Through its drumming she heard the wind sigh and moan, then the rumble of what must be the river.
Paths speared, forked, but she kept the map in her head.
She thought she heard something cry overhead, and for a moment imagined she saw the sweep of wings. Then despite the drumming, the rumbling, the sighs and the moans, everything suddenly seemed still. As the path narrowed, roughened, her heartbeat pounded in her ears, too quick, too loud.
To the right an upended tree exposed a base taller than a man, wider than her arm span. Vines thick as her wrist tangled together like a wall. She found herself drawn toward them, struck by the urge to pull at them, to fight her way through them to see what lay beyond. The concept of getting lost flitted through her mind, then out again.
She just wanted to see.
She took a step forward, then another. She smelled smoke and horses, and both pulled her closer to that tangled wall. Even as she reached out, something burst through. The massive black blur had her stumbling back. She thought, instinctively: Bear!
Since the umbrella had flown out of her hand, she looked around frantically for a weapon—a stick, a rock—then saw as it eyed her, the biggest dog ever to stand on four massive paws.
Not a bear, she thought, but as potentially deadly if he wasn’t somebody’s cheerful pet.
“Hello... doggie.”
He continued to watch her out of eyes more gold than brown. He stepped forward to sniff her, which she hoped wasn’t the prelude to taking a good, hard bite. Then let out two cannon-shot barks before loping away.
“Okay.” She bent over from the waist until she caught her breath. “All right.”
Exploring would definitely wait for a bright, sunny day. Or at least a brighter, dryer one. She picked up her soaked and muddy umbrella and pressed on.
She should’ve waited on the whole thing, she told herself. Now she was wet and flustered and, she realized, more travel weary than she’d expected. She should be napping in her warm hotel bed, snuggled in listening to the rain instead of trudging through it.
And now—perfect—fog rolled in, surfing over the ground like waves on the shore. Mists thickened like those vines, and the rain sounded like voices muttering.
Or there were voices muttering, she thought. In a language she shouldn’t understand, but almost did. She quickened her pace, as anxious to get out of the woods as she’d been to get into them.
The cold turned brutal until she saw her breath hazing out. Now the voices sounded in her head: Turn back. Turn back.
It was stubbornness as much as anxiety that had her pushing ahead until she nearly ran along the slippery path.
And like the dog, burst into the clear.
The rain was just the rain, the wind just the wind. The path opened into a road, with a few houses, smoke puffing out of chimneys. And beyond, the beauty of the mist-shrouded hills.
“Too much imagination, not enough sleep,” she told herself.
She saw dooryard gardens resting their bright blooms for spring, cars parked on the roadside or in short drives.
Not far now, according to Nan’s map, so she walked along the road, counting houses.
It sat farther off the road than the others, farther apart as if it needed breathing room. The pretty thatched-roofed cottage with its deep blue walls and bright red door transmitted that same storybook vibe—yet a shiny silver Mini sat in the little driveway. The cottage itself jogged into an L, fronted by curved glass. Even in the winter, pots of bright pansies sat on the stoops, their exotic faces turned upward to drink in the rain.
A sign of aged wood hung above the curve of glass. Its deeply carved letters read:
THE DARK WITCH
“I found her.” For a moment Iona just stood in the rain, closed her eyes. Every decision she’d made in the last six weeks—perhaps every one she’d made in her life—had led to this.
She wasn’t sure whether to go to the L—the workshop, Nan had told her—or the cottage entrance. But as she walked closer she saw the gleam of light on the glass. And closer still, the shelves holding bottles full of color—bright or soft—hanks of hanging herbs. Mortars and pestles, bowls and... cauldrons?
Steam puffed from one on a stove top, and a woman stood at a work counter, grinding something.
Iona’s first thought was how unfair it seemed that some women could look like that even without fussing. The dark hair bundled up, sexily messy, the rosy flush from the work and the steam. The fine bones that said beauty from birth to death, and the deeply sculpted mouth just slightly curved in a contented smile.
Was it genes or magick? she wondered. But then, for some, one was the same as the other.
