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I glare at my mentor. “My statement stands.”
Owen grips the door, and he stares at Aspen from the other side of the screen. “What can we do for you?”
Aspen peers past Owen to me. “The storm finally cleared. We should gather your wand ingredients before it returns.”
“Sorry, but Owen and I were just about to—”
“Sounds fun.” Owen releases the door to turn and give me a stern stare. “Go get your special bucket. It’s magic time.”
I throw back my head with a whine. “But we were just about to do magic time!”
He chuckles. “Anticipation will just make it sweeter later.”
“You’re spending too much time with Ros.” Head lowering, I glare at Aspen. “This better be worth it. And in case you were unsure, magic time means sex. We were about to have sex.”
Amusement fills Aspen’s pale blue eyes. “Yes, I caught on to the meaning. Now, as Owen said, go get your special bucket. We have lightning to dig up.”
FEEL THE TINGLES
Aspen holds the lightning rod steady. “Be careful as you dig. Fulgurite can be delicate, and the pieces vary in size and formation.”
Owen and I kneel on the beach and carefully scoop sand away from the metal rod.
“Don’t be disappointed if we don’t find a piece right away,” Aspen continues. “Lighting won’t have struck every pole. We’ll be lucky if we get even one—”
“Found it,” I announce as I gently extricate an ugly black, tuber-shaped piece of something from the sand and hold it up. “Is this what you’re all excited about? The figirite?”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the small, gritty blob I hold isn’t it. At the very least, I thought it would be somewhat clear.
“Fulgurite. Fulgur is Latin for lightning. It’s also called fossilized sand.” Aspen reaches down to take the small piece and gazes at it with excitement. “And, yes, this is what we’re hoping to find. Did you feel anything while holding it?”
“Underwhelmed?” I offer helplessly.
Aspen grimaces and passes it back to me. “Put it in your bucket, and we’ll move on to the next one.”
I brush off the loose sand and place it in the bucket that rests next to me on the ground.
Aspen takes the excavated lightning rod to the open duffel bag a few feet away and places it inside. Straightening, he walks to the next lightning rod and looks at us expectantly.
I meet Owen’s blue eyes. “We could have been post-coitus right now.”
He smiles. “We’ve only been down here for five minutes. I like to think we have more stamina than that.”
“I’m going to hold you those words.” Brushing my hands on my pant legs, I stand and move to the next lightning rod.
We’re not so lucky this time. While we find some seashells and sea glass, no fulgurite. I add a couple of the shells to my bucket to give to Ginny before we move to the next lightning rod.
After three more failed digs, I start to despair that, despite the rampaging storm, lightning only struck once.
But then at the sixth pole, my fingers brush against a rough clump of solid sand, and excitement shoots through me. “I think we have another one.”
Owen nods. “There’s definitely something here.”
We work carefully, brushing sand away from the little nobs of fossilized sand. We reach the bottom of the lightning rod, make sure the fulgurite isn’t attached to it, and Aspen pulls the metal pole out of our way.
The hole we dig widens, revealing more knobs, which turn out to be the tips of delicate tendrils attached to thicker branches.
When at last we pull it free from the sand, I understand why Aspen was so excited. The piece we hold is nearly a foot across and twice as long, with the forked pattern of lightning caught forever frozen within the sand.
