“I think so.”
“You are growing leaves.”
I reached up and touched my hair. It was, once again, wildly curly, red, and full of leaves, not just at my hairline but all through it. I touched my face, which still felt like skin, thank goodness, and held up a hand to see my fingernails were woody and leaves had sprouted all along the cuticles. I didn’t sigh in dismay, but I wanted to. “Yeah. It happens.”
“A bird just landed in the yard. It didn’t die. You were successful.” It was a statement, not a question.
I focused on the big boss. He had removed his jacket and unbraided his hair. It flowed in a braid-kinked veil across his shoulder and down across his still-crisp white shirt. He was sitting on the ground in his black dress slacks, his knees crossed, his shoes off and feet bare. I smelled charred herbs, the smoke of ritual, and knew that he had participated in the healing of the earth in his own way, with a ceremony of healing.
“Is she okay?” a voice croaked.
“She is. Drink some water, Kent,” FireWind said mildly, “or I’ll get up and pour it down your throat.”
“You can try,” T. Laine said, her voice rasping.
“Have you been repeating that scripture for...” I looked up at the sunset. “All these hours?”
“Yeah. I seriously need to bone up on my Bible verses if Ihave to keep saving your ass,” She plopped down beside my viny cage and opened a bottle of water, uncapped it, and drained it in long gulps. She was sweat stained, pale, and shivering.
I smiled, my lips dry and cracking. “Save me, huh?”
FireWind said, “Ingram. Thedeath and decayenergies are gone, though I have no idea how you did it. You did, of course, cave the house into a pile of splinters.”
“FireWind, sweet as always,” I said.
“I have never in my life been called sweet,” he said.
“That was sarcasm,” I whispered. “Like a townie woman.”
“Ah. Well. When she’s back to normal, drive her home,” he instructed T. Laine. FireWind pulled on socks and shoes and upended a gallon bottle of water over his fire. It hissed, spat, and smoked, and he stood, kicking dirt over it and rolling the heated firepit stones into it. “Ingram. The scent here is both like and unlike the scent of the magic user from Stella’s horse farm. Therearetwo of them, working together. You still have work to do.”
I caught a glimpse of his face as he left, smiling, peaceful. I wasn’t sure any of us had known he could look so at ease. I laughed, though it was little more than a breath. I pressed my hand against my viny cage and the vines and roots parted, slithering to the sides. I rolled over and sat up, pressing a hand onto the vines encasing Occam. The setting sun cast golden light and soft shadows over him, and... he was such a beautiful man. Soulwood had healed the last of his burn scars. His hair was long and platinum gold. A five-day beard softened his cheeks and chin.
And then it hit me. I shouted, “FireWind! We need to go back to Ethel Myer’s house. Right now!”
***
Occam, dressed in gym sweats taken from his gobag and eating his second sandwich, drove me to Ethel Myer’s home and parked next to FireWind’s vehicle. He was standing with T. Laine, who was studying the house, reading the property with the psy-meter 2.0. The stone house had been perfect only hours past. Now it was a pile of rubble. Occam turned off my car, his gaze on the grouping of our coworkers. From their bodylanguage it was cleardeath and decaywas contaminating the land. “If FireWind asks you to heal this land, you gonna do it?”
I shook my head. “I’m wore slap out, Occam. Maybe in a few days.”
“Good. You ain’t grown roots yet, but that won’t last. Not with you using your gifts so deep.” He leaned to me and tucked a strand of vine-hair into the curly mass behind my ear. He grabbed the back of my head and pulled us close, forehead to forehead, much like his cat had. “Good God, woman. I love you to the full moon and back. You know that. And you always got the right to do what you think is best. But you scared me half to death.”
“Is that what made you shift?”
“Fear is a powerful motivator, Nell, sugar. Love is a better one. Don’t do that to me again, you hear?”
Instead of agreeing, I said, “I love you too, cat-man, to the deeps of the roots and the heights of the trees.”
Our foreheads crushed together, Occam’s now-white eyelashes closed for a moment. Without a reply, he exited the car, leaving me there. Too tired to walk over and join my unit, I lowered the passenger window as Occam reached the small group.
Rick was there, looking pale and shaky, having shifted in the car on the way over, but human shaped, dressed in sweatpants and a shirt against the chill, like Occam. He glanced to me in the dim light cast by the houses closest. He lifted a hand in what looked to be more than simplyhello. Maybe that friendship he had claimed, more so than boss-to-employee. I raised a hand back. He smiled. It was wan, but it was a smile, and it lit his black eyes.
FireWind said, “The scents here are mixed, but one is a scent I smelled all over the farm and in the basement at Stella Mae Ragel’s home. This is the scent of theajasgili.”
“It’s an odd scent,” Rick said, “hard to detect with a human nose. A little like muskrat and old cat urine? And something three days dead?”
“Exactly,” FireWind said, sounding a little surprised.
