The Year of the Witching

by Alexis Henderson

  A chill cut down Immanuelle’s spine at the thought, but before she had the chance to look away, the Prophet stood up, and at once, his flock fell silent. His gaze shifted away from her as he rounded the table to address the congregation. “Tonight is a joyous occasion,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “I have joined myself in holy union with a true daughter of the Father, and for that, I am grateful.”

  The flock applauded.

  “The Father, in His divine providence, has seen fit to offer me many wives who embody the virtues of our faith. Because of that, I would like to honor our Father in celebration for His infinite grace and generosity.” He paused to cough into the crook of his shirtsleeve, then recovered himself with a smile. “Call forth the witches.”

  The congregation cheered. Men raised their cups and wives clattered their plates against the tabletop; children slapped their knees and bellies. At the sound of the fanfare, the apostles emerged from the cathedral, bearing scarecrows fashioned into the shape of women. Each of the figures was mounted on an iron cross so that her wooden arms were outstretched, her neck and body bound.

  Upon their arrival, the congregation erupted into applause. Men raised their fists, shouting curses to the wind.

  The first apostle stepped forward with the first witch, a small wicker figure barely bigger than Honor.

  “That’s Mercy,” said Anna, taking time to school her daughters in the particulars of the faith.

  The next apostle held his witch high above his head, so her nightgown lashed and fluttered on the wind. When her skirt flapped up, exposing what would be her modesty, a few of the bolder men jeered. “Harlot! Whore!”

  “And who might she be?” Anna pointed as the apostle carried the figure toward the roaring flames.

  “That’s Jael,” said Immanuelle, and she shuddered when she said the name, remembering the wretched creature she’d encountered in the Darkwood days before. “The second Lover.”

  “Aye,” said Anna, and her lip curled in disgust. “That’s her. And she’s a mean one too. Wicked and cunning like the Dark Mother Herself.” She snaked out a hand to tickle Honor’s belly. The girl shrieked and giggled, kicking her legs beneath the table, the plates and cups jumping a bit when her boot struck its leg.

  The third witch followed. She wore a dress not so unlike Immanuelle’s, only her bodice was stuffed with straw to emulate the swell of a pregnant woman’s belly.

  “Delilah,” said Martha. “Witch of the Water. Hell’s own whore.”

  It was Ezra who carried the last witch, bearing her on an iron cross. The figure was twice the size of the others, and she was naked, her body a thatch-work of birch branches. The arms of a sapling twisted from either side of her head, forming a rack of antlers.

  Anna didn’t say her name out loud, though she cheered when Ezra carried her near. But Glory and Honor fell silent in her wake, cringing a little as the shadow of the last witch slipped past them.

  Her name surfaced from the depths of Immanuelle’s mind: Lilith. First daughter of the Dark Mother. Witch Queen of the Woodland who reigned in wrath, slaying any and all who opposed her.

  Each of the apostles raised his witch overhead and staked her deep into the soil, so that the figures stood upright on their iron crosses. The Prophet raised his torch, a flaming branch nearly as long as Immanuelle was tall. Then he moved it to the witches, lighting each of them in turn. The Lovers, Jael and Mercy, first, then the Witch of the Water, Delilah.

  Immanuelle tasted something sour at the back of her throat, and her stomach twisted. The sound of blood pounding through her ears briefly drowned out the jeering crowds.

  Lilith was the last witch to burn that night, and the Prophet made the most of the moment. He raised his blazing branch high above his head and thrust it between her horns, the way one might wield a sword. His eyes held the glow of the torch flame, the embers seeming to spark in the pits of his pupils.

  In silence, Immanuelle watched Lilith burn, watched the flames chew her up and swallow her, even as the rest of the guests returned to their food and chatter. She watched the witches burn until the fires died and Lilith’s blackened bones were the only thing that remained, smoking on the arms of the iron cross.

  * * *

  IMMANUELLE FLED THE feast, her belly warmed by barley wine, her head thick. She passed children running rings around the charred remains of the witch pyres, hollering hymns above the music of the fiddler. She passed Leah and the Prophet and the throng of his other wives. She passed the Moores unseen.

  Immanuelle staggered around the cathedral to the graveyard behind it. There, she broke to her knees and heaved, retching barley wine into the thicket. She pushed to her feet, dizzy, took a few steps forward, and heaved again. Her sick splattered a nearby tombstone and seeped, reeking, into the dirt.

  Shaking despite the summer heat, Immanuelle breathed deeply to steady herself and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

  She had been foolish to think she could banish the memory of the witches. What she’d seen in the woods that day was real. The Lovers weren’t passing figments. They’d been flesh and blood, as real as she was. The journal, the letters, the forbidden forest—none of it would leave her, and she couldn’t leave it. No amount of prayer or penance would banish it.

  What she’d seen in the woods had become a part of her . . . and it was a part of her that she knew she needed to kill, and quickly.

  Pushing herself off the ground, Immanuelle wandered the cemetery, weaving between the headstones, reading epitaphs in an attempt to clear her head. Some of them belonged to prophets and apostles of ages past, but most marked the resting places of the crusader soldiers who died in the civil war to overthrow the witches. A few were mass graves, and the stones that marked these simply read: In remembrance of the Father’s Men and the dark they purged. As for the witches, there were no monuments to mark their graves. Their bones and memories lay within the Darkwood.

  At the center of the cemetery was a thick slab of marble, nearly two stories tall, hewn into a pinnacle that jutted from the soil like a half-buried bone. Immanuelle knelt to read the inscription at the foot of the monument, though she didn’t have to. Like most everyone in Bethel, she knew it by heart.

  It read: Here lies the Father’s first prophet, David Ford, Spring in the Year of the Flame to Winter in the Year of the Wake. Below that, words gouged deep into the stone read: Blood for blood.

  Immanuelle shivered. Buried beneath her feet were the bones of the Witch Killer, the prophet who’d purged and burned and cleansed Bethel of evil. For it was David Ford who’d ordered Lilith and the rest of her coven to the pyre, who’d set the fire and stoked the flames. Every purge began with him and the war he’d waged during the Dark Days.

  Immanuelle pressed off the ground and stood. As she did, she heard a soft cry on the wind. Easing between the tombstones, she walked to the edge of the graveyard, which stopped just short of the forest. An iron fence ran along the edge of the cemetery, separating it from the encroaching woodland just beyond the Holy Grounds. And it was there that she spotted them, Ezra and Judith together in the darkness just a few paces from the memorial she cowered behind. They stood close to one another, and Judith was holding him by his shirt, the cloth balled up in both of her fists.

  “Enough,” said Ezra, and he pulled at her fingers, trying to pry them open.

  Judith only clutched him tighter. “You can’t make me want him.”

  “You made a vow,” Ezra snapped. “You were cut same as Leah, and you’d do well to remember that.”

  He started to push her off him, and that was when Judith rushed forward, forcing her lips to his. She fit her hands beneath his shirt, shifting her hips against him. “Please.” She mumbled into his mouth, his neck. “Please, Ezra.”

  He seized her by the shoulders, shoving her back. “I said no.”

  Tears filled Judith’s eyes. She strai
ned forward again, catching him by the hilt of his dagger, and she pulled it so violently the chain that held it snapped. Silver chain links skittered into the darkness, a few flying so far they hit the ground at Immanuelle’s feet.

  Her heart stumbled, then skipped a beat. She turned to leave, tripping over the skirts of her mother’s dress as she went, desperate to get away, when one of the children playing by the fire screamed.

  Ezra snapped to attention, spotting Immanuelle as he turned his head. He called her name and she fled, running as fast through the graveyard as she had in the woods the night of the storm.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Father help them. Father help us all.

  —MIRIAM MOORE

  THAT NIGHT, IMMANUELLE dreamed of the forest. In sleep, she conjured visions of the Dark Mother wandering the corridors of the woodland, cradling a slaughtered lamb in Her arms, Her black veil trailing through the brush. She dreamed of scarecrow witches burning like torches in the night, tangled limbs and stolen kisses. In her nightmares, she saw the Lovers toiling in the dirt, grasping at each other, teeth bared, pale eyes sharp with moonlight.

  When she woke, she was sweating cold, the back of her nightdress damp, clinging to her shoulders like a second skin. She sat up, dizzied, her heart tapping a sharp rhythm against her ribs. Her ears rang with a plaintive bleating.

  At first, she thought it was the echo of a dream. But when it sounded again, her mind went to her flock, the shadows of her nightmares fading as she sprang to her feet and took her cloak off its hook on the door. She shoved her feet into her muck boots, snatched her lamp off the bedside table, and eased down the attic stairs and into the hall.

  The farmhouse was silent, save for the wheeze of Abram’s snores. She knew he’d taken Anna’s bed because of how close he sounded. He took Anna’s bed often those days, rarely, if ever, haunting Martha’s.

  Immanuelle was glad of it. On the nights that Abram did go to Martha, she didn’t sleep, and often Immanuelle would hear her pacing through the halls. Once, years ago, near midnight, Immanuelle had caught her grandmother in the kitchen with a mug full of Abram’s whiskey, staring out into the black of the forest while her husband slept in her bed.

  Another cry cut the silence, and Immanuelle’s thoughts returned to her flock. She dashed downstairs as quietly as she could. Her lamp swung as she hurried, throwing light and shadow. The wailing continued, a hollow, keening sound that seemed to slip through the bones of the house. As Immanuelle crossed into the back pasture, she realized—with a cold twist in her belly—that it was coming from the Darkwood.

  Stepping off the back porch, Immanuelle crossed into the pastures, the glow of her oil lamp a spot of warmth in the black tide of the night.

  Another cry, this one sharper than the last, and louder.

  Immanuelle broke toward the pastures in a full run, only to find her flock clutched together against the midnight cold, still and silent and entirely unharmed. She did a quick head count. Twenty-seven in total, every lamb and ewe accounted for. But the crying continued, now more a howl than a wail.

  Then, something else: a scream, ripped straight from a woman’s throat.

  At the sound, a sharp pain shot through Immanuelle. She doubled over, the lamp slipping from her hand. She snatched it from the ground before the oil could spill and the grass catch fire, her teeth set against the pain in her stomach.

  The cries became more frenzied, until Immanuelle realized that they weren’t cries at all, but rather a kind of song. She knew she ought to go back to the house, return to her bed where it was safe and leave the wood to its own evils. But she didn’t.

  It was as if someone had tied a thread around her sternum and pulled, drawing her closer. As if something, or someone, was leading her to the Darkwood. Perhaps she could fight it if she really tried. She could listen to every instinct urging her to turn around and return to the farmhouse. She could keep her promises.

  But she didn’t do any of those things.

  Instead, she took a step toward the tree line, wading through the swaying grass of the pasture, climbing over the fence that encircled it, lured by the forest’s cries. Lamp in hand, Immanuelle picked through the thick of the underbrush, following the woodland call through the trees. She didn’t know where she walked, or what she walked toward, but she knew—without really knowing—that she wasn’t lost.

  On and on she went. Brambles snatched at her nightdress, and the cold breathed down the back of her neck. The cries seemed to slither between the trees, though they were softer, dying into gasps and whispers that lost themselves in the hissing wind. She could hear her name now in the chorus: Immanuelle. Immanuelle.

  But she didn’t feel afraid. She didn’t feel anything but dizzy and light, as though she wasn’t walking as much as she was skimming between the trees, as weightless as the shadows themselves.

  A branch snapped. Her hand tightened around the lantern’s handle, and she winced a little, her burnt hand chafing beneath her bandages.

  She smelled something wet and heady on the air, and as the cries quieted, she heard the soft lapping of moving water.

  On instinct, she followed the sound, raising her lamp high to illuminate the trees. Shouldering through the brush, she entered a small clearing. At its center was a pond, its water as black as oil. Like a mirror, it reflected the moon’s face back at itself. She paused by the water’s edge, her hand tightening around the handle of her lantern.

  “Hello?” she called out into the night, but the forest swallowed the sound. Despite the silence, there was no echo. The cries died. The trees were still.

  Immanuelle knew then that she should have run, retraced her steps and fled back to the farmhouse. But instead, she squared her shoulders and braced her feet, finding a scrap of strength to cling to. “If there’s anyone out here, show yourselves. I know your kind lurks in the Darkwood. I know you knew my mother, and you call to me like you called to her.” Whatever evil they sought with her, Immanuelle needed it to be known now and done with.

  A great, rippling ring formed at the center of the pond. The waves licked the shore and Immanuelle’s lantern sputtered as if the oil was running low.

  In the flickering light, a woman emerged from the shallows. Immanuelle staggered back a half step and raised her lantern. “Who’s there?”

  The woman didn’t answer. She skimmed through the shallows like a minnow, her limbs tangling in the reeds. As she drew closer, Immanuelle saw that she was beautiful, with the kind of face that could turn a prophet’s head or snatch a man’s heart from behind his ribs. And then Immanuelle recognized her from the pages of her mother’s journal. She had the same harsh mouth as one of the women in the drawings, which would have been almost comically wide if her lips weren’t so full and beautiful. Her hair was dark and slick, the same color as the pond scum that clung to the rocks in the shallows. Her skin was as pale as a corpse’s, the same as the skin of the Lovers, and like them, she bore a mark between her brows, a seven-pointed star in the middle of a circle.

  Immanuelle knew then: This was Delilah, the Witch of the Water.

  The woman slid her belly along the slope of the shore and dragged herself to her feet. The black mud covered her naked breasts and modesty, but in the warmth of the lamplight, Immanuelle could distinguish her every cut and contour. As the witch drew nearer, she realized she was not a woman at all but rather a girl of about her age, no more than sixteen or seventeen, eighteen at the very oldest.

  Delilah drew so close, Immanuelle could smell her. She reeked of dead things, all lichen and leaves and pond rot. It was then—by the moonlight—that Immanuelle saw her bruises, black splotches as dark as ink stains marring her cheeks. Her right eye was slightly swollen, and both of her lips were split.

  The witch extended a hand, fingers folding around Immanuelle’s wrist. In one swift movement, she shredded the bandages, exposing Immanuelle’s burn to
the cold night air. Despite all of Anna’s ointments and tending, it hadn’t healed well. It was red and angry and weeping pus, likely to leave an ugly scar once the scabs flaked away.

  Gingerly, the way a mother holds a child, the woman brought Immanuelle’s palm to her mouth and licked it. Her lips radiated a numbing cold.

  Then Delilah kissed her: first the meat of her palm, then her wrist, the witch’s lips trailing along her tendons to the tips of her fingers. She kept her dark eyes on Immanuelle’s as she did this, never breaking her gaze.

  Fear flooded through Immanuelle’s chest and her vision blurred. She caught snatches of the pages of her mother’s journal transposed with the woman’s face—her slim, pale, dead face. The lantern slipped from her grasp and struck the dirt with a dull thud.

  Delilah tugged on her hand. Immanuelle took a half step forward, then another, slipping out of her boots as she walked. She entered the water barefoot. She felt the waves rise around her, up to her ankles, her calves, her thighs, licking at the curve of her crotch, the swell of her breasts, until her feet skimmed the bottom and the water kissed her chin.

  Delilah led her on, deeper and deeper, wading backward so that she could look at her. Those dead, swollen eyes fixed on Immanuelle’s.

  And then they were under, lost to the black and the cold and the shadow. The witch’s grip slackened, her fingers slipping from Immanuelle’s wrist as she slithered into the dark depths of the pond.