That’s another question to be added to the list if you do manage to summon and talk to her.
I carefully started down the slope. An ever-increasing wave of stones rolled ahead of me, and a thick cloud of dust rose, tickling my throat and making me cough. The noise of the cicadas faded away and the night became still—hushed. Trepidation stirred, even though I had no immediate sense of threat.
I was halfway down the slope when the specter rose and fled. I swore softly but kept my concentration on the unstable ground under my feet; the last thing I needed was to fall. By the time I made it to the ravine’s base, sweat trickled down my back and my legs were on fire. I made another of those somewhat useless mental notes to do something about getting fitter and walked along the creek bank until I was opposite the rock that held the small white pile.
In the flashlight’s bright light, it looked a whole lot like feathers.
Feathers that were covered in blood.
Four
Why on earth would she be showing us a pile of bloody feathers? Belle asked.
It could be she’s not involved w
ith last night’s murders. Maybe she’s just a ghost intent on a little mischief. I stepped onto the nearest rock and threw my hands out for balance as the thing wobbled under my weight.
If that were the case, you wouldn’t have seen her as a lady in white.
Unless that’s part of her game.
Ghosts generally can’t alter their forms. If she presented as a lady in white, it’s because she is one.
I stepped onto the next rock and then hesitated. The rest were half-submerged and moss covered, and while there were others scattered about that sat above the waterline, none of them would get me closer to the big rock holding the feathers. I grimaced and carefully stepped forward, only to slip on the moss and go sliding into the water. One wet shoe might as well be two, I thought, and splashed on. The feathers, I soon discovered, weren’t the only things covered in blood. The top of the rock was, too. And there were bones. Tiny birdlike bones.
She’s obviously trying to give us a message by showing us this, Belle said. But it’s certainly one I don’t understand.
Me neither. It obviously wasn’t a new kill—while the blood on the feathers still held a gleam of red, the stuff on the rock was black and flaking. If a specter hadn’t led me here, I would have presumed it was a favorite eating spot for whatever hawk or eagle hunted in the area.
And yet…
I narrowed my gaze and studied the feathers. They were obviously from a largish bird, and had dark brown stripes alternating with lighter gray. There were no signs of spell threads and certainly no indication that this was anything other than the remains of a hunter’s snack.
But doubt persisted.
I carefully reached out, but as my fingers neared the feathers, I felt the faint caress of magic. And, underneath that, evil.
I quickly withdrew my hand. Belle, I’m going to need my spell stones.
I’ll have to go back for them.
Do so. I’ll wait. The magic might not have had the feel or look of a spell, but that didn’t mean a whole lot given my lack of knowledge and training when it came to spell craft. I wasn’t about to risk triggering something that could reverberate through the rest of reservation, doing God only knows what damage.
The water seeping into my runners was damn icy, so I splashed back to the bank then sat on a nearby rock. After taking off my shoes and socks and squeezing out as much water as I could, I laid them out on the rock, hoping the day’s heat still emanating from it would go some way to drying them. Then, with little else to do but wait, I hugged my knees close to my chest and kept the flashlight’s beam pointed at the feathers, trying to figure out what lay within them.
It was nearly half an hour before lights began to dance through the trees above me. Several minutes later, Belle appeared at the top of the scree slope, and she wasn’t alone. Ashworth was with her.
Thought it prudent, she said. If there is some sort of magic attached to the feathers, he can deal with it.
Good thinking, 99.
I’m not just a pretty face and fabulous bod, you know. Besides, if anything is going to blow up, I’d rather it do so all over Ashworth than you.
I snorted. You’re forgetting the fact that I’ll be standing right beside him. But I don’t think anything will blow up.
You can’t be certain of that.
Well, no, but I’ve spent the last twenty-eight or so minutes studying those feathers, and the magic within them simply doesn’t feel active.