Shadow Silence (25 page)

T
here was something rather surreal about hunting for witch bottles with a crow sitting on my shoulder. I was worried at first, thinking its talons might dig in too deep, but it seemed to do a pretty good job of balancing. As Aidan and I split off and headed north, toward the Screaming Tree, the crow kept silent. We'd been walking about five minutes when it suddenly set up a
caw caw cawing
in my ear. I stopped immediately.

“There's something around here that it wants me to know about. I think we're near a witch bottle. Start looking around.”

Aidan and I began hunting, looking in every nook and cranny we could find. I suddenly spotted a tree that had a gap between the roots in the ground. The snow covered most of the opening, but I could see a dark hole with a buildup of detritus in front of it.

I cautiously moved into position and lowered myself to my knees, grateful that I had my gloves with me. Sticking my hand into a dark hole under a tree didn't strike me as the
safest of activities, but we had no choice. I pulled out the miniature flashlight that I kept in the pocket of my jacket and shone it into the darkness. There were generally no poisonous snakes west of the Cascades, but you never knew what wildlife would make its home under a tree. I could be reaching into a bobcat's lair or a badger's den.

As I peeked into the hole and shuffled away some of the debris and snow, I saw the glint of a reflection. Sure enough, there was a glass bottle sitting in the beam of my flashlight.

“I found one!” Minding Ivy's warning, I did not touch it. Instead I just poked my head in a little further, hoping to get a better description of the bottle. From what I could tell, there appeared to be pieces of broken glass inside, and some dark liquid that had frozen. I didn't want to know what it was.

Aidan joined me, a frown on his face. After a moment we both sat back on our knees, and he pulled out one of the neon orange flags and stuck it in the ground next to the hole.

“One down, fourteen to go. You should blow your whistle.” He winked at me, but behind the smile I could tell he was worried.

“Is something wrong?”

With a shrug, he glanced around the area. “I can't help but feel that they're watching us. I don't know how long they'll let us go on with this before they seek to interfere.”

“They being the Ankou? Or the Hounds?”

He extended his hand to me and I took it, using him to balance as I stood. “Either. Both. I am concerned about the fact that Magda has the power to summon the Shadow People. I know she's a powerful witch, but it takes an enormous amount of skill to drive the Ankou from Arawn's grasp. The Lord of the Dead can't be happy about this, either. I would hate to see him send his own emissaries to find out what's going on. There's no telling who he might blame for this, and I would hate to be on the receiving end of his wrath.”

I hadn't thought about that aspect. “Do you really think that Arawn will notice?”

Aidan stared at me for a moment, as though he were trying to figure out how to answer. “You really don't have much clue about all of this, do you?”

I wasn't sure exactly what he was talking about. “There's so much that I missed out on, and with Grandma Lila dying before I could return, there's been no one to teach me. I've been relying on her journals but they can only go so far.”

“I don't think you realize the scope of our world. You lived outside of Whisper Hollow for fifteen years. During that time, had you stayed here, you would have been trained not only in your duties as a spirit shaman, but in the vast heritage you come from. You've seen the Morrígan, you know you're her daughter. And you've now encountered Herne. You talk about Arawn and you know he's the Lord of the Dead. But I don't think you realize just how incredibly powerful these entities are. And
they're
just the tip of the iceberg of our history. We are the descendants of the Tuatha de Dannan. All of this—the spirit shamans, the Crow Man, the Irish shifters, we are all part of the same magical heritage.
We
are the children of the gods.”

I frowned, mulling over what he had said. “What about Ellia? She's my lament singer but she's of Russian descent and her mother is priestess to a different goddess.”

Aidan bobbed his head with a smile. “The gods don't always just claim those who have the direct bloodline. If she were still in her homeland, Ellia would have probably been claimed by Baba Volkov's enemy, the goddess Morena. Remember, she's very much the Russian version of the Morrígan. And Baba Volkov hates her.”

I thought crossed my mind. “Then, are Morena and the Morrígan actually the
same
being? The same goddess?”

Aidan laughed. “No, my dear granddaughter. They are not, but they are of similar stature and energy. The gods are
finite, but make no mistake about the strength of their power. Which is why you can be sure that Arawn knows someone is summoning his Ankou away from his shadowy realm. And I don't think he's going to be very happy about that.”

I glanced back at the tree with the witch bottle in it. Ever slowly, the scope of the world I had entered when I returned to Whisper Hollow was broadening, and even as Aidan spoke, I had the feeling I was on the outskirts of something very big and very powerful. I raised my whistle to my lips and blew loud and clear. A few minutes later Ivy appeared, Oriel trailing behind her.

“We found one, beneath that tree there.” I moved back to give them room.

“That makes three. Oriel and I found two already.” Ivy inched toward the hole on her hands and knees, and then—using what looked like a pair of silver tongs—fished the bottle out from the hole. Oriel held out a large padded bag, and Ivy cautiously placed the bottle inside.

“This is going to take a while, isn't it?” I asked.

Oriel rolled her eyes. “It would take far longer if we didn't have our little guides here. I think, from what we've found so far, that they're in a ring—a circle. So we have some idea of the pattern.” She nodded to Ivy and their crow. “Let's get back to it.”

They headed back in the direction from which they had come, as Aidan and I returned to our hunting. Ten minutes later we were standing at the Screaming Tree. It was silent, but I could feel the awareness emanating from it. The tree had eyes—both literally, with the dark socketed openings—and energetically. The Matriarchs' spell had held and whatever had dampened the tree's awareness hadn't returned.

I wanted to walk up to it and press my hands against the gnarled bark, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was Aidan's comments about being watched, or perhaps something more instinctual was prompting my caution, but either way I decided to hang back. I wasn't a child, still learning
that the stove was hot. I was coming to trust myself and my instincts more and more, and if my intuition whispered that I'd get my fingers burned, I tried to listen.

Aidan joined me, staring at the tree. “Nobody really knows who woke this tree up at the beginning. Maybe it's just always been a sentinel. Whatever the case, Oriel is as tuned in to it as anybody in this neck of the woods could be.”

“Tell me about the Heart of Whisper Hollow. How was she selected? Is it always a woman?”

Aidan motioned for me to follow him as we moved past the tree. “I imagine the Morrígan chooses the Heart as well, considering how intricately tied to the spirit shamans the Heart of the town has to be. Or perhaps another god or goddess the Morrígan works with is in charge of that. I really don't know much about the post, except there has to be a Heart. Whisper Hollow would wither and fold without her. And yes, as far as I know it is always a woman. I lived in Ireland you know, for several hundred years. I'm far older than your beau, as you might have guessed. All of the magical villages there have a Heart.”

We skirted the tree, winding through the woodland. The snow made for difficult going, not because it was so deep but because it was slick and new and powdery. My breath came in little puffs and my nose ran from the chill. The flakes had lessened but they were still falling lightly around us. I closed my eyes for a moment, looking up into the sky as the snow drifted against my face. Even though I knew about the witch bottles and the Gray Man and Sasquatch, I still felt like I could melt right into the background, snuggle up under a tree with a blanket, and drift off secure in the cradle of the forest.

“It's in your blood,” Aidan said, startling me into opening my eyes. “The forest, the very core of nature. Spirit shamans are in tune with the elements around them as much as any witch.”

I smiled faintly, realizing that for the first time in a while,
I didn't have a headache. It was as though the clear air and the cool chill had washed it away, along with some of the stress that I had been feeling. I held out my hand, watching as the snowflakes fell on my glove.

“Fifteen years living in the city didn't do me any favors, that's for certain. It wasn't bad, but lonely. And I took up having to chase ghosts out of houses in order to keep my powers from imploding on myself.” I looked at my grandfather. “I think sometimes I almost believed that Whisper Hollow and everything magical here was a dream. It's not that there isn't magic in the city, and I often felt the Crow Man around me—crows are everywhere. But it's hard when you're surrounded by so many people who don't believe that things like this exist. And when they find out the truth, they get afraid and back away. I guess I was really lonely there.”

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Trust me, I understand. When I exiled myself—or rather, your grandmother exiled me to keep me safe—I felt like I had stepped into someone else's life. The years went by, I worked, I made friends, but very few people knew who I was. I changed jobs every few years, given that I don't age the same way that humans do. It's a fine line to walk, straddling two worlds. I guess I understand you more than a lot of people would.”

“I suppose large cities can't have a Heart like Whisper Hollow, or someone like me to guard the ghosts.”

“Some do. You'd be surprised.”

We continued searching. Every now and then a whistle would blow, and Aidan and I found two more witch bottles ourselves. By three
P.M.
I was freezing. Ivy called off the search. We had discovered twelve of the witch bottles, which left three that eluded us.

Oriel stared at the bag filled with dark magic. “This will be enough to disrupt her spell. I still want to find those other three, but this should send most of the Ankou back to Arawn. We need to be prepared, though. Magda is going to be seriously pissed and out for revenge. Watch your backs.
She's going to know who did this. She has enough spies in the forest to tell her.”

We headed back to the SUV, soaked and chilled and tired. I gingerly crawled into the cargo bay, keeping my distance from the bag of bottles as much as I could. Aidan secured them so they couldn't roll around, for which I was eminently grateful. Nobody talked much on the way back, not until Oriel pulled into the first Starbucks we saw and we all ordered piping hot drinks. I cupped the mocha with my hands, grateful for the triple shot of caffeine. Oriel also ordered peppermint brownies, and we tore through the bag, emptying it lickety-split.

“Ivy and Ellia, I need you to help me destroy these. Aidan, Gareth, and Kerris, you can all go home. In fact it's probably better if you aren't around when we take care of this matter. I don't want any magic residue spilling off on anybody.” She dropped Gareth off at Niles's garage, where he had left his car. Then she dropped me off at my house and I waved as they headed back to the boardinghouse.

I trudged inside, polishing off my mocha as I unlocked the door. Peggin looked up from the sofa, where she was curled up with the cats and a magazine. She took one long look at me and jumped up, startling Daphne as she did so.

“You look like something the cat dragged in. Here, let me take your coat. Go take a hot shower while I heat up some soup. I know you've got dinner plans tonight with Bryan, but you need something hot in your stomach. I can tell that just by looking at you.”

Grateful for her mothering, I hurried to my bedroom and peeled off my clothes. The snow had soaked through, and I realized how chilled I was. As I turned on the shower and the steam began to fill the room, I let out a long sigh and gratefully stepped under the pounding spray. As the water eased the chill from my bones and the scent of amber and vanilla revitalized me, it hit me. This is what my world was: a swirl of magic and intrigue and ghosts and friends who were
strange and miraculous and slightly scary. I suddenly found myself laughing. I felt right at home.

*   *   *

T
wo hours later, Ivy called to tell me that they had managed to destroy the witch bottles. By then Peggin had managed to get two mugs of soup down me, and we were playing a game of backgammon over peppermint mochas. I glanced at the clock. It was almost six, and Bryan said he would drop by at seven to pick me up. I knew that we were having dinner at the Mossy Rock Steakhouse, but he didn't know that I knew. I dressed in new black jeans, a soft blue sweater, and a silver belt.