Dies the Fire

"Eight hundred acres sounds fairly substantial."

"Not if you're a farmer, and the most of it's hillside! My great-uncle Earl the banker kept the farm as a summer place, and bought more of the hills about; he was a hunter, and dabbled in what they called scientific forestry. Then the good man left it to me, the unwed teenage mother, the family's shame, the sorrow and black disgrace of it; everyone said he was senile. Mind you, I'd been spending summers there all my life, and was a bit of a favorite of his, and he adored little Eilir. Well, who wouldn't?"

Sally seemed to hesitate, then spoke: "Your family has been here a long time then? I thought you sounded. well, a little different." She smiled. "I'm sort of sensitive to accents; I spent my teenage years trying to shed mine."

"Ah, different I am," Juniper said, gri

In her normal voice: "She met Dad while he was in the Air Force, over in England; his side of the family are Scots-Irish with a very faint touch of Cherokee. Mom had a genuine brogue, bless her, and spoke the Gaelic to me in my cradle; and for my type of music, a hint of the Celt does no harm professionally, so I make a habit of keeping it up. Did make a habit."

"Just the opposite for me. My father was Air Force too- Vietnamese air force, of course. He flew us out in a helicopter, but I don't really remember-"

Juniper held up her left hand and pulled the horses in;

Sally fell silent at the sharp sudden movement. Then Juniper set the brake lever and stood, shading her eyes.

Terry and Eilir had been tearing along the roadside verge, playing some game; he'd even picked up a little Sign over the past few days. Cuchulain had been romping along with them when he wasn't chasing rabbits real and imaginary.

Now he stopped by the gate and looked uncertain, ru

"He smells something he doesn't like," Juniper said, handing over the reins and picking up her crossbow; De

De

"What's wrong?" Sally said sharply.

"Nothing except the fool dog, for now," Juniper said; she spa

Then her own went into the crook of her arm. "But I'd better take a look."

She whistled; Terry looked up and touched Eilir's arm, and they came back to the wagon.

Look after him, and keep an eye out, Juniper signed-too rapidly for Terry to follow, so that the boy wouldn't take alarm; he still had nightmares.

Be careful, Mom, Eilir replied, getting her own weapon from the wagon and slipping a bolt into place.

"The Fairfaxes friends of yours?" De

"Not really friends," Juniper said, her eyes roving.

About half the Fairfax place was wooded, the steeper northern section; the merely hilly half towards the road and the creek was in pasture and fenced with white boards, apart from a bit in some bluish green grassy crop she didn't recognize and a substantial orchard. They cut kitty-corner northeast through the ancient gnarled fruit trees; it was apples mostly, with some cherries, only recently pruned and sprayed after years of neglect. Blossoms showed tender pink and frothy white, scenting the air as the two walked beneath.

The house wasn't visible from the road, being tucked into a steep south-facing hill with a pond in front of it and then more hill beyond, with grass blowing on it among the blue camas flowers.

Too quiet, she thought. Doesn't feel like there are people there.

Aloud: "Not unfriends either, for all that they're strong Mormons and went pale when they realized I was an actual living breathing Witch. Frank does me favors with his tractor now and then, and his wife gave me some jam she made last summer, but it's a nodding acquaintance."

"You afraid someone less neighborly has moved in?"

"Just fearful in general, De

They went through the last of the fruit trees, and then to their hands and knees below the crest line of the hill; Juniper could go ghost-silent that way, the fruit of months every year of her life following the ways of bird and beast in these wooded hills. De

She uncased her bird-watching binoculars-another gift from Great-uncle Earl, who'd shared the hobby-as they lay concealed in the knee-high grass.

The Fairfax place was old, a four-square frame farmhouse built in the 1880s. It had been boarded up and derelict for years before Frank Fairfax bought it. Now the white paint shone in the sunlight; the neat lawn with its flowerbeds went down to the pond, and a tractor tire hung from the bough of a big willow, for the times his grandchildren visited. He'd added a two-car garage, repaired and repainted the barn, and put in some sheds as well. For a retired man of seventy, he drove himself hard; probably a lifelong habit he couldn't shake.

"His stock are loose," Juniper said after a moment. "Which he'd never allow."

There were a dozen sheep lying in the shade of the tree, not far from the pond, fluffy white Correidales with a collie lying close by them; it got up and barked warningly at the humans. The henhouse by the barn gaped empty and silent.

Harder to keep chickens from being eaten, Juniper thought with a chill.

A Jersey cow and her bull calf were hock-deep in the water, drinking; they looked up and blinked mild welcome as they scented the humans, jaws working on mouthfuls of waterweed. She sca

"Silent as the grave," De

"Let's go see," she said roughly.

De

"Christ," De

Juniper tied a bandana from her hip pocket over hers as she approached the door; she could hear the buzzing of flies going in and out of a half-opened window on the second floor, over to her right-the master bedroom. A crow launched itself from the windowsill as she watched, the harsh gruck-gruck-gruck loud in her ears.

Juniper swallowed. I know it's the natural cycle, she thought. The Goddess was also the Crone, death and darkness as well as light and rebirth were Her mysteries; that was why the scald-crow was sacred to Her. But…

There was a note taped to the glass behind the screen door, and the keys dangled by a cord from the knob. Juniper read it aloud:

"The emergency generator cut out when the main power went and I couldn't get it started, and nobody else round about seems to be better off. I put our insulin in the icebox. Joan used the last of it yesterday. It was spoiled, but there wasn't anything else, so I told her there were two doses and injected water myself. I'm sure now she'll never wake up. I'm starting to feel very sleepy and thirsty and my feet are numb; I'm sorry I can't give her proper burial, and ask anyone who finds this to try and see that we're given LDS rites. Sam from the seed company left two days ago to get help and hasn't come back. I'm going to go let the stock loose so they can water themselves and set out feed while I still have some strength, but the road gate's closed so they won't wander too far.