Pieces of Ivy (16 page)

She felt the ground, warm and moist.

“Probably why the natives chose it as a burial site to begin with.” His breath grew tight and uncomfortable as the rest of the story came to him. “Funny thing is, according to Tom Kefir—the old historian when I was a kid—there was always ice in winter and never fog nor whining trees out here until they buried the burned bodies centuries ago.”

She squeezed his arm.

“They were brought here to the West Coast from out East, to be chopped up and burned further, down to black pieces, and then buried and scattered here—a massacre of witches.”

She was cutting off the circulation in his arm as she scanned the ghostly fog around their feet.

He laughed at her widening eyes.

She hit him. “You’re shitting me.”

“Maybe not.” He winked. He did hear the story as a kid—everyone did. But freaky as the stories were, he was a grown man now. So why couldn’t he shake the fear of a terrified child?

She stomped off in their previous direction, easing her steps slightly as she remembered she was still on the sacred ground. She wanted to be mad at him for scaring her like that, but, in a way, it shocked her into realizing how silly her fears were—nothing but ghost stories and an old creepy-looking forest.

With more confidence in her step, she still felt uneasy beneath the clawing fingers of the trees and atop the dead calm of the earth. The only life beyond themselves didn’t help. A murder of crows eyed them from their high perch in the trees. Of course it had to be crows. She wanted to laugh at the growing cliché surrounding them, but not even a small smile was willing to bud inside her. There was a flit at the nape of her neck.
Oh, nice.

“Not funny,” she snapped.

“What?”

“Just grow up.”

“What?”

“Don’t touch my hair.”

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

He waved a hand at her. “Now you’re just trying to fuck with
me
.”

“Not in your wildest dreams, bud.”

He shook his head. “Let’s just keep moving.”

With each twisting step around a particularly challenging bed of roots, Vicki saw a stout dark structure in the distance, moving in and out of view between the trees as she walked. “I think I see the bridge over there.”

Hank figured that meant that they had passed through the sacred grounds. “Later, skinnies.” His quip at the bones resting beneath the earth came out less bravely than he had hoped and not without a hard swallow first.

Through the empty wedge of two wrestling, twisted tree trunks, Vicki caught sight of what they were looking for—it was just up ahead. The sheriff had promised,
You’ll know it when you see it
. She wanted to punch Roscoe in the face.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hank said as they approached.

She had seen them too. Blanched human skulls adorning the bridge.

“The townsfolk aren’t crazy,” he added. “This lady’s certifiable.”

“Oh, so you’re a qualified shrink now?”

“You disagree?”

She looked at the skulls and shook her head.

Cool fingers, insidious spiders and all manner of pin-clawed creatures continued to invade every sensation of her body as the agents approached the dead bridge. The crossing arched over a dying finger of the broader Cherrybrook Creek, but Vicki would never want to traverse its thinner, drying sibling without using the hideous bridge.

She knew full well that it was her ego keeping her from seeking any measure of reassurance from Hank—be it confidence from his eyes, a smile from his lips or the tight, fatherly embrace from his arms. She had to fight the fear that she was now so unaccustomed to. In fact she hadn’t known this level of fear since she was ten.

Beyond the thick, unforgiving mud of the thirsty creek bed that the skull-adorned bridge fell upon, Vicki tried to focus on the deep blades of sunlight that sliced between the dark branches on the far side. Even a thin slice would be her salvation, if only she could make it across that bridge.

She could feel an icy-cold tremor step beside her, and she knew it was Hank. She chanced a glance up at him—ego be damned—but found no comfort in his eyes. He was afraid of the bridge too. They were professionals. Logic demanded that they shed this childish fear; but they couldn’t.

Often in life people have to push forward, regardless of the fear—drive through the terrors that would hold one paralyzed. But, today, Vicki didn’t want to.

† †
†

Though sharing Vicki’s hesitation, eons of chivalrous perceptions persevered, striking adrenaline-laced needles into Hank’s leg muscles. He was the man, and so he took the impossible steps toward the dead arch. He would never, ever share with anyone the unimaginable relief he felt as she quickly joined him at his side. They moved forward together.

He just wanted to go home.

Although he faced his spine-chilling destination, and was unable to remove the haunting bridge from his periphery, he forced his focus toward the distraction of the heavy black muck of the expiring creek.

Seeing the mud, he knew with absolute certainty that it wanted to eat him, chew him, suck the flesh from his bones—consume them both. A part of him wanted to give himself to the muddy maw and have it be done with. But Vicki made no moves to do the same. Her unwavering stride toward their doom tethered him on this dreaded path—
what a selfish bitch.

He whipped his glance at her as quickly as possible but was unable to avoid the flashing image of the bridge as it streaked across his fleeing vision. He pressed his hand against his weapon, fighting not to draw it. He suddenly got the sense that both the chamber and clip were empty—fearing it might shoot bubbles rather than bullets.

He saw the same full measure of his fear had whitened Vicki’s face; it was completely drained of blood. Heavy dark cups of black fear hung cradled beneath her eyes; she was as terrified as he was. Would he have been surprised to see her hair grow white with fright?

The wasting moments he had spent fearing for his life had torn away the blessed long strides between him and that frightful bridge. He froze instantly before its mouth. Only now, as the two agents stood at the stone threshold of the death-saddled bridge, did the skeletal curtain of gray deadwoods beyond reveal the structure they had aptly conspired to hide, simply by the position of their growth, from birth to death.

Two hundred yards past the bridge sat the gray agony of a menacing large house with its sharp charcoal chimney piercing its stone through the blackened thatch roof, as other hard-cut stones enveloped the disturbing fortress. In rings of tarnished halos, ashen smoke hung impossibly still around the lifeless foreboding of the witch’s residence.

Vicki didn’t believe in witches. But she trusted the growing possibility forming in her gut—this was an
evil
place. A dead
thunk
punched her heart into panic before she realized it was the heavy surrendered footfall of Hank’s right boot against the first solid bridge plank. Forcing self-evidence of bravery upon herself, she took three egoic strides past him and immediately wished she hadn’t. There was no air here.

She realized that it wasn’t the fear that had locked her chest and had prevented it from breathing. The only volume that hung in the open space over the bridge was
death
—and in death there was no breath.

Her lungs burned in sacrifice as she scrambled forward, shedding all pretense and pride, until her unrestrained panic flung her off the blackened passage, collapsing onto the cold, dead ground beyond the bridge. She pulled a heavy breath deep into her starving lungs. Breathing was laced with the rich, weighty taste of rotting earth and fallen leaves—the best air of her life.

As if it were her first true breath, it came with a profound sense of life and gratitude—better than any drawn before. The blissful breath of life. She barely registered Hank’s body falling over her, crashing three feet beyond as she drew in her next rich, leafy breath.

The earthen air was not as foul as she had preconceived. Instead, it was a wealth of thick, clean oxygen, and she inhaled its nutrients, as if she were gulping in pure life-giving energy. She felt strength draw into her muscles, and she pulled herself up with a newly realized power. Hank did the same. He looked taller, stronger.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She wasn’t sure if he was asking her or himself. “I’m fine,” she said, giving absolutely no justice to how she actually felt. She didn’t know if she did truly feel that much better than before, or if it was in such stark contrast to how she was feeling while approaching and crossing the bridge that, only in comparison, could she feel powerful enough to tear down a mountain stone by stone. “You?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” He brushed himself off and then helped her do the same.

Neither was at all interested in sharing their feelings before the bridge. Fueled with a new confidence, she turned to the imposing structure behind them and studied the dark wooden bridge. The dangling sun-blanched skulls remained as grim looking as before, the difference being how she perceived them. From this side, she couldn’t help but appreciate the fear they invoked because of how extra sweet that terror made this side of the crossing feel. Still, a toothy grin challenged her.

“What are you doing?”

She questioned that herself, but she had to know. She reached for one of the creamy-gray craniums and turned it, feeling ick trickle through her fingers as she held it. There it was, the stamp she was looking for. The skulls were legal. Skulls were skulls, but at least these were not forcibly taken.

Her jittery fingers let go, and the skull swung back on its frayed rope to sound a hollow
clunk
against the heavy timber of the bridge archway.

“Shall we?” Hank asked with a newfound confidence.

Up ahead, swaths of sunlight revealed a quiet, but not unsettling, mystery around the property—washing away its haunting facade from the shadows. As they walked side by side toward the house, they passed by warm pockets of sunbathed ground, each home to a bountiful fruit tree of varying fruits, sheltering burgeoning berry bushes.

The abundance of life teeming from these thriving trees and bushes made even more certain the stark contrast of the death surrounding them. Life among so much death—a jarring contradiction. Still, the dead that lingered all around them didn’t appear unwelcome. Instead, it simply seemed … inevitable. Not surprising and definitely not frightening.

As she moved into the clearing before the house, Vicki imagined the eye of the Deadwood Skull, realizing she was stepping into its sallow depths.

Vicki heard the happy trickle of Cherrybrook Creek on the far side of the house. Roscoe delighted in insisting that the name
Cherrybrook
was given because of the dark crimson color it changed to under the moonlight at times when doom was nigh. Or, Hank had interjected, it was because of the uncanny abundance of wild cherry trees found feeding along its banks by early settlers.

Following the creek that cut across the eye and two hundred feet west into the trees, she saw it meet a sharp hook in the distant shore that sliced toward the witch’s house where her creek fed the lake.

Next to the creek, just behind the corner of the house, there was a towering tripod mimicking an uncovered tepee with a large iron cauldron hanging in the center, steaming over a heavy-laden fire.
How appropriate.

She might expect to see the bobbing of floating human heads cooking in a broth of bat wings and rat tails were it not for the lines of linens and long flowing garments joining faded blue jeans and dripping T-shirts hanging in the drying breeze between the adjacent tall wooden poles.

The sweet, strong smells of wood burning and dry-leaf smoke filled her senses as she moved to the front door of the blackened stone domicile.

Vicki tried not to let stereotypes prejudice her assumptions, but the notion of a witch did seed a few archetypal preconceptions in her mind. The woman who opened the door was not that preconception. And though the woman was breathtaking, before introductions could be made, Vicki had to insist, “Would you mind putting on some clothes?”

Vicki repeated, “Would you mind putting on some clothes?”

The woman slowly appraised each of them in turn. “It’s my house.”

“Please.” Vicki couldn’t believe the naked woman before her—an impossibly flawless, perfectly feminine body that could grace the pages of any magazine, without retouching. For the first time since Vicki had blossomed in high school, she felt a small pang of body-image envy.

“Are you the sole occupant of this residence?” Vicki asked.

“I am.” She smiled, amused.

Doc Collins was mistaken. There was no way this nude woman was Tanya Kilroy; this female was no older than her early thirties at most.

The woman studied Hank’s gaze, watching, waiting to see if it would waiver from her own to take another peek. She wasn’t disappointed. She smiled and turned, gesturing for them to follow her into her home. “Please, agents, come in.”

“You know who we are?” Vicki asked.

“I do, Agent Starr.” She leisurely pulled on a wispy, yet mercifully opaque, robe that did little to hide her body.

The structure was the perfect setting for a witch: holding itself strong over her, protecting its charge with its mighty weight. Constructed of hard-hewn stone and heavy beams, the expansive dwelling was the rough-cut and well-wrought architecture of a tenacious settler’s home nestled in these once-flourishing woods. Subsequent generations had obviously kept the original character of the construction intact, opting only to keep the fire lit, stones clean and beams well oiled.

The wide space was extraordinarily tidy and uncluttered for a witch’s hovel, though it did sport a wide-ranging, eclectic collection of mysterious paintings, carvings, bobbles and wares. A slanted cherrywood display held a single piece of every stone imaginable, each in its own small cove carved into the aging timber, with its respective name burned underneath in a perfect scrawl.

As expected, there were books, old and new, bound in paper, leather and God-only-knew-what-else. There were symbols, statues and mystical-looking artifacts throughout. Lush, well-tended plants, herbs and vines grew around each window, filled every corner and coiled around the heavy beams above. Placed at strategic locations around the home were glyphs and runes imbued into rare stones and copper plates.

Vicki had glanced at her partner wondering if Hank at all resented that robe; but she immediately saw discomfort in his face release when she tugged her robe’s silk rope tight.

If Vicki stood awestruck by the woman, then Hank would have been veritably upended. Alluring as it might be, her striking nudity would be professionally maddening for him. He would know that he couldn’t do his job effectively if her glorious distraction remained uncovered.

Vicki was drawn in by the living art, even when concealed, before her. The woman’s short robe was a sharp black silk with intersecting lines in a complex orchestration of patterns as delicate as a spider’s thread. Wearing the robe did nothing to diminish her sexual allure. She was mesmerizing, and Vicki was envious.

The woman’s other features were equally distracting. Her raven hair was impossibly black and flawless against her creamy complexion—a healthy shine danced along the long ebony flow. There was not a single fray, twist or split end on the hair that easily reached the small of her back.

Her eyes were a piercing icy gray with a dazzling explosion of rich thin blue flecks. Vicki jealously assumed that they must be caused by contact lenses. But the woman’s eyes were wide and close to Vicki, and she could see no betraying edges around her pupils. Vicki was so drawn into them that she didn’t perceive that the woman watched Vicki as well, observing her as if she, too, were a creature to be marveled at.

Hank did notice, and so he spoke first, grasping for what initially came to mind—that wouldn’t come off as a juvenile sexual segue.

“So you’re a…” He hesitated.

“
Witch
? Yes, I am. I’ve been practicing a special blend of Wiccan arts for many years.”

Hank held his laugh. “So you do magic and stuff.”

“Yes, I do magick …
and stuff
.”

Her smile was magnetic.
How the hell is this woman a witch and not a supermodel?

“So it doesn’t scare you”—he nodded toward the door to the outside—“taking that walk?”

“Why should it?”

His expression dropped.
Because it’s fucking terrifying.

“It’s quite beautiful by day,” she insisted to them both. “But I find it equally breathtaking at night. The Grand Darkness in all its haunting splendor.” She focused on Hank, answering the question on his face. “Skyclad,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“You’re wondering why I was naked.” She took a deep step toward him, showing interest in his face. “You’re quite fixated on it actually—distracted by it.”

He blushed as he chuckled. “No, I’m not.”

Vicki shot him a sardonic look.

“I was skyclad, naked beneath the heavens, as She meant it to be.”

She? They both looked at each other.

The woman was stunning. Vicki could tell by Hank’s nonverbals that he was taken with her beauty as well.

This time he pointed out the door they came through. “So you walk around … out there …
naked
—and you’re fine with that?”

“Of course, I am—I love it. But I can see why it might seem frightening to you. That’s the nature of its intent.”

“Its what?” Vicki asked.

“I made my ground’s intent to amplify a trespasser’s emotion. Fear begets magnitudes of fear. Hate begets rage, but turned inward on those who carry it.” She turned to Hank. “You only feel what you bring, Agent Dashel—and you’re certain to feel it. I guarantee it.”

Hank wanted to suspend his disbelief for a moment because what she was saying resonated with how he had felt out there, but he refused to give in.

“Come in joy,” she continued, “or with wonder, and you’ll receive that gift tenfold. Come for lust…” She grinned. “Come with the intent to torment? Then prepare to meet a terrible end.”

He absently fingered an invitation that rested on top of her overflowing pile of unopened mail. Twisting it with his finger it read:

Calling all witches. Please join us Wednesday at the Coven’s Cave for a night of delightful cooking and craft secrets. Remember to Like Us on Facebook.

Of course, witches had Facebook.

“You can’t actually do that,” Hank said, finding no reason to humor an insane person—no matter how gorgeous. “It’s impossible.”

“So you say,” she replied.

Her resolute confidence in her madness was infuriating. Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the witch was right. That pissed him off. What he had felt in the woods was absolutely a reflection of his own misgivings about the place but far stronger than he would have expected.

Had Hank not been in the Dead Forrest with the logic-slaying company of a beautiful woman like Vicki—something most men are apt to fall foolish to—he admitted to himself that he would have tucked tail and ran. He suddenly resented both women—the witch for seeing through him and his partner for exposing such a weakness.

In fairness the landscape didn’t afford the default of good feelings. Unless he actively pulled forward those positive intentions from within him, he was likely to be stayed by his own contrived reservations.

“There’s nothing to this,” he insisted with rising, undirected frustration. “You’re playing on the emotions planted by stories that you’ve probably perpetuated around town yourself.”

The growing acrimony Hank felt toward the witch, he realized, was in part directed within; but he failed to shed this outward presentation of hostility.

Reading his face, the woman appeared unmoved by his shift in manner, and the uncontrollable, unintended disdain directed at her beaded off her as the water off a duck’s back.

As Hank glanced at the bountiful crystals and objects on the table, sudden shapes came into view. He tried to wash them away as his own perversions, but it was clear—there were various provocative glass sex toys among the sacred objects. He stifled a smirk. The witch leaned in from out of nowhere, stopping his heart.

“They’re exactly what you think.” Her voice was a slippery silk. Its maddening effect seized him, leaving him low hung and momentarily helpless as she turned her attention back to Vicki, abandoning him—leaving him cold.

“It’s
Sky Veil
, right?” Vicki asked.

She nodded. “It is now. I took the name
Sky
in honor of all that She is beneath the heavens. The earth, the air, water and fire, the energy and space that is without and within all—
the spirit
.
Veil
honors the mystery of the Universe, allowing us glimpses but never fully revealing our glorious tale as we are beings here to live the unfolding mystery rather than to solve it.”

Even as she caught Hank’s eye roll, Vicki knew her line of questioning should be leading closer to Ivy’s case, but Vicki’s curiosity about the woman and her proclaimed craft was stronger than Vicki had expected.

“So you actually do magic.”

“I do.”

“Like what exactly?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“What do you see, Miss Starr?”

“What do you mean?”

“
What do you see
?”

“In this place? The cauldron, the bed, the shelf full of herbs? Lots of vines …
You
? I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“No. Wherever you go,
what do you see
?”

The prickle of frustration grew in Vicki’s chest and arms. “I don’t know. Wherever I am, I’m obviously seeing everything that’s there.”

“And what do you see when you’re there,
exactly
?”

“I can’t possibly tell you that. It depends on where I am. It’s too much to describe.”

“
Exactly
—and I agree.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It means, I can’t possibly tell what magick I do—it’s too vast. And it’s relevant only to the time, space and circumstance.”

Vicki’s retort was cut short by a strong sense of foreboding. She was being watched. She turned in a sudden circle to find nothing, and then her paranoia raised her eyes to the heavy beams above. “Fuck!” she jumped, her reaction triggering a reflected reflex from her partner.

The seven pairs of glistening onyx eyes peered into her—eyes scouring for an opening to enter her and scavenge pieces from her soul.

Hank’s hard swallow erased his attempt to fake a recovered calm. “You have an interesting infestation,” he said, resenting the tight crack in his voice.

“They’re family.”

Vicki ripped away her cautious stare, turning back to the woman. “You keep crows?” Vicki’s voice was quivering, locked in the lingering haunt of the dead forest outside.

“Among others.”

Hank forced a chuckle. “Shitty clean up.”

“They know better,” she warned.

Vicki couldn’t stop the still shaky words from coming from her mouth. “What the hell else do you keep?”

Not wanting to know, Hank interjected, “Where’s your wand?”

She grinned at his goading. “I prefer a crystal talisman, but a wand will work. I just haven’t the need to make one yet.” She reached for her kettle. “Speaking of which, can I offer you tea?”

“What’s in it?’ he asked.

She searched the heavens for help. “
Tea
.”

“No frog livers?”

“
No frog livers
.”

“How disappointing. I’m fine then.”

Vicki took a seat at the table, surprising Hank. “I’ll have a cup.” Anything to cull the chill from her bones. She forced an upward glance. The birds were gone without a sound.

Sky filled a small earthen chalice and placed it before Vicki. A savory waft of earthy herbs and spices soothed her trembling senses. As she reached for the cup, Sky placed a hand over the top. “Not yet.” She pulled at the clear quartz shard dangling between her breasts, and it detached from her chain. She drew the crystal toward Vicki’s cup and murmured a whispered incantation.

“What—”

She interrupted Vicki with a long, low
shhhhhhhhh
and then continued. After a moment she seated the shard back onto her chain.

“What, no lightning bolts or sparks?” Hank asked, feigning great disappointment.

“You assume magickal energy is light energy—it’s not. Though light can be a product of some magick.”

Hank flashed a wry, unconvinced smile. “Of course.”
An answer for everything.

The witch pondered his face for a moment, as if contemplating how to explain a complex question to a small child. “I suppose it’s closer to thought energy than light energy. Your thoughts have power, and they can create—create without bounds—but you do not
see
thoughts as an element, do you, Agent Dashel?”