But who, and why would they have chosen that place to leave the loot? And why didn’t they come back for it?

Could there be more caches around the site? Again, if she found anything, she would know right away if it was a cache or a grave—and that would at least put one question to rest.

Maybe I’d better go run a quick check on the construction area again. And maybe I’d better go check some of the old burial grounds too, the ones out in the boonies.

One thing was for sure; that feeling she got with just her brief glance at Rod Calligan meant that the Little People were after his hide—and given how vindictive they could be, the hides of everyone else connected with him.

She shivered at the thought. That was not a position that she would want even her worst enemy to be in.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS A good thing that the traffic was light, because she had most of her attention on the possibilities of the mi-ah-luschka being involved in all of this. The prospect was not one she would have guessed when she took this job.

Mi-ah-luschka. The Little People—different from the other kind of “Little People,” the Little Mysteries that stole breath and made people sick—were not something she wanted to get involved with, particularly not if they were very old and very powerful Little People. And if this burial ground was old enough that her people had even forgotten it existed—

Jeez, I can’t even talk about this to anyone but Grandfather without them thinking I’ve been drinking too much Irish whiskey. Little People. I don’t even know what other nations call them; I’d sound like a refugee from a St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“Little People” was a poor translation of mi-ah-luschka, when all was said and done. They were spirits; some of them were the spirits of those who had not been recognized by Wah-K’on-Tah, who had died without paint, or been buried in such a way that Wah-K’on-Tah could not see them—or worst of all, had perished in a way that kept their spirits earthbound. Executed, murdered, died in cowardice, buried without the proper rites, without paint … not happy spirits.