Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47894 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47894 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
“Foxes carry messages from other realms. They come and go as they please, as they’re liminal creatures. I think they were there to tell you something.”
“Me?”
“Or you were supposed to see them, and then tell me.”
“What do you think they were doing there?”
“I think, for whatever reason, at the moment the veil is thin.”
“I thought the veil was only thin at Halloween or, um, Samhain?”
I smiled.
“I’m working on it,” he rumbled.
“I know, and it’s very appreciated, but there are other times it’s thin, and those too are normally seasonal.”
“But you’re saying because I saw foxes in the graveyard, you think what, that something came through somewhere? Crossed over?”
“I don’t know,” I said, walking toward the kitchen window.
“I thought spirits were what came through the veil,” he replied, following. “Is that wrong?”
“No, but someone powerful, like a hedge-rider, could as well.” When silence greeted that statement, I turned and found him scowling at me, his arms crossed. “What’s wrong?”
“You say things like hedge-rider as though I know everything you do.”
“You’re right, that’s a terrible habit and—”
The wind chimes were loud again outside, and we heard heavy steps on the porch. Lorne moved faster than I could get a hand on him and was at the window in seconds.
“What is happening? There’s nothing out there.”
I took a breath. “The good news is, we’re safe in the cottage, but I do think that whatever you’ve been seeing is something that’s been specifically hiding from me and is obviously trying to draw you out.”
“So something on the porch wants me to open the door.”
“Open the door, walk outside, step down into the snow…yes.”
“That’s not spooky at all.”
“You have to think, though, it can’t come into the cottage, and it’s not even letting you get a good long look at it.”
“Which makes you think what?”
“You first.”
“That basically, it wants me to be curious enough to find it.”
“Exactly.”
“But how am I seeing something you’re not?”
“It has to be a spell.”
“Like a cloaking spell?”
I waggled my eyebrows at him. “You’re getting good at this magic stuff.”
“Great,” he said sarcastically.
“Do me a favor and draw the curtains. I don’t want a creature suddenly appearing there and you running out after it.”
“I’m not stupid and—wait. Creature?”
I gestured in the direction of the graveyard. “There is obviously something prowling around on Corvus. I don’t know what, but whatever it is, it hasn’t woken the land. Because it hasn’t, we can only assume it’s not necessarily dangerous.”
“You mean evil.”
“Yes.”
“Because if it was, Corvus would kill it.”
“That’s right.”
My land, Corvus, had once been a wild, untamed forest, but then my ancestors had come, and over time, slowly imbued it with their magic, given blood and bone and created a sacred bond to my line. The land granted power and ancient knowledge, and the guardian—which it was my turn to be—gave protection and guidance.
“Xan?”
“We just need to figure this out,” I soothed him.
“You don’t seem terribly concerned.”
“I’m more intrigued than anything else.”
“Because you know the cottage won’t let anything past the threshold that could hurt us.”
“Correct.”
“And since Corvus isn’t reading whatever this is as dangerous, then I shouldn’t get all worked up.”
“No, but as you know, Corvus reads danger differently than you and me.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning something magical the land doesn’t perceive as evil could still be here for some nefarious purpose. All we can do is wait and see.”
“I hate waiting.”
“I know.”
“And you think it got here through the veil that isn’t supposed to be thin at the moment but somehow is.”
“That’s all it could be. All kinds of creatures from the fae realm pass in and out of rifts all over the world at any given time. But to intentionally use a rift, to navigate and move from one specific plane to another, that requires the power of a deity. Anything less magical gets lost.”
“Okay… But explain the veil to me.”
“The veil is simply the barrier between the unseen world and ours.”
“Define unseen.”
“Spiritual realms.”
“Okay. So not like the rift, which allows people to pass through.”
“That’s right.”
“So when the veil is thin, spirits can use that opening.”
“Yep, and it thins only at specific times of the year—Samhain, in the fall, that people are most familiar with, but also at Beltane in the spring. I haven’t heard of the veil thinning at any other times.”
“I know the dead cross through during Samhain. What comes through at Beltane?”
“Normally nature spirits and those of the fae.”
“What’s a nature spirit?”
“I’m starting to sound like Richard Attenborough narrating a documentary on the occult,” I quipped.
“I don’t care, tell me.”
I took a breath. “The truth is, everything in nature has a spirit. All animals, trees, the wind, the rain, everything. But humans, or most humans, don’t see those spirits. We see the tree, but not the spirit of the tree. Does that make sense?”
“It does, but it’s also kind of out there.”