“Here,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “On the grass.” I flicked the flashlight app on my phone and waved. Surely they could see the beam through the misty green-gray light infusing the air.
Getting to my hands and knees and then to standing was an odd process of unsticking myself from where I had lain. One entire side of my body, my pants, shirt, and even my hair was damp—no, wet—and I smelled like a creature that had risen from the sea rather than a witch who had sweated a bit while napping in a patch of grass. The shape of my position was clearly embossed below me, the green darker and crushed.
I poked with one finger then my palm. Spongey. Water filled the imprint left by my hand.
“Calliope?” Rose’s voice held twin threads of urgency and annoyance. I was never going to be her star pupil.
“Coming.”
When I reclaimed the spot I had abandoned, Wes sniffed at my hair and clothes and pivoted to see where I had been. I pointed, the outline of my body still visible.
“You smell like the in-between,” he whispered.
I ducked my nose toward my armpit and sniffed. If the in-between was a place where dreams shone vivid then yes, I did smell like the in-between. Everything my senses catalogued while I napped was as real as the tableaux in front of me. My mother’s voice as clear as Wes’s whisper. I clutched at my shirt and squeezed until my fingers were wet, unsure how to reconcile the smell of the ocean and memories of my mother, with this place where the dead lay all around.
Maritza glared at Wes and me. At a signal I did not notice, she waved her hand in a languid S-shape. Her needle rose, a black thread looped through its eye. Stirring the air in front of her as though standing at a massive pot, she directed the needle and thread outside our circle. The magic-infused objects went around and around, and every time they skimmed the backs of my legs, I shimmied forward a bit more. The others did too, until we were all mashed together, the four hidden folks at our shins.
“Stop.” Maritza’s voice rang with authority. Her needle hovered in the air. And the dead opened their eyes. “Bellflower. Sweetbough. What have you to tell us, now that you have spoken with your kin?”
“Fae. One man. Three women.” One by one, words drifted from their open mouths like mist over an embankment. I smelled earthworms and freezer burn on the dead men’s breath.
Tanner crouched and rested one knee on the ground. “Where did they find you?”
“The tunnels.” Both gave the dead’s version of a protracted exhalation. Movement under the shrouds made it seem they were fumbling at the threads keeping their body parts together. “Collars. Choke. Pain. Death.”
Peasgood and Hyslop linked elbows and set their free hands over the dead men’s hearts. Peasgood’s eyes filled with tears as he looked up at Maritza. “Please don’t make them go through this again,” he said. “Please.”
“We need names, my dear,” she answered, gentling her tone, “so that those who brought death to this sacred place will be revealed.” Adding a dose of palliative lightness to her voice, she said, “Bellflower. Sweetbough. Do you have names to share with us?”
The skin of the dead grew paler as every last bit of color coaxed into their cheeks by the raising ritual leaked away.
“Bellflower. Sweetbough. Do you have names?” Maritza repeated, her commanding back on line.
“Little darts,” they said, almost in unison, “little darts. So, so sharp.”
Chapter 9
At the third recitation of “little darts,” whatever spell had animated the two bodies was exhausted through one final, foggy exhale. Peasgood’s and Hyslop’s fingers curled and clenched at the shroud. We all bowed our heads and experienced the finality of Sweetbough and Bellflower’s last breath.
The glasses of hoppy ale and honey mead were empty. The napkins where the cheese and preserves had been laid out were stained plum purple and raspberry and littered with white crumbs, the offerings similarly gone, consumed.
I didn’t think the dead could eat. I was wrong.
“If Peasgood and Hyslop would please stand and join our circle,” Maritza said, the command in her voice fully present but with the undertone of compassion reserved for the mourning. The two men shuffled into the space we made for them. “Everyone, join hands and repeat after me.
“On this day,” she intoned. She paused after speaking and signaled we should repeat as one with a dip of her head.
“On this day,” we said, our voices ragged and not yet connected.
“On this day,” Maritza said again, this time with a clearer instruction in her voice for us to get our act together and shine. Or else. “We give thanks to those who rose from the dead.”
Taking a breath together, chests lifting and opening before we spoke, we answered her, “On this day, we give thanks to those who rose from the dead.”
“On this day,” she continued, “we honor the lives of Bellflower and Sweetbough, hidden folk of le clan des Vergers.”
I stumbled over the French, but the combined voices of the witches and druids rose strong, smoothing my rough spot and completing Maritza’s invocation.
Peasgood cleared his throat. “On this day,” he began, glancing at Maritza for permission to speak.
She dipped her chin. “Say what you need.”
“On this day, we vow to avenge their deaths.” Peasgood and Hyslop spoke together, emotion lacing through the words, drawing consonants and vowels tight within their throats. “On this day, we reaffirm our vows to keep safe the orchards in our trust.”
“There is a song my cousins sang when they were children, and I would like to sing it here, for them.” Peasgood glanced at us, perhaps shy about the offering. “It’s very easy to learn.”
He cleared his throat and bounced a bit, finally singing softly once, then again, a smile lighting his eyes and apple-red rising in his cheeks.
Pomme de reinette
