Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (10 page)

It wasn’t actually stealing energy from me, but it
definitely thought I was interesting. The force of it vibrated in my ears,
louder than Margaret’s voice and then softer again, pulsing.

We reached a wall, and Margaret headed to the right. I
started to follow, and then saw something off to the left. Lord and Lady, was
that some sort of magical painting of Marta’s house? Smoke rose from the
chimney, and there was even Marta off to one side gathering firewood from her
pile of split logs. It was like a waist-high pass-through, only I didn’t see more
of the maze through it, I saw Marta’s homestead!

I walked right up to the image, which rose above me to end
several feet shy of the hedge’s height, and held my hand up to the pulsing,
swirling spirals of light. There was nothing threatening about it. Huh. I
anchored myself to the bedrock below, and then touched the bubble that expanded
toward me.

“Miss Sorensson? Miss Sorensson! Wha . . . what
is the matter?” Margaret was coming closer, I could hear the “snick, snick” of
her pattens in the snow.

The clear bubble expanded, as if I blew soapy water through
a wooden spool. I felt a tug from it—as if someone had reached out and grabbed
my wrist.

Oh-oh.

They are going to
carve “fool” on my gravestone
,
I thought as I tried to hold my ground. My feet slid on the packed snow as the
magic pulled me in.
Don’t panic!
I
grabbed hold of a sturdy yew branch. Perhaps Margaret cou—

I thought I’d be pulled through the opening, but I staggered
slightly, as my feet found a path I had not seen.

It was better to walk than be dragged, so I let go of the
yew branch. In the end I stood on a snowy path tamped down by human and animal
feet. I gazed as if seeing my cousin’s home for the first time.

It
was
Marta’s
house! I turned around, but there was nothing behind me except the trail from
Marta’s home to the main road.

Of course what I had just walked into was a major spell of
some sort. There was no chance of Marta not noticing, even if I could figure
out how to get back into the maze. As these thoughts whipped through my mind, Marta
looked up from where she was gathering firewood. She was so surprised she
dropped the entire armload back on the stack.

I could not think of a single thing to say, except maybe
that there was this magic picture and I walked over to see it and . . . .

It seemed I was not required to say anything; not yet.

Marta set her hands on her hips, started shaking her head,
and then she burst out laughing. I’m not talking about a gentle titter of
amusement. No, this was a big laugh, joyous, full throated, enough laughter to
bring tears to your eyes and a stitch to your side.

Maybe the punishment wouldn’t be too bad.

I might even find out what I’d just done.

There didn’t seem to be any reason for me to hold my
ground, so I walked toward the woodpile. Marta almost had control of herself;
she was brushing a tear from her cheek. I could tell she was still on the edge
of laughter; her eyes were bright, her amusement dammed up but bubbling inside.

“I told Esme you’d be through a door before the end of the
week,” she said. “Esme thought you would be too busy for that to happen.” Marta
gestured to the woodpile. “Make yourself useful.”

I grabbed as much wood as I could balance and followed her
inside.

“Do you think the Livingstons would mind if I took my
snowshoes back with me?” I said as I stacked the wood in the brick-lined
opening to one side of the fireplace. “Miss Rutledge showed me her shoe ‘pat-tens’,
but snowshoes would be better on the grounds.”

Marta had her back to me; she made a sound suspiciously like
a snort. “Oh, why not? If you need them, they will be there. If not, they can
live at the bottom of your wardrobe.”

Brushing stray pieces of bark off her gloves, Marta gave me
a look and said, “Do you need to go to The Tree?” She had gotten in the habit
of calling her outhouse “The Tree,” as if there was no other one like it.

“I’m comfortable, Ma’am,” was my reply.

“What you need to do next will take an hour or two.”

“Well . . . just in case,” I said, and Marta
nodded.

“I’ll meet you at the trail toward the trap line,” she said,
and then looked around the room for something. “Ah—here we are.” She gestured
at the door and then bent over the sideboard table, blocking my view.

Well, I slipped outside and to “The Tree” to handle my
business, and then met Marta where a small trail from the house widened to
become a deer track. Animals never walk straight, it seems, and this path went
two ways. To the right was the last trap line I had worked on, toward water,
and to the left went further into the woods. What with the call to
Cloudcatcher, and the Hudson clan stealing me away, I had spent very little
time at Marta’s home. I did not remember ever walking deeper into the forest
along this particular path.

Marta turned toward me, and I saw that she had two rolls of
canvas in her hands. One she tucked under her arm, and the other she pulled
free of its tie and unrolled before me. There were tiny pockets sewn on the
inside, with soft flaps of cloth that folded down to prevent the contents from
rubbing each other.

Marta nodded to me, and I gently pulled the material aside,
revealing rounded wooden sticks. Handles, like the handles of nice stirring
spoons.

“Choose one,” she told me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Find the one that wants you.”

Well . . . this had just jumped into The
Mysteries again. Other people might make such whimsical statements, but not
Marta. There was always a second meaning to her humor—and magic behind her
whimsy.

The type of wood seemed to vary from very light in color to
nearly black. Someone had polished the wood until it was gleaming. Some had
satin oil polishes; others, clearly hard wax coats. One looked varnished, of
all things.

So . . . could I handle them? I reached out a
couple of fingers to the varnished one, and immediately felt a penetrating
cold. From the
wood?
Humph. Then I
simply passed my left hand over the pieces. The wood looked like oak, and
forgotten knowledge leapt up in my face—Marta had checked me for a wand, back
before even Cloudcatcher had risen into our lives. These were probably
different oak wands!

They all
felt
different, even though I wasn’t physically touching them. From the cold of the
varnished piece to the blazing hot sensation of a darkly stained handle . . . .
 
“What am I looking for, heat or
cold? Or nothing?”

Marta broke into a smile. “Find the one you can’t bear to
leave behind.”

A hint helps.

The third one from the left, sort of a pale golden color,
stopped me. It was almost as if the wood had reached out and taken my hand. I
continued on, to pass my hand over the entire group, but I returned to the
third wand. It just didn’t feel right to leave it there all alone.

Now, I know that sounds silly, but there it was—the wand
wanted to leave its fellows and go with me. I finally lowered my hand to touch
it with thumb and forefinger.

Lovely, liquid warmth stole into my fingers, winding into my
hand. This would have made me wary, but I thought Marta would have given me
more of a hint, if this was a trap. And if it was, well, she would show me how
to get out of it.

I pulled out the handle, and it was, indeed, a wand. It
measured about a foot or so, satin polished and rounded, dark at the handle and
spiraling up to its white, unstained tip. It was pieced! Another wood had been
carefully imbedded into the spiral design, echoing the golden to finally white
wood coil all the way to the top.

Just
for a moment I wondered which wand Shaw could not leave behind.

Marta chuckled, flipped the protective flap of material over
the other handles, and then rolled the canvas carrier up again. “Of course you
picked the most expensive one.”

Oh, I would hate to leave it! “Should I take another?”

“No, dear, you only take a ritual wand that wants you. You
may need more than one wand. This is a very female wand; oak and yew wound
together, strength and flexibility. You may need a different wand for defense,
and you will make a wand for more personal work. But that’s for later.” Marta
tucked the roll under her right arm, and pulled out the other roll from under
her left.

“The athame?” I asked.

“This time you do the choosing,” she told me as she untied
the roll and let it open across her hand.

I decided I needed something different from the wand, so I
wasn’t looking for anything in white oak. The wooden handle needed to be strong
enough to hold the tang of the blade, and soft enough to be carved to the palm
of my hand. I had no interest in a knife that hurt me when I used it.

Again, I saw wood handles, flatter than the wands, but still
showing different types of wood, different growth patterns. There were no
designs on the hilts. I spied a handle of chestnut, and my hand paused. The
chestnut is a tree of majesty, its wood and fruit both useful and very
beautiful. Nothing else really caught my interest.

I pulled out the chestnut handle. Even without shaping, it
felt good in my left hand. I saw a wave-like pattern in the dagger itself, and
a design had been etched along the blade’s center line. It looked like the path
of the moon, from sliver through full and then back to dark. I turned over the
athame. There was only one design on this side. It was a comet, or a shooting
star . . . or both.

My dream came back to me.

“
This
one,” I said aloud. I had no desire to look at the others. This was my first
athame.

“There is a carpenter in Philadelphia, I think it is, who
can carve the handle for you. It would be worth the price he would charge for
his work. You’ll carve your own signs and symbols into it afterward, if you
want them.”

“How do I pay for this?” I said slowly, still looking at the
knife. I switched hands, and found it liked my right hand, too.

Marta reached into her pocket and pulled out a small knife
sheath, stained black and possessing a tie flap. She tucked the sheath into my
pocket.

“
Shaw’s
father Bear Kristinsson made this blade. There are things you can trade him for
the work,” Marta said. “But that will be later. Now, you must recharge the door
to get back through it.” She flipped the soft wool over the knife handles, and
rolled the pouch on her palm. “Do not forget that you owe me a penny!”

“That’s how we got to New York, wasn’t it?” I asked,
focusing on the most important—to me—part of her words.

“Yes—we went to Windward through the portal at the end of
the labyrinth. It’s wider than the one you used to get to the front yard.”

I tried not to sigh. Here was the hard part. “We have to
re-charge the door?”

Marta’s twisted smile popped out. “Yes, I’m afraid you do.
Come along.” She started walking briskly along the trail heading to the left. I
hurried to catch up, for the trail was wide enough for two, with care.

Finding north was never a strength of mine, and I quickly
got turned around. It wasn’t long before I realized we were walking a curving
path. “How far into the woods does this track go?”

“Not far. It’s a labyrinth, so it coils back upon itself.”
Marta walked easily, her stride the comfortable rolling pace of someone sure of
her direction. I tried to fall into her rhythm, uncertain of the length of the
trip.

It only took a couple of minutes to reach the end of the
footpath. A small clearing finished the labyrinth, with an ash tree at the
center. It was perhaps three feet in diameter, a mature tree, leafless but
crowned with high limbs reaching up and out.

“Each time you walk into the clearing is one passage,” Marta
said. “Pause for a deep breath—it will help you keep up your strength—and then
go over here—” She gestured to a thick group of holly. We walked past it and
around the corner—and there was the back of Marta’s house! “You should take
extra energy back to the maze, since you took an unexpected trip. Say . . .
eighty-one cycles.”

“
Walk
it eighty-one times!”

My voice rose, I confess it.

“It will take twenty-seven just to get you back,” Marta went
on, her expression amused. “Carry your wand in your left hand and your blade in
your right. After eighty-one passages, you should have a good idea why I
suggested you do that.” She touched my cheek with affection. “When you finish,
come inside and we’ll have supper. You can tell me how you found the door.”

Then she turned and walked away. “I’d finish before dark,”
she added, her voice drifting on the slight breeze. “Carrying a torch changes
how the labyrinth stores energy.”

I just stood there, so mad I was searching my secret store
of swear words to express myself. But no, none of them fit the scene well
enough to startle my hope of Heaven by saying them.

Fine, then. How to not lose track while I grumbled through
this?

Marta’s leading me through the labyrinth might have counted
as the first path, but on the chance that I was wrong, I decided to start
again. I wondered if it was safe to use the wand to mark each passage . . . .
I looked at the wand, and then drew a line in the snow to one side of the
labyrinth entrance. The snow melted under the stroke, forming a small pool.

Maybe not the wand.

How to keep my mind from wandering . . . .
 
I picked up a piece of bark and
drew a line. This time, I had a line in the snow. I left the piece of bark in a
prominent place, made sure I had a good grip on the wand and blade, and started
walking the spiral of the labyrinth.