Two and Twenty Dark Tales (14 page)

I reached for the next stone and my palm came down on a flat surface—we’d reached the top. I crawled away from the ledge and gazed up. The forest had changed.

There was a dreamy, crushed-pearl glow here. It touched the leaves as if the moon had drawn lower and cast everything in its silvery light. I could easily see the little dell of night-blooming flowers before us, surrounded by a crescent of trees. And we weren’t alone. Mair and Gwen, two girls I knew from the village school, stood in the clearing. The girls turned toward me, their expressions guarded.

“Bronwyn? I never would have guessed it,” Mair said.

“I thought it would be Aelwyn,” Gwen said with a note of suspicion.

So had Maddox. How had they known when I hadn’t? All I had were questions, but asking them would point to what an imposter I was.

“We might be friends,” Gwen said, her voice hardening over. “But the coven only takes one fledgling each year. I intend to be that fledgling.”

The trees nearest to us made a rustling noise. A vine lashed out from the clumps of silvery leaves and lassoed Gwen’s thin neck. With a violent yank, the vine jerked her off her feet. Gwen’s screams were strangled in her throat as the vine reeled back into the canopy, taking her with it.

Maddox’s hand closed around my elbow.

“The witches have started to play,” he said, and then dragged me toward the opposite line of trees.

“What are you doing?” Mair shouted. “You both have to prove your skill on your own!”

Maddox ignored her, taking me into the strange forest at a near run. The trunks gleamed silver and they trimmed a perfectly manicured path. I heard Mair coming up behind us. What had just happened? That vine had looked alive and it had taken Gwen. Just …
taken
her.

Ahead, two yews started to bend at the trunk. They curved toward one another until their branches formed a bough over the path. A cloud of black wings burst from their limbs. Red-eyed blackbirds sprayed toward us, their beaks flashing silver points.

Maddox held something up—a plain brass loop—and shouted, “
Oddi ehedfa at fflam!
”

I screamed as the oncoming blackbirds exploded into a ball of flaming wings. Their tortured caws snuffed out when the fireball struck the path and disintegrated into ash. I stared at the scorched path. Their silver-bladed beaks could have flayed skin from bone.

This
was what the witches meant by
come out to play
?

“Off the path!” Maddox shouted, and we dashed into the moon-dusted trees.

Mair veered in front of us. “Banding together isn’t allowed!”

Maddox stormed around her. “She’s a barren and no threat to you.”

Barren.
Without magic.

Mair gasped as I surged past her. “It
was
Aelwyn then. Stop, Maddox, you can’t take a barren to the den!”

Maddox didn’t stop.

“The den?” I repeated.

“The witches’ den,” he replied. “The tests go on until we either reach their den, or until there’s only one of us left standing.”

Mair shouted, “
Gwraidd byw caethiwo ti!
”

The ground trembled and a tangle of roots erupted from the soil. They looped over my feet and coiled around my ankles. I lost my balance and fell.

“What are you doing?” Maddox asked as Mair ran past us.

“Proving my skill—
I
will be fledgling,” she said, and with a whirl of her cape, she was gone.

My fingers scrabbled over the roots sewing me to the forest floor. I looked to Maddox. “Go. You have a chance without me.”

He raised his brass loop as if it was a wizard’s wand and took aim at the roots. “I have a chance with you, as well.”

He murmured something in stilted Old Welsh and the roots unraveled, retreating into the dirt. Maddox pulled me up and kept on through the trees.

“You really had no idea?” he called back. “Aelwyn and Gareth must have hid it well.”

Gareth.

“My
father
?” I asked, breathless at our pace.

“It’s a family legacy, Bronwyn. Half a dozen Bleddroth families make up the coven. It’s odd,” he said, peering back at me. “Usually barrens are sent away when they’re babies. You weren’t.”

The thought of that cracked through me like lightning. What kind of lunatics gave away their barren babies and then sent their other children into the woods to play a game of life or death?

And my father had been a part of it.

“Stop,” Maddox ordered, and when I did, my toes were hanging over the low banking of a stream.

Ahead, Mair was crossing a staggered set of boulders that acted as a natural bridge across the stream.

“Mair, don’t!” Maddox shouted.

Small bubbles popped around the boulder she stood on. The rock started to tremble and Mair windmilled her arms. The boulder pitched violently, slinging her into the stream. She didn’t kick or splash. She just disappeared, swallowed by the languid water.

I took a step forward, but Maddox held me back, his loop held before him. “
Gwlybwr at rhew
.”

A fine lace of frost rolled downstream, followed by a hard sheet of sapphire-tinted ice. The flow of water slowed to a shudder, and then froze. Maddox tightened his hand around mine and we went across.

I didn’t want to believe that Aelwyn could have done these same spells. She was my
twin
. Why hadn’t she told me? And why hadn’t my parents sent me away as other barrens had been?

On the other side of the stream, Maddox let out his breath and stared into the trees. He brought me closer to his side. “Whatever you do, don’t beg for your life. The witches loathe groveling.”

Lights flashed through the trees. Looking, I saw they were the windows of a small cabin. We hadn’t moved, and yet the cabin drew closer, sliding through the trees toward us. It looked to be built of stone and laced vines, woven tree branches and twisted tree stumps.

The door swung open.

I wouldn’t grovel. I’d meet my fate with courage.

Maddox and I crossed the threshold together. Why had he done all this for me? We’d never even shared a passing greeting, and yet he’d known my name. “
I’m not sorry it’s you
.”

The door slammed behind us. The low hearth fire suddenly flared, brightening the small room and the people standing before us: three wizened women in bright red shawls and peasant dresses and one young, handsome boy. I lunged forward.

“Rhys!”

Maddox hauled back on my wrist. “Stop, Bronwyn.”

Rhys met my confused stare, his eyes filled with fear.

“What’s going on? Leave him alone!” I cried to the three old women.

Maddox kept me at his side and hissed, “He’s coven.”

My blood turned to syrup; my head grew heavy and thick. Rhys. Coven.
Witch
.

“Bronwyn.” Rhys whispered my name as he would a plea for forgiveness. “I’ve told them what you’ve done.”

I stared at the floor, eyes blurring. It didn’t matter.

“You and Aelwyn,” I said. “You knew about one another?”

Rhys bowed his head. “We know the others who are like us. It’s a feeling. A stirring of the blood. It’s an energy that makes you see them, and lets them see you.”

And I didn’t have it. I was the only one who’d been blind.

Rhys stepped toward us. “I don’t care that you’re a barren, Bronwyn. I only care about
you
. I hoped if I told the witches what you were risking for Aelwyn, they might spare you.”

The muscles in Maddox’s arm, pressed against mine, tensed. “You weren’t the only one to think of that.” He faced the three witches to address them. “Bronwyn came out to play not knowing any of this. She feared and respected you enough to risk her life. She doesn’t deserve to die.”

One of the witches parted her papery lips. “She will not die.”

I leaned my forehead against Maddox’s arm, a sob of relief lodged in my throat.

But then another witch spoke. “She will stay in the forest as chattel, as recompense for her father’s cowardice.”

I looked up. “What? No. What cowardice?”

None of the witches looked my way.

“They won’t speak to a barren,” Rhys murmured before turning to them. “What did Gareth do?”

I thought I could see a touch of the forest’s crushed-pearl glow coming from the witches’ eyes.

“He wove magic through his daughter’s mind.”

“To keep her in a waking sleep.”

“To excuse her from the beckoning.”

Each witch spoke over the next, joining their voices in ringing dissonance.

“He wouldn’t,” I said, but the witches weren’t finished.

“He removed himself from the earth.”

“With the counter-curse unknown.”

“And the spell will not yield. One of our coven has crossed us. We shall make an example out of the barren.”

My head whirled. Maddox snaked his arm around my waist to hold me steady. Papa had cursed Aelwyn and then killed himself. He’d taken her out in the dinghy, into the bay, knowing he wouldn’t return.

“If you wish to make an example of someone, do it with me,” Rhys said, his voice thick and reckless. “The coven won’t care if a barren disappears into these woods, but they will heed
my
disappearance. Please. Let Bronwyn return to Bleddroth.”

I started to protest, but Rhys shot out a hand to stay me. My father had done this. It wasn’t Rhys’s fault and he couldn’t suffer my punishment.

“You can’t stay here,” I persisted. “You’re marrying Aelwyn.”

He turned to look at me, his jaw tight. “She needs her sister, not a husband.” The firelight turned his eyes the color of fine brandy. “And I’d rather save you, if you don’t mind.”

I sealed my lips, and then his brandy eyes dropped to them. Rhys looked away, but not before I felt warmth in my cheeks, and saw a flush upon his.

The witches bowed their heads in unison. A moment later, all three rose at the same glacial speed.

The one with the papery lips spoke. “We accept the exchange. Maddox Gabriel, you are fledgling. Take the barren and leave.”

The cabin door cracked open.

“No!” I reached for Rhys. “You can’t!”

He pushed past Maddox and took me by the shoulders. His chest heaved and I knew he was afraid.

“I’m sorry I never told you.”

“But Rhys—”

“Bronwyn, you have to go.” He tried to peel my hand from his arm.

“I won’t.”

Rhys wrested my hand free, but instead of pushing me away, he cupped my cheeks and crushed his lips against mine. The kiss was urgent, the press of his mouth desperate, as if trying to make up for lost time. And it was over too fast.

A blast of wind slammed into my chest, knocking me off my feet and tearing my lips from his. The gale shuttled me outside and onto the forest floor, beside Maddox. The door slammed shut and the small cabin sank back into the trees. I stumbled to my feet, but the witches’ den was already gone.

“Rhys!” My scream parroted through the silver trees.

Maddox brushed off his trousers as tears scorched my cheeks. What would happen to him? What would the witches do?

“
Rhys!
” I screamed again, my voice rasping.

“It’s over. We need to leave their woods.” Maddox started across the stream, the water still frozen.

“But what about Aelwyn?” I asked. She hadn’t heeded the beckoning. I suddenly realized the witches hadn’t promised anything regarding my sister.

Rhys had taken
my
punishment. Not hers.

Maddox thrust his hand out to me, his eyes fierce. “Hurry, Bronwyn.”

***

I saw the fire before we cleared the trees.

Savage flames cut a feral dance through the skies above my cottage, a storm of charred orange smoke billowing out over the rest of the village.

I crumbled as soon as I came into the yard. My knees plowed ruts into the herb garden.

“Aelwyn!” I clawed at the ground, trying to stand, my arms and legs numb and boneless. “No!
Aelwyn!
”

Maddox was there, picking me up and holding me back when I thrashed, wanting nothing more than to run straight into the burning cottage. The villagers tossed bucket after bucket of water at the cottage as fire punched through the windows and walls. Their efforts were futile. Aelwyn had been asleep inside, tucked into bed by my own hand, with no one to help her escape.

Our father had thought he’d been saving her.
I
thought I’d been saving her. But we’d both disregarded something crucial. Something we should have always known.

You can’t deceive the witches in the wood.

– The End –

I Come Bearing Souls

Jessie Harrell

Hey, diddle, diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed,

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

– Mother Goose

N
O
one plays cello like my sister. Her dark hair is pinned back from her face, while her bare toes curl into the worn Persian rug. Music flows from Beth, a song so melancholy it makes my heart ache. Or maybe my heart just aches because I know what’s coming next. And whether I liked the dearly departed or not, our upcoming trek to the Underworld always sucks.

Down the hall, Addison Clark—cheerleader extraordinaire and Queen Bitch—lies in her casket. I won’t miss Addison or having her call me a freak for the seven thousandth time. Like I can help it that my family runs the only funeral home in this town, or that it also happens to be my house? Yeah, maybe I do live upstairs from dead bodies. That’s not my fault.

Still, when Addison’s glowing orb of a soul starts dancing toward Beth’s music, my throat feels raw and it hurts to swallow.

Everyone knows Addison’s car plowed into the concrete pillar of an overpass last Sunday, when the roads were thick with ice, but more rumors swirl. Rumors that she’d been sneaking out of her house to cheat on her boyfriend. Rumors that she’d had more than a little alcohol in her bloodstream. And as much as I’d hated Addison while she was alive, if those rumors are true, I’m really going to hate what’s coming next.

Addison’s soul drifts down the hall, bumping against faded wallpaper and illuminating gold-framed portraits of my grandparents. She picks up speed as she gets closer to Beth. The music is entrancing. My eyes grow wide as the pinkish-yellow soul bobs ever closer to Beth’s cello.