Chapter 16
Tanner took over the corner of the living room, with its semi-falling-apart armchair and floor lamp. He found a side table big enough for his laptop and set up a temporary work space. This way he and I could continue researching the land ownership questions while Maritza pieced together the dress.
“Do you need me to bring in anything else from the car?” Bas asked. “Or assist you in any way?”
“I think not for now, Alabastair.”
“Then I shall excuse myself. Calliope, may I have your permission to continue my investigation of your crabapple tree and the four portals?”
“Bas, yes, of course.” The look on Tanner’s face reminded me there was more I hadn’t told him. “Tanner, I had another portal adventure after I saw you.”
“Did something happen on your way home from Paris?” he asked. “Or Chamonix? Were the dryads fresh with you, because—”
“Excuse me, Calliope? Before you and Tanner talk further, would you mind changing? I brought an appropriate undergarment for you,” Maritza said, settling into her couturier’s voice. “Do you have an underwire bra?”
“No.” After my Blood Ceremony, when my body had changed, I tossed all my old bras. My breasts were miraculously firmer and a full cup smaller. I splurged on new underwear, though the silk panties Tanner gave me were in a whole other league than organic cotton hipsters.
Maritza assessed my chest area and said, “We’ll work with what you have. Please put this on.” She handed over a bag. Inside was a slinky black slip. I held the featherlight whisper of silk against my body and couldn’t help searching Tanner’s face for a reaction.
He liked the slip. It would go well with his gift of Parisian lingerie.
“Calliope. Tanner. No flirting. The pieces of this dress must be assembled by the time Leilani gets here after school. She and I will finish the embroidery tonight.”
Properly admonished, I went to my room to change. I wore my bathrobe over the slip and returned to the queen bee in charge of the day’s main event.
“Stand here,” Maritza said, indicating a spot in front of the sliding glass door. I draped the bathrobe over the chair at the head of the dining-table-turned-cutting-table and faced the witch. She lifted the basted garment off the dummy and held it in front of me. There were no closures on it yet, just a number of pieces, six or seven, of black fabric basted together. I extended my arms forward and accepted the dress.
Maritza slid a pincushion cuff onto her wrist and stepped behind me. Her touch was gentle. Her everyday manner could be abrupt, straight to the point, but when it came to working with cloth and her magical needles and threads, another aspect of her persona rose to the surface. I found the touch soothing.
Tanner coughed discreetly. “Calliope? You used the portal again and something happened. Could you tell me about it, please?”
“I went out to the tree. I think it was late morning. I put my hand on the section Bas showed me the night I visited you, but then I slipped. My hand landed on a thorn, and it hurt, and it wouldn’t let me go.” I explained what followed and finished with my confusion about how long I thought I was gone versus the seven or eight hours that had passed with Christoph frantic and everyone ready to mount an all-out search for me.
“I have never been to a realm such as the one you described, Calli, but I’ve read much of the available lore.”
“And?” I asked, thinking Tanner had an inkling he was hesitant to share.
“And I’m surprised you got out of there alive.”
“Why do you say that?” I’d gotten cut on shards of glass, not shards of bones, and hadn’t sensed any living beings, other than the trees.
“I don’t think you were there long enough for whatever inhabits the realm to have noticed you.” Tanner rustled one of the stacks of papers then patted it with his palm. “But you left traces of your blood around the portal tree. Which means anything that lives there could potentially follow you here.”
Maritza murmured her agreement. I let that sink in before I spoke. “Let’s look at this objectively. Wes and Kaz could tell right away that the crabapple tree was a portal and that it led to four different destinations. We now know two of those destinations. With Bas’s help, we might know where the other two connect to soon. And he might also figure out a way for me—or us—to get to the bloody place again.”
I took a deep breath and tried to stay still when Maritza asked me to stop fidgeting. “That place is connected to this tree, on this property, and I don’t think it’s in any way random. We just have to figure out why it’s here. And,” I added, “why it was abandoned.”
“You’re right, Calli.”
“And if Christoph is right about me being the last of the du Sangs, then I think it’s incumbent upon me to go there again and explore.” There, I said it. Voiced the vague notion that had been needling me since my return. The Old One wanted me to see the place where my blood was as good as currency.
“Then I will volunteer to go with you.”
“Good.” I turned when Maritza asked, my back now to Tanner. “Now that we agree on that, what’re your thoughts on the surrounding properties?”
“We still don’t know who owns the property to the northeast of yours. Records have it in blind trust,” said Tanner. “As with the property across the street. We can’t even tell if they’re the same blind trusts, though given the same law firm is named, I’d guess yes.”
Tanner focused on the screen in front of him, pen in his
