Page 118 of Bound By Fury
“You know, when I was a child, they had to fight to get evolution taught in schools. People hell-bent on the fact that God just clapped his hands one day and poofed us here. But these mountains, they know the truth. That’s how old they are. Before Adam and Eve, before dinosaurs, before much of literally anything else, these mountains were here. In fact, they’re so ancient, there was a time when they connected the land we’re on now to countries that are entire seas away.”
She smooths back the hair around her face. “Things don’t get to be that old without carrying something deeper within them.”
“Yeah,” I add. “I think I read somewhere that the mountains are older than the rings on Saturn, but… I guess I’m not sure what that’s got to do with anything.”
She chuckles. “Honey, hold your horses, I promise I’m getting there.”
I force a smile to my lips. Though my mind is comforted by Maureen’s presence, my heart hasn’t gotten the message. It still beats erratically, like I’m teetering off the edge of Hanging Rock.
“The world is full of power. Powerful people, powerful places…,” she begins. “Earnest is one of those powerful places. All throughout Appalachia, ancient rivers of power snake beneath the mountains, placed there by the stars.
“These rivers are called ley lines.”
“Oh,” I mutter, because this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of ley lines. They’re a common thread in the books and movies Malachi and I used to bond over. Sort of like magical electrical grids.
“You’re familiar?” Maureen asks, eyeing me closely.
“No—no, of course not. But I’ve read about them in books before. Fiction.”
She nods sagely. “You’ll come to realize that the line between fact and fiction is much blurrier than you’ve ever known.
“But here, on this plane, most power is organic. Pure. It’s a gift from the stars that become us, the base of all matter that is made and remade. It is the very essence of all that is. Sometimes these lines connect or converge. And sometimes the power pools. It waits.
“The largest known convergence of this power just so happens to be tucked beneath Black Mountain. Beneath Earnest.”
My knee bounces under the table.
“So is that why I sometimes feel, like, I don’t know, a humming or something? Like Earnest is alive?”
She gives me a soft smile, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. “Could be, yeah.”
“But why? Why am I the only one who seems to feel that way?”
“Well,” she sighs, “I reckon you’re not the only one who feels drawn here, actually.”
My stomach sinks.
“Power has a pull, like a magnet, each atom of that power hopelessly drawn together. So just as you feel led here, just as you believe you are connected to this land, so too do others that contain a power of their own, whether they realize it or not. Which leaves us in the peculiar position of being in a place where beings that are normally separated by territorial lines and thousands of years of settling into one place or another are brought together in ways that some might deem unnatural. All in pursuit of this calling. This desire to tap into that well of power.”
The sound of her voice begins to fade beneath the buzzing in my ears.
“There are others? Like me?”
“Like you, and not like you.”
I blow out a breath, growing frustrated. “Okayyy…,” I draw it out. “Then what am I?”
She ignores my question.
“Now I can’t claim to know everything there is to know about the unseen world or the paranormal, but legends around these parts have a habit of being truer than not. Legends of shape-shifters, of men who turn into wolves, of strange, monstrous creatures that wander the woods, mimics and demon tricksters, oracles and spirit walkers, magic devourers known as syphons, and of course, witches. Folk witches that create magic from spells and earthwork, bloodthirsty witches who’ve made deals with malevolent spirits…
“And then there’s you.”
Me.
“You, my dear, are a very special girl from a very powerful people.”
Blood rushes through my head, the static, increasingly familiar with each surge, wrapping me up so tight, I can barely breathe.
