Chapter 22

Kate

My men are still trying to save me.

I know, because I can see them.

I can see my body.

I can see blood puddling on the floor next to my severed arm. Puddling, but not spurting. Not anymore. My heart has stopped beating, so there’s nothing there to pump out more of it onto the cozy hardwood planks.

The fire is still crackling. It still smells like stew.

And me … I’m … I take a step forward, and my body pulses, making me queasy. I feel anxious, like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, just starting to fall. Can’t ever catch myself. Can’t get it over with either. Stuck with my stomach in my throat.

I try to tell my husbands that it’s too late, that I’m already gone, but no words will come out. I move my lips, but there’s no sound. I wave my arms around, but they don’t look at me.

I know they can see ghosts, but maybe they just haven’t seen me yet ? I turn toward the mirror on the wall, but there’s nobody looking back. Nothing there. I am not here.

My mind—or my soul or whatever makes me myself apart from my body—is shattering. I can hardly comprehend what’s happening.

Me, Kate with the orange-and-black hair and extensive overalls collection, lying dead on the floor in a witch’s cottage lost in another world.

“ Fuuuuuuuuck !” Marlowe screams, falling back on his ass and yanking at his hat brim with wide, crazy eyes threaded in red veins. Everything on his hat dies, brown leaves and ruined petals drifting to the floor and landing in pools of shiny red.

Tanner is sewing my arm back on with sinew-like thread, blood covering his arms up to the elbows. It’s all over his chest, too. All over all three of them.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Kate. My Kate. My sweet Kate.” Marlowe’s voice again, words low and cracking. Tears track a silent path down his dirty face.

Brooks stumbles and actually falls, knees hitting the bloodied ground, spattering red everywhere. He’s breathing hard, but he doesn’t look defeated. He looks calculating. His mind is already spinning, trying to fix everything.

He’s the leader. This is his fault. This is his responsibility.

He knows that I died for him. He might think it was because of him—or any or all of them—but I can’t let them think that. I move forward again, coming into the center of their space, waving my arms and trying to get them to notice me.

All I really want to do is lie down and go to sleep, but I know that I can’t or shouldn’t do that. Probably both. It’s still dangerous here, even after dying.

The Hag Wytch can eat my soul.

I could end up trapped along with everyone else that she’s consumed.

“ Come on, I know you guys can see me!” I’m trying to shout that, but the words won’t come out. My mouth only makes the shape of them.

Tanner’s hands are shaking, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing until my arm is sewn back on. I wonder if he reconnected the arteries and veins, too, or if that’s even something he can do. With magic? Because he’s a butcher by trade, and butchers who take things apart often know how to put them back together again.

He sets the needle aside and rests his hands in his lap, eyes dark and expression as foreign and savage as it was the first night we met. Knowing that he covered all that inner darkness up with a smile for me is worth something. It’s worth a lot.

“This is my fault,” Marlowe murmurs hysterically. He stands up and then he upends the table. He throws a chair against the wall. Another. He turns around, panting as he glares at the other men. “I brought her into this. I killed her.”

He starts to sign, and the other two are signing back.

They’re all looking at each other, expressions of disbelief fading into something else.

Determination? But the grief isn’t gone. That’s what terrifies me the most. They think they have a solution to this, but whatever that solution is, it’s not ideal either.

I try to signal them again, watching as they get up and tear the cottage apart, leaving bloody handprints all over the place. On doorjambs. On boxes. On the counter. On the handles of knives.

The men prepare a spell in perfect silence, and that’s when I get it.

Whatever it is that they’re doing, they don’t want me to know.

They can see me; they’re choosing not to talk to me.

I move over to the counter where the chalkboard lies abandoned, and do my best to pick up the stick of white chalk.

Either it’s not possible, or it’s something that’ll take a lot of practice.

Didn’t Mrs. Madsen say her ghost could move things? I can do this. I can make this chalk write, so the men can’t pretend like they don’t see or hear me. They’d have to acknowledge that, right?

Loneliness crashes into me, a curl of ice water and foam that slams me into the rough rocks of the shore. I’m in the same room as my coven, but I’m nowhere near them either. My spirit knows it. I can feel this vast distance growing between us.

Sure, I’m still here technically. They might be able to see me. But I can’t talk to them. They can’t hear me. They can’t touch me, and I can’t touch them.

I’m already telling myself that no matter what happens, at least we’re here together. They could … bury my body outside, and continue to live in the cottage. They could teach me to sign, and we could talk that way. It’s not a perfect life together, certainly not the life I wanted, but … it’s something.

Don’t think about it, Kate. Don’t think about it.

I can’t let myself start missing what we had. Restaurant dates. Warm nights snuggled together in bed. Sex and cooking and intimacy. Romance. Love. Cumcakes.

If I had a throat, I’d choke. If I had a tongue, I’d scream. If I had a heart, it’d be racing.

I put myself directly in front of the men, waving my arms and hopping up and down. I know that they can see me. I know it. So why?

What are you up to? I wonder, suspicious and disturbed and worried. Did I just give my life for Brooks only to buy myself an even worse fate?

Tanner’s gaze hits mine, and I see the truth before he looks away, tugging the brim of his hat down to cover his eyes. I try Marlowe next, sliding my body right through his. He shivers, but he doesn’t look at me, not even when I peer into his face, nose to nose.

Brooks dumps the remainder of Viv’s stew on the floor, borrows a bit of Lo’s water magic to rinse the cauldron, and sets it back up over the fire. Our fearless leader acts like I’m not there, even as I step inside the brew and he dumps various ingredients over my head.

Dead lizards. Dead spiders. A spool of spiderweb. Mushrooms. The mummified corpse of some coyote-like forest beast. A jar of dirt. Fingernails ( whole fingernails). A small rack of antlers. A pair of severed tails and a tongue. A pair of horns attached to a bit of skull. A set of bat wings with no bat body.

Those last few ingredients are clearly meant to represent each of us.

Death. This cauldron holds a lot of death.

The men gather around it, signing to one another before they each take a knife—not the cock athame, but different knives that look like they’re carved of bone—and slit their wrists. They bleed themselves freely, smearing salve half-heartedly over the wounds before returning to their other work.

Tanner brings out a jar full of dead bees. Big ones. Witchwoods bees that are half as big as my fist. He lays them in an oval around my prone body, ignoring me as I walk in a circle around him, trying to get in his way as much as possible. Without meaning to, he moves around me, and I wish I could kick him in the balls.

Why are you fucking ignoring me?! I yell the words in my head, trying to push past the queasy sensation in my not-body. That feeling of falling, like I’m about to tip but just won’t go. Somehow, it feels like staying here is the unnatural part, like I should be leaving for somewhere else.

Because I’m dead.

I’m fucking dead.

Even though I have no legs, I collapse to the floor. Even though I have no heart, it stops beating. Even though I have no lungs, I can’t breathe. I clutch my hands to my ghostly throat, my diaphanous form draped over my own bloodied corpse.

Tanner’s own breath hitches as he adds skulls to the oval of dead bees surrounding me. Dried flowers. Leaves. Candles. It’s like a shrine, a border of bee bodies and flower bodies and beast bodies surrounding my own.

Death.

More death.

The only reason my spirit still lingers here is because we’re in the Witchwoods. If we were on the other side of the gate, I’d have experienced firsthand the answer to the world’s greatest mystery. I’d have seen the other side. I’d know what it truly means to say goodbye to everyone and everything.

Marlowe cools the brew in the cauldron with a frustrated wave of his hand. His lips are pursed, his metal mask hanging loosely around his neck and clanking with his rough, angry movements. There are silent tears etched into his bloodied face, two pink tracks in the smears of red.

Brooks and Marlowe lift the cauldron together, pouring the brew onto my body. It splashes over my still lips, drains down the mounds of my naked breasts, soaks into my hair, puddles on the floor around me. They set the cauldron aside and Brooks lights the thick greasy candles with a snap of his fingers, like he’s tired enough to need the ritual in order to do it at all.

The room is eerily silent as the men surround me.

Brooks squats down and looks into my eyes—or lack thereof.

That queasy feeling inside of me intensifies as I reach out, my fingers passing through his cheek. He closes his eyes for a long moment, and when he opens them, I know that he’s finally going to acknowledge me.

It should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. Before a single word leaves his beautiful mouth, I know that this is going to be bad.

“Kate. North.” Brooks forces a broken-glass smile. It shimmers, but it cuts. It’s sharp, but he’s trying. He wears his confidence like a mantle, a cloak of surety around his strong shoulders that I wish I could swing over my own. Snuggle into it. Warm myself with it. But I’m cold. I’m so cold, and I’m afraid.

Terrified.

I am terrified.

“ You said that everything was going to be okay,” I whisper, but the words don’t come out. My lips move and there’s no sound. Brooks watches my mouth before lifting his attention back to my face.

“Yes, I did. And it is. It will be. Listen to me, Kate.” He reaches out, like he’s going to brush his fingers across my cheek, but nothing happens. He passes through me like I’m air, like I’m a figment of his imagination. “We’re going to do a spell, and you won’t like it. I need you to trust us though. I need you to wear your mask, and I need you to run. Climb out through the tunnel downstairs and then sprint as fast as you can until you exit the woods. Do you understand?”

I shake my head emphatically. No. No, I don’t understand. Brooks is acting like … my gaze shifts over to the items on the floor. It was clear from moment one that the men had a spell in mind, and I already knew before Brooks said a word that it was going to be one I didn’t like.

Marlowe chokes out a sound and slides to his knees, hands over his face. He really does have a soft, gentle core. Underneath the assholery. Underneath the prickliness. Underneath the trauma and the trust issues and the hurt. He’s deep and emotional, and I love him. I love them all so goddamn much.

I am not letting these fucking Witchwood men do whatever it is that they’re planning on doing. Because whatever it is, it sounds like I will be here and they won’t.

All choices come with consequences. All actions—bold or weak or somewhere in between—cost us something. And magic can never be cast without a price.

An eyelash. A bite of cumcake. A bit of blood. Sex. Chanting. Dancing.

Sacrifice.

“ Don’t you dare,” I mouth, careful to enunciate the words.

Brooks’ expression softens, less like broken glass and more like something tousled and smoothed by the sea. Battered beyond repair, reformed into something new. A sea glass smile.

“Yes, we dare,” he says, and the first hint of a crack appears in his flawless self-assurance. “For you, Kate. Only for you.” Brooks stands up, and I follow after him, climbing to my feet even though I don’t really have feet at all. “My only regret is that we didn’t have enough time together. Everything else … God, Kate. I love you. You’re a ray of sunshine. Here, in the Witchwoods. Back home. Everywhere. Don’t let anyone or anything crush that sweetness in your heart.”

He reaches out like he’s going to chuck my chin, but again, there’s no chin to chuck. All of the eyes on his hat are squeezed shut, crinkling the leather cone. Doesn’t matter. Tears leak from them anyway.

“ This sounds like a forever goodbye, Brooks. I won’t accept a forever goodbye from you. I won’t accept a goodbye of any kind.” My lips move soundlessly as I reach for him, grabbing at his arm as he turns away and kneels by my corpse’s head, brushing my hair back. He leans down and kisses my dead lips, just a brush, and then Marlowe is in front of me.

He’s still got fresh tears staining his face, but he doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t cry aloud. Whatever sorrow he’s feeling, he keeps it tucked away, hidden inside his chest like a bad secret.

“How could you?” he asks me, but not like he’s truly angry, just confused. Hurt. Stunned, really. Marlowe is struggling to accept the sudden shift in our reality. How can a person be there one minute and gone the next? I’m sure his friends asked the same question when he disappeared. His parents. “Jumped in front of Brooks like that. Even worse …” He chokes on the words, reaching out for me, jaw tightening when his hand slips through the wisp of my spirit. “How could we let that happen? How could I … I assaulted you and dragged you into this, Kate. Remember that. Whatever happens to me is the least of what I deserve.”

Marlowe turns away suddenly, taking Brooks’ place by my body and kissing me with a trembling hand pressed to my bloody cheek. I try to call out to him, to gesture for him to look at me, to demand with sweeps of my arms and shakes of my head that I don’t agree to any of this. I don’t consent.

Sacrifice.

Because … if there happened to be a spell to summon the dead, wouldn’t that be the price?

Three lives in exchange for one?

“I love you, Kate. More than seems possible or fair or logical in the time we’ve known each other. Remember that, too.” And then Lo takes up his position in the west, tilts his head back and closes his eyes.

He starts to hum. Brooks starts to hum.

Tanner moves in front of me, and he looks like a man who’s been split in half. His silver eyes are as still as a tarn, deep and dark and endless. No ripples. No fish. Just water tucked away in some obscure mountain wood. Forgotten and empty and cold.

But his lips.

He can’t keep the grief from straining his lips.

“Kitten, listen to me. You’re going to be pissed. You’re not going to want to do what we’re telling you.” He holds out his hands, palms up, pleading with me and trembling like he wishes he could touch me. His skin is dressed liberally in my blood, smears of bright red and scars of dark brown, already dried. The last remnants of my heart turning to dust. “But please, for us. For … me. Don’t throw away our gift. Go home and marry someone else, bake cupcakes, play frisbee with that dog of ours.” He swallows and rubs a hand over his face. Yanks on a wolf ear. “On full moon nights, cast a spell to grow a garden. Feed Ebon some hazelnuts. Get a second cat to chill out that forest beast you call a pet.” Tanner forces his aching mouth into a smile for my benefit. I’m screaming at him, but there’s no sound. He flinches, but that’s the only sign of his discomfort. He won’t acknowledge that I’m in the middle of a supernatural fit.

A decorative skull flies off the wall and smashes to pieces. The candles flicker, and the flames in the fireplace turn black. I shove past Tanner— through Tanner—and pick up the chalk. My ghostly fingers are finally able to pick it up, scraping the white stick across the blackboard in a desperate attempt to get my message across.

I’m not strong enough to pick the board up, turning and gesturing at it as the chalk falls from my hand and turns to white powder on the floor.

“You taught me what love is, kitten. But I can’t look at that note. If I do, I’ll … I just can’t. I love you, baby. I … I’m an idiot, and I wanted you from the very first second I saw you.” Tanner moves away from me, kisses my still, dead lips, and then carefully lifts my metal mask, fitting it over my face.

He, too, joins the circle.

Taner begins to hum as I scream at them, darting in and out of their bodies in a futile effort to stop whatever it is that’s about to happen.

The three of them start to move, to dance, crushing the skulls and the dead bees and the flowers under their boots as they perform the most beautiful and, by far, the most complicated spell I’ve ever seen. Humming, drawing energy from every corner of the room. Their shadows are writhing on the walls, but mine is nowhere to be seen.

It’s just me, a horned ghost stuck in the middle of it all.

I wail, and ceramic bowls shatter. Clay pots break into pieces. I’m wailing like only the dead can and still, it doesn’t matter because my coven dances. My coven cuts into their arms and bleeds. Carves into their chests. Their stomachs. Cuts off hanks of their hair and lets it flutter over my body … which begins to convulse.

If I had a stomach, I would puke.

I’m dragged across the floor against my will, shoved back into the shell of meat that used to be Katelynn Poppy, and forced to experience every ache and pain that pushed me into the grave. My arm burns, my bones are crushed, my internal organs bleed from the fall.

I open my mouth and this time, sound does come out.

I’m screaming, but the sound is trapped inside my mask, an echo that reminds me of church bells in reverse. Unnatural. The inverse of being born. I convulse in agony, writhing and clawing at the floor with long witch nails.

My shadow appears on the ceiling, skittering like something dragged up from the depths of hell.

The men continue to dance. They hum. They chant in the language of Brooks’ long-dead mentor. They bleed all over me. They continue to crush the circle of bees and bones under their boots. The salve on my torn throat burns. It sears my arm. It makes me scream even louder as I’m knit back together against my will.

I don’t want this! I don’t want to live without you! If I could talk, I’d ask them why they thought this was okay, to do something this big against my will. If I’d wanted to live without them, I would’ve let the Hag Wytch kill Brooks.

In order to undo my sacrifice, they’re going to leave me here all alone?

They want me to go home and live in that big house all by myself? Embrace the loneliness knowing what I’ve lost? Taste the magic and then spit it back out?

My back arches, and I suck in a gasping breath. My eyes flick between the three of them as they swirl and stomp and turn. Faster and faster and faster.

Wind moves through the room, knocking things off the walls. Water drips from the ceiling. The fireplace licks up the wall on either side of the hearth and yet catches nothing on fire.

Flowers bloom around me, big colorful blossoms with tangled vines and thorns. They wrap around my body as I thrash, struggling to lift my hands, to tear them off. I succeed, too, regaining control of myself and snapping green vines with my stiff, aching fingers. The scent of pollen perfumes the air, the stink of spilled chlorophyll like blood on the wind.

The three of them are wild things, feral beasts with tattoos that move like monsters over their skin, pupils blown wide and dark. Their hats join in the bacchanalia of magic. The eyes on Brooks’ hat are just as dark as his own, pupils taking over the whites until there’s none left. Tanner’s hat is howling like a wolf, fangs sharp on the brim. And Marlowe’s is covered in the same blossoms that surround me on the floor, only … his are dying while mine are bright and fragrant.

My tongue is thick and heavy in my mouth as I struggle to form more than a soundless scream. I’m going to tell them to stop, and I don’t care if Brooks told me not to talk, to run. I’m not leaving them here. I’m not going fucking anywhere.

The men come to a sudden stop, three massive forms surrounding my prone body on the floor.

They stare down at me with dark, empty expressions, and then they lift the knives in their hands. In near perfect unison, they stab themselves directly in their own hearts.

The bodies of my lovers crumple to the floor in a spill of fresh red blood and the sound of my agonized—but very much alive—scream.