The Bitterwine Oath

by Hannah West

  “Maggie’s car wasn’t far from the church,” I said. “She could be halfway to the cabin now, and it doesn’t take long to pull a trigger.”

  “Nat, I’m so sorry,” Lindsey said. “I’m not sure if your plan is going to work, but Maggie’s is so much worse.”

  Emmy jammed the gas again and Levi’s truck roared in response, jolting away from the lingering lights of downtown and onto the open country roads.

  The headlights revealed a figure in the middle of the street. I caught a glimpse of glinting black eyes and a bent, feral posture. Emmy gasped and swerved into a yard, striking down a mailbox. As we bumped along in the grass, I realized it was the youngest boy. We jerked to a stop. He stared blankly at us for a few seconds before tearing off. I’d never seen a human move that fast.

  “Oh my lord,” Emmy whispered.

  “Get out of here,” I said, hitting the dashboard with my open palm.

  Emmy pulled back onto the road. The speedometer needle throbbed around eighty-five, barely dropping when we curved with the road. We could get there before Maggie managed to weave down the dark maze of nearly deserted streets to the cabin. But the possessed people had inhuman strength and speed on their side.

  Blinding blue-and-red lights illuminated Emmy’s determined face. I cursed vilely.

  “What do I do?” she demanded.

  “Lose him!”

  “I don’t even have my license!”

  “Even more reason,” I said, forcing myself to stay calm. “There’s a curve in the road up here. We can turn off and wait for him to pass.”

  Emmy bit her lip as the flashing lights danced through the car.

  “I think there’s a dirt driveway on the left side just around the corner.”

  She let her foot off the gas and took the curve carefully. My guess was correct, but I failed to recall the gate spanning the width of the drive. As Emmy took the turn, metal crushed against metal and the engine made an irritated noise. But we were nestled off-road, and at least we hadn’t hit one of the gigantic oak trees nearby.

  I reached over and turned off the ignition, whispering the beguilement spell in unison with Vanessa and Lindsey. Everything went dark. Dust stirred around us.

  The deputy sped by.

  “We should run,” I said. “It’s not far.”

  “Far enough!” Emmy exclaimed.

  “We can’t afford to get caught.”

  I opened the door to make a break for it, but Emmy turned the key, churning the engine. When it sputtered to a start, she jammed it into reverse. I nearly fell out but managed to slam the door as she backed onto the road. My whole body ached with urgency. Emmy drove as fast as she could, but I still had to fight the impulse to slam my foot on hers.

  Finally, I could see the chain-link fence. Emmy jerked to a stop and ripped the keys out of the ignition. I fumbled with the ties on my cloak and left it rumpled on the leather seat. I could see the silhouettes of victims in front of the cabin, gathering in a crescent moon shape that mimicked the formation of trees surrounding the sacred glade.

  Emmy mounted the fence, but Lindsey started pulling the links away from the poles. Vanessa grabbed a corner, too, and they ripped off a big enough section to allow Emmy and me to duck through while they held it.

  Instead of the usual insect songs, I heard a low, menacing hum. I picked out my dad’s and Levi’s silhouettes among the twelve figures. They stood with their hands open, ready to offer themselves to the Woodwalkers. None of them reacted to our arrival.

  “I think they’re in a trance or something,” Emmy whispered.

  We gave them a wide berth, looping around through the trees, sneaking across the porch, and slipping in through the cabin door Emmy and I had left open.

  The pile of dirt, the bone, and the bloody ribbon of fabric torn from my dress waited inside the circle. Vanessa snatched the ball of twine and unwound a long portion for Lindsey to cut.

  I dug out the missing Book of Wisdom page from where it was folded up snug in my boot, then smoothed it so everyone could see.

  Breathing hard, we sat around the circle and tied knots around our wrists. Once we were all connected—just like Malachi, Lillian, Dorothy, and Johanna—I closed my eyes, trying to center myself, to gather my magical wits. It was nearly impossible when all I could see behind my eyelids was Levi and my dad, their red-rimmed, blank, black eyes.

  Would the ancient magic yoked to the Woodwalkers answer the summons? Would it be able to break away from the dark souls stranded between life and death?

  “Nat, concentrate,” Emmy urged, squeezing my hand.

  I took a deep breath. The musk of wisteria and dirt mingled with the scent of sweet grasses, calming me. I sent my thoughts back to the night the curse was cast, summoning the faces of the girls that I’d only seen in black-and-white photographs. I steeped in the significance of that moment, the price the Pagans of the Pines were prepared to demand for their suffering. Suddenly, I no longer needed to strain to imagine the scene. It unraveled before me, everything soft and gauzy in the candlelight.

  Mesmerized, I stared at the faces of three young girls: Johanna, stender and beautiful with haunted brown eyes; Dorothy, her round face resolute above a prim scalloped collar, her black hair molded into silky finger waves; Lillian, auburn-haired and awkward, like parts of her had grown into a woman faster than others.

  A touch brushed across my cheek, loving, affirming. Coolness slid down my throat and filled my chest, flooding through my veins until it reached the tips of my toes.

  Malachi.

  I looked down at my lap and found a different white dress stippled with dark blood drops. Ratted hair framed my face, longer and blonder than my own.

  And most importantly, the power that poured through me was immense, dynamic, dreadful, and wondrous. I felt like I could cleave the earth in two if I desired.

  The sound of a car careening down the dirt road made the vision flicker and fade, but I felt Malachi’s spirit inside me, helping me maintain control.

  The energy between the four of us pulled taut, forming a circle of power. I shored up my magic, Malachi’s magic, and led the incantation.

  “Ancient magic, we call thee near,” the four of us said in unison. “We seek thee out, our purpose clear. Our mothers hath wrought pain for pain, sin for sin, and shame for shame. To evil they once yoked thy power by darkness of the witching hour. Here we gather to unyoke, unspeak the words that they once spoke. This curse we break, these wrongs amend. Where it began, so it must end.”

  When the chant ended, we sat, waiting, hoping, holding the circle of power strong just in case.

  Maybe it was too late.

  The porch creaked under unhurried footsteps. The victims began filing in, led by Levi, and formed a tighter crescent around us, their eyes still empty and blacker than obsidian. Was the Claiming complete? Had we failed?

  I wanted to call out to my dad, to Levi, to see if there was anything left of them. But I was afraid to find that the last traces of them had been evicted, that I would never hear either of their laughs or see their smiles. The youngest boy took his place behind me. The back of my neck prickled.

  Once the victims hemmed around us, a low, unsettling hum began. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. A wind full of whispers howled through the cabin, whistling through the cracks, tangling our hair.

  As though testing cold water, Ryan stepped over the twine into the circle of our bound magic. The circle destabilized, in some places falling loose and in others becoming too taut to bear. I didn’t know how long it would last, this feeling of being stretched, vibrating like a threadbare string about to break.

  The entity inside Ryan split as it emerged from his body. One half was just a shadow, a tangled orb of darkness that emitted a scream and dissolved to nothing. The other was less easy to define. It was sparkling gold but dark, opaque yet transparent. It hovered below the ceiling, shimmering and billowing like fabric, never taking shape.

  The blackn
ess leeched from Ryan’s eyes and he crumpled outside the circle, unconscious. Our bond restabilized. I didn’t know whether the departure of the supernatural beings would kill the mortal bodies of the victims. I didn’t know whether my dad and Levi and the others would recover. I feared the answer.

  One by one the possessed victims stepped through our circle, stealing our magic measure by measure, depleting our stores. I wondered if anything would remain of us in the end or if we’d scatter like chaff in the wind. Maybe we would all die, and people would talk about another inexplicable massacre, another violent cult ritual that had brought death to this town.

  I watched my dad go through the circle, his face blank, his eyes the eyes of a stranger. The Woodwalker soul inside him revolted, but something anchored him in place, something that grew stronger by the breath. When the warring entities ripped out, he swayed. I wanted to catch him, but I knew I couldn’t break the circle. I cringed as he fell hard against the wood floor, and the circle wavered.

  “Keep it strong,” Lindsey whispered, and pulled me back in.

  Levi was the last—if he was still Levi at all. By that time, the others had worn us down, and I worried there might be nothing left. But the circle held, and when one of us wearied, another would rally.

  When Levi dropped to the floor among the other unconscious bodies, the wind gained power and tore away one of the ramshackle cabin walls. Around us, floorboards creaked as they were ripped from rusty nails. Chairs and pots and broken boards whirled. Most of the ceiling flew away. Emmy let the circle break and snapped the twine to shield her brother from the debris. Lindsey, Vanessa, and I cast our bodies over the helpless, unconscious victims, even though mine couldn’t take much more abuse. I stretched to reach my dad’s limp hand but could only touch his fingertips.

  When the wind died down, I looked around. The cabin was mostly destroyed. My body felt ancient, depleted of every last trace of its magic. And the eyes of the lifeless forms around us stared into nothing.

  “He’s not breathing,” Emmy shrieked, shaking Levi. The light in his hazel eyes had gone, and his lips hung open.

  I echoed Emmy’s wail of grief. “No,” I said, pressing my fingers to Dad’s wrist and feeling no trace of life.

  We had stopped the Claiming. We had broken the curse. But I’d lost everything.

  Tears blinded me. I sobbed so hard I couldn’t breathe. Lindsey crawled over to envelop me in her embrace as gently as she could, but I didn’t care if she hurt me. The wounds I bore now would never close, never heal.

  “What’s that?” Lindsey asked. I heard a soft thud, and then another. I opened my eyes and found three dead birds lying at the center of our circle. Another fell from the starlit sky, and another.

  “What is this?” Emmy asked tearfully.

  “I think it’s a gift,” Vanessa said, the beginnings of a disbelieving smile on her face.

  “Dead birds?” Emmy asked.

  When the thuds stopped, there were twelve dead birds piled in the circle, surrounded by ruin.

  A timid hope swept over me. I remembered the tale of Ruth Rivers in the sacred glade. She had wrung the neck of the bird with the broken wing to save Malachi.

  A life for a life.

  EPILOGUE

  — SIX WEEKS LATER —

  The bell above the bakery door chimed. “Welcome to Butter Babe’s,” I said cheerily.

  Instead of eyeing the cases of colorful pastries, the two girls stared at me. Looks and whispers followed me everywhere in San Solano, but I didn’t mind. Not anymore.

  No one had died on the night of the massacre anniversary, so the four weirdo cultists found at the scene were free to walk the streets and cause a stir.

  An observant tourist had tipped off police to a skirmish at the church. Sheriff Jason, answering the call, had seen my dad tearing through the night, black-eyed and raging. That part wasn’t in the police report.

  The beguilement had held a little too well, apparently, because the sheriff didn’t see Maggie with her gun until after he’d struck her with his car.

  He secured her an ambulance and pursued my dad in the direction of the cabin, where he approached with his flashlight only to see twelve birds plummet straight from the sky. Inside, there were eleven boys, one man, four girls, twelve dead birds, one bloody piece of fabric, one bone, a pile of dirt, one knife, a ball of twine, and what appeared to be a crumpled page from a spell book. Unsure whether or not he’d stumbled onto a crime scene, Jason called for backup and had the evidence bagged.

  We were questioned and sent home. Our stories didn’t match up worth a darn, but none of us were suspected of any actual crimes, other than my possessing firearms without a license. Since they were antiques, and since this was Texas, after all, no one saw fit to charge me for that, granted I either obtained a license or got rid of them. I chose to donate them to a museum.

  Scraps of information had leaked to the hungry press. The tourist had written up an account on her blog, OccultistQuinn.com, and that had received its fair share of traction. But most people wanted to hear about murderous cult rituals. This latest edition of the San Solano saga was a bit dull for its typical audience.

  Freed from our oaths, Lindsey and I had explained everything to Abbie and Faith, who preferred to pretend like none of it—even the drama surrounding our absences—had ever happened. Faith had bestowed upon me her full blessing to date Levi, but there wasn’t much I could do with that now.

  He and I had been friendly enough when we happened to see each other around, but something had changed that night. I’d been willing to risk his sister’s life to save him. I’d betrayed him. I wasn’t sure there was any coming back from that. As if to seal our fates, we both would be leaving for school in just a few days.

  My heart told me it was over, and it was time to try to heal.

  The other Wardens had done a good job healing, or at least hiding their wounds. Most of them, including Kate, had gone back to their normal lives—whatever normal meant to them now that their mission had been fulfilled, a part of their identity stripped away. Bryce and Vanessa were back together. She’d told him everything, and luckily, he’d believed her.

  For me, healing was harder than expected. Thankfully, Heather had given me a job to help me save for my half of a car and to distract me. Until she’d brought me on, her bakes had started losing that extra bit of magic that made them irresistible. But I seemed to have a special touch.

  Warden or not, I was still the great-great-granddaughter of Malachi Rivers.

  The two girls ordered blueberry lavender cupcakes and whispered about me as they headed for the door, which someone held open for them.

  A redheaded, tall, good-looking someone who momentarily distracted them from their shameless gossip.

  Nervous, I tightened my ponytail and smoothed down my yellow apron. “Um, hi.” I said.

  “Hey. I’m here for the three dozen vegan strawberry.”

  Heather popped in from the kitchen, her purple hair in a milkmaid braid around her crown. “Just a few more minutes, Levi,” she said.

  “What’s the occasion?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Going-away party?”

  He flushed and laughed. I’d thought I was doing better, but now I had no idea how I was going to survive a whole semester or two without a glimpse of him. “No, actually it’s Emmy’s birthday. Hence the vegan cupcakes.” He lowered his voice. “Even though she only had magic for a few hours, she’s taking the Earth Warden thing pretty seriously.”

  I laughed.

  “Do you maybe want to come to her party with me?” he asked, and the fantasies I’d entertained about our interwoven futures came roaring back. “The only reason she didn’t invite you was because of me. Because I’m an idiot.”

  I grinned. “Yes! I mean, um…” I turned to look at Heather.

  Levi shook his head. “It starts in, like, thirty minutes and you’re working, so I completely understand if—”

  “Oh, you mean you didn�
��t know about our very personal delivery service?” Heather cut him off, bustling from the back with three daffodil-yellow boxes of cupcakes. She dropped them in my surprised hands. “Hurry, before the vegan buttercream melts!” she said, shooing me out. “It’s August, for Christ’s sake.”

  Startled, I hurried outside, wishing I had known I’d end up on a semi-date with Levi. I would have changed out of my flour-smudged black shirt and jeans. But that slipped from my mind when he stopped and caught my face in his hands, bending to bestow a kiss on my lips, as soft as the one I’d given him in the sanctuary.

  This one didn’t end for a long time, long enough for someone to honk at us, long enough for us to crush the corners of the top pastry box.

  “I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “You did all the right things. I should have trusted you.”

  “Come on,” I said, grinning at him on my way to his truck. He’d finally gotten that dent fixed. “The buttercream’s going to melt.”

  The blistering August sun beat down on our backs as we ran the trail between our houses. I saw Lindsey catching up out of the corner of my eye and sped ahead.

  “I hate you,” she said, slowing down to catch her breath. I stopped and stretched, feeling smug.

  “I hate you for moving four hours away,” I said.

  “You’re going a whole state away!”

  “Fair enough,” I admitted.

  For once, Lindsey could look forward to a future outside of San Solano. She’d applied to the same school as Faith and Abbie. Even though she wouldn’t be able to start until the spring semester, she was going to move into their apartment and get used to the campus and the city.

  “Hey look,” I said. A tiny field mouse skull peeked out from the tall grasses. I picked it up and looked it over.

  “Your roommate is going to be so freaked out by your collections,” Lindsey said, but the joke was underscored by sadness. The magic she had possessed her entire life had fled when the curse broke. Of all the Wardens, only I had retained even a fraction of my power. I hadn’t asked Maggie, who was currently recovering from two broken hips, whether I could keep the Book of Wisdom. If she wanted it, she would have to fight me for it.