The darkness rushed in on them. Michaela felt a momentary sense of vertigo and resisted the urge to snap the light back on. She forced herself to be still instead, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight. She could hear Caro’s breathing as the girl struggled to keep calm.

‘That’s good, Caro,’ Michaela told her. ‘Relax as much as possible. Close your eyes and imagine the path between the mounds again. Just like you did the first time.’

‘The dead paths,’ the girl on the ground responded. ‘Where the shaman travels, where the spirits walk, where shadows from the other side cross over.’

Trisha cleared her throat on the other side of Caro and Michaela flashed her a warning look. She didn’t know if Trisha intercepted it, but they both remained silent. Michaela stood, not quite holding her breath. What was going to happen? Was anything going to happen? She didn’t have the slightest idea so she stood there, trying to calm breathing and mind. On the ground beside her, Caro had her eyes half closed, sitting cross legged, facing the path.

Trisha gasped. She nodded towards the path. Michaela turned to look.

It seemed lighter than before. The moon must have come out from the clouds for the track glowed lighter, silvery white as though a mist hung in the light there. Michaela held her breath.

The track grew lighter and lighter. Mist was swirling, visible off the ground now. Michaela could feel her heart beating painfully in her chest. She released her breath slowly, not wanting to disturb anything. On the other side, Trisha made a sudden movement and Michaela followed her lover’s glance. The track may have been lighter, but there was something dark there as well. At the far end of the track, something was emerging from the light by the far mound. Something dark. Shadows. Michaela felt her heart stutter and a cold sweat sprouted on her brow. She swallowed and forced herself to stay rooted to the spot.

They were definitely shadows. Pressing in from the depths of the woods. Breaking off from the surrounding darkness to press together on the other end of the path.

The mist shivered on the path and seemed almost to undulate in front of them. Michaela felt faint as she realized the mist wasn’t just water vapor - something else was in there with it. Foggy white shapes moved down the path from the effigy mound towards them. Closer and closer they came until Michaela was sure Caro, and even she and Trisha would be swallowed up in shapes. She held her breath as they reached Caro, but they didn’t even pause. They swept over Caro’s head and up to the mound at her back. Michaela turned and watched them linger on the back of the mound then sink away into thin air again. Two, three, four of them. A dozen. So many that it seemed mist again, heavy fog lit from inside itself, moving, swirling up the path from one mound to the other.

She looked back down the track again. The shadows? Where were they? They were there, gathered still at the end of the track. She could see them through the wraith-like shapes of fog.

Trisha’s voice hissed out. ‘They’re coming,’ she said.

Caro’s head had been bowed over her knees, but she lifted it now and stared down the track. The shadowy forms had begun to advance, like a dark hole in the fog. Michaela stood, fascinated, terrified, her heart stuttering in her chest. She could make out odd shapes like limbs as the dark mass moved towards them, coming closer.

Coming closer! What would they do when they came upon the three women? And Caro in their way! Michaela’s throat felt suddenly dry and she stared at the approaching forms. It’s working, she thought. It’s really working – they’re back on the path.

Now they were in the clearing, coming closer to the mound, to Caro. Caro was sitting up now and staring at the advancing dark shapes. Watching them bear down on her. Almost on top of her.

Michaela’s breath was coming quickly now, her heart hammering at her ribs. She half bent to grab the girl from the ground, but Caro was quicker. The shadow forms almost upon her, she ducked her head and rolled off the path, out of the way. Michaela’s heart stuttered as the shadows seemed to pause. Keep going, keep going, she mentally urged them on.

After an interminable second, they passed. On up the sides of the mound and disappearing into the air, the same way the misty white wraiths had.

With that the spell was broken and Michaela collapsed onto the ground next to Caro. She squeezed her eyes shut and groped in the darkness for the girl. Caro found her and wrapped her arms around Michaela. They clung together.

‘Are you all right?’ Michaela whispered, opening her eyes and finding Caro’s white face. It bobbed up and down in a nod at her. Michaela nodded back and hugged her.

‘Did you see that?’ It was Trisha’s voice, low and awed. ‘Did you see that?’ she repeated. ‘Holy fucking shit, did you see that?’

Michaela stifled a laugh that would have sounded dangerously close to hysterical and reached up for her girlfriend. Trisha’s hand grasped hers and pulled her and Caro up from the ground. They stood with arms around each other.

At last Caro spoke. ‘It worked, didn’t it?’ she asked.

Michaela could only nod. She looked around again at the clearing, dim again with ordinary moonlight. She untangled herself and flicked on the flash light again, sending the beam down the path. There was nothing there. She turned the beam on the two sisters.

Trisha was grinning. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.