The quartet of men led the way to the burial mounds, backpacks bouncing off Kaz 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 use 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 two- to three-day trip in my near future. Not unless I wrapped Harper, Thatcher, and Sallie in a pink-bubble of protection and brought them with me in a house-sized RV.
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 line-up, 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 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
