His eyes widened with excitement. “It was like that! Like I was about to barf.”
“She’s a healer. Her curse would be bodily like that.”
“So it’s not my name?”
“Not the one you’re worried about.” I reached out to touch his shoulder but stopped short, letting my hand hover. Lynx wasn’t big on touching. Neither was I, really. “If you’re worried about a spirit name, Lynx is probably the closest you have. You named yourself, and you did so with purpose and intent to fill it. You were also old enough to know your own nature, but at the same time, you kept an important part of your true nature a secret.”
He tilted his head, thinking, before he finally nodded. “You witches are messed up, but you ain’t dumb. Maybe I’ll change my name in case Lynx is my spirit name.” He smiled then, pleased with anything dealing in subterfuge. He reached up and brushed my shoulder, a whisper of a touch.
Slowly, I echoed the motion on his opposite shoulder, but I let my hand rest there.
We stayed that way long enough for me to mouth his name. I was firmly grounded, and I held it, not imparting my magic on him. If there was a spirit to his name, if there was a perfect fit, it was his to acknowledge and not my business to know.
I stood up and walked out the door, for the first time leaving the place when it wasn’t mine.
I skipped down the porch and realized the railings still contained silver, as did the lock on the door. Lynx knew about it. He could remove it if he wanted. Or leave it and hide his nature from casual observers. He’d like that.
I only looked back once before hurrying to my car.
Driving home wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’d miss my old house, but home had not only become a new place, it had become a new person.
Wherever White Feather was, that was home, and I couldn’t wait to get there.
Chapter 43
We’d never really marked Martin’s grave. Mat hadn’t been able to locate him the night of the ghoul because Gordon twisted his ankle, but what can you expect traipsing foolishly about a canyon on a moonless night?
A headstone wouldn’t be appropriate, but Martin still deserved a gift of some sort to see him through to the other side. An earth gift was the right thing because if anyone could take it across, it would be Martin. Flowers would be a waste of time, and he couldn’t drink beer, although he’d probably love to have home brew dribbled over his grave, just for old time’s sake.
The collection of rock chips I selected would be something he understood. The bits were small enough that no one would notice them. Sugilite would wish him well on his spiritual journey, the turquoise would direct him in his destiny, and the quartz was for him to use as he saw fit. I was careful not to add rose quartz as that was considered a love stone.
When researching what to take, I kept running into the bloodstone again and again.
Ever since Martin’s ghost had appeared, I’d felt guilty about the heliotrope. He had gifted it to Mat and she had gifted it to me, so its strength had only grown. I wasn’t giving him back his heliotrope, but I’d take it along.
It was below freezing the morning we decided to visit his gravesite, so we dawdled over breakfast. Tracy was baking the last of the bricks. The outside of the house was nearly finished. He had promised to help with the drywall and the painting, but he had mentioned twice now that the road was calling.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that was because the earth-baking part of the chores was done. He had an affinity to that, but much of the other stuff would be mundane tasks.
“Maybe we can find a place Tracy would be happy working for a while,” I suggested while sipping my second cup of tea.
“Your dad is already asking around. He’d do well in a quarry.”
“Or maybe hanging around training with Martin,” I said with a sigh. “Martin never fit in with regular society either. Both of them are so talented, but I doubt either one has ever balanced a checkbook.”
“Or gotten caught up in the rat race. Worried about paying bills. Owned a car.”
“Martin owned a trailer and a truck. If we see him today, Mat wants me to ask about it. She’d like to inherit.”
White Feather’s eyebrows rose. “They were related?”
I waved my hand. “Details. We witches don’t care about being an actual relative. And if Martin tells me, I get half.”
“You’re assuming he’ll bequeath it to you. But since no one else has a claim on it—and who would want a trailer full of rocks anyway?”
I laughed. “Exactly. And we could give the truck to Tracy!”
I scooted my chair back and was on the way to rinse my mug when Tracy wandered in our new back door. He was covered in light dust and mud as usual. He never noticed the bits that fell off his boots or the larger chunk of mortar that dropped off the cuff of his jacket.
He stared down at his hand, his large digits wrapped around a chunk of earth. “Came to tell you,” he said. “This petrified rock was in the oven. I didn’t put it there. Black as night.” He held it up for me to examine. Then he flipped it onto his open palm, letting it rest there. The bottom was flat, stable. The top was narrow and curved down into a fanned base. The very tip was pointed, like a beak.
“How do you know it’s petrified rock? It looks like charcoal to me. Maybe some wood burned hot—” Oh right. I forgot who I was talking to. Tracy knew earth.
He handed it to me. “Looks like a raven. For you.”
My mouth dropped open as it landed in my hand. A true fetish wasn’t carved, it was found, a gift from Mother Earth. “The raven is a messenger and a sign of transformation. He represents a change of consciousness.” I laughed. “It’s perfect.”
Tracy nodded, and for a fraction of a second, his eyes skimmed mine. “Figured maybe you needed it. I didn’t think it was part of the house.” Then he turned and went outside.
White Feather came over and inspected the chunk of rock. “Raven.”
“It’s perfect for Martin. I’ll tie a little grain bundle to it.”
White Feather followed me to the lab. “Corn pollen and sage? Or tobacco?”
“Hops. Barley. Wheat and rye.”
“You think he needs to brew his own beer?”
“No. But it was his crutch in life, and he’s transitioned now. We learn and grow by knowing our past. So it seems like the right thing for him.” I tied the little bundle to the fetish using sweet grasses.
“Ah.”
“It might not be exactly right,” I said, frowning over it. “But that’s not the point.”
White Feather nodded, wisely. “Because we don’t know what is on the other side anyway.”
“Exactly.”
It was cold but sunny and actually made for a nicer hike up Tent Rock than in the summer. The switchbacks extorted a price on White Feather’s healing ribs because of the deep breathing, but that gave me an excuse to rest my legs twice.
The wind welcomed us as we came over the cusp, cool breezes against hot skin.
“I thought about making him a fetish from heliotrope, but I didn’t know what to carve,” I told him. “Tracy has some kind of talent to have found or made this raven.”
“A turtle from heliotrope would be the right color.”
“No, turtles are for a long life.”
“Maybe an owl?”
“It’s a little late to warn him of impending doom.”
“Then a medicine bear was definitely out.”
I giggled. “Probably. You know that tune that Tracy hums all the time?”
“He hums?”
“Haven’t you heard him when he works?”
White Feather watched the round stones that were roving eyeballs resting on the tops of the tents. “No. But the breeze is always peaceful around him.”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll sing the tune anyway.” I brushed out a little pocked indentation in the rock near Martin’s resting place and buried the fetish. I mounded it with regular pebbles, blending it with th
e surrounding sand. While I worked, I hummed, keeping it low. Tracy’s sound was more of a vibration, lower than a real voice. It was music, but not really a vocal chord.
I grounded and waited, but Martin didn’t appear.
White Feather roamed about while I was fooling around, but there was still something missing. If White Feather hadn’t heard the tune, then Tracy wasn’t singing it. But if he wasn’t singing it, how did I hear it?
“Maybe Mother Earth is singing to him.” No, it came from Tracy. I sighed and plucked the heliotrope from my pack. There wasn’t any wind left in it, but White Feather could fix that. Before I waved him over, I squeezed the heliotrope and said, “We think we closed off the holes that let the demon spit through. Not before a ghoul formed, but we either shoved it back through or killed it.”
I searched the rocks around me, but none of the shadows moved or spoke.
“Mat and I are searching for your truck. We want to make use of your stones, if you don’t mind. We know a guy who could use your truck, too. His name is Tracy. You’d like him. He’s a bit like you.”
White Feather must have sensed I was almost done because he was suddenly there, his hands on my shoulders. I held the heliotrope up to him.
“You want me to load it with helium again?”
“I guess so.” His wind swirled across my hand and arm, pushing at the stone. Instead of toppling off my palm, the heliotrope absorbed it. I linked to earth automatically.
He felt my hold and fed more wind into the stone. “I wonder how much it can take?”
His voice was a silky whisper as smooth as the breeze across my hand. His eyes met mine, and he didn’t bother to hide the flash of humor and challenge. He wanted to know how much I could take—how much I could control.
Which was stronger, wind or earth? We had combined them, but we hadn’t explored all the boundaries.
White Feather sent a caress along my arms, all electricity.
The stone was smooth, hard and flowing with a breeze. The scent was all White Feather, a mix of forest, shaving cream, and man.
Oh yeah, he knew what he was doing. My skin tingled, and it wasn’t the breeze.
How to reach it? How to use it?
The heliotrope had a heartbeat, much as any part of Mother Earth. Silver was an electrical current for me, a conduit straight to the heart of her, through me, through the air, through anything. The gold on my finger responded much the same way, reaching into the earth and building static that was pure energy.
The heliotrope wanted to absorb, not conduct. The flecks of red jasper seemed larger as though swelling. To use the wind, I needed it to flow.
I squeezed the stone using my left hand, the one with my wedding ring. The gold was already grounded. I knew how to push against earth. This was a case of letting the wind flow through and push against the link.
I shot up so fast, I might have catapulted myself over the side of the cliff had White Feather not caught me in a protective swirl. He spun me gently sideways, his arms spread to funnel the breeze where he wanted it.
I held the stone out and grabbed the wind into it.
His eyes widened at the audacity of stealing the wind magic.
I laughed, but without his steady support, I fell sideways, barely balancing it out with a flash of silver meeting Mother Earth in a pulse. All I really did was release the breeze and use the link to silver to slow myself down.
“This wind thing is not easy to control!”
White Feather didn’t have the same problem. He pulled at the wind stored inside the stone.
“Mine,” I said, curling my fingers around the stone, holding the energy back.
I wasn’t stronger than him in any sense, but he let me play, his eyes laughing at me. “No, I’m pretty sure you are mine.” He focused on the stone and helped his intent with a gust from behind me.
“No fair!” He could create as much of a breeze as he needed, while I was swimming against currents I could barely control.
Closer to him now, I was also close to his silver ring. There was a buffer of air between us, something that wasn’t mine to manipulate, but with the heliotrope between us and silver...I pushed earth against the wind.
It lifted me another foot off the mountain, but I went nowhere. A light breeze touched my lips and danced across the back of my neck, an area that was particularly sensitive. A burst of air tilted me towards him.
“I like this. You’re at my mercy,” he teased.
I could tamp the stone down. Closing the conduit to earth was as natural as closing my fist and not letting the air out.
I shot sideways for no reason that I understood. “Eeep!”
White Feather laughed, the sound echoing across the tents. “You can’t just draw wind, you have to direct it where you need it.” Again, his caress kept me from bouncing off the nearest rock. He set me down slowly, carefully. I was back where I started. When my boots hit the earth, a chunk of rock broke free from over the spot where I had buried Martin’s fetish. I picked it up, turned it over and saw a fossilized shell.
“Martin?” The pebbles I had placed were intact, but the top stone wobbled. I picked it up too. Another fossilized shell, this one tiny.
From over by the edge of the ridge White Feather shouted, “Afraid to try again?”
The sound of his voice ricocheted across the tents, but either my hearing was off or there was an extra word stuck in the backlash. “Concha.”
Shell. The Spanish word for shell was Concha. “Hey! There’s a road called Conchas Trail. Do you want me to look there?”
White Feather wasn’t done teasing me. Or perhaps he didn’t hear me talking to Martin. Perhaps I wasn’t even having a conversation with Martin.
The breeze shifted again and it smelled of White Feather, sand, and magic.
My jacket and shirt suddenly danced up, one side and then the other. I nearly fell over backwards when my shirt stopped drifting and flew up across my face. “Hey!”
He moved fast. Before I could complain of the cold, his hands replaced his wind. His caress was a magic that warmed me from the inside out. He kissed me gently, teasing my lips as he had done with the breeze.
At least this was a magic where I was his equal.
Acknowledgments
Publishing novels has been an interesting road, and I wouldn’t be here without the early support of people like Kevin, Wendie and the dog. Not the snake, but the dog. A special thanks to Dreams for her continued support of all readers—and writers. Dee, Heather, Margaret, Irene, Bo, Janet, Ann, Pat, Tibet, Marlene, Kathe, Sherry (both of you) and the rest of the gang at the Amazon cozy forum—you’ve been bright spots from the very start. Fans like LuvMyKindle, Northern Lights, Burgundy, Marisa and Elisabeth discovered my work and stayed with me for the ride. Thank you for taking the time to get to know me and my work.
A special thanks to April who started as a friend and for some reason, she’s decided not to toss me overboard. I owe her and some other special beta readers for trying to set me straight: Dee, Kathy, Karen Cantwell, Jeff Hepple, and Michelle Scott – thanks. LeAnn, you were spot on with the cover. John Levitt, I can’t believe you were generous enough to take me under your wing. I’m never going to fly like I should, but your timely advice and generosity made a difference in my world.
Big gratitude to my husband because he picks up the slack when the rope is in tangles all over the floor. And no, I don’t know how that knot got there. Ask Junior.
Other Works
Most of my other works are mysteries. The Sedona O’Hala series (Executive Lunch, Executive Retention, Executive Sick Days) is a series of contemporary cozy mysteries: Sedona must solve a few crimes while fighting her way up the corporate ladder; mostly she dangles from her fingertips just trying to survive.
Catch an Honest Thief is a stand alone mystery, combining a stealthy caper in the New Mexico desert with high-tech gadgets. Alexia must try to save her career--and her life.
Dragons of Wendal, a fantasy ad
venture, has a touch of romance. Zoe intends to learn magic, but the mages at the university might not be willing to teach her what she needs to know.
Tracking Magic (Max Killian Investigations), Sage, and Black-Tie Bingo are all adventure-filled anthologies. You might also enjoy Year of the Mountain Lion and Snitched, Snatched, two short stories available in ebook form only.
Visit me at: www.BearMountainBooks.com.
Table of Contents
Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) Page 25
