While we had been speaking, the druids, Rose, and Belle had walked far enough ahead they were out of sight.
“Thank you for offering to teach me,” I said. “We should catch up with the others.”
The six ahead of us had paused at an empty field. I wiggled my feet out of my boots and dug my toes into the soil. The tremor was there, but when I walked forward to meet up with the line of druids, witches, and necromancer, the earth fell silent beneath my feet. I went back to my boots. The tremor returned and was gone again by the time I finished my experiment and stood next to Tanner.
“The burial mounds are right there, aren’t they?” I asked, flicking my hand in front of us. I wanted to know how Clifford had hidden the mounds from detection both above and below ground. I surreptitiously typed the question into my phone.
“Join hands, and we’ll take everyone through,” said River.
Belle and Rose moved to either end of our lineup, the troughs with the hidden folks’ heads cradled in their free arms. We stepped forward as one.
The first things I noticed were a drop in temperature and the absence of bird activity. The second was an all-encompassing field of green. Outside this protected area, dried grasses crackled underfoot. Here, the blades were vibrant, trimmed, and oh-so-green, carpeting the area in front of us and rolling up the sides and across the tops of the burial mounds. The lichen-covered rocks at the bases of the First Nations–style mounds and the misty sky overhead gave swaths and splotches of color to break up the incessant, verdant green.
Tanner spoke. “The day after you had the heart-to-heart with Cliff, when he admitted he was a druid and asked for our help, we came here and refreshed the protective wards. Unfortunately, Cliff was correct. The lack of regular maintenance had weakened the layers of magic masking this entire area. Anyone with the know-how could have been entering and leaving from above and below ground for months, maybe years.”
We all took a moment to absorb that sobering observation, the druids especially.
Tanner continued, “If you look up, what you’ll witness are the new layers of magic incorporating themselves with the old. If we could stand closer to the barrier itself, it would look like a massive, stretched-out fishing net. Charged fibers create an open mesh, which allows magical energy to permeate the spaces in between the flexible grid.”
All in all, it was an awe-inspiring display of magic in motion.
“The threads are like cotton-candy twists,” I said.
“We drew from the full spectrum of colors in the surrounding grasses, trees, and flowers. Another day or two and it will look less—”
“Less like a child puked up a candy store?” Maritza pointed to the middle of the three conical mounds. “Your attention should be toward the grass and what lies buried below, not wandering up there in all that fluff.”
I sneaked a last glance at the wavering blush-pink and peach strands and followed the group to the middle mound.
“Have you completely masked the door?” Maritza asked. “I cannot see a break in the wall.”
Kaz nodded. He stepped in close and ran his hand along the trimmed sod wall until he was two-thirds of the way to the corner of the structure. He stopped, shrugged off the straps of his backpack, and gestured to the rest of us. “There are shrouds in my pack,” he said. “Wes, Calli, if you could grab two of them and follow me in, we’ll extract the bodies. Maritza, we will await your signal before we bring them into the light.”
Rose and Belle remained silent as they lowered the troughs to the ground and adjusted the cloths covering the heads. I shook out one piece of fabric, handed it over to Wes, and removed another for myself. Kaz faced the mound, his arms raised to the sides. He kept his elbows relaxed as he moved his fingers as though seeking an opening and chanted under his breath.
A series of charcoal-gray lines formed, following the path of his fingers. Kaz moved his arms, drawing out a rectangle, and continued to walk his fingers along the lines as more appeared. Once he touched them, the lines solidified into the shape of a doorway. He tugged on a chain looped around his neck and leaned forward, pressing whatever was hanging onto the sod.
The door inside the rectangle he’d formed swung inward. A hazy beam of light inside the cavernous space came into focus. The mound had at least one skylight and the air smelled not at all like death. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting or why I imagined something creepier, like the dirt-floored cellar of my house which always stank of mold and decay.
Maybe Magicals—druids at least—took a different kind of care with their dead.
Kaz paused, took a step back, and gestured to Maritza. She nodded and hooked her arm through his. “I have changed my mind. I will accompany Kazimir. The rest of you stay here until we know what awaits.”
Tanner came over to me, did that thing again where he clamped his hands on the tops of my shoulders and kneaded my muscles with his thumbs. I shrugged him off. My body kept trying to tug me back to our previous level of intimacy, and my head wanted only to absorb the experience unfolding in front of me and suck up every drop of knowledge.
I grabbed for his wrist as he went to walk away and steered him to stand at my side. “This is all so new,” I whispered. “I don’t want to miss a thing.”
He wiggled out of my grasp and slid his fingers up the back of my skull, tangling them in my hair. Bringing his mouth against my ear, he whispered
