Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4 )- Faith Hunter Page 0,19

buck. He made you work to catch him.”

Occam nodded, a smile lighting his eyes. I could see it from the corner of my eye, along with the fused fingers of his left hand. They looked a bit more fleshed out. Shifting on Soulwood was good for Occam’s healing, and he hadn’t done that much while I was a tree, and not enough since I’d been mostly human again. “He gave me a chase. He was big and a little mean. It was a good fight. He was tasty too.”

“Come fall, when I have the wood-burning stove going again, and you kill a big one, bring me what’s left after you eat the innards. I’ll make some venison jerky.” I tilted my head to Occam and whispered, “I got my own recipe of herbs. You’ll like it.”

“I am quite certain that I’ll like anything you cook, Nell, sugar. Anything at all.”

But the cat in him was thinking only of meat. My smile went wider. “Turnips? Collard greens? Pickled and fermented cabbage?”

“Now you’re jist being mean.”

I laughed.

“Let’s say I’ll be willing to try anything you cook. Always.”

“Deal. Now you got to git. I need to put my hands in the earth.”

“Okay, Nell, sugar.” But he didn’t move. His head swiveled to me. “Nell, sugar, would you consider it okay if I kissed you?”

My heart did a somersault and my lips seemed to grow tender at the thought. “A properly improper kiss?”

“That’s the only kind I can think of at the moment. My mouth on yours. My arms around you and yours around me.”

“I’d like that,” I managed. But I didn’t turn to him. I was frozen, staring at the stupid blue tarp. He eased my hand from my bib. Turned me around and stepped close to me, holding me, as if he knew I’d fall if I tried to move my own feet. He placed my arm around his waist, on his sweat-damp shirt where it was tucked into his jeans. My other went around on his other side all by itself. His arms came around me. And his lips met mine.

• • •

I thought about the kiss—all of those kisses, because they had gone on a long time before Occam pulled away, and brushed my face with his hands, and walked to his car—as I worked in the garden. Late heirloom tomatoes were ripe; herbs were ready to be picked. Fall seeds needed to be planted, the garden needed to be weeded, and I needed to sweat. I had discovered that working the land was good for the land and for me. The farm had seemingly figured out that if I was a tree, there would be no one to work the soil and it liked me around. Now, as I worked, the leaves on my neck and hands broke off and the vines fell free, a calming sacrifice to the land, not bloody and violent as other kinds. Getting my hands into Soulwood was beneficial to all of us.

I ripped weeds out like a machine—grab upper roots and stem, grip, angle hand down, yank out the roots, toss away. Over and over again. But. As I tore out weeds I found a root that didn’t belong in the garden. “Dagnabbit,” I cursed. I fell onto the worked soil, backside first, work boot soles flat, knees high. Resting my forearms on my knees I dropped my head and caught up on my breathing. When I was satisfied that I was calm and breathing normally, I put my fingers into the aerated earth and dug until I touched the tree root again. “You can’t be here,” I told it. “This is my garden. I get nourishment from this garden. You take too much and don’t give back enough. Now you’un get back to your’n spot and stay there.” Nothing happened. I pushed with my magics. The rootlet jerked away, back in the general direction of the vampire tree grove that had taken up residence—with my permission—on the church side of our properties. The tree was both many trees and one tree, all sharing one root system, but with many trunks. It—they?—seemed to have the ability to grow roots faster and farther than kudzu did. The vampire tree—I settled on singular—was getting restless and it liked the energies of my land, maybe a little too much.

I dragged my hands from the soil and yelled, “You stay outta my garden, offa my house, and away from my critters. You hear me?” I had no