Shattered Circle

There were horror stories about such things. Witches of “ye olde times” who disappeared were often thought to have been dabbling in sorcery and fallen into the ley. Especially if items left on their altars could support such theories. But I had always regarded those tales as exaggerations meant to steer curious young witches back to their craft studies, much like tales of the bogeyman warned children not to venture from their beds at night.

“Explain how you use this board to tap the ley line,” Zhan said.

“I’m not sure. When I tap it, I do it directly, without an ancillary device.”

“Is the board significant, then?” She began pacing. “Is there a clue in it? Did that make it easier or harder to get sucked in? And does it hold an option for us—or rather, you—to bring her back out through it?”

My mouth opened but nothing came out.

All these rapid-fire questions bordered on an understandable panic, feeding my fears, but I couldn’t think clearly like this. I had to push the emotion away and concentrate.

My eyes locked on Great El’s slate. The symbols painted on it were eerily bright in the darkness as I considered it.

Tapping a ley line directly was certainly more dangerous, and potent, than using a device to filter it. Direct access left nothing to keep a witch from falling into the ley except the barriers inherent in a physical being touching a nonphysical world. I thought of it as an oil-and-water kind of thing. But . . . the inherent risk lay in the fact that the ley’s intense energy has the potential to transform tangible matter into intangible.

“The slate does not actually create the boundary between life as we know it and the other side,” I said. “But it should have acted like an additional buffer.”

“What do you mean by the other side?” Zhan asked.

“Think of a spirit board like those huge gates in King Kong. It stands between you and a world of wonderful and strange things. The fencing is so high and thick that you can’t see over it or through it. There are other gateways, but this particular door has a neon sign above it that tells you this door is a unique spot, one where notes can be slipped back and forth underneath. You go there sometimes to ask those inside what it is like there.”

With tears brimming her eyes, Celia asked, “Do you mean heaven . . . an afterlife? Is she dead?”

The only answer I had was lame. “I honestly don’t know.”

Silence fell around us. Another thought occurred to me. I’d focused on the slate because it was right there in front of me and so terribly out of place, but there was something else here that was magical. The grove was all around me.

“Wait.” Mountain joined the conversation. “You said that the Ouija-board thingy should have been an extra buffer. When you say ‘should have been’ are you implying that it wasn’t an extra buffer, or that it acted as more of a secret side door?”

I fixed him with my gaze. The big, gentle man was smarter than most people gave him credit for. “Beverley couldn’t accidentally open a line and fall in, not with a spirit board, not even here in the grove.”

“Not even if she’s a witch?” Mountain asked.

“No. First of all,” I said, “lines do not randomly open when someone gets near them like the sliding doors at the supermarket. There is a process to opening them, you have to make your own keys. Witches do that, but it takes time and skill.”

Zhan crossed her arms. “You said not accidentally.”

I nodded. “Something took her in.” I didn’t want to think that meant she was gone. I couldn’t believe that. I wouldn’t. “Whatever navigated her into the ley must have had a reason, and for that, it will be shielding her.”

I said it like a command and I saw hope flicker in Celia’s eyes.

My satellite phone rang, the number blocked. “Hello?”

A smooth female voice said, “The precious thing you are seeking will be found beside the ley line at Mill Stream Run Reservation, but only if you hurry, witch.” The caller hung up.

I held the phone before me, wide-eyed. Ley line?

Zhan asked, “What is it?”

My broom would have been ideal, but I hadn’t seen it since Liyliy and I fought at Cedar Point. Zhan’s lead foot was the next best option. I grabbed her arm. “We gotta go.”

Without enlightening the others, I hurried toward the trailer where Zhan had parked her Audi. Once inside the vehicle, I told her we needed to get to the reservation and asked if she knew the way. “Absolutely,” was her reply.

She had us on I-71 in minutes, and, as expected, she cast caution to the wind and ignored the speed limit. “Why Mill Stream Run?”

I told her what the caller had said.

“This might be a setup,” she countered, slowing down.

“How? She dialed my phone and called me ‘witch.’ She knew I was looking for something precious, and knew it had to do with the ley line.”

“Exactly. Who was the caller? What if the kid was played by someone?”

I thought about my wards not being active. I hadn’t been able to check them directly to see if I’d let the power run down or if something else had brought them down. “Either way, I have to find out.”

“But you don’t have to run in there blind.”

“That’s why you’re with me.”

“You called Menessos, right?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing about it?”

“He said he’d tap into the line near the haven and see what he could find out. He’d let me know if he found something.”

“But it wasn’t him that called?”

“No, it was a woman.”

Zhan took the Royalton Road exit and turned right. “All right. Where’s this line of yours?”

I took a moment to reach out and feel for the line. It ran north-northeast to south-southwest. I pointed to the south.

Zhan turned right onto Valley Parkway. Shortly within the park, the road curved to the east and a paved trail for walking or biking ran along the left side of the road. Ahead was a bridge to our right; the sign said it was Royalview Lane. Zhan slowed down. “Stay on Valley or turn?”

“Stay on Valley.”

“How far?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. Go slow.”

The trees were all bare. That dim inkling of civil twilight had expired and the full dark of night had settled in like a thick blanket. It was hard to see, and I scanned all around while keeping my focus on the ley line. I noticed the stream to the left beyond the trail.

It occurred to me that the headlights would give us away. I saw a spot to the right where a car could pull off the road. I said, “Stop here. Kill the lights.”

The temperature had dropped since we left my home. I shut my door softly, afraid of the echoing sound it would make. I crossed the road and jogged along the empty trail. It ran right beside the road, but not far ahead the path snaked through the woodland a few yards from the road. I heard Zhan behind me but didn’t argue about her following. Sensing the ley was well within the tree line, I had the urge to plow into the woods, but the leaves and twigs that would crunch underfoot would also give me away.

After about five hundred yards, I guess, my eyes detected the light of a bonfire ahead.

I hurried onward, ignoring Zhan’s whispered protests for me to slow down. I kept jogging along the trail as it curved back toward the road then arced deeper into the woods toward the blaze, which had been built near a large fallen tree.

A hooded figure sat before that blaze and I could hear the singsong chant of a male voice. The smell of burning sage filled the air.

Creepy?