Forensia looked up from Bayou. “Hey, you really are Jenna Withers. You do the weather in the mornings.”
“That’s right,” Sang-mi said with a Korean accent.
“Guilty as charged,” Jenna said.
“Well, you’re good at it.” Forensia shook her hand. “I mean, even before you almost landed on my boss, we always caught your first weather report of the day. Working on a farm and all you kind of have to.”
“Forensia’s my chief troublemaker,” Dafoe said.
“More like your chief slop hauler,” the young woman replied.
“What’s up?” Dafoe asked her.
“I left my pack by your computer and I’m going to need it for the weekend.”
“And you wanted to meet Jenna?”
“Could be that, too,” Forensia said good-naturedly.
“Go on, grab your pack. You’re probably running off to a midnight meeting of your coven.”
“It’s not a coven,” Forensia harrumphed playfully. Jenna sensed that this wasn’t the first time they’d had this exchange. “It’s a gathering, and we’re not officially witches.”
“Not yet,” said Sang-mi in all seriousness.
“Pagans,” Dafoe explained after the young women drove off and he and Jenna settled back on the veranda.
“Really? They’ve been in the news enough lately. Do they know anything about that GreenSpirit woman, the one who’s landed Lilton in all that hot water?”
“I asked them but they wouldn’t say much. I got the feeling that they like all the cloak-and-dagger stuff of having people think that GreenSpirit might be around here, but I really doubt it. Here?” He shrugged. “Reminds me of the Dylan rumors from twenty years ago: ‘Hey, Dylan’s renting a place up the Deben Valley.’ That sort of thing. Now it’s Paganism.”
“Not your everyday belief system, at least not where I come from.”
“Vermont? Are you kidding? There are lots of Pagans up there.”
“Not when I was growing up.”
“World’s changing, but I’m fine with them. They care about the land as much as I do. And despite the rumors in this little burg, they’re not sacrificing babies and goats.”
“There’s actually talk like that?”
“Oh, yeah, Forensia and Sang-mi aren’t the only Pagans around. There’s a bunch of others in their twenties, late teens, and new ones checking it out all the time. You take in a twenty-mile radius around here, and you’ll find quite a few of them living on small farms or in town. Some are even younger and still at home with their folks—who are freaking out, if the letters to the paper and what you hear around town mean anything.”
“We’re not that far from the city; it’s hard to believe that people are getting so riled up about it.”
“We’ve got more churches per capita in this county than anywhere else in the state, so this Pagan stuff is really stirring up the pot. There have been some harsh words thrown around. The sheriff even held a town hall meeting to try to calm everybody down. Which is amazing because I would have pegged him as somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. He’s got two teenage girls himself, and Forensia says they’ve been slipping away at night to go to their gatherings.”
“What a place of intrigue. Who’d have thunk?” Jenna joked.
“The thing is, I get a little worried about those two, especially Forensia. Religion can bring out the crazies, and I’ve tried to warn them to be careful, but Forensia’s attitude is ‘Screw them. I’m Pagan and I’m proud.’”
“You’re not a Pagan, are you?” She could accept Paganism, even admire aspects of it; but she didn’t think she was ready for a Pagan boyfriend.
He laughed heartily. “Me? God no.”
“So you won’t be running off to some gathering on Sunday morning?”
“I’ll be running to the cows, like I do every day, to worship at the udder altar.”
“That was bad,” she said, but she was laughing, too.
“I’m just not a joiner.”
“Hold on there, you’re president of the Organic Dairymen’s Association.”
“God bless Google.” He laughed again. “But that’s it. You won’t find any pentacles hanging around my neck. What about you?”
“I’m a scientist. I believe in the betterment of the species through evolution,” she said with feigned hauteur, then added more seriously, “although the species Homo sapiens has me a little worried of late.”
“Here’s to our betterment.” He raised his glass, and Jenna followed suit.
She canceled her reservation at the B&B, taking Dafoe up on his offer of a spare room. The arrangement felt comfortable and safe, and she luxuriated in waking to find her new beau priming the espresso maker.