Chapter Ten

The next two weeks went by super fast and really slowly. I thought about Ronan all the time, which made time slow way, way down. Whenever I glanced his way at school, he was never looking at me.

But Ivy and I were hard at work on the TVA, and that helped. We got an article into the school paper, and a few kids asked us why were doing it, even though our article had spelled that all out. Sometimes the questions were obviously antagonistic. But I was surprised that some were not.

Ivy told me that Eleanor and her father got together a few days after that first meeting, and Eleanor agreed to encourage village kids to join. Griffin joined right away, which of course made me sad, because I knew Ronan wouldn't. But then Wren Ward joined, too. Considering the town's reaction to her father's heroism, I was thinking Ronan should be ashamed of himself.

Reverend Gilman's letter to the editor was published in two local papers, and after his second sermon about opening our hearts to people whose lives seem different from ours, a couple of Ivy's town friends, Meg and Janice, joined. I finally got up the guts to talk to Phil, who said, "I'd been thinking about it. So, yeah. Sure."

By the third meeting, Ivy and I were pretty good with our opening statements, and we got Griffin and Phil to agree to meet and then present what they learned about each other at the fourth meeting. The only bad thing about the meetings was that Ronan was conspicuously absent.

Then, when I got to school on Tuesday morning, my locker had been painted again. "Faggot" again. No imagination. But this time, during home room on Tuesday, there was a PA announcement about how the culprits were known, and one more act of vandalism would result in serious consequences. Ivy told me that Lou and Chuck had been given detention for a week, and that they'd be forced to clean my locker. I wondered whether someone had really caught them at it, or if Mrs. Knapp had believed me. I wondered what "serious consequences" might mean. I also wondered whether my efforts on the TVA, which by now everybody knew about, had inspired Lou and Chuck to attack my locker again.

By this time I was feeling pretty flush with success: Our little group had grown, we had members from town and village, there was some push-back and the occasional snarky comment from some kids at school but not as much as I had expected, and Lou and Chuck had been identified and punished (at least a little). But besides Ronan's absence, there was something else that seemed directly related to the TVA that was bothering me. It seemed like Brad was pulling away from me.

On the phone, there was some awkwardness that seemed to come from nowhere. Sometimes he wouldn't answer at all, and when I texted him he'd say something about being busy with homework, or he'd say he'd been on the phone with Staci. At school, she was always with him, even at lunch, so I ended up having lunch with my TVA crowd. I texted him a couple of times to see if he wanted to go rockhounding, but he always replied, Rain check.

God knows I spent a lot of time, lost lots of sleep, thinking about Ronan. Wanting Ronan. Jerking off to images of Ronan, feeling the cougar's gaze almost like electric energy, imagining his hand on me, hearing that laugh of his when he came. Seeing him in school every day was like torture. Sending scads of energetic intention in his direction wasn't making him turn toward me with those haunting gray eyes. I was still determined to get him back, but I couldn't be sure that would happen. And now Brad was fading into the distance? No way.

By Thursday, that second week of March, I'd had enough. After dinner I waited for maybe an hour, and then I drove to his house, unannounced. I went to the front door; this was kind of a formal visit. Mrs. Everett answered, and I couldn't help thinking she looked maybe a thousand percent better than when I'd stopped by that day in December. Reverend Gilman came to mind.

She smiled at me. "Hello, Jesse. Brad's upstairs. Do you want to go on up?"

"Sure. Thanks." Good; no warning.

The door was shut, so I knocked and heard, "Come." Brad was at his desk, and he didn't look up from his laptop. No doubt he'd thought the knock was his mom. I shut the door and stood there until he looked up.

"Jesse!" He was startled, I could tell, but he tried to cover. "What's up?"

I moved over to sit on the bed, forcing him to turn or sit with his back toward me. "What's up is what I was going to ask you."

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning it feels like something's not right between us." He shrugged but didn't speak, which pissed me off. "You're gonna pretend everything's normal?"

He shrugged again. "Not sure what to tell you, bro. What's your problem?"

I stood. "My problem, 'bro,' is that I mostly can't get on you the phone anymore, and when I do you don't have time to talk. You barely respond to texts. I've suggested rockhounding, but you don't even want to do that. You've got no time for me at school; we haven't lunch together in a couple of weeks. I get that you're with Staci a lot, okay? That's fine. That's not the problem. But you've been together for months, and all of a sudden I'm out of the picture? You don't have any time for friends anymore?"

He leaned a little sideways in his chair, I'm sure to try and look casual, like I was overreacting. "Whine much? You know you sound like a girl, right?"

It was everything I could do not to say that I didn't care if he was twice my size, I was about to slug him anyway. Instead, after clenching my fists a few times, I said, "I can't wait to tell Staci you think girls are whiny and demanding. That should free up some of your time."

That got him to his feet. "Look, if you're not happy with the new order, remember that you brought it on yourself."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"You're the one who decided it wasn't enough to start making friends with people from the village. It wasn't enough to help them build a maze."

"Labyrinth."

He ignored me. "It wasn't even enough that your new boyfriend lives there. No; you had to get the whole school involved in your obsession. You're the one who put something between us, not me."

I was shaking my head, more in disbelief than denial. "That makes no sense! I didn't change. I didn't stop calling you. You stopped answering. And you might not want to admit this, but your girlfriend is the one getting in the way. Your girlfriend and her fear of things she doesn't understand."

"You think she's afraid of you?"

"I think she's terrified of me. Because I'm about to change her world. I'm about to expose her for the frightened child she is."

We stood there, noses practically touching, fists clenching. He was a good half-head taller, but I wasn't backing down. I wasn't actually afraid he'd hit me until he said, "You take that back or I'll flatten you."

"And won't that make you feel like a big, strong man."

He wheeled away from me and moved to the window, leaning heavily on the sill.

"Brad, look, I came over here because I don't want to lose you as a friend. As my best friend." He didn't budge. "You know, when I started this TVA thing, I expected a lot of grief. I expected to get ridiculed, tormented, maybe even punched out. But not by you, man!"

He turned so fast I almost felt a breeze. "And you haven't been punched out, have you? Do you know why not? Do you know why you don't know how many kids you've pissed off doing this stupid club?"

"I give up. Why not?"

"Because Phil and I told them there'd be consequences."

I felt almost like he'd hit me after all. "So—you're protecting me?"

We stared at each other, and then I asked, "Does Staci know?" He crossed his arms over his broad chest and looked down at nothing. Quietly, I said, "She found out, didn't she? And she told you to back away from protecting someone who protects heathens."

He said nothing. So I told him, "You can stop. Protecting me. It's great that you did that, but it's getting you into trouble. I don't want that to happen."

"This is so fucked up."

Wracking my brain, trying to think of something that might help, I asked, "What is her take on the village, anyway? How bad does she think they are?"

"She thinks they cast some kind of spell on her aunt."

"She—what? Why?"

"Her mother's younger sister, Donna, ran off with some guy from the village. Donna was supposed to get married—I forget who to, someone from the town—and then all of a sudden she disappears, along with the village guy. They must have left the area altogether, because it seems like if Donna were in the village, we'd know. But her family hasn't heard from her since."

"How long ago was this?"

"We were maybe six. Something like that."

"I don't remember hearing anything about it."

"Well, no, it was all hushed up. But Staci's convinced there was a potion involved, or maybe an amulet, something like that."

Potion. Ronan's mother made love potions. I made a mental note to ask Griffin about this. "What would it take to convince her it was just what her aunt wanted to do?"

"Dunno. Kinda doubt that's possible at this stage."

"Well, so, if you stop protecting me, can we be friends again? Or is that more than Staci can handle?"

He waved a hand in front of his face, annoyed or frustrated or something. "I'll figure this out somehow, Jesse. I didn't like what was happening with us, either. Give me a little time."

"K." I stood and held out my right hand, and we shook on it. On my way out of the room, I said, "I'll wait to hear from you."

Back in my truck, I called Griffin. "Question for you. Do you know anything about a woman named Donna who ran off with some guy from the village maybe ten years ago?"

"A little. Why?"

"Trying to figure something out. What can you tell me?"

"From what I know, it's not that much of a story. This Donna person was about to get married, and one day she had a flat tire. Zayne Downey from the village came by and stopped to help. Rumor has it Donna was getting cold feet about the wedding, but in any case she called it off, and she and Zayne were gone in, like, six weeks. They went to Canada, I think. British Columbia."

"Did he stay in touch with the village?"

"To some extent, sure. And she wrote to her family, but letters kept getting returned. I know, because Zayne asked Eleanor to take them over to the family herself, but I doubt she'd do that. I don't really know any more than that."

"Do you know if Ronan's mother gave anyone a potion?"

"For that? No way. She wouldn't interfere with people of the town like that. She'd have to be crazy."

"But—Patty—" But Griffin wouldn't know about that. "Never mind. Um, thanks. That helps." And then I had a brainstorm. "Would you, um, would you mind giving me their address or email or something?"

"Well... I'd want to ask to be sure it's okay. Can you tell me why?"

"Staci, Donna's niece, seems to think Donna never tried to stay in touch, and Staci thinks you guys in the village did something to her. Like a potion. I'm thinking if Donna would send me something I could give directly to Staci, she'd at least have a chance to believe the truth. See, this is the reason Brad won't join the TVA. But if I can change Staci's mind about her aunt, maybe there's hope. Maybe she'd join, even."

"That's kind of a cool idea. Let me look into it."

More waiting, then. Every time I got an idea—the TVA, fixing the stone circle, this letter—I had to wait for someone else to do something. I hated that. But at least I could write the message in case this idea panned out.

 

 

The fourth TVA meeting was a lot of fun. I'd never known Phil very well, so I was surprised when he turned out to be a great counterpart to Griffin. I think "foil" is the right word. Phil was kind of the straight man to Griffin's goof. The two guys had actually worked out a routine together, which was that when Griffin described what he'd learned about Phil he got everything wrong, and Phil kept correcting him in this long-suffering, eye-rolling sort of way that was hilarious. But what was even funnier was that when Phil described Griffin, he threw in all those ridiculous things towns people tend to assume about the village, and Griffin pretended they were real and acted a couple of them out.

At one point, Griffin brought out this lamp with a clamp on it, fastened it to the back of a folding chair, and turned it on. The red bulb in it cast a bloody pool of light on the floor, where Griffin placed a straw mat and then disappeared. From someplace out of sight, eerie music began to play.

Phil said, "Like most people who live in that mysterious place, Griffin takes part in infant sacrifice." As Phil talked about all the families in town who'd had a baby disappear (not true for any of them, actually), Griffin reappeared, hunched over and walking oddly, leering at everyone, clutching something against his chest. When he got to the mat, he put a doll down on it, took out a knife made of cardboard, and stabbed at the doll.

"But because the townsfolk are good Christians," Phil went on, "the village people are foiled in their attempts to slaughter the child. The knife becomes harmless, and the baby's life is spared."

Griffin sat down on the floor and pretended to weep and pull his hair, reaching his arms up in anger and frustration.

When the laughter in the room died down, Phil spoke again, this time in earnest. As Griffin cleared away the props and stopped the music, Phil told the group much of what Griffin and Ronan had told me. He talked about the Pagan credo Ivy had repeated to me: An it harm none, do as ye will. He pointed out that harm to others is not something we can predict or avoid unless we do our best to put ourselves in their place first. He said that even good intentions can have harmful results on someone else if we don't understand the other person well enough.

Then Griffin said, "What Phil and I learned about each other's culture is that everything works best, and everyone is happiest, when we approach each other with a sincere desire for understanding." He turned to Ivy and nodded, and then to me. "Many thanks to Ivy and Jesse for getting this work underway."

Everyone applauded loudly as Griffin and Phil bowed, and bowed again, grinning and obviously pleased with themselves.

At the end of the meeting, Griffin stayed behind. Outside, Ivy grabbed my arm and said, "I need to wait a few minutes. Will you wait with me?"

"Sure. For what?"

She took a deep breath. "Griffin is asking my father if he can have permission to go out with me."

OMG. I gaped at her. "For real? What if he says no?"

She actually giggled. "How can he, after that performance? And he's mentioned Griffin a couple of times at home when he's talked about the club. Mom even said she'd like to meet him."

She looked so happy and so excited that I couldn't help myself. I hugged her. It made me miss Ronan more than ever, though.

We leaned against a tree and waited, but only for a couple of minutes. We turned toward the door when it opened, and both Reverend Gilman and Griffin came out. Griffin was smiling. The reverend nodded to me and went off in another direction, and Ivy skipped over to her boyfriend. I heard Griffin tell her that the reverend wanted to meet the Holyokes. I felt my eyes water, both with pleasure for them and with pain for me.

 

 

It wasn't until the end of that week that Griffin got back to me about contacting Donna. He called me Friday after dinner while I was up in my room, sulking that I couldn't be with Ronan.

"We talked about it on and off all week, Jesse," Griffin told me. "Most of us like the idea, so let's do it. But—well, I think you can understand that with things starting to happen, like the TVA, we want to be sure of what's said about us. So if you'll agree, what we'll do is have you send your message to me, and a few of us here will read it. If we think something should be changed, we'll let you do that; we won't change your message. Once it seems fine, we'll send it on to Donna, and then I guess we wait. If she replies to us, we'll forward that on to you. At that point, you'd be included in a discussion of what happens next, which might or might not include you giving it to Staci. Sort of depends on what it says. Does that make sense?"

This was a lot more convoluted than anything I had imagined, and again that frustration hit me, the one where my ideas are never quite good enough to just act on. But I decided I couldn't blame the village for wanting to make sure they didn't get misrepresented. That last thing I wanted this exchange to do was make things worse between town and village.

"Sure. That works," I said, trying to keep the grudging reluctance I felt out of my voice. "I've already got the email written. I'll send it to you tonight. Um, can you tell me who didn't like the idea?"

There was a pause, and then, "You'd probably rather not know." Which meant I already knew.

"Griffin, what can you tell me? Why is he so determined to keep this wall up? Why doesn't he want the village and the town to be friends?"

"Has he told you anything about power animals?"

"I know his is Cougar. I looked it up once."

"Ronan takes the concept very seriously. And I have to say, he's Cougar, through and through. You probably found out that Cougar watches from a distance before making a move that commits it to action. Because once Cougar commits, it commits for real. And that makes it vulnerable. Ronan doesn't believe anything good will come of what we're trying to do. So he's keeping his distance. Self-preservation, I guess."

"And that includes me?"

"Of course. I mean, look what you've done! You came to the grove twice to see how we do things. You asked me all kinds of questions, and you didn't flinch at any of the answers. You came right into the village to talk to me about Allen, even though someone in the town hung him in effigy. You brought us the perfect stone for our labyrinth, and you stayed to work with us. And then, even after we practically kicked you out—at least, I think that's how it felt to you—you turn around and start this TVA club! Jesse, you're doing everything Ronan can't trust. And he loves you. So if just participating in these efforts would make him commit, imagine how vulnerable he makes himself by being with the guy who keeps starting them."

I was ready to scream by this point. Here I'd been trying to win Ronan back by diving ever deeper into this work of building bridges, and that was the very thing pushing him away. "Should I stop?"

"Can you?" That stunned me into several seconds of silence. Then he asked, "Ever hear the fable of the scorpion and the frog?"

I shook my head, realized he couldn't see me, and said, "Don't think so."

"There's this scorpion on the side of a river. He needs to get across, but he can't swim. Along comes a frog, and the scorpion says, 'Can I ride on your back across the river?' The frog says, 'Are you kidding? You're a scorpion! How do I know you won't sting me?' 'If I do, I'll die, too,' the scorpion says. So the frog agrees. But half-way across, the scorpion stings the frog. As he starts to sink, the frog says, 'Why did you do that? Now we'll both die!' And the scorpion says, 'It's my nature. It's what I do.'"

"And the moral is?"

"You have to be true to yourself, Jesse. And the better I know you, the more I see who you are. You've got more courage than anyone else I know, and Eleanor says your nature is to use it to make the world better. I agree. Sorry if that sounds corny, but it's what we see."

"Eleanor talks about me?"

He laughed. "Jesse, you make it impossible for her not to."

"Yeah, well... Anyway, I'll send that email over now."

Here's what I sent to Griffin:

Donna --

You don't know me, but I'm in Staci Thompson's classes at school, and I'm best friends with her boyfriend (Brad). Brad told me that Staci thinks something happened to make you call off your wedding here and move away with Zayne, and she's been told the people of the grove are to blame. I'm sure that's wrong. She thinks you never contacted your family after you left, but I know that's wrong, too.

I'm of the town, but I want things to be friendly between townspeople and people of the grove. So if you would be willing to send me something I could give directly to Staci, that would be great. I hope you can convince her that you did what you wanted to do, and that you didn't do it because of any interference from the grove.

Sincerely, Jesse Bryce

As soon as Griffin had time to read it, I got a reply that he'd show it to Eleanor right away.

And once again, I waited. And, once again, I felt determined to prove Ronan wrong and get him back. If I could get everything to a place where he wasn't vulnerable, there was hope. And I could do that. I was sure of it.

 

 

Eleanor decided not to change anything, so she sent my message off to Donna. And then there was more waiting.

Meanwhile, Ivy told me her father and Eleanor were in the process of organizing an open-attendance town meeting, and the reverend had even managed to get the mayor to agree to help plan it. Before they could get it set up, though, we had a bit of a crisis in the TVA. At our fifth meeting, Meg Parry, Ivy's friend who joined, had to resign when her parents realized what we were doing. Meg said she hadn't exactly hidden things from them, she'd just played down the involvement of the village kids. That is, she didn't mention it at all. But she let something slip in a conversation over dinner one night, and the shit hit the fan. Mr. Duncan offered to speak with her folks, but she said it wouldn't do any good.

Then Wren found that some strange-smelling substance had been forced through the vents in her locker, and when she reported the incident as vandalism, the stuff turned out to be marijuana. This, of course, was a crisis that went beyond the TVA. Wren was immediately taken home, and the police got a warrant to go searching through the Wards' house for anything illicit. To her credit, Mrs. Knapp initiated a school-wide search, of town kids' lockers as well as village kids'. Of course, they found nothing anywhere, and I still don't know who did that to Wren, but it sure didn't help anything to have that happen. Ronan looked at me a few times, but the looks were more glares than anything else, like, "See what you've caused?" and "I told you so."

I half expected Wren to leave the club after that, but instead, she made a little speech at our March thirtieth meeting about how she knows this kind of thing will continue to happen until we reach our objective. She said her commitment to our mission had not changed. She got a huge round of applause.

Mom heard about the marijuana episode and asked me about it over dinner preparation on Tuesday. "What do you know about this girl, Jesse?"

"She's as sweet as pie. It was her father who died trying to help Mary Blaisdell, remember? And then someone does this to her."

"How do you know whether she's sweet or not?"

I decided this was as good a time as any to tell her about the TVA, which until now I'd been reluctant to mention. But I had so many strikes against me at home, what was one more? Though maybe she didn't need to know what my role had been. My role as the architect of bridges, that is. So I said, "She's in this club I go to on Mondays after school. The Town Village Alliance. We have school sponsorship, and we meet at the church function hall. Reverend Gilman is involved, too. The idea is to get to understand each other more so we get along better."

Mom's hands came to rest on the edge of the counter, one with a vegetable peeler, one with a carrot. "Village? As in the... the—"

I could tell she was trying hard to avoid the word "freaks." I prompted, "Village. As in the group of people who live there, south of town. Yes."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Our first meeting was February twenty-third. There are some kids from the village, and some from the town, and Mr. Duncan, the science teacher, and the principal, Mrs. Knapp, and Reverend Gilman come to it. His daughter's in it, too."

"Ivy Gilman? Reverend Gilman lets his daughter go?"

I almost didn't say it, but it wasn't a secret, and it might help my case. "Not only that, but she's going out with Griffin Holyoke. He's from the village." I almost added something about how that proves the club is working, but I didn't want to push too hard.

"Why am I just hearing about this now?"

It didn't seem right to point out that I hadn't needed parental permission to join a school club, so I just said, "Didn't seem to be any reason to bring it up before."

Mom went back to peeling her carrot, but I could hear the wheels turning in her head. I prayed I wasn't going too far when I said, "Reverend Gilman is working with the village elder—Eleanor Darling, who sent Violet to you—to organize a town meeting with the same idea. I mean, getting to know each other better. I'm sure you'll hear about that as soon as everyone else does."

Silence.

I needed to know: "Once they get it set up, will you go to it?"

A few heartbeats later, she said, "If only to find out more about this club you're in. I'm not sure I like this, Jesse." She turned to look at me. "You're not going in there, are you?"

I shook my head. "No, but at some point it probably makes sense. Once you know more about them. Once you can be sure they aren't up to anything."

I didn't keep the subject going, and Mom let it drop, too; more waiting, I figured. But I'd planted a seed.

 

 

Thursday evening I got a Skype invite from Ivy. "Jesse?" Just the tone of her voice told me she wanted a favor. "How do you feel about mushrooms?"

Not what I'd expected. "What kind of mushrooms?"

She laughed. "The kind you eat, not the kind that takes you on weird trips. It's morel season, and Griffin invited me to go morel hunting with him Saturday afternoon. He does it every year, and he knows how to tell what's safe. Daddy said I could go, except that he hasn't met Griffin's parents yet. That'll happen Sunday afternoon. So I can go if someone else goes with us, someone Daddy knows. I said would you do, and he said absolutely. So—will you come with us?"

Immediately it sounded like the sort of thing I'd like to do with Ronan. Not much chance of that. So the next question was whether I wanted to chaperone. "You guys won't be making things difficult for me by disappearing into the woods or anything, will you?"

She laughed in a way that made me suspect her answer wasn't entirely truthful: "Of course not, silly!" Then she added, "You can keep a third of the take. Griffin says you like to cook."

That was true. And I'd learn how to tell the safe ones from the unsafe ones. "All right, but you'd better not make me regret my generosity."

As soon as we disconnected, I texted Ronan: Want to go morel hunting sat pm with me Griffin and Ivy?

I watched the phone for maybe a minute before I set it down beside my keyboard and picked up the cookbook he'd given me to look for recipes with morels. Fifteen minutes went by before I saw, No, thanks. I wondered how many different responses he'd gone over in his mind before sending that short one.

It was what I'd expected. No, thanks. But that didn't stop it from hurting.

 

 

Saturday around one, I picked Ivy up. This was our way of making sure her father believed that I'd be with them. As I drove, she asked, "Do you have a recipe picked out already?"

"I do. I have a cookbook a friend gave me with recipes for local produce. There's a soup recipe I have in mind." I didn't mention Ronan; didn't want to go into that with Ivy.

She laughed. "Griffin said you would. He respects you a lot, Jesse."

I tried not to smile and failed. "I like him, too. By the way, are you allowed into the village itself now?"

"I am. Oh—you're not."

"Not yet. Working on it. I'll drive in and drop you off. Then I have to park across the highway and walk in through the woods. Tell Griffin I'll meet you guys at the path at the southeast corner of the clearing."

By the time I got there, Griffin and Ivy had had time to practically entwine themselves together. Ivy seemed like a good name for the way she was clinging to him. I did my best to put a friendly smile on my face, wishing for you-know-what with you-know-who.

I had to clear my throat to break the spell between them. They pulled apart but held hands, revealing a canvas bag slung across Griffin's body that I hadn't been able to see until then. Griffin thanked me for agreeing to watch over them and then led the way into the woods. Partway down that slope to the funeral site he veered to the right along yet another path I'd never seen.

Once the path leveled out a little, he said, "Look for downed trees almost anywhere, but I’m heading toward the spot where we’ve found the most in the past."

We tramped through the woods, following no trail anymore as far as I could tell, and we spread out a little to widen our search.

After about ten minutes I heard Griffin’s voice. "Here!" He was stooped over a jumble of fallen tree branches, poking gently at the ground. Before we got to him, though, he said, "Wait. Nope. False alarm. False morel, in fact." He held it toward Ivy and me as we got close. "See this stem? Morel stems aren’t this bright white. And the head of this one has this irregular shape to it. Morel heads are kind of oval, and they’re very symmetrical. Some people eat these, but you never know how much it has of this certain chemical that causes vomiting and diarrhea. It might even kill you, if there’s enough of that poison in it. And anyway, it’s probably carcinogenic." He dropped it back to the ground and the hunt went on.

Maybe another fifteen minutes went by before Ivy called out, "Griffin? What about this one?" She held it up so he could take a good look at it.

"That’s it! Are there more there?"

As soon as he said that, he looked up at the sky, barely visible through the trees. "Wow. Looks like some weather moving in. Better hurry."

Fortunately Ivy had found a great spot, and there were lots more there, and still more a little farther on. We scoured the ground around where some small trees had fallen maybe a couple of years ago. Griffin dropped the bag where we could all throw morels into it, and within a few minutes we had enough mushrooms for each of us to take home a good haul. I picked up the bag and poked around in it, and an earthy, musky aroma floated up.

Suddenly Griffin's phone made a sharp, unpleasant tone.

Ivy said, "What is it?"

Griffin looked at the screen and then, sharply, up at us. "There’s a tornado on the ground, south of here. We have to get out of here, now." He took the bag, wrapped it closely around himself, and turned to lead us out. "There’s a storm shelter underneath the meeting house. You’ll have to come with me."

As we headed back through the woods, I called home. Mom answered, and I told her, "There’s a tornado south of town. I’m safe, but you need to get into the basement. I’m calling Dad now. I’ll call you again as soon as I can."

"You’re not safe! You’re running!"

"To a storm shelter. Get downstairs!" I heard the town’s tornado warning start to wail.

"I’ll call your father. You just get to the shelter." And she hung up. Our house was to the north, so she'd have time to call and get downstairs.

While I'd been on the phone to Mom, Ivy had called home, too.

When we broke out of the woods into the labyrinth field, people from the village were heading to the meeting house. I’d never been inside before, and it was kind of hard to appreciate it in the crush. Someone took my hand, and when I looked I saw it was Ronan. All he said was, "Thank the Goddess you made it back." And he let go.

There was a large trap door in the corner of the room with stairs that went underneath the building. The shelter was a finished room with rugs all over the floor, and there were large bottles of water all along two of the walls, folding chairs along another, and piles of blankets along the fourth wall. There weren't any shelves or bookcases, I guess so nothing would fall on anyone. The ceiling was supported by thick beams that could probably have taken the weight of almost anything falling on them.

Ronan pulled me down onto the floor beside some people I don’t know, and everyone else sat as well, forming a kind of spiral pattern with Eleanor in the center. Spiral… that was the symbol for eternal life, right? Let’s hope. I saw Griffin and Ivy a couple of rows away, almost across from me. He raised his chin to let me know he saw me, and that he saw Ronan was with me.

The woman next to me took my hand, and I realized everyone was taking the hand of the person next to them all along the spiral. Most people had closed their eyes, and individual conversations were getting quieter. Then there was silence. And then I heard Eleanor’s calm voice.

"Goddess of life. Goddess of death. Goddess of air and earth and water and fire. Allow this storm to do as it must, but cast a shield around the grove. Cast a shield around the town. Cast a shield around all people. Cast a shield around all animals. Cast a shield around trees and plants. Send the storm where it can be free. Send the storm where it can be what it is and cause least harm. Protect us as the storm lives and dies. Help us protect those who will not ask for protection. Help us protect those who do not know how to ask. With your strength, make gentleness possible. Allow peace to return to all. Blessed be."

Everyone echoed, "Blessed be," and then they began to hum. So I did, too. We swayed gently, side to side, and I allowed myself to go fully into that trance state I’d barely tasted spying on the grove at Samhain, and at Mr. Ward’s funeral. We swayed. We hummed. We existed as one. And there was some power, some strength that I didn't recognize, that I’d never felt before, and it wrapped all of us in it together.

Time passed; I don’t know how much. At some point I was aware of a roaring sound that I knew to be the winds of the storm, and then all I heard was humming again. Gradually people stopped humming, and the swaying slowed and then stopped. We were all still holding hands.

Then Talise Alexander, the woman Ronan had said doused for the labyrinth site, stood. "The village is unharmed. But someone’s hurt. Wait… two people. I don’t know who or where."

I was expecting everyone to get up and leave, but no one moved, and we were all still holding hands. But I needed to make sure my family was okay, so I let go and moved over to a corner. First I called to be sure Mom was okay, and she was. She'd already spoken to Dad, and everything was fine at the garage, where both Dad and Stu were today. But I had to call anyway. I wanted Dad and Stu to know I cared about them.

I was on the phone with Dad when it occurred to me to ask, "Patty?"

There was a beat or two of silence, and then he said, "Stu can’t reach her, but maybe she’s just not picking up." I knew he meant she might not answer when Stu’s name showed up on her phone.

"I’ll call her now."

"Good idea." This simple phrase from my father right now felt great.

Patty didn't answer for me, either. It rang several times and went to voicemail. I left a short message, but I was worried; she must have known there’d been a tornado, and she must have known I was calling about that. So—why not answer my call?

Ivy and Griffin had left the spiral, too, and they were standing there waiting for me to finish the calls. I told them, "I can’t reach Patty. Stu’s fiancée. Sort of."

Griffin glanced around quickly and located Talise, waving to her to come over to us. She did, and softly, he said, "Can you follow Jesse’s energy to his brother’s fiancée? We’re worried about her."

Talise smiled at me. "So this is the famous Jesse. Of course."

She took my hands in hers. "Jesse, what’s her name?" I told her, and she said, "Concentrate on Patty. Hold her image and her energy in your mind. Don’t speak."

We stood there for maybe thirty seconds, and I felt Talise’s hands jerk in mine. "Do you know anything about where Patty is?" I shook my head. "I don’t know what’s going on specifically, but I can tell you she’s in trouble."

I turned to Griffin. "I have to find her. She’s pregnant."

"Oh!" Talise’s eyes got wide. "Oh, Jesse! Then—two people…"

OMG. Talise had said two people had been hurt. Was that Patty and her baby? My niece or nephew? Everyone in the room was now looking at us, but they were still sitting on the floor.

Griffin said, "I’m coming with you." To Talise, he said, "I’ll let you know something as soon as I do."

Ivy and Griffin ran with me up the stairs, out of the building, and toward my truck. There was a huge branch on the ground, blocking my way. Thank the Goddess Griffin was there, because it took both of us to move it out of the way. We all climbed in, and I threw the truck into gear and tore up the highway, barely noticing the arboreal carnage on the west side of the road, thinking Patty might be in her apartment, not knowing where else to start. But almost immediately I heard a horn blaring, and then I saw her car.

Griffin beat both of us to the car. "She’s inside. She’s unconscious."

The car was in the road, and there was a tree on top of it. It wasn't a huge tree, but it was big enough that it had crushed the roof onto Patty’s head and must have knocked her out. She was leaned forward on the collapsed airbag, and that was why the horn was blaring non-stop. The driver’s side door was kind of popped out of its frame just enough to be completely in the way, hanging at an odd angle on bent hinges. Griffin pulled on it, but it wouldn't budge. I joined him, but still, no movement.

I pulled out my phone and called 9-1-1. Griffin called Todd Swazey, who said he’d be right there. My next call was to Stu. I told him where the car was and what I knew, which wasn't much, and he rang off without a word. I knew he’d be here as soon as he could.

Griffin struggled to get his arm into the car and laid a few fingers on the side of Patty’s neck. He nodded; there was a pulse. Then he said, "Just look at all the downed trees! It’s amazing they aren’t blocking the road. Just all up the west side, like Eleanor asked. If only the funnel had missed this one."

Now we waited—more waiting!—and I felt so fucking helpless. I wanted to reach in and pull Patty out, but even if that were something I should do—which it wasn’t—that stupid door was in the way. Her face was toward me, eyes closed, jaw kind of slack, mouth open a little. She almost looked dead.

Todd got to us before Stu or the ambulance, and then cars started to collect around us on the road. Griffin and I did our best to wave them on; I wanted the ambulance to have a clear path. This meant I couldn’t watch Todd very well, but I saw him bring some equipment from his truck, and pretty soon he had the car door off.

Griffin jogged over to me. "He doesn’t dare move her, but the EMTs from the ambulance can get to her now."

The ambulance arrived in minutes that seemed to take forever, with a police car hot on its tail. They managed to get Patty out of the car and onto a stretcher with padding around her head so it didn't move. I told them, "She’s a couple of months pregnant. Is she breathing?"

They nodded and moved with her toward the ambulance.

Suddenly Stu was beside me; I hadn't seen him arrive. "I need you to get my truck home. I’m going in the ambulance. I’ll call her folks from there." He tossed me his keys and dashed to the ambulance before they could close the doors.

I went over to Todd’s truck to thank him, and a police officer came over to me. "You know the victim?"

Victim. Wow. "Um, yeah. She’s engaged to my brother. Patty Arnold." I figured it wasn't worth going into details about the state of the engagement. They asked a couple of questions, like how we came across the accident, what else we might know about it, and who took the door off. They looked hard at Todd, who was just standing there like a statue, huge and powerful and silent. I figured the police knew he was from the village, and they might have suspicions they didn't even know how to express.

But then one of them said to Todd, "Might have saved her life, getting that door out of the way so quickly."

Todd smiled and nodded, and then he got into his truck and headed home.

Griffin was on the phone with Talise, letting her know what had happened. When he hung up he said, "She’ll let the others know so they can send a different energy. They don’t have to keep trying to see who was hurt."

"They were doing that?"

"Why do you think everyone stayed in the spiral? They wanted to start casting energy out right away for whoever was hurt."

"Even though they knew it was no one in the village?"

He looked at me oddly. "Jesse, haven’t you figured out yet that we aren’t the ones who hate?"

"Sorry. Yes, I have figured that out. It’s just…" I didn't know how to finish.

He did. "It’s just that not very many people of the town would concern themselves if they knew two villagers had been hurt."

We locked eyes for a second, but not in anger. It was more like frustration at this cold war in place between his people and mine.

Griffin said, "Come on. I’ll help you with Stu’s truck. You drive Ivy home and I'll meet you at your house. Then you can give me a ride back."

I handed Griffin my keys, and Ivy and I climbed into Stu's truck. She'd already called her folks, and everything was fine at home.

"Don't wait, Jesse," she said when I pulled up to let her off. "Go be with your family." I didn't wait.

At home, Griffin stayed out front in my truck while I went inside to be sure Mom was okay and that she knew what had happened. She said Dad had called her.

"Were you there when the ambulance got there?"

"Yeah. Stu was there pretty quickly, too. He went with her. So I drove his truck home. He’s calling her folks."

"How is she?"

"She was breathing, but unconscious. I told them she’s pregnant."

She gave me an odd look. "How did you know that?"

I shrugged. "I heard something the other night."

She must have thought this emergency was more important than quizzing me further. She said, "I’ll call your father, and then I’ll call her parents."

She glanced outside to where Griffin was sitting in the passenger seat of my truck, parked along the road in front of the house. "Who’s that in your truck? He's been out there for some time."

"Griffin Holyoke. I had to drive Stu’s truck home, but mine was at the accident site. And we'd given another friend a ride, so I had to go there first. So Griffin drove mine. Now I need to give him a ride back. I’ll be home right after that."

She was still looking at Griffin. "Have I met this friend?"

"Don’t think so. He’s not… he’s not gay. He’s just a friend, Mom. And Ivy's boyfriend, like I told you. Wanna meet him?"

She shook her head.

We were halfway to the village when Griffin said, "I hope you’ll tell them about Todd. About what the policeman said."

I grinned. "Are you kidding? I’m going to tell everyone I know about that." Then, "Ronan came to me. In the shelter."

"Yeah. I saw. I, uh, wouldn't read too much into that. He really cares about you, Jesse, but he's determined not to get involved."

I would change his mind. I was determined, too.

Back home, there was a note from Mom saying she’d taken Mrs. Arnold to the hospital, that Patty’s father would meet them there, and that she’d call me as soon as there was anything to report. I sat at the kitchen table, the silence of the house weighing on me in a really odd way. Something inside me was shivering uncomfortably. I was sure it had to do with the accident, but I couldn't make it stop. I wanted to get up and put on some music, or turn on the TV, but I felt like I couldn't move. There was a lump in my throat, and I was blinking back tears that didn't seem to have any reason to be there.

Finally I picked up my phone, and I called Brad to make sure he was okay and to let him know about Patty. We chatted for a few minutes, but there was nothing much to say, so we rang off again.

More silence. More shivering. More waiting. I hated this. I had almost managed to get out of the chair when my phone rang.

It was Mom. She was crying. "Patty’s going to be all right, Jesse. But—the baby!"

Now the tears had a reason. I wasn't weeping, but there were moisture trails all down my cheeks. There was nothing to say. I almost asked if it was a boy or a girl, but what difference did it make? Maybe Mom thought it mattered, because she said, "It was a little girl."

I swallowed a few times so I could manage to get some words out. "Is Patty conscious? Does she know?"

"Yes. Stu’s with her." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Patty will have to stay here until they’re sure she’s all right. Concussions, you know. At least she doesn't seem to be bleeding internally. But they have to watch her."

"That makes sense." What else to say? Why was this so hard?

"I’m going to call your father now, Jesse. He wanted to stay at the garage unless Patty… unless she didn’t make it."

That kind of made sense, too, but I didn't say it again. "Okay. I’ll get supper started, if you want, and you can stay there as long as you need to."

"Thanks, sweetie." She told me what she had planned. "I’ll let you know if I’m going to be here much longer. I think Stu will stay, and probably the Arnolds."

We rang off. I texted Griffin. She’ll be okay. Concussion. But she lost the baby.

I know. I’m so sorry. We’re all sending grounding and healing energy to her.

He knew. These people amaze me. Thanks. Then I texted Ivy to let her know.

I had no idea what time it was. My watch said it was almost four, but that felt irrelevant. I had to force my brain to focus on logistical things, like how soon Dad would be home expecting dinner, and whether I should try to keep something warm for Mom if she didn't get home until late. Zombie-like, I went through the motions of pulling things out of the fridge and cabinets. I barely remembered what Mom had said she was planning, but she’d left the recipe card out. Meatloaf. This was a family favorite, so we had it often. Usually if I was doing this, I'd add stuff depending on my mood and on what was in the house. This time, I just followed her recipe.

More to provide some noise than anything else, I turned the kitchen TV on. It was a news station, and they were talking about the tornado, so I stopped working to listen.

It wasn’t a very big funnel. They thought it formed several miles south of town and followed the edge of the highway north, and then just below town it headed west across some plowed fields and roped out. There were a couple of experts on the phone who said this was an unusual pattern. Someone else said that road crews were out making sure there weren't trees or other debris blocking the road, but there was not much for them to do. Somehow no power lines went down. There was no mention of Patty.

I went back to my task, but I almost didn't see my own hands. Rather than focus on Patty’s baby, I let my mind go back to the shelter in the village, and to what Eleanor asked the Goddess for. Of course I couldn't know what would have happened if it hadn’t been for that prayer or whatever it was, but the fact was the storm did just what Eleanor asked, with the exception of Patty’s car.

Meatloaf in the oven, I worked on the potatoes and the vegetables. Mom already had an apple pie ready for dessert. As I was adjusting the water temperature so the potatoes wouldn't boil over, it occurred to me to wonder what had happened to my morels. I figured Griffin had them. If I wanted to make that soup, I'd need to collect more. Not high on my list right now.

Mom got home around five thirty and immediately wrapped me in her arms. We stood there like that for a minute or two, and then she sniffled and released me to grab a tissue.

"Thank God you were nearby," she said. "How did you find her so quickly?"

I hadn't told her details about my plans for the afternoon before I left, and I wasn't sure how she was going to take the truth. I decided to risk it, even though I left a few things out. And maybe twisted a couple of facts, just a little.

"I was with Ivy Gilman and Griffin Holyoke in the woods south of the village. Griffin was harvesting morels, which he does every year. We'd just found a bunch of them when Griffin got a call about the tornado. The safest thing to do was go to the storm shelter in the village, which is below their meeting house. So Ivy and I went with Griffin. After the storm passed I started calling around, and Dad said Patty hadn’t picked up Stu’s call. So I decided to try, and she didn’t answer. Ivy and Griffin went with me to see if we could find her. I was gonna head toward her apartment first, but I saw her car right away and called 9-1-1."

Mom slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. "Did she hit a tree?"

"No. Actually, a tree hit her. It fell on the car. She was slumped over the wheel, unconscious, and her door was hanging partway off the car." Here was my chance to sing Todd’s praises, so I told her what he’d done.

Mom sat there, rubbing her hairline with her fingers. She looked done in. I asked, "How is Patty? Other than… you know."

Mom exhaled a long breath. "She had a concussion, of course. It doesn’t look like there will be a problem, but as I said earlier, they’re keeping her overnight for observation. Stu’s still there, with her, and her folks. I don’t know whether he’ll come back with them tonight, or if he’ll crash in a waiting room someplace."

I was dying to ask if it looked like they were back together, but the only way I’d know about a rift at all would be my eavesdropping, which I didn't want to admit to.

When Dad got home, Mom had to go over all of it again. He didn't pay much attention to me—par for the course lately—until it became clear to him that it might have saved her life that I'd found her so quickly.

When we sat down for the meal, his first question for me didn't give me a warm-and-fuzzy feeling. "What were you doing in the village? You said you wouldn’t go there without permission."

"I wasn’t in the village. I was with Ivy Gilman and her boyfriend in the woods south of the village."

"Doing what?"

I wondered how many scenarios were playing themselves out inside his head. "Harvesting morels. They're a kind of edible mushroom that grow in the woods this time of year."

"But you went into the village shelter."

"Well, yeah. It was that or hang out under the trees with a tornado on the loose."

Mom passed the bowl of potatoes around. Dad said, "How long were you down there?"

"Just until the funnel passed. We could hear it roaring, so we knew when it was safe."

No one seemed to have any more invasive questions, and talk turned to the path the funnel had taken. Dad used to watch that TV show, Storm Chasers, so he started throwing terms and factoids around like he knew what he was talking about. Then he said he agreed with what he’d heard on the radio about it being an odd track for the storm to take, following the side of the highway as long as it did, and for some reason that seemed good at the time but that I regretted almost immediately, I talked about what Eleanor had said in the shelter.

"They prayed for the storm to go where it would do the least damage."

Dad stopped eating and stared at me. "Are you telling me they prayed for the storm to hit us instead of them?"

"What? No! That’s not what I said at all. They prayed for it to miss the village and to miss the town. They prayed for us as much as for them. Like I said, they asked it to go where it wouldn’t hurt anyone."

"But it did hurt someone! It hurt Patty, and it killed my grandchild! Are you telling me that’s their idea of not hurting someone?"

"That's—look, wouldn’t you have prayed something exactly like that? Didn’t you pray?" He glared at me and stabbed at something on his plate like that was a ridiculous question, but what it told me was that he hadn't prayed. "Dad, you might not fall on your knees and talk to God when you need something badly, but that's what the villagers did. They asked for people and animals to be protected." Probably not a good time to mention the Goddess. But I came really close to telling them what Talise had said about two people being hurt. I stopped myself in time, though; in this mood, that might confirm his suspicions.

The side of his hand hit the table edge. "I prayed to keep everyone safe!"

"So did they. You all failed."

"I think," Mom said, in a gentle voice that calmed things down, "we owe them a debt of gratitude. Jesse tells me Patty was trapped in her car, unconscious. The medics couldn't have opened the door. Someone from the village took the door of the car off, so that as soon as the ambulance arrived, they could get to her immediately. That might have saved her life, Gene."

Wow. I had to force myself not to stare at Mom. But you can believe I filed that support away for future reference.

Maybe feeling more subdued than he looked, Dad diverted the conversation, at least a little. "How big a tree was it that hit her car?"

I told him, "Not very big, just heavy enough to crush the roof. And it popped the driver’s door part-way open and then jammed it. That's why the blacksmith had to take it off. And it did save her life. The police even said so." And I reached for the potatoes like that was an end to that conversational point.

Dad went back to talking about rear flank downdraft and EFT, whatever that means. All I knew was that it has to do with the strength of the storm, and ours was only an EFT1.

We were nearly done with our pie when a car pulled up in front, and then Stu came in. He said it was Patty’s folks, dropping him off.

"I’ll drive back up in the morning and stay with her until they release her, and I’ll bring her home." He fell into his chair at the table, and Mom brought him a plate full of food. She set it in front of him and then gave him a quick hug around his neck from behind the chair.

I didn't know what to say. Should I have said I was sorry about the baby? Or would he rather not be reminded? And how was the relationship now? Would she take the ring back? And if she did, would that mean Stu hated me less?

Halfway through his meatloaf, eyes on his plate, Stu said, "Sounds like your friends there might have saved her life." Guess he’d heard what had happened.

"They did. The police even said so. Todd Swazey took the car door off so the EMTs could get her out."

"How did you happen to be there?"

So I told that tale all over again, again being careful to leave out details that might be disturbing to my audience.

He took a mouthful of buttered carrots and watched me as he chewed. Then, as I was taking a drink of milk, he asked, "Do you know a Mrs. Coulter?"

I nearly choked on the milk. When I could speak, I said, "Sorry; swallowed wrong. Um, I don’t know her, no. But her son is in some of my classes at school."

"Patty knows her."

OMG. The potion.

That got Mom’s attention. "Why is that?"

Stu shoved a forkful of food into his mouth and shook his head. He ignored her question completely. Around the food he said, "Patty feels like it was her fault she lost the baby. Like God is punishing her, or something."

"What for?" Mom sounded annoyed.

What I wanted to ask was why God would kill an innocent baby to punish Patty for anything.

But again, Stu didn't answer. He looked at me. "The good news is we’re back together again." And he started talking about getting wedding plans underway, which seemed to distract Mom, and even Dad, enough that no one followed up on Mom’s questions not getting answered.