LITMIR.BIZ

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      I don’t see him again for seven years.

      Chapter 2

      “L isten,” Lil said. “This is bigger than your twisted love/hate thing with Lex Stuart. Aunt Bridge is in the hospital.”

      “What?” Our great-aunt Brigitte was a historical sociologist in Paris. Even more than our mothers and our late grandmother, Aunt Bridge had convinced Lil and me of the truth in the Grail Keeper legends. “Is it her heart?”

      “No, she was attacked in her office. Someone beat her pretty badly.”

      My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I wanted to sit, but most of my furniture was gutted or broken. So I sank back against the wall and slid down it, my gym shorts riding up, until I sat on the carpet, picturing Bridge’s face. She was in her eighties! What kind of sick person would hurt an old woman?

      “This is connected to her work, isn’t it?”

      “She isn’t conscious yet, but the Paris police say that her laptop’s gone, and some of her papers. You’ve been working with her, Mag. What was she writing about this time?”

      “She’s calling it The Faerie Goddess in Early Gaul.”

      “The fairy Melusine?” Lil and I had grown up on that story. Just imagine The Little Mermaid with bat wings and a traitorous husband.

      “If she’s right, the goddess Melusine.” But I was staring at the destruction around me with increased concern. “Uh, Lil? Don’t freak, but someone just broke into my place, too.”

      “What?” Even without the phone, I might’ve heard Lil’s shout all the way from England. “Are you all right?”

      “Yes, but I haven’t looked at my files yet. The computer was on, and I always turn it off when I leave.”

      Lil said, “You’d better check, Mag.”

      I did. But I took Lex’s advice and locked the door first.

      Sure enough, my latest backups were missing.

      “I’ve got to go to my office,” I said, grim, when I picked up the phone. “On campus.”

      “Why not just call security?”

      “And say what? My aunt at the Sorbonne was robbed, so I’m worried about Connecticut? We’re between semesters. They only have a skeleton staff. I’ll go myself. Then I’ll go to Paris.”

      “Be careful, Maggi,” Lil pleaded. “I hate when you do this stuff alone.”

      But, picking up the business card Officer Sofie Douglas had left on my desk, I suspected I might not have to.

      Beside her home number she’d doodled a simple O.

      Secret societies are a bitch.

      It doesn’t help that the scattering of women called Grail Keepers aren’t organized enough to actually be an organization. Most still don’t even know there are others out there. We have few written records, no official roll of members, no regular meetings and no inner sanctum.

      That’s by design.

      Our information comes from word-of-mouth, mother to child; from truths hidden in superstitions, fairy stories and nursery rhymes. It’s only been in the last few years that Lil and I, spurred on by our grand-mère’s dying wish, started using the Internet to find and coordinate some of the diverse women who make up our roster.

      Or who would, if we kept a roster, which we don’t.

      Even before that, though, Grail Keepers had an ancient technique for recognizing each other. It’s similar to how early Christians used to self-identify, back when their beliefs could get them fed to the lions—one person would draw an arch in the dust, and the other would draw an intersecting arch, and the result would be that simple fish design you now see on the back ends of cars. Scuff out the design, and nobody but those two people would be the wiser.

      We do something similar with circles.

      One woman draws a circle. The other draws an intersecting circle, and voilà—you have an ancient design, like a sloppy number eight, that represents the overlapping of worlds. Not that we knew this as children. Back then, it was just a rhyme game our mommies taught us: “Circle to circle, never an end, cup and cauldron, ever a friend.”

      Now that I’m all grown up and educated, I know the symbol is called a vesica piscis or a “chalice-well” design, after the famous version at the well at Glastonbury Abbey. Like on wedding-ring quilt patterns. Like on my pendant.

      Hence my interest in Officer Sofie’s card.

      Jogging to my blue Mini for the second time that night, I wished I’d had time to draw the second circle on Sofie Douglas’s card and hand it back to her. That would’ve been subtler, safer. I didn’t. So I phoned her on my hands-free mobile as I sped down the highway and simply said, “This is Maggi. From tonight?”

      “I remember.” She sounded carefully noncommittal. It being after midnight, I couldn’t blame her.

      “I found your card and, well…” Talk about feeling awkward. “Circle to circle?”

      For a moment I feared my connection had cut out. Then—

      “Never an end,” she whispered, surprised. Not that I blamed her. The first time’s like learning the Tooth Fairy’s real.

      “I thought you should know I’m heading to Turbeville Hall on campus, and that there might be trouble.”

      When I arrived she had already parked outside the four-story building that houses the academic offices. I felt a twinge of concern when I saw the unfamiliar car, but then she got out, still wearing her uniform. And her hip holster. Carrying a monster flashlight.

      I liked this woman.

      As I got out of the car, she shone her light onto the asphalt at my feet. Her voice shook slightly against a background of crickets and a jet flying overhead. “‘Circle to circle, never an end?’”

      Relieved, I switched on my own flashlight and slid the pool of light partially across hers, stopping when they overlapped halfway. “‘Cup to cauldron, ever a friend.’”

      Vesica piscis. Drawn in light on the pavement. Our version of a secret handshake.

      “I can’t believe this really works.” Sofie shook her head. “I thought it was just a fairy tale my grammy made up.”

      I shifted my keychain so keys stuck out between my fingers, just in case, and strode toward the building’s front door. Final exams had ended last week, and we’d turned in grades yesterday. The place looked dead, so I assumed it would be locked. “Follow me, and I’ll explain what I know.”

      She quickly caught up. “Why?”

      Why explain, or why follow?

      “Because knowledge is power,” I said. “The kind of power that just increases when you share it. And because someone I know was attacked in her college office this week.”

      “Good…” Her voice fell softer as the door swung open into the empty lobby.

      I hadn’t used my key yet.

      “…reason,” she finished grimly. “I should call this in.”

      “I need to check on something first.” My whisper echoed.

      Sofie said, “Just keep talking, Maggi Sanger.”

      So I did, heading for the stairs instead of the elevator. “Your grammy told you a story about the Great Queen, right?”

      Lil and I hadn’t met a Grail Keeper yet who hadn’t heard some version of that story.

      “The one with seven daughters?” she asked.

      “Sometimes

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