I settled into the seat’s high back, making myself comfortable but not overly so. There was a bird-of-prey quality to Maritza’s bearing, even as I deduced she was the likely owner of the cheery Volkswagen out front.
“I was born in a Mexican cemetery on the night of November first, Día de los Muertos, when the veils between the living and the dead lift. My father was embarrassed and horrified, but my mother sought to make good use of the moment—and perhaps to annoy her husband—and like the wily bruja she was, told no one but her best friend that she was well into labor when she joined our town’s procession to the graveyard.
“She swaddled me in one of my grandmother’s woven rebozos and tucked me into a coffin made for a baby. Not a specific baby.” She leaned forward and shook a blue-tipped finger at me. “My mother’s sense of humor was not that macabre. Coffins are plentiful that time of year in San Miguel, as are candles, calaveras, and calacas.”
I quirked my head at the unfamiliar words.
“Skulls and skeletons. Decorations,” Maritza added. “Once I was securely ensconced, my mother released my unadorned, unremarkable, unpainted pine coffin into the crowd, whereupon I was paraded around the graves while she delivered the afterbirth and buried it in the ground. To this day I can feel the scratchy wool of my grandmother’s shawl against my tender skin.” She lifted her glass, indicating I should pour her more lemonade. “Beginning my life in a graveyard, during a celebration of life and death, was a gift. This has allowed me to truly see and know that Death is simply another phase of Life.”
She separated one of the gold chains looped around her neck and waved a small glass vial at me.
“Soil with the bloods of my mother and me, mixed. I trade this with the dead. An offering, an exchange for their time.”
Tucking the vial under her blouse, she peered over the top of her sunglasses. Her eyes were as blue as her painted fingernails.
“And you, Calliope, must collect as much of your blood as you can. Feed it directly into the soil that marks the place you call home. The earth needs it, and you won’t have moon blood to give forever.”
Chapter 7
Tanner, Wes, and the others returned as Maritza’s recounting of her birth ended. We left Hyslop and Peasgood on the porch with two fully charged cell phones, one of those compressed air horns to blow if anyone or anything showed up, and orders to rest.
The quartet of men led the way to the burial mounds, backpacks bouncing off Kaz’s and Tanner’s backs, and two canvas tool bags hanging from Wes’s hands. Maritza had tasked the druids with opening the spelled wards hiding the burial mounds from public eye.
Muted words filtered back to us as they strategized then fell silent. A flock of little birds acted as escorts and sentries, moving in a triangulation of chirps, tweets, and fluttering wings.
Rose and Belle carried the severed heads, which they’d wrapped first in tea towels then cradled in wood watering troughs once used for small animals. Their pace was steady and solemn, and they barely spoke.
Maritza hummed and never wobbled on her platform heels. The stack of fabric pieces and the pile of particles trailed behind us, hovering above the ground like frantic puppies trying to keep pace with their beloved owner.
“Calliope,” the necromancer said, startling me out of a meandering thought loosely connected to watching Tanner’s ass and thighs from the back. “I have spoken with our dear Rose de Benauge about your training. She has agreed I shall supervise the modules pertaining to the Study of Death.”
I gulped. Nothing like switching gears from sex to death.
Maritza continued, “Consider today your first lesson. The timing isn’t perfect. Death is rarely perfect unless a skilled practitioner has had a hand in the planning and execution of the event. Yet here we are and so you should view this as both an aspect of your investigation and a…what do they call it? Ah, yes, a ‘teaching moment.’”
Nodding, I thanked her.
“Take notes,” she admonished, pointing at my cross-body bag without breaking her stride. “I assume your grimoire is in there?”
“I have a note-taking app on my phone,” I said. “Could I just use that? And what’s a grimoire?” To me, it sounded like a cumbersome piece of furniture.
Maritza’s disbelief was palpable. She exhaled from her nostrils, loudly. “A grimoire is a book where you keep all of your notes. All of your spells, lists of ingredients you used, results of experiments—good, bad, indifferent. Basically, a grimoire is a repository of your knowledge, no one else’s. And no one else would, or should, have access to it.”
She stopped, held up a palm to halt the progress of her adoring but silent piles, and addressed me face-to-face.
“You must have a grimoire, Calliope Jones. When we have finished here today, your first priority should be to make a book.” She tapped the same accusatory pointer finger against her chin. “Or there is one grimoire maker in all of western Canada. They may have something appropriate for sale.”
“Where are they located?” I asked.
“Near Mount Edziza. From here, it takes at least twenty-four hours of driving to get there. Most Magicals prefer to utilize the portal, but even for Magicals it’s a strenuous trip.”
Well, that threw a hitch in things.
“Could I look around my house first? See if there’s an empty book or something I could use temporarily?” I was thinking of my mother’s books, lined up for all these years on the low shelf in the attic, gathering dust.
“You may do that,” she said. “Whatever book you choose—and however it comes into your possession—we will bind you to it. The book will be yours, and only yours, for the rest of your life.”
I wasn’t sure if Maritza was pleased or distressed at the interim solution, but I couldn’t see a
