Page 14 of A Circle of Uncommon Witches

TWELVE

Ambrose stood facing a series of tall pine trees. Their bark was a swirl of brown and gray, layers of each color one over the other like strips of dyed paper blended. Up high in the trees were three squirrels. They were chasing each other, running in circles as they scurried up high and then low. They chattered as they went, a quiet chitter that was strangely melodious. There were familiar markings in the trees, pressed in amongst the peel-worthy bark.

He tried to reach for a marking and found he could not move. His arm was pinned to his side, his body a weighted and heavy entity. He felt as though he had been frozen with his eyes open.

He needed to find her.

A shadow moved forward from behind the furthest tree. It was coming closer and closer.

He remembered this. He had been here before.

And there was no escaping what was coming.

The Queen of the Order of the Dead shifted across the land like a storm wind scuttering across choppy water.

For Ambrose, watching her movements was terrifying. The mismatched bones left her skittering in disjointed bursts, like a disorganized spider. Her face was calm, but her shadow self was something else. Angry, violent, desperate; its rage knew no bounds.

As the shadow slipped closer, a memory of the past returned to life inside him. Ambrose felt the despair he’d suffered when he stood in this forest three hundred years before, and his teeth chattered at the weight of such misery.

“You’re brave to come to the Forest of Forgetting,” the queen said, her voice slipping from the shadows, wrapping its way around Ambrose and slithering inside him.

“It’s said to make a bargain with the queen, one must bring her an offering she cannot refuse in the place that refuses to forget her,” he said, and though his lips did not move, his words arose, slow and sluggish. “They must gift her a trinket from the man who started it all and set her curse in motion. Hastings MacDonald was my ancestor.”

Beyond the copse of trees that Ambrose was tucked in was a determined set of cliffs. They were haunted, it was said, by the dying wails of those who drew too close and plummeted to their deaths. The spirits there were greedy, trying to claw their way back to life, and they would drag any soul they could down with them.

Ambrose knew the words he would give next to Ada, even though he didn’t wish to ever relive them.

“If I can’t have love, neither can they,” he said. “If they want to tear out my heart, then I will bind theirs. Tell me what to do.”

He’d pricked both his thumbs, and filled a small pitted cup. He set it down before her and reached into the air behind his back. He was reaching for a bag he did not carry in this world but had be fore—on the day he’d originally come here to this forest. He pulled from it a muslin cloth, wrapped around a heavy object. “This is more than a trinket, and I hope it will do,” he said, tossing it down. The object rolled forward as it hit the ground, and Ambrose’s stomach turned a quick spiral once, twice, before he pressed a palm there to steady the rising nausea.

He saw it play out before him, like a film running across reality, a dinged yellow jawbone poking out as the bone rolled. Ambrose told himself not to think of who it belonged to.

A flash of a graveyard, of mountains shaped like teeth, and a name that would not be denied. Not in life, not in death.

Hastings MacDonald’s head—or what remained—rolled to a stop at the feet of the queen of the dead.

Doreen walked down the hill, replaying what Eleanor had told her. She was stuck in a prison world, made by Ada, who wanted to feast on Doreen’s soul. Ambrose had been right, and she was exceedingly irritated at him over it, and that he was stuck in the cave, far from her. With an abundance of sighing, she found her way back to the main path. This time there was only one direction to go.

As she walked, she thought of Margot, of Stella, even her mother, and, of course, the curse. Her entire life had been one curse after another, and it should have been terrifying, but she only found herself more determined. Eleanor said she could break it, and while Eleanor was clearly a trapped spirit of some sort, she had felt like home. Like Margot, and that told her more than any words could.

It left her hoping, which was a dangerous thing. That maybe, if she freed the people here, she would find her mother too.

Her entire life had been spent searching for love and being denied. Searching for her mother and being unable to find her. No matter how improbably, Doreen had never stopped looking for either. She didn’t know how.

So Doreen would complete the first trial of strength. That must be what the cave of echoes was. She would be strong enough to defeat whatever Ambrose faced. None of this was going how she thought it would. She hadn’t battled a legion of kelpies or other obvious monster with her strength or outfoxed it with her cleverness. She was barely surviving in this world, and she was on edge.

She continued down the scenic path, its rolling green hills seeming to mock her, until she came to what could only be an entrance to a cavern. It was three feet by three feet, a gaping hole in the road that resembled a mouth mid-scream. Rocks were formed around it, an outline that should have warned travelers what was in front of them. There was a break in the circle of rocks surrounding the entrance, and this was most likely how Ambrose had tumbled down like Alice in the rabbit hole.

As she stared into it, the solitary, mournful note of a violin rose, and whispers chased after it. Steadily they grew louder and louder.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

Yes, here was the cave of echoes, echoing up to meet her. Doreen muttered the words from the poem over and over, the strings sinking into her skin, and she tried to work out how to get Ambrose out without going in. She peered down, waved a hand into the hole, called his name, and her thoughts drifted to a different Robert Frost poem than the one raining onto her.

She sighed and announced, “The only way out is through.”

Then, with as much grace as she could muster, Doreen sat on the edge of the hole, and slowly lowered herself in before dropping deep into the darkness.

She landed with a thump, the force knocking her onto her back. Up she could see the sky, and when she looked toward her feet, she saw light flickering in the distance. After checking everything was intact, or as undamaged as could be after falling into nowhere, Doreen brushed her hands over the ground. Grassy and firm. She stood and started forward. Heading toward the beckoning light.

As she walked, her surroundings grew clearer. She was in a forest, and it looked quite a lot like where she and Ambrose began their journey when they’d first arrived in Scotland. Tall trees, thick roots, large boulders, and a running stream along one side. The skies here, however, were not the baby blue of the horizon outside of Portree. Instead, they were rose pink and filled with thick lilac clouds.

Everything was in shades of sepia overcast with pink and purple. The haunting sounds of the violin chased after her feet, playing a melody so similar to the one her coven used to raise the sigil that Doreen kept looking over her shoulder, expecting to find Stella lurking behind a tree. This sound, however, was sadder, lonelier. The notes trailed off, then were plucked again, rising in a steady crescendo that had her rising on her toes as though she could reach the sound.

To her great relief, whispers of poetry no longer fell from the skies. And the trees on the edge of the periphery, which had been curved and out of sight, straightened and shifted into view. She had the thought that perhaps she was in a snow globe, walking along its curved edges.

Finally, she came to a clearing in the center of the forest. There stood a large block of stone. It was perched precariously, listing to the side, and at its base was a swath of muslin. The entrance to a cave rose up across from it, and beyond came the roar of a sea just out of sight. Doreen found her thoughts slowing as she stood there. A glinting stone met her gaze at the base of the trees up ahead. She walked to them and realized each tree had a section of stone circling it. She bent down and ran her fingers over the blue stone there. She reached in and pulled a hunk out. Azurite. A memory crystal.

Doreen slipped it into her shirt, closer to her heart and her spirit. As soon as the stone touched her chest, the haze cleared, the crystal doing its job.

She knew this place. Magic hid from the world here; humans were not meant to linger. This was the Forest of Forgetting. Another myth come to life. She looked at the tree in front of her, at the stones.

It was said the Forest of Forgetting claimed its victims by slowing their minds and eventually consuming them. Not exactly the sort of strength she’d imagined she would need to exhibit.

A low moan sounded. She paused, cocking her head as she listened. It came again, and her heart stuttered. Ambrose. Beneath the painful exhalation, she knew without a doubt it was the timbre of his voice. She hurried over, running her fingers over the bark of a tree that seemed to have released it. The moan rose again, and she realized it did not come from the tree, but the stone behind it, the one in the middle of the forest. She ran to it and walked in a circle around it. There did not seem to be a way to break it open. Her eyes drifted to the base, and she saw a grouping of symbols carved there.

IARRTAS. (Gaelic for request .)

The Pictish Beast symbol. (Because it was clearly stalking her.)

And, finally, A’TABHANN . (She was mostly certain it meant offering .)

A request, a beast, and an offering.

Another moan reverberated through the forest, and Doreen’s heart knocked against her chest. How much air could Ambrose have, if he was stuck inside? She remembered reading stories of souls trapped in trees, how if the trees were cut down their spirits would be lost forever. How long before a person’s soul became the tree? Or in this case, the stone?

Thinking fast, she gathered the rose quartz surrounding the holly tree. She talked to Ambrose as she worked. “I know it’s you in there,” she said. “Only you would end up trapped in a damn stone.” She laid the crystals in a circle around the large stone, ignoring how her hands shook.

The moan came again, softer this time. Sweat dotted her back, her arms began to tremble, and still Doreen kept her focus on setting the circle. She refused to think about Ambrose dying. About being stuck with his soul in a stone, in a prison world, with Doreen unable to yell at him again.

She needed to get the words for her spell right. The pressure mounted as she flipped through her mental grimoire, looking for the right one. After a few moments, she noticed a hush had fallen over the forest.

No sounds aside from her own erratic breaths were stirring. Panic bloomed, a bright and terror-filled bubble in her chest. Doreen threw out the search for the right spell and went with a protection one Margot had created, modifying it. She reversed it, and cast the spell low and true—her voice shaking as the words rose up and out.

“Guard him, free him, keep him safe. The only way out is through. Guard me, free me, keep me safe. The only way out is through.”

Around and around her words went, stringing into a melody that matched the rise and fall of the violin still weaving its way through the forest. It was the first time she’d altered a spell like that, and she was terrified she wasn’t strong enough to succeed. The large stone shook before her. The trees groaned as chips of rock tumbled from it, and the earth quaked beneath her feet. Suddenly, a crack splintered the stone, zigzagging up and over, before the stone snapped apart. As two solid slabs gave way, a form slid out, tumbling free, and collapsed at her feet.

Doreen shook, her mind and heart racing. Ambrose was covered in a chalky substance and barely breathing. She jumped into the circle, keeping the magic there centered, and went to work. She did not rely on magic this time, but science.

She tipped his chin back, pinched his nose, and brought her lips to his. Twice she blew her air into his lungs, twice she watched her lifeforce fill him. Then she pressed her hands to his chest, over his heart, prepared to pump, when he coughed, wheezed, and dragged in a shuddering breath.

“Less dead?” she asked, barely able to contain her joyous relief as he stared, blinking up at the sky.

“Barely alive,” he said, his breath jagged, before turning his eyes to hers. They met and held for one charged second. He pressed a hand to his stomach and rolled to his side. She waited, not taking her gaze from him, and slowly he was able to progress into a seated position.

When he’d stopped gasping and coughing, she spoke again, the words a giddy rush. “How’d you like being a stone?”

“About as much as I’d guess you like being cursed to die or having to marry a bespelled mortal.”

She let loose a half-hysterical laugh. “You admit your little curse sucks, do you?” she said, with a lightness her limbs did not feel. Finding him in the stone, not breathing, had short-circuited Doreen’s nervous system. She was sure that was why her heart was still racing and she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She reached out and punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t do that again.”

“Ouch,” he said, rubbing the shoulder. “Have a care, I was about dead.”

“I am all too aware,” she said, rubbing a hand over her cheek. “What happened?”

Ambrose shook his head. “I need to get the hell out of this forest first.”

When Doreen only gave him a hard stare, he sighed. “I don’t trust the trees.”

She glanced up and over to them. The limbs were arching forward, closer to the center, as though leaning in. Listening. “Oh, wow.”

He lifted his brows in a See? movement and she bit back a smile. It was such a relief to see Ambrose being so… Ambrose.

“How do you propose we get out of here?”

He shrugged. “The only way out is through.”

“What did you say?” Doreen asked, a chill rushing through her.

“I…” He gave his head a shake. “The only way out is through. I don’t know why I said that.”

“I do,” she said.

Stella used to tell her and Margot, “You must be careful. Magic is as unpredictable as a summer storm. It can change its mind like a mediocre man or stick in the cracks and cause trouble later. Use your heads, never your heart.”

The words of her spell had left his mouth. Doreen had saved him. She had, since meeting Ambrose, been using her heart and not her head.

“Funny thing happened to me,” she said, shifting forward, grabbing more stones to set a circle. A perimeter to ward them free from harm. “I met my ancestor. Learned we are stuck in this prison of a world thanks to Ada. We must complete her trials to get out of here and save the souls trapped here because the queen of the dead has trapped us all.”

Ambrose gave a slow blink. “I told you we need to get out of here.”

“You aren’t in any condition to run, and I am guarding us with the circle, warding us here.”

He grumbled but cleared his throat. “Ada trapped us?”

“Yes. In a world where Ada gets to keep us and eventually eat us.”

“I will not point out how I already told you she wanted your soul.” Ambrose ran a hand down his face.

“Telling me you aren’t going to point it out is, in fact, pointing it out.” Damn stingray.

“Gods, that was not what I was hoping to hear.”

“I would say it could be worse,” she said, “but then it would get worse. So… it could be better.”

“Right.”

“On the upside, I did it,” she said. “The first trial. I had to choose to follow you here and face the forest or leave you behind. I chose to save you. It was no stroll through the tulips. I was brave and strong. We have one down out of four. Now, do you know how to get through wherever we are and get to the second trial, because I am pretty sure it’s your turn.”

“You did wonderful,” he said, his voice velvet soft. “Thank you for helping me, Doreen.”

She couldn’t stop the blush his words triggered. She looked away, clearing her throat. “Of course.”

His eyes focused beyond them, to where the sound of the waves of an unseen sea overlapping drifted inward. “As for what comes next, I may have a bad idea.”

Doreen rose and offered him a hand. “Let’s have it.”

No sooner did he stand, both feet firmly planted, when the ground rumbled. He stepped closer to Doreen, and the earth shook. He stumbled to sitting again, his legs shaky, and a cold breeze blew in as the skies darkened.

Lightning crackled across the sky, and the cave bellowed an angry roar as a whirling dervish of particles rose in front of it. Bits of matter, bone, and atmosphere blended, swirling around and around. Faster and faster, the wind pooling in leaves, twigs, dirt, and dust from the ground. Doreen reached for Ambrose, his arm coming around her as she fell into him.

A scream built in the back of Doreen’s throat, and she tamped it down, fear a breathing entity, exhaling down her back and trying to clamor into her skin.

Suddenly, when Doreen was certain she and Ambrose would be lifted into the air and sucked into the vortex spiraling before them—protective circle or no—the cyclone stopped. The particles came to an abrupt stop, hovering in the air for moments before they dropped to the ground.

Revealing the figure of a woman with her hands raised, her eyes focused, and her powers pooling in the palms of her hands.

Margot.