I cut one tall stem bursting with small yellow flowers, collected a few oversized, velvety leaves, and headed to the house.
Tanner had a pot of water simmering on the stove.
“Lots of thorny things and some mullein,” I said, tilting my haul for his perusal.
“Mullein?” He tried unsuccessfully to hide his grin before instructing me to chop everything I’d collected and add it to the water. “I’ll need a paintbrush. Preferably one you haven’t used.”
“Anything else?”
“Your blood.”
I shivered. I’d already had blood drawn today, stored in vials on their way to a Vancouver lab which, I assumed, handled the testing of biological material taken from Magicals, not humans. “How do you plan to get it?”
“I’ll prick your fingertip. This tea doesn’t require much.”
Tanner positioned another cutting board next to the one I was using and set about chopping and mashing handfuls of plant matter before dumping them into the cook pot. Once we were done and had scrubbed most of the stains off our hands, he took his laptop to the living room while I tackled the laundry.
Towels washing, and dryer emptied, I sat at the dining table and watched as Tanner poured the liquid off the macerated plant matter through a stainless-steel mesh strainer and into a wide-mouth canning jar. When he stood himself next to me, knife in hand, and set the jar near my elbow, I assumed getting my blood was next and extended my left arm.
“I don’t think I can watch this part,” I admitted, “but take what you need.”
Tanner’s fingers were strong and gentle. He used the knife to puncture the tip of my ring finger and squeezed, released, and repeated, occasionally massaging my palm. I lost track of time, pictured bright red liquid flowing from the golden tip of a calligrapher’s pen, and was relieved when Tanner declared he had enough.
I peeked at the jar. Wispy streams of liquid life hung suspended in the cloudy, brownish water. Pride—or something akin to it—rose in my chest.
“I forgot to grab a Band-Aid for you,” he said.
“I can get one,” I assured him.
“You’re not going to faint?” he teased, topaz eyes sparkling under a fan of lashes.
I pressed the tender fingertip against my thumb and snorted. “I’m the mother of sons. I don’t faint, and I always have Band-Aids and antibiotic ointment on hand.”
Standing, I made my way to the bathroom and fought an unexpected wave of wooziness. My day was catching up with me and I wanted my bed, but I wanted to watch Tanner more.
“Will this do?” I handed over the first-aid supplies and an old makeup brush I’d found in the medicine cabinet.
He nodded, bandaged my finger, and started toward the front door.
“This is meant as a temporary measure only, but it should last a few days.” Once on the porch, he looked me up and down. “Follow behind me. We’re going to start at the end of your driveway and loop the perimeter of your property clockwise.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll be an uneven line—we’ll include the trees and bushes closest to the house.”
“Can I bring a flashlight?”
He shook his head. “Trust your senses. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Stick close. Stay quiet.”
We walked in silence to the end of the short driveway. Tanner surveyed the paved street, crouched, and dipped the brush into the jar.
“Wait. Tanner,” I whispered. “What should I do?”
“Your feet are bare?”
“Yes.”
“Keep your hands free and feel through your feet. See if you get any feedback from the ground and alert me if you sense any changes.”
He began to chant in French, dropping into a crouch every few steps and brushing a signet-like shape over tree bark, bushes, and the occasional patch of grass. Cool fingers of night air stroked my ankles and wrists and even the exposed skin at my belly, and the less I could see in the ambient dark, the more my other senses attuned to the surroundings. Our feet crushed leaves and needles, releasing more scents into the air. I stepped closer to Tanner’s back, curled a finger through one of his belt loops when we pushed through tangles of underbrush, and paid attention to every swoop of his brush.
The timbre of Tanner’s voice drew me along, and without knowing when it happened, I became a participant in the dance of words and intentions and the herbal allies blended with my blood. Tanner may have been the architect of the wards, but a tangible part of me was in the mortar. Tree bark became my skin. Sap blended with my blood. Tree limbs became my legs and arms; leaves, my fingers and toes; blossoms and fruit, my skin.
If Tanner and I had been lovers, I could have offered him an apple or a pear from one of my trees and felt his teeth on my thighs and breasts. Before I could linger any longer on that evocative thought, we were back to where the driveway met the road and retracing our steps to the house.
Warding the interior meant painting the same watery ink on every threshold and windowsill, which took longer than our walk through the woods. My shoulders sank away from my ears once the ceiling-mounted trapdoor to the attic space was inked. Tanner carried the emptied jar to the kitchen sink and methodically rinsed the brush and washed his hands before following me to the living room couch.
Leaning forward with both elbows on his knees, he threaded plant-stained fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp. “I’ve been thinking about the orchards. Each grow heirloom trees, none of them have reported missing employees to local authorities, and the land has been in family hands for generations—so what’s the underlying motivation to murder?”
Greed? “Land’s a valuable commodity,” I posited. “Just look at how property prices have risen in the past five years. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was murdered so that someone else could have access to their land.” I continued, “One set of people taking land from others is
