The Witching Elm (A Memento Mori Witch Novel, Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

  “Are you all right?” he asked, moving toward her and putting a hand on her back.

  She retched again. Her face was pale, and there were tears in her eyes. “There’s a lot of blood. There’s a lot of blood on me. Does it look bad? I can’t see it. There’s a lot of blood here.”

  “Slow your breathing,” he said, rubbing her back while she hunched over. “I know someone nearby who can help us. That’s why I brought us here.”

  “What do you think happened to the others?” She rose and clutched at her bleeding neck.

  With his hand on her back, he led her through the trees. “It looked like the rest of them were going to make it through the southern gates. Once we transformed, the cloaking spell wore off. But the bone wardens didn’t seem like they were going anywhere.”

  Fiona stammered, “Where did you say we’re going?”

  “To a friend. Simon Bandyshanks. He’s one of the Cwaguns who live in the marshlands.” He helped to steady her as they walked.

  Her face had a pale, greenish tint. “That’s really his name?”

  “Yes.” He smiled and looked over at the pendant at her throat. “Something made the warden pause. It pointed at your necklace, I think.”

  “Jack gave it to me.”

  He took the tiny bottle in his fingers. “It must be charmed. Quite powerfully, actually.”

  Her breathing was irregular, panicked. “Jack doesn’t know how to charm things.” She inhaled deeply, fiddling with the necklace. “I can’t believe Celia. I mean, Lady Celestine. What the hell? She tried to take the skull. I mean, I know it was her cousin. But she said that whole thing about saving the larger numbers, and then she threw it all out the window when it was her own family.”

  “I should have known not to trust a princess.”

  She glanced at Tobias’s empty hands. “Does Thomas have everything now? What happened to the skull?”

  “I saw him swim back for it. I dropped it when it looked like…” he took a deep breath, not wanting to finish his sentence.

  They walked through the shade of the birches until they came to a winding path. It led to a house constructed of uneven planks, and the upper story bulged over the lower. A twisted chimney jutted out of a mossy roof, and ivy climbed over misshapen windows. Tobias knocked on a gnarled door, and after a short delay, it creaked open. He recognized the knotted gray beard of his father’s old friend.

  “Tobias?” the man asked incredulously, sticking his head out and looking around.

  “Simon! Can you help us?”

  “I’m all-a-mort! What does thou ’ere?” he whispered, opening the door wider and motioning them in.

  Fiona followed Tobias into a room cluttered with rough wooden shelves. Pots hung from the ceiling, and bundles of dried herbs dangled from hooks on the walls. Scattered all over the room were jars of dark liquids labeled with symbols—planets, animal heads, and elemental signs. A small fire burned in a hearth overhung by snakeskins.

  “How are thou ’ere?” Simon asked, grasping at Tobias’s shoulder. “Thy father tole me thou escaped.”

  He turned to look at Fiona, glowering. “Who’s thess?”

  “This is my friend Fiona, from Boston,” said Tobias. “You know the legend of the Darkling Tunnel? It’s real. We came through it.”

  Simon’s hand flew to his chest. “Is it true?”

  “The Harvesters have come to Boston.” Tobias guided Fiona to a wooden stool. “We came to find the Ragmen but were attacked by the bone wardens, and Fiona’s hurt.”

  “The bone wardens hunts ye?” He turned around again. “Hore’s kitling! I did sait to thy father not to mess with Angelic magics.”

  “I know. You never wanted to get involved with the Ragmen. But can you help us? Can you help Fiona’s neck?”

  “Set down, Tobias.” Simon walked over to a small cabinet. “There’s no call for Angelic to fix sicknesses. A simple tinxture will do. And then ye must flitter. Rawhed scours the Cwag for Ragmen, and he wanders the woods still.”

  He pulled out several jars of dried herbs and a small bowl, placing them on a rough-hewn table. He began breaking up the herbs and crushing them with a pestle, spitting into the bowl to make a paste. “Oak moss’s strong, rult by the earth.”

  There was little logic to Simon’s brand of magic—herbs gathered in rutting season for the strength of the stag, flowers whose silvery petals mimicked moonlight and therefore had properties of concealment. And yet it seemed to work, and Tobias always got a strange thrill out of watching him prepare a tincture or salve. Simon poured a small quantity of brown liquid from a jar into the paste and then heated the solution over the fire.

  “Was anyone I know captured?” Tobias asked, and he waited while Simon returned to the table to pour a thick black liquid into the mixture.

  Simon frowned but didn’t look up. “Eden.”

  Tobias felt the air leave his lungs. “Where is she?”

  He looked up with a scowl. “Tobias, ye must flitter back to Boston. Rawhed lurks here yet.”

  “Where would he have taken, her though?”

  Simon grunted. “To the cwod.”

  “To the prison? He keeps some captives alive?”

  He looked back to his tincture. “Seems so. He uses them in some way.” He tugged down Fiona’s shirt to clean her shoulder and back. “Tobias, look thou away.”

  Tobias turned to the fireplace. “What do you mean, uses them?”

  Simon didn’t answer. He was like that sometimes—he only spoke when he wanted to. Tobias could hear his lungs wheezing as he worked.

  “Have you seen my father?”

  Simon sighed. “Not sense the trees was bare.” He scowled. “Now ye both must scatter afore ye gets found by Rawhed. He hunts nearby.”

  They thanked him as he ushered them out the door and into the dappled light of the forest. They walked over the marshy paths toward a clearing as the air around them cooled. A flock of sparrows took flight from the trees, and, moments later, a group of starlings. In this part of the Tuckomock Forest, white flowers bloomed on the trees near the path, and their petals covered the ground. These were the mayflower trees.

  They moved toward the edge of the clearing, and Tobias looked down at the crushed petals beneath his feet. “Rawhed uses his prisoners, he said.”

  “For what? Labor?” She touched her neck where it was bound. “Do you think we should transform again? Something feels wrong. I want to get out of here. We should circle overhead to look for the others.”

  He glanced at her. Some of the color was returning to her cheeks. “After we look for them, I want to get to the prison. I don’t know what Simon meant about using prisoners, but it doesn’t sound good.”

  A crunching noise from the other side of the clearing interrupted them, and Tobias turned. Someone was running toward them over the crumpled white petals. Why did he keep thinking about the petals?

  A woman with long dark hair ran through the thicket across from them, snapping twigs. She looked terrified as she fled toward them, followed by a boy and two men.

  “What’s happening?” Tobias called out, but they ran past without slowing, gasping and trampling the mayflower petals.

  The mayflower petals. When Tobias had asked the shew stone to tell him who’d started the Mather Adepti, it showed him a mayflower tree. The letter said the Mather Adepti’s founder had gone mad. The later philosophers hadn’t wanted him to find the poem.

  Fiona grabbed Tobias’s arm. “Tobias? Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

  He stared at the trampled petals as an idea formed. “The mayflower trees.”

  Another group came sprinting across the clearing—two women and a man.

  Fiona stepped closer, inches from his face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He grabbed her shoulders. “There’s another name for them.”

  A woman in a red dress ran into the clearing, and someone ran close behind her. It was someone he recognized—someone from Mather. Fion
a was about to shout, when Tobias clamped his hand over her mouth.

  43

  Thomas

  Thomas kicked his way through the canal water, followed closely by Mariana and Alan in their familiar forms. Weighed down by the bag of knives and the bones he carried, he spit a stream of brown, pulpy water out of his mouth and gasped for breath.

  From the canal, he’d been relieved to see Tobias and Fiona transform at the last moment. He’d circled back to grab King Philip’s skull after they’d flown off while a warden had burned nearby.

  Here, outside of the city, the canal flowed into a bay. In the water below him, he saw the glimmer of nippexies as he swam. He made it as far as he could from the city before his arms grew tired. When he was out of breath, he called to the others to swim toward the shore. His feet touched the ground near a wooded area, and he climbed out of the bay. Cold, filthy water weighed down his clothes.

  On the rocky shore, Alan and Mariana transformed into their human forms again. They lay gasping on the rocks, and Alan held his hand over his eyes as he looked up at the sky.

  Thomas hunched over, catching his breath. The fireball had burned his shirt and seared his shoulders, but his quick dive into the canal had prevented any significant damage. He squinted down at the others. “Are you guys all right?”

  Mariana nodded and sat up, shielding her eyes in the sun. “What happened to Fiona and Tobias?”

  “They flew.” He gestured into the air, catching his breath. He stood up straight and looked at the water and the towering trees. He had no idea if they were anywhere near the Ragmen. “We should get into the cover of the forest.”

  He walked toward the woods, followed by the others after they’d caught their breath.

  Alan rubbed his arms for warmth, drying himself off. “I think we should just perform the spell ourselves. We have the bones, and we know the words. We don’t know where Tobias and the Ragmen are. And we can’t stay here forever.”

  Thomas nodded. “You’re right. I just want you both to get back home as fast as you can.”

  “Aren’t you coming back with us?” asked Mariana.

  “Eventually.” He pushed his way through a thick overgrowth of mulberry bushes into a grove of old cypress and oak trees. “First I’m going to find Tobias and Fiona. I don’t have parents who’ll be worrying about me.”

  They reached a small clearing. Sunlight trickled through the leaves of oaks, and ivy vines wound up their trunks.

  Thomas looked at Alan and Mariana. “Are you ready?” They nodded, and he removed the minister’s sodden bones from the bag, arranging them in what he thought might be the correct form of a human skeleton, though there were lots of fiddly little bones that could be either fingers or toes. Mariana sat beside him on the ground and pulled out King Philip’s skull, while Alan paced back and forth, mumbling to himself as he reviewed the mending spell.

  A flicker of movement in the trees caught Thomas’s eye. His throat tightened as three winged insects fluttered toward them. He took a deep breath, standing.

  Alan still stared at the ground, oblivious to the creatures. “I can’t remember all the words for this spell.”

  The bugs drew closer, and Thomas recognized the iridescent green tinge of luna moth wings, ignited by the sunlight. “Guys—we might need these.” He reached into the backpack and pulled out the knives, handing one each to Mariana and Alan. “The Harvesters are here. Just—be careful.”

  His breath quickened as the moths hovered before them. Mariana turned the knife in her hand as she stared at them.

  “Get behind me.” Thomas held out his arms to either side, gripping the knife in his right hand, up in front of his face as if in a boxing stance. He squinted, the brightness of the moths in the sunlight too garish for his sleep-deprived eyes.

  He had that dizzying feeling as the moths burst into their human forms, and three men stood before them at the edge of the clearing. Thomas heard nothing but his own breath.

  A black-bearded man with deep gray eyes wore a brass pendant around his throat. It depicted a face formed from twisted leaves and thorns. The man stared at Thomas as the two others fanned out—older men with gray beards.

  “The blasphemous Leviathan’s skull.” The black-haired man held out his long, thin hand.

  “We should retrieve the Champion,” said another.

  “Druloch is with us. We can end this now,” said the first.

  Thomas widened his stance in front of his friends. Adrenalin pulsed in his veins as one of the older Harvesters held up his right hand. Thomas suddenly felt energized.

  A ball of flame grew in the man’s palm. Thomas lunged toward him, but the younger man blocked him, holding the pendant aloft. It froze Thomas in place. The Harvester whispered something into the briary face, and a blinding light streamed from its center. Thomas felt himself drift out of his body.

  He was no longer in the forest, but on a night bus in London. He was home again. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing—something strange. Was he supposed to be fighting someone? He rubbed his eyes. He needed more sleep.

  The overhead lights flickered, and his trainers stuck to something on the floor. Only one other passenger rode the bus, a man hunched over across from him. The man heaved and vomited onto his shoes.

  Thomas leaned toward him across the aisle. “You okay, mate?”

  The passenger looked up, and Thomas found himself staring not at a stranger, but into his own tired and aged face.

  “Bloody hell!” He leapt up and ran to the front of the bus as it lurched through the dark London streets. “Let me off!” he shouted at the driver, who slammed on the brakes.

  Thomas forced the doors open and stepped out onto Bethnal Green Road. Gnawed chicken bones crunched under his feet. The sky began to brighten to a cigarette gray, and newspaper sheets blew off the road and into his face, covering his eyes. When he peeled the paper off, he stared into the face of the passenger from the night bus—his own face.

  “What are you running away from, Boss?” The man’s eyes were half closed.

  As the clouds brightened overhead, Thomas remembered a sharper light—a blinding, green light and balls of fire. He shook his head. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m in the woods, fighting with magic. They had fireballs.”

  Old Thomas laughed, a deep laugh that doubled him over.

  “Fighting with magic? Fireballs? Madness. You think that’s real? You’re not there.” He put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “You’re not anywhere.”

  Thomas felt the pavement fall away beneath him, and his vision went black. He was unmoored from the earth. He would forever be in this abyss. All the rules he’d thought he knew were wrong. A dull ache spread through his chest, and he drifted in the vacuum until someone screamed. Light filtered into his eyes, and he could make out the blurred shapes of trees above him and feel the earth beneath him.

  “I’m here!” he shouted, though he didn’t know why, and he dug his fingers into the dirt. “I’m here!” He sat up and looked around, trying to orient himself. A high-pitched noise rung in his ears. He was back in the woods with the Harvesters.

  Someone sobbed. Mariana? When his eyes focused, he saw that Mariana and Alan stood before him, both holding bloodied knives. Mariana’s hair and shirt were singed, and she was nearly hyperventilating, but they were otherwise unhurt. Alan’s expression was one of confusion as he stared at his knife, as though he’d suddenly found himself in a murderous encounter after eating breakfast that morning.

  To his right, the two older Harvesters lay unmoving on the ground. Blood pooled out from under them, seeping into the earth, and it trickled in red streams from their mouths. But the black-haired man shifted. He lay against a tree to Thomas’s left, gripping his stomach. Blood poured from a gash in his side. He no longer wore his tree pendant.

  Wrenched open, his eyes darted from left to right. “Help me!” He looked up toward the sky. “Help me please! Druloch! I’m going to die.
Druloch!”

  Thomas shook his head, trying to clear the ringing noise, and slowly stood. “You were dead before.”

  He grimaced and writhed where he lay. “Before. But I can’t die again without claiming a life for Druloch.”

  Thomas moved toward him, crouching on the ground near the Harvester. “Why?”

  The man gripped his stomach and choked out the words, “Isaac and Rebecca.”

  A small part of Thomas thought he needed to end this man’s misery. “Who?”

  “My children.” His hands grasped at the gash, trying to piece himself together again. “Rebecca was five.” He swallowed blood. “Isaac—six months. The plague. Isaac—” He coughed and spluttered. “Little hands on my beard.” He shut his eyes, moaning. “Rebecca. Endless questions.” He moaned again, louder this time. A glazed look overtook his eyes. “The plague. Isaac’s throat turned black. Wouldn’t stop crying. Rebecca—the black throat, the bleeding.”

  “You lost your children. When you were alive, hundreds of years ago.”

  “Druloch shall reunite us in the Sacred Orchard. Isaac’s little arms.” He wheezed. “Rebecca chasing fireflies,” he whispered.

  Mariana sobbed, looking at the knife in her hand. “We stabbed them. They were doing a spell. Alan punched them and the spell stopped, but I almost caught fire, and then we stabbed them.”

  “What do we do?” Alan’s face was pale.

  Thomas turned back to the Harvester. “What’s your name?” He didn’t know why, but it seemed like he should know it.

  “Matthew.” His chest heaved.

  Thomas didn’t know what to say to someone who was dying. “Rest now. Rebecca and Isaac will be waiting for you.” He didn’t know, but it could be true.

  Though Rawhed’s army had sprung up from the underworld, they kept their memories with them. Thomas had to remind himself that the man had already been dead once, beneath the earth of King’s Chapel. When Matthew’s eyes closed, his jaw slackened and his chest stilled.

  Mariana’s sobs only intensified, and she sat on the ground, dropping her knife. Alan stared at his shaking and bloody hands, and then he sat by her, covering his face.