“I think Casa Calliope is about to get a bunkhouse.”
“I don’t want to sleep in a bunkhouse,” he said, affecting a shudder. “What’s a guy got to do to sleep in the house?”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Shower, shave, and brush your teeth, for starters.”
“I’m on it.” Tanner shot me a tentative grin and loped to the house and up the porch stairs. I wanted to latch on to this easy-going, playful version of him, but when we’d parted ways at the Pearmains’, I wasn’t at all clear about what would happen the next time we met. I still wasn’t.
“I have class today starting at twelve,” I said to Wes. “If you need anything, I’ll be in my room.”
“Expecting any other visitors?” he asked.
“No, but not expecting visitors doesn’t appear to mean much around here.”
Wes laughed and returned to his clipboard and the pile of lumber. I took a long inhale as I passed the newly stacked two-by-fours. They smelled of possibilities and fresh starts.
Christoph was in the kitchen, aproned and at work.
I slid onto a stool to fill him in on my day. “I let Wes know I have my first video class today, noon until six or so. I’ll be in my bedroom. Come find me if you need anything.”
“What’s the topic?” he asked. My grandfather was getting to know my kitchen, judging by the ease with which he was sorting bowls and ingredients.
“Blood,” I answered. “I think the official title is something like How to Use Blood in Spellwork.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Very much a witch thing. And shamans.”
I leaned my belly into the counter’s edge and planted my elbows. “The night of my party, before you flew down off the roof, Meribah said her blood was in the wards protecting the house, which was one of the reasons they split apart for her so easily.”
“I’m listening,” he said, cracking eggs and separating the whites into a stainless steel bowl and the yolks into a glass container.
“My house talked to me last night.”
He cracked the fourth egg. “Was that the first time?”
I shook my head. “House showed me a couple of images too. The first one communicated very clearly she will not approve any alterations to her underlying structure. A bunkhouse is fine. Lots of guests are fine. But no messing with her bones.”
“Duly noted. What else?”
“Meribah’s blood is also in the root cellar.”
“How did it get there?”
“I have no idea, but I need to know,” I said. He handed the metal bowl and a whisk to me, and I beat the egg whites while I continued. “You can’t imagine all the places my mind has gone, wondering if Meribah knew my mother or my aunt or had anything to do with Mom’s death.”
Bringing egg whites to stiff peaks was a good way channel the frustration that had been building over the many unanswered questions roiling in my head.
“Let me help you,” Christoph said, gently prying the whisk from my grip. He peeked into the bowl, declared my job done, and folded the egg whites into the waffle batter. “Do you have a plan?”
“At work, I take soil samples. Lots and lots of soil samples. I’m going to do the same thing in the cellar: map out a grid, take samples, label where I got them, and get them tested.”
Christoph nodded while deftly pouring batter into the waffle iron. “And your class, what time does it start?”
“Noon.”
“You better grab breakfast and get going,” he said. “You don’t want to be late for your first day of school.”
My water bottle and a cereal bowl of yogurt and granola to my left, my laptop front and center, and plenty of pens and paper to my right. I was ready to listen and take notes. I signed into the class without a hitch and said hello to the other witches-in-training. I didn’t recognize the woman greeting everyone as their avatars arrived at the virtual classroom, but a flutter of excitement had me clapping in front of the screen when L’Runa was announced as our instructor for this module.
L’Runa had helped Rose lead my ritual of initiation and performed the same role at my Blood Ceremony. Intuition told me she knew about blood.
The statuesque witch came into view, her brown skin radiantly lit and her mass of matted white braids hanging to her shoulders, upper and lower arms. Shelves rose behind her, stacked with feathers, large crystals, and an array of dolls that seemed created for ritual purposes, not hugging. When L’Runa lifted her head, opened her eyes, and smiled at the camera, there was warmth and depth in the pale blue.
“Welcome to your first lecture on the uses of Blood in Spellwork. My name is L’Runa, and I will be your lecturer today.” She closed her eyes briefly then opened them again. “We have a lot of information to cover. Let’s begin.
“Blood is vital to life, whether you are human, animal, mammal, Magical, or any combination thereof. Our blood carries our DNA, our ancestry, and our stories. Our blood also carries clues to our magic. It is those clues you are going to hear about, and it those clues that will form the basis for your blood-based spellwork.
“Every piece of information you can glean from a Being’s blood is information you can use to help sustain and enrich their life. Conversely, every piece of information you can glean from a Being’s blood is information you can use to help end their life. I’m going to let that sink in for a moment.”
L’Runa closed her eyes and pressed her hands onto the surface of her desk. The ghost of a smile wafted across her face.
“One of my missions is to assist you with understanding that when we deny that darkness exists alongside light, we deny our capacity both for wrongdoing and for redemption. I know those are heavy things to
