"Portia, you're not making a lick of sense," Sarah said, shaking her head and pointing to where the fantasy cloud hovered over me, still gently raining. "I have not been hypnotized, nor am I under the influence of any drugs, hallucinogenic or otherwise. You have a cloud over your head, raining only on you. You are standing in the middle of a very famous faery ring, and you ate something that grew out of that ring."

"You're right," I said, stepping outside the ring. The rain cloud followed me. I ignored it as best I could.

Sarah looked remarkably cheerful. "Really? You admit I won the bet? You concede that this is a bona fide paranormal event?"

"Of course not! I meant that you were right about me ingesting the blades of grass I was chewing on. Not that I ate them per se, but if the fungal spores had been brushed onto them, and I put them into my mouth, it could well mean that Hope had no part in it, and it's all just an unfortunate coincidence."

"I think you'd better tell me exactly what happened while I was gone," Sarah said, pulling out a small voice recorder. "Start with the moment I left. Er…I don't suppose you can make that go away?" She pointed to the cloud.

"It's not really here. You just think it's here. No, I mean I just think it's here…wait, that doesn't fit the hypothesis…"

"Start at the beginning and tell me everything," she said in a businesslike, brisk fashion.

I spent the time it took to fill her in puzzling out how she could be witness to my delusion. "It must be mass hypnosis after all," I concluded, eyeing the dirt ring. "There's just no other explanation for it."

"There's one all right, only you are too stubborn to admit it. Oh, Portia, this is the most exciting thing! I never thought to have met someone who's seen a real faery, but you've done it!" She gripped my arm, excitement bubbling off her. "And you said the faery gave you some sort of gift? What is it?"

I lifted my eyes skyward for a moment, hoping for patience, but all I got for my effort was an eyeful of rain. "We need to leave. Now. This fungus is clearly muddling both our thinking."

Without waiting for Sarah to answer, I spun around and marched toward the ring of trees, hoping by the time I reached the road that I might be free from the effects of the fungus.

"I'll be along in a couple. I want to get some pictures of this ring," Sarah called after me.

"If you start to see sparkly little lights and a strange, paranoid woman, don't say I didn't warn you."

The wind picked up as I approached the trees, the circular arrangement of them giving the wind that whipped past an oddly hollow sound, like a mournful sigh. For some reason, the sound of it made me feel jumpy.

"It's the drugs," I told myself as I pushed aside a branch, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. "I'm just a little susceptible to imagination right no—grk!"

For a fraction of a second I thought a tree branch had slapped backward, striking my neck, but as a dark face hove into view, I realized that it was a man who had me in a stranglehold.

"What have you done with Hope?"

I was so surprised at being assaulted that my brain, rather than coming up with an escape plan, took a few minutes to notice that his voice was low and mean, with a faint Irish tone to it, while the eyes that burned into mine had a slightly exotic tilt to them. That wasn't what held my attention, though…his eyes were black, solid black, with no difference in color between iris and pupil.

With both hands I grabbed the man's arm where he clutched my throat, subsequently cutting off my air supply, but his grip on me was steely and unmovable.

"Let go of me," I wheezed, letting go of his arm to search my pocket for car keys or a pen or something I could use to defend myself against the attacker.

He hauled me closer until little black dots swam before my eyes. "Tell me what you've done with her, or by god, I will snap your neck."

I twisted in the man's grip, attempting to knee him in the groin, but he anticipated my move, releasing my neck and jerking me around suddenly. I had time to suck in one large lungful of air before he grabbed my throat again, his other hand immobilizing my arm nearest him. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"She left," I managed to squeak despite the spots that were once again dancing before my eyes. I tried to get some air into my lungs, but his grip was on this side of fatal, leaving me just barely alive. Desperately, I tried to remember everything I knew about self-defense, but my brain seemed sluggish and slow to cooperate.

"Left for where?"

"I…" I threw myself backward, hoping to knock him off balance, but it was no use. "Don't know."

The world swam around me in a nauseating way, and just when I thought I was going to pass out—or die—a bolt of blue from the sky startled my would-be murderer into releasing me.

I collapsed on the ground into a fetal ball, my lungs heaving as I sucked in air. Even as I rubbed my neck and welcomed oxygen to my body again, I was aware of the man standing over me, his body silhouetted against the sun. He was tall, taller than me, solidly built, with skin the color of a latte, and thick black hair that came to a widow's peak in the front. He peered upward for a moment.

"Stop that!"

"Stop what, breathing? You almost did it for me, thank you."

He glared at me as I continued to massage my neck. "Stop the rain."

If he saw the rain cloud, he couldn't be real. Then again, Sarah said she saw it too. He must have breathed in the fungus as well, triggering the same response Sarah and I had. "I would be delighted to stop that particular hallucination if I could."

"Will it away," he demanded, taking a step toward me.

I scrambled backward like a crab, braced and ready to run if he looked like he was going to attack me again. "I don't think you can will away hallucinations by just saying, 'Rain, rain, go away!'"

The small cloud over my head dissipated until nothing was left of it.

The man looked at me, one eyebrow cocked.

"This just proves it's not real," I grumbled, still watching him carefully, looking for an opportunity to run like hell.

"You are mortal?"

I frowned up at him, rubbing my neck as I got to my knees. "What do I look like, a baked potato? Of course I'm mortal."

My voice was a croak that sounded almost as bad as my throat felt.

He swore.

"If you lay so much as one finger on me again, I will scream bloody murder. My friend is just beyond the trees, and she went to great trouble to illegally smuggle pepper spray into the country."

He was about to say something, but the wind brushed past us, the hollow note more pronounced. Inexplicably, the skin on my back crawled at the sound of it.

"Portia?" Sarah's voice sounded distant, and very worried.

"Over here," I yelled, slowly getting to my feet, my eyes on the man in front of me. If he even looked like he was going to grab me again, I'd bolt.

"Portia? Did you hear that voice? Oh my god, it was awful! I don't like to hurry you, but I really think we need to get out of here." She burst through the trees, a frightened look on her face that turned to confusion when she saw the man in front of me. "Oh. I didn't realize someone else was here."

"The Hashmallim has come. Move quickly, or die," the man said, grabbing my arm and giving me a none-too-gentle shove toward the sheep pasture.

"Stop that!" I yelled, twisting out of his grip. "If you touch me once again—"

"What's going on here?" Sarah asked, stumbling as she ran down to where I'd stopped to face my attacker.

"That man tried to strangle me," I answered, pointing at him.

"He what?" She turned to glare at him. "You hurt my friend?"