Chapter 13

Kate

We walk back to the house in a group, no longer invisible. Conspicuous. Half-naked. I adjust my necklace to cover my breasts and try to take solace in the fact that the searchers and cops are long-gone, pushed away from this part of the forest by our spell. People are up and getting ready for work, but not a lot of them.

If we hurry home, we might get there without incident.

Brooks tears his mask off, letting it hang from the chain around his neck. He doesn’t talk though. Instead, he stalks ahead like somebody who’s very angry but very controlled, holding back his rage to deal with later. That’s a little scary.

I take my own mask off, scarcely able to believe that we’re walking down the sidewalk beside the forest, a row of houses across the road from us. One of them is a pale pink, another yellow, a third a soft mint green. All three could use a new paint job.

My friends take their masks off only after I do, but nobody speaks. It still feels wrong somehow, taboo in the early dawn light. The sun is crisp today, but it’s cold, and my nipples are inappropriately pebbled against the weather. Fog drifts across the ground in snatches and old memory, a vestige of last night’s misty creep. The sun eats it up as it beams down, banishing it. I smell salt on the wind.

We arrive safely at my place and head inside. After getting the girls seated in the kitchen with coffee, I sprint up the stairs to put on some proper clothes. Tanner follows me, setting his own mask on the top of my dresser with a clink.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” I ask him softly, sure that it’s okay to talk now. Flick is here, licking Tanner’s palm when he should be licking mine. Unfaithful mutt. I almost smile, but it’s not that sort of morning. I can’t stop thinking about the white glisten of Brooks’ bone, of his blood draining out on the sofa, of Viv begging not to be left behind and John scarfing food like he was starving.

Tonight was bad, but it could’ve been much, much worse.

We got lucky.

“Mad?” Tanner asks, turning to me with the laces on his leather pants undone. He reaches out and takes my face in his huge hands. “Not on my end.” I let him use his thumbs to tilt my chin up, those rough fingertips stroking over the dried, flaking blood on my throat. “Although, I’d be a shitty partner if I didn’t call you out.” Tanner pauses, and I wonder if he can see the slight change in my pulse at the word partner. “You know you fucked up, right?”

I have no idea what to say to that. I saved my friends. We discovered that the two missing cops are still alive. Not only that, but by guiding them (or manhandling them) back to the cottage, Tanner probably saved their lives.

Yet … I know what he means. I should’ve paused, took a breath, talked to my coven first. That’s my biggest complaint about the men, isn’t it? That they don’t talk to me first, don’t tell me what’s going on.

“I’ll deal with Brooks,” is my response, and Tanner quirks a brow. Instead of kissing me like I thought he might, he takes a step back and obstinately shoves his pants down his hips, ignoring the bounce of his hard cock as it pops free of the fabric. I try not to look, turning away and stripping off my own pants. My witch hat. My necklace. “You’re sure you’re not mad?” I ask again, risking a glance over my shoulder.

Tanner’s ass is right there. And holy fuck does he have a nice one. Taut, firm cheeks, but not flat like some men’s asses. Plump. Just a little bit plump. I bite my lip and turn away, facing toward the window and the sun-soaked backyard.

Flick has his paws on the windowsill, looking between us and the glass, silently begging for a game of frisbee or maybe a round of bacon-scented pet-friendly bubbles. He’ll jump six feet or higher just to bite one.

“Why would you think I’m mad? Because I’m not fucking you right now?” he asks me, and I grit my teeth against the sound of his smug, all-knowing laughter. “Nothing to do with that. You messed up, Kate, but your intentions were good. Besides …” I turn around to see Tanner, dressed in a pair of my sweatpants (these motherfuckers). He’s pulling a muscle tank over his head, the fabric catching on his nose and lips as he glances back at me. “You looked about two seconds away from tying me up to keep me from leaving the cottage. Worried I wouldn’t come back?”

“Of course I was worried,” I admit, because there’s no point in denying it. Tanner’s gaze scrapes down the length of me, and he bites hard into his lower lip, teeth flashing. Slightly pointed teeth, too. He turns the rest of the way around, and I feel suddenly conscious of my breasts in a way I wasn’t a few seconds ago.

“Please put some clothes on, Kate. You trying to kill me?” His voice is gruff, strained, hands flexing and unflexing at his sides. I guess … I am surprised that he isn’t fucking me right now. I’d tell him no, because my friends are downstairs and I don’t want to be that person. But shouldn’t he at least try? Tanner rubs his hand over his mouth, scraping over the fresh stubble on his face. “That was a nice feeling, kitten. To be wanted like that. To be missed.”

I quickly gather some clothes from my dresser, yanking them on and then hastily pulling my long hair into a ponytail without bothering to brush it. I’m a mess. I need a shower. We all do. This is just a stop-gap measure so that we can get the girls home without being filmed and going … what’s the exponential form of going viral?

“Thank you for deciding to like me,” I tell him, turning so that we’re facing each other, just a foot or so apart. I wonder where Marlowe is? I know why Brooks didn’t follow me up here. And my girls … I should get back downstairs. “But I want you to like me for real.”

“Pretty sure we want the same thing. Don’t stress it. We get on well, don’t you think?” He licks his lips and brushes his thumb across the edge of his mouth. “Shit.” Tanner turns away like he’s having trouble controlling himself, opening the door to the hallway.

Flick immediately scrambles to follow. I suppose I should consider that a good sign, that my dog likes him so much. I’m only slightly salty about being abandoned. With a sigh, I head after them both, pausing briefly in the upstairs bathroom to scrub some of the blood from my face and arms.

I find Marlowe downstairs in a hooded sweatshirt, face clean and fresh. He’s waiting in the living room, occupying his usual spot on the couch.

My cat is in his lap.

My jaw drops open. First my dog and now my cat?

I stop walking.

Tanner’s crow flutters down to land on his shoulder, and he makes a trilling sound that the black-beaked bird returns. The three of them (Tanner, his bird, and my dog) disappear into the kitchen, giving me a second with Marlowe.

His dark eyes are enigmatic, but beautiful, and his inked fingers are stroking down the back of my very angry, very bite-y cat like she’s an angel instead of a demon. I honestly can’t believe what I’m seeing. How is she not biting him? She bites everyone.

“I want to yell at you, Kate. You dragged me back into the Witchwoods.” Marlowe pauses and looks to the side, like he can’t bear to meet my eyes right now. I think about that nearly empty bedroom of his, all of his things tucked into a nest in the corner. Piled around his bed like a wall against the world. Temporary and lonely and sad. Miriam and Dennis were willing to hold candlelight vigils, but they weren’t willing to sacrifice for him.

My throat catches.

“So yell at me,” I tell him, but he just laughs, gently scooping the cat up and putting her aside. She bites him then, and he curses, but that’s all he does. I love that he doesn’t get angry with her.

Marlowe walks up to me, still wearing his witch hat. When he sweeps it off his head and tosses it over mine, I know we’ve come a long way, fast. I grab onto the wide brim with both hands, one on either side, and watch him move away from me into the kitchen.

We’re barely allowed to be in separate rooms.

I’m meant to follow.

Might as well get this over with.

I head after him to find Brooks in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, unbuttoned. He’s wiped some of the blood from his face, but that’s about it.

My friends are sitting in a circle around the kitchen table, all of their eyes flicking to me as soon as I walk through the doorway. Marlowe is waiting to the right, Tanner leaning back against one of the counters.

Brooks looks right at me, and I shiver. He is pissed.

“What do we do with them?” he asks, gesturing at my friends like they’re not even there. “I’m running low on memory loss charms, and the idea of fucking you to make some more sounds so unappealing that I can’t bear the idea.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes all eight of his eyes.

“Do with us? What is that supposed to mean?” Georgia asks, standing up from her chair. I have the idea that maybe those are the first words she’s spoken since we left the Witchwoods. “You don’t get to do anything with us. Memory loss charms? My mind is my own.”

My friend turns to me, worry and anger etched into her expression.

“We’re going to take you guys home for now. I think we all need time to process. But … whenever you’re ready, let’s talk.” I sound so reasonable, standing in my sunny kitchen like we didn’t almost die last night. Like we weren’t almost trapped. Again.

The Hag lured my friends into the woods with her song. I know that. I heard it for myself. How do I stop it from happening again, is the question. I turn to Brooks as Fernanda squirms in her seat and Tacy sits there with her elbows parked on the table, head in her hands. Tacy’s always been a militant realist. This can’t be easy for her to accept. Her entire reality has just shifted to something brand-new and terrifying.

“And don’t worry about memory loss charms,” I add, trying to act like Brooks’ comment about not wanting to fuck me doesn’t sting. “My friends won’t tell anyone. They won’t do anything. We just need to make sure that the Hag can’t call them back to the tree.”

Brooks stares at me, but I refuse to back down from that awful look on his face. I should probably feel penitent, because of what happened to him. He was this close to passing away in a place he vowed never to return to. But I have to stand up for my friends. I have to.

“They should form a coven.” He points at Georgia. “South.” And then over at Tacy. “East.” Fernanda is last. “West. They won’t be able to do big magic, but they’ll be more resistant to the Hag’s songs. That’s all the advice I have. There’s nothing else we can do to help them.” His words sear into me like a burn, a clear admonishment of my actions.

Creeping shadows fill the room, clawed and skittering and disconcerting. One for each person in our coven, of course. But others, too. Blotches of ink-black stuck to all three women. Fernanda’s … has pixie wings?

“A coven?” Tacy asks, finally lifting her head, limp brown hair hanging in a curtain around her sallow face. “What do you mean?”

“A coven,” Fernanda repeats, swallowing and then letting her gaze bounce around the men. I think she’d be happier if her coven was like mine. In fact, I think she’d be thrilled to have a coven like mine. “Okay. Let’s do it. How?”

“This is … a lot.” Georgia looks at me again, but I don’t have any better answers than Brooks. If forming a coven is the only way to keep them safe, then I want them to do it. “What about those people we left behind? Who’s going to help them escape the woods?”

Brooks makes a sound that tells me he’s precariously close to his breaking point.

“For now, take these.” Marlowe moves over to me and removes a few items from his hat, three small stones with holes in their centers. He tosses them onto the table. “These are hag stones. If you look through them, magic is stripped from you—for better or worse. Look regularly, and the Hag shouldn’t be able to call you.”

“The Hag?” Georgia breathes out, rubbing at her face. Yeah. We need to have a long talk, but not today. Later. She’s right: this is a lot. I never expected to share the Witchwoods with my friends, and I’m equal parts excited and terrified about the prospect.

“It’ll take a few weeks—or longer—for you to finish the rituals to form a proper coven,” Tanner adds, since it’s obvious that Brooks is already done with this conversation. “Keep the hag stones, use them. We’ll get you a list of ingredients that you’ll need to gather for the ritual.”

Georgia looks like she wants to kill somebody—preferably one of these men. Fernanda looks dreamy-eyed and distant. Tacy looks half-dead already.

With a bit of convincing, I manage to get my friends outside and into the truck. We leave the men to sit in the cab, the four of us piling into the bed so that we can face each other. It’s not exactly legal, but I don’t exactly care. We’ve ridden in the beds of trucks like this our entire lives, headed down to Willow Creek to search for Bigfoot or driven up winding forest roads to stay at Tacy’s family’s way-too-rustic cabin.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you.” Tacy is the first to say it, tears pricking her eyes. I’m shocked when she crawls forward and puts an arm around my neck, hugging me. I hug her back and it feels nice, like this experience might further my relationship with Tacy the way it’s furthering my relationship with Marlowe. Or breaking it, like it’s doing with Brooks. “It’s just … even if you trust someone, it’s hard to accept the impossible.”

“I wanted to believe so badly,” Fernanda murmurs, fiddling with the hem of her sundress as Tacy returns to her spot in the corner of the truck bed. “I wanted you to be right, even if logically I knew that you couldn’t possibly be. All my life, I’ve wanted to live inside of a book.” I catch sight of a fleeting, private smile on her face. “Now, it feels like I am. For the first time, I feel like a main character.”

I laugh at that, the wind catching my hair, redwood trees slinking lazily past as Brooks drives slowly down the street. According to Georgia, the three of them ended up at her parents’ place to drink some beer and discuss their concerns about me and these strange men that I dragged back from the woods. They’d gone for a walk and somehow ended up at the Witch’s Tree. Having heard the Hag’s luring lullaby, it makes so much more sense now.

“I believed you because you never gave me a reason not to,” Georgia says simply, plainly, one arm thrown over her bent knee. She’s wearing cigarette pants and a deep, contemplative frown. I’ve always known she was the closest person to me after Gram died, that if I needed someone to count on, it could only be her.

My throat closes up, and I wonder if now might be a good time to reveal that we used a memory loss spell on her once before. The longer I keep that truth from Georgia, the worse it’ll be. But I’m tired, and it’s been a long night. I decide to save it for our next meeting.

“Thank you,” I tell her simply, because it’s the only thing I can say.

She nods, but I can see a complex web of emotion in her dark brown eyes. If she only knew what Brooks was suggesting, how big a commitment it would be if the girls did form a coven. It wouldn’t be the same sort of coven that we have, with bukkake in the woods and all that.

It’d be something different, a sisterhood. My throat gets even tighter, and I tuck my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. Georgia watches me, like she can sense there’s a lot more to all of this than what she’s seen and heard thus far.

“If we formed a coven …” Fernanda trails off, pushing her pink hair off her forehead and stroking it nervously with her fingers. “Then we could do magic? Real magic?”

“Real magic,” I admit, and then we’re pulling up to the curb in front of the house I painted, the very last one I did before my heart and mind were split open by the Witchwoods.

The women and I hug each other, say our goodbyes, and then I climb into the truck to sit beside Tanner. He puts an arm around my shoulder and holds me close in a way that’s brand-new for both of us. Unfamiliar to him, something I desperately want but am afraid to admit to.

Affection. Connection. Family.

Brooks doesn’t talk to me, and Marlowe stares at me a lot. For such a short drive, it’s impactful. A hundred things that are unsaid. A million ways to communicate without words.

Once we’re home, I head upstairs, curl up on my bed and fall promptly asleep.

In my dreams, I can hear the Hag singing a morbid dirge. When I wake, that sense of unease sticks with me throughout the rest of the week.