Paired notes and single notes, melodies and trills, the strange scale that had always defied her fingers now danced through the forest. Debussy, she thought, that Prelude, invoking fauns and nymphs and dryads. It's that kind of feel. Step into myth and magic if you want to make the flute work its own magic.
The forest changed around her. Father Oak remained firm at her back. Snow melted into mist and green leaves cloaked the limbs. She felt the magic of her flute wafting out and sinking into the soil, spreading, binding, weaving the fabric of balance. Balance fed back to her, welcoming. The forest needed her. It told her of the dragon, and David, and a song that broke old chains and forged new bonds freely accepted. It told her of Fiona, walking, killing, carrying rage and doubled power.
{Follow.}
The fox vixen waited, sitting on her haunches. Maureen studied her fur mask, her eyes and expressive radar ears, her tail and jaw and play of the muscles under her skin. This was a serious fox, not angry or afraid or jesting. She remembered that the fox showed her the forest's face, Father Oak's face. This was something new.
Maureen staggered to her feet, as weary as if she'd just run a marathon. Tension. Killing Demon Rum took as much out of her as killing Dougal. She followed the fox, away from Father Oak's Summer Country form and through a forest glade, past ancient lichen-crusted rocks and dense stands of dark green holly that rustled behind her as they closed the way, to a sudden ledge outcrop gnawed by rain and weather. A rowan grew there, ancient but strong, the first she'd seen within the forest. A house-rowan?
The fox looked up at Maureen and then stepped delicately sideways around an edge of stone. Maureen followed and found a hidden cave-mouth, dark and drifted with leaves. Air flowed from it, cold and damp and musty, just as she'd suspected, but it still felt more welcoming than the castle. She ought to get her flashlight from the car and come back.
{Come.}
The fox barked from the darkness, impatient. If Maureen could trust anything in this world, it was the fox.
Maureen shrugged her shoulders and followed, careful of her feet and head. The way seemed smooth. A minute passed, and then another, and then strangeness grew on her and she realized what was missing. The walls weren't closing in around her. She knew tons of rock hung over her head, but they didn't feel threatening. Her heart beat slowly, normally, and the palms of her hands stayed dry.
Whatever terrified her in the castle cellars, it hadn't followed her down this tunnel.
Down she went, and down, and down, in total darkness. Much of the forest stood on limestone, not the sandstone underneath the keep. Still, this seemed more like a tunnel than a natural cave. She didn't have any trouble walking, even without light, her fingers trailing along the rough walls and telling her of each twist or turn as it came up, the floor safe and smooth beneath her feet.
And then the air changed, the damp clammy graveyard flow coming in low from her right hand and the way ahead dry and . . . warm? It smelled clean, except for a strange musky forest tinge almost like bracken in the morning dew.
She stepped out into pale light and gasped. Green, gold, red, sheets and streams of light that showed her a cavern. Stalactites, stalagmites, curtains, rivers of smooth gleaming flowing stone -- Carlsbad or Luray Caverns but scaled down into human space. She touched one wall, a curtain of stone lace or crochet work, translucent sepia jewelry, and her fingers came away glowing pale yellow. Phosphorescent algae. Her eyes had adapted in the blackness of the tunnel, and even this faint light seemed strong enough for reading.
"God. It's beautiful."
{It is yours. If you really want a round green door, we can make adjustments.}
Now that wise-ass dog was laughing at her, tongue hanging out. She knew what Maureen had been thinking.
A hearth sat in one corner, faint traces of soot marking the floor and wall and with a hole overhead that drew air past her reaching hand. Chimney flue. Wood waited next to the hearth, and large stoneware crocks that looked like they held food. Jugs, water or wine or oil, she didn't check.
She touched the wall again. It felt warm. Walking in a daze, she trailed her fingers along the slick smoothness until she turned a corner. A pool waited, steaming gently, hot water welling up and then overflowing into a stream that joined a cold spring and then drained away down a plate-sized hole in the floor. Indoor plumbing, just add towels and toilet paper.
Another opening, and she found a bed, tall-posted with a canopy and hangings, with hand-loomed linens and a light woolen blanket. Wardrobe with wooden hinges and latch, it looked as old as the stone beside it. A terra-cotta lamp that could be a refugee from Pompeii, filled with olive oil and wick ready for the flint and steel and tinder that lay next to it on the smooth flowstone shelf. She stared at the flint and steel -- the steel had been set in a bone handle, as if whoever used it felt uncomfortable touching cold iron. Old Blood. Maureen shivered. Then she sniffed at the oil. It smelled sweet, not rancid.
"Someone lives here."
{No one has walked these stones for over a thousand years. The Tree would know. You stand beneath his roots.}
"But the food, the bed, the oil . . ."
{This is a land of magic.}
It felt safe here. She doubted if an enemy could ever find the entrance, could even get close to it through her forest. The stones enfolded her and
