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“Damn you, fox.” If I keep sight of the bonfire’s glow, I’m still within screaming distance. Twin columns of trees I recognize as yews from a photograph in Máthair’s greenhouse border the path beyond the rowan gateway. Their branches intermingle like pairs of dancing lovers to weave a woody latticework ceiling. A trunk near the entrance wears clumps of lichen and moss giving it two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Any moment, the tree face will ask the password to enter the forest. To my relief, it keeps still as I pick my way along the path.
My heart skitters when fox eyes gleam in the darkness. They float a good four feet off the ground. “Holy crap.” My brain gives my heart permission to resume normal function when I realize the critter isn’t levitating. It climbed something blocking the path, a boulder or fallen tree.
I luck out and find a decent sized rock near my foot. “Drop my peanut bars!” I holler and pitch the stone. It clunks against the fox’s perch just beneath its paws. With a yip, my nemesis opens its mouth and drops the bag. I charge forward in case devil fox has any notion of reclaiming its ill-gotten booty.
When I stoop to retrieve my bag, a wave of lightheadedness makes me pitch forward. Thankfully, my hands and not my face hit a stone cylinder, the obstacle leaning across the path. I rest my forehead against its cool surface. I need to eat.
Around me the forest is still. Almost too still for comfort. There’s no scuffling of critters or birds. It’s pleasantly warm and the delicate haze lingering among the trees gives me the sensation of floating.
My fingernail catches on a crack in the stone. Not a crack. I point the flashlight to reveal a series of deliberate markings on the leaning cylinder. “Wow.” I run a finger along the grooves. They’re familiar slashes from the ancient Ogham alphabet I’ve seen so often in texts. Druid’s work. Farmer McKean missed the boat by not dragging this beauty into his fake circle. Here’s one leaning stone that might actually house old magic.
I laugh, disturbing the peace of the sleeping wood, and smack my palm against the stone. “You’re as fake as the rest of this tourist trap, eh fellow?” I picture Farmer McKean out here with his chisel, scribing druid curses copied from a book into the stone to scare impressionable tourists and travel groups. “I hope you’re up for garland and twinkle lights.”
The leaning stone is rooted far enough into the ground to render it climbworthy. I tuck my flashlight into a pocket and choose a spot high enough on the perch to swing my legs and still be within jumping distance to the path. The solitude of the woods and a peanut bar are the perfect combo for mellow.
Lovely scents of lemongrass and spearmint as comforting as one of Máthair’s healing teas float around me. She insisted herbs and faith fix everything. I’m as calm as if I’d downed a cup of her meadowsweet tea with plenty of honey. Here I sit alone in a forest after chasing a wild fox, and there isn’t a drop of anxiety dribbling in my veins. Strange but nice.
I swallow the last of my snack, stuff the wrapper in my pocket, and recline on the stone. An invisible current, not a breeze exactly, flows around me. Druids believed in tree magic. Am I sensing the energy of oak, yew, and rowan? Through a gap in my leafy ceiling, I see a thousand stars. Who needs ancient magic? There’s a tapestry of dreams above me. I raise one arm, close my eyes, and feel the kiss of starlight on each fingertip.
“Eala.”
The voice jars me. Abruptly, I teeter to the side and slip off the stone. For a breath, time feels suspended. When I realize I can’t get my feet under me in time to break the fall, my cry of panic rivals a harbinger of death.
Arms taut with corded muscle trap me against a soft padded jacket. In a panic, I grab a fistful of material. Outside my closed eyes, the world tilts and spins.
“Please stop screaming like the devil’s on your tail.”
My eyes snap open. For the first time, Sion Loho’s striking green eyes stare directly into mine.
“Are you hurt, love?”
For a long moment, we clutch one another, each locked in place by the other’s wide-eyed stare. I barely know this man, yet I feel protected in his arms. He’s first to relax his hold. My weight shifts, and I slip. Before I can get my feet under me, I drop hard onto my backside. “Ouch.”
“Sorry.” He reaches for me, but I hold up a hand to stop him and stand on my own.
“What are you doing here?” Embarrassment heats my face as I realize the logical reason guys duck into the woods from a campsite. It’s all I can do to keep from checking that he had time to button his jeans.
“I heard someone raising the dead and came running.”
“I was yelling at a—” I’m not going to admit I was idiot enough to chase a fox into the forest. “Never mind.”
A shaft of moonlight crosses his face. My heart pounds to the point of pain. Glassy eyes, not the hazel I noticed before but closer to the color of my grandmother’s greenhouse, watch me. As if alive, a thin band of gold grows and shrinks around Sion’s irises. His eyes were pretty before but now they hold a piercing beauty. I whisper, “You’re looking at me.”
His eyes narrow, staring even deeper into mine, then his gaze quickly darts away. Foul-tempered Sion appears. “I’m surprised you had a mind to notice.”
Fouler-tempered me snaps back. “It’s hard to miss when someone never bothers to look you in the eye.” I jab two fingers at his face. “Why look now when everything I say or do seems to chap your ass?” He ruined my beautiful moment of woodsy solitude. I’d never have fallen off the leaning stone if he hadn’t shouted my name, ambushing me for the second time in as many days.
A creepy feeling washes over me. How did he get so close without me hearing him? I scrabble backward, hyperaware of how vulnerable I am. “Are you following me?”
“Technically, you followed me.”
I back away, keeping him in sight. “I had no idea you were here.”
He moves toward me with one hand outstretched as if I’m a horse ready to rear and stomp him. “Eala, wait.”
I point a finger. “Stay right there. I’ll find my way to the bonfire.” I nearly trip on a stone. Ammunition. I scoop it up. “If you try to follow me, I’ll throw this at your head.”
To my surprise. Sion drops cross-legged onto the path, hands on his knees. The tightness in my chest eases. He’s anything but threatening hunkered down in the dirt. “I won’t be moving from this spot ‘til you give permission. Please don’t go until you hear me out.”
