Every step that carried her closer to the crypt revisited her anger from the night before. If this woman was responsible for what happened to Marvel, to her sister, she would tear her to shreds on that hill. But she wasn’t even out of the garden when the humming started, the earthy rumble that wrapped its way up her legs to her chest and throat, growing louder and louder by the beat. Her ears rang with the sound, a chorus so strong each note became a hundred, each voice a thousand. They drove her on like hooves pounding beside her. They called her to the den of her ancestors, and Cordelia felt the world around her slipping.
For a moment, beneath the pink shade of the cherry trees, she thought she saw them. A long line on either side of her—men and women, boys and girls, their mouths open, their throats reverberating, their tongues loosed. The words eluded her, and maybe they were not words at all, but their faces were plain enough, sliding in and out of being as she ran.
The song overwhelmed until her grip on reality loosened along with her throat. Something in her begged to join in, to let out a howl so great it would shake this place to its foundation.Sing,it seemed to whisper, then chant, then storm.Sing, girl! Sing!
Cordelia opened her chest and throat and mouth. And whatever came out was lost to her. Her body doubled on itself, bones popping in and out of joint as she ran, until she saw herself like a beast tearing up the ground, claws digging into the earth, propelling her forward, the woman fading in and out with the animal.
When she neared the crypt, she saw the doors waiting open, the roses swirling in the morning sun, the mists creeping from inside like the breath of a dragon, twirling in white curls. She hit the side of the hill and latched on, scrabbling for purchase. She clambered up the steep slope, clawing with her fingers anddigging with her knees and toes. The soil stained her hands and feet and legs black, but she didn’t care. She had only to reach the top and all would be as it should be. Her resolve pushed her up that slope like a madness, a fever of the soul. She ascended like a she-bear on the hunt, a lynx plowing through snow, with only her instincts to guide her.
As she rounded the crest and pulled herself onto flat land, she found the woman waiting. But behind her, the thicket of Connecticut’s hills was gone, a vista of white-capped mountains in their place. An emerald valley shone between them. A wide-open sky frosted blue.
The air nipped at Cordelia’s skin. Her hair blustered behind her. The woman’s cheeks were red with cold. She smiled, and her teeth were waxy in the light.
“Who are you?” Cordelia demanded.
“The wand wed,” the woman said, her voice gravelly, as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time. “The speaker of truths and the seer of destinies.”
Cordelia took in the large staff, the crooked form and the branching top—three arms with shiny brass decorations cast on them.Algiz.“What are you doing here?”
“I am where you brought me,” the woman said plainly. “And you are where I have brought you.”
Cordelia shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest. When she looked back, she could not see the house or the gardens. Just miles and miles of forest spilling onto a sparkling coastline in the distance.
“Do I know you?” she asked the woman, feeling a pull to her, a sense of home.
At this, the woman smiled again with wide, ruddy lips. “Your blood sings my name, daughter. Your soul knows me well. As does your mother’s.”
“My mother?” Cordelia took a step toward her.
“Magda of the bones,” the woman hissed with wild eyes.
Cordelia’s eyes narrowed; she took another step. “Thebones?”
The woman leaned toward her, her grin as broad as her face and her eyes aflame with wisdom. “My bones, girl. And your bones someday. That is the beating heart of our clan. That is where the power lives.”
“Power.” Cordelia seized on the word. “You mean our magic?”
“I mean our gifts,” the woman told her. “Healing the sick. Riding the minds of beasts. Reading the runes. But the greatest of these is our song.”
“Singing,” Cordelia echoed. “Like I heard in the ground? In my legs? Like what brought me here?”
The woman stood tall and proud. “The bones sing for you, girl. To stir you to your purpose. To rouse you from your ignorance. Our song calls the spirits close. It looses the tongues of the dead and sets them wagging. Do you know of what the dead speak, girl?”
Cordelia shook her head.
“Everything,” she said slowly, beginning to circle Cordelia. “We sing to call the dead, and the dead speak our futures into being. Our power is not just our own but theirs. And we honor them for it.”
“Aunt Augusta,” Cordelia whispered, turning in place to follow the woman. “The runes across her face. The doves.”
“The dead require many things to speak,” the woman told her, pausing. Then: “Most of all, they requirecompany.We are the company of the dead. And the dead reward us for it.” She paused here and leaned forward. “Now, the dead require blood.” She pointed at Cordelia’s wrist, where the bracelet held fast.
“Blood?” Cordelia shivered at the word.
“Your blood,” she said calmly. “To shed another’s.”
Cordelia shook her head. She was getting lost. “I don’t understand.”
“You will,” the woman assured her. “When the time is right.”
