The truth of his words showed itself on his face. He’d passed through this place in pursuit of the Apple Witch.
I interlaced my fingers through his. I understood the driving need to feel rooted. “Can you sense her?” I asked, keeping my voice as low as I could. “Because I can’t. Not here, not under the disguise the three of you created. I can’t sense anything.”
“The fortified wards are meant to keep her out,” he explained. “Her and others who would seek access to this place.”
Maritza ducked under the lintel of the doorway. “We have a problem,” she said. “We cannot perform the Ritual of Conjuration outside of the mound.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, rolled her shoulders, and cracked her neck to each side. “And if someone could please fetch the living hidden folk we left at the house, we can get this exhumation started.”
“Tanner, River.” Wes turned to leave then asked Maritza if there was anything else she could think of that would be useful.
“Ask those boys what the hidden folk enjoy eating. And drinking. The more treats they are plied with, the more enticements we provide, the longer they will stay. And the more they’ll say.”
Wes nodded and took off, Tanner and River loping beside him. I declined the urge to watch my druid’s departing backside and turned my attention to the witches and to Maritza. “Is there anything we can do while we wait?”
“Belle brought marigolds. Pull off the petals and gather them into…” Her gaze swept the area. “Find something to hold the petals until we are ready to go inside.”
I avoided looking at the wrapped heads as I went to my knees next to Belle and gathered a cluster of marigolds. Their pungent smell was used by organic gardeners to ward off insects. Equating the cheery, orangey-yellow flowers with ceremonies for the dead was new. I added that note to the growing archive on my cell phone, returned to separating petals from the receptacle, and considered adding botanical illustrations to my grimoire.
Which I didn’t yet have, but I would. Even if coming into possession of a grimoire of my own meant portaling to the northernmost section of British Columbia. Or driving. Driving was a mode of transportation I knew I could handle.
Completing Maritza’s task took us as long as it took the trio of druids to return to the farmhouse, gather food and drink, bundle Hyslop and Peasgood into a slatted cart, and hightail it back. If the flush to their cheeks was an indication, they’d run the entire way.
Once Wes lowered the cart’s extended handles to the ground, the two brothers swung their legs to either side and stood, wobbling. They refused offers of assistance and hefted small bags that clanked with the sound of glass hitting glass.
“We brought mead,” Hyslop said, “and some of Gramps’s home-brewed beer. Hidden folk love anything fermented, and the hops were grown here on the farm.”
Rose and Belle stood. “Can you roll that over here, please? We can load the troughs into the cart and bring everything in with us at once.”
“I was going to suggest that, Rose.” Maritza’s voice arrowed out from inside the burial mound and landed in the middle of our assembly of Magicals.
River winked at Rose, brought the cart closer, and we followed him through the doorway.
Chapter 8
I held my breath as my leg swung over the threshold, landing my foot in the hushed and hallowed place where certain Magicals buried their dead. The ceiling rose far higher than I would have guessed from the outside. After the first steps, a gentle slope led downward. My thigh muscles bunched in anticipation of managing the incline without slipping.
Coffin-shaped mounds of varying sizes and heights filled the space in an ordered way, but none stood out for being noticeably larger or smaller than the others. Light filtered in via fat, square beams from four openings in the ceiling. Kaz waved from a spot in the middle and informed the group he was fairly certain the mounds closest to where he was standing were the oldest.
“How can you tell?” I asked, in awe of what being inside was doing to my peripheral awareness. This was a far different experience than the tunnels under the apple trees. There, I scuttled around on my hands and knees because the space was so confining. Here, the need to go to the ground had more to do with an overwhelming urge to worship.
“By placing my hands on the mounds, Calliope. Think of it as magically enhanced radiocarbon dating,” he said. “I invite you to try once we’ve completed this task. These two,” he continued, pointing beyond the beam of light, “are where Clifford buried the bodies. Maritza, how would you like to proceed?”
“First, I prepare the ritual area.”
She strode forward, a leggy bird adorned in colorful plumage. Waving her hands like an orchestra conductor, she focused on one section at a time, leaning forward, drawing back, and swaying side to side, until it was clear she was working with the pile of particles to create a circle on the ground about twelve feet across. During the circle-making she stopped and started, marking open spaces at the cardinal directions.
“If everyone would gather around the outside of the circle and have your items at the ready. You will enter through the door to the east as per my instruction.” She pointed to the correct opening. “Kazimir, if you and the other druids would uncover the bodies?”
Maritza reached into her bag and extracted a small clay brazier and a pouch. She dropped coal in the squat, black pot, lit a match, and blew the briquettes into lighting. Another pouch held chunks of a different substance, one which glowed amber and gave off fragrant smoke once placed the live coals.
“Copalli,” she said, “from Mexico. Belle,
