tonight indicated that the woods and I were closer, more twined, than I had previously thought.
I bent my knees, placing my palm on the blood. Blood didn’t have an odor that humans could smell, not until it began to sour and rot, but this blood smelled metallic, bitter, something odd just at the edges of my ability to detect. Beneath my hand, the forest was seething with need, with hunger, the scent and patter of blood, the stench of bowels still releasing, and the reek of fear, the race between predator and prey, all had waked it. The woods thrummed through me, as if blood that pulsed and air that breathed.
I called to the blood on the earth and to the life draped high above. And I plunged my hand through the splattered blood,into the soil, fingernails breaking with the impact. I pulled on the blood, on the body hanging above me, drawing the life force to me, gathering it as if webbed between my fingers, which were buried in the dirt. I hovered my other hand over it, holding the life force like a ball of light balanced atop the ground, between my two hands a single tether of life, still secured to the body above. And I felt Ephraim begin to pass away, his spirit falling, disentangling from his body. His life force shuddering through the air. My magic caught it, pulling it to me and across my flesh like a caress, or a promise, or a threat, heated and icy both, into a glowing ball that held together, for a moment. Brother Ephraim began to slide away from me, into the ground. The process was slow and purposeful, my mind focused. The life force slid past me, clutching at me as it went, trying to slow its passage, screaming deep into the dark beneath.
The woods shivered, the soil moving in fractions of inches, fast and furious. Drinking the life away. Claiming the soul as its own. Things fell from the branch above, hitting the ground around me, bouncing, breaking, fracturing, and crumbling to powder. Bones. Hair in short strands. Fingernails. Clothes. Boots. Crumbling and sifting into piles and then into the dirt, sucked down. Along with the soul I’d stolen to feed Soulwood. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
And so I fed the life of Brother Ephraim into the earth.
This was resolute. Deliberate. This was judgment. Utter. Complete. And I didn’t care. Even knowing that this power made me evil, far more evil than a witch, no matter what the Scriptures might say. Scriptures that had no mention of my kind anywhere in them. I’d looked.
The limbs above shook and trembled. Leaves rustled hungrily. Time passed. The earth stilled. Satisfied. Pleased.
Aware . . .
I breathed in, smelling loam and water. Hearing the trickle of spring water. Night had fallen, dark and thick with promise, threat, and gratification. I stood and brushed my hand off on my damp clothes. My fingertips were bleeding, blood dripping onto the ground, but as I watched, the skin healed over, clean and new. I was no longer cold; I felt warm and sated and relaxed, the power still pulsing in me. I didn’t know what thatmight mean, but it felt good. The church would call me witch and evil and murderess and burn me at the stake. But the church wasn’t here. And the law enforcement officer who was here? He’d never tell what he knew or thought he knew, because if he did, Paka’s secret would be out—that she had hunted a human and eaten of him. And that fact would forever alter the precarious balance of humans, paranormal creatures, and law enforcement in the United States.
I stood over the place where Brother Ephraim had vanished and quoted Shakespeare. “‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? . . . If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’ You’re gone now, Brother Ephraim, into a life of my choosing and my judgment.” The ground beneath me went still, leaving the woods hushed and silent as the grave.
I considered Paka, a black smear on the night, and said, “You didn’t eat much of Ephraim, so I reckon you’re
I bent my knees, placing my palm on the blood. Blood didn’t have an odor that humans could smell, not until it began to sour and rot, but this blood smelled metallic, bitter, something odd just at the edges of my ability to detect. Beneath my hand, the forest was seething with need, with hunger, the scent and patter of blood, the stench of bowels still releasing, and the reek of fear, the race between predator and prey, all had waked it. The woods thrummed through me, as if blood that pulsed and air that breathed.
I called to the blood on the earth and to the life draped high above. And I plunged my hand through the splattered blood,into the soil, fingernails breaking with the impact. I pulled on the blood, on the body hanging above me, drawing the life force to me, gathering it as if webbed between my fingers, which were buried in the dirt. I hovered my other hand over it, holding the life force like a ball of light balanced atop the ground, between my two hands a single tether of life, still secured to the body above. And I felt Ephraim begin to pass away, his spirit falling, disentangling from his body. His life force shuddering through the air. My magic caught it, pulling it to me and across my flesh like a caress, or a promise, or a threat, heated and icy both, into a glowing ball that held together, for a moment. Brother Ephraim began to slide away from me, into the ground. The process was slow and purposeful, my mind focused. The life force slid past me, clutching at me as it went, trying to slow its passage, screaming deep into the dark beneath.
The woods shivered, the soil moving in fractions of inches, fast and furious. Drinking the life away. Claiming the soul as its own. Things fell from the branch above, hitting the ground around me, bouncing, breaking, fracturing, and crumbling to powder. Bones. Hair in short strands. Fingernails. Clothes. Boots. Crumbling and sifting into piles and then into the dirt, sucked down. Along with the soul I’d stolen to feed Soulwood. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
And so I fed the life of Brother Ephraim into the earth.
This was resolute. Deliberate. This was judgment. Utter. Complete. And I didn’t care. Even knowing that this power made me evil, far more evil than a witch, no matter what the Scriptures might say. Scriptures that had no mention of my kind anywhere in them. I’d looked.
The limbs above shook and trembled. Leaves rustled hungrily. Time passed. The earth stilled. Satisfied. Pleased.
Aware . . .
I breathed in, smelling loam and water. Hearing the trickle of spring water. Night had fallen, dark and thick with promise, threat, and gratification. I stood and brushed my hand off on my damp clothes. My fingertips were bleeding, blood dripping onto the ground, but as I watched, the skin healed over, clean and new. I was no longer cold; I felt warm and sated and relaxed, the power still pulsing in me. I didn’t know what thatmight mean, but it felt good. The church would call me witch and evil and murderess and burn me at the stake. But the church wasn’t here. And the law enforcement officer who was here? He’d never tell what he knew or thought he knew, because if he did, Paka’s secret would be out—that she had hunted a human and eaten of him. And that fact would forever alter the precarious balance of humans, paranormal creatures, and law enforcement in the United States.
I stood over the place where Brother Ephraim had vanished and quoted Shakespeare. “‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? . . . If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’ You’re gone now, Brother Ephraim, into a life of my choosing and my judgment.” The ground beneath me went still, leaving the woods hushed and silent as the grave.
I considered Paka, a black smear on the night, and said, “You didn’t eat much of Ephraim, so I reckon you’re
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