The part of me that was attached to Soulwood wanted to shrivel at the very thought. I should have been able to sense the soil in the pots. I looked at my fingertips. They were leafy yet still not fully healed from touching thedeath and decay.
Gingerly, FireWind asked, “Will you be able to dissolve all the shielded energies?”
Occam growled and moved as if to attack. I caught his hair in one leafy hand, stopping him. “I think so,” I said. “Maybe?” I put my head on the conference room desk and yawned. Closed my eyes. “Eventually. After I get some sleeee...”
***
Less than a week later, Occam and I pulled up to Stella Mae’s horse farm. It looked the same as the first time I’d come, except for the pasture where I had found Adrian’s Hell covered in green froth. That entire field was barren, brown, dead. I may have groaned in pain because Occam took my hand.
“You could say no, Nell, sugar. Or that you need a break. You don’t have to fix this. Not today.”
“If not me, then who? If I don’t fix it or at least help to fix it, then who will? And if it enters the water table, then what?”What if it kills the somnolent presence in the deeps of the Earth?
I shoved my viny scarlet hair out of my eyes, shifted my body away from the devastation, and looked at Occam. His eyes were glowing the gold of his cat. His emotions were high. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in the office in the last few days, traveling with one or another of Unit Eighteen’s agents, healing various energies, and sleeping a lot in between. I had lost track of the phase of the moon, but I knew the werecats had hunted, taking down a big buck.
My magics and the magics of Soulwood had healed him. His blond hair was lighter. His scars were gone. His movements were the lithe and graceful speed of the were-creature fully integrated with his cat, like a ballet dancer but faster, stronger, with far more stamina. People watched him when he stalked down the street. He drew the eye. When he and Rick were together, were-magic sparked, the leftover magic of Soulwood giving them a keen awareness of each other. They no longer seemed to be sparring for alpha status. They seemed content. When Margot was with them, they had magic even humans could feel.
“Play your antishift music,” I suggested. “I have work to do.” I opened the car door, my feet crunching on the gravel as I slid under the fence boards and into the dead field.
I didn’t bring the faded, patched, and sewn blanket, which I had salvaged, nor did I bring a potted plant, but I had brought a lancet and a plastic bag of Soulwood soil from the garden. I had figured out the procedure to heal the earth of the necromantic energies. It wasn’t easy, but I could do it, and without turning into a tree.
I found the place where Adrian’s Hell had died and I sat just outside of the depression of death where his body had lain. Unlike last time, the grass crunched beneath my feet and my backside, dead, as I wriggled into a comfortable spot.
I dumped out the soil and pricked two fingers, index left and index right, and let blood collect in my palms. When there were tiny pools of thick, bright red, I slammed my hands against the earth, one against the dead dirt, across the dead grass. One against the Soulwood soil. Pushing with my magic.
I called on life. I called on the green, green,greenthat was life. I fed the faint spark of life in the deeper roots, in the faraway roots, in the rare still-living grasses that had once been soplentiful and healthy here. I pushed my own life force into the land.Pushed. Called on life. Gave the land my own. I reached out to Soulwood, to the life that was twined with mine. I wrapped thedeath and decayin the life of Soulwood. I claimed the land, but with only the faintest of leashes. I pushed with my magic. And I made the land grow.
NINETEEN
Mud had taken the bus to school. Esther was at the church, packing up her belongings, probably ordering all the Nicholson menfolk around, telling them how to load things into the moving van Daddy had rented, driving everyone crazy with her complaints. It was just Cherry and me on the front porch, sitting in the swing in the cold and fog of morning, my human-skin hands wrapped around a warm tea mug. Cherry put her head on my thigh and breathed out in contentment. “Me too,” I said to her. “It’s nice to be alone.”
I was wearing flannel pants, wool socks, fluffy slippers, and layered sweatshirts against the cold, having learned how comfortable store-bought, modern clothes could be. Inside, my gardening bib overalls were folded neatly on my bed, my work boots beside the back door. I was off for a few days, healing my own body before I would try to heal the land at the power sink. I needed, almost desperately, to have my hands in Soulwood soil, my spirit in Soulwood’s warmth and power. But first, strong tea and quiet time.
Cherry yawned as I rubbed behind her ears and along her skull. She closed her eyes in bliss. And I felt his car turn onto the road at the bottom of the mountain, Soulwood warning me, and then curling like a contented cat. Heated warmth spiraled up from inside me. “My cat-man is here,” I told the dog. “Musta come straight from work.”
Cherry didn’t seem impressed.
I thought about running inside and putting on makeup, pulling on a dress, but I had brushed my teeth and combed my ridiculously curly hair. I had groomed my leaves. I wasn’t a girly-type girl. I was a plant-woman. This would do. Coffee and a pot of tea waited. And eggs if Occam was hungry.
But that warmth grew, and when he turned into the short drive, I felt as if I was glowing with it. My cat-man was here.
He stood from his fancy car and walked around it, his long legs steady, his blond hair bright in the foggy day. Cherry dropped to the porch and met him at the top of the stairs, where he paused, one foot on the top step, one on the porch, leg bent, stroking her head the way she liked. He was wearing jeans and a denim jacket, and his eyes were glowing gold. “Morning, Nell, sugar.”
The warmth inside me unfolded and spun and whirled and gamboled across my land. And I was ready.
“Morning, cat-man. I like the fog.”
“I like it too.”
“And I like tea in the mornings, sitting on the porch.”
“I like that too.”
“I’m getting chickens.”
“I’m right fond of eggs, chickens, and eating both.”
“I’m gonna have Mud living here. She’s a handful. You okay with that?”
