Bennie tried to shake Motheater’s shoulders, but the witch barely moved, roots and branches wrapped around her, holding her fast. Bennie felt Motheater’s pain, a phantom sycamore branch constricting around her arms, too. Bennie eyed the green twig in between Motheater’s teeth and turned again to Zach.
“Zach, I need your help!”
He didn’t look over at her, his legs pressed against the tree, knees spread as he slowly levered the man’s legs out of the trunk. Jasper’s back was against Zach’s chest, his head lolling along his arm. He was entranced, caught by some strange magic that Bennie hadn’t been there to interrupt.
Bennie tried to pull a root off Motheater’s ankle, but it didn’t budge. The blue jay swooped down and pecked at one of the branches, but the branch turned under his wings, as if it controlled the wind around itself, as if the sycamore was protecting the time that it existed within. The bird reeled back, tumbling beak over tail until it regained its balance and swooped over the Epling Draft.
Bennie cursed and ran over to Zach. He was focused entirely on Jasper, totally lost, held by whatever magic had tied Jasper to this place. Bennie held a hand just under Jasper’s mouth and felt breath there. She leaned in, hands framing Jasper’s face, her fingers pressing under his temple.
“Jasper, if you’re in there, I need you to wake up.”
What was it Motheater had said about faith? About knowing deep in your bones what you could do? Motheater was slumped over near the tree, a root winding its way up her arms like a trellis. There was blood pooling at her knees, a dark and viscous sap.
“Jasper Calhoun.” Bennie’s voice didn’t shake. Above her, the sycamore rattled its branches, the draft swelled like a whelping cur, the water soaking into Bennie’s sneakers and knees. It felt too warm for the spring storm that threatened to break. Everything was changing. “Motheater needs your help. She’s being taken, and you need to wake up. You need to get to her.” Bennie dug her nails into Jasper’s thick salt-and-pepper hair.
There was a soft thump, and Jasper’s leg was finally out; his boot, rotten and soft, fell apart as soon as it hit the stones surrounding the sycamore. Zach still wasn’t looking at Bennie, hand wrapped around Jasper’s ankle, guiding him away from the trunk. He was free of the trunk, but he wasn’t waking up. There was a sound like a groan as the gash in the sycamore widened, shifted. The wood, once pale, was now a dark, stony green.
“Oh, God,” Bennie murmured as the jay screamed above her. Motheater, already soaked by the draft, was totally ensnared, turned toward the lost space where Jasper used to be. The fairy crosses were still floating above her head, glowing haint blue and bobbing with the ebb and flow of the draft against her hem. Bennie lurched toward the tree and ignored Zach’s hand, jerking Jasper further away from the tree. She helped lay out his legs and then leaned over him again, tapping his cheek.
“Jasper! You need to wake up!”
The man blinked slowly, eyes milky green, a sage that had been blued by a century. He shifted against Zach’s chest, taking a deep breath, eyes held on Bennie. Bennie’s heart raced and she nodded, keeping her hands against his jaw, tilting his head up.
“Motheater is being eaten by the tree,” Bennie said, enunciating carefully, terror washing over her like a calming tide. Focus. The tree groaned threateningly behind her. She didn’t have time for men to come to their senses. She needed Jasper now. “Wake up.”
Jasper shuddered under her call. His eyes became clearer, a dark hazel, clever and bright. The film was gone; he was awake. Bennie leaned back, and Jasper got a good look at Motheater, unconscious and held up by roots that had slid into her skin and broken into her bones. The branches and roots were slowly pulling the witch into the tree, and she was half up against its bark, one hand already in the mast.
“Old friend,” Jasper murmured, leaning up. Zach and Bennie immediately shifted to help him balance. Once it was obvious that he wanted to stand, they eased him up, helping him as got his feet under him. He stood over Motheater, becoming more steady with every breath. He was heavy, far heavier than his slim build would suggest.
“Can you help her?” Bennie asked, her hand digging into Jasper’s wrist.
“She’s too stubborn to let a tree kill her,” Jasper said softly. His voice was gravelly, like a smoker who had been finishing a pack a day for a decade. “Going to be Witch-Father himself that drags her down, mark me.”
At Jasper’s approach, the small fairy crosses that were floating above Motheater’s temples began to circle her head like a broken halo, reflecting the light of the setting sun. Jasper’s eyes were wide. Bennie gripped his side tighter, looking up at his profile, his hair flowing down his back.
“She has to undo her work herself . . .” he said, looking at Bennie. “I need a snake, water from upstream, and some kind of lantern.”
“Do you need light or fire?” Bennie asked, knowing that there was a difference to the strange people that had stepped out of the past.
Jasper frowned and nodded. “Fire will do.”
“Hold him up, Zach.” Bennie stepped away from Jasper, and he leaned more heavily on the miner, Zach’s arm tight around his waist. Bennie quickly whistled, heading to the river, picking up the discarded water bottle. She knelt at the edge of the stream and was relieved as the jay swooped in, screaming on a rock near her. She really needed to give the bird a name.
“I need a snake,” Bennie said hopefully. “Can you get one for me?”
The blue jay turned, fanned out his tail feathers, and with a screech, darted away. Bennie could only hope that he knew what to do. She pushed the water bottle into the stream, closing her eyes for a second, letting herself feel the fear, the anger, the desperation. It was good to feel these things; it was good to acknowledge that she was terrified as hell that Motheater was about to become a permanent woodland fixture. It would help her process.
“Fuck processing,” Bennie growled, running back to Zach and Jasper. She was going to do something about it. She couldn’t lose Motheater now. She couldn’t give up with Kire rising and all the witch had said coming true. She loved Kiron too much, the whole messy shit of it. Motheater was going to save Kiron, Bennie was counting on it.
“The blue jay is getting the snake,” Bennie said, and without asking permission, dug into Zach’s pocket for his lighter. He didn’t smoke anymore, but he still always kept his lighter on him. She held it out to Jasper, showing him quickly how to open it, and flipping the flame on. They were lucky it wasn’t a cheap thing and could hold the fire without the constant pressure.
She looked up from the lighter and gasped.
Ghostly creatures, mostly made of smoke, had appeared around the edge of the clearing. Their bodies swirled, milky and white, misty heads shaking to and fro as they stepped into the holler. Bennie took a step back, into Jasper’s chest, and he put a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t fret none,” he murmured, voice low and gravelly. “Just the spine come to witness.”
“What?” Bennie’s voice wavered.
“My family. They have long kept me company,” he said, providing no clarity at all as he took the water from Bennie and stepped in front of Motheater. Zach was still supporting him, and Bennie could see Jasper’s legs shaking with the effort of staying upright.
The tree’s groaning was soft, a panting, a moaning. It ached. Bennie went to Motheater and sank to her knees, reaching for her wrist. Zach spoke up. “The snake?”
“I hope that damn bird is smart enough to know what I was asking . . .” Bennie caught the look Jasper gave her, something between amusement and confusion. “The blue jay. He’s been helping us out.”
“Us, or you?” Jasper asked, much more prescient than he had any right to be for spending nearly a century and a half sewn up into a sycamore.
Motheater shuddered, and Bennie clutched her tighter. There was a seedling coming out of Motheater’s neck. Bennie touched Motheater’s jaw, and to her surprise, the witch slid closer to her, pulling against the bark and wood grown into her.
Bennie shivered, her hands trembling against Motheater’s face. She could feel the roots inside Motheater, turning her bones to wood and mast. This was too much, too big, too much magic right in front of her. It wasn’t a spell or sound; it was like the weather, something that surrounded you.
Standing just behind Motheater, facing Jasper, was a large, misty stag. She knew she shouldn’t, but she stared at it, and she felt it staring back. This was some greater spirit, and she felt her own heart stop in its presence. The other deer were closing in, stood at attention, ears pricked toward Jasper. The big stag was more solid, and Bennie could see lacey, coal-burnt bones through its immaterial legs and neck.
Overhead, the blue jay ducked down, dropping like a stone onto Jasper’s shoulder, holding a small, mostly black snake in its beak. Bennie recognized it: a small ring-necked snake, similar to the ones that Motheater had across her body. She shifted to stand and leave some room between herself and the witch, but Jasper shook his head, stepping forward.
“She will need you.” He held his hand out, and the stone crosses moved away from Motheater and circled his wrist. He opened the water bottle and poured it over the back of his hand, and the water pooled under his palm, a trickling waterfall that moved down the valleys of his knuckles, to the ground, and then rose up, around his wrist, an infinite cycle of moving water. The crosses followed the water once and then held themselves just in front of Jasper’s fingers, turning stars in front of him.
“What are you doing?” Bennie asked, kneeling next to Motheater, trying not to pay attention to the roots under her, the shoots and branches she could feel moving. Her thigh pressed against Motheater’s, and she clutched her tight.
“A baptism,” he said. “She tied Kire’s magic to me. It must be returned.”
Above them, the sycamore shook.
He stepped closer, and the water began to pour over Motheater’s face, down her shoulders. Bennie gripped Motheater tightly, the water pouring over her head and shoulders as well. She shivered under the levy.
Jasper gestured, and Zach intuitively knew to offer him a light. Jasper held Zach’s wrist and lifted it to his mouth. He blew on the flame, and it spread to circle them, dark licks that flickered above each deer’s head. Bennie wanted to close her eyes, wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. Zach had shifted, averting his gaze. What were they, caught in between these creatures?
Bennie’s breath came faster. Her arm tightened around Motheater’s waist.
Jasper took the ring-neck from the bird, and it swooped away, flying out of the circle of family deer. With a shaking hand, Jasper placed the snake on Motheater’s shoulder, and Bennie flinched.
“Stay steady,” Jasper murmured. “She will listen to the low spirit. It was how she first learned to listen.”
Bennie, soaking wet by now, shivered next to Motheater. The deer stepped forward, lowering their heads, not bowing, but keeping the world in check, hemming the four in at all sides. The snake slid around Motheater’s neck, despite the baptism coming from Jasper’s hand, and pushed itself up her jaw, curling over her ear, its head right next to Bennie’s.
She turned toward the snake.
Despite the waterfall, the soft shush-hush of family, the draft, the breathing, the beating of her heavy heart in her arms, she could hear something else rising above all that. She didn’t have words for it, but there was power in the strangeness, in the left-behind voices. Bennie shuddered, turning to press her face against Motheater’s shoulder, and pushed down a sob.
It didn’t take long. Bennie felt it, knew it, heard it. The grip around her chest loosed, the chill fell off her like leaves in autumn, the magic in Motheater heating her up from within. Wasn’t this a relief?
Motheater was pulled forward. The branches and roots that had taken over her body, forcing themselves along her bones and muscles, disappeared in a jittery collapse. The water receded from around them, going back to the draft’s normal banks. Around Motheater and Bennie, the bloody sap that had collected around the witch’s knees spread out. The water from Jasper’s hand turned it the color of muddy rust, washing it to the draft.
Motheater gasped. She took a big, full-chested breath and stood up faster than Bennie could follow. Bennie scrambled back, cutting her hands on the rocky ground. Jasper quickly pulled Zach out of the way as Motheater spread her arms, shaking off her bark-skin flesh, anger rolling off her in waves that sent the coal-hoofed stag darting for the birch. She bared her pointed teeth, her fingers forming dark claws. She was more creature than girl, more monster than witch.
Bennie might have been in love at that moment.
“I will not be punished.” She stepped forward again, and the roots that had pushed up above the ground and stones slid out of her way. The tree shuddered, and the helicopter seeds of the sycamore spun down, turning into ash before they hit the ground, a ripple of flame ignited by Motheater’s rage. Bennie could feel it, too, the heat deep within her chest, the anger, the fury, the magic of Motheater unfettered.
It was an echo of the land around them. The corrupted Kire, the same heat, the same anger. Bennie scrambled up and put another arm around Jasper. The three of them tripped over the stones as they backed up, and Bennie was grateful that Zach had the presence of mind to keep them all upright. The deer-shaped creatures had all dispersed, but the milky, bone-lace stag that stood behind Motheater was still waiting. It turned its head toward the three of them, and Bennie got the sense that it was waiting for Jasper, that it had been waiting a long time.
“Jasper?”
“It kannae harm us,” he said. “It is an emissary.”
Bennie had to admit that she wasn’t entirely reassured. Still, he was smirking, something wry tugging at his mouth. Bennie couldn’t decipher it, but it looked like satisfaction.
The sycamore began to burn, a coruscated tree that did not crumble, that wore its flame like an autumn coat.
“As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire,” Motheater declaimed, and her hair began to burn as well, a slow-moving singe up her braid. She didn’t notice, or didn’t care, or was perfectly aware of it and knew exactly what she was doing, Bennie had no idea. She wasn’t wearing her sweatshirt anymore, and her arms were exposed. Around Motheater’s wrists, the tattoos curled and moved, winding their way up Motheater’s arm as she spoke power.
“So persecute them with thy tempest.” The wind picked up, and the roots of the sycamore creaked, snapping like a taut rope, pushed too far beyond their limit. Motheater was standing, facing the tree, and she raised her hand, putting it into the heartwood, setting the tree on fire from the inside out. “And make them afraid with thy storm!”
The sycamore screamed.
There was no other way to describe it, this great tree, which had held a man for years, protected and loved and shielded him, which had done everything Motheater had said, but when it sought additional payment was burned up; it howled. Bennie pressed a hand to her mouth, and Jasper squeezed her shoulder, reassuring her.
The tree bent backward, slowly, surely, moving like a human and not a tree, the entire trunk ripping itself open around Motheater’s hand, like a flayed kairn on the side of the road. The leaves of it brushed against the ground, its canopy dipping into the draft. The howling was took up through the entire holler, and the birches swept themselves up in the noise, rattling, bending back from Motheater. The witch bared her teeth and spat another verse as the bark flew off the tree, skinning it, baring its graying flesh to the air.
“Let them be confounded and troubled forever,” Motheater said, voice lost amid the howl and the shudder. “Let them be put to shame, and perish.”
With that, the sycamore split in two, dark flames of brassy green rising up inside of it. It was consumed with the spirit, possessed by the Greater Power that leant their ear toward Motheater. The leaves became ash, the branches white chalk, the trunk a brand against the oncoming night.
Motheater stepped away as the tree consumed itself, the roots curling back and falling into the fiery pit of the sycamore trunk. The heat was intense, and even though it caused Bennie to turn away, Motheater seemed unaffected. What was that like, Bennie wondered, clutching Jasper, to command the world to burn and have it go up in flames?
The witch turned and took another step back, face-to-face with the great misty stag that had witnessed the display of her power. Bennie started, wanting to go to Motheater, but Jasper’s hand fixed her in place. She glanced at him, and he shook his head once. Bennie didn’t want to stand still, she didn’t want to do nothing, she didn’t want Motheater to stand alone against the great creature.
“Steady,” Jasper whispered. “She enters alone.”
Bennie saw Motheater, full of soot and anger, full of rod and fury, reach out and put her hand on the stag’s head.
“I’m sorry,” she said, softly. Bennie knew she shouldn’t have heard it, but it echoed in her ears, a whisper that she caught like a creature on a hook. “I meant to reason with you.”
The stag snorted, lowered its head, pressed it against Motheater’s chest.
From across the holler, among the twisting birch, Bennie turned to Jasper. “What’s happening?”
“She’s bargaining with Kire,” Jasper murmured. “The magic she used to put me in that damned tree destroyed it. Now, she returns to her cradle.”
Motheater’s hair had stopped burning. It was short, just above her shoulders. The tree was gone, only falling ash marking its absence. Bennie couldn’t feel the branches, the bark, the fire, the magic. It was still, calm. Motheater’s face was tilted upward, and neither she nor the stag had moved, the sycamore ash passing through its lace without impediment, but collecting on Motheater’s shoulders.
Jasper shifted again, slumping a little against Zach, who still hadn’t said anything, who seemed wholly transfixed. “We will see if her stone father listens.”