Chapter 2

Kate

It's well past dusk by the time I leave the Appleby residence. My equipment is packed away and, other than a few touch-ups that'll be most obvious in the sunlight, I'm done.

I finished another job after several hard, long weeks—and I did it all by myself.

"I should hire an employee or two or three," I grumble as I open the door to the old work truck, letting Flick in before I climb in after him. He settles on the passenger seat to look out the window as I start the vehicle, sighing as I crank up the heater to stave off the chill.

It's cold tonight, but that's summer in the Pacific Northwest for you—especially in a coastal town like Eureka.

Flick and I head back to the house we share in the Cutten neighborhood, the one that I was fortunate enough to inherit from my grandmother. Without her, I would never be able to afford a house like this. Eureka's housing prices are like the rest of California: even a condemned shack on a postage-stamp lot is astronomically expensive.

I park in the driveway and Flick follows me out the driver's side door. I'd love to park in the garage, but it's packed so tightly with boxes that I can't reach my lawnmower. Hah. The joys of living alone, owning a business, and raising two spoiled pets. There's always something more that needs doing.

Up the porch steps we go, my boots and Flick's nails echoing through the quiet, wooded neighborhood. Using the newly installed keypad, I let myself in the front door to find my cat, Stix, draped over the wooden entryway bench like she was waiting for us.

She'd die before she'd ever admit it. Instead, she yawns and focuses on licking her shoulder like the act of grooming is important, urgent business. I offer her a scratch under the chin as I pass, flicking on lights as I go.

The living room carpet is old and threadbare, but this 1908 gem of a house has redwood doors and matching trim, stained-glass windows, original fireplaces, and a turret room on the third floor. Who cares if the wallpaper and the wiring need to be redone? And that carpet? It's getting ripped out as soon as I have the time. The original wood floors are just waiting underneath for their chance to shine.

I start some tea, placing my inherited tea kettle on my inherited stove in my inherited house. And then I head into the backyard and cross my arms on the railing of the deck. The old trees rustle above me in a breeze as I close my eyes and seriously question my own sanity.

Text Georgia and tell her that you do want to go out tonight. It's not too late. Or hell, unwrap that bath bomb you've been saving, fire up that book you've been waiting to read, and soak until you're pruney.

That doesn't sound like such a bad idea. I have a ton of half-burned candles stashed in various places around the house. I could fill the bathroom with them, turn it into a paradise of competing scents and cheerful flames. There's a pack of bones in the freezer for Flick. I've already got the tea going.

I curl my hands around the old wood, ignoring the possibility of splinters.

Flick takes off down the steps and across the back lawn, disappearing into the dense shadows in search of some animal or another. Probably a skunk.

"Get your butt back here," I admonish half-heartedly, still watching the trees and the play of light from my back porch. There are moths everywhere, too many of them maybe, obscuring that little bit of light. It's dark enough standing here on my own deck.

The woods will be worse.

Flick reappears shortly, panting, fortunately not smelling like skunk, and then he sits down to look at me for long moments, waiting. He's got one blue eye, one brown. I DNA-tested him, but it came back with a giant stamp that just said mutt. Some blue heeler, some Australian shepherd, a dash of corgi, and a sprinkle of border collie.

He's smart as hell. Smarter than me, it seems.

Heading into the woods alone, particularly on a night with no moon ... that's not normal behavior for anyone that isn't up to some serious bullshit. It's my birthday , and I want to celebrate it by hiking into the forest and sticking my hand into a charred tree stump?

That's a bit weird, isn't it?

I release the railing and return to the whistling of the tea kettle, moving it off the stove and setting it on the clay tile embedded in the old butcher board countertops. My mug sits beside it, a silver star filled with dried tea leaves waiting at the bottom. I've got the honey nearby, a spoon.

My grandmother really, truly believed in the Witchwoods legend. Not only that, but she swore to have experienced it. She wrote extensively about it, talked up a storm whenever she was too tired to remember that magic isn't real and that people who think it is are written off as crazy.

But I knew her better than anyone. My grandma was strong-willed and high-spirited and a little bit wild, but she wasn't crazy. She said that if I ever visited the Witchwoods, I'd understand why she did the things she did.

I want to understand so badly.

I want to see magic.

I've spent my entire life memorizing every known fact about those woods, about the legend, about the fifty-five missing persons cases related to that area. All of that passion, all of these years spent wanting, I can't let the idea go that easily.

I abandon the hot water and the unmade tea, gathering up the kit I made for myself on my last day off. A flashlight—a real one with a beam that could slice through walls and a crank to recharge the batteries. A knife, just in case. A water bottle. Flick.

"Off we go." I open the front door and my dog zooms down the porch steps like he's on a mission. It's a herding dog thing. While he crouches in the grass beside the front walk, awaiting further command, I switch all the exterior lights on, lock the front door, and then pause to shoot a text over to Georgia.

You were right: I am going to the Witchwoods tonight. I'll text you every twenty minutes. If I miss a text, send the police.

She responds right away— I knew it! How dare you exclude me?! —and then I'm off. I don't bother with a leash for Flick. There's nobody out, and he sticks to my side like he's glued to it. As we walk, he shifts his gaze from the road to me, back to the road, to my face again. I give him a pat on the head, keeping the flashlight in my other hand.

I keep it on low until we get to the trailhead, slipping past the metal gate that blocks off the parking lot. I send Georgia an update, switch the beam to its highest setting, and then take off down the winding gravel trail. I don't need a map. I've been hiking these woods since this was uncharted logging land. In junior high, Fernanda and I would ride our mountain bikes through here. When the logging employees would catch sight of us, they'd give chase in their trucks.

A smile teases my lips because, well, you can't catch kids in a forest with a truck. We could go places they couldn't, squeeze between trees, disappear into foliage. We were never caught, not once.

The path skirts a small neighborhood on the right, porch lights just barely visible through the trees, before it hooks a sharp left and descends into a second-growth redwood forest. Red-brown trunks catch the beam of my flashlight as I swing it through the darkness, checking for people mostly.

Flick's ears are stiff and high on his head, listening, but he doesn't sound the alarm. The woods might be absent of human-made sounds, but it's hardly quiet out here. In the distance, an owl hoots and something small scurries up the trunk of a tree. I catch sight of gray fluff, and my lips twitch. Squirrel.

"Come on, bud," I whisper to Flick, continuing down the trail and stepping over the yellow body of a massive banana slug that's chugging its way across the path. Flick doesn't notice it and ends up putting a paw right on the poor thing. I cringe, but I don't stop. I'm sure the squishy-bodied creature is fine. Even if it's not, I like banana slugs, but slug CPR is beyond my scope of knowledge.

At the next intersection, the path becomes two, heading down the hill and into lush green ferns and skunk cabbage. On the right, it veers toward a wider path that breaks from the trees to wildflowers and sunshine during the day.

I take neither, skirting past dewy leaves and snapping twigs underfoot. I'm not attempting to be quiet here. I've got my dog, a weapon, and an intimate knowledge of these woods and how to get out of them quickly if need be. The flashlight was a good idea though, much better than my phone. It keeps me from tripping, prevents me from losing my eye to pointy branches, guides me to an obscure game trail.

I duck under limbs and step over decayed logs until I find the clearing with the Witch's Tree at its center. My breath catches as the beam of my flashlight haloes the old-growth redwood stump. Blackened by lightning. A sweet mixture of rebirth and decay.

Alone. The only dead thing amongst all these living trees.

Mushrooms sprout proudly from one side of the stump, bright orange and conspicuous. The ferns clinging to its fuzzy bark are bigger than the ones outside the clearing. Brighter in color, too. The flashlight makes it seem like the fronds are glowing, their limbs creaking in a cool, slow wind. Shadows collect in the char-edged hole at the center of its trunk.

Flick growls low in his throat, scenting the night air as he presses his body against my left leg. I drop the flashlight down to him, finding his bi-colored eyes fixed on me. Don't go in there, Kate. Is that what he's trying to say? Or am I letting my nerves get the best of me?

I turn back to the stump, pursing my lips. If the legend's real, just don't talk. Nothing to be afraid of. It's that simple. My foot shifts forward and then that's it, I'm striding through the clearing, boots denting the soft dirt under my feet. I smell earth and rain with every step.

I pause in front of the Witch's Tree, using the light to examine the pockmarked bark and the redwood saplings sprouting from the top. It's a beautiful stump, was likely an even more beautiful tree.

My eyes—and my light—drop to the hole in the trunk. Shoulder-height. Big enough for an adult to crawl through. Luckily, I don't have to do that. All I have to do is stick my hand inside and wait to be touched. If I reach in, something will reach back, and then I'll be able to see the Witchwoods.

At least, according to my grandma.

Now that I'm out here and hiking on a moonless night toward a tree stump that I've seen a hundred times, I'm starting to feel silly. I'm an adult, and I still want to believe in magic? I want to hold onto a story that my grandma would only tell on nights when she was too tired to censor herself?

Yes. Yes, I do.

I text Georgia again, turn my phone to silent, and slip it into the pocket of my overalls.

There are no magic words to speak, no rituals to perform. All you have to do is stick your hand in the hole and wait. That's when the fog between this world and the Witchwoods clears away. If you make it back to the edge of the forest, you return to the real world.

If you talk ... the woods will own you.

"Ready, Flick?" I ask, but he just stares at me, cocking his head to one side. A single orange ear flops over his forehead. If he could give his opinion, I'm sure he'd advise me against testing fate. "Don't look at me like that. I'm sure that nothing will happen, but if it does, you'll meet me at the street, won't you?"

Flick sits down, unsure of what I'm asking. He lifts a paw like he thinks I want him to shake, and when that doesn't work, he stands up and performs a bow for my attention. With a laugh, I dig a treat from the bag inside my pocket, flip it over to him, and grin as he catches it in midair.

See? He's relaxed. Nothing to worry about.

Then I turn, haul my sleeve up to my elbow, and stick my hand in a dark hole in a dead tree in the middle of a cold and foggy night.

So many people have stuck their hands in here over the years that the wood is smooth and polished around the edges. There are no plants inside. No slugs. Just an empty space inside of a gargantuan tree stump. I lean a little closer, reach a little deeper.

And then something pokes me back.

The world shifts, tilts, like I'm being turned upside-down. Dizziness sweeps over me, making me unsteady on my feet. I clamp my lips shut, yanking my hand from the hole to cradle it against my chest.

There's movement all around me as I stumble back, tripping over a rock and hitting my tailbone hard against the forest floor. The urge to curse is strong, but I grit my teeth—just in case.

The woods don't seem any different at first, but I snatch up the flashlight, throwing the beam into the darkness to see what all the activity is about. The first thing I notice is that Flick is gone, like maybe he saw an animal and took off on me. That's probably the movement that I—

Then I look up.

The Witch's Tree is no longer a stump. Instead, it soars up into the shadows of the woods. The flashlight beam, as strong as it is, can't locate the top. The light disappears into the murky darkness before I drop it back down, scanning the trees around me.

The repeating lines of the trunks are still there, but the trees are all much, much bigger. Not second-growth forest, but old- growth forest, the likes of which you rarely see anymore. Ancient trees. The kind you can drive a bus through.

What the hell?

I think it because I can't say it. No talking, not for any reason.

I climb to my feet, using the flashlight to search the woods. It's not just the trees that are bigger, but the ferns, too. There are flowers everywhere that certainly weren't here before—and they're glowing.

A white stag—also glowing—darts through the foliage, bounding off into the shadows on silent hooves. A scattering of birds draws my gaze up, and I see crows in the harsh white beam of my flashlight. An owl on a nearby branch has iridescent eyes that flash gold, revealing that it has four more than it ought to. A six-eyed owl. It takes flight, huge wings walloping as it disappears into the woods.

The Witchwoods.

I am in the Witchwoods.

For several minutes, I just stand there in shock.

Creatures scurry through the undergrowth, past plants that are bigger than I am, and flowers that light up the darkness well-enough that I drop the flashlight beam to the ground so that the only thing it's illuminating are my feet.

The woods come to life then; bursts of shimmering color here and there mark the passage of animals with extra tails or wings or limbs. A girl-thing with long flowing hair strides past, crossing directly in front of me like I'm not there. She has no eyes .

I convince myself that she can't see me, and that if she could ... I wouldn't like the results.

I start walking, hand shaking on the flashlight, lips pursed tight. "If you speak in the Witchwoods, you finish crossing over. The Witch's Tree allows for a glimpse, and a glimpse is all you need." That's what my grandma taught me about the legend, and having seen a girl that wasn't really a girl at all, I'm inclined to believe it.

When I pass by the slug that Flick stepped on earlier, I see that it's as big as a car and still slowly meandering in the same direction as before. I give it a wide berth, but the eyestalks on its head never turn in my direction.

I pause to examine a cluster of white flowers that sparkle like starlight, this shimmering mix of gold and silver and white. There are moths all over them, furry sides sticky with pollen. Each moth is a different color, jewel-toned things with stripes and spots that glitter. Ethereal dust flows as they take flight, leaving smears of brilliance in the air.

Motes of it follow me as I walk, a cloud of stardust that illuminates the strange plants and the massive trees. Little forest spirits sit on the branches of those trees and, unlike the other creatures that occupy the Witchwoods, they look right at me. Their heads are shaped like leaves with little faces and tiny round mouths, and their bodies are made of sticks. They all point with their twig-like arms in the direction that I'm going, the way that I know leads out of the forest.

" Run, don't walk," one of them whispers to me and chills tickle down my spine.

The naive wonder in my blood begins to chill. Another owl hoots and something screams. A rodent, maybe? But it's unsettling.

I pick up my pace.

Leaves swirl across the path in front of me, their colors vibrant in the stark white of the flashlight beam. Red, orange, brown. Except ... it's supposed to be summer? Back home it is. But not here, I guess. Mostly, pine needles coat the forest floor, lending a bouncy quality to the ground that keeps my quick steps light and buoyant. It's almost like walking on a trampoline.

There are strange, bioluminescent things everywhere now. Not just flowers and ferns, but creatures that scuttle and slither and squirm in the shimmering waters of the creek on my right. I'm not sure if the water itself is glowing, too, or if there are just that many things in it that do. A snake swims past, a reptile with two heads and an ivory spinal cord for a body. A cat-sized water spider skitters across the creek's surface, chasing after it.

Uhh.

The wind picks up, rustling the branches of the trees overhead. I'm getting close to the edge of the woods now. If I could see what's going on back home, I'd be looking at a row of small houses with porch lights and rhododendrons in their front yards.

All I see here are ... trees.

The darkness seems to intensify the closer I get to that invisible edge, the undergrowth thinning out, the shadows pressing tighter and tighter against the beam of my flashlight.

A twig snaps, but I don't whirl around. I walk faster. Faster. Faster.

Why did I ever think to come here? To prove that magic was real? Great. Yep. It's real, and now I want nothing to do with it.

I'm in a full sprint now because I can feel something behind me, something that's walking instead of running and yet still managing to catch up to me. Almost there, almost there, almost there.

And I am.

I almost make it to the edge of the Witchwoods and out the other side without talking.

But then he steps in front of me, and I slam hard into the body of a man in a witch hat.