Page 14 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Brooks

Marlowe follows Kate on his broom, chasing her from the cemetery with the tip of his hat flapping in the wind. Mushrooms fly off as he goes, smashing into the cement walls of the many tombs and crumbling into piles of glitter on the mossy grass.

The canary we woke up sings from somewhere nearby, and I can’t help but feel as if I’m missing something in its cheerful tune.

“Where is Kate going?” Georgia asks me, grabbing onto the front of my jacket. I curl my lips and shove her hands away, but she comes at me again and we end up in a minor scuffle. She’s talented, but she’s a hundred pounds of muscle smaller than I am. Too bad.

I put forcible space between us. This woman is strangely similar to me, but in a way that makes my skin crawl. We can be civil, but we will never be friends. We have clashing personalities, like two magnets with the same polarization. Repellent.

I will give Georgia credit for this: she’s got blood smeared across her mouth and she’s already eaten. The brunette is gagging as she tears off a piece of meat, silent tears sliding down her face. Tanner joins me, side-eying the pink-haired one as she looks around in awe.

“What … happened?” she breathes, studying the few remaining spirit orbs above our heads. Not jack-o’-lanterns with faces, like we used to see in the Witchwoods, but actual ghosts. My mentor could be out here somewhere. Sharyn. Goddamn, I haven’t had the headspace available to even think about that.

Step one, we woke a second coven. Step two, I need to write a spell that will push back Kate’s hunger or eliminate it. Then, we fix the gate and repair the broken worlds. Once we’ve done that, we’ll break the Hag Wytch curse—permanently.

I feel good, having a plan in place. But my stomach rumbles, and my throat gets dry and itchy at the distance between me and Kate. Me and Marlowe. Once all of this is taken care of, we’re back to sharing the same air at all times. Take showers together. Sleep together. Wake together. Eat together. Fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck.

I rub a hand down my face. Kate has no idea how sorry I’ll make her when this is over. I’m going to give myself some time after we seal the gate but before we break the curse where she’s no longer hungry but still immortal. I’ll spank her ass until it bleeds. Let it heal. Do it all over again.

I look at Georgia and try to figure out where to start.

“The Witchwoods took over the real world, huh? Bummer.” Talia sums it up perfectly without my needing to say a word. She reaches out to slap the glowing cap of a mushroom bigger than she is, but Tanner is there to snatch her wrist and keep her from killing herself.

“Lesson one, kid. Everything—and I mean everything —in the Witchwoods tries to kill you,” he says, releasing her quickly as she gapes back at him. The one called Tacy is crying openly now. The one called Fernanda is stealing a cigarette from the passed-out teenager.

Georgia sighs and sweeps her dark hair back from her face.

“Where. is. Kate. going?” she repeats, and I try not to bristle at the sound of her voice. She cares about my wife, and I’m glad for that. True friends are as rare as romantic soulmates. I’m lucky to have two in my own coven.

“Come with me, and I’ll explain over coffee.” I turn and exit the cemetery, the creaking gate the only sound in the damp night besides our own footsteps.

Georgia rubs her temples in circles, sitting at our breakfast table with a cup of tea. I might not like her, but I’m a good host. She didn’t want coffee? Fine. I made tea. All of the women have been given food and drink and warmer clothes. I’m an asshole, but I’m not a—

Oh. I was going to say I’m not a monster. But I am.

My mother would be so proud.

I lean against the counter with my arms crossed, all of the lids on my hat’s eyes sagging. I’m exhausted. That was a huge spell, and I’m not completely immune to the Hag Wytch’s lullaby. It’s essentially a sleep spell, and I’m resistant to Kate’s because we’re coven. But damn, does it make me pray fervently for a nap.

“Kate is the Hag Wytch,” Georgia says for what could easily be the twelfth time. Literally. Not figuratively. Twelve times. I’m tired of hearing it.

“Yes.” I make myself stay calm as the teenager, Talia, digs into the pancakes, scrambled eggs, and venison steaks that Tanner made for us to eat. All food tastes like lead to me at this point, but I’m not stupid enough to pine so hard for Kate that I end up sabotaging myself. I’ll eat. Drink plenty of water. Sleep.

I have that yellow legal pad floating in the air on my left, the black marker squeaking as I scrawl whatever random thoughts cross my mind. Hunger. My mentor had spells for staving off hunger. Useful for when resources are low. It’s costly and painful, but it works quick. How could I modify that?

The eyes on my hat close briefly to give me space to think.

Her spell calls for two fingers and two toes (the witch’s own digits, not someone else’s), but it’ll keep a person fed for six weeks. She has extensive notes on the versions performed by the coven that she sent home. It didn’t work with only one finger or one toe. Costly. Painful. Debilitating.

A terrible spell.

I’m nibbling at my thumbnail and I realize that Georgia is talking again. I wish she’d pipe down, so I could get this spell finished. Nothing is more important than this spell.

I turn my head to look at her, and she frowns at me.

“Put us to work. What do we need to do?” she asks, rising to her feet and fixing that ridiculous hat of hers. I’ll be shocked if those things ever grow sentient. I purposefully blink all of my eyes in random order. They’re dry and tired, so they make this horrible sticky sound as I blink that causes Tacy to flinch. Poor Tacy. She wasn’t built for this world the way that Kate was.

“For starters, be quiet and give me some time to think.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Georgia says, turning to Tanner like she thinks he’ll be easier to deal with. Smart decision. He is.

“We can handle Kate on our own. She’s our North, after all,” he says, and his voice is like a blade of ice, daring Georgia to argue with him. He takes a bite of toast, wolf ears flattened against the brim of his hat. His shadow is crouched on top of the refrigerator, tails swaying as he observes the foreign coven in our kitchen.

My shadow is pulling away, trying to suck back into my body to get away from the foreign shadows in the room. Georgia and her caribou antlers. Tacy and her curly tails. Fernanda with the pixie wings. Talia with her sheep horns.

“Kate is our childhood friend. I’ve known her since forever.” Georgia stands up straight and throws her shoulders back. “We’ll help. Surely two covens can get the job done better than—”

“No.” My voice is sharp-edged. “You’ll need all of this time and then some to prepare for your own spell. For today, eat and shower and rest up so you’re in prime condition to cast. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a list of spell ingredients that you’ll need to collect.”

I walk away and somehow find myself in our bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed with a sigh. I take off my hat and ruffle up my red and black hair, lifting my head to stare into the mirror above the dresser.

The legal pad floats beside me, scratching out notes.

For the ten months I was alone in the Witchwoods, I experimented with my mentor’s spells, read all her books, learned the fundamentals. For example, if you want to unlock a door, you need an item that opens, like one of those many-fanged shellfish that live in the Witchwoods creeks. A faerie door stolen from the base of a tree. A witch mouth that opens for a kiss with tongue.

It’s all about adaptation, learning what the magic wants and finding something bigger and better to feed it with.

Fingers and toes. This spell needs sacrifice, personal sacrifice. In my mentor’s version, she’s using the witch’s own body parts like cannibalism in a cauldron. How do we replace that in a way that’ll settle the stomach of the Hag Wytch?

“If Kate’s hunger is loneliness instead of flesh, how do we replicate that sacrifice?” I mumble as Tanner walks into the room, taking his hat off and sitting beside me on the bed. He sits closer than would be normal for two platonic friends. Even puts his hand on my leather-clad thigh.

“What is it that we’re feeling right now?” he asks, and even though he’s not wearing his hat, the ears fold awkwardly at the sounds from downstairs. For days, we’ve been living in complete silence, the only living things on the planet that are awake. The women and their clinking china and their chatter feel so loud. I can’t concentrate.

I fling my hand out and our bedroom door slams shut.

“Feeling now?” I repeat, trying to parse his meaning from his question. I rub at my chest, at that yawning chasm that opens whenever our coven is separated. It’s like a heart attack and strangulation and slow poisoning all at once. Loneliness.

Something we could give up. Fingers and toes. Cannibalism in a cauldron.

The eyes on my hat blink again, that sticky sound making me cringe. Absently, I tug the nightstand drawer open and draw out a bottle of eye drops. I start with the largest eye and work my way through the rest, sighing as my pen writes down: forced separation, stretching coven bonds.

“Fuck.” It clicks all of a sudden, and I turn to Tanner with what I hope is an appropriate look of awe and appreciation.

“You figured it out?” he says, and his voice is wary, like he isn’t sure what the expression on my face is supposed to be. “I was hoping to give you a prompt, but—”

“Come with me. Now.” I stand up and toss my hat into the air, trusting my shadow to arrange it nicely on my hair. It uses shadow fingers to tug that black-streaked swoop of bang out from underneath the brim, letting it spring against my forehead the way Kate likes. “I’ve got an idea.”

The forest floor is soaked with blood, and my stomach churns at the sight.

This is the spot where Kate’s body fell, her severed arm landing on top of her. The ground is still wet and spongy from all of that liquid, a cluster of bright green moss soaked through and stained. Looking at it reminds me how close we came to total disaster. Compared to losing Kate, to her losing us, these problems we’re dealing with now are nothing.

“Gather as much of the blood as you can. Scrape droplets off the tree bark. Pull up plants. Dig up dirt.” My shadow swoops low, holding the wicker shopping basket that’s shaped like Kate’s plump ass.

“God, I love that pussy basket,” Tanner murmurs, giving me a small smile. Doesn’t affect a single other part of his face. He’s not happy. He’s not carefree. But he’s good at pretending. “Did you notice that when we tease Kate, she relaxes a little? Stops thinking so hard about the curse. There’s something to that, I’ll bet.”

“I’ll bet you’re right,” I tell him as we both get to work, harvesting our own grief and loneliness from the stoic scene in a place that isn’t quite the Witchwoods, that isn’t quite the McKay tract, but a hybrid of the two.

Dark orange fungi cling to the trunks of trees, and purple fungi with green stripes grow upside down from a large branch. The body of a brown deer is collapsed on its side in slumber. Another one with antlers made of crystal, catching a stray shaft of sunlight, also sleeping. The canopy above our heads is thick, shading us in grayscale darkness, but the sun is there. Somewhere, above and beyond these trees, the sun is there. The sea, too. I can smell it.

I can also smell Kate, and I let myself feel it. The pain of hearing her scream. The horror of her blood spattering across my boots. The cold, empty yawning inside of me when she passed. Our coven bond was brittle and frayed, threatening to break. Threatening to drop us both over the edge of a cliff into sad, lonely oblivion.

Tanner and I work in grim, tense silence, sponging the woods of our lover’s blood.

“Please tell me this ends happily for us,” Tanner murmurs, looking up at the dark branches overhead as we walk. While everything is asleep, the Witchwoods are still dangerous. Poisonous mushrooms, like the one that Talia almost touched. Bell-shaped flowers filled with an acidic digestive acid. Vines with six inch thorns.

“Of course it will. Did you even need to ask?” I flick my tongue against my teeth in annoyance, walking behind our shadows as they drag the heavy basket in the direction of the cottage. The extra eyes on my hat scan the woods for danger as Tanner checks the trees, frowning. “Something up there?” I ask him, going stiff.

He wouldn’t look up for no reason.

“Ghost, maybe,” he says, but if Tanner is wary then I’m wary, too. Always trust the skills of your team, and this is what Tanner does best. Hunting. “Ghosts, plural, possibly.”

I stop walking, and he does the same. We look at each other.

“I don’t have time for this.” I mean that. I don’t. If my mentor and my sister are around, they’ll have to wait. Both of them would understand.

We start walking again, leaving the basket outside when we arrive at the cottage. Inside and down the stairs, the pair of us face our emotions as we look at the scene again.

Since Tanner knows we need to grieve for the spell ingredients to work, he lets himself feel it all. Hits his knees on the floor, hands limp against his thighs, gaze on the ruined spell circle and all of the blood. It’s still fresh and hot and liquid. Something about the Hag’s lullaby stops decomposition. Meat and fruit don’t spoil while we sleep. We don’t age. And yet time is obviously passing.

I lower myself to the ground and lean back against the wall, closing all of my eyes to take it in. There’s no time. That voice whispers in the back of my head, but I don’t listen to it.

Spell ingredients. Place of immense grief, pain, and loneliness. Here I am, feeling it all. Marlowe will need to come back and do his part before it’ll work. As soon as I’m done here, I’ll switch places with him and spend my time chasing after Kate.

However it works—even if she is a person-eating owl monster with a human face—we’ll be here for her. We’re coven, and coven is forever.

I open my eyes, and let my hat cry again. I collect the tears in a jar. Then Tanner and I begin the laborious process of gathering our mixed blood off the floor. I pick up the knives we used to stab ourselves with and turn them over, examining the gems in the hilts. Blue, purple, and red. There’s a fourth matching blade in one of the cabinets. It has a green gem.

I pack the knives up, my mind working like that floating notepad. Scribbling ideas. Figuring things out. Necessity is the mother of invention, and my necessity is so great that all I can do is invent my way out of this. Write new spells. Test fresh theories. Do things my mentor never did.

On my way out of the cottage, her spirit appears to me, materializing to the left of the front door. I’m the one who starts up the conversation, speaking in her native language. I also start off by being a colossal dick when that’s really the last thing I want to do.

“I really don’t have the time right now. I have to save the woman I love.” A pause from me. “My North.”

My mentor smiles with black-inked lips, mouthing silent words at me.

“ You knew the Hag Wytch was from my coven, didn’t you?” she asks, and I sigh, turning to look at her with Tanner at my back. He folds one wolf ear down, pricks the other, and leans around me to get a better look at her.

“Sorry the circumstances aren’t better, or I’d stick around and chat.” Tanner gives a two-finger salute, showing off the coven ink on his hand. The inverted wolf. The ram skull. The double tails. My mentor knows who he is right away, and her face crinkles, pleased to see me with a coven of my own.

“ I like your East. You are very lucky.” Her turn to pause, tilting her head at me like she’s disappointed. The tattoos on her ghostly face are in grayscale. Long earrings made of bone. A black pointed hat dripping with charms. A feathered cloak over a black dress.

I see it all now, even though she’s as gauzy and transparent as the fog. That wrinkled old face, that matter-of-fact press of lips. There was a reason she lived alone in the woods. That she didn’t want to form a coven with me. She didn’t need one: she already had one. Once a coven, always a coven.

“Thank you.” I’m sincere when I say that. She nods, and then her face tightens, pit-eyes turning to black slits.

“ But this situation could go sour for you quickly, like it did for us. Stop following that North around. She is right: fix the gate and keep her caged.”

“You failed your South. I’m not going to fail my North.” I stay where I am, knowing that we’re losing precious seconds but also understanding that she’d only appear if this was it. Wherever it is that spirits go, that’s where she’ll be headed, no longer trapped inside her own coven mate.

Kate has changed a lot of lives by being selfless.

“ You can’t break this curse with magic,” the old woman explains, peering at me with the unwavering confidence of the dead. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

That irks me. I feel like I know better. You don’t always, Brooks. Listen carefully.

“If I can’t break it with magic, I’ll find someone to take Kate’s place,” I warn my mentor, but she just shakes her head. Her hair is this complicated knot on the back of her head that I never could figure out.

“ Your North will suffer, no matter what. She has to, or the spell comes unraveled. Take my advice and stay away from her until it’s over. Once our South had eaten the other members of our coven, I never saw my friend emerge again. It was just me and a mindless, starving owl.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I reply, truly thankful for the advice. This information will help me finalize the details for the hunger spell. If Kate isn’t trying to eat us, then she can be with us, and we can use the power of a full coven to do whatever needs doing.

This is how we climb out of the dark well we’re drowning in.

“ Goodnight, Southwoods,” my mentor says, and that’s it. She’s gone. Forever. She did not, even in the final moment, offer me her name. Because she’s right: she failed her coven and didn’t deserve one.

I’ll have to see if I’m worthy of mine.

I quite like being Mr. Poppy.