"Mrrrrf!" The cat switched her tail, irritated, but stalked over to the door. Alice let her out.
Then she checked the firebox of the old stove, adding two splits of seasoned red oak and adjusting the damper to hold the oven temperature for the chicken in case she did survive to eat supper this afternoon. She lit a pine splint from the coals and used it to light the lamp, no match-taint of sulfur or phosphorus to annoy the House and spirits. She calmed her heart, standing and letting the chants of the Benedictine monks wash over her and through her and echo back from the corners of their chapel.
Some people thought witches were all Pagans or worse, worshipping strange powers or devils. Haskells had been Christians for centuries. They had just worked their own Reformation to adjust the faith, allow them to use God's creation as they found it.
She wasn't asking help for her love life — that would waste the power on selfish aims, and could get her killed. But the town needed Kate. Someone, some power, stalked the shadows, snatching victims and drinking their lives. Death magic. The land needed Kate. And Kate needed help. This was important.
Up three steps and through a heavy six-panel door, she entered the sewing room that now served as a bedroom for Peggy and Ellen. They'd even straightened up the strew of clothes and "stuff" before leaving with Lainie. Initiation rites. Lainie had asked, and some older women had ruled that the Morgan daughters had enough Naskeag blood to join the Turtle Clan. So the girls were off in the woods somewhere, sweat lodge and fasting and bathing in the icy water of an October stream, smudging and drumming and chants.
Plus, it kept them out of the way of whatever shit had hit the fan over on Morgan's Point. No chance of their becoming hostages for a second time.
The next door was a four-panel, older, hand-planed boards with the faint ripples still showing through the paint. Kate told the history of the House by materials and styles, and had no need of the long Haskell chants to name which rooms went with which century. Rear hallway, two generations farther back, stairs down and around into the old kitchen with its cooking fireplace, spit and iron pot crane still ready. She ought to teach the girls how to bake bread in the side oven. Living history.
Plain board door, uneven pit-saw grooves still showing, hand-wrought iron latch, through the Revolution and into Colonial times. In the center hall of the old cape, the wide pine boards of the floor creaked under her feet, reminding her that she was waking something that preferred to sleep.
And then she was in the old parlor, the heart of the House, the oldest, oldest single-room cottage covering and enclosing and guarding its secrets. The original frame had been built elsewhere for some other purpose and then moved here, a gift to the Woman. Only God and the Spring knew when and where the first mortises and tenons had been cut — Kate said parts of the timber-framing style were Medieval, but the technique could have been passed down for centuries. The only way to tell would be tree-ring dating, and Alice saw no point to that — a reputable lab report would draw more attention than anybody wanted.
Alice lifted the trap door in the parlor floor, hinges complaining, and stared down into the waiting darkness, nervous sweat cooling her forehead. She took a deep breath, let it out, and climbed down steep stairs onto smooth rounded stone. Shadows retreated from her lamp, leaving granite and basalt behind.
And a pool of flowing crystal water. The Spring watched her, already awake, its patience wearing thin. The House had been spreading tales again. Hairs stood up on her arms and the back of her neck.
This place is in a dangerous mood. Don't keep it waiting. Alice skipped the preliminaries. With shavings of cedar, finger-thick splits of apple wood from the orchard out back, she built a tiny fire on the stone at the base of the oldest chimney and lit it from another pine spill touched to the lamp flame. She felt the tension rise around her.
"Stone of the sun, water of the sky, air of the sea, I ask you to bless this house." It didn't seem to matter if the words were Naskeag or English — the Powers answered to the thought. And the words echoed from someplace far away, much farther than the walls of the small cellar.
Aromatic smoke curled out and around Alice, searching shadowy corners, and then returned to the flue to vanish upward. Green flame danced on the wood, and rust orange, and blue, the elements of water and earth and sky. She added sweetgrass from bundles stored nearby. She scattered leaves of sage and watched them dissolve into a tracery of glowing skeletons. The smoke turned pungent, waking things best left undisturbed. But she didn't have any choice.
"Spirits of the earth, spirits of the water, spirits of the sky, I send smoke to you. I send sweet smoke to you. Hear my cry. Stone of the sun, water of the sky, air of the sea, our people need your strength."
The fire had burned to a double handful of red coals, watching, waiting, echoing the hard-eyed feeling of the Spring. Smoke caught raw at her throat, daring her to cough and retreat and let Power go back to drowsing.
"Wind of the west, wind of the east, help her." She didn't need to name Kate. The spirits knew.
"Wind of the south, wind of the north, guide her.
"Wind speak to the stone, water speak to the stone, sun and moon and stars speak to the stone and the hollow places within the stone. Help her, guide her, speak to her. Teach her what she needs to know. Help her
