Chapter Six

She woke in the morning to the sound of birdsong outside her window and an empty place in the bed beside her. That second one wasn’t a surprise—she’d known that Magnus had to be up and gone at dawn, back to his Ulf training. The soonest she could hope to see him would be at dinner, if then. She didn’t mind, really. Last night had been a wonderful interlude, but in the cold light of morning, reality hadn’t magically changed to make their situation any different. Magnus still had to focus on his difficult and treacherous tests, and she was still broken and bruised from her last two relationships and all the baggage that had come along with them.

Although she had to admit, as she sang quietly to herself in the shower, then tied her long dark hair back into its usual braid, maybe not quite as broken as she had been the night before. There was something very healing about being with someone you trusted absolutely—even if you couldn’t share a future and you both knew it.

Donata braced herself when she walked down the hallway, through the entrance hall, and into the kitchen. But thankfully the only one who seemed to be around was Astrid, who was standing at the counter kneading bread.

“Good morning,” Astrid said as she saw Donata. “I trust you slept well? The bed was comfortable?”

“Very,” Donata said, hoping she wasn’t blushing. Witches tended to be quite open about sexuality in all its forms, but she didn’t know what the Ulfhednar take on it was nor how Astrid would feel about her son and Donata sharing a bed. “Um, I don’t suppose there is coffee around. It looks like I’ve missed breakfast.”

“I’m afraid we’re all up and out early around here,” Astrid said. “But there is coffee in the pot on the stove, and I’ve got a plate for you keeping warm in the oven.” She brushed floury hands off on her apron and fetched Donata a mug, then pulled out a plate piled high with French toast, bacon, and sausage. “Can make you some eggs to go with that? It won’t take me a minute.”

Donata eyed the mound of food dubiously as she sat down at a small table in the corner of the kitchen and shook her head. She was hungry for the first time in weeks, but even so, she doubted she could make a dent in that amount of food. She’d better wrap up the Ulfhednar’s mystery quickly, or they’d be rolling her out the door when she finally left.

Speaking of which . . . “I’d hoped to talk to some of the folks who had unwanted visits from the ghosts of their dead, but I suppose they’re all out doing whatever training exercise Magnus is involved in today.”

“They are,” Astrid said, rolling the dough into a ball with capable fingers and settling it into a greased bowl on top of the counter to rise. “Except for Freddy, of course. He’s the one who was injured when his brother appeared out of nowhere, and he had to drop out of the Ulf training for this year. I took the liberty of calling him earlier and asking him to meet us where the incident happened. You’d said something about wanting to get a feel for the area, and I thought that would kill two birds with one stone. I hope that’s all right.”

Donata could feel her eyebrows rising toward her forehead. Somehow she’d expected to have to twist a lot more arms before getting anyone to talk to her. “That’s perfect, actually. Thank you.”

Astrid gave her a slightly mischievous grin, reminding Donata of the woman’s perpetually cheerful—especially when making trouble—son.

“You may not thank me quite as much when you see where we’re going. I hope you brought hiking boots.”

Donata had, in fact, brought boots suitable for tramping through the woods, and with her jeans, long-sleeved cotton tee, and leather jacket, she was perfectly attired for a walk. Which turned out to be a damned good thing, because apparently Freddy’s unfortunate mishap had occurred quite a way down barely discernible paths that wove between towering gray-green trees and rampant underbrush, some of which had aggressive thorns lurking in its midst waiting to snag the unwary traveler who dared to trespass. The occasional late-season blackberry only slightly sweetened the trek.

Donata thought it was a good thing she still worked out most days, either at the precinct’s basement gym or the neighborhood martial arts studio, since Astrid set a brisk pace and maintained it seemingly without effort. Apparently even the older Ulfhednar were still in ridiculously good shape.

Eventually they followed a burbling creek to the base of a massive stone outcropping. Birds sang in the woods around them, and something small scurried through the bushes, making them rustle and wave. They stopped in a clearing where misty sunlight filtered down through the trees and shone off the blond hair of a tall, muscular man who could have been one of Magnus’s second or third cousins. And maybe was, for all Donata knew.

Unlike Magnus’s, though, Freddy’s mouth was pulled down into a scowl, and he didn’t look even remotely pleased to see Donata, although he nodded pleasantly enough at Astrid. His left arm was cradled by a sling, and the matching side of his face still bore healing bruises and scratches. When he moved toward them, he seemed to favor his left leg as well, although the limp was barely noticeable unless you knew to look for it.

“So,” he said in a brusque, matter-of-fact tone, “you’re Magnus’s Witch.”

Donata rolled her eyes but didn’t bother to argue about her ownership or lack thereof. “I’m Donata, yes. And you must be Freddy. Thank you for meeting me here today.”

“Don’t know what good it will do,” he said, still scowling. “I got no answers to give you, and I don’t expect you’d be able to do anything with them even if I did.”

“Manners, Freddy,” Astrid said, sounding just like Donata’s great-aunt Tatiana when she was teaching Witch School. “You’re going to make me look bad in front of our guest.”

“Council spy, you mean,” Freddy muttered, but added reluctantly, “Fine, just tell me what you want to know.” He dug one booted foot into the dirt, looking down instead of at Donata, and it suddenly occurred to her that he was embarrassed. Good Ulf in training probably didn’t see ghosts and get injured because of it.

She moderated the tone she was going to use to something a little less aggressive. “Can you just tell me what happened? Don’t worry if it sounds strange. ‘Strange’ is pretty much in my job description.” Even if she was moonlighting.

“Sure, okay.” He nodded in the direction of the escarpment they were standing near. “So, I was climbing to the top of the cliff when it happened.”

“Wait.” Donata looked at the almost-sheer rock face. “You were climbing that?” She shuddered. Magnus had told her it was a thirty-foot drop, but she’d thought he was exaggerating. She didn’t even like to go up tall ladders, although she would if she had to. The stone mass was nearly vertical, with very little that looked like it would provide hand- or footholds, and went a long way up before finally ending in a small plateau. “How?”

“With great difficulty,” Freddy said, a hint of a grin lightening his battered face. “That’s the point. It’s one of the tests we have to pass. Formations like these are all over this area, and that day we were each out climbing a different one.” At her questioning look, he added, “There was a token waiting at the top, which you brought with you to show you’d successfully completed the task.” The smile slid away. He hadn’t completed it, of course, and now couldn’t try again until next year. Astrid had told Donata he’d had to have three pins put into his fractured femur. His arm apparently had so many cracked bones, it was still healing more slowly.

“Where were you when you saw the ghost?” Donata asked.

Freddy pointed to a spot just under a scraggly pine tenaciously clinging to the edge of the plateau. “I had almost made it to the top. I had one hand on that branch and was reaching up with the other when I looked up and saw my brother. Well, something that looked like my brother, anyway.” A muscle under his eye twitched, although that was the only indication she saw of how rattled he was under the surface.

“Did he say anything?”

“Not that I heard,” Freddy said. “Seeing him up there startled me so much, my hand slipped off the branch and I fell.” He gave her a wry look. “Takes a lot less time to come back down than it did going up, I’ll tell you.”

Donata fought to keep her mouth from dropping open as she stared at the cliff. She didn’t know how the hell he’d even survived the drop at all let alone could be walking around this soon afterward, pins or no pins. “Shit,” she said. “That’s one hell of a plunge.”

“Yep,” he said. “Bounced off the wall a bit on my way down and then landed in that patch of berry bushes. Scratched the crap out of me, but they probably saved my life. Ulfhednar heal fast, but a broken neck will still kill us.”

“You’re a lucky guy. You know, other than the obvious. Did you ever see the ghost again?”

“That’s the weird thing,” Freddy said. “I was pretty stunned by the fall, and it turns out I had a concussion, but I could swear I saw Samuel—that’s my brother—standing over me right afterward. And it looked like he was crying, although he didn’t make any noise. I’d kind of forgotten until Astrid asked me to talk to you about it.”

“Huh. So you didn’t get the sense that he’d intended to harm you?” Donata asked. Ghosts could be malicious or benign. It would really help if she could figure out what kind they were dealing with in this case.

“No, not at all. He kind of reminded me of when we were kids and he got us into some kind of trouble. He was a couple years older than me and he’d always step up and take the blame, not that we didn’t both end up getting punished in the end.” He shook his head. “He seemed, I don’t know, sad, or confused or something. But like I said, I was in pretty bad shape, so I’m not sure of anything, even that I really saw him. Until a couple of the others mentioned their own experiences, I thought maybe I’d imagined the whole thing.”

Astrid sighed. “Ulfhednar, especially the men, aren’t very good at admitting to anything they perceive as weakness. It wasn’t until Lita, one of the two women in training, said something to her mother, who told me, that the whole story finally came out. That’s when Magnus decided to ask you for help.”

“I see.” And she did. She wasn’t all that good at admitting weakness either. When you work a tough job that most people don’t understand or accept well, you learn to keep your guard up. “How did your brother die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“You think that might have something to do with this?” Freddy said. “I don’t see how it could. He drowned when we were both in our late teens. He was white-water rafting and went over a rock hidden under the water. The raft capsized; he hit his head and was gone before anyone could get to him. I wasn’t even there.” He bit his lip. “A part of me always thinks I could have saved him if I had been.”

Astrid patted his arm but didn’t say anything. There really wasn’t anything to say. Donata felt bad that she’d had to bring up such painful memories, but she couldn’t determine what had brought the ghosts out unless she had all the facts. Such as they were.

“No, that doesn’t sound like his death could have any bearing on current events,” she said. “Although I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for sharing your story with me. I appreciate it.”

He gazed at her for a moment without blinking. “I like Magnus,” he finally said. “And I didn’t see what it could hurt to tell you. There’s nothing there that the Council would have any interest in.”

“Oh, for the love of goddess,” she said. “I am not a Council spy.”

He just shrugged, nodded at Astrid, and stomped off into the woods without another word.

“I think that went reasonably well, don’t you?” Astrid said, pointedly ignoring their last interchange. “Do you want to see the top of the cliff where the ghost first appeared now?”

Donata stared up the side of the rock wall and swallowed hard. “Uh, I might as well check the spot down here first, even if Freddy isn’t sure if he really saw his brother after he fell or not.”

Astrid followed her gaze and chuckled. “Don’t worry, there is a longer but much less steep path if we go up the side way. I don’t have any desire to make that climb either.”

Whew.

In the end, it didn’t much matter. Donata didn’t get any particular sense of a spirit lingering in either place, although she did find some curious scratches in the dirt up on the plateau. She took a few pictures of them with the camera on her phone, but she couldn’t honestly tell if they were something—rune symbols maybe—or just lines etched by time or wind or even kids. There was a small stone circle where someone had once lit a fire, but there was no way to tell how long it had been there or when it had last been used. She took a picture of that, too, then gratefully followed Astrid down the side of the hill and back to the creek-side clearing.

“Do you think you can find your way back to the house if I take you part of the way there?” Astrid asked. “I want to go looking for some ginseng I spotted near here in the spring. But I can come back for it some other time if you think you’ll get lost.”

Well, that explained the backpack the other woman had slung over her shoulder. Donata had thought maybe it held some lunch. Drat. It felt like they’d been out here all day.

“I’m pretty sure I can find my way back if you can get me down to that big oak we passed,” Donata said. “The trail was easy enough to follow from there.”

“Great,” Astrid said. “Feel free to help yourself to anything in the fridge when you get back. I won’t be more than an hour or two, probably, but I expect you’ll be hungry before then. All this fresh air can work up quite an appetite, even in a city girl.” She grinned.

Donata didn’t know if it was the fresh air or just getting away from her problems for a while, but she felt better than she had in ages. She marched along with a spring in her step, and after Astrid dropped her off at the trail, she might have even been humming a little. Right until a strange man stepped out from behind a tree and into her path.

“Donata Santori,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Crap.

He didn’t have the feel of an Ulfhednar; they tended to have a particular wild-tinged aura about them. Donata supposed he could have been one of the Humans who lived in the area, but something told her he wasn’t just a random hunter looking for game. Maybe the fact that he knew her name. Her hand strayed toward her jacket, but of course, she’d left her gun back at the house, not having foreseen any need for it while out on a walk with Astrid to talk to a man about a ghost. She was an idiot.

“You seem to have found me,” she said, more casual than she actually felt. Although the guy wasn’t particularly menacing—an inch or so taller than her, with a sandy brown crew cut and mild brown eyes, and dressed in clothing not terribly well suited for a stroll in the Maine woods—something about him made the tiny hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She’d learned to pay attention to that feeling. “What can I do for you?”

He took a step closer to her, blocking her way back to the house. “You can tell me where Anton Eastman is.”

Double crap with a side of onion rings.