Earth (16 page)

“Exactly.” I wrapped my arms around my chest,
hugging myself against the cold air and wondering what exactly had
intruded upon our sleepy little town.

It was going to be a crappy day at school
tomorrow, or rather today. It was just past midnight and we were
headed to Ojai. We had to wait until after Jodi was done with her
date with Jay, who was feeling neglected, and our parents were
asleep so they wouldn’t ask us where we were going. We also wanted
to make sure the coast would be clear of reporters and police. We
knew the police would’ve cleaned the area but physical evidence
wasn’t important to us; we knew the residual energies would still
be there and we were hoping to figure out what the point of the
ritual was.

“So do you really think we’ll be able to
figure out who these people are?” Steven asked from the back
seat.

“No, not really, but maybe we’ll pick up an
aura. Then, if we see them out in town, we’ll recognize them. But
really,” I explained as I turned onto the Ojai freeway, “the most
important thing to find out right now is why they’re doing what
they’re doing. Maybe it really is just a bunch of kids getting
mixed up in something they don’t realize is dangerous.”

“You don’t really think it’s kids, do you?”
Jodi asked skeptically.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I said, shaking my
head a little. “Deb’s right, we’re still considered kids. Maybe
these people are too.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Jodi said with a sigh.
She was feeling much better after finishing the tea Deb made her. I
would have to remember to ask what she’d given Jodi.

I hated driving into the woods at night, even
if I was going there by choice. It was always creepy, like the
beginning of a bad horror movie. Jodi had the map from the tree
house, keeping track of our progress carefully, trying to get us as
close to the ritual spot as possible without walking. None of us
were too thrilled with the idea of hiking a mile in the dark.

“Ok,” I said, rolling the car to a stop and
putting the emergency brake on. “It’s too thick through here to
drive any farther.” I sighed, staring at the dense blackness of the
forest, the headlights not making much of a dent in the
foliage.

“Great,” Steven muttered unhappily.

“Yeah,” I echoed his feelings. We climbed
out, all three of us armed with Maglite flashlights that doubled as
handheld weapons. Three beams of light swept the area around us
before we popped the trunk and pulled out our supplies. We’d
brought some consecrated water, five white pillar candles, a
scrying bowl and an athame. We didn’t need anything for earth or
air being in the forest. We each carried part of the load and Jodi
kept the map in front of her, folded to only show our path to keep
her from getting confused.

“Fae?” I turned to Jodi and she nodded,
setting her flashlight on the ground. She turned towards the
direction we would head in, hands open at her sides and her eyes
closed. Steven and I each placed a hand on her shoulder, lending
her our energy. In a few moments a swirling, seeking wind gusted
around us and flew out into the trees. We waited while Jodi worked.
It took a few minutes but she finally opened her eyes as the wind
died away.

“No one here but us,” she confirmed.

“Well that’s something at least,” Steven
said, bending to pick up Jodi’s flashlight and handed it to
her.

“Ready?” Jodi asked, checking the compass she
pulled from her back pocket.

“Guess so,” Steven said. Jodi took a step and
broke the tree line, Steven and I following closely behind. We were
able to find the area we were looking for with little trouble,
making the map almost pointless. The forest reeked with the scent
of burnt frankincense, myrrh and old blood. I had
reached
out
tentatively once we caught that scent to see if anything
was lingering and was almost instantaneously burned with the
residual energy. I wondered if this was the same energy Deb’s coven
had felt telling them it was male energy.

“Great,” I grumbled.

“What?” Jodi asked in a whisper.

“They were angry, at least at the end, and
left that energy lying around.” I heard Jodi shiver. If you allowed
your emotions to get out of control so much so that you left an
imprint of them behind, you could create entities, angry or
mischievous things that are hell bent on causing torment or chaos
for their own entertainment.

“So we’re gonna be cleaning before we leave.
Fabulous.” Steven’s voice reached me in the darkness. I nodded
before I remembered he couldn’t really see me.

The clearing was almost a perfect circle, as
if it was created for casting and rituals. We hesitated on the very
edge of the circle, not really wanting to step inside a circle cast
by enemies unknown. I opened the bottle of consecrated water and
poured a little into my hand and flung it into the open area in
front of us. The water landed on the ground, soaking into the
forest floor without a sound. “At least they banished their circle
before leaving,” I said before taking the first step into the
clearing.

“If they even bothered with a circle,” Steven
said darkly. The thought that someone was casting with the intent
of evil without a circle was just plain scary. The purpose of a
circle was not only to protect the caster inside but also to
contain the magic being worked within; without the circle the magic
and energy could run wild.

“Let’s get started.” I said, pulling the
scrying bowl out of the bag I had slung over my shoulder.

“We are going to do a circle, right?” Jodi
asked. I caught a hint of fear in her voice.

“Of course,” I said, walking out into the
middle of the clearing, setting the bowl down. “I’d actually like
to do a double circle again for extra protection.” We drew the
circle the same way we had at the beach the other night.

I sat down cross legged. Jodi sat on my
right, her knee nearly touching mine, and Steven sat on my left
after he set the candles at five points around the circle. In our
triangle inside the circle, we joined hands and I grounded our
energies into the earth below us. I had to reach deeper than normal
until I found clean earth that was untouched by the previous
nights’ workings. I felt Steven raise his energy, concentrating
deeply, and then suddenly sent it out to the five candles, each
bursting into flame. In chorus, the three of us invoked protective
shields around the circles and around us. When we were ready, I
poured some of the consecrated water into the bowl.

“Fae, if you please?” I asked as I watched a
fine mist appear, rolling over the surface of the water. Jodi
opened her eyes to stare at the water, her brows kitting together
in concentration. A few moments passed and I could hear leaves
rustling softly around us just before a gentle breeze caught the
ends of my hair and swirled over the bowl, blowing the mist away.
This was a good sign; we were blowing away things that were
clouding our visions.

Slowly the water began to ripple and change
color. As one, we leaned closer to the bowl to watch as the scene
took form. The reds, yellows, and oranges of fire were predominate
inside the bowl. There were gilding black shapes that seemed to be
in some haphazard formation, either a circle or a line, in the bowl
it was difficult to tell. Although we couldn’t actually hear
anything, I had the sense of chanting in some forgotten tongue,
like an echo in the back of my mind, just out of hearing.

The scene shifted and a tall black clad
figure was standing behind a table with his hands held high and a
glinting silver knife gripped in his right hand. There were two
chickens laid on the table and, after a pause, the figure with the
knife made a fast, slashing motion, killing the first chicken. I
felt Jodi start next to me, forcing herself not to look away and
break our concentration. The hood of the robe obscured the killer’s
face in shadow, but with the length of pauses between slashes, I
knew he was speaking, possibly chanting a spell. It was terribly
frustrating not being able to hear what was being said. After the
second chicken was killed and the table dripped with blood, the
scene rotated and we saw the top of the table.

The black cloth covering the table was
saturated with blood. Through the bloodstains, we could see the
white embroidery of symbols decorating the cloth, glowing with
magic. There was an inverted pentagram in the center with symbols
drawn in each space made by the star and circle. I realized I was
grinding my teeth and tried to relax my jaw; seeing an inverted
pentagram bothered me as much as an upside down cross. Why couldn’t
these creeps get their own symbols rather than pervert ours?

Jodi’s fear was cat claws in my stomach. A
wind started whipping around us, leaves and dirt swirling and
obscuring the view in the bowl. A trickle of sweat rolled down my
cheek as Steven started to lose his concentration. We had had
enough.

Chapter 9

Monday morning was just as bad as I had
anticipated. It had taken so long to sketch the symbols we’d seen,
dispel our circles, hike back to the car, and get home that we were
only going to get a couple hours of sleep. I was armed with a
thermos full of coffee and singles for the soda machines for later
when I picked up Jodi and Steven, who looked almost as bad as I
felt. Jodi had caked on more make-up than usual and Steven was
wearing dark sunglasses and looked like he was suffering from a bad
hangover. It was a silent drive to school; we didn’t argue over the
radio stations or even bother to turn it on. The Straight Edge Kids
were about to walk into school looking like they’d been on an
all-night bender. So much for reputations.

Home Ec was both a blessing and a curse. We
were making cookies again so we’d get some lovely sugar and carbs,
but the sound of banging pans and whirling hand mixers was enough
to make my ears bleed. Thank goodness the cookies were wonderfully
traditional chocolate chip – I don’t think I could have taken any
more raisins at this point. When the bell finally rang, Steven and
I rushed out of there as fast as our headaches would allow. I was
disappointed to see that by the end of class my thermos was already
half empty. We caught up to Jodi outside of her Chem class, looking
worse for wear.

“Let me tell you,” she said in an angry tone,
“formaldehyde fumes on an empty stomach is not a combination I’d
like to repeat.”

“Here,” Steven handed her some of our
leftover cookies we’d saved for her.

“Oh! I love you!” She took the cookies
greedily and started scarfing them down immediately. We all set out
for French, knowing it would take a miracle to stay awake during
the lecture. “Oh!” Jodi said around a mouthful of cookie. “I have
to tell you something in class.”

“What?” I asked, wondering why she couldn’t
tell us now.

“No, not here,” she swallowed a large bite.
“I don’t want people to overhear.”

“Or interrupt your eating,” Steven said. Jodi
just shrugged and took another bite. We settled into our desks,
looking more sloppy than normal. I had even abandoned my favorite
coat and scarf for fleece lined boots and an oversized hooded
sweatshirt and fuzzy fingerless gloves. If it weren’t for the
jeans, I could’ve been ready to go to bed. Both Jodi and Steven had
dressed similarly. Luckily, because of the cold weather, no one
thought it was odd.

As soon as Madame Beaumont went into her
lecture on formal versus informal adjectives, I felt Steven’s
fingers press my shoulder blade through my sweatshirt. I was
tempted to use my foot to touch Jodi, not wanting to sit up, but
the ground had been wet and my boot was dirty. She wouldn’t thank
me for that. I sat up and leaned casually on my right forearm and
reached with my left hand to touch Jodi.

So what’s up?
I asked dully, hoping I
wasn’t paying extra attention just for idle gossip.

Ian has bruises on his face and cuts on
his hands
. Jodi’s yellow thoughts were anxious; it was hard to
tell if it was because she knew this was so interesting or if she
was worried.

What kind of bruises?
Steven
asked.

His left cheek is swollen with a small cut
and his right ear looks like cauliflower,
Jodi said.

Whoa…
Steven’s thoughts echoed mine.
What else was there to say? Ian was huge and someone had taken him
on in a fight and managed to do some damage.
How bad is the
swelling?
Steven asked.

I don’t know, he wasn’t actually in class;
Tracy was just talking to me about it,
Jodi said. I had
forgotten that they were lab partners in Chem.

Are you ready to hear who he fought?
Jodi dangled the carrot in front of us.

What? You know who he fought?
I asked,
surprised.

Yep.
She sounded a little smug.

How?

Tracy was at their house yesterday,
Jodi said.

Ok, who’d he fight?
Steven asked, his
red thoughts sounded like he was on pins and needles.

Jensen,
Jodi drew out the name,
tasting each syllable.

WHAT?
Steven and I cried together.

Yep! And Tracy claims Ian looks worse than
Jensen. All Jensen has is a split lip.

Wow…
Steven thought in awe.

Well, I imagine there’s the possibility of
other wounds not visible to the eye,
I thought.
Know why
they fought?

No. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I asked her,
but she said she didn’t know. I guess the fight happened late
Saturday night and she saw him on Sunday but he wouldn’t give her
too many details.
Jodi sounded disappointed at that last. We
broke the channel then as Madame Beaumont was coming around to
check off homework.

I had never been so anxious to get to math
class as I was today; I wanted to see if Jensen really was ok with
my own eyes. Jodi complained as I hurried through the halls. She
was still dragging while I’d finished off my thermos in of coffee
French class, giving myself a little extra energy. I reached the
classroom door just as Jensen did from the other direction; we
stopped face to face at the threshold. I took the brief moment to
search his face and saw, with some relief, that he really had only
suffered a split lip, which was already healing. It was the one mar
on his beautiful face. He smiled softly to me; I tried not to
cringe when I watched his lips stretch the wound. He nodded
slightly and held out his right hand towards the door, offering to
let me pass first.