Chapter 6

Brooks

I'm not sure that I like North.

Not that it matters. We needed a fourth, and I'm pleased as fucking punch to have a pretty young woman in my coven as opposed to another smart-mouthed asshole with a dick. Tanner and Marlowe try my patience, but we're all that each other has, so ... we make it work.

"Shit, that's hard," North—or Katelynn Poppy, strange goddamn name in my opinion—says as she slumps onto the sofa and puts her sweaty hands over her even sweatier face.

"Do kids these days dance anymore?" I wonder aloud, putting my hands on my hips and staring up at the ceiling. Kids these days. I'm only two years and some odd months older than I was when I left home, when I snuck into the Witchwoods to find a girl.

But I feel the weight of the years I never got to see, decades flying past as I slept in this beautiful but horrible place. Humans do not rule here. There are no houses, no electricity, no hospitals, no running water.

No people.

It's the woods. It's the things that live in the woods. It's survival.

"You'd be surprised to see all the viral dance trends," North murmurs, but I only have a vague idea of what viral might mean. Marlowe's done his best to explain that it no longer has anything to do with actual viruses, but my understanding is limited. "While we're taking a breather here, can I ask where all the others are?" Her panting voice pleads with us to give her a minute.

We can't really spare it, and she's in good shape for a modern person—much better than the several that we saw die this year—but this is a difficult spell, and she cannot leave this room if she's short of breath and struggling to breathe behind an iron mask.

"What others?" Tanner asks, offering her a glass of water. A seduction. I narrow my eyes. All of them, including the ones on my hat. Fine. Let her rest.

If North can't breathe, then she can't dance. If she can't dance, we're going to get eaten by the Hag Wytch. Our flesh will be consumed by its human mouth, and our souls will be sucked into its beak.

Where those souls go after being gobbled up, I have no idea. Don't care to find out.

Don't think about it, Brooks. Not tonight.

"The other people who disappeared into the Witchwoods." North adjusts her bone collar with fidgety hands, trying to cover her nipples. I was raised better than to look, but damn if it isn't hard. Hard as her nipples. Shit. "Brooks is the first officially recorded case, but there've been fifty-four others in the years since." She looks around at the three of us pointedly.

"Well, I was certainly not the first person to disappear into the woods, but nice to know that I hold that record." My lips are pursed against a barrage of frustration. This conversation is pointless. I can feel an itch in my blood that screams that I need to get out of here. It might be too late for my parents, but maybe my sister ... I'd just like to say goodbye to somebody, see if she ever had kids or if her kids had kids or ... "Look here, doll. All those people, they climbed the six foot ladder to nowhere. The same fucking ladder that we'll be climbing if you mess this up. You done now?"

"They're all dead?" she asks, furrowing her brows. "It's just the three of you?"

"Just us," Marlowe answers for me, drawing her attention. She hates him which isn't ideal, but no matter how she feels about us or how we feel about her, we're going to be a coven. That doesn't end once we leave this place, but I don't have the time to explain that just now. Wouldn't matter if I did. Facts are facts.

"Did you stomp on their feet, too? Rape them into speaking?" she asks, voice dropping to a whisper. A red flush overtakes her face as she finally stands up. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"Good. Because I wasn't going to tell you." Marlowe puts his mask back in place. He had a serious girlfriend when he ended up trapped here. She's going to be a good twenty years older than she was when he left. I wonder if he'll bother seeking her out? His family might still be alive. Twenty years is a long time to be missing, but it's not the seventy I've got under my belt.

"That owl monster you saw," I start, speaking up because I need her to understand how serious this is. "That's the Hag Wytch. She hunts people who talk in the woods; that's why everyone is dead. This cottage is the only safe place."

Our new North goes quiet.

"Ready, South?" Tanner asks me, and I nod, moving over to North—to Katelynn—and pausing in front of her.

"No talking." It's worth repeating. I put her mask on for her, and she glares up at me from naive hazel eyes. I imagine she's lived a good life. Lucky for her that she's the last person in this coven and not the first. Ain't exactly the cat's meow, you know? Being the fucking first. "If you mess up the dance or the song, just keep going."

Should I warn her? I wonder, but I already know I'm not going to.

I was raised in a different decade than Tanner or Marlowe or Katelynn. Men and women had different roles, but women were always to be respected and cared for. What I'm going to do to poor Katelynn Poppy is not respectful or gentle, but it's what I have to do.

I want out of these woods, and I'm willing to sacrifice an innocent to do that.

"And if I initiate something, you go along with it," I add, and it's all the warning she's going to get. Her mouth flattens into a thin line, and her eyes promise that she dislikes me as much as Marlowe. Hmm.

I put my mask on as Lo leads the way up the stairs and then squats to find the trigger for the front door. It's a clever hiding spot, but I can't take credit for it: my mentor built this cabin, not me. I also watched her send a coven of four back home, so I know that it's possible.

The eyes on my hat shift over to North, a half-dozen views of a half-naked woman.

I shut them all to block the image. Tanner is more blatant with his appreciation, bringing up the rear of the group and using his position to admire her ass.

The door clicks open to a night of cool fog and stars, to a gentle pattering rain and the quiet foraging of two glowing kirin—like blue and white deer with antlers and a spiral horn. They prance skittishly when they see us, the tufts of fur around their feet shimmering and dancing like silver flame.

When they take off through the brush, North's eyes follow them with a sense of awe and wonder that I never had for this horrible place. I've wanted to burn the Witchwoods to the goddamn ground since the very first breath I took in this unhallow hell.

Three sets of lightstones clack, illuminating the woods in eerie color. I give a blue one to Kate and keep the other for myself. Lo and Tanner stick theirs in their pockets, half-submerged in leather but plenty bright. These stones are the only thing we've been able to find that lights our way and doesn't summon the violence of the Hag.

I take North's shoulder in a firm grip, just to make sure she doesn't run off like the kirin, and we walk through the creeping quiet of the woods together. Marlowe and Tanner draw their bows, scanning the branches and the foliage for threats.

Everything in this place is trying to kill us; every day is a struggle. Staying vigilant is always worth the effort.

We can handle most things—except for the Hag Wytch.

The Hag is the ultimate apex predator. If she comes for us, she won't bother to hide her approach. We'll hear her. When she hunts, the trees whisper.

" Careful, careful," a forest spirit says, twig-legs hanging over the side of a branch. "Rot is on the wind."

North's steps slow slightly, but that's it. She sidesteps spiderwebs with eight-legged monsters bigger than the cocker spaniel I had growing up. She doesn't panic. She doesn't scream.

We take a game trail through the murky darkness, clouds of fog catching on our clothes and drifting around our bare feet. Dozens of demi cats watch from the shadows, swishing their double tails and casting their judgment. One hisses and darts up a trunk, disappearing into the vast canopy above.

Water drips from pine boughs, mask chains creak and swing. In an orderly row, we march through dew-soaked foliage, over the ice-cold creek, and past a ghost with missing eyes. It's nobody I know, but I wish it luck anyway. If it hasn't been eaten by the Hag, then it's a very clever spirit.

Katelynn doesn't see it, which is probably for the best. It's hanging upside-down from a tree branch, white-faced and open-mouthed. It used to be human, sure, but it has too many teeth now.

We reach the clearing without encountering trouble. It's a space that the boys and I have prepared specifically for this purpose.

The completion of our coven.

I wet my lips as I position North in the correct spot and snap my fingers to start the fire. Since the day Marlowe joined us, we've kept all of the necessary supplies on hand in anticipation of getting out. Only took eight months from Marlowe to Katelynn.

I can taste escape on my lips, but I can also taste the iron of my mask. It's a reminder that we're not—for lack of a better phrase—out of the woods just yet.

Tanner disappears into the trees to find an animal, and I can only hope that Katelynn isn't squeamish. My mouth twitches as I look over at her, and she looks back at me.

No, I don't know if I like North yet, but we're stuck with each other.

Stop being so picky and just be grateful that you've got a woman.

She's just so ... fuck. Not what I expected. Not at all.

An animal's scream pierces the woods, and while North stands perfectly still, her shadow flinches. Not quite as tough as you pretend to be, are you? Probably a Witchwoods toad. They come in all sizes and in every color, some with two heads or webbed wings or extra limbs. Some with venom. Some with poison.

I'm sure that Tanner's just caught one and is in the process of dragging it back.

Hurry up. I flex my hands and cool my impatience. It's taken two long years to get here, and I can't rush it. Everything must go according to the spellbook I wrote, the magic I crafted from my mentor's limited knowledge.

Marlowe takes his place in the West, hands on his hips, face angled down so that his hat brim obscures his eyes. His shadow spreads its wings over the trees behind him, limned in orange firelight. Katelynn watches Lo, and I don't need to see her mouth to know that she's repulsed by him.

Keeping the specificities of the spell hidden was a good idea on my part.

I release North's shoulder, but I keep my eyes on her as I assume my place in the circle. We stand across the bonfire from one another, North and South. Surely, I should feel something about this.

My opposite in this sacred circle. An unholy union. A dark binding.

She flips me off, and I force myself not to clench my jaw. I refuse to give her the satisfaction. This is not her game, not her rules. It's mine ; they're mine. So, yes, she's a woman. No, I don't like her. I'm evaluating her personality, not her body, and I can tell that she's going to fight me every step of the way. Why, when it's fucking obvious that she doesn't want my job?

All six of my hat's eyes flick back open, but she stares them down, too.

When Tanner returns, he has a squirming lump in a leather sack that he tosses onto the ground beside the now roaring fire. It crackles in the cool and empty night, glittering motes of bat dust and moth powder floating in the air.

Beautiful poison. A deadly lure. That's what it means to become a part of the Witchwoods.

North stares down at the struggling lump in the bag, but she doesn't move. Instead, she looks up and meets my eyes through the flames.

My lips twist into a mirthless smile behind my mask. Can she see the glint in my gaze? Sorry, Katelynn Poppy. This is happening. Really hope you were telling the truth and that you're not religious. If you are ... well, ain't that a bite.

I begin to hum.

And then, in the shadow of flames and under a moonless sky, we dance.

Four souls, one coven.

My coven.