“Then we’ll proceed.” She draws herself up tall and folds her hands in her lap. “As you know, there is an invisible energy all around us, everywhere in the world, that only some people know about. Some of those people call it magic, some call it aether, some call it spirit, and we call it root. There is no single school of thought about this energy. Is it an element? A natural resource? I think it is both, but a practitioner in India or Nigeria or Ireland may not agree. The only universal truth about root is who—or what—can access it and how. The dead have the most access to root, and supernatural creatures have the next closest connection, but the living? The living must borrow, bargain for, or steal the ability to access and use this energy. Our people—Rootcrafters—borrow root temporarily, because we believe that energy is not for us to own.” She waves a hand over her stones and food. “We make offerings to our ancestors so that they will share root with us for a time. And then, after it’s returned, we thank them for being a bridge to its power. This is the unifying philosophy of our practice. Beyond that, families have their own variations, their own flavors, if you will. So it has always been, and so it is.”

“You said you don’t know how my family practiced.”

“I don’t. In your circumstance, it seems your family’s way is gone. All I can do is introduce you to the craft as my family understands it, using my way of sharing its truths.”

It makes sense, but… “What do you do with root?”

As Patricia looks at me, a soft, fuzzy warmth falls across my cheeks and nose, like sunlight uncovered. “Take my hands, and I’ll show you.”

Once I take her hands, there’s a heartbeat of sensation—her skin is warm, dry, and soft—before the world around us twists, then disappears.

PART THREE ROOTS

26

IT FEELS LIKE the hand of the universe has reached inside me and just… pulled.

The sensation of movement is so strong—I’m flying, expanding—then, just as suddenly, it stops.

I fall forward on my palms, dizzy and heaving large gulps of dusty air. Air that clings to the back of my throat and coats my mouth with the taste of copper.

“You’re all right, Bree.” Patricia’s voice soothes from somewhere near my shoulder. She’s standing beside me, her small, flat dress shoes right at my wrist. I open my eyes to find that my hands are spread wide on packed, crumbling clay that’s been brushed and smoothed into an even surface. A floor. I’m inside a building. No, a cabin.

But we were just outside in the graveyard.

A woman moans nearby, a strangled sound of pain. My head snaps up to find the source, and I nearly fall forward again.