by Kathryn Moon
“The Hollow is caged,” Isaac said, and there was nothing in the words, no joy or feeling.
“Come sit, darling,” Aiden said. “You must be tired.”
I wanted to go to them, fold myself between the three of them. But there was no room with the way they linked together, Callum sitting in the chair with the others framing him, hands on shoulders like the twist of a knot. And Aiden was pointing to the seat across from them. I walked to the table, trying to catch my feet on the ground to settle myself but instead left wading in a murky dread.
I made it to the free chair and then stopped, hands grasping onto the back of it. I didn’t want to sit, I wanted to resist the weight sinking into my gut.
“Why are we here?” I repeated.
Their faces turned to face each other, something so synchronized in the movement. They had been together so long it was as if they were a single unit. And I was still an outsider.
They looked back at me and it was Callum who spoke, head tilting and eyes squinting at me through his glasses.
“You were right. About everything.”
I stared back, my breath locked in my lungs as I waited, feeling that dread shaping underneath me. A familiar fear that I had tried to give up as if it were an addiction.
“It’s so much clearer, seeing you here,” Isaac continued. “You’re such a simple creature. So small.”
“Canderfey was swallowing you up,” Aiden said. “And here you look so at home.”
“I’m at home with you,” I whispered, because it was a promise they had given me.
“Do you think so? Or did you just want to be more than you really are?” Callum asked, voice gentle and poisoned.
I swung around, facing the small stove where dented pots were hanging overhead and a ragged, stained towel was dropped carelessly on the counter. I squeezed my eyes against the tears and pressed my hand to my chest where my heart was trying to crack open.
“Joanna.”
I spun again, fixing my eyes to Callum, hearing the urgent plead in his voice, but he only looked bored. My head panged and the room darkened, the three of them blending together into one dark and menacing shape, and then the pain faded.
“You’re an awful lot of trouble, darling,” Aiden said, his grin cruel.
“Writing is an… unusual gift, but it doesn’t mean you suit us,” Isaac said.
“You don’t belong in our coven,” Callum said, firm and final.
My lips parted and I didn’t know what would come out, a scream or a sob or protest… or an agreement. I stared at them, vision watery and body feeling trembly and useless. Plain and small and pathetic.
“There you are girl,” my father said, coming in from the back garden, hands dirty and face distracted. “This kitchen is a mess. What have you been doing all day?”
“I-” My brow furrowed. I had only just woken up.
My sister-in-law Rose came rushing down the stairs, two squalling children in her arms. “Could you take Aggie for just a minute? She’s got a tooth coming in and she’s impossible and Donny needs changed.”
“Quit gaping and day dreaming, mouse,” my brother said, appearing through the front door.
My niece was screaming and wiggling, arms reaching out to be held and bounced and my father was frowning at me and my brother was rolling his eyes. And through it all my coven sat, watching me with narrow eyes and patient smiles as if to say ‘See? This is what you are.’
“No!”
The activity in the room paused, my family’s eyes wide as I dug my nails into the chair in front of me and braced myself.
“No. This is not what we agreed,” I said. “We fight for each other. We do belong together. It’s as much my coven now as it is yours.”
“You can’t be in a coven, honey, you’re not a-”
“Not now, Rose,” I hissed, without tearing my eyes from Aiden’s face. “And it isn’t up to any of you whether or not I go back to Canderfey. I have a job there.”
My coven looked at each other again and there was something strange in the movement, the pace slow and smooth and regular. Callum turned back to me, a twist of annoyance in the purse of his lips.
“We really don’t know you well enough to be sure you’re worth it,” he said.
But he had said so, from the start. They had all said so, even when I refused to listen.
“You do,” I said, but the protest was weak.
“You would have to prove it to us, darling,” Aiden said.
My stomach was twisting around itself and my knees were shaking. These were not the men I had found too easy to fall in love with. I didn’t understand what had changed but I felt needy and desperate to change it back.
“How?” I whispered.
My family was hanging back by the stairs, the children gone quiet in their mother’s arms, and all eyes fixed to me.
“Your true name would tell us,” Isaac said, the usual sweet rasp of his voice now honeyed.
“My… I don’t know it,” I said. My gut stopped rolling and turned to stone.
“You could find it,” Callum said. “If you wanted us, you could find it around here somewhere.”
“Around… around here?” I stepped back from the chair and Callum rose up, Aiden and Isaac’s hands still on his shoulders.
“Just look, darling,” Aiden purred.
I blinked at them and then let my eyes wander slowly around the room, thoughts scrambling.
These were not my men… these were not…
“I can’t find it,” I murmured.
“Look,” Callum snapped.
I bit my lip and avoided their gazes. The fog was still hanging outside the window, dense and dark.
“Gvisard-” I started.
“Stop!” The room shouted as one, my coven in front of me and my family behind.
I should have felt afraid or threatened, but instead there was only relief. I looked directly at the men, not into any of their faces but at the twisted, hulking shape of them together.
“You were too impatient,” I said.
“I can find it myself now that I’m here,” it said from a half dozen voices.
I backed up another step and the table and chairs vanished between us, the image of my covenmates starting to congeal together at the shoulders. I had seconds.
“Gvisardra-”
Callum lunged and pulled the bodies of Aiden and Isaac with him. I scrambled back, spine hitting the edge of the stove as six hands—dark and tan and pale—wrapped around my throat, choking off the sound.
Joanna, breathe.
Callum. They were with me. Not here in the vision the Hollow conjured to torture me, but out there in the woods, waiting.
“Gvisardravig,” I said, or tried to say, air squeaking out of my lungs. Aiden’s face was smashed to Callum’s, eyes bulging together as Isaac’s jaw fell loose, and looser, long and gaping and grotesque with too many teeth.
The room was going black and my voice was strangled but I kept my lips moving even as nails clawed at my face and neck.
“Get into your cage and rot there.”
Fingers punched into my throat like blades and I choked on on blood or air or nothing.
I thrashed as voices shouted in my head, too many voices. My hands swiped through the hair and were caught up in a firm grip.
“Joanna! Joanna, it’s us. It’s us. It’s alright.”
I tried to lunge back but arms were banded around my waist. A cool hand brushed over my forehead and the black cloud in my vision washed away. Callum and Aiden and Isaac were surrounding me and I screamed, the shout burning in my abused throat.
Callum reached up to my neck and I flinched away. But his hand was gentle where it landed.
“You’re safe,” he whispered. “You’re safe. It’s over.”
I was gulping for air, finding that I could breathe again, and the sudden introduction of oxygen made white stars burst behind my eyes. I sagged in Isaac’s hold and Aiden’s worried face leaning forward t
o leave a warm kiss on my cheek was the last thing I saw.
I woke up in Isaac’s bed, an emptiness in my head. And in my stomach. There was a kitten sleeping on my shoulder, the orange and white one, and the calico was snuggled against my side. Callum was asleep in the chair I had taken vigil in while Isaac was ill. I froze at the sight of him, panic and relief warring in me, afraid to find myself under a new trick.
There was a little mewling chirrup from the end of the bed, the tuxedo kitten, and then Callum stirred. His head lolled in my direction and for a moment he only blinked at me. Then he was out of the chair, tripping in his bare feet on the way to the bed.
“Is it you?” I asked, and the words came out sticky and slurred. I pushed myself up on the pillow and the orange kitten growled and rolled away.
“Here,” Callum said, pulling over a little mug of cold tea and lifting it to my lips as he climbed onto the bed with me.
The tea was sweet and icy on my aching throat, carrying away some of the burn and parched dryness.
“You kept kicking and pushing at us while you slept,” Callum said, with a goofy smile on his face. “The healers said to leave you to it.”
I ‘hmm’d and then reached out a hand, brushing my fingers over the rise of his cheek. It felt right, the warmth and softness instead of the hot and sticky fever of the Hollow. I tugged him closer by the front of his shirt. He laughed and scrambled up to the pillows, tucking me into his side. I felt a little stiff and a little weak, but none of the lingering pain that had struck me unconscious.
“How long’s it been?” I mumbled into his shirt, smiling as I heard the house groaning with running footsteps up the stairs.
“Just a day,” Callum said.
I blinked at that, and then realized that the sun was shining and there was blue outside the window. “It really worked?” I asked. “It’s...is it gone?”
The door to the bedroom opened and Aiden was charging in, straight for the bed. I stretched and arm out for him and he slid underneath it, heavy over my stomach and face pressed to my neck.
“It worked,” Callum said. “The Hollow is locked up tight.”
“Hello, love,” Isaac said from the doorway, carrying a tray in his arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I think,” I said. I waved a hand towards the back of my head. “A little like I’m…missing a headache I’ve grown used to?”
Callum’s fingers combed through my hair and I let my eyes drift shut at the touch. “That’ll be the connection gone now.”
The connection that had let the Hollow into my head, my fears.
“’S a relief,” I murmured. Aiden shifted up to my side, an arm joining Callum’s over my shoulders. I folded my legs, up making room for Isaac and reaching out for the tray of food. I was starving. “How are the others?” I asked.
They hesitated for a moment and I froze, an english muffin halfway to my lips, stomach sinking. Aiden sighed and spoke first.
“They’re alright, really,” he said, trying too hard to be reassuring. “Tatsuo was hit by a piece of tree falling. Got a nasty shot through his left leg. But he’s healing, quickly if Hildy and Gwen have anything to say about it. And Bryce was a little wavery at the end yesterday but I expect they’re rested up by now.”
“Altogether, nothing serious,” Isaac said, hand stroking at my leg over the blanket.
I eased and Callum kissed at my temple as I took another bite of food. “So…what’s next?” I asked, looking at each of them.
“You take time off, a week according to Woollard,” Aiden said, fingers tracing a pattern on my belly.
“What?” I snapped, sitting up and jostling him. “No, I’m fine-”
“A week,” Isaac said, tone firm.
I sulked back against the headboard. “I’ll play it by ear,” I said and hurried on before they could correct me, “And what I meant was I’ve agreed to be in the coven so now… there’s supposed to a series of trials right?”
Callum grinned at me, “Those are old traditions.”
I fidgeted. “I only read about them. And I wasn’t expecting to practice them. But I remember that there was an Invitation and…”
“A Union and a Trial?” Isaac asked, head leaning to one side. “I think we covered those, love.”
“Isaac issued a formal invitation,” Aiden rolled onto his back to look up at me. And with a sly grin he said, “We’ve had unions. And if locking the Hollow back up wasn’t a trial I don’t know what was.”
“I assumed we covered that when you tried to leave,” Callum said shrugging.
“So…that’s it?” I asked.
“There are formal commitment ceremonies, coven marriages,” Callum said, watching my face. He glanced at the others and back to me. “When you’re ready we can talk about that.”
“For now,” Isaac said, squeezing at my leg. “I would like to simply enjoy the company of my coven, complete and safe as it is now.”
And strangely enough, there was something thrilling in the suggestion. Without the threat of danger, and with my promise to stay and be open with these men, a relationship felt suddenly exciting. And I had agreed to move in to the house.
I pushed the tray aside and Isaac immediately moved in closer, stretching forward to kiss me. “I may get bored at home for a week,” I mumbled against his lips.
He leaned back, eyes rolling and Aiden laughed.
“I’m sure we’ll find ways to entertain you,” Callum said, voice dry and eyes hot on my skin.
Epilogue - Callum
I stood in the doorway of Joanna’s bathroom, watching as she and Aiden kissed under the falling water, with a forgotten book in my hand. I’d come upstairs to show her notes I’d found on Scribes, a rare breed of witches whose magic centered around their writing, but the new information wasn’t half as interesting as the sight of the pair of them. Aiden’s dark arms twisted around Joanna’s narrow waist, her soft hips rolling forward, seeking friction. His hands skimmed down her back, over her ass, and his mouth trailed down her chest to her belly as he dropped to his knees.
Joanna’s small cry echoed against the stone of the shower walls.
I was ready to drop the book and join them when a hand settled on my shoulder.
“This came in the mail for you,” Isaac said.
It took a minute for the hungry fog to clear out of my head before I could tear my eyes away from Joanna arching back as Aiden held her against his mouth. Isaac was holding out a letter in his hand.
My stomach sank and the desire fled out of my blood. The writing was my father’s.
“Did you tell him about Joanna?” he asked, voice lowered.
“I don’t tell him anything if I can help it,” I said. But he might have heard by now. It’d been almost a week since we’d put the Hollow away. Joanna’s part in it—and her place in our house—was no secret on campus.
“Probably news of war,” Isaac said. Because it was almost always news of war with my father.
