Bennie was nervous the whole hike down the mountain, but navigating the wake of Motheater’s destruction and the desperate belief that the security on the mountain was shot meant that she was too focused to let it get the better of her. The bird followed, alighting from branch to branch, and Bennie was grateful it kept its beak shut. Motheater was quiet and cold as they walked, not even tending to the moths that had fluttered around her since she had torn the church to shreds. She seemed weaker. She had mentioned she was unable to make bargains with the plants when she tried to curse DeWitt; had wrecking the Church on the Rock taken too much water from her well?
In the truck, Motheater stayed quiet for a few seconds. “I felt an echo in the mountain. I think there’s a part of me buried somewhere.”
Bennie made a noise, turning the truck over and heading out of the trailhead parking lot. “I heard it, too.”
Motheater ran her fingers slowly over the hem of her boilersuit. “I might have sent a part of my soul away from Kire to protect myself. Or I might have given a shard to a friend to keep safe . . .”
“You had friends?” Bennie teased, still stressed, but at least they were off the mountain and heading away from the horrible creature in the stone.
“I’m sure I did,” Motheater muttered. Bennie felt an ember of frustration nestle in her gut. All this and for what? For Motheater to send them on another fox hunt through the hollers. “I’ll make a candle or something, find a way into the past . . .”
“I need to get people off the mountain,” Bennie said sharply. “People are going to get hurt.”
“Ain’t enough,” Motheater muttered. “I got so much, and it’s still not enough. I’m bargaining with so little, and all I can do without taking too much magic is move stones around.”
Bennie’s hands clenched on the wheel. She had just trespassed on a private holler, traipsed all up and down a living, breathing mountain, fought ghost snakes and real ones, and here was Motheater calling for more?
“I need more than that,” Bennie said quietly. She ached for Motheater, what she had been through, but this was bigger than either of them. “We ain’t done all this for you to say that.”
“I know,” Motheater said, frowning deeply, cupping a moth in her hand gently. “I know, and I’m sorry for it.”
Bennie swallowed. “White Rock is putting people in danger. If you’re saying you ain’t got enough in you to stop Kire, then we need to buy ourselves some time.” Bennie pulled back onto the road. “We get the miners to safety, then we deal with the mountain.”
Motheater finished with one moth, had another inside her palms. Bennie glanced at her. The witch seemed all the more fierce for the dark lariat around her neck and new, strange tattoos curling over her arms. Reliving her trauma hadn’t dissuaded her.
“Tell me what to do,” Motheater murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the truck. “Even if it draws from me. I will be your hands.”
Bennie’s breath hitched. She looked forward, driving along back roads that curved like a lung. “A rockslide.”
“I can do that,” Motheater said, her eyes hard.
Fear gripped Bennie’s chest, tightening. “We break a road,” she said. “We break a road, make it impossible to get to the mining sites and offices.”
“I can break anything you like, darlin’,” Motheater said, turning back to the insect in her hands. “You just claim what needs upheaval.”
Bennie knew she was blushing now. She swallowed and nodded, and at the next fork took the left turn that would lead her around to the White Rock offices. She had to pass Delancey’s, but hopefully the woman wouldn’t be looking out the window as she did so. (Even so, she held her breath as she drove by, praying Vikki wouldn’t see her.)
It was nearly sunset, and with everything going wrong, Bennie hoped that there wasn’t anyone at the offices. When she drove to the road leading up the private way to the White Rock offices, the gate was closed—and locked. She felt relieved; this was just the luck she needed. The day’s foreman was in charge of setting the box and activating the cameras, and the blinking indicated that everyone was off the mountain. Even the camera didn’t bother her. Bennie knew exactly where to stay to keep out of the line of sight.
She gripped the wheel tightly, her nerves through the roof. But she and Kelly-Anne had tested this, marked out on trees with cuts exactly how far they needed to stay back.
“That it?” Motheater asked, fingers silver with magic.
“None other,” Bennie said, eyes narrowed. She glanced over her shoulder, down the road again. It was never guaranteed that someone wouldn’t come up, but she wasn’t technically doing anything illegal.
Nothing about witchcraft in Virginia law, far as she knew.
Motheater unbuckled herself and reached for the door handle. Bennie grabbed her arm, saw Motheater wince—the snakes must still be hurting her—and slid her hand down to Motheater’s.
“Stay on this side of the truck. They’ve got cameras,” Bennie explained. “Disrupt the road far enough that they can’t get around by driving through the wood.”
Motheater nodded. Her stern face softened slightly, and she squeezed Bennie’s hand before slipping out of the truck. Bennie watched her and then hurriedly looked around again. Nobody. Motion sensors were off; the camera wasn’t pointed at her. She was going to be fine.
In the middle of the road up to White Rock, still just out of the camera’s sight, Motheater crouched in the dirt.
“I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and restrained myself.” Motheater’s voice echoed in Bennie’s head, and she shivered, gooseflesh pimpling her arms. Something had changed on the mountain, and now Bennie could feel it caving to Motheater, feel it bending to her. Kire seemed to listen to her. “Now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.”
Bennie felt it before she heard it. A pressure at her throat and then, a tumble from up the mountain like thunder. Motheater slowly stood up, and mercury threads connected her hand to the ground. Her voice was a hiss. “I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs—”
The mountain shuddered. Bennie clenched the wheel tighter. Somewhere near, the rockslide klaxon began wailing.
Motheater was standing up, her hand in front of her mouth. Just past the gates, the mountain was cracking open. A boulder slid up from the gap like a snake poking its head out of a warren. Something crashed, and the echo made Bennie’s teeth hurt.
All this, and she couldn’t stop staring at Motheater, the witch, the woman she had asked to break the world, who was doing it for her. Bennie was so fucking gone.
“—And I will turn the roads to wilderness, and I will allow none entry.” Motheater’s voice retreated into the woods. She took a shaky step back, and then another, and before Bennie could get her wits together to help her, Motheater had made her way into the front seat again.
“Fucking hell,” Bennie muttered.
“Just wait until you see what the rest of me can do,” Motheater said, sitting back in the seat, closing her eyes. She seemed sallow, exhausted, blurry around her edges.
“You’re goddamn incredible.” Bennie shakily put the truck in gear, driving away from the site.
“I’m one of those things.” Motheater chuckled. “I can still ask Kire for favors.”
Bennie swallowed, driving through town, heading back to her apartment. She swung by Otto’s to grab a pizza to go and quickly foisted it onto Motheater’s lap. All the way back to her place she stayed quiet, a buzzing in her fingers never going away. She had questions, dozens—but more than that, she could feel it in her chest where Motheater had ripped the earth open.
There was now something raw in her. A new wound. An open letting. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the boulders and stones that Motheater had unearthed had done something to her, too.
At Bennie’s apartment building, Motheater carried the pizza up the stairs and waited for Bennie to unlock the front door. The blue jay had hitched a ride in the back of the truck and was now perched on the railing outside, happily enjoying a bird feeder that had been left out by a neighbor. The bird was absolutely not looking at any of the moths surrounding Motheater’s head. Bennie assumed they might have had a shine to them, a glow that told the world whom they belonged to.
“I should make a box for him,” Bennie mentioned, trying to be casual as she opened the door. “If he sticks around.”
“He will,” Motheater muttered, walking into the efficiency, at least a dozen moths floating around her head, accumulated just between the truck and the front door. “He’s familiar.”
“Like, a familiar?” Bennie went over to the high-backed chair and immediately found her charger, plugging in her phone. The battery had been completely drained on Kire. “I thought only witches had familiars?”
“Ach.” Motheater dug into Bennie’s bag, pulling out the map she had used for notes, spreading it on the fold-down table and comparing it to the murder map. “Familiar beasts do as they please. He may stay for a short time or forever. You’ll only find out tomorrow.”
Bennie huffed. That was unhelpful. She put down her phone. “I’m going to take a shower. You should eat. Leave me a few slices.”
Bennie slipped into the bathroom, starting the shower. She’d have to wash her braids after going up and down a damn mountain all day, and she started braiding sections together.
Maybe she should have warned Motheater that this might take a while. Whatever. As long as the witch left her something, it was fine.
She had just stepped into the shower when she heard a knock on the door.
“Bennie?” Motheater seemed insistent enough that Bennie was almost worried she’d barge in. “Your box-phone is rattling.”
“That’s fine, Moth!” Bennie called out, selecting her conditioner. “It’s just getting my messages!”
She didn’t like that pause. If there was something worse than a nineteenth-century witch trying to figure out a piece of technology worth more than most of Bennie’s possessions put together, Bennie had yet to know it.
“It’s like telegram,” Motheater said through the door, and Bennie smiled.
“It’s like telegram! I’ll take care of it when I’m out of the shower!”
When there was no response, Bennie let out the breath she was holding, working on her braids again. They were about a month or so old, and they’d be fine for another few weeks. It was the most low-maintenance style she could handle, and Zach had liked the way they looked.
Bennie hesitated. She liked the way they looked, too.
After she wrapped her head in a towel and changed into a robe, she saw Motheater curled up in the chair with a novel that was definitely going to either blow the woman’s mind or make her think that the past century was a hell of a lot weirder than it really was.
“Phones aren’t so strange,” Motheater said from her perch. “It’s like scrying, but knapped down to something you can hold in your hands.”
Bennie snorted. “Yeah, definitely not magic. Just like . . .” Bennie grabbed a slice of pizza. “Like combining all the things that make life easier and storing it into one little thing.”
Motheater carefully dog-eared the corner of her page in the novel. Bennie noticed she was moving stiffly and thought that the bruises around her neck were likely only the start of her injuries.
“Like using a gun to kill someone instead of using your hands.”
Bennie dropped the pepperoni slice. Motheater looked up at her, smiling a little. Her eyes had more gray in them now, probably from whatever moths had followed her into the apartment. Bennie shuddered and picked the pizza off the floor, immediately tossing it.
“I . . . right.” She took another piece and bit into it, leaning against the counter. “You should take a shower, too,” Bennie said. “There’s an extra towel in there, if you want it.”
Motheater glanced warily at the bathroom, despite having used it multiple times before. “Running water, and hot, too,” Motheater muttered, half in awe. “And everyone has it.”
“Most everyone.” There were still a few places around here that didn’t get it. A few trailer park encampments that were adamant about staying off the grid. Bennie tried to parse out the look that Motheater was giving her. Half wonder, half sad, as if she were putting things together that Bennie didn’t understand.
“What’s wrong?”
“This is progress,” Motheater said sadly, looking down at the cover of the novel she’d been reading. “And it’s good.”
Bennie frowned. “Ain’t all good, Moth. Progress hasn’t done so much. And none of this came from White Rock.”
“I ain’t thinking about the mining companies,” Motheater said quietly. Bennie couldn’t read her expression.
“Go take a shower,” Bennie said. She reached over and squeezed Motheater’s shoulder, resisting the urge to flinch when a moth nestled in the strands of her silver hair crawled across Bennie’s hand. “We’ll figure something out after.”
As Motheater headed to the bathroom, Bennie tried to sort out the feelings in her chest. It was an odd mix of protectiveness and utilitarianism, and when Motheater looked over and caught her staring, she got a little red.
“Turn the knobs in the shower,” Bennie explained. “Left is hotter, right is colder. You’ll never get it perfect, but try not to burn yourself.”
“Would you like me to make him disappear?” Motheater asked seriously, pointing at the phone on the table as it buzzed, Zach’s name appearing on the screen. “It wouldn’t be the first time I chased away a stubborn lover.”
“No, he’s just worried,” Bennie reassured her, scrolling through the messages from Zach. She had told him to disable security for her—of course he’d reach out. Of course he was texting her.
Motheater slipped into the bathroom as she began to sort through her texts, leaving the door slightly open for some reason. Bennie glanced up at the open bathroom door, Zach’s texts buzzing in her hands, watching the steam roll. What now?
x
Bennie got dressed while Motheater was in the shower, carefully patting her braids and undoing them so they wouldn’t coil as they dried. She tied them back with a bit of string, cleaned her efficiency and, after a second, poured out some granola in a bowl, walking outside and setting it on the railing. As soon as her hand was off the cheap, chipped ceramic, the blue jay swooped down and began to peck at the oats and raisins.
She couldn’t help smiling at the bird. This thing had probably saved her life, and definitely saved Motheater’s. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched the bird’s head. It didn’t seem to mind too much, but it certainly wasn’t interested in her. Bennie smiled and gently drew a finger down its back.
“Thanks for today, kid,” she muttered. “I hope you stick around. Nice to have someone brave nearby.”
The bird didn’t even look up from the granola. Bennie smiled a little and left the jay to its meal, walking back into the apartment.
Motheater stood, clutching a towel in front of her chest and dripping water on the floor, her skin a blotchy pink from the hot water. She didn’t even have the towel wrapped around her, but that wasn’t what shocked Bennie. Five of Motheater’s new tattoos were on display, little ring-neck snakes wrapping under her collarbones, across her shoulders, circling her ankles and her wrists.
“Your man a Gresham.”
Bennie blinked. That was not what she was expecting. “Excuse me?”
“You got his full name on your phone box. I read it.”
Bennie tore her eyes away from Motheater’s neck. She could feel heat crawling up her neck, spreading across her face “He’s not my man.”
“He’s Gresham, then? He’s got a channel upstream,” Motheater said. Which didn’t explain anything and wasn’t the least bit cryptic, but what the fuck did Bennie expect from the witch? When was she ever speaking straight?
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Ain’t you see his kin on the mountain?” Motheater asked, taking a few steps forward, and Bennie was definitely not expecting to see this much of Motheater’s skin right now, and it was bordering on uncomfortable, mostly because Bennie was absolutely useless around pretty girls, and whenever Motheater got super intense like this, it was wickedly attractive.
It took a few seconds longer than she would have liked to put all the pieces together, but that was mostly because Motheater’s collarbones were right there and not at all distracting. “Yeah, at the church.” Bennie frowned. “I thought it was him at first.”
“That was a boy named William Gresham. We grew up together. We were friendly, and . . .” Motheater stopped, looking hurt. “I didn’t think he would do that.”
“Why are you asking about Zach?” Bennie asked, and as hard as she tried, she really couldn’t help but stare at the tattoos curling over Motheater’s pale skin, the detail of them, the way they looked ready to move at any second, rounded heads resting on the top of her feet like stigmata.
“I want to know why Will did it. Why he led me to my first death. With Zach in hand, Will’s memory makes an easy calling for a Neighbor like me. I’ll get more of myself back. I’ll know better.” Motheater smiled wide, the brilliance of having found a way to be useful. Bennie felt the shift in her. She was confident, assured. Bennie shuddered. Honestly, she would never get used to the fact that Motheater’s teeth looked so fucking sharp. What did she even do to make them look like that? “Can you get your Zach here?”
“Fine. But stop calling him ‘my’ anything,” Bennie said, going to her phone. She decided to call Zach—this was probably going to be too weird for texts.
He picked up quickly. “Bennie? I was getting worried. You off the mountain?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bennie said, glancing at Motheater, who, apparently, didn’t care at all for modesty and had dropped the towel and was changing into a new set of clothes. Bennie sat down on the chair, turning away to try to give the witch some space and to stop herself from getting too heated while on the phone with her ex-boyfriend. “Motheater wants to talk to you.”
“What?” He sounded a little hurt. This was clearly not going how he wanted.
“Can you come over tomorrow?”
“That him?” Motheater said, walking over to Bennie, head tilted. It was clear she had no idea what was happening but was very excited. She still had not put proper pants on, wearing just her oversized acid-wash sweatshirt and a pair of underwear, and Bennie could not handle it, staring at Motheater, mouth dry. “This him on the phone?”
“Yes, but—Motheater!” Bennie turned a little as Motheater perched right on the arm of the chair, leaning in. “Yes, it’s him, no, Zach, I’m fine, just—”
Motheater was staring at Bennie, who glared back at her. “I just have a very insistent witch in my personal space who wants to talk to you, and if she gets any closer, I might shove her back into a coal mine.”
Motheater smiled and leaned over toward the phone. Bennie, wisely, put the call on speakerphone and held it out to her.
“Zach Gresham,” she said, almost yelling, concentrating. “Do you have any family heirlooms, Bibles, or portraits?”
“What?” Zach was clearly confused. He had only wanted to talk to Bennie, and now he was dealing with a strange witch interrogating him over family ephemera. Bennie would have laughed if it wasn’t so absurd. “I mean, I might have something?”
“Good,” Motheater said, sitting back, satisfied. “You should bring those things. I would like to use them.”
“Can I talk to Bennie, please?”
“I’m still here.” Bennie’s eyes strayed over Motheater’s tattoos along her ankles and legs. “Do you need something else?”
“I wanted to talk to you—”
“Zach, you can come over for a few minutes tomorrow morning,” Bennie said, her voice like iron. “We’re moving on.” God, this still hurt. It was like an unhealed bruise, an old love, a collection of burst blood that refused to melt away into her skin. Hard to see, but painful anyway.
Motheater put a hand on Bennie’s shoulder but seemed to be deliberately looking somewhere else.
“We’re not moving on together,” Zach said softly. Motheater’s hand pressed against Bennie’s back.
“That’s the point, Zach.” Her voice was not soft at all. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Text when you’re coming over.”
“Yeah,” Zach muttered. “Bye.”
Bennie hung up and very carefully put the phone down. Motheater shifted a little and put her forehead on top of Bennie’s head for a few seconds.
“You smell nice,” Motheater muttered.
“Thanks,” Bennie said, smiling a little. She leaned into Motheater, the witch’s arm around her shoulders. Bennie pressed a finger to Motheater’s wrist, along a snake’s body, and tried not to sort through the feelings building in her stomach. She still felt anxious, but they had stopped White Rock for a little while. Kire was next. “Tell me about the new ink.”
Motheater shifted, holding up her arm—pale, thin, and marked by a mess of tangled coils. “These are innocent things. Not rattlers or cottonmouths, but sweeter reptiles,” she said, turning her arm over. Bennie didn’t know much about snakes, but the shape of the head on these snakes was less angular than she had been warned about.
“These are snakes that couldn’t hurt you if they tried. They aren’t dangerous . . .”
She trailed off, and Bennie shifted a little to look up at Motheater’s face, at the way her mouth pursed in concentration.
“What?”
“I don’t know what they are,” Motheater admitted. “Were they mine, back when I kept familiar creatures at beck and call? Are they just shadows? Did my father catch them just to shackle me inside the mountain?”
Bennie reached out and took Motheater’s wrist gently, pulling it close. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. God, this woman was unfairly weird and all the more attractive for it, and for the power she commanded.
“You usually have an intuition about these sorts of things,” Bennie muttered. “What do you feel when you see them?”
Next to her, against her, Motheater took a deep breath.
“I can feel my power rising to the surface. It’s coming closer, sharp and aching, and . . .”
Bennie stayed quiet as Motheater thought. Around her, the sounds of the efficiency complex echoed. A mom and two children downstairs, someone cooking next door. A car beeping in the lot. The blue jay screaming on the porch. A conversation between neighbors down the row. A familiar hum of people, present and totally unaware of the kind of person Bennie had in her apartment.
“There’s something empty. Like a tunnel, long drawn. A holler in my chest.”
“That’s where you’re tied?” Bennie asked. That was it, Motheater’s power. The thing that would stop people dying.
Motheater nodded, and Bennie noted the look on her face wasn’t scared or upset, but determined, excited. This was a woman who had power, who knew it. “I got most of my memories back after the church,” she said, smiling at Bennie. “But the last few years before I got thrown into the mountain, I only got patches of. I remember the first industry that wanted to come into Kire, I remember . . .”
She drifted off, still smiling, but lost. The sounds of the building closed in on them again. It must be some kind of trauma response. Blacking out the memory that led up to the moment she was thrown into stone by her own father.
“It’s fine,” Bennie said quietly. “We’ll figure it out and keep Kire asleep.”
Motheater nodded, frowning deeply. “There are far easier ways to kill a witch. Why did they work a cunning that wouldn’t kill me?” She turned her arm to the side but didn’t pull away from Bennie’s grip. They both looked at the snake, and in the dim light, with the strange, almost otherworldly paleness of Motheater’s skin, it looked for a second like the snake shifted around her wrist.