"Come," Jeremiah ordered.
In they went. The Wood grew darker here, older, harder. You'd never guess the town roads were only a half hour away. The trees were truly enormous now. It would take several people with their arms outstretched to enclose one of the trunks. Odd creatures skittered in the branches: some small and furry, some scaly, some with eyes that glowed orange and red. Jack spat, and hissed, and promised trouble in his cat language, until Declan picked him up to keep him put.
Twenty minutes later, they finally reached Wood House. It sat on top of a low man-made hill, shaped like a pyramid with its top chopped off. A wooden palisade, centuries old and slathered with clay to protect it from moisture and fires, surrounded the apex of the hill. Moss and underbrush hugged its roots, trying to climb up the palisade, and pale flowers thrust through it to the sun, as if a wave of greenery had crashed against the wooden walls. Rose remembered coming here only once, when she was very small.
They climbed up the side of the hill, using ancient stone blocks placed there like giant steps. The wooden gate swung open with a creak. A weather-scarred totem pole stood to the right, next to a bonfire pit filled with stones. A tall oak rose straight up, a small wooden lookout platform sitting in its branches like a tree house. To the left, a big log cabin waited for them, its walls so layered with moss and lichen that the building seemed to have grown from the Wood's floor, and behind it a scattering of smaller buildings only intensified the illusion: the structures sat together like toadstools in a ring.
The wooden gate behind them shut, and Rose turned to see Leanne sliding a heavy wooden beam across it. A few other familiar people walked in the yard: all about her age, most single and magically adept. The Edgers with the least to lose, she realized.
"Welcome to Wood House," Jeremiah said.
Chapter 21
LEE Stearns claimed he was half-Cherokee Indian, but his hair, skin, and face said he was whiter than the Pillsbury Doughboy, and rumor had it that both of his parents were about as Cherokee as pizza. It wasn't something people dared to say to his face or behind his back. His skin was smooth and pale, almost satiny, despite his advanced age. He looked at the world with watery blue eyes, and his hair was corn silk blond. It was as if the sun had bleached him. Lee drew the eye. He was also known to lose his temper if he thought people stared at him too much, and as Rose found a seat across from him at an old wooden table in the Wood House hall, she took care not to look at him too long.
Gaping at the other five elders wasn't a good idea either. There was a lot of power in the room, and they looked far too somber to tolerate foolishness right about now.
Rose glanced to her grandma. ElEonore gave her a careful smile. Rose looked at her hands.
She was terribly aware of Declan, sitting very still next to her, about as perturbed as a granite crag. At least the children were excused from the meeting. Leanne had brought Kenny Jo to Wood House, probably so the elders could question him. George and Kenny Jo decided to call a truce for the time being in the name of exploring Wood House. They got off easy.
"Why don't you introduce us to the young man, Rose?" Jeremiah said.
Rose cleared her throat. "Directly across from us is Adele Moore."
If Grandma pretended to be a hedge witch, Adele was one. She was tall for an older woman, with skin the color of coffee grounds. Her hair streamed down to her waist in long gray dreads, each lock woven with bead strings and leather cords tingling with small bone and wood charms. Her clothes were layers of threadbare fabric, green, olive, and brown. She wore a dozen necklaces, some of dried mushroom caps stuck onto a thin thread, some of dried blossoms, some of discarded snakeskin, and one or two of tiny, cheap beads probably bought at Wal-Mart, of all places. Her face was wrinkled, and her hair had lost its color, but Adele's eyes were quick and young.
"To the left of Adele is Emily Paw, Elsie Moore's niece."
Emily looked a lot like her aunt. Haggish and slight, she resembled a dried-out crow. Her mouth drooped downward, and in all of her twenty-two years, Rose had never seen Emily smile once. Of all present, with the exception of herself and Declan, Emily was the youngest and looked the oldest.
"You already know Jeremiah and Grandma," Rose continued. "The man on the right is Lee Stearns. Next to him is Tom Buckwell."
"Hello." Tom Buckwell sounded like an ornery bear and looked like one, too. Big, almost seven feet tall and three hundred pounds heavy, he sat hunching his thick shoulders. He was also the hairiest man she had ever seen. His reddish beard was always tangled, his hair long, and the hair on his muscular forearms resembled fur. Rumors said that if he got drunk enough, he sometimes got his jollies by stripping naked and scaring hikers out in the Broken into thinking he was Bigfoot. Tom was also Fred Simoen's uncle, once removed.
"And this is Earl Declan Camarine," Rose finished finally.
Silence fell.
"How do we know you are who you say you are?" Lee asked.
Declan shrugged. "You don't."
"Then how do you expect to prove yourself?"
Rose tensed. She'd expected the question. It was natural that they would want to test him, but testing Declan was like trying to pet a strange pit bull.
Declan's eyebrows crept up an eighth of an inch. "I don't have to prove anything. I came to you because Miss Drayton convinced me it would be beneficial to my cause. I'm here to kill Casshorn. I have no other purpose or agenda, and once I'm done, I'll return back to where I came from. It's up to you to accept me or not."
It really was amazing how Declan could shift into blueblood mode. His tone wasn't exactly imperious, but it made it seem as if his words were cast in stone.
"What Lee means is we would like to see some proof of your power," Grandma said. "Please, indulge us."
He bowed his head. "As you wish, Madame."
Magic stirred within Declan, like a lazy monster, awakening slowly, stretching, testing its claws. It built stronger and stronger. A white glow rolled over his irises. It was as if the side of the room where he sat had darkened, but the magic within him glowed, swelling, rising, terrifying and impossibly strong like a hurricane.
The tiny hairs on the back of Rose's neck stood on their ends.
Declan's eyes blazed white. A ghostly wind brushed Rose. She could actually see it - a thin veil of pale glow, streaming about Declan, winding against him.
She reached out and put her fingers on his hand. He glanced at her with his star-eyes and pulled the magic inside himself, sheathing it like a weapon. She wasn't sure what was more impressive: the sheer magnitude of his power or the ease with which he controlled it.