Social Medium (Hedgewitch for Hire #2) - Christine Pope Page 0,3
— and hotter — I still preferred to do my fact-finding about Globe’s supposed “vibrations” earlier rather than later, if for no other reason than it would be a way to put off setting up my Instagram account.
My jeans and Keds sneakers would do just fine for wandering around the Arizona countryside, so I didn’t bother to head upstairs to my apartment to change. Instead, I went out back to where my Denim Edition Volkswagen Beetle was parked and got in, wincing a little at the heat that had been baking inside the car for hours. No real point in popping the top, either; when temperatures climbed past ninety-five, as they had today, I wanted to be surrounded by nice, cool A/C, not a hot desert wind.
Even though bodies of flowing water contained their own power, I resolutely ignored going down to the San Ramon River to explore. I doubted there was much chance of running into Lucien Dumond’s ghost — after our final conversation, he’d disappeared, never to return, apparently — but I didn’t want there to be even the slightest chance of my running into Calvin Standingbear. No, unless another crime had occurred on the banks of the river, he probably wouldn’t have any reason to be there, and yet I still thought it better to stay far away.
Instead, I drove to the western edge of town, where there was a nice big stand of trees before the land opened up and climbed toward the Freeport Mine, which was still in operation, although technically outside Globe’s town limits. There wasn’t a formal parking lot, but a smooth stretch of gravel that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of allowing people to pull off the road and leave their vehicles there so they could go explore the area.
I hadn’t stopped here before, although I’d noticed the little spot the few times I was driving out of town, mostly so I could go into Mesa and shop at the places Globe didn’t offer — Trader Joe’s, Sprouts, HomeGoods. Today I was just glad that no one else seemed to be around, since I always did a better job of picking up vibes when I was by myself.
A breath of hot wind hit my face as soon as I opened the car door, and I tried not to sigh. All right, Globe wasn’t nearly as hot as Phoenix, thanks to its elevation, but it could still get pretty toasty. Since I’d spent the six years prior to this on the west side of Los Angeles, where cool ocean breezes moderated the temperature, I knew I was a little spoiled when it came to dealing with hot weather. Supposedly, Arizona would start to get monsoon storms starting at the end of June and that would help to cool things down a bit, but in the meantime, we all had to suffer.
Resigned, I reached in my glove compartment and pulled out the scrunchie I always kept there, figuring I might as well pull my hair away from my face and keep it off the back of my neck. I wore a simple cotton sleeveless blouse, but I still knew I’d be baking once I started wandering around.
However, after I was in amongst the trees — cottonwoods mostly, and some oaks and sycamores and some flimsy-looking specimens I couldn’t identify — the air definitely felt cooler. I paused in the shade of a huge oak that was probably twice as old as I was, and closed my eyes and drew in a breath. Almost at once, a feeling of stillness, of quiet, filled me, and I nodded.
This was a good place.
Still with my eyes closed, I spread out my arms and allowed myself to simply be, to let the breeze wash over me, to smell the warm scent of dry grass and sun-baked rock. The trees had a subtler, earthier aroma, one that blended with the other smells all around me.
And yes, there it was — little shimmers of gold and copper and silver, and colors I couldn’t even quite name, rising from the earth beneath my feet, filling the air, swirling around me like a metallic fog. All the energy of Globe, all the power that came from the minerals and metals concentrated in the rocky earth.
I could have asked myself why I hadn’t felt it before, but that question had a simple enough answer.