***
Had the brush remained so thick, the quarter mile of cutting our way through would have taken Occam over an hour, but the trees took over, at first saplings, and then, quickly, trees that were ten to twenty years old and would provide a tall canopy in summer. There had been a controlled fire back this way at some point, the trunks blackened and the brush thinned out. Rocks appeared and the ground became far more uneven, no longer thelevel ground of a once-planted field left to go fallow, but the uneven surface of the rocky earth, too stone-filled to plow. We crossed over a rill of water, and Paka stopped to lap at it. I ran my hand through a short drop, where the water ran over stones and fell several inches. “Springwater,” I said at the touch of cold. I dried my fingers. Paka chuffed at me, sniffed, and chuffed again, telling me she smelled something on the water. She leaped into the tree nearest and from there to another tree, following her nose.
Occam followed her with his eyes and motioned us forward, on the cat’s trail.
“Slight level-one psysitope reading above ambient normal,” T. Laine said as we tromped on. A moment later she said, “Level two is coming up. And now three.”
We made it to the site where the P 2.0’s readings said the paranormal psysitopes had originated, where the deer were contaminated. The P 2.0 was redlining on all four levels. Unlike at the pond, there was nothing here but an open space between trees where wild grasses were rucked up and swirled around, the way deer move grasses as they prepare for the night. There was no pond, no ramshackle building in the distance, no lean-to, no signs of a burned-out farmhouse. No shed. No dead animals. There were no signs of human habitation, and even traffic sounds were scarcely in the audible range.
T. Laine pulled her pocket-sized psy-meter and took a reading to compare by, saying simply, “Still redlining. We shouldn’t stay here long.”
Occam took my blanket and folded it flat on the ground, which was still damp from the night’s dew. I watched him, thinking about T. Laine’s comment and everything that had gone wrong. “Did I ask you to look for reasons why a herd of female deer and juveniles might have traveled four miles? Dogs? Coyotes? Coywolves?”
“You did,” he said. “I checked with nose and eyes both. No signs of predators, except a few unoccupied tree stands and a pond that away”—he pointed—“with a duck blind.”
Human predators.I looked up into the trees and spotted Paka, stretched out on a limb, her golden green eyes on me. Sitting on the folded blanket, I pulled off my boots and socks and set them to the side. I placed my uninjured hand, palm down, ona bare patch of ground, my bare feet flat on the grass, knees bent up under my chin. I closed my eyes. Let my worries go instead of holding on to them. It was so stupid to cradle worries the way I did. I let my fears go. Let myself go. I relaxed and slumped forward over my knees, breathing. And I reached down into the ground.
FIVE
I sank into the dark and instantly heard words, not like a woman’s voice, but ringing like bells, vibrations high and deep, humming through my bones. “Flows, flows, flows. Pools, pools, pools.” But this time instead of saying “Gone, gone, gone,” there were two new lines.
“Dead. All dead. All dead. Forever.
“Dead. All dead. All dead. Forever.”
The words no longer had the same cadence as the first two lines. The movement and shape of the shadow-and-light was different too. It had coalesced. Drawn together. It was close to the surface, dancing among roots. The motion I sensed matched the cadence of the words, the power and gloom pirouetting. The light-and-shadow dancer swirled in a figure eight, a form employed by experienced magic users, ones advanced and powerful enough to control the energies and alter their shapes. The shape signified the rhythms of energy, space, and time, something beyond three dimensions.
And then it—they?—saw me.
The silk that had caressed my wrist yesterday slapped around my foot, sliding up my ankle. In an instant it tightened, roughened, pulling me deep.
Once again the dancer had taken my consciousness. Darkness and pressure surrounded me. I lost contact with the ground. With my own body. I was... buried alive. I struggled, trying to move, trying to fight. But it was like being wrapped in heavy carpet, around and around. Pulled down and down and around and around.
Wake her. Free me,the dancer hummed at me.
A deeper, human thought slashed at me,Get out! Get out!You can’t have it!
It was the woman. She— Pain exploded inside me. Pinpointsof agony. On the surface, my heart stuttered as if a huge hand had squeezed it. The pressure of the deeps. No breath. I struggled. Fought. Desperate. Warmth fled. The part of me that was on the surface, my body, was dying for want of air and heartbeat. Ice froze the blood in my veins. Crystalline, cutting. I was dying. The woman’s thoughts said to me,What are you? What do you want?
Lost. Dead. Gone,the dancer thought at me.Flows, flows, flows. Pools, pools, pools. Dead. All de—
Shut up!the woman screamed.Shut—
Something slammed around me, a shattering breaking force, shards of lightning and blue power, cutting through the binding. The dancer screamed. The silk slithered free, shrinking, shrieking. The woman cursed.
I ripped myself out of the deeps. Grabbed hold of the blue brightness. Held on.
I was moving. Then stopped. Enfolded against something heated.
I groaned, the sound like sandpaper over rubber. My stomach rebelled. I pressed away from the warmth. Stopped. I retched, lost my breakfast. The movement began again. I managed to wipe my mouth with some part of me, succeeded in drawing a breath, but I couldn’t see. Couldn’t open my eyes.
The movement jerked, as if falling a long distance and landing hard. The world swirled and my gorge rose again. The movement stopped. My stomach settled. I tried to control my breathing. My lungs were working hard and fast, as if I had been drowning. Or smothered. Buried. Underground. In the fists of two things, two creatures that each wanted something of me.
Sense returned. I concentrated on slowing my breathing and my heart, which was racing at a tripping, thudding, painful pace. Slowly my body began to achieve a rhythm that felt more normal. A steady tempo that meant I wasn’t dead. Wasn’t dying.
After what felt like ages, I tried again to open my eyes. I poured all my strength into that single aim.Open my eyes.My lids fluttered open.
I was sitting on a rock the size of a small stool, at the rill we had passed on the way in, my feet in the icy water. An icy wet rag was on the back of my neck. Something heated was wrapped around me, something alive, breathing with a deep, shuddering vibration. A bottle of water appeared in the air before me, a hand holding it. My own hands rose and I wrapped my fingersaround the bottle.Oh good. I still control my body. I blinked slowly, and my eyes felt gluey.
