by Coralie Moss
What I wanted was to hear everything, now. What I needed was to check in with my sons, Leilani, and Sallie and go to sleep. I was down to one cylinder, and that cylinder wasn’t going to last much longer.
“Tomorrow,” I said, filing away seal skin, flippers, and my father’s amorous proclivities.
I took the stairs. My thumbs throbbed under the snug metal bands, and my legs were leaden. Sleep tried its best to catch me by the ankles and hustle me off to bed. Any bed. Under the steeply pitched walls of the second floor, low voices sounded behind the door to Harper’s room. I knocked.
“Mom? Is that you?”
Chamomile and other herbs greeted my nose when I turned the knob. The lone ceramic lamp shone softly from the floor, next to a tray of emptied mugs. Harper and Leilani spooned together on his single bed, and Rowan sat cross-legged on the braided oval rug. Next to her, Thatcher had his arm around his cousin’s shoulders. Sallie’s mascara and eyeliner were a mess.
“Hey.” I switched into comforting mom-mode as I dropped onto the open spot next to Rowan. “How’re you all holding up?”
I caught a glimpse of Sallie’s haunted eyes before she buried her face in Thatch’s chest.
He patted her hair, his touch gentle but awkward as he looked over at me, shook his head, and silently mouthed, “Not now.”
“I need to bake something,” Leilani whispered, “but I know it’s too late. I just wish Papa would text me.” She lifted her forearm, her cell phone clutched in her hand. “I feel like he and Dad should have gotten home by now and…” Her eyes widened as she looked over at Sallie and cut off the rest of the sentence.
Sallie’s parents had kidnapped Cliff and Abi’s grandsons. Leilani’s father was the Enforcer who had taken Josiah and Garnet Flechette—Sallie’s parents—into custody. As the Enforcer, he would also mete out their punishment.
“I’m so sorry.” Leilani’s whisper was barely audible.
“I made a tea I hoped would help ease them all into sleep,” said Rowan, pulling her glasses off her face. She pinched the lenses between a fold in her shirt and rubbed slow circles. “Maybe we could turn off the lights and all go to bed now. Sun’s going to rise in about three hours.”
I nodded my agreement. “Sallie, where do you want to sleep?”
Harper’s deepening voice emerged from behind Lei-li’s shoulder. “The four of us are sleeping in here, Mom.” He lifted his head, his eyes unreadable behind half-closed lids. “Thatch’s gonna pull in his mattress. We’re giving the girls our beds. We’ll use our camping pads.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” I wanted to respect their wishes. Plus, the teens would draw comfort from being together. “There are new toothbrushes in your bathroom, same shelf as the washcloths.”
Rowan put her glasses back on, rolled onto her hands and knees, and stood. “I’ll be downstairs,” she said, “if any of you feel like you need medical care or want to talk.”
She stroked the top of my head, inviting me to lean against the side of her leg. Her fingertips sent pale green tendrils curling around my vertebrae and down my spine, creating a conduit to the bones of my house and the nourishing soil below.
I was wrapped in on myself so tight I didn’t realize I’d pulled up my roots. No wonder I drank in the physical connection for the few seconds it was offered.
Rowan’s hand left my head when she shifted and bent over to pick up the tray. “Do you know where the guys plan to sleep?”
I squeezed the hand Thatch offered before he returned to rocking Sallie. “They’ll likely be up all night, working on the wards. And I don’t know what Christoph’s sleeping preferences are.”
“Can I bunk with you?”
“You can have the futon in my office. I’ll let the guys know they can divvy up the couches.”
Ro stepped through the doorway before me.
“Goodnight, kiddos,” I said, unfolding my legs and blowing tired kisses into the room. “I love you all. We’re downstairs if you need anything.”
Closing the door behind me, I had to stop and let the stutter in my heart right itself.
“Are you okay?” Rowan paused, balancing the tray holding the teapot and mugs.
“Everything is in its own little compartment,” I answered. “I’m worried about what will happen with Tanner when he finds the Apple Witch, and I’m really worried about Abi and Cliff.” I hoped the Apple Witch had transported the older couple to their farmhouse and waited with them until River, Rose, and Belle had arrived. The radio silence from my friends frayed the hem of my patience.
“I’m concerned that Mal and James haven’t called. I hope the Enforcer wields as much power as I think he does.” Rowan led the way down the hall to the stairs. Once she left the tray on the kitchen counter, she pulled out her phone. “I’ll text Lei-li and ask her to let us know if she hears anything.”
Watching Rowan calmed me. I was capable of handling a lot, as the upheavals of the previous weeks had shown. Having a capable friend at my side was a relief. And while the support and security the crew of druids provided was invaluable, I was equally desirous of pulling the power of the witches around me as I learned to call upon my magic.
The magic was there. Its latency was frustrating.
Christoph walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. His wings were snugged tight against his back. I had a moment of wallowing in awe at the beauty of his feathers. Gyrfalcons populated the more northerly provinces. I never imagined I would see one up close, let alone call one of the magnificent raptors family.
I shook my head. “Christoph?”
He spun, one hand on the door handle, the other holding a package of sausage. “These aren’t meat,” he said, surprise lifting his eyebrows.
“We’re vegetarians,” I explained, “and those are delicious.”
Harrumphing, he returned to examining the label. “I’m hungry, and I don’t feel like hunting right now.”
Rowan elbowed my ribs and grinned before she headed into the living room to stand beside Wes. She snugged close, her wavy red hair mingling with his.
A disappointed sigh reminded me there was a hungry bird rooting around in my kitchen. “Feel free to eat whatever you find,” I said. “I’m not sure where to put you, but…”
“I’ll sleep outside.” Christoph closed the refrigerator door, filled a glass from the tap at the sink, and drank. His wings drooped a fraction as his shoulders sagged. “I find myself rather tired.”
“We had a giant bat visit recently. They seemed to think the fir trees in the backyard were a nifty place to roost.”
He turned and smiled. “Then perhaps I shall have company tonight, though they are nocturnal and I’ve always found bats to be a bit on the chatty side.”
I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. My grandfather was a freaking bird complaining about the social skills of bats. “If you can’t get to sleep out there, come inside. Or sleep on the back porch. There’s a big swing, which might accommodate your wings.”
I surprised myself and him by circling my arms around his waist in a quick hug.
“Calliope.” Kaz put down the stick he was carving. I had to hold the edge of the table and deliberately widen my eyes. Sleep was getting impatient with my detours. “With your permission, we’ll add more runes to the ones we placed a few days ago. Wes and I’ll have to shift to get the sticks into places we can’t reach like this.” He swept his arm down the front of his compact body. “Once that’s done, we can connect them into a continuous ward. One thing has me very concerned though.” He faced me full on while scratching at the back of his neck. “Tanner mentioned there might be a portal on your property.”
Oh. That woke me up. I pressed my fingertips against the pouch resting below my sternum. “We were going to talk about the portal.” And celebrate my Blood Ceremony and sleep in the same bed. “But then the shit hit the fan and now Tanner’s trying to find the Apple Witch and Cliff and Abi, and I have no idea when he’ll be back.”
“What’s a portal look like?” I asked. “And why would having one on the property be a problem?”
“Most portals in this realm are connected to specific trees, Calliope. We can also create single-use portal facilitators.” Kaz studied his hands before turning his attention fully to me. “Our concern is there’s a dormant portal here that could be activated by anyone, friend or foe.”
I could think of a half-dozen Magical beings I did not want to see popping out of my trees.
“Do you know when this house was built?” Kaz asked. “And how long have you owned the property?”
“Early nineteen-sixties?” I guessed, trying to prod my brain into doing quick math. “I have no idea if my aunt bought the house or built it. I’d have to ask my cousins—or look at the records. I’ve owned the house a little over two years.”
“Are there places on the property that call to you?” Wes asked.
“Oh, yes, definitely.” I was completely unsuccessful at stifling a yawn. My eyes teared up. “The garden, mostly.”
“We’ll have a look,” Kaz assured me. “You need to sleep. Go to bed. We’ve got this.”
I gave a half-hearted wave. Christoph wasn’t in the kitchen, and the door to my bedroom was open, warm yellow light spilling onto the maple flooring in the hall. I brushed my teeth, eyes closed, peed, and peeled my jeans over my hips. Leaving the pants where they dropped, I discarded my smelly T-shirt and stepped under the shower head, letting hot water and silky soap bubbles wash away the dirt and dried blood.
Toweled off, wearing nothing but clean underwear, I knocked my shins against my bed’s frame. When I lifted the top sheet, I smelled Tanner. He’d been the last one to sleep here, due to the injury to his knee had sustained in the fight with my ex, the same fight that first brought Officer Jack to the house. Well, to the end of the driveway.
Closing my eyes, I burrowed my nose into the pillow and inhaled, letting scent threads of mint, sunshine, and ripening apples anchor me to the memories of the man I desperately missed.
* * *
When I awoke around five, all I could see were rumpled folds of breath-warmed bedding in front of my face. My ears tuned into a distant disturbance. Through a process of deduction, I figured out the knocking was coming from the front door.
I flipped to my other side and pushed upright. My toes curled off the cool floor, and the floorboards stayed silent as I crept to my closet and pulled on a camisole top and a pair of pajama bottoms. Tiptoeing across the hall, I peeked into my office. Rowan’s curvy body was a quiet landscape of hills and dales, her breathing steady and deep. I backed out and released the knob.
As soon as I reached the end of the hall, I balked.
Tanner stood on the other side of the closed kitchen doors, one elbow pressed against the screen to prop himself upright. Behind him, the morning’s tangerine sky burned into blue.
“Tanner?” I stepped closer, unlocked and opened the door, and gasped. The skin on his arms and chest was streaked with dried mud and other substances, and the look in his eyes told me he wasn’t altogether there.
“Calliope, I…”
“Shower first. Talk later,” I whispered, tugging at his arm. “Can you walk?”
He nodded and followed behind me, his footfalls slurring like he was coming off a bender. I sat him on the toilet seat, pushed the stiff rubber plug into the bathtub drain, and opened the taps.
“Don’t move,” I said. “I’m getting you something to drink.”
A cursory glance around the downstairs showed an untouched stack of bedding on one end of the couch and an empty living room. The sliding glass door to the back porch was closed. Either the druidic duo were in the woods, or they’d chosen to sleep outside with Christoph and whatever other wild critters roamed the property at night.
Hurrying to the bathroom, I opened the door as Tanner was inches away from face planting against the side of the sink. I grabbed the front of his rumpled button-down shirt and got him to lean into me. Exhaustion dug creases into the corners of his eyes and dulled their usual topaz glow.
“Drink,” I said, coaxing him to lean back.
He drained the glass of orange juice and stared at the empty container as if willing it to refill. Or maybe he was mystified by its appearance. Tanner’s skin was cool, almost cold, where it touched mine. The druid needed to get in the water, fast. Keeping one hand securely wrapped above his elbow, I tested the temperature of the bath.
“Help me get this off,” he said, picking at his shirt. I unfastened the only three buttons attached to the placket and sniffed.
Dirt, crushed plant matter and honey? “Where the heck have you been?”
Tanner didn’t acknowledge my question, didn’t seem inclined to answer. He stood, silent and swaying, and fumbled with the button of his once-white, now trashed jeans. I gave him room to unzip, noticed he wasn’t wearing underwear, and tugged the muddied and ripped pants down his legs when he couldn’t seem to manage getting them past his thighs.
“C’mon, big guy, we can do this,” I said, wiggling the waistband to his knees then lower. I grabbed one of his calves and lifted. Tanner wobbled against the edge of the sink and grunted.
I had never seen him fully naked. His entire body—torso, arms, and legs—was marked with scratches of differing depths and widths. His tattoo, a sepia-toned tree which began on the right side of his sacrum and continued down the back of his thigh, knee, and calf, looked intact, as did the seed-shaped nubs scattered throughout the tree’s leaves and branches.
What confused me were the patches of unblemished skin on his shoulders and arms and elsewhere. The patches mirrored one another, as though placed deliberately, like armor a warrior would put on ahead of attack.
And Tanner’s body showed signs of having been attacked.
I blew out a hard breath. He fumbled for a handhold as he entered the tub and lowered himself to sitting.
“What happened to you?” I asked, afraid to touch the raw spots.
He rested his elbows on his knees and cupped his face in his hands. “I found her,” he muttered. “I found her, and she took me.”
“She” was probably the Apple Witch, and if she could travel through trees to speak to me, it wasn’t a big leap to imagine she could take others with her. “She took you where?”
Tanner shook his head, kept his hands on his face. “She took me, Calli.”
Chapter 3
Last night’s anger at the Apple Witch reignited into rage. She’d done something to hurt Tanner, but me threatening her bodily harm was no help to him. I honed in on the flecks of bark and pale lichen scattered through his hair. His breathing wasn’t steady, and every few breaths his entire body shook. Bumps pebbled the surface of the arm closest to me.
“Let me heat this up.” I turned the faucet and used my free hand to stir the incoming hot water around his legs and the backside of his body. “Is that better?”
Tanner slid his fingers from his temples over the back of his skull, squeezed, and murmured a barely audible mm-hmm.
“May I touch you?” I didn’t want to assume anything. I had an idea what he meant when he’d emphasized the Apple Witch had taken him. It seemed only right to ask his permission before continuing.
“Yes. Please.” Tanner began to relax out of his hunched over position. I handed him a washcloth, offering him the option of covering up. He stared then dropped it into the water. The grey-and white-striped square expanded as the cloth became saturated. “It wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking, Calli.” Settling his back against the curved porcelain, he groaned, gripped the edges of the tub, and shifted his head so I couldn’t see much of his face. “You know she and I were lovers.”
“Recently?” I had to focus on his earlobe to keep my gaze from wandering over the front of his body and downward. He let his arms sink below the surface of the water. His ha
nds came to rest between his thighs. I took the floating washcloth and wrang out warm water over each of his knees. Grabbing a couple more cloths from the shelf, I waited as they absorbed the heated water before placing them across his upper chest and shoulders
“Not, not for years. Our paths diverged. I moved to Canada. She went… I don’t know where she went, but when she came back, she was changed, like something in her had twisted. She spent more and more time in her tree form. Even her mother noticed.”
Silence, punctuated by water dripping from the faucet, mingled with steam and rose toward the tongue-and-groove paneling of the tub surround and ceiling. The robin’s egg-blue paint matched the ceiling of my grandparent’s porch in Maine.
“Jessamyne thinks I carry seeds with me,” Tanner said, his gaze and voice woozy. “Seeds that yield trees capable of bearing the Apples of Immortality when cultivated under the right conditions.”
“Is Jessamyne the Apple Witch and…” How to ask this delicately… “You mean seeds as in sperm, your sperm?
“Yes. Jessamyne’s the Apple Witch. And yes, she’s right, I do carry the sacred seeds. But she’s completely misguided about where they’re stored and how to get them out of me.” He rolled his head against the back of the tub and stared at my throat.
My fingers stroked the braided leather thrumming against my collarbones and the back of my neck.
“Now you carry the seeds too.” He lifted his hand and rolled enough that he could run a dripping finger over the cords. “I’ll take the necklace from you once Abi and Cliff are safe. I have to deal with Jessa in the daylight. With my clothes on. Hopefully with help.” Tanner pressed his chin toward his chest and curled forward. Water, streaming off his skin, turned him into a sea creature rising reluctantly from the liquid depths. “Do you see the tree?”
“The one tattooed on your buttock and down your leg? That one?”
“Run your hand over the top of the design.”
The heat of the water had added a red flush to the slightly lighter skin color of his butt. I had been curious about the tiny raised bumps since I’d first seen them. Under the pads of my fingertips, the bumps felt like…
