Chapter Sixteen

The Ruins

By mid-morning, Mother was at the ruins, examining the altar stone with her lens. She was now dressed in a long coat, cinched at the waist and set-off by an Inverness cape. She wore a sensible cap, almost masculine, but with a fore and aft brim that would shield from either sun or rain. A simple, almost stark, blouse and skirt, both designed by Mother, completed the ensemble, yet somehow on her, it all looked extremely smart. Above her loomed the rocky faces and the monolith with its great crescent-moon. A flock of seagulls alighted atop the various levels of the ruins and on the hard ground near Mother. Tasha knew that murder victims just didn’t pop up out of the fog. They had to come from somewhere.

  

And in that “somewhere” far below, Deirdre was gratified as, using her camera obscura, she watched Tasha’s efforts. Sebastian, arms folded in displeasure, was watching, too. He started to speak, but Deirdre cut him off. “She knows that the girl must have come from somewhere, but she can’t find any evidence to support the deduction.”

Tasha, projected on the flat, polished tabletop, shook her head and leaned dejectedly against the ruins. Sebastian frowned in disapproval.

If Deirdre noticed, she didn’t care. “We haven’t heard from the look-outs this morning. Signal them.”

“With her up top? She’ll spot the messenger.”

To Deirdre, Sebastian—in fact, sometimes everyone—could be so dense. He scowled.

“Temper, temper,” she said soothingly.

“Why be a bloody fool?” That he cursed in front of a lady, even one as familiar to him as Deirdre, disclosed the degree of his apprehension.

Deirdre’s eyes flared, as all traces of tenderness vanished. Sebastian stopped. He’d gone the limit and he knew it.

“You question your Priestess.” Her ritualistic statement was void of emotion. Deidre motioned with her hand, turning the palm upward.

Sebastian, subdued, extended his hand, also palm up, and stepped to her. Deirdre placed her hand atop his and, expertly wielding the edge of her crescent-moon ring, sliced his skin. Sebastian did not react as blood pooled in his cupped palm. She gently anointed the red-pearl crescent in his blood, then extended her hand with the signet ring, now glistening red, toward Sebastian. He leaned forward and kissed the ring, stepped away, his lips wet with his own blood, and lowered his head as he intoned the required response:

“I am yours—always.”

With that surrender, she slowly, mechanically, brushed her fingers across his hand. “Send the messenger.”

  

Up above, Mother was still leaning thoughtfully against the rocks. Suddenly, the seagulls near her took flight, snapping away her contemplation. She tensed with interest as she spotted something. Tasha carefully removed her fore-and- aft hat, aimed, and tossed it.

The hat landed atop a carrier pigeon—the lone bird remaining on the ancient stones. Tasha delicately removed a rice-paper note from around the animal’s leg and read the single word it contained: “Constant?”

“You’re a cryptic little messenger, aren’t you?” Mother said to the captive bird.

She glanced at the weather-worn granite near the altar stone, where she had captured the pigeon, and carefully studied the network of deep cracks, running her finger along one that caught her attention. She stood and gave a slight satisfied nod, then turned her attention back to the cooing bird in her hand.

She went to the cottage and was gratified to find a thick spool of string. Then, after getting her purse and parasol, tied a length of string to the bird’s leg and secured the opposite end to the front door latch. She tossed the pigeon into the air and, once it settled on a direction, noted the heading by using the compass in the handle of her parasol.