Page 37 of The Women of Wild Hill

When the storm ended, the three Duncan women set off in opposite directions, reconvening at the graveyard every half hour to deposit another load on a growing pile of wood.

The trees all around had been pruned by the wind, and branches were easy to find.

When they’d built a towering pyre, Phoebe struck a kitchen match and laid it on the kindling at the base.

A white ribbon of smoke wound up into the air.

Though the wood was wet, the sticks and straw ignited at once and flames burst out between the logs.

The moon, seeing its cue, reappeared in the sky above.

Every woman in the Duncan family had her own, unique way of communing with the Old One.

As a girl, Sadie had simply popped down to the dungeon for a chat with the ghosts whenever she was in need of guidance.

Rose would lie on the ground that would one day be her grave and watch the clouds and the birds overhead for messages.

Ivy grew herbs that allowed her mind to travel to the place where the worlds met. Flora had always loved fire.

Brigid and Phoebe’s mother had known how to read the flickering of a candle flame.

For her, a fireplace could act as a window to another realm.

But when the communication was urgent, only a bonfire would serve her purposes.

At Wild Hill, she would send the girls out of the cottage to gather wood.

Rowan, oak, ash, and all the other sacred trees grew on the grounds.

With contributions from each, they would build a pyre at the top of the hill.

Once it was aflame and burning brightly, Flora would sit beside it for hours, paying close attention to the crackling, hissing, and spitting, listening to a communiqué from beyond.

Now Flora’s daughters and granddaughter stood before the towering inferno, waiting for her to arrive.

“Hello, Mama,” Phoebe whispered into the wind, and the flames on the pyre leaped into the sky.

Brigid’s bare shoulders were now covered in goose bumps. “Mom?” She, too, felt a presence. Her question was answered with a whiff of her mother’s sandalwood perfume.

“It’s me again, Flora,” Sibyl said. “We’re ready to see what you want to show us.”

A figure stepped out of the flames, but it wasn’t Flora.

“Who the hell is that?” Sibyl didn’t recognize the younger version of the man who’d one day be famous around the world

“It’s Calum fucking Geddes,” said Brigid.

“I knew it!” Phoebe leaned around her daughter to catch her sister’s eye. “I told you he’d be at the bottom of all this!”

“That’s what he looked like when we met him,” Brigid informed Sibyl.

Sibyl whistled. “Damn. He was fine. Who’d have guessed?”

“Eww,” Phoebe said. But even she had to acknowledge how handsome he’d been.

The world knew the Calum with gunmetal hair, thick glasses, and a humorless scowl.

This version’s hair was already graying a smidge at the temples, but his face was lit by a radiant smile, and his dark eyes were fixed on Flora.

“I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO happy to see someone in my entire life,” he said.

“Looks like it.” Flora appeared out of the fire.

Calum’s brown dress shoes and navy suit pants were coated in fine orange dust. He’d stripped down to his undershirt and held a blue oxford shirt and a suit jacket over one arm. His hair was slicked back with sweat. His face and bare arms appeared badly sunburned.

Flora seemed dressed for desert conditions in a wide-brimmed hat and a flowing white dress with a hem that skimmed her ankles and sleeves that buttoned at her wrists.

Her daughters recognized it at once as the outfit their mother had worn whenever she set out to explore the terrain near their childhood home in California.

Flora handed Calum her canteen and watched with amusement while he drank greedily. “How did you get all the way out here in brogues?” she asked.

They appeared to be in a canyon. Red-rock walls encircled them. Stunted bushes sprouted from crevices. The ground underfoot was sun-bleached stone and sand.

“I had a terrible meeting this morning,” he told her. “Thought I’d go for a walk. Somehow, I lost sight of the path. Then I got turned around and couldn’t find my way back. I’ve been out here since eleven. My name is Calum, by the way.”

“Flora,” she said. “Your meeting was at the hotel on the other side of the canyon?”

“That’s right,” he told her.

“We’re at least five miles away. You could have died out here, you know. People get lost all the time. Mostly men, to be honest. They forget to treat nature with proper reverence. She may be beautiful, but she’s also deadly.”

“Then I guess it’s a miracle that you came along to save me.” A lot of men would have made a joke of it. Calum sounded completely sincere.

They were interrupted by cries overhead. “Yes,” Flora told him as her eyes followed three desert ravens flying past as though called away. “I think it might be.”

“If you can guide me back to the hotel, I’d love to thank you with dinner and drinks. It could be my last fancy meal for a while. As of this morning, I’m unemployed. Might as well end the day with a bang.”

“I was thinking the very same thing,” Flora told him.

Then the two of them walked back into the flames.

“SO THAT’S HOW THEY MET,” Brigid said as the vision faded. “It wasn’t what I imagined.”

“What were they doing out in the middle of nowhere?” Sibyl asked.

“That wasn’t really the middle of nowhere,” Phoebe explained. “They were in the Santa Monica Mountains. Topanga Canyon—about thirty minutes from where we grew up. Mom used to go there to commune with the local wildlife.”

“Wildlife?”

“Snakes, mostly,” Brigid said. “She could talk to them.”

“You know, I think I remember that day,” Phoebe interjected. “She was supposed to pick me up from school, but she didn’t come home until the following morning.”

“Weren’t you worried something had happened to her?” Sibyl asked.

“Of course not, newbie,” Brigid scoffed. “Flora did that shit all the time. She knew how to take care of herself. And if she’d been dead, I’d have seen it.”

“That system didn’t work out so well in the end, did it?” Phoebe muttered.

“And whose fault is that?” Brigid demanded, her hackles going up at once.

“Are you actually suggesting—”

“Enough!” Sibyl shouted. The two older women fell silent and Sibyl seemed pleasantly surprised by her newly acquired power. “So Grandma was a player.”

Brigid snorted. “Yeah, you could say that.”

A new vision began to take form.

“Shit.” Brigid shielded her eyes. “I really don’t want to watch Mom and Geddes getting it on.”

As the scene became clearer, they could see Flora and Calum sitting at a dining table on a patio outside a luxurious hotel, both of them completely clothed.

“SO WHAT WERE YOU DOING out in the canyon this afternoon?” Calum asked.

“Same thing you were,” Flora told him. “Trying to get my head together. Figure out what my next step will be.”

“Did you get fired, too?”

Flora laughed. “In a way, I guess. I spent my whole life thinking I was destined for something important. A few years ago, I found out I was wrong. I’m ashamed to admit that I still haven’t managed to forge a new path yet.

I have two girls, and I love them more than anything.

But they’ll be grown soon, and they won’t need me anymore.

When I look ahead, all I see for myself is a dead end. ”

Calum nodded. “I know the feeling.”

“Have you really hit a dead end?” Flora asked. “Or is this more of a temporary roadblock?”

Calum seemed to consider the question before he spoke.

“Well, my business partner and I spent ten years building a media company. Now we’re on the verge of taking the company public, and the investors I brought on board have decided that my vision is not aligned with theirs.

I’ll make some money off the IPO. But nobody’s going to hire me, and I don’t have it in me to build another company from scratch.

So I suppose it means my career is over.

” He looked at Flora and shrugged. “I have enough of everything. I’ve been incredibly lucky. I suppose I shouldn’t complain.”

“Me, either,” Flora agreed.

They sat in silence for a very long time.

“I have some time on my hands tomorrow,” Calum said. “Maybe we could go on another walk. I promise I won’t make you save me this time.”

“Don’t you have to fly back to New York?” Flora asked.

“No, not anymore,” Calum told her. “I don’t have a job, my kid is away at college, and my wife was one of the investors who just sided against me.”

“Ah,” Flora said.

“It’s just business,” Calum said. “At least, that’s what she thinks.”

“Want to go on that walk right now?” Flora asked. “Once we’re away from the lights, we should be able to see the entire solar system. Sometimes it helps put things in perspective.”

Calum raised his arm and called the waiter over. “Could we possibly get a bottle of champagne to go?”

“THAT WASN’T NEARLY AS RAUNCHY as you guys made me think it would be,” Sibyl said.

“No,” Brigid replied tersely.

“It was really sweet,” Sibyl added.

Phoebe stayed silent.

The next vision opened with Flora in tears.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Phoebe said. Brigid rolled her eyes and Sibyl gave her a dirty look. “What?” Phoebe demanded.

THE BACKGROUND CAME INTO FOCUS and they saw Flora was sitting on the beach in front of the California mansion where they were raised. Two legs walked closer across the sand, then Calum took a seat beside her.

“I’m very sorry about your aunt Ivy,” he said. “The girls told me she was old?”

Flora wiped her eyes. “Yes, very,” she said. “And she died on her own terms, which is the best way to go. In any case, my family doesn’t believe death is an end. That’s not why I’m crying.”

“Then what’s upset you?” he asked.

“The girls and I will be leaving this evening.” She turned to him. “If I come back to California, it will only be for a visit. Now that Ivy is gone, it’s my turn to care for Wild Hill.”