Goddess of Spring (Goddess Summoning #2)(10)

The sweet scent of the pine candle mixed with the more earthy smel s of yeast and flour. The aroma was delicious and heady. Unexpectedly, Lina felt a wave of sensation, fueled by scent, rush through her body. For a moment she was dizzy and disoriented, as if she had been suddenly displaced from her kitchen and transported, dough and al , to the middle of a pine-fil ed forest. She rubbed the back of a flour-crusted hand across her forehead. Her head felt unnatural y warm, but the touch of her hand re-grounded her and the dizziness dissipated. It had been a tough day. She shouldn't be surprised that it was wearing on her. She rol ed her shoulders and let her head fal forward and backward, causing tired, overstressed muscles to stretch and relax. She would certainly sleep well tonight.

Lina glanced down at the conclusion of the dough recipe. It contained the usual mundane instructions about covering it in a bowl and letting it rise for at least eight hours. Impatiently, she scanned past the recipe to the completion of the invocation ritual.

" Pinch out a smal portion of the dough. Choose a special place -  out of doors -  where you can leave your offering. Sprinkle it with wine and offer it to Demeter, saying "O Goddess of the plentiful harvest, of strength and power and wisdom, I give You greeting, and honor, and thanks. Blessed Be! "

"Note: You might choose to add your own personal request or praise before concluding the ritual. May blessings rain upon you and may you never go hungry!

Lina's smile tilted sardonic. The ful ness of her hips said that she might consider going hungry once in a while. Not that she was fat, she amended quickly, she was just voluptuous. And voluptuous wasn't particularly "in" today. She huffed under her breath. She would never understand the current generation's obsession with waif-like women who starved and puked everything feminine from their bodies. She was al softness and curves, and she preferred herself that way.

"I'm goddess-like," she said firmly.

With no more hesitation, she pinched off a smal piece of the newly-kneaded dough and set it aside while she reshaped and then covered the rest of the large bal . She'd already performed the invocation, it was only right that she should fol ow through to its conclusion. After al , no good cook ever left a recipe incomplete.

It didn't take long to tidy up her already immaculate kitchen and load her dishwasher. After drying her hands, Lina poured a fresh glass of wine and wrapped the smal piece of dough in a paper towel before hurrying from the kitchen. Balancing the glass and dough in one hand, she opened the door to the closet in the hal . Before she had her jacket pulled on she heard the tel -tale slap of Edith's paws on the tiled hal way. Smiling, Lina took the bulldog's leash from its hook.

"It doesn't matter how soundly asleep you are, when this door opens, here you are." Lina laughed as she snapped the leash onto Edith's col ar.

The bul dog yawned then snorted at her.

"I know it's late, but I have something I need to finish, and I know the perfect spot." Far from complaining, Edith was the first one to the door of the condo, and Lina had to juggle to balance the wine without spil ing it.

"Easy there, big girl!"

Shifting the bal of dough to her jacket pocket, Lina locked the door behind them. It was early March, and the Oklahoma night was unseasonably warm. The air felt rich and heavy with the promise of spring. Lina let Edith lead her into the heart of the well -kept courtyard. A shadow flitted overhead cal ing Lina's attention upward. A ful moon sat high in the sky, round and bright and the color of whipped butter. She stared at it. What an odd shade of yel ow. It lent the familiar surroundings of her English Tudor-style condo complex an ethereal glow, casting mundane hedges and sidewalk edges into new and slightly sinister roles.

"Oh, please. I must be having a Lord of the Rings moment," Lina admonished herself. "Dolores was right. I've taken too many trips to the IMAX to drool over Aragorn." The ritual and the dough-making frenzy had obviously gone to her head if she was imaging sinister shapes around her well -kept condo complex.

"I'l have to tel Anton al about this," she mumbled to herself. "Maybe I can final y convince him to share his Xanax with me."

Actual y, now that she was outside and the spel /recipe book was neatly stacked with the other cookbooks in her living room, she was beginning to feel a little foolish.

"Maybe I should have had more wine before this part of the recipe," she told Edith, who flicked her ears back at her and huffed, but kept on winding her way along their familiar path. "Or maybe I'm just exhausted and I need to go to bed."

They were coming to her favorite part of the complex -  the grand marble fountain that sat squarely in the middle of the cobblestone courtyard. Year-round it spouted water in an impressive geyser that cascaded down three delicately curved, bowl-like tiers. Actual y, it was the fountain that had convinced Lina to purchase the condo. During the summer Lina found the area around the fountain, with its cool cobblestones and old oak shade trees, even more refreshing than the pool, and a good deal less crowded. In the winter months the fountain, like the pool, was heated, and Lina had enjoyed many an Oklahoma winter afternoon swathed in blankets, feet tucked under her, while she read to the musical sound of fal ing water.

"This is it. The perfect special place," Lina told Edith Anne, who was snuffling around an azalea bush. "Stay there, this won't take long."

She dropped the bul dog's leash. Obediently, Edith planted her wide bottom on the ground, then seemed to reconsider and, with a doggy sigh, relaxed into a ful , stretched-out recline, her halfclosed eyes watching Lina with sleepy semi-interest. The nearest oak was also the biggest. Lina approached it careful y in the buttermilk moonlight, careful not to trip over the intricate knots of exposed roots that proliferated the area around the base of the tree. Unexpectedly, they seemed ominous, cal ing to life visions of grasping tentacles and writhing snakes.