Chapter 12

Kate

When I slip the blade of the knife underneath a clump of spongy green moss, it screams.

I hop backward and nearly slice my own thumb off. Might have done exactly that if Brooks hadn't caught the blade in his huge hand, drawing blood from his own skin instead of mine. His eyes are wide and a muscle in his jaw ticks as he stares down at me in annoyance.

I don't think he likes me. Didn't feel that way when we were fucking. But then again, I didn't feel like I hated Marlowe last night either, and I'm sure that I do in the diffused sunshine that serves as daylight in the Witchwoods.

"You could've warned me that the plants here scream ," I murmur as Brooks releases the knife and then licks the blood from his hand. I try not to stare at the slick slide of his tongue across his rough palm, but I can't seem to help myself.

He withdraws a jar of that salve from last night and smears some onto the wound, watching as it heals before our eyes. Brooks grunts, satisfied, and tucks the jar away again.

"Everything here screams or shouts or shrieks or talks or sings—if you're lucky, we'll be out of here by the end of the night and you'll never have to get used to it." He steps back, his metal mask hanging around his neck.

Apparently, the Hag Wytch is asleep during the day, so we're able to talk. Not sure why we all had to bring the masks with us then.

With a sigh, I lift the knife up and continue to work at the moss, cringing as it screams like it's in pain. The sound gives me goose bumps, but I force myself to keep going. I'll do anything to get home—even kill a sentient clump of moss.

I'm as ruthless in my quest to escape as these men are; I just don't care to admit it.

The clump comes off in my hand, and I tuck it into the leather bag on my belt with a sigh. First item on our list—moss on the northside of a tree trunk— check.

When I asked the men if they had a compass or some other way to check and see which way was north, they all stared at me like I was stupid. After a few seconds, I realized that I didn't need a compass. I just knew. I know.

I can feel which direction is north in the same way that I know where right and left are. It's that easy.

"Fern fronds," Brooks commands, gesturing at a massive sword fern with his hand. It's covered in huge drops of glistening dew, so big that I can see my reflection in their translucent globes. Fine. Easy enough.

I take the knife to these, and they weep.

"Fuck." I yank harder on the fronds, sawing frantically with my knife as the plant sobs, those big dew drops rolling down its leaves to hit the wet earth of the forest floor.

Marlowe stands there with his arms crossed, mask fixed firmly in place as he stares off into the shadows of the woods like he's just waiting for trouble. Tanner, on the other hand, watches me with a fixation that's simultaneously terrifying and comforting. If something comes at us, he's going to defend me.

If I touch him—even by accident—he's going to fuck me.

The fronds come loose with a groan, and I stumble back, nearly falling into him until I redirect at the last second and end up slamming into Marlowe.

He doesn't move. Doesn't uncross his arms. Just stares down at me from nearly black eyes, that terrible mask over his likely scowling lips, his expression one of cold fury. His hat is covered in brambles today, the star-shaped flowers drawing a small cloud of moths.

"Grab a banana slug. Put it in here." Brooks presses a glass jar into my hand, and electricity races through my fingertips to settle strangely in my chest. I wish I could scrub last night from my mind the way that he's done, carry on like it meant nothing. I've never been into casual sex, and as many times as I tell myself that it was casual, somehow I'm struggling to believe it.

I squat down and start flipping over rocks and large branches, inching forward to dig through fern fronds, to peer into a fallen log—

Dozens of glowing eyes snap open and turn to look at me as Brooks reaches down and grabs me by the hood of the shirt I'm wearing, hauling me up and away from whatever the hell that was. I nearly lose my hat, snagging the brim as I stumble.

"Everything in the Witchwoods is trying to kill you at all times—remember that." Brooks keeps hold of my hood and drags me a few steps to the side, making me grit my teeth to hold back a barrage of frustration. He casually pushes me in the direction of another tree and the unusually large yellow slug on the side of it.

Well, unusually large in terms of back home. Small for the Witchwoods. It's big enough that I'm not sure it'll fit into the jar I'm holding. With a curl of my lip, I reach out and snag the slug by the tail, dropping it inside and using the lid to push it the rest of the way.

Slime gets on my fingers, and I resist the urge to gag.

The men have spent months (or even years in Brooks' and Tanner's cases) getting ready for this spell, but there are ingredients that have to be gathered by my hands directly. The moss, the fronds, the slug ... a fresh kill?

I've been waiting to see what that might entail.

I stare down at my sticky fingers, wrinkling my nose and trying to figure out how to clean them off.

Tanner's the one who snags my wrist, spits on my palm, and then uses a small cloth from the bag on his belt to wipe me down. I'd pull away from him, but I'm simultaneously shocked at his behavior and somehow also grateful not to be wearing slug slime.

"That's fucking disgusting." I manage to find my voice, jerking my arm back from him and wondering what it is that I've done to garner such quick and fervent worship from this man. He folds his wolf ears against the brim of his hat.

"Didn't hear you complain until your fingers were clean," he says with a shrug, working his jaw. There's a predatory gleam in his eyes that isn't necessarily for me this time. They shift from side to side, just like Marlowe. Searching for trouble. Waiting for it. Certain that it'll come in due time.

When he reaches up suddenly and snatches a bird in his hand, I take a step back in surprise.

"Here." Brooks hands me a thin blade, like a miniature rapier or something. "Stab it through the heart."

Tanner extends the small songbird toward me as his own pet lands on his shoulder and cocks her head curiously.

"Wait, what?" I blurt out, even though I should've expected this. Did expect this. "I'm not killing a bird. Can't we find something less ... cute? Like that toad from last night?"

"Cute?" Brooks sounds appalled, his green eyes wide on me again. The ones on his hat are shut tight. He lifts the hat with one hand and puts the fingers of his other through his red hair, messing up that perfect streak of black in the front. Annoyed with me, is what he is.

"Yes, less cute." I watch as he drops the hat back into place and all six eyes open.

Brooks leans down to get in my face.

"What the fuck does cute have to do with anything? If cute mattered, we wouldn't have trapped you here to use you. What did I just say? I don't give a shit about your feelings, North." He forces the blade into my hand, but he can't make me use it if he wants the spell to work. I have to gather the ingredients myself.

Also ... did he just call me cute?

I step back, and he releases my wrist.

"I can't kill that bird," I repeat, turning to look at it. Just like the crow, it has six eyes that glow in the shadows. They're all dark and shiny, like little buttons, and it has a cute blue beak and purple-streaked white feathers.

"Well," Brooks begins with a low laugh, hands on his hips and eyes like thunder. He leans back down toward me, getting too close, reminding me of last night. I might have to look into hypnosis or something. Forgetting last night is a major priority. "You're going to have to kill something."

"She doesn't want the bird?" Tanner asks, opening his hand and releasing the animal unharmed. It flutters to one of the nearby tree branches, hopping around and cocking its head at me—then it opens its beak and hisses, revealing needle-like teeth and a violent red tongue. Ebon hisses back, scaring it away. "Then I'll get her something else."

Marlowe actually takes his metal mask off for that one, his lips impassive and neutral, but his voice a shard of ice.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you simping for the Northwoods?" he breathes, as if that's a fate worse than death. The Northwoods. I assume that's the same as calling me North, but that's about all I know.

"I live to serve my woman." Tanner doesn't sound like he's joking, and I shift back a step, bumping into Brooks. He ignores me, waiting with a tic in his jaw that belies the faux calm he's wrapped around himself.

He wants out of these woods— tonight.

Tanner looks around, pupils dilating even further. He's hunting. It's the same expression he gave me during breakfast. Not sure how I feel about that.

He stalks through the thick ferns, bends down, and then comes up with a snake in hand.

"How about this then?" He hefts the reptile up, its black and white body undulating in furious flickers of scale and muscle.

I swallow down my trepidation and nod. If I have to kill a snake to get home, then I'll kill a snake, but I'm not happy about it. In my world, an animal should only be killed if it's being eaten. Even then, as quickly and painlessly as possible.

"What happens to its body after?" I ask as Tanner approaches, putting the snake on a rock beside me. With his free hand, he unsheathes a machete from his belt and hands it out to me, hilt first.

"Into the cauldron," Brooks murmurs impatiently, putting his hand on my lower back and giving me a not-so-polite push forward. I glare at him over my shoulder, but say nothing. I only have to put up with this shit for a few hours at most. Just a few hours more.

"Put the blade at the base of its spine, and push down with your body weight. The blade is sharp; it'll be quick." Tanner waits for me with a much higher tolerance for hesitation than either Brooks or Marlowe.

"For somebody that says they care about getting home, you seem awfully—" Lo stops talking as I put the blade down and shove with a tight grip on the handle and a palm on the dull edge. It's over before Marlowe Waverley can finish insulting me.

I step back and swipe the blood on the leather of my pants, cleaning the blade before handing it back to Tanner.

"Oh, fuck," he groans, swiping a bloodied hand over his jaw. "You have a much stronger constitution than I expected, and I love it. " He smiles in a way that makes me nervous, tucking the blade away before retrieving the snake's still-moving body as well as its head. Both items go in the bag at his side, and I pretend not to notice the canvas moving.

My hands are shaking, but I refuse to let any of these men see a weakness in me. I used to go deer hunting with my grandpa when I was younger. I'm okay. I don't like killing, but I'm okay.

"Corpse pumpkin?" I suggest, turning to Marlowe. He's replaced his mask, hopefully to keep all of that vitriol and repressed rage locked up inside. "Why don't you lead the way?"

With a scoff that echoes behind the metal, he takes off, belts and buckles clinking. Marlowe makes zero effort to move quietly, footsteps loud in the endless woods.

Just one predator among many.

"Do you have this area mapped?" I ask after an unbearably long silence. I direct my attention to Tanner. He seems weirdly into me, but he's also the only one who's likely to answer my question honestly.

"Area?" he asks, and then he laughs. It's not a happy laugh. It's one of resignation and cold rage. "These woods go on for as long as I can walk, hopping from tree to tree." He slaps his palm on the trunk of a hollowed-out redwood as we pass. "The Hag can't get you if you're under the protection of a tree. For months, Brooks and I hunted our way through these woods. If there is anything else out there, we never found it. Ended up coming back to the cottage since we know for a fact that there's a gate there."

"A gate." I'm thinking about the Witch's Tree now, wondering how it works and if there are other places in the world that function the same way. I focus on the ground in front of me, my gaze catching on the tiny doors at the bases of the trees, on the odd and fantastical things crawling and slithering out of my path.

One day—definitely not this day, but one day—I'll appreciate this experience. Knowing that so much time is passing back home while I'm here? I don't like that. It's hard to remember that I wanted magic, and that I got magic.

I got exactly what I asked for by coming here.

I run my hands down the front of my shirt. It's made of a soft black gauze with dark stripes of velvet, like the rungs of a spiderweb. It's nearly see-through, a row of clear resin buttons down the front. There are small spiders frozen inside of each one. Brooks told me that it belonged to his mentor. What a strange life she must've lived.

"This way." Tanner slips past, taking point.

"Aren't we going straight to the Pit?" Lo asks, but then he sees the expression on Brooks' face and outrage spreads across his own grumpy features. His hand tightens around the mask, holding it away from his pissy mouth. "We're not ? What the hell, Brooks?"

"He was willing to make a stand over this. Sometimes compromise is necessary." Brooks breezes past, ignoring Lo's outraged expression. Personally, I'm enjoying it.

I scoot past him, winking as I go, and he flips me off.

Tanner guides us through those woods like he's running off his own internal GPS. We check stumps and ponds and small caves in search of corpse pumpkins.

Nothing.

A huge, glowing flower, like a gold hibiscus, casts enough light that I can see Tanner's shadow. It doesn't look happy, double tails swaying, fingers dressed in claws.

"Shit." His voice is gruff as Brooks narrows eight eyes in his direction.

"The Pit then. What did I tell you?"

Ooh, that voice. I wouldn't be surprised if Tanner decked Brooks for that tone. All he does is run his tongue over his teeth as Lo fumes in silence ... sort of. He throws out some rapid-fire sign language that I wasn't expecting, and Tanner signs back.

Brooks intervenes—also in sign language. I might not understand what they're saying, but it's crystal clear that Brooks is giving orders and the other two are expected to follow them.

"Put that mask on, baby," Tanner tells me with frustrated resignation, reaching out to slip it over my face without asking. He chuckles at the dark glare I flash his way. "Oh, don't look at me like that—you'll thank me later." He releases my mask and puts his own on.

We start moving again, passing over the creek again. That's the only thing I recognize. Everything else is foreign, almost alien. We could easily be on another planet.

Our shadows follow us, creeping through the trees in a way that no normal shadows would. Not sure what those are for or how I got one, but none of that matters.

I've got a single-minded focus, so single-minded that I've forgotten all about the train they ran on me last night. Ugh. I walk a little faster to keep up with Tanner. He's obviously slowed down a lot to accommodate me.

Behind us, Brooks gags and curses under his breath. I turn to see him putting his own mask on in a hurry. I can't smell anything, but I can take a guess.

Carrion? Corpses? Death?

As we get closer to the pit I saw on my first night here, the sound of buzzing flies takes over the other, more pleasant sounds of the forest. I swat them away from my face and hair, unease stealing over me as my eyes sting from a smell that's only just barely staved off by the mask.

I see. So this is why we brought them with us today.

We approach the pit, and I notice how fresh some of the bodies are. Human bodies. There are animals, too. White stags with beautiful antlers, their faces sloughing off into a stew of decay and meat and rot. The pit itself is dark red and brown, white and writhing. Meat and dirt, shadows and bone. Maggots. Lots and lots and lots of maggots.

"Fuck," I murmur, but the sound is lost entirely behind the metal. I wonder what it's made of and who figured out how to craft such a clever device in a place where one wrong word will get a person killed.

Of all three men, I don't expect Lo to be the one to take his mask down and face me.

"Listen to me, and we might not die today." He turns and points a gloved hand toward the center of the pit. I spot it right away, a fan of orange fungi growing out of the eye hole of a skull with no face. The mushroom—or whatever it is—really does look a bit like a pumpkin, albeit a rotten, orange-brown one with frills on the ends of the 'petals' that make up its fruiting body. "Only you can pick the corpse pumpkin; we'll lay boards out for you to crawl across, but it's not going to be fun."

Marlowe hauls a bundle of wood over his shoulder and tosses it onto the ground with a whump and a rush of dirt and pine needles. His eyes, like two pools of ink, find mine while Brooks and Tanner work to assemble a makeshift dock over the bloody pit.

"Why are the bodies so ... fresh?" I whisper, and Marlowe's mouth edges up on one side in disgust. I can only stand to take my mask off for a few seconds, holding it back over my mouth and nose to block the smell.

"Because time only passes here when we're awake. Everything stands still when the Hag sings." Marlowe gestures at a body that's slumped over the edge of the hole, as if the person tried to crawl out and ended up dying in the process. "This girl? To you, she might've gone missing about ten years ago. Here? It's been four months."

I dig through my mental list of Witchwoods victims.

Alicia Porter. Shit. She was only fifteen years old. Pretty sure she was an at-risk teen. The whole town thought she'd taken off, and yet, here she is, bony hand outstretched. There's still a bit of flesh stuck between her fingers, and I avert my eyes. If there was something I could do for her, I would.

"Listen to me." Lo moves close, huge body towering over mine, face like poison. He leans down and into my space, his voice a low, urgent whisper. His expression tightens even further as he grips my arm. "If the Hag shows up, keep your mask on and run. Don't worry about the pumpkin or anything else. Follow one of us to the house and barricade yourself inside." He hesitates, and I purse my lips, gaze shifting to the spot where his tattooed fingers circle my equally tattooed arm.

"Tell me. How am I supposed to get through this if I don't know anything?" I push my mask back on, gagging at the cloying smell of sun-warmed meat.

Marlowe refocuses his attention on my face, fingers tightening further against my arm.

"Even after eight months in this horrible fucking place, I don't know everything that the Hag can do. Sometimes, she talks in the voices of her victims. Other times, she spews biting flies from her lips. If she catches you, she eats your body with her human mouth and your soul with her beak. Just ... don't let yourself be caught." Marlowe moves away from me and grabs a board.

I turn to watch their progress, picking up a board of my own. Tanner takes it from me before I realize that's his intent. He tucks the board under his arm and pulls his mask down.

"You just focus on getting that pumpkin," he tells me, taking my board with him and nailing it to the end of the others. Okay then. I'd argue, but I'm too nervous to bother. Let Tanner do all the manual labor then.

I look down at the pit and my stomach seizes involuntarily. I can't smell the awful reek of death and rot with the mask on, but it's there. Hot on my face. In my eyes. Creeping into my heart. I can feel my pulse racing as I study the bones and the maggots, listen to the whisper of the trees above.

Within a couple of minutes, the men have created a makeshift plank for me to use. It's not long enough to span the entire pit—it'd take hours to put together something of that length—but it reaches its intended destination just fine.

Brooks then uses a length of thick rope to tie my waist, hooking the other end to ... Tanner. Fantastic. Lo watches quietly, waiting off to one side.

"The Hag Wytch usually only comes out at night. Usually. " Brooks points at a hole on the rock wall behind the pit. A cave? My blood goes cold. "She sleeps in there. I don't know what it is that wakes her up during daylight hours, but just keep reminding yourself that death is around the corner. This matters , North. If something happens, go back to the house with Tanner and do not try to be a hero."

I have no idea how to respond to that, so I just nod.

"We'll hold the end, but it might sink a little." Brooks steps onto the end of the plank, using his weight to hold it in place. Tanner joins him as Marlowe draws a bow over his shoulder, nocking an arrow as his eyes scan the trees with a severity I didn't think he was capable of.

Then again, he may have thrown a chair at the wall this morning, but he was also willing and able to destroy my life in pursuit of his own happiness. He might be rude and snippy, but he's ruthless, too.

"Just get in there quick, get dirty, and I'll wash you off when we get back to the house." Tanner holds out a hand to indicate the pit, and I skirt carefully around him. He doesn't sound like he's joking here either. I'm certain that he's serious.

Fucking psycho.

I exhale, shake out my hands, and then get down on my hands and knees. I'm crawling across this thing. Walking might be faster, but it's not worth the risk of falling. All of that loose, rotted flesh? It's like quicksand, a slow and uncomfortable death drowning in fetid remains.

"If only it didn't stink too badly to crack a joke about your ass," Tanner murmurs, and then his voice disappears behind his mask. Cute, Tanner. Very cute.

At the end of the platform, the skull with the orange fungus waits for me. One hand in front of the other, one knee at a time. I don't think about the way the wood sinks into the ooze, the clotted blood that sloshes over the edges.

I'm glad that my grandmother never knew the truth about the Witchwoods. It's not the fantasy world of her dreams, but a slowly unfolding horror with skull-mushrooms and taboo sex rituals.

This is easy. Compared to starting a business, to losing your grandmother, to being alone ... this is nothing.

I make the mistake of shifting my gaze up, noticing that hole in the rock wall on the other side of the pit.

The Hag Wytch is sleeping in there.

A sobering thought.

Dropping my attention back down, I crawl a little faster. The leather pants are surprisingly practical, protecting my skin from the rough wood and the warm blood. The further I get down the plank, the more it sinks, until I'm wondering if it's even going to hold me.

It does, but only sort of. More like a lifeline than a dock. I don't think about it. The only thing that matters is getting that fucking pumpkin and getting home. Please be safe, Flick, I think, knowing that my dog would rather die than leave my side. That's what freaks me out. If I know that mutt—and I do—then he's probably in the woods, avoiding capture, refusing food.

My cat is ... well, Georgia will feed Stix for me, but I doubt that demonic feline misses me much.

I inch forward and the wood sinks so deep into the muck that I have to disassociate from my body to keep from throwing up. Just a little more. Just a bit further.

Debris rolls down the rock wall, and I look up.

The Hag is perched at the edge of her cave, head cocked, human lips parted in surprise.

Oh fuck.

She leans down to look at me just as I feel the guys beginning to pull the wood in from behind me, reeling me to the shore. The pumpkin! I lunge forward to grab it, overbalance, and end up slamming face-first into the muck.

My left hand grips the wood platform as my right snatches the skull with the corpse pumpkin growing out of it. My fingers slip into the eyehole and latch on as the men drag me backward with dizzying speed.

The Hag opens her human mouth, and my blood turns to ice.

" Please don't kill me! I have young children at home!" The sound of a woman's cries emerge from the creature's lips, and I shiver in revulsion and horror as Tanner and Brooks each take one of my arms and haul me to my feet.

The Hag shrieks, spreading her wings and taking flight as Marlowe unleashes arrow after arrow in her direction. They pierce her feathered hide, drawing a screech from the beak that serves as her nose.

I clutch the skull against my chest as Tanner swings me into his arms and takes off, Brooks and Marlowe following behind. The ground disappears beneath Tanner's rapid footfalls as we dart between trees and duck under brunches. For as big as he is, he's incredibly agile. When the Hag dives at us, he throws our bodies sideways, just narrowly avoiding those curved talons on her feet.

The skull goes tumbling from my arms, and I scramble up before Tanner has a chance to snatch me around the waist. I trip on some roots and fall to my knees, crawling forward to pick it up. The rope around my waist pulls taut and as soon as my hand is curved around that bloodied bone, I'm being yanked back like I'm on a leash.

Tanner jerks me up, his strong hand on the back of my neck. When I glance over at him, I see that his eyes are on Marlowe. He's pinned to the ground under the Hag's claws, his bow the only thing keeping her beak from closing over his throat. He's bleeding from the face, but his dark eyes are clear and dangerous.

I don't see Brooks anywhere.

Tanner makes a sound behind his mask, fingers tightening on the nape of my neck. He's not going to help Marlowe; he's going to take me and he's going to run.

My hand lashes out and snatches the machete from his belt. Surprise is the only reason I get away from him, ducking out of his grip and taking off across the wet earth, through clumps of ferns and past a massive banana slug with curious eyestalks.

I swing the blade at the Hag's narrow leg, the metal biting into her skin with a satisfying gush of red. She swings her head down at me, shrieks through her beak, and screams through her oh-so-human mouth.

" You're tearing me apart! My insides are falling out!" It's a man's voice this time. A teenage boy's voice, actually. There isn't time to fixate on that. The Hag's beak is coming for my fucking face.

Brooks appears like a dark god, lit up with flames and grabbing for the massive owl-like monster with hands-on-fire.

The rope at my waist goes taut. I'm on my back and being dragged, and then I'm in Tanner's arms and looking over his shoulder as Marlowe scrambles back to his feet. His eyes meet mine, but only briefly. He returns his attention to Brooks and the Hag.

And then we round a corner and they disappear from sight.

Tanner is fast, and somehow along the way, I've dropped the machete but still have the skull with the corpse pumpkin growing from its eye socket. Ebon caws and circles down, snagging onto Tanner's shoulder with sharp claws.

We skid to a stop in the dirt, and I hear the click of the door from behind me.

Without waiting to see if Brooks and Marlowe are following, Tanner steps inside the cottage and slams it shut.