She stiffened. “Criminal psychology, yeah. Minor in family counseling.”
“It shows. Only one little fly in the ointment.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Einar doesn’t want to stab anybody with a flaming pitchfork, either. He’s too lazy.”
“I’m not talking about pitchforks anymore, Rush.”
“I know. You’re talking about something else. Something you haven’t trusted me with yet but are comfortable accusing my cousin of.”
“I’m not accusing anybody of anything. I’m just . . . it’s complicated, okay? I’m thinking out loud.”
“So let me help.” He took her other hand, turned her to face him, to face those brutal, honest eyes. “Tell me what we’re fighting here, and I’ll put my back against yours and we’ll figure it out. Or tell me to back off and get lost if you don’t want me or my help. I’m a big boy; I can take no for an answer. But I’m interested, Goose. In you. All of you. The yes or no is up to you, but do me a favor and make an honest decision. Don’t leave this hanging between us like an excuse.”
His words thudded into the vulnerable center of her, drove themselves into her like splinters or maybe roots. Anchored themselves there and made her want to rock or howl or rage or sing. They made her want, period. She closed her eyes for a long moment, struggled to get what was in her under control.
“Rush,” she said on a shaky exhale. “You’re so honest and you’re so brave, it shames me. I’m not good like that. Like you. But I’m doing my best here.”
“It’s enough,” he said, twining his fingers into hers, dragging her closer. “Whatever you are, it’s enough for me.”
She let him hold her for a moment then gently pulled free. “It’s not,” she said. “I’m not. Trust me on that. But what I will be is honest. As honest as I can be.”
“Then tell me you feel this, too,” he said. He didn’t try to touch her again, but pinned her with his eyes. “Tell me you feel what I feel. In your gut. In your bones.”
She loosed a hoarse chuckle. “That doesn’t begin to cover where I feel you, Rush.”
He nodded once, hard. “Okay. Okay, then. That much’ll do. For now. Because I
will
push for the rest.” The smile that grew on his mouth was sleek, predatory, beautiful. “Fair warning.”
She pressed a hand to her stomach, where she could, indeed, feel him. “Great. Thanks.”
“Now,” he said. He handed her a water bottle. “Tell me the rest.”
Chapter 11
BY MIDMORNING the next day, the weather had done one of those capricious early-winter one-eighties. The sun hung low and golden in a lazy blue sky, snow melted from the fir branches with wet, cheerful plops and Goose, snowshoeing behind Rush in winter wear rated to sixty below, was sweating like a fat guy at a disco.
“Hey, hold up a minute, will you?” she called to Rush. He stopped reluctantly on the soggy trail ahead of her. Goose stripped off her outer shell and looped it through the straps of her backpack. The cool breeze cut through her fleece underjacket and felt like heaven.
“Ha,” she said. “
So
much better.” She jogged forward until she was level with Rush’s stiff shoulders and poked his elbow through his shell. “Dude. Aren’t you hot?” She squinted into the unexpectedly strong sun. “It’s got to be in the forties.”
“Fifties.”
“Nice,” she said. “Does it warm up like this a lot in December? Some weird lake-effect thing?”
“Not usually.” He jerked his chin at her jacket. “You ready?”
She sighed and fell in behind him, trotting in the prints of his snowshoes. “You’re angry.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“With me?”
“With the situation.”
She sighed again. She’d known he would take this hard and had hoped forcing him to take a night to think on the situation would cool him off. And it had. Boy, had it. The heat of his anger had cooled all the way down to the icy, purposeful drive now propelling him along the trail toward South Harbor at a near sprint.
“Rush, I know this is your home and you feel betrayed, but it’s nothing personal. To this person—whoever it is—I guarantee you, it’s just about the money.”
“It’s more than that.”
“No, Rush, it isn’t. It’s—”
“I’m going to show you something,” he said. “Something most mainlanders don’t know about. Something that’ll make you understand. This is about way more than money.”
“What?” She jogged to catch up, grabbed his sleeve. “What are you going to show me?”
He gave her a flat, silver glance. “You’ll see.”
Ten minutes later, they were pushing through the shiny red door of Mother Lila’s Tea Shop.
“The sign said closed,” Goose pointed out as sleigh bells announced their arrival. “Shouldn’t we at least knock?”
“Doesn’t smell closed,” Rush said, and Goose had to admit he was right. Gingerbread and cinnamon hung in the moist, warm air as usual and bold sunshine spilled across the wooden floors.
“Upstairs!” Lila’s voice drifted through the door behind the counter leading to the private spaces of the house.
Goose followed Rush through the door and into the kitchen. It had obviously been retrofitted to meet commercial standards—stainless-steel countertops gleamed, a tiny industrial-strength dishwasher squatted in one corner and refrigerators and freezers with temperature gauges built into the doors sidled side by side like a pair of musclebound bouncers near the door.
In spite of the high-tech makeover, though, it still felt like a kitchen Lila might live and work in. Potted plants marched across the sill, while a filmy set of honey-colored curtains made the most out of whatever sun found its way into north-facing windows. Terra-cotta tiles the color of freshly baked bread marched across the floor at a diagonal, the center taken up by a geometric mosaic. The jagged, inlaid pieces didn’t render a picture so much as suggest one. Goose had to squint hard before she decided it was a stag in front of a full moon.
“Lila?” Rush called.
“Up here.”
Goose turned to find a pretty circular staircase in black wrought iron tucked into the corner. Rush waved at it. “After you,” he said.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered, threading her way carefully up the tiny, wedge-shaped steps.
“You’ll see.”
They emerged a moment later into a sitting room that made Goose want to toe off her shoes and have a cup of tea. And she didn’t even like tea.
The wooden floors shone like spilled maple syrup, the gleam broken up by the warm expanse of a blue-and-gold woolen rug. A fire snapped in the pretty hearth that took up most of the far wall, while two dormered windows framing breathtaking views of the lake occupied the adjoining wall. Built-in bookshelves ran above, beside and between the windows, while a thickly cushioned bench ran beneath. Plants hung from the ceiling in front of the glass, bushy with the kind of good health that Goose had only ever seen in magazines.
“Hello, dear,” Lila said, rising from the window seat. She padded across the floor on bare feet and took Rush’s hands in hers. “Blessed be.”
She turned to Goose and held out her hands. Goose took them automatically and received kisses on both cheeks with surprised pleasure. “Blessed be, dear.”
“Ah . . . same to you,” Goose said.
Lila indicated a little love seat facing the bench and curled into her sunny window seat again, feet tucked neatly under her like a cat. Goose and Rush sat. It was a tight squeeze for two tall people, and the hard press of Rush’s thigh against hers sent a hot spark of awareness dancing in her stomach.
“Something’s happened,” Lila said, reaching for a delicate china teapot on the low table between them.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Rush asked.
She handed him a steaming cup of tea. Goose wondered if she had cups and pots at the ready all over the house, or if she’d been expecting them. “Asking.” She handed Goose a cup, which she took and balanced on her knee.
“Agent di Guzman and I went down to the old mines yesterday,” Rush said.
“Really?” Lila turned cool eyes on Goose. “Looking for pitchforks?”
Goose glanced at Rush. “Ah . . .”
“We’ve moved somewhat beyond pitchforks at this point, Lila,” he said. “But it’s nice to know you’ve got my back. Thanks.”
Lila blinked at him. “You’re most welcome, Rush.” She leaned forward, her eyes direct and intense. “You always have been.”
He patted her hand, and she stared at him like he’d conjured a bouquet of tulips out of thin air. She turned to Goose again with considerably more warmth. “Whatever you’re doing, Agent di Guzman, you have my permission to continue.”
“Um, thanks.”
“So, the old mines,” Rush said. “We’d heard kids were partying down there and went to check it out.”
Lila raised her steaming cup to her lips. “And?”
“And there was nothing there.”
“Nothing?”
“No beer cans, no cigarette butts, no used condoms.”
“So that’s the good news out of the way.” She tipped her head. “What’s the bad news?”
“There was nothing else, either. No footprints, no tracks, no nests, no burrows.”
She set her cup onto the coffee table with a soft chink. “Well, now. That
is
unusual. Nature abhors a vacuum.”
“Exactly. But this was no vacuum.”
“Oh, dear.”
Goose listened as Rush described what they’d found in the old mine. The rough-hewn bowl on the low, flat rock. The traces of blood inside.
“Somebody’s using the Stone Altar,” Lila said, a tiny V creasing her brow.
“The Stone Altar?” Goose asked. “That was an altar we found?”
“Before it was a mine, it was an ancient structure our people used to honor the lunar standstill.”
Goose blinked at her, startled. “The lunar what now?”
“The lunar standstill,” Rush told her. “It’s an astrological phenomenon that occurs once every eighteen-point-six years. It’s a two-week period when the moon takes both its lowest possible route and its highest possible route through the night sky.”
“It’s also the time at which the moon rises at the northernmost point on the horizon of which it’s capable,” Lila said. “And when that happens—” She paused, gave Rush a significant look. He gave her a go-ahead shrug.
“And when that happens?” Goose prompted.
“It sends a beam of light directly down the mine shaft that illuminates the Stone Altar.” Lila sipped her tea. “The last one was in 2006.”
“Oh my God,” Goose said, wide-eyed. “I’ve heard about this. I thought it was destroyed or ruined or something.”
“No, just closed.” Lila wrinkled her nose. “I find the whole thing a little too Indiana Jones, to be frank. It panders to thrill seekers rather than true believers, and that’s not an element I’m interested in attracting to Mishkwa.”
Goose frowned as the argument she’d heard between Lila and Einar the other day started to make a great deal more sense. “Einar disagrees, though, doesn’t he? He thinks the Stone Altar is a potential moneymaker for the family, doesn’t he?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Lila sighed. “My father owned the piece of land on which the Stone Altar sits. It was part of his original claim, and thanks to Einar’s willingness to meet the government’s requirements for retaining that claim, it’s still in the family.”
“But you don’t want to open it to the public.”
“You’ve been there,” Lila said, shaking her head. “That place is dangerous. Plus I don’t care for the Stone Altar. I never have. It doesn’t feel sacred to me. We hold our rituals outdoors. Why would we suddenly go underground for the sake of something that happens once every twenty years?”
“Rituals?” Goose asked. She had a bad feeling about this conversational turn. “We?”
“Our coven, dear.”
Well, shit. RAC Harris was going to have to update his file on Mishkwa. She made a mental note to send him an e-mail, ASAP. In the meantime, Goose turned to Rush. “Her
coven
?”
“Oh. Sorry.” He extended a polite hand toward his aunt. “May I present Lila Olsen, Mishkwa Coven’s pagan high priestess?”
Goose pinched the bridge of her nose. “I was given to understand Mishkwa didn’t have witches anymore.”
Lila shook her head and smiled. “We keep a low profile but we’re here.”
“Do you call yourself witches?” Goose asked. “Or am I supposed to say ‘pagans’?”
“I prefer ‘pagan’ myself, but I’m not a stickler for vocabulary.”
“And you?” Goose turned to Rush. “What do you prefer?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I lost religion when I lost my folks.” He shifted his attention to Lila. “But if we can get back to the subject at hand? Who’s using the Stone Altar, Lila?”
“I have no idea,” Lila said, frowning. “Our worship is moon-based. Why would we put ourselves underground when Our Lady’s face is in the sky? When Our Lady’s light could fall on our skin?”
“Maybe because somebody’s calling on magic Our Lady wouldn’t approve of. Magic that prefers the dark. Magic that requires blood.”
Goose poked her hand into the air like a slow student. “I’m sorry, why aren’t we looking at Einar here? I know he’s your relative, but he’s also the one with a long-standing—and financial—interest at stake. All logic dictates taking a hard look at him first.”
Lila waved that off. “Oh, heavens. Einar doesn’t
believe
in the Stone Altar. He just wants to turn a profit from it. What Rush is talking about is something else entirely. Something far more disturbing.” She frowned. “Far more disturbed.”
“She’s right,” Rush said. “Einar believes in money, not magic. Black or otherwise. But somebody on this island is taking the dark arts seriously. Seriously enough to try their hand at bloodletting, anyway.”
“Our ceremonies don’t involve any sort of ritual bloodletting,” Lila told Goose as she sent Rush a disapproving look. “As my nephew very well knows.”
“I do know that. Just like I know there are always a few folks who think they ought to.”