by Ruby Loren
Finding out the truth about Bridgette Spellsworth’s fate wasn’t the only reason I was trekking through the trees on a cold March night. There were other people involved in this and other games being played. I could sense it happening, and I was not going to be pushed around. If coming out here was a petty act of rebellion against those who were telling me what to do, I was okay with that.
I walked up the side of the hill, feeling my heartbeat pumping in my ears. At the very least, I was getting some much-needed exercise out of this.
“Are we nearly there yet?” an annoying voice said from down near my feet.
“Not far now,” I told Hemlock.
“You said this was a fun bonding session that involved secrets and magic. There was no mention of a hike.”
“It is a fun bonding session. Aren’t you having fun? I’m having so much fun,” I told the adolescent cat.
“That’s because you’re a sadist and you’re enjoying torturing me. Carry me?”
I walked faster in response.
I hadn’t actually lied to Hemlock about my reasons for wanting him to come on this trip with me. Ever since he’d missed my witch trial, I’d felt like there was a wedge between us. Much as I’d never wanted a familiar, and much less one like Hemlock, there had been times when we’d made a great team. I didn’t want to lose that. Plus, if anything bad happened to me when I conducted my experiment tonight, he could probably figure out a way to let my aunts know.
If he could be bothered.
“I think I might have taken a wrong turn,” I said, stopping and looking around at the trees. I’d been so lost in thought I’d taken my eye off the brief glimpses of the Devil’s Jumps I’d seen whenever the canopy had thinned and the starlight bright enough to pick out their silhouettes. I’d also been using my phone, but out in the woods, the locations could be vague.
“No kidding, Christopher Columbus,” Hemlock sniped.
“I don’t suppose you know any magic that might put us back on the right path?” I looked hopefully at my familiar. I knew he’d continued to snoop in the spell book. As yet, I hadn’t seen any visible results of spell work, but I often heard evil cackling coming from my bedroom.
“What about you? Maybe you could try opening a portal to another world where there’s light… or a person who’s not terrible at following directions.”
I tossed my head back in frustration, and then I saw it. In-between the trees, just a little way ahead, was a wooden cabin. “Hey, maybe there’s a witch living there who’ll fatten you up and cook you for dinner,” I said to my cat.
“Don’t try to Hansel and Gretel me. No witch would eat a cat. It’s a fact,” Hemlock told me.
In the distance, something howled. I smiled at him. “But a werewolf might.”
A bristling tail was the only response I received.
When I walked across the small clearing to where the cabin stood, I suddenly remembered the Wormwood Coven mentioning that they’d been for magical retreats in a cabin in Wormwood Forest. Could it be that I’d stumbled upon the cabin they were talking about?
I approached the building and noted the cobwebs that coated the exterior windows. One of the panes of glass in the old lead-lined frames had cracked, and the entire building had the scent of dry-summer-turned-to-winter decay. It was like smelling a history of the seasons passing in the woods.
I turned the torch on my phone on and pressed it up against the dusty glass. Shadows were cast inside the cabin, but I could make out an old sofa, a wood burning stove, and a startling array of taxidermy animals. Stoats, weasels, hares, and rabbits decorated various surfaces, and the obligatory stag heads were mounted on the wall. I focused for a moment on a striking black and white spotted squirrel and a dark hare with a white star on its shoulder.
Feeling curious for a reason I didn’t quite understand, I left the window and walked to the door. I was about to put my hand on the doorknob and see if it was locked when Hemlock cleared his throat.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
I frowned and looked back at the handle, this time using witch sight. It glowed in the dark like a set of multi-coloured fairy lights. If I’d been unsure that this was the cabin the coven used to get away from it all, I wasn’t left in any doubt now. “Do you know how to break these protection charms?”
“Nope. They look complicated. Try cutting them with a magical weapon. If I’ve learned anything from my recent magical studies to further my pursuit of a new world order, it’s that it doesn’t often matter how clever you are with magic. If someone comes along with larger magical muscles, they’re the ones who’ll come out on top.”
I pulled a face. “What kind of message does that send out to the world? The tough idiot beats the weaker brain?” I frowned. “What were you saying about a new world order?”
“Nothing,” Hemlock quickly said before poking me with a claw. “Go on… poke it with a sword.”
“You just want to see what will happen.”
His ears flicked forwards. “It’ll be fun. Go on. Do it.”
“I can’t believe I’m being peer pressured by a cat,” I muttered, but part of me did want to know what my magic was capable of. What I was capable of. I reached inside and I found that gold thread of magic that I still didn’t fully understand. But it was there, and it responded to me.
“That is not a sword,” Hemlock commented when I reached into the unknown and drew out a weapon.
I opened my eyes. I was holding a crowbar. “I guess my magic picks the right tool for the job,” I told him, wedging one end inside of the door and levering it open. The wood gave after a brief creak of complaint. I saw the protection charms vanish in a cloud of multicoloured magical sparks.
“Awww,” Hemlock said, sounding distinctly disappointed that I hadn’t been hexed or cursed into oblivion.
I shot him a scathing look and walked into the cabin I’d just broken into. It was only when I was over the threshold and inside the little building that I wondered why I’d broken in at all. What had started out as pure curiosity had morphed into something else, and I was annoyed to admit that it had largely been Hemlock’s goading that had made me want to pit myself against my coven’s magic. That and I had a strong suspicion that I hadn’t completely forgiven the witches who’d shut me out when I’d first wanted to join their group. This small act of revenge and nosiness was my way of getting even.
“I guess that’s that then,” I said, glancing around at the creepy stuffed animals with their glassy eyes. I should really take the opportunity to recover my bearings and then return to the scene of the crime… without Hemlock pushing me into doing anything else stupid.
I was about to walk out of the door when I saw it. It was only when I turned around and my eyes skated over the small kitchen area that I noticed the object sitting in the sink. I’d love to say that it stuck out to me because an evil aura surrounded it, but the truth was, the starlight seeping in through the window above the sink caught on the polished edge of the knife and drew my eye.
I walked over and looked down at the still-dirty utensil. As I watched, a drip of water from the tap fell down onto the weapon. The rusty red stain spread further down into the plughole.
Somehow I knew that this was the knife that had killed Bridgette Spellsworth.
I took a step back and nearly fell over the sofa. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the person responsible for Bridgette’s death had known about this cabin. Judging by the many spells on the door, they were probably a member of a coven - the same coven I was high priestess of. I’d probably been sitting next to Bridgette’s killer all along.
In a moment of rage, I brought the crowbar down on the small coffee table. It shattered into matchsticks. I hadn’t even hit it that hard. Something about the moment shocked me into rational thinking again. I hadn’t intended to do much more than express my frustration over being lied to, but I’d just destroyed something so effectively, it didn’t even look like a table any m
ore.
“Someone ate their Weetabix this morning,” Hemlock commented, trotting in, like nothing incredibly alarming had just occurred.
“I think I need help,” I said, looking at the crowbar in my hand and then flinging it away. It clanged across the floor. I felt it go back into non-existence, like an illusion - only, I knew the weapons I summoned were all too real.
“Do I smell blood?” Hemlock continued, jumping up on the kitchen unit and looking into the sink. “Did someone make steak, or…?”
“I think one of the coven did this. It has to be someone who’s been here before. The spells on the door were from different people. Did they all do it, or…” I frowned as a different thought occurred to me. “It could be someone who was involved with the coven until very recently. Someone who’s always hated Bridgette, has probably been blackmailed by her, and who also wouldn’t miss an opportunity to get the coven into trouble by framing them.”
“Let me guess, you think your old pal Natalia Ghoul is responsible for all of this.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” I opened my palms. “She never liked Bridgette. According to Bridgette, it was because she tutored Natalia in fortunetelling and she showed zero talent, in spite of it running in the family. But I hardly think it’s wise to trust Bridgette’s account of events, given what we now know about her little hobby. There’s some big dark secret that Bridgette knew about Natalia, and she was paying her to keep it whilst trying to find other ways to get back at the fortuneteller. She manipulated Ally into doing her bidding, but it didn’t work. What if this murder is Natalia’s way of getting the job done permanently? She would have known about this cabin. Plus, what better way to frame the coven who kicked you out than by leaving a murder weapon lying around in their hangout? I wonder who actually owns this place…”
“There are easier ways to frame people. If it were me, I’d have planted the knife on someone who already looks guilty.” Hemlock blinked at me.
“Are you talking about me, or Jesse?” I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong about her wanting to frame anyone. You saw the charms on the door. A lot of different people put those on there.”
“And yet, there was nothing on the broken window.”
I looked at the window above the sink and realised he was right. One of the panes had been smashed. I hadn’t even noticed the small shards of glass, mostly because they’d fallen behind the kitchen unit that didn’t quite touch the wall of the warped cabin. “I suppose that explains the less than careful placement of the knife. It also means that the killer knew that there were charms on the door to stop anyone from breaking-in.”
“Apart from you. You came in,” Hemlock pointed out.
“Sure, but I don’t think anyone was supposed to.” I bit my lip. “Maybe this wasn’t to frame anybody after all. Maybe it was just a way of getting rid of the weapon until the heat dies down. The cabin is magically protected. I don’t even know what would happen to anyone normal trying to get in…”
“Too bad you cut through those spells. It would have been fun to find out…” Hemlock said.
I ignored him. “Come on, this has to be Natalia. She might even be trying to frame Jesse right now. Out of all of us, he looks the most guilty, and she’s got him right where she wants him. She’s probably manipulating him, so that he’ll be arrested for murder, and she’ll get to walk free. Again.” I raised a hand to my brown hair, tugging on a tendril. “She can’t be allowed to get away with this. I’ll tell the detective everything I know. When he comes here and finds the weapon, before Natalia can make whatever play she’s thinking of making, everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
“Spoken like someone in denial.”
I folded my arms and looked down at my smug familiar. “What do you mean by that?”
“Per-lease. You and Jesse have unfinished business written all over you. I know he walked into Wormwood coated in charm, but the evidence doesn’t lie. You found him at the scene of the crime, and now here’s a murder weapon left a convenient distance away. He probably murdered Bridgette, got rid of it, and then returned to the scene of the crime.”
I shook my head. “How do you explain the bear hair at the scene? And the drained blood?” I bit my tongue. “There’s no motive. Jesse would have no reason…”
“…to be out in Wormwood Forest on that fateful eve?”
“Hemlock! I’m just saying… who knows? Maybe Natalia tricked him into being out here. She’s capable of anything. Definitely murder.”
Hemlock’s tail swiped from side to side, the way it did when he was annoyed. “Fine. Go running to the detective with your half-baked case. Watch as he locks Jesse Heathen up and you never get whatever it is you want from him.”
“I don’t want anything from him. Well… maybe some answers,” I confessed.
“Sure. Answers,” Hemlock said, making his disbelief clear.
“We should be getting up to the Devil’s Jumps. I’ve got a shop to open tomorrow and a magazine to find some extra articles for. Press releases alone do not make for a riveting read.”
“Does your schedule include calling the police to report what you found in the cabin in the woods?”
I looked at Hemlock in the dim light of the cabin. “I think I need to gather more evidence just to make sure that I’m not being manipulated. Not by anyone,” I hastily added, keen to avoid a reprise of the conversation we’d just had.
“An article on how to conceal evidence in a murder investigation would be super neat.”
“I’m not concealing anything. We are going to leave this place exactly as we found it… just, with the spells missing.” I knew I couldn’t replace them. Even if I could make a spell work for me, it would be only too clear to whoever came here next that only one witch had worked on the charms. And the colour of magic was often very revealing. “This is just a temporary delay until we figure out…”
My next words were covered by the bloodcurdling scream that disturbed the silent night.
16
You Reap what you Sow
“Did that sound like an owl to you?” I said hopefully.
“No. It sounded like someone being murdered. Let’s go back home,” my cat replied.
“What! You can’t say that and just go back home. Someone could be in trouble. Or… the killer might have come back.”
“Exactly! So… let’s go home.” Hemlock turned and walked out of the cabin door.
I threw my hands up in the air and followed him out. But I wasn’t going home. “Someone could be in trouble,” I hissed at the retreating feline, before turning in the opposite direction and jogging towards where I thought the scream had come from.
The forest was silent now. Too silent. It was the kind of silence that fell right before something terrible happened. When I made it through another hundred metres of trees, I was proved right.
Hellion Grey had been lying when he’d claimed that he never went for walks through the forest. He was here right now in the clearing I’d found… and he looked like he was in mortal peril.
I wasn’t sure if the scream had come from him or the foul creature that towered over everything in the clearing, but it was all too obvious that Hellion Grey had made a huge mistake.
I didn’t need another moment to think. I reached inside for my magic and then pulled whatever weapon may come to hand out of the unseen place. I barely felt the item I’d pulled out in my hands, but I noticed the dark colour of the handle and the way it felt like it belonged in my grasp. “Go back where you came from!” I shouted at the hideous beast, hoping to distract it from the quivering mess of a man that lay before it inside of the blood red circle.
The beast turned to face me. I lost myself for a moment in its fiery eyes that I sensed were a place where hope went to die. Something sparked through me, some kind of power rush, and I felt the weapon I was holding sing with a note I was sure only I could hear. “Leave this place and never return,” I called, fa
cing it down. This feels right, I thought, before confusion muddied my mind again.
The monster laughed. A swirling black void opened in the forest floor. Even outside of the circle, I felt its pull. I swung the blade I was holding and it seemed to carve through everything that was leeching out of the circle and trying to draw me in.
Hellion was not so lucky. His hands clawed at the grass as the void pulled him down. I ran over to him, ready to pull him out if I could. I even drew on my magic, hoping that a magical rope would pop into existence.
I never made it to the circle.
At the same time as the beast started to be dragged back under, it lashed out with a claw, catching Hellion on his back. The man who’d made his business as a nasty piece of work screamed a scream far more human, and far more harrowing than the one I’d heard from the cabin.
I was about to reach out with the handle of the weapon I was holding when something hit me from the side. I was thrown down on the grass, landing hard and barely keeping my grip on my weapon. I spat mud out of my mouth and got to my feet, feeling more like a lumpy bag of meat than a gymnastic warrior. Like an idiot, I looked around for whatever it was that had attacked me.
A blur moved in front of my eyes. Kieran was there, standing in front of me and blocking my view of the circle and the energy vacuum. But I still heard the terrible rending sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart. Worse was the silence that followed, emptier than any silence should be.
I stared at the vampire. “Why didn’t you let me help?”
“Because you would have either died, or broken the circle and let that thing loose.” The big vampire shook his head. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
I frowned. “I was trying to save him.”
“Then let me be the one to give you a lesson that everyone needs to learn in life: Some people can’t be saved.” The vampire blinked and noticed I was armed. “Where did you get a scythe from? Did you come out here with it?”
