by Skylar Finn
“Who are you?” asked Martha.
A voice came from beneath the hood. It barely sounded human. It was dry as dead leaves, deeper than any man’s, and rasping.
“I am these woods and I am the power,” it said. “I am me and you and everything else in between. I can take life and I can give it.”
The figure lowered its hood.
I stared in horror at the twisted, ruined face. It was once a young woman’s face, now burned beyond all recognition.
The face of the innkeeper’s daughter.
30
Gwyneth’s Offer
Martha flinched at the sight of the ancient, scarred face.
“Not so pretty, nowadays,” Gwyneth rasped.
“What do you want from me?” asked Martha, her voice shaking.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything,” Gwyneth said. The second figure was still beside her. “I will give you a choice, just as I was given one. You may run home and resume your life as usual. Or you can come with me, and I will teach you the secrets of the woods. You will have powers beyond your reckoning, and no harm will ever befall you again.”
“What kind of secrets?” asked Martha.
“Magic,” she said.
“Is that what you just did?” Martha asked.
“Yes,” said Gwyneth, sounding pleased. “Imagine if you could do a thing like that. No man would ever harm you again.”
“But how?” she said, sounding suspicious.
“I would require a payment from you first,” said Gwyneth.
“Payment?” said Martha, sounding uncertain.
“Your body,” Gwyneth said.
“What? No!” said Martha, sounding scared again. “I don’t want that. I want to leave.”
“I’d only be taking your body,” said Gwyneth, sounding amused. “Not your soul. That’s the only part that matters, you know. Your body perishes. The soul is immortal.”
“What am I supposed to do without a body?” demanded Martha. “I have plans.”
“I would give you a new one, of course,” said Gwyneth, sounding surprised. “You wouldn’t just float around disembodied forever. The body I give to you will have powers you cannot imagine. It will be beautiful, far more beautiful than you are now.”
“What will happen to my body?” she asked.
“We’ll leave it here, for someone to find,” Gwyneth said pleasantly. “I only need one thing from it. Sort of like buying a car for parts.”
“But then my parents will think I’m dead,” said Martha, sounding sad.
“Do you even like your parents?” asked Gwyneth.
“Well, no,” she admitted. “Not really.”
“I didn’t like mine, either,” Gwyneth said. “You don’t choose your parents. You do, however, choose what you will do with your life and the body they have given you.”
“I don’t know,” said Martha. “I don’t like this. You’re saying either you kill me and then maybe give me a new body with a bunch of powers or I go home and live happily ever after? Doesn’t seem like much of a choice. Who’s to say you won’t break your promise and I won’t just be dead?”
“Reasonable questions from a reasonable girl,” said Gwyneth. “My magic is binding. If I fail to honor the promise I give you, it will destroy me. You would, of course, be taking a risk by taking my word, but there can be no gain without risk.” The robed figures began to circle the clearing, and in turn, Martha. They reminded me of sharks circling a stranded swimmer.
“As for happily ever after,” Gwyneth continued. “You have about five years before you start to age. You will cease to be of value in the society in which you live. You will cease to be considered beautiful and desirable. You might find the stardom that you seek, or you might become a receptionist in an office, supporting your three horrid and ungrateful children left to you by a man who’s taken up with someone half your age. It’s up to you.”
An image appeared in the clearing as Gwyneth spoke, similar to the one I’d seen above the coven’s kitchen table, projected by Aurora. The image showed an older, heavier Martha: hair gray, face wrinkled, shapeless brown suit. She toiled miserably away, hunched over a desk, tapping at a keyboard, using the two-finger hunt and peck system. Every few seconds, the computer beeped angrily at her and she flinched. A tall and good-looking man walked past her, pausing behind her desk.
He pulled a face behind her back, puffing out his cheeks and waddling as if in imitation of her. She turned, and his face transformed into a pleasant grin. She tried to smile up at him, accomplished only looking feeble and diffident, then she went back to her work while the printer churned and spat out an endless sheaf of dull-looking numbers.
There were a number of things about the scene at hand that made no sense: for one thing, she was using an old box computer, some sort of IBM that hadn’t been made since 1988. The printer on the desk was a dot matrix printer. And the man behind her, now doing a mocking little dance that involved putting his hands on his hips and engaging in a complicated two-step, was doing things no supervisor would. And why was she in accounting? Why would she just automatically end up in a job that she hated that in no way related to music or the arts?
Martha, who had no concept of the real world, stared at the image in horror. I realized then that it had been pulled from her own imagination: the worst thing she could think of. To her, it apparently seemed perfectly feasible.
“She’s manipulating her,” I whispered. “This hasn’t even happened. What’s to say it even would?”
Behind me, the tree’s branches swayed, as if in agreement.
“How can I stop it?” Martha asked, alarmed.
“I will take you from your body and save you from this fate,” said Gwyneth. “I will find you a new one and grant you the gift of immortality. You will remain young and beautiful forever.”
“Forever?” whispered Martha.
“Forever.”
“I would be the most invincible pop star who ever lived,” she breathed. “Imagine if Britney stayed sixteen forever! She never would have gone insane or shaved her head.”
“Indeed,” said Gwyneth gravely. “I offered her the same choice, and she refused. And look what happened to her.”
“Okay,” said Martha bravely. “But only if it won’t hurt.”
“I would never hurt any woman alive,” said Gwyneth. “That is the law of our kind.”
Gwyneth raised her gnarled hand. Martha’s eyes closed and her knees buckled. She fell sideways onto the ground of the clearing. A shroud appeared over her face. Two distinct lights appeared above Martha. One was bright green, the other gold.
As I watched, the green light drifted into the outstretched palm of the red robed figure and its fist closed around it. The gold light bent and refracted, then stretched into Martha as I knew her now. She stood over her body, staring, aghast.
“I made a mistake,” she said. “Put me back.”
“I could,” said Gwyneth. “But you’d be missing your most important asset.”
“What?” she said wildly, looking from the figure to herself on the ground. “What do you mean?”
“I needed a voice,” Gwyneth said. “Yours seemed suitable for my purposes. Return to your body now and you’d never sing again. Or talk, for that matter. Perhaps they could get you one of those little mechanical boxes they use for smokers. How attractive you’d be to men, with a voice like that.” She laughed.
“You tricked me!” said Martha, stomping her foot.
“I did not. I said I would give you power at a price, and that price was your body. It’s your own fault for not reviewing your contract in greater detail. Now: go back to your body, silent for the rest of your apathetic and lamentably short life, or come with us?”
“I’ll come with you,” said Martha reluctantly.
“Very good. You won’t regret it. Come with me, girl. I’ll show you things you could never have imagined in your wildest dreams.”
“Do I have a choice?” asked Martha
.
“Not really,” Gwyneth said cheerfully.
The second figure lowered its hood. Its antlers emerged and grew higher than the nearest tree. It had the face of an animal with a long snout and velvet fur. Its eyes were cavernous and orange. It regarded Martha and blinked. Then it flanked her other side.
They turned and walked from the clearing in a line, their figures gradually dissipating like smoke before fading entirely from view.
The air in front of me stopped shimmering. I found that I could move forward if I tried.
“Martha?” I called.
After a full minute of silence, I thought that maybe she wasn’t there, or refused to reveal herself if she was. Then she stepped into the clearing, wearing the pale nightgown I’d seen her in the previous evening.
“Now you know.” She sounded sad. “I did this to myself.”
“Martha, this was not your idea,” I said. “Gwyneth did this to you. She found you when you were vulnerable and lied to you to get what she wanted.”
“She promised I could live again,” said Martha wistfully. “In a way I never had before.”
“I don’t know what kind of life it would be,” I said. “I don’t think Gwyneth can offer you a life you would want. You might spend it doing her bidding.”
“How do you know about her?” Martha asked curiously. “Did she tell you her story, too?”
“I’ve heard a version,” I said. “Never mind that now. Is she still here? In the woods?”
“Sort of,” said Martha. “I mean, in a similar way that I am. She’s not, like, solid, or whatever. She said that she needs to possess someone corporeally, and so does her coven. They can’t leave the woods, and they’ve been waiting for someone to move into the old inn for years. When somebody finally bought it, she started influencing them somehow. She needs bodies. Six of them, plus one for me.” She paused. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I shouldn’t be helping you. But there’s nothing you can do about it, anyway.”
“Martha, you don’t have to do this,” I said. “Gwyneth is evil. Whatever she promised you, it can’t be worth the price you paid for it.”
“What else would I do?” asked Martha, fading from sight until all that was left was her voice. “I’m already dead.”
I ran through the woods towards the house, my mind racing. I couldn’t hear Martha out loud at first, because Gwyneth had taken her voice. But since I’d spoken to her astrally, I could hear her the way Gwyneth did. She planned to possess Margo and everyone around her. But did Margo know? Was she innocent? Or had she, too, made a deal with Gwyneth? And if Margo did know, who else knew? How many people were in on it?
I stumbled out of the woods, my hair sticking up and tangled with twigs and leaves, mud on my shoes. I stopped short before going into the house. Number one, I looked crazy and had no explanation for where I was or what I’d been doing. Number two, I’d have to be especially careful about Margo now. If she was operating in collusion with Gwyneth, she couldn’t know that I suspected what she was up to.
I pulled the sticks and leaves from my hair and tried to restore myself to some semblance of normalcy before I went inside. Upon opening the sliding door and entering the kitchen through the patio, I found the house silent as a tomb.
“Hello?” I called.
Across the room, I saw a note in swirly handwriting written on the refrigerator’s markerboard: Hi Sam! Went to brunch!! Be back soon!!! <3 Bridget.
Brunch. So, they were countering their hangovers with mimosas and Bloody Marys. They’d be gone for hours. There probably wasn’t even any place to get brunch in Mount Hazel. They might be towns away.
“They just left,” said Colin, appearing behind me. I jumped about ten feet in the air. “Don’t do that,” I said. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Come with me,” said Colin. “There’s something you should see.”
I followed Colin down the hall, dread mounting in my heart. He stopped at the goblin doors. He didn’t open them, just drifted right through.
Reluctantly, I pulled the doors open. They swung wide with a loud and ominous creak.
31
The Only Dry Place
The room was dark and creepy as usual. Dust motes floated in the thin shaft of light that came through the window. Colin was hovering by the fireplace.
“Didn’t I tell you I’d help you?” he said eagerly. “I saw them come in last night, after the party. One of them pulled a book from the shelf and the entire wall opened! You want to know the really weird thing? I tried to follow them after it had closed, and I couldn’t! Somehow, it kept even me out.”
“If you couldn’t get in, how am I supposed to?” I asked, studying the books on the shelf. Which one had it been?
“You’re solid. You can open it by taking the book down. Then you’ll leave it open, so I can come in with you.”
“I don’t like this.” I crossed my arms. “What if they come back?”
“They’re going to bottomless mimosas in Mount Lenore,” he said. “They won’t be back for hours! Even if they come back sooner, we’ll hear them pull into the driveway. I can even keep watch for you while you investigate.”
“Why are you so amped to get into that room?” I asked.
“I don’t remember what happened to me, Sam,” he said. “But I think it was something dark and something weird. And I want to know what it was.”
“Okay.” I’d run out of question and excuses to stall. “Which book was it?”
He pointed to a book at the far end of the shelf.
I leaned over. It looked like the same unlabeled book that Cameron had taken from the library to the set of the music video.
“Just pull it off the shelf,” he said. “That’s what Margo did.”
“Yeah, but when Cameron did it, nothing hap—” I stopped mid-sentence. As I reached out and plucked the book from the shelf, the wall swung inward with a creaking groan. I jumped backwards.
“Are you magical the way Margo is magical?” Colin asked.
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t feel like elaborating.
The wall had opened up to a second chamber. Lanterns hung suspended from metal chains. There was a massive pentagram painted on the floor, with torches at each of its points. A crude carving of a man with a deer’s head took up the entire back wall. The floor and walls were black and no light seemed to penetrate the room.
“I’ve seen about all I need to see here,” I said, backing out of the room. I put the book back on the shelf and the wall swung closed.
“What do you think it means?” Colin asked, hovering at my shoulder.
“I think that room has been here for a very long time,” I said. “Either they’re doing Ecstasy in it because they think it’s an awesome Satanic party room that reflects Margo’s new vibe, or they know exactly what it is and they’re using it for something bad. It’s possible that they just thought it was someplace scary and cool to party and something bad is using them. I don’t know. I have to ask my family.”
“Can I come?” asked Colin.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Can you?”
His face fell. “Probably not.”
“Too bad,” I said. I was secretly relieved. He was a nice kid, but I found him slightly annoying. He seemed like the kind of guy who looks down your shirt when you’re not looking.
When I opened the front door, I was blinded by white light. It had snowed in the night, and the world was blanketed in white, the trees thick and frosted. Fat white flakes continued to fall from the sky.
The entourage had taken the van, but I still had Bridget’s spare key from the day we went to the train station to pick up Kimmy, so I drove the Jeep into town. The single road that ran through Mount Hazel had been recently plowed and salted, rendering the excursion far less death-defying than it would have been otherwise.
I parked on the curb next to the apothecary and ran up to the door, kicking up snow on the unshoveled sidewalk. I yanked at the hand
le. The door was locked. I peered in through the glass front door, cupping my hands around my face. The store was pitch black. Were they closed on weekends? I didn’t remember them saying they were.
“Sam?”
Peter. I looked up from the door and saw the last person I wanted to see walking towards me. As it transpired, he was also the person I wanted to see most. My traitorous heart leapt at the sight of him walking up the snowy sidewalk towards me.
“Can we please talk?” he said.
“It’s snowing,” I said tonelessly.
He reached up and pulled the hood of my coat over my head.
“Please?” he said. He held out a gloved hand. I accepted it reluctantly and he led me to the white gazebo at the end of the cul-de-sac, the only dry place. I broke away, sitting on the bench opposite from him.
“I wasn’t trying to deceive you,” he said. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Were you following me?” I asked. “In the woods that day?”
“I was following you,” he admitted. “But Sam, it’s not what you think.”
“What is it, then?” I said. “Because I think you’ve been lying to me. I think this is just a story to you. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust you when you’re not telling me the truth.”
“Is this really about me, Sam?” he asked. “Or is this about Les Rodney?”
I remained silent as the snow fell around us.
“I’m not that guy,” he said. “I never was. And I never will be. I was checking up on you, and your family, because I thought there might be a connection between you and Martha Hope. Her father showed me her journal and she mentioned your family. I saw you in the woods, looking at the crime scene. I don’t think any of you had anything to do with it. But I was curious. I was especially curious, because I think the person who did this is still out there.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.