All Out--The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages

by Saundra Mitchell

  The witches gave the Withers its power. It was where they laid their heads, and it was said even now, generations later, the woods protected their old home. Some said the witches had been sisters, others claimed rivals. Others believed there was only one, while two or three was the more common guess.

  “You don’t cross through the Withers,” Benjamin said, still aghast at the idea. You could enter and play in the fringes, but you never crossed the forest. The same way you were never to cross a witch.

  “They’ll hunt you down,” Sebastian said, a quiet protest; it was possible he was not referring to the town, but was agreeing about the witches.

  “There’s a better way.” Benjamin had to believe that. He was a boy now, on his way to becoming a man; he had to find another option. “There must be.”

  * * *

  As Benjamin approached his home, the boisterous laugh of the Reverend boomed from the windows and warned him away.

  They were preparing for a funeral before his body was even cold. He knew what the Reverend’s presence meant. The elders of the town would meet, the Reverend would supply his next victim and then the town would arrive at the coast.

  How could his mother do this? His father? Mariot and her mother had been close, like sisters, but ever since he had first remembered her, his own parents had looked at him like an empty grave waiting to be filled. Betrayal had a jagged edge, and it scoured him deeply.

  The village would not act unless his parents had given their assent, but already in the distance, he could hear the sound of men with axes. A tree taken from the Withers, offered to the sea as penance. They would tie him to it, but it would dash apart the moment he struck the rocks. Mercy had sat on the stone walls that lined the main path through the village and watched as they cleaved her coffin from the woods.

  Benjamin would not be so passive.

  The smithy was on the other side of town, close to the inlet in case of a wayward flame. Sebastian had it easy—sneaking away took him little time at all, while Benjamin had to cross the entire village to make his escape. A trek across field and stone, outrunning expectation and demand. He slowed his steps and lingered on the path to the waterfront.

  There were no ships due until the following spring if travel held. It had been a year since the last ship from the Old World had come. There would be no escape on the sea. Ship captains and crew were always outlanders, visitors to the prosperous village who never stayed themselves. They dropped off cargo and fresh blood from time to time, but even the brief visits to Southwyck impressed its curse upon them.

  And yet, they could not deny the prosperity of the town, and how a visit there always seemed to refill their coffers. It was the way the town had always been—surviving when all else would wither on the branch. It could have been another curse altogether: letting them thrive so that their suffering could be even greater. Eternal damnation was less demanding a mistress than hunger or survival.

  Benjamin suspected that the curses were more like plants than people knew. When there was more sun and frequent rains, plants grew hale and strong, but when they received too much sun, or the rains were too hard, they rotted.

  There were only two ways out of the village, and if he could not escape by sea, then he would have to flee by the roads. Except Sebastian was right—they would not only go after him, but they would catch him. No one had fled by road and escaped since his grandfathers’ days. The Withers swallowed up all but a narrow path farther into the mainland.

  A hand on his shoulder caused him to jump, but when he turned, it was only Sebastian, looking sad but determined. There was a bundle tied up in one of his giant hands. He already knew.

  “Through the Withers to the west, we can make it to York in a few days.” If the town followed them, it would take weeks by road to circle around the enormity of the woods. “There’s always need for a smith, and there will be work enough for you.”

  Benjamin had many skills he could draw upon. Though the emotions of the other lives were hazy and fractured, the dexterous movements of hand and body came easy to him, and a dozen lifetimes worth of distraction were available to him.

  He heard tale of cities large enough where all you had to do was cook all day and people would come and feast. He knew his numbers, and while he wasn’t the strongest in penmanship, he knew enough to fake it. Plus he had met no one who knew as many tongues as he did.

  But if he ran, it would not just be him punished. Sebastian would suffer.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured. Shyness honed like instincts over lifetimes overwhelmed him, and he found himself tucked into corners and shadows not even large enough to cover the unwelcome width of his shoulders. Decisions weren’t for him to make. Those were for others. He was an imposter.

  “There are towns that know nothing of curses,” Sebastian promised. “Where you will be exceptional and nothing more. And no one will look down on you for being yourself.”

  Impure, they called him sometimes. As though there was a purity in curses, and his had somehow wallowed in the sty.

  “They will kill you,” Sebastian said, plain of fact and dry of tone. “We’re going.”

  And that was that.

  They had always been an odd pair, too similar sometimes, and too far at odds the other. It was something that Benjamin enjoyed, because for every movement he made, he felt as though Sebastian always moved in tandem. Whether they came together or moved apart, there was always a kind of synchronicity to their steps. To their lives.

  Only now they were leaving, and the town would catch fire. Once they realized that Benjamin had fled, cursed justice would be swift. They would not let him cross the Withers for fear of what would happen to his curse. Would it rebound and decimate the town where it struck, or would it fizzle like candles in rain? Would it kill him, or would it kill someone else? None could say for certain, not even the most holy among them.

  “I’ve traveled with my father,” Sebastian confided as they skirted the woods. The town would expect them to take the road, but Sebastian’s plan was straight across the heart of the haunted wood, a heart that Benjamin hoped would hold its beat for their journey. “There are many towns, some even smaller than Southwyck. Others so large you could not believe. Any of them could be our shelter. There are months yet until the first frost. We will be fine.”

  The woods were heavy and thick at first, with roots dragging their knuckles aboveground to pull at their balance. The underbrush grew heavy and nipped at every inch of exposed skin. Within a mile, Benjamin was a worry of wounds.

  The deeper they went, the quieter the woods became. It was unnatural, and they both knew it. It had been too late the moment they’d stepped into the woods: the Withers had claimed them now.

  There were many stories of the Withers. Some claimed that the willow trees that permeated the forest were where it drew its name. Others said the town had tried to scrub witchcraft away from its history, and all it could manage was to bring witches to wither. A few, the Reverend being one of them, claimed Wither was the name of the witch who had first plagued the town.

  Benjamin had always been practical of thought. Haunted woods to keep a town in line. The Withers was what you named a wood you wanted people to stay away from. And stay away they did. There had always been a path through the wood, and a name like the Withers kept them on that path. And if they strayed, then they saw the reason a town like Southwyck had a wood like the Withers.

  They heard shouting once or twice. Soon the men of the village would bring out the dogs. Soon the pursuit would become a hunt. For his crime, Sebastian would now share Benjamin’s fate. All in the village knew of the bond the two boys shared, even if not a one of them understood it. They would know that if Benjamin and Sebastian were both missing, then they were together.

  These were the things they were thinking when they came upon the cottage.

  These were the things the
y feared when they saw the figure in the glass.

  These were the terrors that stole their breath when the witches beckoned them inside.

  * * *

  “Two by two, boys of blue,” the woman who settled at the table said, a pile of weaving around her. Her eyes were spring-sky blue, and her piercing gaze made the air rush from Benjamin’s chest.

  “A bit more than two, and not quite boys,” the other whispered. She had a rasp in her voice that scratched the words to bone before they escaped her mouth.

  Sebastian took them in with a calm that did not sit well with Benjamin. He was always so tranquil, even in the most heated of conversations, while Benjamin could barely catch his temper with both hands and a head start. But this was different. This was not a battle of wits with the Reverend, or the struggle to make any of the townsfolk realize that he had so much more to offer than heartache.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” he said, a simple statement of truth. He was the only one struggling; everyone else in the room already seemed to accept it as fact. Sebastian, in fact, looked entranced, the same way he’d looked when one of the Southwyck girls had brought him sweets hoping for a smile. Benjamin liked this even less.

  “Are we?” one of them asked. Rasp, Benjamin decided. It was the only way to tell the two apart, to define them by their differences.

  “Flame,” the other one said in response, and they both nodded in memory.

  “More than fire,” the first continued. “More than water. Quite a bit of effort, wasn’t it? Swinging hands, broken hearts, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.”

  “Reasons.”

  Benjamin stepped forward, placing himself in front of Sebastian. There were two of them, and two of the witches, but he could be enough for both. His father had always told him he tried the patience of a dozen saints. “Let him lie. He is not one of us. He has no curse to bear. He is innocent.”

  “Innocent,” one of them scoffs. Stare, the nickname fit, what with her unblinking way of watching. “You should repent.”

  “Not so innocent is a boy who steals away a sacrament,” the other continues with an eye waged on Sebastian. “An orphan spitting in the face of all he has.” She shifted to look at them both. “Nor as innocent as growing boys in rushing waters when they think no one is around for miles.”

  The two of them looked to one another, and Benjamin felt his skin warm. He had always carried his shame on every inch of his body that could be seen, even as it rushed across the skin that he kept hidden. His body became a furnace that could not suppress. No one had been in the woods that day. No one had seen what they had done, or what they had been to one another.

  Yet still, somehow they knew. They knew about the way that Sebastian had cupped Benjamin’s face, about the way their heartbeats raced against one another. His fingers had been like a promise, but his lips tasted like forever.

  “I...see,” Sebastian said, even though there was no way he could. The admission only made Benjamin burn hotter.

  “They will kill them,” Rasp murmured, a small sound of protest. “You know how they like to do that. They think the blood will tame what they cannot.” There was something unsaid between them, a cloud of conversation that neither of the boys could penetrate.

  They stared at each other, against each other, witch eyes matched. The air inside the cottage grew warmer, and Benjamin dropped his gaze to the gnarls in the wood table. That was when he realized what bothered him about the two women. There was weaving on the table, the skein itself covered in a heavy dust, and though Rasp moved her hands across it, it left no mark behind. Stare walked in a pattern, but her feet did not disturb the dust on the floor.

  “You are dead,” he realized aloud.

  “It is the peculiar nature of our hell.” Stare looked up at him, letting her white hair shroud her face. “Suffer though we must, and punished oh-so-well, our bones are ground to dust.”

  “The town will come for him,” Sebastian said, voice unyielding. “Can you help him?”

  Stare swiveled her head toward him, mouth soured in contempt. “As though we ever cared a lick for the whining of Southwyck.”

  “Bleating gnats,” the other agreed.

  “But you cursed the town,” Benjamin said. This was not what happened when witches came to claim you, or when revenants woke hungry in the night.

  “Curses flew, that much is true, but humans never earned our spite. Their bleating let us sleep at night.”

  The other rolled her eyes, rasping voice explaining, “They came at us with fire and stone, but they did not concern us. They got in the way, casualties of their own making, but what were they in the face of our own survival?”

  The boys looked at one another. Did you understand? Did you? Neither of them could nod their head, even though they needed no words.

  “They learned their lessons well. They learned that survival of most was preferable to the end of all.”

  It was too close to the mantra of the town for Benjamin’s comfort.

  “You know what they intend to do,” Sebastian said, resolute. “Can you protect him?”

  There was something in the way—“Did you plan this? Did you know they would find us?” Benjamin demanded, terrified and furious all at once.

  Sebastian didn’t answer him, but the twin cackles of the witches was all that he needed to know. “Coming to us for mercy,” Rasp whispered. “How interesting. It has been many years.”

  “And you once granted wishes,” Sebastian continued. “I would wish for his protection.”

  Benjamin grabbed him by the arm, a blast of cold and icy fear washing over him. “He means it not,” he protested. “You don’t make deals with witches,” he growled to the other boy. “Especially now.”

  “I like them,” Rasp pronounced. “And if we shelter them, then we can still claim their deaths, can we not?”

  “Shelter them this night, and in the morning they take flight.”

  Rasp nodded. “There is that. Then there is no help for it. Only another curse will suffice.”

  The two witches glided through the front door, out into the clearing that surrounded the house like a perfect circle. “You would be our hands in this world, the caress at day and the fist at night. No longer will Southwyck be your fear, but your charge.”

  Set apart from the house, almost at what Benjamin judged to be the center of the circular field around them, were a pair of rosebushes. They were few in the town, but Mariot remembered them, as did some of the others. But all of those memories contained roses in bloom; there were none here.

  “Once this land was known for the roses that blossomed here, unlike any other that exists in the mortal shell. But now only two remain, and they will not bloom again for many years.” Stare eyed them with a deadly expression. “Tend this garden and know you tend your own lives. Flee us, and flee our sanctuary, and winter frost will be your fondest memory.”

  “Stay here and you’ll protect us?” Sebastian asked. “And the Withers?”

  “The woods will shelter you under their bowers. You will stand when all else cowers,” Stare replied.

  “It will be many years before we can slip our chains again,” Rasp continued. “But we will always know what happens in this place. You will do as we instruct, and we will house you for all of your days. The animals will feed you, the woods shall be your home, and Southwyck...” The woman turned, and Benjamin had the instinctive realization she was looking back toward the village.

  “That is the secret to survival. Teach fear to those who taught you to be afraid.”

  * * * * *

  THE GIRL WITH

  THE BLUE LANTERN

  BY

  TESS SHARPE

  Northern California, 1849

  Everyone in Pollard Flat knew better than to venture into the North Woods. But that Thursday afternoon in November, Ella Gant’s dog—an oaf
ish beast named Virgil—broke his leather lead and darted through the trees, disappearing into the forest, and Ella had no choice but to follow.

  The first snow had come and gone, leaving the forest floor wet and slippery. Mud and pine needles stuck to the hem of her calico skirt and the soles of her boots. Dampness seeped through the leather as she called out Virgil’s name, her voice echoing among the trees. She tried not to pay mind to the shadows that stretched long and dark across the forest floor as the sun began to set.

  “Virgil!” She strained her ears, desperate for the sound of his paws thumping through the brush, but all she could hear was the beating of her own heart and the swish of the wind through the tops of the pines.

  She couldn’t leave without Virgil. He wasn’t a clever dog, but he was sweet in his own way, and more important, he’d been her mother’s favorite. There had been nothing she could do when the fever took Mama, but Ella certainly wasn’t going to let her beloved dog get eaten by a bear—or worse.

  People in town spoke of the North Woods in whispers and mutters, as if using a normal voice would summon trouble. The mountain that lay beyond the forest had no name; it was untouched, unreachable, as if an ocean separated it from Pollard Flat.

  Every year or so, some reckless miner would set out to explore the mountain, lured by tall tales of nuggets the size of goose eggs and streams glittering with gold dust. When greed was greater than fear, no warning was enough. But each time a man disappeared into the North Woods, dreams of gold shining in his eyes, he was never seen again.

  No one reached the mountain if the North Woods didn’t want them to. Or so they said.

  Ella turned in a slow circle, desperate for some sign. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Virgil!” she called, trudging ahead through the tangle of pines. Her skirt and petticoat were already an inch covered in mud. Her father would be angry when she got home. He’d think it foolish to follow the dog here, of all places.

  Ella bit the inside of her lip, pausing to catch her breath. It was a good thing she’d stopped caring what her father thought, then. When Mama had fallen ill, he’d dragged his feet in sending for the doctor, worried about the cost. Ella couldn’t help but wonder, in her darkest times, if she’d managed to convince him to send for the doctor earlier, just maybe...