I rose. “I’ll be right back.”
The sheriff cocked a brow. “You might want to change your clothes.” She pointed behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder.
A sooty, Lenore-shaped imprint darkened my ivory lounge chair. Experimentally, I wiped two fingers across my face. They came away blackened. I felt the book’s presence again. Its viscous corruption infected even my skin. It crawled into the bones of my house.
Like I said, I hadn’t been sleeping much. Plus… Lovecraft. I couldn’t get his gothic language out of my head.
“Maybe I should clean up first,” I said.
“Maybe you should.”
I moved for the doorway and wavered. Could I trust the sheriff to stay in the living room?
“I won’t be long,” I added.
I hurried down the hallway and stopped in front of the kitchen door. Lightly, I laid my hand on it and bent my head to listen.
The kitchen clock ticked inside, accentuating a thick, waiting sort of silence. Pulse speeding, I edged the door open.
Soot smudged the moss-green cupboards, the ancient stove, the walls. A foul smell hung in the air—choking and sweet and rotten. The book lay, malignant and undamaged, on the copper tray.
I exhaled. My spirit helpers had succeeded in beating back whatever I’d released. But what a mess.
I opened the oven and slid the book—copper tray and all—inside, moving slowly so as not to disturb the salt circle.
“That should hold you for now,” I muttered. But should wasn’t good enough. I needed to learn how to beat this thing, and at this point, I’d give anything to do it. There was too much at stake.
I hurried upstairs and washed my hands, face and neck. Beneath the mask of soot, my face was the color of a marble tombstone. My blue-gray eyes were hollow, my mid-length, blond hair, limp. I tied it into a knot. My gaze fell on Connor’s small toiletry kit, and I smoothed my hair.
I hurried into my bedroom and changed into a white t-shirt and khaki slacks.
The sheriff probably wouldn’t snoop in my kitchen. The smell alone should be enough to keep her out. But I didn't want to give her time to consider it. If Sheriff McCourt found it, she might feel duty-bound to confiscate the book.
My hair smelled rank, but there was no time to shower. I trotted downstairs and to my workroom. Spritzed my hair with one of Jayce's blue bottles of magical cleansing spray. The stench of eldritch powers faded.
I stuffed the bottle in my cloth bag, along with a cannister of salt, candles, matches, earbuds, turkey-vulture feather, holy water, notebook and pen. Hopefully, I wouldn't need any of it, but why take chances?
Slipping an extra protective amulet around my neck, I strode into the living room.
The sheriff was standing where I'd left her. “Ready?”
“I think so.”
She shot me a sharp look, and I followed her outside. Two sheriff's SUVs sat in the driveway, and I wondered how I hadn't heard them arrive. My gravel drive wasn't exactly silent.
Connor stepped from one of the massive black and whites. His boots crunched on the gravel.
In spite of what I was about to do, I smiled, my heart beating faster. “Good morning, Deputy Hernandez.”
“Ms. Bonheim.” He clawed a hand through his curling, ebony hair. The movement strained his uniform shirt across his broad shoulders. But that wasn’t why I loved him.
Like me, Connor was a bookworm. Urban fantasy, mystery, and political history were his game. He didn’t look bookish. Nights spent at a local dojo and his six-foot-two frame ensured that. He was naturally quiet, so many people assumed he was an introvert. But his silences covered an intent, watchful, thoughtful nature.
Connor listened.
It was irresistibly seductive.
Now, one corner of his mouth tipped upward. But his brown eyes were serious, and maybe a little guilty.
“You two go.” The sheriff stepped into her SUV. “I'll meet you at the trailhead.” She slammed her door and backed from the driveway.
“I'm sorry about this,” Connor said in a low voice. He laid his hand on the small of my back. A tingle of electricity raced up my spine.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I said.
He winced. “I think I do. McCourt asked me if you could help.”
“Oh.” I didn’t like that she’d put Connor in that position. But I knew he wouldn’t like me defending him or complaining about the sheriff. “She told me Jayce had talked about me.”
“Maybe your sister did. But this morning the sheriff asked what you could do. I tried to dodge her questions, but–”
“It's okay,” I said quickly. “I doubt you told her anything she didn't already know or suspect. And I'm not ashamed of what I do.”
But I had kept it quiet. My sisters and I had grown up as exiles in our small, Sierra town. The Bonheim family had a long reputation for being cursed. Add that to our homeschooling, and our weirdo status was inevitable. And it hadn't helped that I'd been terminally shy.
But we were adults now. And this was California, where people don't blink at witches or shamans. Most people also don't believe in them. They either smile politely and hope you're a harmless eccentric, or they ask if you can talk to their dead Aunt Martha.
Connor handed me into the car. His touch was warm, his hand lingering on mine. Then he shut my door and walked around the car to slide into the driver's side.
We drove down forested roads, past cabins and Victorians and ranch homes.
“What do you know about the body?” I asked, all business. What I wanted to do was lean across the seat, trail my fingers down the hard plane of his jaw.
“Not much. Female. Late twenties to mid-thirties. Deceased approximately ten years.”
“How did she die?” I asked.
“Blow to the back of the head with an angular object.”
“Did anyone go missing during that time?”
He shook his head. “That was the first thing we checked. No one vanished from the area who matches the age and build of the woman in the oak. We've widened the search to include the entire state, but no luck.”
“No jewelry or anything?”
“She didn't have any clothing,” he said shortly.
Ah. That brought to mind all sorts of unpleasant possibilities.
We parked in a narrow dirt lot beside a low, split-rail fence. The sheriff stood beside the stile, her arms crossed.
Wordlessly, she turned and walked down a trail lined with tall grasses, golden in the late summer warmth. Oaks dotted the rolling hills. Odd stone formations jutted from the earth like dragon's teeth.
“Are you okay?” Connor asked.
I forced my hands to unclench. “I'm fine. It will be fine.”
His eyes seemed to darken. “You’ll have to go to Middle World, won’t you?”
I shot him a grateful look. Connor was as interested in my shamanic work as I was in his policework. He’d been reading up on the subject. “I'll see what I can find in Lower World first.”
Starting in Lower World wasn't cowardice on my part, though there was a generous helping of that. It just made sense. The animal spirits there might be able to tell me what had happened at the oak.
I paused, and Connor stopped beside me.
My lunch did unpleasant things in my stomach. The haunted oak.
The oak stood at the crest of a near perfectly symmetrical hill. Pastel strips of fabric, faded by sun and rain, hung from its branches. They waved in a breeze that rippled the high grass. Most of the branches were bare, but dull brown leaves clung to a few branches.
“You don't have to do this,” Connor said.
“Yes she does,” the sheriff shouted from beneath the gnarled tree.
His skin darkened. “You don't.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, and walked up the hill, my legs leaden. Get it over with.
When I reached the sheriff, she flicked away a dangling piece of fabric in disgust. “When this gets out, they'll stop calling this the Wishing Tree. It’s time someone take it down. The tree’s a snag. Half dead. Half alive. It’s so hollow, I’m not sure how it’s still standing.”
“Why doesn’t anyone remove it?”
She shrugged. “Money, I’d guess.”
I felt a surge of pity. For the dead woman. For the tree that had kept her secret.
“What do you need?” the sheriff asked.
I shook myself. “Just some space and quiet.”
Pretending this was an ordinary day, I walked to the tree trunk and laid my hand on its rough bark. I set down my bag, turned and sat cross-legged, my back against the oak.
I popped in my earbuds and started the drumming track on my phone. Its steady rhythm relaxed me, carrying me into trance. I closed my eyes.
The wind whispered in the oak’s dead branches. Letting the sound relax me, I listened, then turned my focus to the tree.
I imagined the oak’s roots. They grew, swelling, dwarfing me, as I shrank to ant size. I scampered down a root and into the earth. A long tunnel, lit by crystals, extended downward.
I jogged down the sloping tunnel, toward the sound of running water.
The passage curved, light dancing on the cave walls. A waterfall, sparkling, lit from behind, splashed from a high opening in the rock.
I strode through the curtain of water and shivered at the shock of cold. Light blinded me as I emerged on the other side. I blinked, my vision adjusting to the brightness.
A browning meadow much like the one I'd left stretched before me. A length of flattened grass unfurled in a rough deer trail. Water murmured from the cave I’d just exited. An answering watery echo called from somewhere nearby.
The sky was blue and empty. But I trusted Hawk would come when the time was right.
Following the sound of running water, I walked down the slope and around the base of the hill.
A tumbling mountain stream cut across the deer trail.
I studied the swift stream. It ran high and fast, swollen with snowmelt.
Lower World wasn't going to make this trek easy. Hopefully that meant there'd be a payoff at the end.
I waded into the stream, the current tugging at my ankles. The rocks were slippery beneath my shoes. I stepped carefully and bent, reaching for a boulder for balance.
My right foot skidded from beneath me. I yelped, flailed, and went down.
Icy water covered my head, snatching the breath from my lungs. Something struck my skull. Pain rocketed through me. I clawed at the water, my fingertips struggling for something to grasp.
I couldn't breathe. Spots swam in front of my eyes.
And then my feet found a soft footing. I launched myself upward and fell on the opposite bank.
Coughing, I dragged myself forward. Earth and pebbles rolled beneath my wet hands. I collapsed onto the dried grass to catch my breath.
This was only a vision. A vivid, painful vision, but nothing here could really hurt me. Not physically, at least. But I shivered on the grass, and not only from the cold.
Finally, I staggered to standing and continued down the trail.
A red-tailed hawk spiraled from the sky and landed in front of me.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “You came. Thank you. And thank you again for your help in my kitchen.”
The enormous bird bobbed his head.
“Can you tell me about the woman whose body was left in the oak?” I needed to be specific. I didn't know if she'd been killed here, only that she'd been found here. Where had she died? After ten years, would the sheriff be able to tell?
The answers you seek are not here, the hawk whispered in my head.
I’d suspected as much, but Hawk knew something, or he wouldn’t have come. A shiver wracked my body, my sodden clothes clinging to my limbs. “You must–”
Return. Now. Danger approaches.
I shook my head, anxiety twisting my insides. “But—”
The hawk flapped its wings, and I blew backward on a gust of hot wind. My back thudded against something hard. My eyes blinked open.
Beyond the shade of the oak, Connor and Sheriff McCourt spoke in low voices, their arms crossed.
I breathed hard, shocked by my unceremonious ejection. I'd never been kicked out of Lower World before. Danger in Lower World? It wasn’t possible.
Or was the danger here, in the real world? Pulse quick, I rubbed my hands down my thighs and looked to Connor. If there was danger, he needed to know. And if Lower World had no answers, it was time to try another source.
Stomach rolling, I leaned against the oak.
I opened myself to Middle World and visualized the skeleton in the tree. Who are you?
And the world shattered.