The Bitterwine Oath

by Hannah West

  When I reached the Langfords’ house and hopped out, I heard crickets twittering amid the starlit acres of green. Levi’s truck was already parked outside. I nearly lost my nerve when I mounted the porch steps, but made myself knock.

  A tall figure loped down the stairs in a gray cross-country tee and gym shorts. The faceted glass door fragmented his face and the shock of red hair just before he opened it.

  “Nat.” I loved the way he spoke my name, startled and breathless. A few dainty moths fluttered past me into the foyer.

  “I read this,” I said, showing him the review. My heart felt ready to plummet to the floor. He would say it didn’t mean anything, that I should separate the art from the artist.

  Surprise navigated over his face, and then he flushed scarlet. Flustered, he scratched the back of his neck. “There’s a reason I didn’t come home and hand them out like candy.”

  “Can’t anyone subscribe online?” I asked, as someone who had considered it myself.

  He nodded, the red beginning to drain from his face, and let out a deep chuckle. “Yeah, but people only like to support the arts until it’s time to pony up. I thought I was safe. It was Riley, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. She figured it out pretty quick.” I found myself blushing, too. “Look, Levi, can I come in and talk to you? I have a lot to explain.”

  “Is someone here?” Mrs. Langford yelled from inside the house.

  “I’ve got it!” Levi called over his shoulder. He stepped outside and shut the door. “Let’s go sit out back.”

  I almost protested. Their house had probably been charmed to keep Emmy safe, but I didn’t know the extent of the Wardens’ protective boundaries. What if there was a Woodwalker prowling out there, waiting for someone to wander recklessly into the dark?

  Levi was already leading the way to the side steps of the porch, and I knew I wasn’t Mrs. Langford’s ideal houseguest, so despite my misgivings, I trailed him past planters full of colorful flowers. Tonight, after our talk, I would convince him to leave town. Even if that meant hopping onto Riley’s bus and going on tour for a few weeks—whatever got him out of San Solano until after July first. Unlike other guys in town, Levi knew enough to be warned away from here.

  Out back, beyond the yard and tire swing, we reached a glistening pond with a dock. Four white chairs huddled around a stone fire pit near the shore.

  The sight made my chest hurt. It reminded me of the empty fourth chair at my family’s table in the breakfast nook.

  Levi sat. I sank down beside him and took a deep breath. “My grandma never told me about the Wardens,” I said. “I didn’t know they existed until after the lake trip.”

  That earned a long, skeptical look.

  “Really,” I insisted. “She didn’t want me to have anything to do with them. I don’t know why.”

  “Because they’re dangerous,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ve never been able to figure out if it’s true, their claim that they’re protecting us from something else. Miss Maggie cares more about keeping her secrets than convincing us she’s telling the truth. But…but I know that what they can do is real, or at least some of it.”

  “The magic?” I asked. It sounded bizarre to say out loud, and Levi looked askance at me before nodding. “You said you saw my grandma ‘that night.’ What night? What happened?”

  He stared at his clasped hands. I tried to solve the riddle of his expression but got distracted admiring the way his hair caught the starlight and jetted softly out around his temples. “Um, I’ll just start from the top. My dad’s mom, Nora, was one of you. She was a young single mother and pretty unstable. Sometimes she told my dad things that didn’t make sense. She unloaded all her cares and fears on her four-year-old and figured he was too young to remember. But he wasn’t.”

  My heart ached at the thought. The life I was meant to live wasn’t easy.

  “She died before he was old enough to clarify anything she’d told him, but he always wondered if there was any substance to her nonsensical ramblings. One night, though, my family went camping in the woods. I think Emmy was six and I was nine. While Emmy and I were gathering firewood, she had some kind of episode. I remember her skin feeling cold even though it was summer, and her eyes rolled back in her head. I thought she was going to die. My mom thought it was a stroke or a seizure and wanted to take her to the hospital, but my dad knew it was something else. Something unnatural.”

  I shivered, too suddenly to hide. Is this what I had been in danger of, out at the cabin? Is that what it looked like when a Woodwalker tried to drain a Warden of her life and magic?

  “Nora had mentioned the church a lot in her rants, and my dad thought to bring Emmy there. He broke the lock and carried her inside and started shouting for help. My mom was screaming at him to take Emmy to the hospital, I was crying, and my dad was ignoring us both. I didn’t think anyone would come. But Miss Maggie and your grandma did. They said a chant or something…and it worked.”

  He raked his teeth over his bottom lip and made a study of the ground, still grappling with the reality of magic.

  “The Wardens told us that their gifts were hereditary. Emmy had inherited hers from Nora. They offered to take Emmy under their wing and protect her until she was old enough to learn. But they wouldn’t say what she needed protecting from. My dad wanted to trust them. He would do anything to keep Emmy safe, even if it meant yielding to something he didn’t understand. But my mom was convinced they were the cult murderers, and that they had somehow caused Emmy’s ‘episode’ just to get their claws in her. She threatened to tell the police if they didn’t stay away, so your grandma and Maggie took some kind of blood oath.” He said this carefully, doubtfully, like I might call him ridiculous or accuse him of misremembering, but I nodded. “They swore the Wardens would protect Emmy without involving her, and they forced my parents to swear that they wouldn’t tell anyone. My mom still planned to go to the authorities, but she couldn’t. The blood oath stopped her.”

  I nodded again. Cricket chirps drowned out the gentle lapping of the water against the dock. I examined an angry mosquito bite blossoming on my forearm, replaying his narrative in my mind. I now knew why Kate had roped Emmy into babysitting: she wanted to guard Emmy as the anniversary approached.

  “My parents spent a decade arguing about how close Maggie and the others should be allowed to get in order to protect her,” Levi said. “My mom never dropped her theory that the Wardens were responsible for the murders, but my dad convinced her that they at least wanted Emmy to be safe, and that was what mattered most for us. After he died, my mom tightened the rules. It was only out of respect for my dad that she took Maggie up on the offer to host my going-away party, and she wasn’t happy about Emmy accepting the job with you and Kate.” He looked at me. “She wouldn’t like it if she knew that poem was about you.”

  I let out a small gasp. I couldn’t stop admiring his full lips, the strong, angular line of his chin, while the memory of our pen-worthy kiss hummed low and sweet in my thoughts.

  Swallowing the urge to kiss him again, I asked, “What does Emmy know?”

  “She knows she’s different. She knows that Maggie and Kate are watching. She knows that she has to take her ‘herbal supplements,’ which apparently help protect her. And I think she may be figuring out that the danger increases the closer we get to the massacre anniversary. Weirdly, she never asked many questions.” He scratched his chin, pensive. “I think she learned, like I did, that bringing it up made my parents fight. We never talked about it and did our best to stay away from you and your family without being rude enough to draw attention. My mom thought Maggie might use you to recruit Emmy. When she found out you tutored Emmy for an exam, she blew a gasket.”

  “I wondered why she didn’t ask for my help again,” I mused. “Emmy got a good grade on that test.”

  He smiled wryly at me. “I know there are other families involved, but I’ve tried not to think about that. It’s tiring, being suspicio
us all the time.” He closed his eyes briefly. “How much danger is Emmy in? How much danger are you in?”

  “Not as much as you’re in.”

  “You’re referring to the massacre?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell you anything,” I whispered, “except that you should leave town until after the anniversary.”

  A crease formed between his brows. I wanted to smooth it out, to steal away his reservations. “Of course.” He jerked to his feet, striding to the edge of the dock.

  “Their secrets aren’t mine to tell,” I said, and followed him. “Can you understand that? And can you please stop changing your mind about me from one minute to the next?”

  He was staring out at the water, but he turned to face me, his expression wounded. Gently, he said, “The only thing I ever changed my mind about was whether I should act on the way I felt about you.”

  That confirmation was all I needed. I stood on my toes and pressed my lips to his. His were already opening obligingly against mine, warm like fresh-brewed tea. His hand found its way to my waist and bowed me against him. I could taste in our kiss that he had been waiting for this, longing for this, just like I had.

  The back door of the house squealed open, but we barely registered the sound as his arms encircled me, his lips moving with the kind of hunger that turned my knees to molten lava.

  “Levi!” Emmy called from across the yard. “Mom said you left the office a wreck with dad’s stuff and need to come clean it up!”

  I knew Emmy couldn’t see us in the dark, but I instinctively pulled back from him. Levi sighed. I realized my hands had found their way to his broad chest and that his heart was thrashing under my palm. “Be there in a minute!” he called.

  “I’m getting eaten alive anyway,” I said, smacking another mosquito on my knee. “Maybe we should go inside. I’ll help you. I mean, if your mom will let me.”

  “She’d have a hard time stopping us. But I have a better idea.”

  “What?”

  Without another word, he hoisted me up and threw me in the pond, ignoring my protests. I sank into the cool, refreshing darkness and paddled my way back up to the surface.

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” I gasped, peeling my hair off my face. “What if my phone had been in my pocket?”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  A gruff smile and a flash of eyebrows told me he’d given the region a glance or two. He kicked off his flip-flops and removed his shirt. Tan lines intersected with contours of muscle under his lightly freckled skin.

  He dove in. The pond rippled with his weight, and I treaded water to stay above the surface. He emerged and grinned at me. Bashful, I let out a nervous, elated laugh. Once he realized my toes didn’t touch the bottom, he waded toward me and scooped up my elbows. Weightless and wonderstruck, I had to resist the urge to wrap myself around him like a starfish.

  “Do you want to go on a date with me?” he asked.

  “You’re supposed to be leaving town,” I reminded him, even though he’d agreed to no such thing.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I shook my head. I’d have to make him. But right now, I wanted to revel in this moment, to pretend that danger didn’t exist. “Are you going to take me out on the town and show me off at the dollar theater and Sawmill Barbecue?” I teased.

  “Come on, San Solano isn’t that pathetic. There are better places we could go. Or a better place, at least. Everyone’s going to Tejas Grill tomorrow night. Maybe we could go together?”

  So, he did want to show me off. Or he wanted our date to be casual.

  Recognizing the second connotation, Levi quickly squashed my worries. “You could come over here before to watch a movie. Or maybe we could go on a walk? Should it be more extravagant than that? I don’t know, I haven’t done this in a while.”

  “No, that sounds perfect,” I said, hooking my arms around his neck. I could tell his feet were flat on the floor of the pond, a solid pillar anchoring me in place. Just an hour ago, I would never have believed this turn of events possible. “I really like you, Levi.”

  “I really like you, too,” he said through another incandescent grin, and kissed me again.

  But a sudden, excruciating pain drilled through my skull, and I yelped against his lips. The throbbing sharpened to the point of being unendurable, and spread until every bone in my body ached, just like in my nightmares. I felt like I might break apart. Levi’s voice sounded far away, but his hands were near, propelling me back toward the dock. I planted my fraught hands on the wood planks and wriggled up with his help.

  “Nat, what’s wrong?” he demanded, his voice going in and out as he knelt over me, dripping.

  The knife-sharp agony began to ebb, and I gasped for breath as if I’d been drowning. I felt a warm wetness bubble up from within my ear and trickle over my right ear lobe. When I touched a trembling finger to it, I pulled away to see dark, sticky blood.

  Levi snatched his discarded shirt and pressed the soft material to the side of my face. But now my other ear was bleeding, and my nose too, dribbling over my lips, sharp and metallic. The water and the streams of blood mingled together and smeared like paint on my forearms as I tried in vain to wipe it away. Thoughts running wild, I found myself thinking of Malachi, of her blood baptism, of the legends about her roaming the woods in her dripping white robe.

  “Let’s get you inside,” Levi said, barely restraining his panic as he shouldered my weight and helped me stagger toward the back porch. The lights inside his kitchen seemed too bright as he swung open the door.

  “Here, here,” he said, exchanging his bloodstained shirt with a clean dish rag. “I’m going to get my phone so I can call an—”

  “Levi!” A distressed cry echoed down the stairs, powerful enough to jangle the light fixture over the kitchen table. The call was so distraught, so fever pitched, that I couldn’t tell whether it was Emmy or Mrs. Langford.

  Levi gripped my elbow. “Come on, you can lie down while I—”

  “Help us!” Mrs. Langford roared.

  “It’s okay, I’m okay,” I assured him, waving him on. “It’s just blood.”

  “I’m going to get you help. Hold tight.”

  My vision blurred, but I felt compelled to follow his trail of water as he charged barefoot to the foyer and up the stairs. Like stumbling through a funhouse in a trippy nightmare, I arrived at the upstairs landing without quite knowing how.

  The commotion was coming from a room at the end of the hallway with a canopy bed and twinkle lights. Through the open door, I could see Emmy hunched on the hardwood floor in girlish satin pajamas. Her mom held back her thick, fire-red hair while she coughed up clumps of dirt.

  “What is this?” Mrs. Langford shrieked at Levi, wide-eyed and paler than Emmy herself. “She’s had nightmares like this, but it’s never happened before.”

  I covered my mouth with quavering fingers. When I swallowed, I tasted blood. There was no denying it: our suppressed magic was hounding us like a cattle prod.

  Something must have happened to provoke it. Something bad.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Levi said, grabbing his sister’s phone from the nightstand, but Mrs. Langford jerked up and seized his forearm.

  “No! They’ll think there’s something off about her,” she hissed. “They’ll think she’s a Malachian.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do?” he asked, and I heard the slender thread of calm holding him together threaten to snap.

  “They can’t do anything for her,” his mom said over the horrid sounds of Emmy choking up a fresh clot of dirt. “It’s them. It’s her.”

  I’d been standing perfectly still and silent in the hallway, watching them. Mrs. Langford’s manic gaze darted to meet mine.

  “I’m calling Miss Maggie, then,” Levi said, shrugging out of his mom’s determined grip.

  The pain slammed back into my skull, and I tasted dirt at the back of my th
roat. All three of my gifts were haunting me, ambushing me. I stumbled back down the stairs, my blood-slicked hands sliding along the railing.

  I knew what I had to do.

  And I knew my magic wouldn’t let me rest until I did it.

  “Where are you going?” Levi called after me, but I slammed the door. The keys were still in my pocket. I coaxed my truck to life, the pain abating again, and thrust the gearshift into reverse.

  Feeling watched by the invisible moon, I pumped the gas pedal and roared down the country road. As I neared town, though, my truck sputtered and gave out. I’d pushed it too hard. It retained just enough momentum to roll off the road and onto the shoulder. My slippery fingers struggled to grab my phone from the cup holder, and the pain and bubbling blood returned, punishing me for slowing down.

  Cringing, I slithered out of the truck and ran the last quarter mile, my wet sandals slapping the asphalt until they broke and fell off, one after the other.

  A car passed, and as if tugging me around on a rope, the force within me compelled me to leap into a grassy ditch. The festival would be wrapping up a few streets—and yet a whole world—away.

  Finally, my battered feet welcomed the relief of the soft churchyard. No cars were parked outside. The choir concert had ended hours ago, and the security officers must have done a good job scaring trespassers away.

  The pain had nearly abated. I wiped my fist on my wet shirt and raised it to pound on the sanctuary door, but it opened before I got the chance. Vanessa absorbed the sight of me without the slightest hint of surprise. She must have divined that I was coming. She had traded her white volunteer shirt for a black ensemble. A bone pendant dangled from her neck, and a sheathed hatchet hung from her belt.

  “Come on,” she said, and ushered me into the candlelit sanctuary. Lindsey sat on a pew, decked out in black leather again, her hair in a high, tight ponytail that would have given me a tension headache. Heather was perched on the edge of the stage, an antique-looking firearm holstered at her hip. Vanessa’s sister Brianna was pacing the aisle. They looked like they’d been expecting me, and in this condition, no less.