Page 3 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

“ Oh, she broke a sacred coven! She ate their hearts.”

I sprint past forest spirits waving their twig-like arms, past fae things with no mouths and glowing skin, past beasts and monsters and creatures and slugs and flocks of birds with shimmering eyes. I dart through the darkness of the woods, past things fantastical and mundane. My breath puffs out of me as I slip in the mud, putting my hand on the trunk of a massive redwood tree, forging my way through a forest that I know I can’t trust.

Tugged. Summoned. Forced.

Spelled.

It ceases to matter as I run, emerging into a clearing that I recognize.

The Pit lies in front of me, bloated with blood and bodies, the wood planks we left here half-sunk and soaked in gore. Corpse pumpkins bloom across the surface, dozens of them, reminding me of where I came from and where I want to go. Reminding me of everything I’ve lost tonight. Reminding me that, when it comes down to it, I have nothing left to lose.

I stop and catch my breath, the sweet, sickly scent of decay muffled by the blood on my own face and the fresh earth and pine scent of the woods around me. Clenching my hands into fists, I walk around the edge of the Pit and pause in front of the stone wall that leads up to a cave.

I’m weak and shaky, in desperate need of food and sleep, but none of that matters. I summon vines to aid my climb, thorny green things sprouting from the gray of the rock, and I grab on. One hand and one foot at a time, I make my way up with my shadow’s help.

It’s not an easy climb. It wouldn’t be an easy climb on a day where I was well-rested and mentally sound. Since I’m an undead witch with a broken heart, it’s even harder. My fingers curl around the stone at the mouth of the cave, and I let out a mixed-bag groan—more like a scream—as I drag my body up and into the warm miasma of the Hag Wytch’s nest.

I fall to my back, panting, and then force my aching bones into a sitting position. The Hag’s lullaby has stopped, but I can feel her the way some people feel a storm coming. Pressure pushing down on an old wound. Mine isn’t physical, but loneliness is a pang that hurts worse than a broken bone. That’s where I feel her, in the depths of my lonely heart.

I turn, finding a length of tunnel leading to a small chamber. The walls are infested with webs of bioluminescent fungi and flowers that smell worse than the Pit outside. I shift myself onto my hands and knees and then push up to my feet.

There’s a sound echoing down the hall toward me, the sound of chewing. Visceral, wet snaps of teeth on flesh and bone, like a starving dog on carrion. The tang of blood is as strong in here as it was back at the cottage. I choke on that smell, pushing my metal mask up to cover my nose and mouth without hooking it into place.

My boots crunch over old bones, turning them to dust. The ground is littered with them, decorated in feathers and dried grasses and dirt. I ease forward, one step at a time, dressed in the blood of my lovers, wearing a sentient hat with a tongue, and pants made of monster leather.

Wearing the heavy mantle of a grudge.

The Hag Wytch is crouched in the chamber at the end of the tunnel, tucked into a nest made of pine branches, spiderwebs, and hair. Human hair, from the looks of it. Curly brown hair and wavy blond hair. Straight black. White. Gray. Auburn. A stripe of neon green.

I pause in the doorway, and the Hag cranes her head around to look at me, bloodied flesh dangling from her lips. I see a foot attached to that flesh, still wearing a pink and white tennis shoe. My eyes shift from the Hag’s mouth to her eyes, those massive blue orbs, like two full moons in a freakish hybrid face. Not human. Not owl. Something caught in-between.

Something trapped.

The Hag tilts her head back and bites down on the meat, causing the shoe and the foot inside of it to tumble to the floor. Her throat undulates as she swallows, talons scraping across the nest as she swivels the rest of her body to match the direction of her head.

We stare at each other.

The Hag chirps from her beak, ruffling up her feathers and settling into the nest. She tucks her wings in tight against her sides and stares at me, like she’s waiting for something. I’m reluctant to look at anything but her, but I can’t help it.

There are trinkets hanging from the walls, pieces of the world suspended by white string.

Clothing. A Polaroid camera. Several phones with cracked screens. A glittery pink purse. A bow with a broken string. A violin. A notebook. Dozens of pens. A red heel. A stuffed bear.

I look back at the Hag, but all she’s doing is observing me. My arm, where she bit it off, aches so fiercely that I clamp a hand over it, Tanner’s rough stitches digging into my skin. Tanner. Fuck. Oh, Tanner. Brooks. Marlowe.

Tears spring to my eyes as I take a step closer to the nest. Resisting her spell. Failing horrendously under the power of a forest god. I touch my shaky fingers to the brim of my hat for strength, cutting myself on one of the fangs that circle its wide brim.

“ Kill me, God. Just kill me!” the Hag whispers from her human mouth, voice crazed. The last words of another victim.

“You want to die so badly? Fine. I want to kill you for what you did to us.” My voice sounds stronger than I feel, and my hat reacts to that confidence, licking the tears from my face with the undulating tongue of a demon. It bares its teeth at her as I drop my hands to my sides, clenching them into fists.

“ Yes, sir,” the Hag replies, in my own voice.

It takes me a minute to process that.

I’m one of her victims, and … if I think back on the events that led to this moment, I see that those were my last words. If the men were here with me, maybe we could make light of our trauma. Maybe I’d find that funny. Maybe I’d be pissed at Brooks for getting me to say that.

Maybe I’d be happy.

I take another step forward, crushing more items underfoot. Trinkets and toys and books and piles of garbage that I kick out of my way. Just like she’s collected the corpses of her victims, the Hag has collected their flashlights and their backpacks and their jewelry.

She leans down, putting her face close enough to mine that if she wanted to take my head off with her beak, she could. With her human mouth, even. She can open her jaw like a snake, so if she wanted to use those flat, ivory teeth to decapitate me, she could do that, too.

The Hag Wytch blinks those long, curled eyelashes at me, and I lose it. My jaw clenches. I grit my teeth. Rage surges through me, a volcanic eruption of unprocessed pain. I just walked away from the cottage where the people I love the most are trapped.

“My men have no eyes because of you,” I whisper, voice hoarse. “My coven has no voice.”

The Hag tilts her head at me.

“ Yes, sir,” she replies and, with her beak nearly pressed to my nose, I lose it.

I shove my face up against hers, and I let out this violent, wild scream of rage.

The sound echoes in the stone tunnel, bouncing off the walls and making the trinkets on the ceiling sway. There’s a chandelier made of antlers above the Hag’s head, lit with candles. Their flames flicker and dance, throwing my shadow violently around the room.

The Hag opens her beak and she shrieks right back at me, blowing my hair back from my face with the force of it. My hands come up and grip the brim of my hat, and I yell at her again. Louder this time. Furious. Grieving. Desperate.

Desperate people are dangerous.

I am dangerous.

The Hag Wytch smiles at me using her human mouth, teeth stained with blood. A satisfied smile. It’s terrifying. If I could physically make myself run, I would. If I could cast, I’d beg the forest for protection from this monster.

She settles back into her nest and then, with me standing alone and vulnerable in her lair, she starts to sing again.

My lids grow heavy. My heart rate slows. My limbs are lead weights.

Ahh, now she’s putting me to sleep.

I drop like a coin in a well, spinning and tumbling into the nonsense of a dream.

“ What would you give up to save your coven?”

“ Everything.”

“ Are you certain?”

“ I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

I’m moaning when I come to, sounds of pain scraping past lips that are flaky with dried blood. It’s an effort to push myself up into a sitting position, an eerie horror settling over me when I realize that I’m inside the nest made of human hair and redwood boughs. Spiders skitter across the surface, building webs that glimmer softly in the half-dark, sugaring the macabre confection with cotton candy silk.

There’s a woman sitting in the nest with me, two massive wings protruding from her back. Blood smeared across her face. Big blue eyes. Long, dark lashes. Hair like spilled ink over her naked white shoulders. It pools on the floor of the nest, tangled up in her clawed fingers as she leans in toward me, putting her weight on her palms. She’s situated on her knees, but sitting splay-legged, pale dirty feet on either side of her.

She peers at me just like the Hag peered at me.

No, not just like the Hag.

She is the Hag; this woman is the Hag.

This woman is a witch.

“What the fuck?” I whisper, scooting away from her until my back is pressed to the edge of the nest. I don’t even care about the spiders as they skitter away from me, legs tickling my bare back and shoulders. What I do care about is the winged-girl with the bloody mouth, scooting closer to me. Reaching for me.

I cringe, goose bumps springing up across my skin, as she puts her hands on my upper arms. Her pointed fingernails dig into my flesh, white-hot pricks of pain that I ignore, too fixed on the desperation in her eyes.

On the loneliness.

“ Is there seriously no way out of this stupid forest?” The Hag speaks to me through the words of her victims, like always. A guy’s voice this time, young and cocky. I’m frozen under her touch, still blinking away the cobwebs of sleep.

This woman isn’t from 2004 or 1988 or even 1955. She’s from a time and maybe even a place that’s so far removed from my reality that she may as well be an alien.

But she lured me here for a reason. She hunted our coven for a reason. She wants something from me, and I have the sickening feeling that everything that’s happened up until this point has been by her design.

“What do you want ?” I whisper back at her, voice rough. It’s a valid question. I didn’t end up here by accident.

The woman drops her hands from my arms, sitting back and watching me as she combs her hair over her shoulder with her fingers. It doesn’t even seem like she’s conscious of doing it, more like it’s just old habit. On the wall behind her, there’s a shadow with small two-pronged antlers. The air is thick and hot, but when I swallow, I taste ash and smell brimstone.

A Southwoods, like Brooks.

My fingers brush the hilt of the machete at my waist, and her eyes flick to it. Then back to my face. There’s a disturbing eagerness to her expression that makes me hesitate.

The Hag Wytch wants me to kill her, and that’s the only reason I don’t already have her blood on my hands.

“All of that, just to die?” I ask, and my voice isn’t a whisper anymore. It’s not tentative or rough. I sound angry again. “You chased us, hunted us, killed me, and for what, so we’d find you and put a stop to it all?”

The Hag says nothing.

She reaches up, very calmly, and cuts a line across her throat with a witch claw, slitting her neck and spilling blood. It rains red down her chest and, in just a few seconds, it heals completely. She drops her hand to her lap and then looks pointedly at my machete.

My throat burns at the sight. My arm aches. I remember dying, and then, worse, I remember coming back to life. My fingers clench around the leather-wrapped hilt, and my arm shakes with the threat of violence. Not yet. Not just yet.

“What happens if I kill you?” I ask, waiting for a response. Her eyes peer back at me, and I can see the pulse of humanity inside them. The Hag is a person. Was a person.

“ I’ll do anything, just get me out of here!” she cries in the voice of a teenage girl. The Hag Wytch cocks her head to the side. Dark hair slithers over her shoulder and a spider crawls up the length of it.

“Anything, huh?” I laugh, and it’s an ugly sound. “Can you resurrect my coven?” I’m asking a stupidly impossible question. I’ve lost my mind. I know that her song lured me out here, but what’s happening now is entirely on me. I’m asking for help from the one who did this to me in the first place.

“ Yes, sir,” she tells me again, stealing my voice.

I can’t breathe. I squeeze the weapon so hard that my palm squeaks on the hilt.

“Liar,” I finally manage. If it took three lives to resurrect one, what sort of sacrifice would it take to bring them all back? Something big. Something dark. Magic doesn’t come cheap.

“ No. No. No!” The Hag screams this back at me, nails clawing at the dirt. Her pupils are big and black, obscuring the vibrant blue hue of her irises. A toad watches us from the edge of the nest, staring with a single red eye in the center of its head.

I’d say the Hag’s offer sounds too good to be true, but this is a lucrative arrangement for her, isn’t it?

The Hag Wytch broke our coven on purpose. Now, she’s offering it back to me. In the process, she’ll get what she wants most: her own death.

“If I kill you, then you’ll save them?” I clarify, and her face shifts to something feral.

“ Damn this curse.” The Hag Wytch hisses those words, her voice that of an old woman. “This was a mistake. Death isn’t the worst outcome. This is. This is hell.”

Magic flares bright and hot around us, a swirl of dust and debris that tears up the nest, sending bits and bobs flying. Glass breaks. A marble hits me in the cheek. An old laptop with a pink lid smashes into the wall and shatters. The antler-chandelier swings above us, and our shadows dance in erratic patterns around the chamber.

The forest spirits are screaming so loudly outside the tunnel that I can hear them, even from in here.

“ Kill the Hag Wytch, become the Hag Wytch! She eats everything!” They’re absolutely wild, shrieking and tearing the woods apart as other creatures flee their manic cries. I hear branches breaking, foliage rustling. A snort. A growl. The scream of a dying rabbit.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Fuck.

Kill the Hag Wytch … become the Hag Wytch?

Well. That’s the price then. That’s the price of three lives.

I look up to find that she’s still staring at me. Waiting. She really did orchestrate this, didn’t she? Set us up. Stalked us. Made it happen.

“I assume you need me to accept this fate willingly?” My voice is dry, almost sarcastic. She doesn’t answer me. She doesn’t need to. If we could’ve simply killed her in combat, she would already be dead. That’s what makes this a curse, I suppose. “Well-played. I must wear my heart on my sleeve, huh?”

I tear the machete free of its sheath, staring down at the bloodied silver of the blade. An accidental witch with a choice to make. Do I curse myself to save my coven?

Only, it’s not much of a choice at all. Brooks, Tanner, Marlowe—they’re worth it.

I grit my teeth and swing the blade.

The machete slices through the pale skin of the Hag’s human throat, spraying red across my face. The candles on the chandelier flicker and then go out, leaving us with the dim light of the fungi on the walls to see by. It’s like standing in a dark room with uranium glass and a black light.

There’s a gurgling inhale, and then the sound of the Hag’s body slumping to one side. A final exhale. My own shuddered breath.

My witch eyes adjust to the darkness in time to see the image of the Hag Wytch—the owl version of her anyway—crouched over the dead body of the woman I’ve just killed.

She has no eyes, just pits, like a ghost. Spreading her wings, she surges forward and slides right through me. My own breath cuts off in a choke, and I drop the machete by my side, hand slick with blood. The Hag’s spirit passes by with a gust of wind, whipping my hair around and undoing my braid. I swipe strands of it away from my lips, whirling around to see her disappear into the tunnel.

I scramble over the side of the nest, chasing after her as she flies ahead of me and then exits the mouth of the cave. I pause with my boots just inches from the edge.

Resting my palm against the stone wall, I watch as the Hag circles the Pit several times and then … she’s a woman again. She tumbles through the air and, despite being a ghost, she makes a splash when she lands in the blood and gore below, sinking into it and disappearing.

For exactly three heartbeats, all is silent in the woods.

I lean closer, peering down, waiting to see if she’ll surface or if that’s it, if I’ve done it. Killed a god. Killed a girl. I have no idea. The red ooze of the Pit swirls, creating a whirlpool of bones and decay. The bodies sink into it, disappearing from view.

Slowly, gently, it begins to bubble, like a pot on a stove. Glowing orbs emerge from the liquid, drifting like lanterns into the dark underbrush of the woods.

“ She damned herself and blessed them.” The forest spirits are still frantic, running through the branches and waving their arms in triumph. They’re also crying, and I feel goose bumps on every inch of my body. “Look at all the dancing ghosts.”

Something big has just happened.

Something huge.

The air is filled with soft whispers and laughter, with the easy, relaxed cadence of the orbs as they float like gossamer bubbles in the early morning fog. Their light is reflected back by the pool of blood underneath, casting ruby shimmers across all the trees. It’s haunting, but beautiful, like standing in a graveyard.

Ghosts? These are ghosts? The ones she ate?

Are the souls of the Hag’s victims free now? What about Brooks’ little sister? I can only take a wild guess based on what I see, what I feel. There’s a pungent relief in the Witchwoods, like maybe everything is going to be okay. A collective sigh, really. A happy coo from the forest spirits.

But not from me.

There’s a pressure, a pain in my upper back that makes me gasp, knocks me to my knees at the mouth of the cave. I reach over my shoulder, clawing at my skin and finding a massive lump on my upper back. Two lumps. An involuntary scream escapes me as I collapse, writhing and kicking and clawing at the stone as I struggle to escape the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt.

Even worse than having my own throat slit by the Hag, than having my arm bitten off, than falling and breaking apart on impact.

I’m mindless with the agony, completely and utterly mindless, barely able to turn onto my hands and knees. It’s like my skin is being unzipped down the length of my spine, and then it all just comes unraveled, viscera and gore splattering the stone walls, a heaviness unfolding at the back of my neck.

I collapse, but it’s not over.

Not even close.

Kill the Hag Wytch. Become the Hag Wytch.