Page 7 of Feathered Web

Rowan was lean but not gaunt, with long silver hair gathered back in a braid. She was sharp-witted and even sharper tongued, but she wasn’t mean. She was just blunt. When she cared about you, you knew it. If she thought you were being stupid, you knew it.

Tonight, Rowan was wearing a long plaid skirt and a turtleneck. She took her seat and pointed to the coffee table, where a tray sat, piled high with cookies—oatmeal cranberry, chocolate chip, and molasses raisin. Next to the tray of cookies was a bowl of strawberries and grapes, and a cheese plate, along with a stack of dessert plates.

“Please, help yourselves. I can make tea or coffee,” Rowan said.

“Thanks.” I glanced over at Kerris and Bryan, both of whom shook their heads. But they both leaned forward and filled plates with cookies and fruit.

“Thank you, but this is fine,” Kerris said.

Rowan waited till we all served ourselves, then she settled back in her chair and said, “Well, I’d love to just chitchat, but I think we need to get right to the point since there seems to be a problem. Tell me what’s going on.”

I took a deep breath. “Kerris has come to ask our help. It seems that the— What’s the group called?”

Kerris cleared her throat. “Cú Chulainn’s Hounds.”

“Right. Cú Chulainn’s Hounds have aligned with the Covenant of Chaos and they kidnapped Whisper Hollow’s Gatekeeper.” I wondered if my grandmother knew what I was talking about.

Rowan’s eyes widened. “They’ve kidnapped Penelope?”

Well, that answered that question. “And apparently, they brought her to Moonshadow Bay,” I said. “Kerris is asking us to help rescue her.”

Rowan exchanged glances with Tarvish. “Of course we’ll help. No question about this. Have you run this past the Court Magika?”

Kerris shook her head. “No. I’m not a witch. Perhaps one of the Crescent Moon Society has—maybe Starlight Williams. She’s a star witch. But this is for me to deal with, if I can.”

“Why you?” Tarvish asked.

Kerris nodded. “Penelope is my other half. She works on the other side of the Veil, while I work on the side of the living. We’re very much alike in what we do. We’re also connected through the blood of the chalice. I can’t really explain it, but we’re bonded through a ritual. To some extent, we can sense one another. And Starlight wants to keep this as quiet as possible.”

“I understand why,” Rowan said. “Tell me about the cemetery Penelope guards.”

“Part of the graveyard is contemporary. But to the back, a gate cordons off an older section. That section belonged to a Pest House. And the Pest House cemetery contains more dangerous members of the dead. Penelope’s tomb straddles the line that divides them.” Kerris bit into an oatmeal raisin cookie. “These are good. Will you give me the recipe?”

“Of course,” Rowan said.

“What’s a Pest House?” I asked.

Kerris let out a long sigh. “Back in the late 1800s, a number of towns had a house marked for those with TB, cholera, typhus, and other contagious, deadly diseases. The doctors would quarantine patients to the Pest House until they either recovered or died. They were locked away, prevented from escaping, and left to tend to themselves for the most part. Recoveries were rare, and thousands of people died inside these places. Most Pest Houses had cemeteries connected to them, where patients were buried as soon as they died.”

“Cripes. That’s horrible,” I said, my imagination playing way too fast and loose. I could too easily imagine what went on.

“Right. The prisoners—and they were prisoners—were kept locked away and treated as though they were already dead. They were often abused, both by guards and by other inmates. The ghosts and spirits who inhabit those cemeteries and the Pest Houses are angry. They can be volatile. There are a lot of Haunts there, and other, even more dangerous creatures that form from fusions of creatures off the astral and the angry spirits.” Kerris looked over at Rowan. “Can you think of any place that seems perfect for the Covenant of Chaos to hide Penelope?”

Rowan considered the question, then nodded. “I can, actually. Not far from Moonshadow Bay there’s a state park—Larrabee. I happen to know that, a decade or two before it became a state park, there was a Pest House there. And the house still stands. The owners occasionally offer tours. There was a cemetery there, too, and that still stands. I would bet you anything that’s where they’re hiding her.”

“How do you kidnap a Gatekeeper?” Tarvish asked. “She’s not fully corporeal, is she?”

“No, she phases in and out. As far as kidnapping her goes, they stole her sarcophagus while she was in it,” Kerris said. “The thing is huge and heavy, so there had to be more than a couple men in on it. My guess is that Magda is behind this—that she engineered the connection between the Hounds and the Covenant of Chaos.”

Rowan asked, “Where does Magda get her power?”

“From Baba Volkov. Magda’s one of her disciples, so to speak. That’s how Magda got her last name. All those who follow the Wolf Hag take her name as part of their own.”

Rowan grimaced. “Oh dear gods. Baba Volkov is…bad news, at the best.”

“I’ve never heard of Baba Volkov. Who is she…or what?” Baba Yaga came to mind, but I didn’t think they were the same.

Kerris frowned. “Baba Volkov, or Mother Wolf Witch, is—essentially—an evil necromancer. She hates everything to do with spirit shamans, because she enslaves the dead rather than tries to help them move on. Magda follows her. She killed her daughter because they refused to follow the family tradition. She killed Penelope and cursed Ellia with hands that impart madness on touch.”

---