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Before he could speak, Jo shook her head and forced a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “As crazy as all this sounds, the quicker you believe it, the quicker we can get your brothers here and the Circle complete.”
Clay turned to the food on his plate. “Again with the brothers and this ‘Circle.’ I have only sisters.”
“Let me start from the beginning.” She ran her hands along her jeans. “The pestilents’ world was dying. Seasons shifting and there were extreme changes in temperature.
“Their crops stopped growing and war kept breaking out as they fought each other for what was surviving. This was many, many years ago, you see. Back when this dimension was past the ice age, and humans were evolving into the forms you have today.”
“How do you know all this? I don’t remember this being taught in school.”
“Because I was there.”
He had been lifting his forkful of food to his mouth but stopped halfway. “What, now?”
“My sisters and I are goddesses. Energy from this world—”
“Wait! You think you’re a goddess? Like Aphrodite?”
She scowled like he was the crazy one. “You know, this goes much faster without you questioning everything I say,” she grumbled. She paused and took a deep breath before starting again. “We’re not any made-up goddesses humans created. We’re the real deal.”
“Uh-huh. And how many goddesses are there?”
“Three in my family, but others exist.” Jo made a dismissive wave of her hand as if she couldn’t be bothered with those other gods and goddesses.
He needed to get out of there. Quickly. And maybe he’d grab Dane on his way out—that guy seemed normal.
She sighed, got up from her chair, and crossed to a window. She opened it, allowing a warm breeze to sweep through the room. Songs from frogs and crickets filled the air. When she returned to her chair, she lifted one hand, palm up. She whistled, and a bird flew into the room through the dancing curtains and landed on her hand. She stroked her other hand over it, smiled, and let it go, sending it back out the way it had come.
“Nice trick,” he murmured.
Jo arched a brow at him and gave him a look that said, “Challenge accepted.”
She whistled again and this time, a squirrel scurried into the room and came to her. She handed over a nut that she seemed to conjure from thin air. With the gift tucked in its teeth, the squirrel hurried across the room and out the window.
“I can keep doing this until you believe. But I warn you, they’re gonna keep getting bigger. I am the goddess and guardian of animals and human souls. I knew you were hungry before your stomach made a noise. Same way I know you long to stay in one place that’s out of a city.”
“Lots of people want that,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but your longing runs soul deep. Should I call another animal? There’s a raccoon sleeping a few trees away. I hate to wake him, but I will.”
“No. Let’s say I believe you so you can go on.”
She smirked and leaned forward. “I can also tell when you’re fibbing. But I’ll continue with the story. My sisters and I discovered what the pestilents were doing. They had torn a rift in the wall separating our worlds and were absorbing life from ours. My guess is that their crops started to grow again and their climate stabilized. They could save their own world by stealing ours. We worked to seal up the rift, but they sent creatures through to fight us. Unfortunately, our magic wasn’t strong enough to completely heal the rift and fight off the invaders.”
Clay felt like he’d crawled into a fantasy or horror novel. “Why do you call them pestilents?”
“Because they are destructive to all life. Even their own. You noticed their rotten smell?”
He nodded. “Right away.”
“They don’t last long in our world, slowly rotting the longer they stay.”
“Then why come here at all?”
“To stop us from closing the rift. The bigger it gets, the more life and energy they can steal from this dimension. They can destroy us.”
Clay carefully picked up his tray and set it away from him a little bit before scrubbing a hand over his face. He knew he shouldn’t be engaging her. Should just nod while he figured out how to escape. Except some of the things she was saying about these pestilents sort of made sense.
“Assuming this is all true, and this has been happening for so long, why haven’t they destroyed our world?”
Jo’s smile grew, and it was like he’d fallen straight into her trap.
“Because we came up with a solution. We chose six men, good of heart and soul, and we gave them each the powers needed to heal the rift. With only one of our powers per man, each one could focus on that power and make it strong—strong enough to stop the pestilents for good. We called them Weavers because they can weave magic like a beautiful tapestry.”
