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I slowly opened the drawer and began rifling through the papers inside, feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur. This was my aunt's home and I was pawing through her stuff like a common thief. Not that I wasn't familiar with copping a wallet here or there, but this was different.
But then I happened to look up and found myself staring through a slight part in the curtains. The trees were dark and shaded in the growing dusk, and something about the path leading to the forest gave me the creeps. Like a frost-covered open mouth, waiting to gobble up anybody who got too near.
I went back to my search.
"What's this?" Rhiannon said, pulling out a small notebook. She held it up. "This looks like . . . hmm, see what you make of this, would you?" As she returned to the table, I shoved the drawer shut and joined her.
The notebook was a field study book--filled with page after page of diagrams, figures, and notations on the graph paper. I frowned. As I flipped back to the beginning, I glanced at the inscription on the inside cover: Heather's name, and the words A Magical Study of New Forest. And then something clicked as I studied the pages.
"It appears to be a diagram of the town." I pointed to a schematic that looked very much like what I imagined Vyne Street to look like from above. "Isn't this our street? And there's the house."
"You're right." Rhiannon tapped her nails on the table. "But what's that mark--and that?" She gestured to a dark circle over where the wood and ravine were indicated. In the center of a diagram of Veil House, a pentacle had been inscribed.
"Dark circle. Dark moon, maybe? The new moon?" I shrugged.
"At least the pentacle over the house makes sense, since it's a magical symbol."
Leo interrupted, flipping his phone shut. "Kaylin will be over tomorrow morning. He doesn't like to travel alone at night."
We showed him the book and he recognized it.
"Your mother was using this when I was practicing my wildcrafting. Heather told me that New Forest is built over a very powerful energy field and that's why the plants here are so potent. She said the Society sources a lot of energy from the land around here and she keeps track of the ley lines."
"You've got to be kidding." Rhiannon looked up.
"No, I'm not." He shook his head. "New Forest is built over a powerful series of ley lines."
Ley lines were energy grids that traveled through the earth. I could feel them when I was near a mountaintop or at high elevation, and sometimes around ponds or streams or lakes. But since my powers were sourced from the wind, I couldn't always pinpoint where they were.
You haven't tried to feel them in the air, Ulean whispered.
They can be felt through the slipstream?
Of course.
"You can feel them, can't you?" I turned to Rhiannon.
"You work with fire--you must be able to really tune in to the area because of the Cascade volcanoes."
She pressed her lips together. "I haven't tapped into the fire since . . ." Slumping into a chair, she pressed her hand to her forehead.
"Since what?" Leo looked at her, then turned to me. "What am I missing?"
I started to shake my head, but Rhiannon held up her hand. "I haven't told him. But I was going to, when I thought the time was right. I guess that would be now. And it's time I told you the full story, too, Cicely." She stared at her hands. "Both of you might be in danger living here, and not just because of the Indigo Court."
"Why? What are you talking about?" Leo knelt beside her.
Rhiannon shrugged. "You may not be so quick to reach for my hand when I tell you the truth."
"You were about thirteen, weren't you?" I knew a little of the story, but very little.
"Yes, I'd just turned thirteen. Just started my period and the hormones were flying. Heather and I were shopping one day. We were in the parking lot of the Dale-wood Mall. I wanted a new pair of sneakers and she said no." Her voice caught and she trembled, her neck taut, her expression bleak. "I was angry and I automatically reached for the flame. Without thinking, I conjured fire. It sparked off the fuel in the gas tank of a nearby car and there was an explosion."
"Shit." Leo slowly dropped to the sofa. "Were you hurt?"
When Rhiannon spoke again, her voice was so low we could barely hear her. "No, I wish I was. But it gets worse. The flames . . . I will never forget the smell. There was a ten-year-old girl in the car and she couldn't get out. Nobody could get to her because the fire was raging so hot and then, the car exploded. She died. I killed her. She died because of me."
Leo put his arm around her and she leaned against his shoulder.
