Calliope, come here.
The voice was creepy, and nothing in me wanted to respond to the command.
“No,” I hissed. “No.”
Wood splintered and cracked. A different voice, deeper in tone and louder, cursed as another tree, more to the left, rocked like it was having a spontaneous meeting with a sledgehammer and losing. The pain from the tattoo removal had burned like fire; this attack on my woods affected my bones and the timbered infrastructure that gave shape to my house.
What the—
Angry. Whatever was out there was becoming angrier, breaking branches, creating a ruckus outside the bordering line of brush and trees. I gripped the railing, sent my awareness into the ground, straight, like a taproot, followed by short bursts of green light—the wards.
The wards Tanner had placed along the curving circle of woods were keeping something from reaching the house and getting to me. And maybe to my sons.
I spun around too fast and went from standing at the rail to landing sideways on the swing, right onto my throbbing hip. Taking a deep breath, I heaved myself up and reached for the door as a tall silhouette appeared on the other side.
“Mom?” asked Harper. “What’re you doing out here, we’re…”
“Get Tanner,” I urged. “Quick!” I plopped onto the cushioned seat and pressed my palm to the covered wound. “Shh!” I said when they came back, and motioned for them to be quiet. “Listen. Can you hear that?”
A creature—or a human—moved about in the woods. Tanner paused then repeated the same over-the-railing leap he’d performed the first night he was there. He was followed in quick succession by both Harper and Thatch.
I stifled my protest, felt along the wall for the switch to the floodlights, and flicked. Intense blue-white light bathed the backyard, prompting whatever was beyond the edge of the grassy area to let out a low growl. The hair on my body lifted at the sound. I clutched the railing and managed to croak out a garbled, “Boys!” before my vocal chords clamped down. None of them turned at my strangled cry.
Think, Calliope. Protect my house? My land? My sons?
The floodlight illuminated the backsides of my three defenders, all of them barefoot, in shorts and T-shirts, wielding no weapons other than intellect and bravado.
Tanner’s shoulders and arms were doing that rippling thing I’d seen earlier in the evening when he’d had Doug by the throat. A trio of adult raccoons, tails fluffed and raised, chittered over to Thatcher and rounded their spines. Winged creatures, at least two, circled overhead, the translucent areas of their wings shimmering. I gripped the rail tighter.
Owls added strident, back-and-forth calls simultaneous to the arrival of Harper’s bat friends. Wood snapping in my hands let me know I was squeezing the railing a little too hard.
I know what to do. Startled, I inhaled through my nose and began to chant.
“Ivy wind; Ivy bind. Ivy wind; Ivy bind…” Fighting like with like, I called to the invasive dog-strangling vine, the one preparing to overtake one section of my garden. I called to the barberry vines, armored with thorns, and to the pea shrub a well-meaning neighbor—in love with everything bearing yellow flowers—had planted, unawares it, too, was an invasive species.
I called to these non-native plants, asking they redeem their presence by finding and binding whatever stalked my children, my house, and my very body.
A slithering sounded beyond the reach of the porch light. Leaves fluttered, trees wavered, and the raccoons and bats stayed alert. Tanner’s back continued to ripple, even as he leapt into the woods once a series of strangled screams and cries for help rang through the trees.
I let my arms hang at my sides and relaxed my legs. First Doug, then the tattoo, and now this, whatever this was.
“Dad? Uncle Roger?” Harper’s voice registered the shock I knew he must have felt as he and Thatch rushed to help Tanner drag two vine-wrapped bodies from the woods. Even from the deck, I could see it was, indeed, Douglas Flechette and his twin brother Roger.
I wanted to laugh, a long, maniacal peal that would halt the current weather pattern dropping these unwanted visits from my ex at my door. Instead of laughing, maybe I’d ask Tanner to call in his cohorts and let them deal with the mess. I’d open another beer and watch the circus from the sidelines.
Before I could do either, swirling lights at the end of the driveway informed me the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had arrived.
“Not a moment too soon.” Muttering under my breath, I paused at the front door to center myself before sauntering to the end of the drive. “Evening, officers. What can I help you with?”
“Good evening, Calliope. Sorry to disturb you, but we’ve received two calls about,” Officer Jack scrolled through his cell phone and looked at me while he read, “a disturbance in the woods. Have you heard anything unusual this evening?”
I pressed my lips together and shook my head, slow and relaxed, like I really was considering their question. “No, nothing unusual. The owls have been a bit cantankerous lately and I think the mountain lion that hunts up our way might have gotten a deer, but other than that…no, nothing.”
Lewis, the other officer, peered beyond the blinding light. It was an honest effort. The communication device he wore strapped to his shoulder crackled with an incoming missive from Gladys Pippin. At least, I assumed it was Gladys. She’d been the nighttime dispatcher, Sundays through Thursdays, for as long as I had lived on the island, and it was clear only death would get her out of her special chair.
“Got a call about drunk and naked hippies on Bader Beach again,” Gladys said. “Probably a bunch of those WOOFer kids just arrived
