I lifted my head and watched Tanner stride, loose-limbed but purposeful, toward the edge of the woods. He pulled the same small black container he’d used two nights before out of a front pocket, drew in the air, and walked to another spot about ten feet away. It looked like he intended to encircle the entire property with yellow-gold markings. As much as I enjoyed watching him move, the tug from below my palms was growing.
I pushed myself up, sat back on my heels, and lowered the straps of my overalls. After shrugging out of my T-shirt I rolled onto my feet and finished disrobing. My clothes went to a rock outside the circle and I went back to the ground on my hands and knees.
Come closer.
The same gravelly voice extended an invitation. I patted the area, removed a few sharp bits of rocks and broken sticks then lowered myself belly down, legs apart, arms away from my sides. I needed a few breaths to adjust to the sensation of the grass against my naked breasts and the cooling air on my back. And then I was in.
Breathe with us.
A chorus of voices. I closed my eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again. The ground below me expanded. I exhaled and sank.
Open your eyes.
Skin. Grass. Fingers. Rocks.
Jars. Little flames. Trees. Sky.
Open your skin.
The ear pressed to the ground picked up a faint crackling. Tiny fuzzy threads reached between my cells and into the outermost layer of skin. From there, the threads thinned, passed through the dermis to my connective tissue.
I inhaled and I exhaled. The vibrations from Tanner’s feet hitting the ground came closer and were followed by the swish of clothing sliding off limbs. The warmth of his naked body neared. I lifted my head, opened my eyes, and swept my gaze over the wards. “They’re glowing,” I said, containing my awe to a whisper.
Tanner lowered himself to his hands and knees, his gaze on me. The golden light wavering across the wards that circled my land was reflected in the druid’s eyes. He pressed his chest to the ground, adjusted his limbs, and let a lengthy exhale settle him. His fingertips rested on my shoulder. “Do you feel it?” he asked.
Yes.
I continued to breathe. Strands, translucent and white, emerged from the surface of the ground like a forest of pea shoots only much more delicate. Minute black spots appeared at the tips of the strands. No longer able to resist autumn’s call, I had to close my eyes and breathe out.
“We call this going loamy,” Tanner said. Now it was his voice sending vibrations through the ground to meet my bones. “Do you feel the Joining?”
Yes.
I felt the Joining, little messengers at the cellular level coursing through my body once they found my fascial tissue and the walls of my arteries and veins. I closed my eyes to the golden glow and allowed the soil to know me.
Turn your heart skyward.
I rose. Lay on my back. Adjusted to the sensation of my heels, calves, and buttocks resting on ground I had warmed. After a couple of minutes, Tanner pushed away, sat, then lay on his back, too. The fine white strands brushed against the sides of my arms and legs and torso, grew longer, covering more—but not all—of our exposed skin.
I opened my eyes to the star-filled sky. Inhaled. Each star found a corresponding spot on the front of my body. Each patch of darkness did, too. A shooting star tickled as it crossed my belly. The very top of the wards caught more stars in their netting and held them there like fireflies in a jar.
Listen.
One ear tuned in to Tanner’s breath. The other ear sought and found leaves brushing against leaves, fir needles sliding against fir needles, as the wind began to stir.
Listen to what lies below.
I opened up my back.
Skin. Ribs. Heart chamber.
I ventured into my organs.
Kidneys, liver, and lower, to my womb.
Waters ran alongside my bones, flowed through my fallopian tubes and down my inner thighs. Salt water. Fresh water. The ends of my hair spread toward the trees, toward the stars, and down toward the shared layers where those little white strands had infiltrated.
What do you want to know?
Nothing, I thought. Nothing. It’s all right here.
I might have fallen asleep. For all I knew, days might have passed. I might have come apart and been re-formed. The votive candles had burned out. The sky was clear black in areas, fuzzy-edged and dark gray in others.
“Tanner?”
“Yes?”
“What was that?”
“That was the Joining.” Tanner rolled to his side and stood. I followed, heavy-limbed and slow, and reached for our clothes. He gathered the empty jars to the tray, and we walked toward the house without speaking.
“I want to shower. And I feel like I shouldn’t shower,” I said. I was standing in the middle of the ground floor of my house, naked, certain I could pass for a human mushroom.
“If we were near warmer waters or a stream, we’d bathe outdoors. I think it’s okay to acknowledge we’re modern Magicals and take showers.”
“I also don’t feel like talking,” I admitted.
“Go shower first. I’ll make hot chocolate.”
Bundled into worn flannel pajamas, I warmed my belly with the richest cocoa I had ever tasted while Tanner had his shower. Once he’d dried and slipped between the sheets, he admitted he’d forgotten about the bag of cocoa powder he’d bought in Paris until tonight.
The scent of my land’s underlayers clung to the insides of my nostrils. When I sniffed at Tanner’s shoulder and in toward his armpit, I found the same scent.
I didn’t want to pick apart the experience I had just shared, with Tanner and with my land. I finished my cocoa, set the mug on my desk, and promised my teeth a double brushing in the morning.
“Good night, Tanner.”
“G’night, Calliope.”
Chapter 10
Tanner left with Sunday’s sunrise, the smell of coffee and a promise on his breath. We’d overslept, with no time
