“Do we have a destination?” she asked, when they’d been hiking for more than thirty-five minutes. “Or are you just showing me the woods?”
A dead pine, a victim of a storm, or rot, blocked their way.
“Time is too precious to squander. I always have a destination. You should know that by now. The one I’m taking you to today might be just what you’re searching for.”
“What do you mean?” Even as she asked, she knew he wouldn’t answer. Malachai loved to be provocative. As she watched him navigate the felled tree, climbing awkwardly because of his injured hip, she worried for his health. She wasn’t sure how old he was, but guessed he was in his mid-sixties, perhaps older. He was the most determined man she’d ever known. Sometimes his emotional immunity in light of his resolve to accomplish something made him seem inhuman. But he wasn’t. He wouldn’t always be there for her.
She was doing it again. Spiraling into the negative. Since coming home from Paris she’d been more anxious than usual. Existential dilemmas that used to pique her curiosity now disturbed her profoundly.
We are all fragile.
Tragedy can strike in an instant.
Almost nothing is within our control.
On the other side of the tree, Malachai brushed off his hands.
“We’re almost there,” he said as he returned to the path.
After another three or four minutes, the trail stopped twisting and became as straight and sure as a cathedral’s central aisle. At its end, Jac glimpsed a clearing.
Malachai threw open his arms expansively. “Welcome to my secret garden.” He smiled enigmatically and led her into the grove of oaks in full leaf. The air was cooler inside this copse. The sensual, earthy odor of oakmoss scented the darkness.
When dried, oakmoss smells of bark, of wet foliage, even of the sea. But since ancient Greek and Roman times its importance had never been its individual odor. Instead, its greatest value was as a bonding agent; oakmoss brought ingredients together, imbuing the end result with a velvety, creamy oneness. Adding an unrivaled richness and longevity to a perfume.
“These are amazing trees,” Jac said.
“Majestic.”
The oak was important in mythology too and so had a special relevance to Jac. “The name Druid means ‘knowing the oak,’ ” she said. “The priests carried out their religious rituals in oak forests.”
“Interesting you chose to mention Celtic mythology.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
Malachai didn’t answer, just motioned for her to follow.
The path through the trees was hidden by layers of last year’s dead leaves, twigs and acorns. For a second time, Jac tripped. The moment slowed. She began to fall.
Before she hit the ground, Malachai’s hand gripped her arm and he helped her find her balance.
“Are you all right?” he asked in the concerned tone she’d heard so often that summer.
“Fine. Thanks.”
“The roots and sinkholes are impossible to see under all that foliage. You need to be careful.”
Jac nodded. She’d been paying more attention to everything but the uneven terrain. By now she was almost drunk on the aroma of the moss, decaying leaves and moisture. The fragrance teased her. Tricked her into thinking she was smelling the passage of time. This was the scent of earth turning over year after year, of flora and fauna regenerating and becoming nourishment for the next season’s growth.
It could have been a scent of rebirth. But instead Jac smelled the encroaching fall. She smelled death.
They’d reached an outcropping of quarried stones carefully arranged in a double circle. Like other ancient calendars she’d seen here in New England and in Europe, there was little question as to its function. No wonder Malachai had commented on her Celtic reference.
Her host walked around the impressive ruin with her as she examined it.
“I’m sure you’ve had these dated?” Jac asked.
“They predate two thousand BCE.”
“Fantastic.” She felt a real kick of excitement.
Approaching a slab set just outside the circle at twelve o’clock, she began her inspection. For a few minutes, she examined both its sides and scarred surface. “Based on these burn marks, this looks like it was a ritual site.”
“I concur,” he said. “But we haven’t been able to verify it.”
“No, it’s hard to find detailed answers in scarring. There’s so much we don’t know about the past,” she whispered as she ran her hand over the weathered stone, trying to imagine what-or who-might have once lain on its smooth surface.
Malachai chortled. “And so much we could know were we not afraid of exploring outside realms of traditional science.”
She felt chastised but didn’t respond. Malachai was one of the leading reincarnationists in the world. They’d argued enough in the last two months about her refusal to accept reincarnation as a fact. Yes, she’d had a half-dozen unexplained hallucinations this summer in Paris. But they weren’t necessarily past-life regressions. Yes, they had appeared to be a response to an olfactory trigger. But that in itself was not unusual. There were many substances in nature that functioned as hallucinogens when ingested, imbibed or inhaled. Shamans and monks, mystics and Sufis had been using them for years to enter meditative states and receive visions.
Malachai was certain the wild rides she’d taken in her mind were reincarnation memories, but Jac wasn’t ready to completely accept them as such. Finally she’d asked Malachai to stop pestering her and told him she needed time to work out what had happened. He’d reluctantly agreed. But jibes like this one sometimes still slipped out.
“Who do you think built this circle? Native Americans?” She nudged the conversation back to the ruin.
“Well, we’ve found arrowheads, pottery fragments suggesting Paleo-Indians, but we believe there were others here before them.”
“So you do think it’s Celtic?”
“Let’s keep going, there’s more to see.”
The stone circle alone would have been well worth the hike. “More? Really? This is exciting, Malachai. How many more sites are there?”
“Several. This parcel is two hundred and forty-five acres and we’ve identified at least five ruins dating back that far.”
“How long has this land been in your family?”
“The group of transcendentalists who found it believed the site was sacred. But my ancestor Trevor Talmadge was the only one of them who had the money to buy it. He purchased it in the eighteen seventies with the intention of building a retreat here. The plans for it are in the library.”
“What happened?”
“He was shot to death before he got around to it.”
“How horrible.”
“No one was ever apprehended. I suspect fratricide. After the murder Davenport Talmadge conveniently married his brother’s widow, moved into the family manse, adopted his niece and nephew and took over management of the family fortune. Younger brothers can harbor great resentments.”
Jac wondered if there was more to Malachai’s comment. The tone he’d used in describing Davenport was strangely sympathetic for someone who might have been a killer.
The trees had thinned. Walking through areas of grass and thick shrubbery, they passed an earth mound with a small stone hut built into the risers-only its entrance exposed. It was another typically Celtic structure from the same period. She itched to stop and examine it and asked Malachai if they could.
“On the way back,” he said.
“This place is a treasure trove. How come I’ve never read about it? How have you kept it a secret for so long?”
“With great effort. Especially because Trevor Talmadge’s death was quite newsworthy. There’s nothing like a few skeletons dangling off the family tree to keep historians nosing around. We’ve had to work diligently to keep this sanctuary private.”