The Near Witch

by V. E. Schwab

  “To slow them down,” he says, meeting the question in my eyes. We set out, hand in hand, for the clearing and the bones.

  “You’ve been practicing,” I say, glancing behind us.

  “I’m trying. I’ve got a ways to go.”

  “What were you thinking when you made that wall?”

  “Not thinking, really,” he says, without breaking his stride. “It’s just want. I want to keep you safe. I want to find the children. I want to put the Near Witch to rest. Because I want to stay.” He looks down at the ground, but I can hear him add, “I want to stay here, with you.”

  I weave my fingers through his as the thickest part of the forest closes over us.

  * * *

  “Everything about this place, it’s listening to her.” Cole gestures to the entire forest, to the ruined nature of it. Everything is half rotted, half collapsed, like a spectacular grove fallen into total disrepair. “She must have been a very strong witch.”

  “But how can she control it? It’s day. The sisters said she could only take shape at night.”

  “Take shape, maybe,” says Cole. “But she is still here, and still strong. The woods obey her. They’re enchanted.”

  I lead him through the sharp scrawny trees, my boots adding to the many sets of smaller feet still vaguely stamped into the soil. Otto’s men have added prints, cutting their own road. Large feet clumsily dragged across the earth. No method, no skill. I try to follow the children’s, but many of the small tracks are ruined. I look up at the thin light slipping through the canopy.

  We’ve been walking for too long.

  “It shouldn’t be this hard to find.”

  “What are we looking for?” asks Cole.

  “A nest of trees. A clearing. Even if the witch could move, those trees are old, deep-rooted.” I look down at the half-smeared steps and stop. Set over the others, flitting and light, is a new pair of feet.

  Wren.

  Her steps are so light, they barely leave a mark, but I know them and the ways they move. I kneel, studying the strange little dance. She was playing a game. Not the circle-spinning game of the Witch’s Rhyme, since that one takes a group, but one of her own games, the kind she played in the hall before bed.

  “What is it?” asks Cole, arms crossed, but I hold up my hand. I stand and scan Wren’s hops and skips and sideways jumps. Then I hurry along, following the strange steps that would never look like tracks to anyone but me. Cole follows silently behind.

  At last, Wren leads us to the small clearing, the space where the trees have scooted back to make room for the earth, and the boughs bend low to form a kind of shelter. In the clearing, Wren’s footsteps vanish with the rest, and I try to bite back the panic of having lost her trail.

  “Wren?” I call out, but only the cracking trees reply. I circle the clearing, searching for something, anything, but there’s no sign.

  “Lexi,” Cole calls, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking back the way we came. I follow his gaze, but the woods are thick, and the edge of the forest is far beyond our sight. I wonder if the hunters have reached the tree line, if Bo is already digging out flint or matches or oil.

  “They’re coming,” Cole says. “Where are the bones?”

  “In there.” I point to the mass of branches. On all sides above the nest, a dozen crows like black signposts sit and wait and watch with small stone eyes and beaks that glint even in the gray light.

  Cole drops the basket and makes his way up to the cocoon, peering in between the crossed limbs. He looks as if he expects the cocoon to simply peel itself back and let us in, but the mass doesn’t stir. If it did, I would trust it even less. He unfastens his cloak, letting it fall away and exposing the bandages that crisscross against his chest and back. The branches crack and snap in protest as he hoists himself through an opening, vanishing into the dark interior. Overhead, one of the crows flutters its wings.

  “Wait.” I hurry over, thinking of his wounds. “Let me do that.” I keep my voice low, in case the men are getting close.

  “I’m fine,” he says automatically, his words muffled by the wall of sticks.

  I find one of the larger openings, a place where the branches cross to form a kind of window. I peer down into the earthen nest, and the moss and rot make me feel ill. Cole stands in the center of it, up to his knees, and begins to dig. He hands me one bone after another, glinting and white as though they’ve been picked clean and bleached, despite the mud and moss clinging here and there. He searches in the semidarkness, and I lift the basket and climb the nest toward the top.

  “Watch out,” I warn, as I bring my boot down hard against the roof of branches. Most of them resist, half petrified with time. But several smaller ones snap, showering Cole with slivers of wood and shavings of light. The white bones glint where they jut through the earth, caught by the new beams of late afternoon sun. I resume my post, taking bones as he hands them up to me. Each one is a surprise of sorts. A thin finger. A splintered femur. A shoulder blade.

  And then, a skull. He passes it to me, and I gasp as I take it, the half-crushed face blossoming with moss and weedy flowers. It’s like a horrible flowerpot, roots escaping out the eye. So this is what they did to her, to the Near Witch, when they found the dead boy in her garden. I run my fingers over the ruined skull—the cracked cheekbone, the crushed eye socket—and shiver as I think of the hunting party dragging Cole out onto the moor.

  “Lexi?” he asks, waiting to hand me another bone. “Are you all right?”

  I take a deep breath, let it out, and place the skull gently into the filling basket. Through the trees the sun is crossing the sky. It took too long to find the bones. It’s taking longer to collect them.

  Cole continues to dig, but the hunt is getting harder, and minutes stretch between finds. A gun fires in the distance, and I spin, looking back, though all I can see are trees.

  “How badly do you want this, Cole?” I ask. And he knows what I mean.

  “With all my heart,” he says, wincing as he passes me another bone. His hand grows thin around it, and I swear I can hear the wind pressing out against the rolling hills and the hunters. “But I can’t keep them out for long.”

  There’s a click, click, click overhead, and I look up to see a crow toying with a small bone, just like before. Only this time, I need that bone. I hop down to the ground, set the basket aside, and find a stray pebble, taking aim. This first rock falls short, the shot hurried and clumsy. The crow doesn’t budge, doesn’t seem the least bit disturbed by the assault. I hear my father’s scolding even now.

  Focus, Lexi. Make it count.

  I slide the knife free, feel my fingers slip into the old grooves, before turning the weapon, pinching it by the blade. I stand slowly, measuring the distance. I raise the knife behind my shoulder, then feel the familiar release of metal past skin as I let go. The blade soars through the air, pinning the crow to the tree beyond its perch. It gives an agonizing caw, and then, to my shock, crumbles into a pile of black feathers and sticks and stones. Just like the wind-made Cole on the moor at night. I stare down at the heap, where the small bone waits like a crown, and pluck it off the top of the pile. I consider taking aim at the other crows, when I hear a flutter and a rustle, and the pile of forest things begins to piece itself back together at my feet. It assembles into a vaguely birdlike mass, except the beak is now a little off center, and one stone eye droops. The marred crow alights, and as it reaches its abandoned perch, it looks more bird than dirt again. I shiver, free the knife from the tree trunk, and hurry back to the basket and Cole, dropping the small bone in with the others and slipping my father’s knife into the leather sheath around my waist.

  Another gun sounds, this time not muffled by the wind. They’re in the forest.

  “We’re almost done,” Cole calls, his hands plunged to the elbows in the mossy rot.

  My eyes dart across the horizon line, searching between the trees. I try to hear, to tune my ears to the sounds of fe
et and men, but no sound reaches me.

  Cole hands me another bone. Some of the smaller ones are strung together by weeds and roots, weaving through the hollow middles like marrow. At least it makes them easier to find, I tell myself, cringing as Cole passes me a foot, most of the bones still connected, hanging in a limp cluster by tendril and moss. I load it into the basket and hop down to the ground, turning my back on Cole and the nest of trees for a moment. I think I can hear a man’s voice, far off but on this side of the wind wall. Otto. Through the trees the autumn light is growing thin as the sun slips closer to the ground. The days have grown shorter as they’ve grown colder.

  And then I smell smoke.

  “Cole,” I say.

  “I know,” he replies. “I’m almost done.”

  But something is wrong. Otto would never let this happen, not before he’d searched every inch for the children. The men and the fire are coming from different directions. Otto’s voice winds in from the right, and thin trails of black smoke begin to waft in from the left.

  I scour the forest floor, hoping once more to spot the children. My sister. My eyes run through the trees and down the trunks and over the dirt, and then, they snag. The dirt. The dirt beneath my feet is dry, matted with tendrils of weeds and patches of moss, settled. But a few feet away, beside the cocoon, the dirt is different. Freshly tilled. The witch’s words rage in my ears. Don’t you dare disturb my garden.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  I fall to my knees beside the fresh earth, begin to dig with my hands, pushing the dirt to either side. There’s nothing. Nothing. And then my fingertips feel something smooth and soft.

  A cheek.

  Cole calls out to me from within the huddle of trees, a question, I think, but all I can hear is my pulse and the Near Witch’s words and the vague melody on the air. I hear him climbing through the tangled mass of tree limbs, trying to free himself from the nest. The wind and smoke sweeps through as I dig, unearthing a child’s face.

  Wren. She’s not breathing. Her skin is pale, her nightgown spread gently around her, her hair still impossibly straight. No, no, Wren. We’re supposed to be able to stop this. Supposed to be able to set things right. I stifle the urge to scream, and instead uncover her chest and press my ear against it, listening for a pulse. I hear it, slow and low and steady. My own heart lurches with relief as I pull my sister’s shoulders from the earth.

  “Help me, Cole!” I shout. And then he’s there beside me, clearing the ground around her body, exposing her legs, her bare feet. Then he begins to push aside the surrounding dirt. Soon more faces appear. Edgar. Cecilia. Emily. Riley. Five children in all, tucked beneath the garden bed. I realize Cole is speaking.

  “Lexi,” he’s saying. “Come.” He pries my fingers from Wren’s arms, and I realize I’ve been gripping, clenching. I can hear the voices now, growing closer. Smoke is filling the clearing, and I hear the crackle of burning wood.

  “Lexi, take the bones, you’ve got to go.”

  I shake my head, brushing Wren’s blond hair, caked in dirt, from her pale face.

  “I can’t. I can’t leave her.”

  “The search party is coming,” he says more forcefully. “You have to get the bones back to the sisters before the sun sets.”

  I shake my head. “No. No, the fire. I can’t leave my sister.”

  “Look at me.” He kneels down, his cool hand guiding my chin up. “I’ll stay. I can use the wind to keep the fire back from Wren and the others, but you’ve got to run. One of us has to take the bones, and I’m not leaving you here.”

  My fingers loosen on Wren’s body, but I can’t let go.

  “Lexi, please. We’re running out of time.” Nearby branches snap beneath heavy feet. But Wren feels like dead weight in my lap, so cold, and I cannot make my legs move. And then a crack so loud and close that it’s amazing the searchers aren’t there on top of us already. Fire licks the clearing from one side, men’s voices call from the other.

  “Go. Get to the sisters’ house. I’ll catch up.” He looks down at the children, then back at me. “We’ll all catch up. I promise.”

  The crows overhead flutter nervously, and I see the panic in Cole’s eyes and let him guide me to my feet, my sister’s blond hair sliding from my dress back to the dirt. I feel my legs again beneath me as I look up through the canopy and see that the sky is changing, darkening. Cole hands me the basket and lifts Wren into his arms. The wind curls up around him, around the other children. They begin to blur, but I don’t know if it’s from the wind or from tears, as I turn, gripping the basket of bones, and leave the clearing. The forest closes in a curtain behind me, and my world is swallowed by smoke and fire and trees.

  29

  I sprint through the dead forest, and the light slips lower and lower, impossibly fast toward the horizon. Something wrenches me back. My cloak has snagged on a low limb, and I fight to wrest it free. The limb snaps, and I stumble on.

  I trust myself unto the moor… I try to recite my father’s prayer, but the words feel hollow. I try a second time before abandoning the prayer.

  Please, I beg the forest instead.

  I break through the tree line and onto the open hills.

  Please, I beg the sky and the tangled grass.

  Please protect them. I cannot entrust my sister to the ground so soon. I cannot give her back to the moor the way we did my father. I cannot let Cole’s world burn a second time.

  From the top of the hill I see that the forest is engulfed in flames.

  I clutch the basket as I run, the lower curve of the sun touching the hills, the golden circle skimming the wild grass. I fight the urge to look back, to slow down. I have to reach the sisters. The moor rolls away beneath me, and I imagine that I can feel a cool wind at my back, pushing me on.

  I reach the last hill before the sisters’ house. Just one more. One rise and one valley and then up, and I’ll be there.

  I am about to exhale when the ground gives a sudden lurch beneath my feet, and a fierce gust of wind tears through, ripping the basket from my hands. I hit the ground hard. Pain shoots through my head. White noise fills my ears. I wince as I try to push myself up, make it to my hands and knees before my head spins and I have to stop.

  I’m still trying to figure out what happened when I see the basket of bones overturned, spilling white shards out onto the hillside. The ground ripples beneath me as I push myself shakily up. Something trickles down my face, and when I wipe it away, I find a dark smudge on my hand. The sun is bleeding, too, right into the horizon, and the whole world has turned a sickly red.

  I turn around, looking down the hill, then up toward the top. My internal compass seems to have been knocked straight out of my head by the impact, and I am barely able to hear my own voice above the ringing in my ears. Up is good, I think slowly. I need to get up.

  I fumble along the ground, scattered with bones, kneeling to collect as many as I can. Light explodes in front of my eyes, but I force myself to focus.

  Several feet away, the basket twitches. Or rather, something inside the basket twitches just as the sun dips beneath the hills. An arm bone juts out, writhing as the moor climbs up around it, covering the eerie white in dirt and weeds.

  I whisper a curse, staggering back from the forearm now sliding across the ground and trying to connect itself to a stray wrist. It searches for fingers among the weeds.

  Run, screams a voice inside my head.

  I half crawl up the hill backward, keeping my eyes focused on the body picking itself up in front of me. The sun is now almost entirely out of sight. My retreat is too awkward, too slow, but I can’t turn away from the thing before me, the wild grass crawling over the bones as they collect themselves. A foot finds a leg. Ribs find a spine. I manage to unsheath my father’s knife as I stumble up the last hill. What I am going to do with it, I have no idea.

  An arm, now fully assembled, digs into the basket and retrieves the skull, the wildflower still planted above the eye. And in
the grass-covered palm, the dirt and weeds climb up over the skull, two stray stones clambering into the gaping holes where the roots wait like sinews.

  I near the top of the hill by the time the witch recovers her head and turns it toward me. The skull, now growing grassy hair, still sits in the palm of her hand as the rest of her body assembles.

  The Near Witch levels her stone eyes and opens her mossy lips and speaks in a windy voice.

  “You ruined my garden.”

  “You stole my sister,” I snap, raising the knife like I have a clue what to do with it.

  The wind around us begins to blow harder.

  “Hush, hush,” she coos with her half-formed mouth, pieces of dirt crumbling from her lips. The ground shifts beneath me. My heel hits a new groove in the hillside, and I stumble back to the slanted ground.

  “Quiet, little thing.” She smiles, and the words are a tangible force, heavy in the air. They come over the wind like a spell, and before I can get up, the moor is upon me, roots and tangled grass climbing up around my arms and legs, pinning me to the ground. The brambles cut into my skin. I gasp as they tighten, and I saw at the roots with the knife, snapping them only to find a dozen more climbing up over my boot, my calf. My arms free, I hack at the weeds binding my ankles as the Near Witch approaches. She begins with a limp, her back leg still attaching itself, but as she draws near, her stride is as smooth as my mother’s. Several weeds around my leg snap beneath my knife. She reaches out for me.

  “I told you,” she growls, her stone eyes glinting, her words traveling loud and clear through the air, “not to disturb my garden.”

  Finally the last strands break beneath my father’s knife. Before they can redouble, I kick out as hard as I can with my boot. When it collides with the Near Witch, she stumbles back, half crumbles against the moor, still weak at the edges. But before she can fall down the hill, the grass and the dirt beneath coil up to catch her.