Sharpie, punching crude holes in them so we could string them to the fence. They said, “KEEP OFF” and “WEED KILLER TOXIC DO NOT TOUCH” and “POISON IN USE KEEP OFF”.
Joe stumbled forward and yelped. I caught his arm just as he was about to go face-first onto the hungry grass and pulled him back. We sprawled on our asses. “What the hell,” he muttered, brushing leaves away from the small root that he’d caught his foot in. I stared at the sickly grass and shivered. One second off, and Joe would’ve been facing Vivi’s fate too.
Tamar had brewed peppermint tea and filled an empty sport bottle, and she squirted a stream from stake to stake to close the circle. “Ow!” She straightened up and looked around. “What just hit me?” She rubbed her temple, and I saw a little smear of blood.
“Here.” Joe’s flashlight picked out a rock on the ground, marked on one sharp corner with blood. Tamar took it and shoved it in her pocket.
I turned, trying to see where her assailant was hiding, and then I stopped. “Do you smell that?”
“What?” Joe sniffed the air.
“Ozone.” Barely a scent, almost more a sense, but it was there. “He’s watching us.” I trembled. “He’s angry.”
“We need to get done and get out of here,” said Tamar. “While we can.”
When she connected the final two stakes with a stream of tea, murmuring words under her breath, I felt a sensation that wasn’t quite physical. It was like feeling a thumping vibration through a wall, like something inside the circle was banging against it. I felt rage. A stiff, harsh breeze picked up, and I rubbed my arms. The darkening woods were creepy, as though the trees and brush themselves were watching us. For all I knew, they were.
Joe and I stepped back out of the way as Tamar completed the second half of her warding work. She made a wide circle around the staked-out spot, nearly all the way down to the pond, shaking out a fine line of what she called “black salt”. It was ordinary table salt, mixed with ordinary black pepper as well as a heap of ashes from Free Radicals’ fire pit. She struggled to make the line as the wind blew colder and fiercer. Leaves whirled around us and twigs struck us. I held my hand up to my eyes and squinted. The ozone smell was stronger. A high keening sound cut through the rush of the wind.
She sang as she spread the salt, and it sounded like a hymn, like something you’d hear in a Southern church. She spoke some more words in an authoritative voice, words I couldn’t make out, when she closed the circle. The keening became a shriek. She made the sign of the cross, to my surprise.
Almost immediately, I began to feel jumpy and itchy and unwell, like I was nervous and heat sick and walking through poison ivy all at once. I wanted desperately to be away from there, back in the heart of camp where there were people and parties and music and laughter. A branch broke loose from a tree and crashed to the ground beside Joe as he jumped out of the way. Tamar struggled against the wind to get to us. There was a sharp rustling in the brush beside us, and we all took off, running as fast as we could back toward the heart of Morph.
“We really pissed him off.” Joe panted as we got closer to the tree line. The wind wasn’t blowing here, and we could hear the noises of camp life. “I hope that means it worked.”
“What was all that?” I was breathless myself, as we emerged into camp. “The singing and everything?”
“Rootwork. It’s some of the best for protective magic, especially when you have to make use of what’s at hand.” Tamar paused to gulp in air. “One of the things I learned was ‘salt goes where you tell it to’. Versatile. Black salt makes people you don’t want around want to fuck off, and here I used it to just keep anyone away from that area. There’s a lot of Christianity wrapped up in rootwork, so I’m just respecting the heritage and doing what works.”
It reminded me of the little bit of Voudoun I’d learned in New Orleans, where so many of the tools and offerings had just grown out of what slaves had access to. I wondered if I should learn some rootwork. It’d sure come in handy with my makeshift existence. “Where did you learn it?”
“Around,” said Tamar. “Let’s put some distance between us and that place. My skin is still crawling.”
We hurried away. I heard a rumble that could have been distant thunder or a rogue firework. Another pop of ozone stung my nose and I shivered.
His voice was in my head, as intimate as if he were whispering over my shoulder.
I’m watching.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We made our way to Science Faction. Everyone around us was costumed, festive; throats and wrists encircled with colorful glow sticks, hair and clothes bejeweled with tiny flickering lights. There were masks, wigs, cloaks, wings, hoods. Few places in the world would be so easy a hiding place for otherworldly creatures.
Vivi was outside her tent, in a camp chair, flanked by Sara and Cherry in chairs drawn close to hers. It should have been just three new friends hanging out together having fun. But Sara and Cherry were keeping her occupied until we were all there, and her condition was worsening.
It was subtle. If I hadn’t known what was wrong with her, I might not have noticed anything at all. But her already-angular features looked even sharper, more drawn, her huge eyes more prominent and shadowed. Her bare shoulders in her tank top looked knobby. She had a plate on her lap, piled with part of a burger and a hot dog, a few chicken wings, some chips, a whole dill pickle, and corn on the cob. There was an open bag of cookies at her feet. She was eating even while she talked.
“Hi,” I ventured as I approached.
“Hey, Mari.” She seemed jumpy, her voice a little shrill.
There was nothing to be gained by drawing this out. I glanced around at the others and knelt in front of her. “Vivi, you may not want to believe what I have to say, but hear me out, okay? You’re in danger.”
She smiled like she was going to laugh it off, but looked at my face and faltered. “What are you talking about?”
“I need you to think. Anytime yesterday, or maybe early today, did you walk around the left side of the pond, through the trees? Did you stand near a willow tree that’s almost on the bank of the pond?”
She glanced around at my friends, perhaps expecting them to be as puzzled as she was, but their faces were solemn. She shrank back an inch or two into her chair, hunching down. “Yes? I guess I did. Remember, right when I first met you here, I said was going to the pond? The sun was so intense. I thought maybe I’d take a nap in the shade before I swam. I went looking for a quiet spot to spread my towel. I dozed off under the willow branches. But then something woke me up, a noise. It startled me, and I saw a guy turn and walk away really fast. It was weird, and I thought maybe it wasn’t safe to sleep by myself where no one could see me if someone, you know. Why?” She looked at all our faces in turn. “Was that guy dangerous? What do you mean that I’m in danger?”
“Did you hurt yourself while you were there?” said Tamar.
Now Vivi looked spooked. “I stepped on something sharp, yeah. A rock or something, probably. It felt okay by the time I got around to the pond, though.”
I gestured at her feet. “May I?” She hesitated, then pushed one foot toward me. I lifted it into my lap and Joe shone a light on her sole. The tough, dirty skin was crisscrossed with fine, shallow cuts. I sucked in a breath and lifted her other foot. It, too, was lashed with cuts. The skin under the dirt looked sallow and slightly wrinkled, the way it would if she’d been in the water for a long time, but it was dry.
She caught the look that Joe and I exchanged, and leaned forward, straining to see. “What? What is it? What’s wrong with my feet? What’s going on?” A note of panic crept in.
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 21