Alice draped her robe over her shoulders and shivered, not even trying to do battle with the sleeves. Her back was too stiff, wouldn't work right until she'd warmed up for almost an hour. She touch-tapped her way along the sloping wall of her bedroom tucked under the eaves, slipped through the door, and followed long memory down the turning creaking stairs to the "new" kitchen and the banked fire of the cookstove.
An oil lamp burned low near the kitchen window, traditional beacon of safe haven for women fleeing terror in the night, now working double duty as a night-light in case one of the Morgan girls woke in a strange bed and needed the kitchen's warmth against nightmares. But they were gone, off with Lainie in the Great North Woods playing Indian. Kate was gone, Caroline was gone, the girls were gone, she was back to living alone with her own thoughts, her own nightmares.
Nightmares. Jaguar gods.
Why is the House meddling in my dreams?
Alice shook down the ashes in the firebox, bringing a glow back to the coals and adding splits of birch for a quick fire, then weighed the iron kettle in her hand, decided it held at least two mugs worth of water, and set it over the heat. Coffee. The night was doomed, anyway. She'd never get back to sleep.
Atropos stirred from her sentry-post behind the stove, stretched, and padded silently across the floor. The young calico looked up at Alice, ears forward and whiskers at a quizzical slant.
"Mer?"
"Damned if I know, cat. The House is feeling twitchy. Ask it yourself."
The House sat around her, patient, waiting for her answer to a question she hadn't heard. Or maybe hadn't understood. Tupash. Jackie. Mountains and demon jaguars that walked upright and demanded human blood.
That was Maya, that last. Tupash had been Inca. There must be some connection she'd missed.
The kettle hissed behind her, and Alice measured grounds into the filter and woke them with boiling water. Suddenly the kitchen smelled less bleak, with the aromas of coffee and birch woodsmoke and old furniture wax replacing the damp stone and grave-dirt memories from her dream. Too damn vivid for chance. Whether it boiled down to her subconscious trying to digest mysteries or the long-steeped magic of House and Spring . . .
What is the House trying to tell me?
Too damn much power flowing around, that afternoon she'd killed Tupash. Kate had tapped enough from the dirt and stone of her native soil that she'd knocked out the power grid on the island, popped transmission line circuits across the bridge on the peninsula. Fed the power through Alice to burn Tupash's body into ash in seconds. Alice knew what that took, just how long and how much heat it took the hospital's incinerator to burn an amputated arm or leg into calcined crumbles.
Alice poured coffee and wrapped her hands around the hot mug and stared at the flickering red glow of the stove firebox. She sipped bitter heat.
Fire. Fire eating Tom Pratt's carriage house, fire spreading to the fake-Tudor fake-thatch cedar shingles of Tom's mansion. Fire on the water, that smuggler's speedboat that Ben Morgan blasted into shreds.
And no bodies.
Anywhere.
Tupash morphing into Jackie morphing back to Tupash. Jaguar gods.
Jackie seen in Naskeag Falls. Seen this summer, after all the fire and death.
And Caroline, Caroline's years of Anthro studies centered on the Southwest Peoples. Some of them believed that a ghost, a spirit, a chindi could leave the dead and take over a living body. Aunt Jean had never said anything about that. Different People, different magic, different myths. But she'd warned time and time again about the dangers of drawing or feeding too much Power. About using too much Power for anything. And the Haskell Witches didn't know everything, whatever folk in town might think. Whatever Kate might think.
The stone circle. Caroline's research, over at Ben's lair. The circle was bound to Rowan blood, sons or daughters. Rowley. Rowan-lea.
Jackie is Rowley blood. Was Rowley blood, whatever she's become now.
Oh . . . sweet . . . Jesus. Her teeth chattered, and Alice gulped another swallow of hot coffee. She'd never learned enough about Tupash. Never had time, and then he was dead. She'd thought he was dead. Daniel had said the brujo was old, centuries old, had studied with a still-older master. Had mentioned Maya rites, Aztec rites. The old Inca had known much more about draining Power than she had. He'd used it to stretch his life far beyond the Biblical threescore and ten. Or by reason of strength fourscore. His body hadn't looked that old, hadn't looked older than forty.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come . . .
Too much Power, too many dead, no bodies.
Jackie seen in Naskeag Falls. The graveyard chill from that slow white watching SUV.
Shivering, Alice gathered red oak and rock maple splits from the wood box and stirred the fire, adding fuel with staying power, adding warmth against the arctic chill she felt. As if physical heat would have any effect on her thoughts. Atropos rubbed against her ankles, offering support. Alice gathered the cat up in her arms and cuddled warm fur.
The House waited, silent in the gray of false dawn, too silent. Alice shook herself and set the cat down, gently, slowly, paying attention to every muscle and every ache. Slowly, gently, as if walking Tai Chi, she crossed the kitchen and reached out to the wall of stereo equipment. She needed music. Something dry and mathematical and precise, Bach, Telemann, a single instrument and just loud enough to break this watching, waiting silence.
She'd loaded old John Dowland into the CD changer, a night, two nights ago, consolation and wall against the lonely silence then. Complete lute works, galliards and pavanes and fancies and such. That would do, no need to make her shaking hands and mind sort out anything more complex.
She punched buttons
