"Buddy Johnson." Brian repeated the name. He sounded like he was underlining it, in his memory. "I wouldn't say 'just.' Men like him have crippled other women for life. You've survived both him and the battle of living in the wrong world. That takes incredible strength."
"I really can talk to trees?" She picked up the limp cat, hanging his nose in front of hers. "Marmalade cat, take us out of here."
{Can't.}
She dropped him, in shock. The cat tumbled off her lap and glared at her, shaking his ears until they rattled. His tail switched indignantly.
"Ingrate. I gave you cream and scratched your ears all afternoon, and now you won't do us a little favor. You brought me in here, you must know the way out."
{Mistress won't let us.}
"And a cat lets a human tell him what to do?"
{Mistress commands us.}
Maureen shook her head and looked up at Brian. "Can you hear him?"
He smiled at her, tolerantly, not as if he thought she was nuts but more like he was amused at her confusion. "No. I told you I was drained. Obviously, you aren't."
Jeezum! A human commanding a cat? Somebody had better get the morals squad down here. That sure fit the definition of an unnatural act.
Suddenly, little oddities clicked in Maureen's brain, and she looked around herself with fresh eyes. The rowan overhead held the orange berries of autumn against the unblemished leaves of spring. Daffodil bloomed next to chrysanthemum next to climbing rose, ignoring their proper seasons. An apple tree held both blossoms and five kinds of ripe fruit.
Fiona did too keep slaves.
She was less obvious about it than Dougal, was all. She forced her plants and animals out of their natural ways to perform at her whim, like the hedge-maze and her answering service. Maureen laid her hand lightly on the grass next to her and felt pain. It wasn't allowed to grow beyond a golf-green carpet height.
They weren't talking land-ethic and Wicca here. To hell with the unbleached toilet paper. This lady lived on the earth, not in it. Nothing around Fiona's cottage marched to a different drummer. Things stepped out smartly on her beat, or they didn't march at all. She'd break their kneecaps.
How did she control the land? How did she speak to it?
"Brian, what did Dougal do to David?"
His face turned grim. "You've read about the offerings that archaeologists find in bogs? The gifts to the land, to bring fertility?"
She nodded, and he continued. "Sometimes those offerings included human sacrifice. A priest would strangle a man with leather cords, slash a woman's throat. Then they'd give the body to the bog. Most times, the person was a criminal, an outcast, someone condemned to death for good reason. This way, their death could serve a higher purpose.
"Archaeologists love the practice. The acid in the bog embalms the offering, and you get to find all sorts of perishable artifacts, wood and leather and cloth."
He grimaced. "I'm wandering. Sacrifices. In really bad times, the sacrifice needed to be more powerful. An innocent was killed, sometimes even the leader or 'king' had to die to serve his land. Their blood was more potent. It fed the land, soothed the anger of the gods. Even gods have bled and died to renew the world. Jesus held no monopoly on that."
A black pit opened in front of Maureen. "Dougal killed David? To feed his land? My land?" If that was true, she could never speak to the fox again. David's death would always stand between them.
"Worse. David is still alive. The forest is drinking his blood and soul, slowly. The longer he takes to die, the more powerful his sacrifice."
She swallowed sour bile. Suddenly, chopping Dougal into dog-food looked less ugly. Do unto others what they have done unto others.
"Blood is powerful?"
He nodded. "Blood is very powerful."
"Give me your knife."
Memories swam out of decades back, a book about a man who kept an otter. A vengeful lover had cursed his rowan tree. The rowan held the soul of the house, the seat of happiness or sorrow, the magic of threshold and hearth. Maureen twisted around and laid her palms against the tree-trunk behind her.
"Rowan, do you bless this house?"
The answer came clear, heavy with anger.
{No!}
She cut her left palm and barely felt the sting. She smeared her blood on the trunk of the rowan. She leaned her forehead against the cool smooth bark and drew strength from it, drew strength up from its roots and the hidden waters below and the rock beneath it all. Her blood trickled down the bark and dripped from her hand into the soil.
Again, the mirror of another time entered her, the sense of having been here before. Maureen felt words force themselves between her lips.
"Rowan, I curse this house. I break its hold over you. I sever the threads that bind you to it. I free the plants and creatures of this land from bondage to this house and to its owner. I call the earth below to witness this. I call the sky above to witness this. I call the winds to speak of it, I call the rains to write it in the dust, I call the sun and moon and stars to shine upon it. I curse this house. You stand free."
Again the feeling came to her, the way she used to hear Father Oak speaking silently.
{Yes!}
A whip cracked in her ear, and her eyes snapped open. The worn stone threshold under Fiona's door had split in half.
Dark spots wove through her sight. She fought to hold her balance. She felt Brian take the knife from her, and then he knelt beside her, wrapping his arms around her, loaning her warmth and strength. She sank into it, gratefully.
"Remind me," he whispered, "to stay on your good side."
"Beloved, right now you are my good side." She shook her head, trying to clear the daze.
Rough wetness rasped over her
