Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh, the blueblood look of scorn. Whatever shall I do? I do declare, I feel faint."
Declan growled under his breath.
She patted his hand. "It's not too late to reconsider this whole 'I'll have you, Rose' business."
"Nice try," he told her.
Jeremiah came up to the porch. "Hello, Ms. Drayton." His accent was the old Southern, slow, refined, swallowing his r's as if he'd just stepped off some plantation in Virginia.
"Hello, Mr. Lovedahl," she said. "Would you care for some iced tea?"
"I would, thank you."
When she returned from the kitchen with two glasses, Jeremiah smiled at her. "Lord Camarine and I were just discussing the defenses of Wood House. He mentioned he'd like to see them for himself."
"Did he now?" Rose smiled pleasantly and handed out the tea.
"Will you be joining us?" Jeremiah asked.
"I'd be delighted," she said.
ROSE walked next to Declan, picking her way through the forest floor thick with centuries of autumns. They formed a narrow procession: first, Jeremiah, leading the horse loaded with their bags, then Grandma, then Georgie, and then she and Declan, bringing up the rear. Jack had gone cat as soon as they set out, and he slunk along on their flanks. Once in a while she'd catch a glimpse of him, creeping over a log or scrambling up a tree, but he blended in so well, she wasn't even sure if she truly had seen him or if she just imagined it.
They were only twenty minutes into the Wood, but the change was startling. The forest here was older. Colossal trees towered above them: enormous pines, straight as masts, venerable Edge oaks, pale poplars . . . The forest was grass green, and emerald, and yellow. Patches of velvet moss climbed up the bark and sheathed the forest floor, so bright that when the sunlight spilling through the breaks in the canopy struck it, the moss nearly glowed. In the shadows, Granny Rose lichens bloomed on trunks and boulders like vivid scarlet peonies, and in the deeper gloom between the twisted, massive roots, delicate lady's slipper flowers stretched on thin stalks, and yellow-, brown-, and red-capped mushrooms the size of footstools squatted in clumps and rings. The air smelled of life, greenery, and magic. It filled Rose's lungs and carried away worry. She smiled quietly to herself and kept walking, following Jeremiah and Grandma along the trail she could barely see.
"I'm too old for this," Grandma murmured.
"I do recollect that you made this same trip all by your lonesome earlier in the week," Jeremiah said.
"Well, that's true," Grandma murmured.
"I was always of the opinion that some women improve with age," Jeremiah continued. "Like fine wine."
Rose rolled her eyes. Jeremiah Lovedahl was putting the moves on her grandmother. What was the world coming to?
They reached a grove of pines. The trees stood very dense here, the stubby broken branches near the roots supporting pale clusters of bone wind chimes. Each chime consisted of a skull, suspended from a metal ring among an assortment of small bones. Past the chimes, the forest stood unnaturally still. Not a single pine needle moved.
"Is there a spell on the trees?" Declan asked softly.
"Bone ward," Rose murmured back. "Very old, very strong."
They came to a halt at the trees marked by chimes. Most skulls were possum, wolf, lynx, but three were human, and one, heavy-jawed and oddly flat, had two thick fangs curving down like sabers. Declan nodded at the bizarre skull. "Troll."
"That's correct," Jeremiah said. "One came our way from the Weird about fifty years ago. Killed two little girls and ate them."
"How did you manage to bring him down? Their hide's too thick for a bullet, and they're immune to most poisons."
Jeremiah plucked a wide triangular leaf from a low branch and held it up. It was slightly larger than his hand. "Forest Tear. If you boil the sap of the tree, it makes glue, clear, odorless, and very strong. We served the troll a freshly slaughtered cow on a blanket of these leaves dipped in glue. Trolls are dumb creatures. He got down on all fours to eat his feast, and the leaves stuck to his feet and hands. He tried to shake them off, and when that failed, tried to pull them off with his teeth and got a leaf stuck to his face for his trouble. Then he panicked and rolled, until he was completely covered. The original plan was for him to suffocate to death, but he somehow got to his feet and ran blindly, until he knocked down a power line pole and got himself electrocuted."
"I'm beginning to see that one doesn't disturb your town without consequences," Declan said.
"Oh, we're just simple country folk." Jeremiah gave him a mild smile. "We don't take kindly to having our children murdered, but really we keep to ourselves. We're mostly harmless."
Magic streamed to him, gathering about his body in a deep red cloud. He raised his hand up to the sky. His black eyes narrowed to mere slits, and he barked a single word. "Break!"
The magic shot up and vanished. A moment later a long serpentine body crashed through the canopy and thudded to the ground. A leech bird. About five feet long and pale blue, it resembled a stork, but instead of the normal feathers, its tail split into two long, snake-like whips, tipped with blue tufts. The leech bird flailed in convulsions, slapping its broken bat-like wings on the ground. It had no beak. Instead, its jaws were very long and narrow, full of sharp needle-teeth. Magic spiked from it in dangerous bursts, but they fell short of Jeremiah.
"Dreadful creatures. Foul magic, too. Common wisdom says you'll turn into one if bitten. I haven't witnessed that happening in my lifetime, but I wouldn't discount it." Jeremiah raised his rifle and shot the leech bird twice. It jerked and became still. He waited a minute or two, approached the carcass, then pulled out a machete from his belt and hacked the head from the bird in a single chop. He picked it up and tossed it at the ward. The head crashed into the woods and vanished. Wind stirred the chimes. Bones rattled against each other with a dry clatter.
"It takes blood to open it," Jeremiah said. He hacked at the leech bird, carving it like a chicken, and nodded at the bloody chunks. "Each of you, take one and pay your dues. Quickly now before the blood cools."
One by one they fed the carcass to the ward. When Jack descended from the trees and dragged the last piece to the spell and pushed it in with his furry head, the chimes froze, but beyond them the Wood came to life, as if someone had pressed Play on an invisible remote. Branches shivered. Small red leaves fluttered to the ground here and there, breaking free from the vine garlands dripping from high branches. Magic bloomed like a flower.