“For what?” Charles asked. “They know there was a settlement here and Dr. Connors’s father is missing. But no one else has been reported missing—they are only gone. Law enforcement investigated this site thoroughly and found no signs of violence. They are looking for Dr. Connors Senior as well as the people who had mail at the drop box in Happy Camp—which is the nearest established town—but that is best done electronically. They don’t think there is anything else examining the site can teach them.”

Anna nodded. The report had said they’d found no signs of violence. No signs of rapid departure, though some personal property had been left behind, along with fourteen permanent structures, three yurts, and evidence of tents.

“If this were on federal or tribal lands, they’d have come back and cleaned up,” Charles added.

“But it belongs to Leah,” Anna said. “So it is out of their jurisdiction.”

Charles nodded.

“I do have a question, though,” she said. “With all of the runes scrawled over the forest around here, why aren’t there any legends of Viking settlements in Northern California? Like the ones in Newfoundland or Minnesota?”

“The one in Newfoundland is real,” Charles observed seriously, though Anna had been joking. “And no one has seen the runes here.”

She’d missed something. She frowned at him. “After the first one—the goldfish below Ford’s musician—I saw several hundred runes. They aren’t exactly unobtrusive.”

He laughed—which was distracting, because he was beautiful when he laughed, especially with the edge of gold gleaming in his eyes.

“A goldfish?” Charles’s amusement bled into his voice. “It’s called Othala, though I see how you’d think it looks like a goldfish.”

“The goldfish with the musician on top,” agreed Anna smugly, because she enjoyed making Charles laugh. “But seriously, there were runes all over the place. How could anyone miss them?”

“Witchcraft,” said Charles. “Someone warded the trail—that’s what all those runes were. I doubt most people would even have noticed the first one before they found themselves wandering off somewhere else.”

“That’s why you picked the trail,” Anna said. “Was there magic?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know why I picked it. It just felt right. But it stood to reason there must be a trail of some sort. One of the things missing from the report Goldstein and Fisher left for us was a note of how the people who lived in Wild Sign traveled back to civilization, which they obviously did, because they had a post office box—a real post office box—in Happy Camp. Law enforcement used a helicopter to get here. Dr. Connors’s daughter either has magic of some sort or she found a different way in. I …” He shrugged. “We are not what it was guarding against, so it let us in.”