Michaela walked back into the dining area where Caro had gone to clear the table.

She smiled at Caro, not letting on about the gurgle of excitement she was feeling in her belly. ‘How long have you been interested in this sort of thing?’ she asked.

Caro looked at the books with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment. She took the one Michaela was holding out and looked at it. Trisha came in carrying plates of food and glanced over at the book.

‘Where’d you get that?’ she asked.

‘I bought it from Amazon.’

Trisha set the plates down. ‘Eat, everyone. How’d you do that, Caro? Don’t you need a credit card or something to buy shit online?’

They sat down at the table. The food smelled great.

‘I told Mom I needed some books for school. She let me use her Visa.’

Michaela tapped the cover of one of the books. ‘I somehow doubt these would be part of the school curriculum.’

Caro was staring at the books. ‘They’re not,’ she said. ‘But last year I stayed with a friend and went with her family on a trip over to Salem.’ She looked at Michaela. ‘Where the witch trials were? There are some great museums there, lots of stuff about the trials and witchcraft in general. We also went to this place which is a like a replica of a proper seventeenth century village. It was very cool.’

Trisha was frowning. ‘When was this?’ she asked. 

She rolled her eyes. ‘You weren’t here then, Trisha. It was just before Halloween and we had a great time.’

Michaela looked at the books. ‘You must have taken it a bit more seriously though.’

Trisha pointed to one of the books. ‘I bought this one while I was there. Read just about the whole thing on the trip back.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s fascinating. I wanted to learn more.’ She looked almost embarrassed a moment. ‘I think I want to study this sort of thing further. You know, like when I go to college.’

Trisha snorted. ‘What sort of degree would they call that?’

Caro took her seriously. ‘Well, it’s kinda anthropology to start with, and a bit of archaeology and psychology thrown in.’

Michaela sat down and regarded her. ‘You’ve thought quite seriously about this, haven’t you?’

‘Like I said, it’s fascinating stuff. Up until only a few hundred years ago, people used to see the world in a totally different way. Spirits and fairies and witches were just a fact of life. There was a whole ghostly, spiritual aspect to the world that was just taken for granted. And everywhere there are physical remnants of this world.’

Michaela was interested now. ‘Like what?’ she asked.

‘Like the dead paths,’ Caro said. ‘They were paths built specifically for the spirits of the newly dead to follow. And they were always straight.’ Her face had lit up. ‘They’re all over the world, these paths. In Europe there’s hundreds of them still about. And here, there are things like the Nazca lines in the Peruvian Desert – some people reckon they’re like ritual paths for shamans and the spirits of the dead.’

She stopped talking and looked around the table. The food was mostly untouched on the plates and growing quickly cold.

Trisha was looking alarmed. ‘You’ve just been reading about this stuff, right? Not conducting your own voodoo experiments or some such shit?’

Caro shifted in her chair. ‘It’s not shit, and I don’t know anything about voodoo and don’t want to. Jesus Trisha, you think I’m stupid or something?’

‘No, I think you’re way too bright for your own good.’

Caro looked suddenly near tears. ‘You’re such a bitch, Trisha.’ She stared down at her plate.

Michaela judiciously interrupted. ‘It sounds fascinating, Caro. Do you mind if I borrow one of these to read?’

Caro shook her head. ‘There’s one of the dead paths I talked about not too far from here.’ Her hand snaked out and touched the cover of one of the books. ‘I hitched out and took a look at it. It’s actually more of a burial mound, but it has some of the elements to it that they talk about in the book.’

Michaela picked up the book Caro had rested her hand on. She flicked through the pages, stopping at some of the photographs. Ancient burial mounds.

‘The one I went and looked at isn’t in the book,’ Caro said. ‘But it’s real similar.’

‘When was this? When did you go out and look at this place?’

Caro shrugged. ‘Few months back, I guess.’ Her face paled. ‘You don’t think that’s why, do you?’

Michaela exchanged a glance with Trisha. She thought that was exactly why and could see Trisha was in agreement. But she turned back to Caro and smiled. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘What did you do while you were there?’

Caro was chewing on her bottom lip. ‘I just kind of wandered around and explored. I wanted to take some photos but my camera wouldn’t work for some reason.’ She shrugged and played with her fingers, looking down at them.

‘What else?’ Trisha’s knuckles were white from clenching her hands.

Caro looked up at Michaela. ‘I did some creative meditation, all right? I tried to imagine what it was like when the place was being built, and what it was all about. I tried to open myself up to the place.’

Michaela rocked back in her chair. Here was the trigger all right. It had to be.

‘How far is this place?’ she asked.

Caro was looking down at her hands again. ‘Couple of hours away,’ she said.

Michaela checked with Trisha. ‘We go there tomorrow?’

Trisha nodded. ‘Definitely.’ She gestured at the electronics boxes. ‘And we’ll take some of this shit and see what there is to see.’

Caro looked up at both of them. ‘What did I do?’ she asked.