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Where was this going?
“Our family is from Penderton,” Ned said. “That’s not where we started, but where we ended up before Solina’s parents and I moved on to Wilmington.”
Penderton was a small town somewhere north of Wilmington.
“Where did you start?” I asked.
“My parents are from Wallace,” Ned said. “They grew up with little means, married young, and my sister and I were born in Wallace, in an old farmhouse. My father had a head for business. He started in reclamations, then moved on to construction, and did well there. They bought a bigger home in town, but then the forest came.”
“And ate the towns,” Solina said.
Ned nodded. “Until about thirty years ago, that area was mostly fields, vineyards, and horse farms, with several small towns sprinkled in. Burgaw, St. Helena, Ivanhoe… Then woods started growing and there was no stopping them. The forest pushed people together. Smaller villages were abandoned, and Burgaw and St. Helena merged into Penderton.”
A typical scenario that had played out all over the United States. Magic hated technology and high buildings, but it loved and nurtured plants. Trees grew like weeds, merging into massive forests that spawned things with scary teeth. People quickly realized that safety lay in numbers and sturdy town walls.
“Now, Momma didn’t want to leave Wallace. Her family had been there for many generations. The family cemetery was there. The church where we were baptized was there. It didn’t feel right to abandon that history,” Ned said. “But they couldn’t stay. To make the move easier, my father built their dream house in Penderton.”
“It’s a beautiful house,” Solina said. “Memaw still lives there, and Grandma takes care of her.”
“After my father passed, I tried to get them to move to Wilmington,” Ned said. “But Momma wouldn’t leave. Now they’re trapped there. I love these cookies. I’m a sucker for sweets, and I have to say, these are special.”
He dropped it very casually. Yes, my mother and sister are trapped; wow, these are great cookies.
“Good cookies are an essential food group,” Curran said. “My wife is a great cook.”
“I thought these were homemade. They just have that special touch of something.”
“I’ll pack you a batch for the road,” I told him.
“Oh, I couldn’t impose.” Ned shook his head.
“I have made too many anyway. So why can’t your mother and sister leave?”
“Because of the evil in the woods,” Solina said.
And there it was. This was why they were here.
“Now, I’ve got to hear this,” Curran said. “What kind of evil is it?”
“We don’t know,” Ned said. “That’s part of the problem. It started after the last flare.”
Flares were the potent magic waves that came every seven years and lasted several days. With each flare, a bit more of our world became irrevocably changed. Flares brought disasters. Gods manifested, large structures collapsed, and weird monsters went on rampages. The last flare was about five years ago.
“Three days after that flare ended, some strange-looking people walked out of the woods near Penderton,” Ned said.
Solina reached into the tote bag by her feet, pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper, and opened it on the table. A sketch made in colored pencil showed a human female, but not any kind of human I had ever seen.
Her skin had an odd, almost bluish tint with a pattern of hairline cracks. One time Andrea, my best friend, dragged me to a spa where they smeared clay on my face. It cracked when it dried, and the body paint on this woman looked strikingly similar.
Her shoulders sloped down at a sharper angle than normal, her limbs and her neck were too long, and there was something strange about the proportions of her features. Almost as if her entire middle of her face was stretched along the vertical axis, flattening and elongating her nose and cheekbones. Her mouth was a narrow slash, and the corners of her lips sagged down, giving her a derisive or mournful expression. Her eyes were round, almost black, set close together, and completely blank.
The woman wore a tan-colored garment, a kind of robe or a tunic cinched at the waist by a belt. Her long brown hair was pulled back from her face and stiff. It looked like she’d taken a handful of the same bluish mud or clay that was on her face and arms, smeared it on her hair at the hairline, and let it dry. A metal collar clasped her neck, a kind of plaited band formed from strips of golden metal. Her right hand clutched something. A sack or a net?
After the Shift hit, a lot of people turned to ancient gods and long-abandoned religions. I’d seen neo-pagans wear some weird stuff, but that didn’t explain the strange facial features.
“What is she holding?” I asked.
“A banner,” Solina said. “That’s how they communicate.”
She pulled a Ziploc bag out of her tote and put it on the table. Inside was a roll of tan cloth.
