Curtis nodded again before adding, “How?”
“The ivy, Curtis. We need him to harness it.”
“The ivy? Like, the plant?”
Alexandra closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “Curtis,” she said, “this may be difficult for you to hear.” Her fingers drifted from his chin to caress his cheek. She wiped a small drop of blood from his skin. “The child must be given as offering. As offering to the ivy.”
“W-what does that mean?” stammered Curtis.
Her voice became a meditative monotone, as if she were reciting primeval scripture: “On the autumnal equinox, three days hence, on the Plinth of the Ancients, the body of the second child will be laid. At my incantation, the vines will come forward and consume his flesh and drink his blood. This will confer upon the ivy an inestimable power, the human blood coursing through its stalks, and what’s more it will render the plant in thrall to my command. When we march on South Wood, we need only follow the path of destruction laid in the wake of the ivy.” Lifting her hand from Curtis’s cheek, Alexandra poised to cap this neat explanation with a snap of her fingers.
“Simple,” she said.
Snap.
“As that.”
Part Two
CHAPTER 13
To Catch a Sparrow;
Like a Bird in a Cage
A wild flutter of wings. The piercing shatter of glass. The gruff dismissal of a sparrow’s squawked reproach. All these things created a vivid collage in Prue’s mind as she squatted, frozen, at the bottom of the wicker hamper and listened to the sounds of Owl Rex’s living room being violently dismantled. The searchers, the remaining SWORD officers, seemed to be working in a methodical manner; overturning chairs, slamming doors, and upending bookcases on the other side of the room, slowly making their way to where Prue was hidden. She had little time.
Using the eruptions of sound as concealment, she shifted her weight on the pile of old newspapers below her and began sliding the top few from underneath her feet. During the silent breaks between the officers’ work, she would halt her efforts and stare silently, breathlessly, at the ambient strands of light coming in through the slats of the hamper until the noise of their searching began again. Finally, just as the footsteps grew closer, she managed to get several folded stacks of newsprint up from beneath her shoes to rest on her head. She had no sooner achieved this when a voice shouted, “What about there?”
“Where?” came another voice, mere inches from where Prue sat.
“Under your nose, idiot! That hamper!”
“Oh,” responded the voice. “I was just going to look there.”
Light poured in above Prue, and she squeezed her eyes closed and willed herself disappeared.
“Well, well, well,” the voice said. “What have we here?”
Prue’s eyes shot open.
A hand reached down into the hamper and fumbled with the pile of papers balanced on her head. Suddenly, the hamper lid slammed shut again. Prue noticed that the weight of paper on her head had grown a little lighter.
“It’s Jonesy and his pwetty wittle garden!” announced the officer, his voice dripping with unbridled sarcasm. “Front page of the illustrious House and Home section.”
“What?” said another voice from across the room.
“Yeah, take a look: Jonesy got a nice shiny medal from the Governor-Regent last week for his, get this, award-winning peonies.”
The room erupted with laughter as the sound of boot heels echoed, moving toward the man’s voice. A litany of mirthful shouts followed:
“Nice one, Jonesy!”
“Ooh! That’s a fancy little apron you’re wearing!”
“The way you cradle those peonies, Jonesy, very maternal.”
Finally, the object of all this laughter, Jonesy, made it over to the side of the hamper and, judging by the sound, whipped the incriminating object from the joker’s hand. “My wife put me up to it!” was the man’s feeble explanation.