“I will. I already talked to Logan Dennehy, the new high priest. He’ll work with me. And the reason I came out to talk to you is that I found a place in the woods, someplace Cyril called a nemeton.”
“Shh. Don’t speak that name,” he whistled low and soft, rustling the tree’s branches. “There are too many pricked ears lurking, like those Petersons. Press your ear to the trunk and keep your voice down.”
Larena inched back, lips brushing the bark. “And Sibeal.”
“Her, too? I was hoping the visit she paid you went against my suspicions. As for the spot in the woods, I’ve wondered why you’d not discovered it long before now. With all the trouble afoot lately, I half expected, as Cyril must’ve also, that you’d come upon the sacred grove. Your need must not have been great ’nough till now.”
“Cyril said you can help me get into the…um…sacred grove and that it will strengthen my witchcraft. What do you know about the place?”
“Cyril’s partly right. It’s not at all hard to enter. Anyone can walk right in and face terrors aplenty. What’s hard is to prepare yourself to stay strong, hold to the truth of your witch-knowing, and not let the power zingin’ around there scare the hair off your skin. For if you weaken, its enchantment can scour away every last bit of your magic.”
“Have you been inside?” she whispered.
“Yep. Back near the end of World War II, after I received my draft notice, when High Priest Tabard was set on taking my powers. I’d just married your grandma. Tabard said the inherited magic of forest sage like me was too rare to risk, in the case I might die before starting a family. He used that line of baloney as an excuse to unleash black arts that would strip me bare of witchcraft and give my powers to him instead, for safe-keeping mind you.”
“I’ll bet that was scary. His granddaughter Adara was pure evil and everyone’s glad she’s gone. Did you use the grove to strengthen your magic against the high priest?” Larena asked.
“As a last resort.” Twigs curled on the ironwood’s branches. “Was terrified to lose my magic to either the sacred copse or Tabard and go to war less than whole. But scared shitless what Tabard might do if he got the ways of a tree mystic. I put my self-centered fears aside and clung to concern for the greater good, a desire to protect folks from Tabard. That kept my heart pure and mind clear, so the grove’s magic didn’t destroy me.”
Imagining what horrors Grandpa Henry had endured, Larena hugged the muscular, rippling bark, so much like his courage and bravery. The ironwood row now seemed even more fitting for his home as an empowered spirit. “Did it make your witchcraft stronger?”
“Can’t say for sure, though when I returned home I found Dora waitin’ on me under the shade tree after she’d finished hangin’ the warsh. Her mouth was a twitchy smile, but tears wet her lashes. She had a letter in her hand from the army’s draft office. I ripped open the envelope. Dora wailed but only for a minute. I swept her into my arms and told her my orders had been reversed, no more troops were needed, I wasn’t goin’ to the war. Laughin’ and cryin’ at the same time, she hiccupped the news of her pregnancy with your pa, little Louie.”
“Wow. What a great story.” Larena smiled against the trunk to be sure Grandpa felt it. “How did the grove do that?”
“Still to this day, I don’t know the cause. Could have been from seeing Dora’s sweet face filled with gratitude and later the love your pa brought to us. I like to think the copse twisted my fate so I could do the most good.”
“Do you think it will help me fight to keep our land?” she asked.
“I do, if you keep your heart pure. Focus on the good you intend to do. And I know there’s a lot. You’re a Lockwood.”
Larena winced, remembering how she’d wished vengeance on Reid and the SUV driver idling on the driveway. “Grandpa, could the grove have already taken my magic? I’ve been struggling to do work in the shop that should be easy.” She wedged her fingers into fissures of the trunk. “And I didn’t focus on the good; I wished bad things to happen to Reid Peterson and anyone out to take our property.”
Grandpa lifted a thin branch. “Wrap your hand around here and communicate with me the way you would with a tree. Bein’ in this here ironwood, I’ll hear you if your magic’s workin’.”
Larena clamped her hand around a smooth stretch of the musclewood. After a deep breath to clear her mind, she filled it with images of giving Mom kind and compassionate care, then drifted from that emotion to the respect she always paid to a tree or wood along with a compassionate greeting.
“I honor you in turn, gentle tree sage,” he replied. “You are heard.”
She sighed. “Thank you, Grandpa.”
“You still got your magic, but it’s weaker than I remember. Than it should be. Probably stress, but be careful about plottin’ harm against others. No good will come from that. You can be full of spit and fire, as I know you can be, but channel it to improve yourself. Work harder and better.” He lowered his voice to a murmur, rough with gritty confidence. “That’s the Larena I know, the one who can handle the nemeton.”
That he’d spoken the name of the feared place along with her own, as one who could master it, swelled her confidence. She hugged the trunk and pulled away, ready to make a stronger attempt at fighting to keep the family’s land.
“Hold up.” His branches swayed at her sides. “There’s something you can make. A Troy pendant, to help you temper the horrors.”
“Oh, and Cyril said I needed to stay on the bridge between the visible and invisible to open the magic. What does that mean?”
“It’s a meditative state you must enter. A Troy pendant does just that. You can create a Troy pendant to be worn as a talisman. The classical unicursal labyrinth is pyrographed into a small slice of cured wood. You know the design?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied.
“Good. As you approach the grove, you’ll trace a finger along the labyrinth’s first passage while chantin’ low. Each time you reach a 180-degree turn, you enter a different circuit. That shifts your awareness from right brain to left brain, producin’ an altered state of consciousness. Use one of these ironwood limbs that has spits of my magic.” He lowered a branch. “Here, where the sap tubes are closin’. It’ll dry quicker.”
Larena pulled a trusty pocket knife from her skirt and unfolded the serrated blade. That might cut the narrow branch, only an inch in diameter, since it had already started to dry. In a section away from any secondary joints, she drew the knife across. It barely scratched the musclewood’s tough outer covering. “I need to get a saw from the shop.”
She darted over the lane, let herself in at the service door, grabbed a handsaw she’d sharpened that week, and returned.
“Ironwood’s the devil to cut,” Grandpa said. “I’ll push with you on the saw’s tines.”
After more than a hundred strokes later, Larena held the half-inch thick slice with her aching arm and panted, “Did you make a Troy pendant? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to use it? This is going to be a bear to finish.”
“I did, but mine won’t work for you. You need to keep the mindset we spoke about for it to work right. Mine’s in the safe, in a small black bag. Use it as a reference for your design, then return it there. It’s a powerful tool, and so will yours be. Don’t let ’em fall into the wrong hands.”
“I won’t.” Larena closed her fingers around the slice to remember the necessary protection. “Cyril said his matriarch trees tell of other sacred areas similar to one past the top of our hill. And that once you get into one, they all open to you. Is that true?”
“As King of the Hollow, he likely knows more than me. I never had time to venture far but did come upon a couple others, though small and fleetin’, seemed to disappear quick. Though each encounter did give me insightful new ways to use my tree mysticism.”
“Thank you, Grandpa.” She patted the limb’s cut end. “I hope I can get it to work for me.”
“Run on along and get that wo
od to curin’ so my magic stays in it.” He called after her as she crossed the lane, “Remember, keep your hot head in the right place.”
Larena allowed his words to sink in. No doubt that would be the hardest step in her process of using the nemeton. Back in the shop, she switched on the workroom lights and headed directly for the office safe, a thirty-inch grey metal cube littered with stacks of client folders. She unlocked the door and looked through files and parcels without any luck. On hands and knees, she rummaged into the back corners. Feeling for cloth pouches, she found two and laid them on her desk.
A worn black velvet bag covered a small wooden chest that contained Grandpa’s Ogham staves brought from his Ireland home. She’d learned to read the Ogham, although his set, made from Irish and British trees, often confused her. While he lived, he knew their idiosyncrasies and easily interpreted their meanings to help with all sorts of decisions. Could he still? She and Dad had begun a project of gathering sticks from area trees to make a more useful local set. Sadly, he died before they finished. Winter would make completing the search challenging, but Larena could use the divination tool to better understand the elusive and dangerous nemeton. Maybe how to outsmart Sibeal and the Petersons as well.
The second and smaller pouch, of black cotton, held the Troy pendant, just as Grandpa described. Its magic warmed her palm, hopefully a good sign. His wood-burned labyrinth would serve as a good example. She replaced both bags into the safe and secured the door.
In the workroom, Larena located the shoebox of local Ogham sticks, incomplete and not yet finished into divination staves. She needed to spend time on that project also. According to the wall clock, she’d been gone from the house almost thirty minutes. She didn’t dare be away from Mom any longer.
Larena found the necessary supplies to start her own pendant: denatured alcohol and a small plastic container. She placed the ironwood disc inside and covered it with alcohol. Overnight would do to cure for fresh wood cuts. While the ironwood seemed a bit dry, the incredible density confused her estimations. She’d be up late working on trinkets to sell at the market and could check periodically. However, Mom only slept peacefully after meals. Larena lidded the container, scooped up the shoe box of local tree sticks, and took both with her as she made her way back to the farmhouse.
While stepping carefully around icy patches on the back sidewalk, a glint of light caught the corner of her eye. A flashlight beam swept down, refracting in the ice-covered stream and the frost-crusted grass of the backyard, from a position high on the valley’s rim. From near the nemeton.
Chapter Eight: Desperation
Reid pulled his black Silverado, streaked with white road salt, to the drive-thru window and collected his burger meal. Bothered by the enigma of Larena Lockwood, he’d squandered his usual dinnertime sifting through files at Peterson Corp. His results: a growling stomach and a heap of frustration. He discovered the company hadn’t dealt with Lockwoods’ Antiques and Collectibles before. He’d hoped the Kilfoyle farm’s records had been moved to the main office once Peterson Corp. took over after Uncle Clem died. Not the case. Those files might show previous transactions with the neighboring coven antique and woodworking business he could use to negotiate a future deal with Larena. Reid needed to find an angle and fast.
As he turned toward home, he smacked a palm against the steering wheel. Getting Larena to sell should be quick and easy. A done deal. It wasn’t. His usual charm only provoked her.
While his father wanted the contract signed by year-end, Reid now had his own personal deadline looming. That afternoon he received an offer from Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, the dream job he’d trained for. He didn’t plan to spend his life poking around with little-shit work at the family business. The new job began January fifth, less than a month away. In addition to tying up work here, he wanted time to relocate to an apartment in the New York City financial district, the heart of everything. He couldn’t wait to feel the electricity of that area. The burger bag sitting on his passenger seat wasn’t how he expected to celebrate the offer.
Reid parked and eyed his apartment building. How he loathed the place. He could easily have afforded a nicer place, even a house, but couldn’t bring himself to put down roots. He’d intended from the start that working for Lloyd would be temporary. No need to muddle that goal.
Reid checked the manager’s area. No lights. Tomorrow morning he’d have the satisfaction of giving notice of his intent to move out. Finally.
He snatched his dinner bag and headed inside. Shedding his leather jacket, he imagined peeling away obligations to this hick burg. Tonight, he could look for New York apartments online. Better than worrying about the unsigned contract, not to mention the way his skin tingled with a strange nervousness while inside the witches’ antique shop. And about Larena and the fine chin she lifted high and the defiant glare from those green eyes smoldering with hazel embers that burned through him. Her tenacity rivaled his own. He hated to be outdone, but at the same time, admired her resolve. What had stoked that fire in her? She seemed desperate.
And so did his brother Ben, but why? Reid sighed. Maybe we’re all desperate. I sure want out of Indiana in the worst way.
He wolfed down his burger and fries, but the meal dropped like a rock into his gut where unresolved issues still gnawed. After a few gulps of watered-down pop, he pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket and dialed his brother. No answer, as he’d come to expect during the past year or two. Reid called Ben’s wife Melissa, something he rarely did. Engaging the ice queen was a last resort—but deadlines approached.
She answered with a sharp, harried tone, then once he said hello, she spoke away from the phone before addressing Reid. “Bella, I told you to not take your sister’s toys unless you ask first. Sorry, Reid. It’s been a hard day. What can I do for you?”
“I was looking for Ben. Is he home?”
“Nope. He called and said he’d be back late.” She sounded tired, her voice rimmed with tension.
“Any idea when?” Reid asked. “He didn’t answer his cell.”
“No, he’s been working late a lot.” Her tone fell to a quavering whisper, unlike her usual confident glibness. “When I ask, he doesn’t explain. Do you know what he’s doing? I mean, I trust him, but I’m worried. He barely sleeps, even when he is home.”
Reid wadded his burger wrapper. “I wish I did. He’s been short with everyone at work, too. Driven to take on more jobs, earn more. I figured it was the strain of expenses with the girls getting older.”
“I want to keep them in dance and gymnastics, so, yeah, there’s more bills. I’ve gone back to work part-time at the accounting office on the days Bella’s in kindergarten and Sarah’s in preschool. And I’ve cut back on spending, but I guess that doesn’t cover it all. Seems like it should. Ben assured me everything is okay, but lately I don’t know.” Her voice caught.
She hesitated for several seconds before continuing, speaking in starts and unusually candid. “I want the best for our girls, but not like this. The way he’s acting, so much time away from home and how he can’t relax. I…I don’t know what to do. God, I regret heaping debt on us during the last few years, if it caused this. I’m doing my best to help now. Seems like too little, too late.” What sounded like a sob muffled her words. “I really don’t want to think he’s having an affair but I’m desperate. Maybe we need to try counseling. Have you heard any rumors? Is Ben having an affair?”
“Geez, no. I haven’t heard anything. I can’t imagine…” Unaccustomed to an outpouring of emotion from Melissa, Reid’s dinner, lodged as an indigestible lump, fragmented and pummeled the walls of his stomach. During the past six years, he’d only known her as Ben’s egocentric, high-maintenance wife. The genuine distress in her voice agitated Reid’s stomach. The situation with his brother was worse than he expected. “During the past couple years, he’s become pretty guarded. I’m hoping with the latest project we’re doing together, things will change. I’ll let you know
soon, since we’ve got to finish because I—”
“Thanks, Reid. I appreciate your help.” She cut him off and had every right. Why did he think she’d be interested in hearing about his deadlines, his future? She had more than enough to deal with.
They ended their conversation, leaving him with more questions than answers. What had happened to make his fun-loving brother so fixated and irritable? Reid hissed out a breath. He wanted to help Ben sort out his troubles but hoped that could be accomplished on the established schedule. The Lockwood deal had to culminate with them in face to face competition and in time for Reid to honor the Goldman Sachs offer.
Hopeful that everything would work out, he ventured to his desk and laptop. The email that would change his life beamed from his inbox. He opened it and printed the contract. While twisting to reach for the pages, his other hand grasped the desk edge, then immediately recoiled. He flinched and examined his palm, still prickling with whatever set off the reflex. What the heck? No obvious splinters. The oak desktop ended in an unbroken rounded lip. His skin stung and he flicked on the desk lamp. An inflamed line raised across the underside of his knuckles. He rubbed the area.
The irritation triggered a connection to how he’d felt at Lockwoods’ Antiques earlier. The old desk had come from Uncle Clem when Reid set up his apartment. Could the piece have been made by the Lockwoods? With their magic somehow acting against him now that he wanted to take control of their land? Was that possible?
I don’t have time for this strange shit. He signed the contract pages and sent the document back to Goldman Sachs.
***
Reid rushed into Peterson Corp., coffee mug in hand, surprised to see his father’s secretary already at her desk at seven o’clock. “Hey, Rose. Didn’t see your car in the lot.”
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