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was not at all convinced I wouldn’t encounter a dinosaur, or at least a woolly mammoth, before the sun rose.
    If the sun rose on places this desolate.
    As per Malthea’s instructions, I’d parked my car on a dirt lane in the company of a rusty van, an antiquated white subcompact, and a bicycle propped against a fence post. I would have dressed more warmly if I’d realized how far I had to walk. Okay, to be candid, I most likely would have stayed in my cozy bed until I heard Caron leave the bathroom after a ritual that was longer and more complex than anything Druids could ever dream up. I am not what is commonly called a morning person; the idea of hopping out of bed before dawn, jogging several miles, and arriving back home just as the newspaper is plopped into the front yard is inconceivable. I do not enjoy unnecessary physical exertion any more than I do bran muffins, and I prefer to stay in touch with my outer child, who does not care to sweat.
    My shoes were making squishy noises by the time I reached the edge of the woods. My disposition had fared no better, and I sharply reminded myself that I was here by choice. Not a good choice, mind you, but without coercion of any kind. Malthea had been pleased, if not rhapsodic, when I’d called and accepted her invitation to attend the winter-solstice ritual. What I hadn’t anticipated was that said ritual would begin at sunrise; the winter solstice, being a technical kind of thing when the sun reaches its most southerly point in the sky, can happen at any time during the day, including midafternoon. Malthea had informed me that they were using calculations from an eighth-century Celtic calendar. I hadn’t thought they were relying on TV Guide .
    An unfamiliar woman stepped out from behind a tree. Her anemic brown hair had been chopped off by what was clearly an untrained hand; uneven bangs obscured her eyebrows (presuming she had them). Her skin was sallow and scarred from acne, her cheeks concave, her countenance more sour than her thirty-odd years of life merited.
    â€œMalthea asked me to meet you,” she said. “I’m Gilda D’Orcher.”
    â€œThank you. I wasn’t quite sure how to find the grove.”
    â€œThose who genuinely come to seek enlightenment shall not stray. The Mother Goddess watches over us. Blessed be.”
    She turned and walked quickly into the woods. I followed as best I could, catching an occasional branch in the face and tripping over vines and rocks. There were no birds to be heard; birdbrained though they might be, they had enough sense to sleep in.
    I was breathing heavily as we detoured around a fallen tree trunk and came into a small clearing defined primarily by oaks and scruffy firs. In the center was a stone altar made of two vertical pieces and a horizontal slab; it had been decorated with branches of holly and clumps of mistletoe. As far as I could see, there were no faded bloodstains or remnants of animal entrails on its surface.
    Despite the imminence of dawn on what I gathered was a major holiday, the Druids were not in a festive mood. Malthea and Fern were on the far edge of the clearing, deep in a conversation that obviously disturbed both of them. Roy Tate sat on a log, his shoulders slumped and his hands twitching as his eyes flickered around the clearing. His hair was either wet or a good deal greasier than it had been when I first met him. Beyond him was the woman who’d ordered the book about Wiccan initiations; after a moment I remembered her name was Morning Rose Sawyer. The man beside her was small and wiry, his thin, receding hair a contrast to her profusive black mane. He stared at me as though I’d stepped in something in the pasture and brought an obtrusive fetor into the grove.
    All of them, to my disappointment, were wearing conventional coats and gloves, including Malthea, who’d eschewed her scarlet cape for dowdy tweed. It was much too early to be