Chapter 22

Thirty-Two Years Earlier

Barataria Preserve, Marrero, Louisiana

C hloe slipped a hand underneath the plate-sized cap of the mushroom in front of her, a beautiful, plump Chanterelle that would feature marvelously in a dish. It was rare to find such a delicacy in this area of the forest; it was so close to a roadway, which, even though it wasn't regularly traveled, still meant very little chose to grow here. As an accomplished hedge witch who could commune with the plant life, drew her very magic from it, Chloe knew the car fumes and uneven sunlight coverage resulted in poor growing conditions for the little loves. She felt her way down the mushroom’s root system, pushing it to extend further into the soil, encouraging its growth and propagation.

When she opened her eyes once more, the area was flush with mushrooms, waving happily in the breeze. She smiled down at them before removing the large Chanterelle she had first noticed. What a wonderful evening . She cheerfully tucked the mushroom into her bag, humming softly as she did so..

Behind her, a sharp cry pierced the quiet night.

Chloe spun, looking for Cassandra, the coven’s seer who had come with her on the trip. The woman was shaking, the movement visible even from feet away. Running toward Cassandra, Chloe wrapped her slipped her arms around her sister's shoulders in a tight embrace. “What’s wrong, love?”

Cassandra’s face was pale as she withdrew from Chloe’s comforting hug and pointed towards the roadway silently. Chloe turned, unsure what to expect, but once she took in the sight before them, she recoiled violently.

A silent toddler, maybe a year or two old, sat on the ground beside the road. Her big stormy eyes observed the two sisters from a pale face beneath a shock of thick red curls. None of these were what had drawn Cassandra's attention, though—it wasn’t odd for female children displaying magical abilities to be deposited at the forest’s edge, even in this modern age.

No, the upsetting thing was that the little girl was splattered in blood, the crimson stains creating lace-like patterns along her pale skin. Next to the girl sat a black dog with three heads, each one bearing two ruby-colored eyes burning like embers as it stared distrustfully at Cassandra and Chloe.

On the other side of the toddler lay a dark-haired woman on her back, arms and legs sprawled inelegantly around her. A deep slash across her throat gaped like a second smile below her wider-than-fashionable plum-colored lips that would never rise in happiness again. Her life’s blood pooled around her, soaking through her clothes and drenching her hair before it drained away into the forest floor beneath her.

“No,” Chloe gasped, rushing toward the toddler and woman with Cassandra close behind.

The dog growled, a low-pitched warning. From several yards away, the witches heard a man’s voice. Screaming. Scared. “Evangeline! Luanne? Where are you? Evangeline!” The voice held an edge of hysteria, fraying and scratchy as if he had been shouting for hours. “Please! Please don’t leave me! Luanne, bring our little girl back!”

Chloe couldn’t see him from where she and Cassandra knelt. As a prophet, Cassandra was inherently sensitive to murder victims—a more common occurrence in their forest than one might expect—so Chloe left Cassandra to retrieve the infant and figure out how to deal with the dog while she tended to the body. The woman’s body hadn’t even cooled; she must have only just died. She flinched back at the feel of unfamiliar power tangling around the woman’s corpse. This magic felt odd. Old. Like nothing she had ever experienced. What in the realms could leave an imprint like that?

For the second time that night, Cassandra cried out. Chloe’s head jerked up in response as her sister’s face went slack, eyes unseeing, as she fell slowly to the ground. A prophecy. Garbled words, unintelligible to Chloe's ears, poured from Cassandra’s mouth. Even the mutant dog seemed uncomfortable at the witch now lying prone in front of it if the way it let Chloe ease closer to her sister and the toddler without putting up a fuss was any indication.

Although she wanted to confirm her sister was alright, Chloe knew better than to touch Cassandra mid-prophecy. She knelt next to her sister, waiting for her writhing to stop while taking note of the one phrase that Cassandra kept repeating, sometimes in whispers, sometimes as an outright scream that Chloe was surprised didn’t draw the attention of the man on the road: “The grave will find her; she is darkness. A lovely death. A deathly love.” Fear trickled down Chloe’s spine, but she maintained her vigil by Cassandra’s side, one eye on the dog and infant.

Mere breaths later, Cassandra gasped, a rattling sound in the silent night, and sat upright. She jerked, hands outstretched, reaching desperately, blindly, around her. “Chloe!”

“I’m here, Cassie, my darling,” Chloe replied, resting her hand on her sister’s cheek. The dog remained at the toddler’s side, silent but watching. Around them, the night had grown silent once more, the man’s cries vanished into the stillness of the bayou. “Are you alright?” At Cassandra’s shaky nod, she asked, “What did you see?”

“I—I—I—” At Chloe’s urging, she paused. After a deep breath in, she tried again. “I don’t remember much. I just… there was blood. So much blood. And fear and magic and something so… old that it didn’t even have a name.” Tears trailed down her cheeks. “The child. The girl.”

“What about her, Cassie?”

“I don’t know who or what she is, but she did this.” At Chloe’s questioning gaze, Cassandra clarified, pointing a shaking hand at the corpse lying just feet away from them. “That woman is dead by that little girl’s hand.”