by Rachel James
“The circle keeps unwanted energy out, and protects you so you can open yourself up psychically,” Brianna added, rising and moving off to their right.
“So you’re looking for energy,” Tommy replied, nodding.
Devlin moved to his left, continuing to study the ground.
“In the physical world, there are four informal laws of ecology.”
“Laws of energy,” Brianna called back.
Devlin frowned at her interruption.
“Brianna likes the word ‘energy’ so we’ll use it. Law Number One: ‘Everything is connected to Everything.’ When you enter a Sacred Circle, you awaken that eternal connection within yourself. That ultimately reveals your place in the web of existence.”
“I get it,” Tommy responded. “The belief that man is not the web of life, only a strand in it.”
“Good analogy,” Devlin complimented as Brianna rejoined them.
“I wonder if any of the congregation has been taking classes in creating Sacred Circles,” she stated. “It’s the one question I forgot to ask Rufus last night.”
Devlin wondered why they had left such a crucial piece of evidence out of their thinking. That should’ve been the most important question to have asked. Breaking the developing silence, Tommy spoke up.
“Why is that answer so important?”
“Law Number Two,” Devlin answered, shifting left, and wiping beads of sweat from his brow. “‘Everything must go somewhere.’” He swept his hand through the air, testing it. “Energy is in constant motion, but it cannot be exerted in one direction indefinitely or it begins to deteriorate.”
“Balance is essential.” Brianna supplied, moving off around them, this time to their left. Devlin dropped to his haunches, tracing his fingers along the edge of the border.
“When you raise energy during a ritual, you send it out to complete its purpose, and then you ground any energy that may be left over.”
“Which means?” Tommy asked, dropping beside him.
“If you sense negative energy around you, rather than deflecting it back to where it came from, which could be from anywhere, you send it to the ground where the earth can neutralize it. The idea is to prevent it from bouncing around and causing harm—which leads us to Law Number Three.”
“‘Nature knows best.’” Brianna supplied, tracing the other side of the circle.
Devlin peered at Tommy, who was removing his hankie again, and mopping his brow with it.
“The wealth of knowledge that nature knows is so vast that we humans can’t even begin to wrap our minds around it.”
“It’s why we must learn the valuable lesson of ‘going with the flow,’” Brianna added, rejoining them and dropping to her knees. “It’s about letting nature take its course.” Devlin saw her gaze switch between the outer and inner rims of the circle as Tommy dropped beside her.
“And Law Number Four?”
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,’” Brianna stated, rising again and moving away.
Devlin dropped beside Tommy. He lifted a mound of dirt and let it run through his fingers.
“It takes energy to raise energy. You cannot receive without giving. During her ritual—if Sienna made it into the ritual, that is—she would’ve expended a lot of energy in order to complete any spell she was performing. She would’ve also had to replenish what she lost by tapping into the universal supply before closing the circle.”
“You’ve lost me,” Tommy declared, studying the lifeless form in the circle.
“Every ritual done in the circle has a set structure,” Brianna replied, dropping alongside Tommy again. “The circle’s opened and it’s closed. Creatures called the Guardians of the Watch Tower are called in, and then sent away—politely sent away, of course. Always there is balance. Give and take.”
Devlin continued the reasoning.
“Now, we’ve been told Sienna was performing a ritual called Drawing down the Moon which is one of the most powerful give and takes there is. The energy level raised would have been immense, particularly for a High Priestess. And, if she collapsed before finishing the ritual . . .”
“Which unfortunately seems to be more and more likely . . .” Brianna offered, rising and stepping away from the pair. Tommy exchanged a glance with Devlin, who ignored Brianna’s retreating figure and finished his sentence.
“It’s a safe bet that the circle is still open in some way.”
“So Mrs. Sage’s body cannot be retrieved without it becoming a major undertaking?”
Devlin clambered to his feet, dusting off his hands, and wondering how to answer Tommy’s question. There was no sure proof that the circle was still open, yet there was no proof that it was closed either. So it became a stalemate.
“The energy sickness invading the commune would indicate the circle’s still open,” he finally stated.
“How much worse could it get?”
“If the leak is as tiny as a pinhole, the illness could keep the members down for months.”
“Jesus! All that from a circle on the ground?”
“It’s not just any circle. And Sienna isn’t your average Coven Elder. She is a High Priestess who has worked Sacred Circles for at least three decades, which means her channeling of energy is an awesome thing to behold.”
Devlin saw a disapproving look cross Tommy’s face as he re-pocketed his handkerchief.
“So what you’re saying is, there is no way for anybody to do anything unless you go inside the circle first and neutralize it.”
“I’m afraid so,” Brianna stated, rejoining them again. She gave a huge sigh. “Let’s go give Rufus our thoughts. And let’s hope that Francis has what it takes to cleanse the circle, because without a miracle, this calamity is going to go from worse to catastrophic.”
“Amen,” Devlin agreed, taking Brianna’s elbow and spinning her around. Side by the side, the trio began a slow, depressing exit from the clearing and up the incline.
Reaching the crest of the ridge, Devlin turned and surveyed the circle one last time. Francis had better have the skills to back up his position as First Elder, because if he didn’t, there was only one person he knew of that had the power to retrieve Sienna’s body. And he wasn’t about to let her put her life in jeopardy—not when she had just finished promising to love, honor, and obey him for the rest of her life.
CHAPTER TEN
THE REVELATION
“Rrr-oww”.
The cat’s body exploded onto the path in front of Brianna, and the group came to a sudden halt, drawing back at the frenzied hissing of the animal.
“What now?” Tommy asked.
Brianna heard a fierce scoff.
“The damn creature has lost its mind.”
Brianna shivered at the words, wondering why she wasn’t agreeing with Devlin’s assessment. After all, the cat’s behavior was bordering on the psychotic.
“Rrr-rroow.”
The cry was tortured, yet Brianna sensed there was a different meaning to the cry. What was the creature trying to relay to them? That they must not leave the clearing? She bent down and addressed the cat, whose tail was now swishing angrily. He spewed out a series of low growls.
“Alright, big guy, we’re listening,” Brianna stated.
The cat halted its pacing and shot up the incline, braking to a halt at the top of the ridge and looking back at her.
“Rrr-roow.”
“What’s he saying?” Tommy asked, moving to Brianna’s side. “He appears to be talking to you. What did we miss back there?”
Brianna clutched Tommy’s sleeve.
“You sensed that too?” She charged back up the incline and joined the cat. “Alright, big guy, I get the message. You need me to look at things from up here instead of down there. But what am I looking for?”
“RRR-owww.”
Brianna did a complete spin, scanning all sides of the clearing and back the way she had come. Nothing out of place . . . only their discarded duffels. She
let her gaze travel on to the circle and its boundaries.
“Merciful heavens!”
She took off rapidly, slipping and sliding down the rise, ignoring the worried shouts from behind her. She hit the bottom of the hill, landing on her rump and gouging the palm of her hand as she reached out to stop her fall. A second later, two pairs of hands hauled her up from the sliding shale, and set her roughly on her feet.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Devlin asked, dusting clumps of dirt from her jeans.
“Mother’s alive!”
“What?!” The men beside her whirled and scanned the circle, studying the crumpled heap within the painted marks.
“She’s face up,” Brianna urged. “She wasn’t face up before.”
Brianna felt a clamp on her shoulder.
“Calm down.”
“She’s alive, Devlin.”
“Well, if she is, getting hysterical won’t help.”
Brianna took a deep breath.
“You’re right. I need to keep a level head—and so do you.” She watched as Devlin examined the ground around his toes with fierce concentration. And then he was moving off to unzip his duffel bag.
“What are you doing?” she asked in alarm.
He rifled through the bag.
“One of us has to go in the circle and attempt to replace the current ritual with a more powerful one.”
“Well, it’s not going to be you,” Brianna replied.
He ignored her words, pulling vials out from the bag and setting them on the ground alongside it. Brianna’s heart plummeted as she watched his fingers. He was going into the circle and would destroy any chance they had of retrieving her mother alive. She had to stop him. Leaning down, she halted his fingers.
“Give me a minute to think, Devlin, please. I know I can work this out without killing Mother. I’m her daughter. I’ve inherited her genes.”
“We don’t have time to concoct a plan,” Devlin argued. “We have to act now!”
Brianna brushed her foot against the vials, and then crushed them beneath her toes. The crack of glass shattered the air around the trio.
“You will not kill my mother! Not without letting me think of a way that won’t get you both killed.”
A dangerous glint entered Devlin’s eyes, and she was sure if Tommy wasn’t shadowing her left shoulder, she would’ve been knocked to the ground.
“You have two minutes to come up with an idea,” Devlin barked, “However, if you can’t, don’t you ever give me another order again!”
Tommy’s shadow became a wall as he stepped in front of Brianna and tapped Devlin’s chest.
“Here now, back off. If Brianna thinks she can retrieve her mother without injuring anyone, we are going to give her the opportunity to do it.”
Brianna stepped around the pair.
“Shush, both of you! I need to think.”
She moved off, ignoring Devlin’s black scowl and calming her panicked breathing. What magic could she pull from her mother’s bag of tricks that had never been tried before, but would work? A trickle of an idea teased her mind but she couldn’t quite latch onto its substance. Still, she had to stay open to the answer and trust her skills—no matter how rusty they were.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Devlin said, coming to rest by her right shoulder.
“If we go in, we kill Mother, and if we stay out, she dies. It’s a draw all the way around.”
“But not if I go in. She’s saved and I repay the karmic debt I owe the community. That’s a win-win situation.”
“That would make sense if you were the only one brought home to solve the crisis. But I got called too, which means I know something that you don’t. Something that is vital for her recovery.”
She saw Devlin glance at the prone figure in the circle.
“Okay, I’ll give you that. We can’t go in, so that leaves us with only one viable solution.”
“Which is?” Tommy asked, settling alongside Brianna’s left shoulder.
“We disrupt the barrier from the outside in,” Brianna stated, suddenly.
“Impossible,” Devlin replied.
“Maybe not,” Brianna stated, stepping back and facing both men. “There are only two scenarios here. Mother was careless, or a sinner bound her in the circle.”
“I don’t believe the first,” Devlin stated.
“Neither do I, so that leaves human intervention, which means the Guardians might still be here, napping and waiting to be released. We might be able to stir them awake.”
“Here now, I won’t allow either of you to sacrifice your health on a maybe,” Tommy stated.
Brianna wasn’t going to allow that either, but it would be redundant to say so. Dropping her gaze, she began to trace the outline of the circle and its arc.
“Sometimes electrical energy shows up at night. White against black, red paired with green, shimmering shadows . . . no one mentioned seeing color bands surrounding the circle, did they?”
She saw Devlin’s brows knit together in deep thought.
“No, and nobody said anything about seeing a rope around the circle either.”
Brianna continued to think aloud.
“If Mother was conducting a binding spell, she’d use a rope or a piece of string or twine to complete the task. I see no evidence of that anywhere. However, if she was attacked by someone in the commune, the sinner would’ve had to use rope to bind her from leaving the circle. So, the question becomes, where is the rope?” She began to pace. “I don’t see any color wheels steeped within the cone of power, which suggests what? Sleeping elementals, perhaps?”
Devlin picked up on her thought, carrying it forward.
“Or a trapped one.”
Brianna held up her hand, shushing Devlin.
“Give me a minute. I’m working it out.”
“Well hurry up, the heat in the clearing is escalating.”
Brianna’s gaze shot to the ground around her feet, studying the shards of glass layered in the dirt, and then moved on to her duffel bag. She had grabbed items from her mother’s cabinets last night, unsure of why she was grabbing them and what they could be used for. But she hadn’t faltered in her choices, so that must mean the items weren’t random, but chosen for a reason. What could she do with sea salt and jasmine oil?
Thinking, she monkeyed with her necklace, surprised when her fingers brushed the gold plating and began to tingle.
“Got it,” she said, startling the men who had been watching her thoughtful contemplation with curious expressions. Charging over to her duffel bag, she rummaged through it rapidly. Pulling out two vials, she returned to the circle, popped open the first one, and tossed the contents at the circle.
The veil of energy crackled under the assault, and Brianna felt the disruption in temperature at once. Popping the second vial, Brianna threw its contents at the veil as well. This time, she felt a distinct shift in the heat waves around the circle. Her idea might just work. To her surprise, a pinwheel of muted colors began to saturate the veil, and Brianna took a step back.
“Well, there are our sleeping elementals,” Devlin stated, coming to stand beside her.
“Yes, and as you can see, they’re pretty pissed off.” The color bands took on a more powerful hue, and Brianna gave a long sigh. “We have no choice now. We have to release the Guardians back to their world.”
She heard a matching sigh.
“We’re past the point of no return, and that’s a fact,” Devlin said. “I’ll go. I have nothing to lose. You do.”
Brianna shook her head.
“I have to conduct the ritual. Only a hereditary witch has the power to pull off the trick I’m going to try. It’s out of the box, but mother swears it will work.”
“I thought we weren’t going to be reckless.”
“This trick is risky, but not reckless. It’s extremely logical and the best part is it has no dangerous components tied to it . . . no, don’t argue. It will work if I do it
.”
Devlin snapped his mouth shut at her words, and Brianna realized she had finally won an argument against him. She had been worried he would be furious over her emphatic “take charge” attitude; however, he appeared to be genuinely in tune with her tackling the situation by herself. Should she show him the Pentagram to relieve his mind? She caressed the smooth surface of a jeweled orb. A soft tingle began tickling the tips of her fingers. Yes, she was on the right track. Outside-in was possible.
Flashing the piece at Devlin, she lifted his hand and dropped the amulet into his palm.
“This is my personal amulet. What do you notice about it? First impressions.”
Devlin wrapped his fingers around the piece and closed his eyes. Brianna sensed he was searching for a trace of her essence within the core. His lips twitched unexpectedly, startling her.
“It’s free of heat or ice—unlike its owner.”
Brianna blushed at once. He was alluding to their heated passion in bed last night, and she had no witty comeback to rail him with. She plucked the necklace from his hand.
“There’s no sign of energy displacement anywhere on it, and there should be.”
“Which means what?” Tommy asked, joining the conversation.
“That everything we see here has been staged for our benefit. Someone wants us to think Mother’s collapse was caused by her own carelessness, when in fact the opposite is true. She had help in going down in this circle.”
“That’s a giant leap in logic, don’t you think?” Tommy asked. “Besides, what does that have to do with the gem?”
Brianna’s hand swept the muggy air around them.
“Amulets are worn for psychic protection from negative energy. They are charged and blessed before being worn. And most important, spirit guides use them as healing stones. If we’re lucky, I should be able to poke a small hole in the energy field, and make it think I’m a spirit guide.”
Devlin’s gaze re-scanned the circle and then back to her.
“That’s a big if, Brianna.”
Her gaze scanned the area around their feet, and then moved on to the painted markings. Dropping down, she sifted the sand with her fingers.
