Forbidden Ground. Karen Harper

to the new arrivals. “Great to see you. Oh, and Bright Star. Is Lee here, too?”

      “He had a task and couldn’t come,” Kate heard Grace say.

      Kate and Char got up and went to the door, too. They hadn’t seen their cousin Lee’s wife in a long time. “Grace, hi!” Kate said. “Can’t you come in? And your friend is welcome, too.” When Grace just shook her head about coming in, Tess stepped outside, so Kate and Char did, too.

      Kate was surprised to see the man Grace was with. She’d heard about the strange Hear Ye religious sect and its leader, but to see him in the flesh... She barely remembered Brice Monson, who now went by the name Bright Star. She tried not to stare at the man. She didn’t think he was a bit charismatic as Gabe had said. Dressed in white clothes, pale and white-haired, he looked like she imagined a wraith or ghost. Tess had carried on about how he held scores of people, including their cousin Lee, his wife, Grace, and their two children, in thrall.

      “I’ll just make this quick, but I insisted on telling you in person,” Grace said. Kate’s first instinct was to hug Grace, but she hung back as if there were an invisible barrier between them now, maybe emanating from this man. Kate tried not to stare at Grace with her braid down her back, her long skirt and Little House on the Prairie look.

      Tess shot a sharp look at the Reverend Monson, or whatever he called himself, before looking back at Grace. “Did you get permission for Kelsey and Ethan to be flower girl and ring bearer?” Tess asked. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

      “Oh, no, and I hear you have Sandy Kenton doing that. I’m glad you are so close to her.”

      “But she’ll never replace my own family,” Tess told her.

      The Kenton girl, Kate knew, was a child Tess had helped to counsel after her terrible ordeal. Tess was tight with the girl’s mother, Lindell, too, who would be in charge of the guest book at the reception and was going to work at the day-care center when it opened.

      “It’s just that...that,” Grace stammered and blushed.

      “Let me explain,” Bright Star said. “Much of the traditional American wedding ceremony, even if held in a church—or outside in nature as yours will be—is based on primitive rituals that our beliefs cannot condone or support. We at Hear Ye have our own ceremony, based on our own tradition and—”

      “Gracie,” Tess interrupted, her hands shooting to her hips. “You mean you can’t even come to our service out by the waterfall at Falls Park or to the reception, either, because you believe something pagan or forbidden is going on?”

      “I’m sorry,” Grace said, hanging her head like a scolded child. “That’s what I came to say. That’s what I think is right.”

      Tess had teared up, and Char was sputtering with surprise, so Kate spoke. “You know, Mr. Monson, I’ve studied groups with strange beliefs, but this one—to borrow an allusion to a pagan wedding symbol begun by the Romans—takes the cake. Grace, is this man your Caesar, your Napoleon or Hitler, to order you around? You will not be corrupted by coming with your husband and children to your friend and cousin-by-marriage Tess’s wedding. Or is it that she’s marrying the sheriff?”

      “It’s obvious,” Bright Star said, his voice very quiet compared to Kate’s, “that you don’t understand our ways, our chosen path. I believe you are the Lockwood sister who studies the pagan beliefs, so I will forgive your outburst and—”

      “At this point, I’d rather trust those long-dead pagan ways compared to how you must browbeat and control your people,” Kate insisted. “Grace, you and Lee are always welcome to return to your roots, your family.”

      Grace lifted her teary blue eyes to meet Kate’s steady stare. “The Hear Ye people are my family now, Kate. Please try to understand. And, Tess, blessings on your day and your life with Gabriel.”

      The three Lockwood sisters just stared as Grace followed the man down the driveway and into a black car that was waiting for them.

      “That vehicle’s a hearse,” Char hissed, putting her arm around Tess to draw her back toward the house. “He’s not even a charlatan shaman. More like a witch doctor!”

      “Like the Beastmaster,” Kate muttered. She hurried inside before anyone could ask her what she meant.

       3

      Friday, the day before the wedding, loomed long for Kate. Though she was dying to see Mason Mound, she dared not trespass on Grant’s land, not if she wanted to get closer to him and be permitted at least exterior access to the mound—hopefully, more. Instead, she took her rental car and drove out to the site of two other, long-ago excavated Adena sites.

      She was walking around the slant of a mound she’d noted on an old archived map, this one called the Falls Mound. It was not far from the park boundaries where Tess and Gabe would take their vows tomorrow beside the waterfall. That was the spot where, Tess had told her, they had first kissed. Both the rehearsal dinner and the reception would be at the rustic lodge near the falls. When Kate’s cell phone rang, she glanced down at it to see Carson Cantrell, her friend and mentor, was calling and it seemed so appropriate to talk to him here.

      “Carson, guess where I am?”

      “Kate, darling, guess where I am?”

      “The Smithsonian? Practicing your talk before some of their indigenous-people tableaus?” she kidded him.

      “Sitting out in front of the National Museum of the American Indian, but it mostly features historic tribes. And—let me guess. You’re at an Adena mound, hopefully the Mason one you thought had been untouched by excavation.”

      “I’m at a mound but one that had some grave goods taken out years ago, according to my research. Some are in the Ohio Historical Museum. Some were stolen and sold on the black market and never recovered. Skeletal remains were too far gone to reveal much.”

      “How about your smashed-skull theory concerning those sacrificed in the mounds to serve the royals or shamans?”

      “No finds like that in the records for this mound. Once again, I think the early pioneer trespassers probably broke things up. As a result, skeletons were useless for examination. I read the pioneers left graffiti on the interior walls, though.”

      They chatted about his upcoming talk, and she assured him again that nothing but the wedding would have kept her away, not even a Celtic dig in England she was participating in. She did not mention that her father was flying in with his new family today and that his plane had been delayed and he’d barely make the rehearsal dinner this evening. Carson had advice for anything and everything, so she surprised herself in not wanting to share all that. But she was even more surprised by his question. “So what do you think of Grant Mason, the current owner of the Mason Mound property? You think he’ll go along with a dig? I looked at his house on Google Maps, but there are so many trees out back, I can’t pick out the mound itself from the satellite shot. Even zooming in, all I get is the roof and his curved driveway.”

      “He seems protective of the mound. His grandfather and father had the theory to let the dead stay dead.”

      “Which may mean his family knows there’s a burial there. But he sounds like a real small-town rube.”

      “No, he is not! Really,” she said, toning down her outburst. “He’s a college graduate, business major. Tess says he has ties to the Ohio legislature and even in Washington on environmental issues related to his lumber-cutting and mill projects.”

      “So you like him. Just remember, I think we’re ready to take the two of us to another level. As for Grant Mason, I’d like to visit Cold Creek, meet him, see the mound. Next week I hope, as soon as I get back to Columbus. Stick around there awhile if you can, try to get closer to him—in a highly controlled way. Since he’s a business major, keep it all