"Yeah, me, too," I answered, stopping by a fallen tree to scrape sheep poop off my shoe.

"I knew you'd feel it, too. I can't wait to try the mage's spells—they simply can't fail. Interesting arrangement of the trees, don't you think? They appear to make a circle around something. Shall we investigate?"

"Lead on, MacDuff." I followed obediently as Sarah, glowing with excitement, broached a sparse ring of trees. In the center, a space of about eighteen feet was open to the sky, covered in lush, emerald grass.

"There it is!" Sarah grabbed my arm and pointed. Her voice dropped to an awe-filled whisper. "The famed West County faery ring! It's perfect! Just what I imagined it would be! It's like a holy place, don't you think?"

I left her hugging herself with delight, marching over to squat next to the bare earth that marked the boundaries of the faery ring. The ring was about four feet wide, a perfect circle of bare earth surrounded by lush grass growing on the inside and outside of it. There was nothing to indicate the cause, no mushrooms visible, but I knew they weren't always seen. I touched the sun-warmed dirt, and mused, "I wonder if there's a lab around here where I could send a soil sample so we can find out just which fungus caused this ring?"

"Infidel," she said without heat, slapping her coat pockets, pulling out the spell pages, and turning around in the way women who have forgotten their purses have. "Do you have the camera?"

I cocked an eyebrow at her. "You took it away from me at Denhelm, if you recall."

"Oh, that's right—you insisted on taking pictures of the farmer's son rather than the bog man mummy. I must have left the camera in my bag."

"You have to admit, the son was much better looking than that moth-eaten old bog man."