The Year of the Witching

by Alexis Henderson

  So Ezra did know the truth, or at least enough of it to send her to the pyre. It was futile to lie, in light of that. “I went into the Darkwood, just before the blood plague began, and while I was there I had . . . an encounter.”

  “An encounter with what?”

  “The witches of the woods. They’re real. I was with them the night before the blood plague struck. I think that my presence in the woods unleashed something terrible. When I went back I was trying to undo it. And I would have told you sooner, I wanted to, but—”

  “You couldn’t trust me.”

  “You’re the Prophet’s son and heir. A word from you could’ve sent me to the pyre. I didn’t know if I could trust you with my secrets. I still don’t.”

  Ezra sidestepped past her, crossed the room to his desk, unlocked its top drawer with the blade of his holy dagger, withdrew a sheaf of papers, and extended them to her.

  Immanuelle took them. “What is this?”

  “Your entry in the census. I was supposed to surrender it to my father days ago.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Read it yourself and find out.” When she hesitated, Ezra nodded toward the chairs that stood by the hearth. Between them was a table that housed a glass decanter and goblet. “Go on.”

  Immanuelle took a seat on one of the chairs and Ezra settled himself opposite her. He poured himself some wine, watching her over the rim as he drank. The first page recounted the particulars of Immanuelle’s personal history—her full name and the names of her parents, her date of birth. At the end of the account, a strange, muddled mark that Immanuelle initially mistook for an ink spot. But upon closer examination, she saw that it was some sort of strange symbol: a bride’s seal, only the points of the star were longer, and there were seven of them instead of eight. The longer she studied that strange mark, the more certain she was that she’d seen it before.

  Then the realization struck her.

  That mark was the same one carved into the foreheads of Delilah and the Lovers.

  Immanuelle’s hand began to shake. She leaned out of her seat, pointed to the mark at the end of her census, and extended the page to Ezra for clarification. “Is this—”

  He merely nodded, his gaze on the fire. “The Mother’s mark. It’s the symbol the cutting seal was derived from, years ago. David Ford sought a way to reclaim it, so he altered the mark and called it his.”

  “Then why does it appear unaltered here?”

  Ezra downed the dregs of his wine, pressed to his feet, and set his glass on the mantel. “Normally, the Church uses the Mother’s mark to identify those who were credibly accused of witchcraft. But sometimes, it’s used to identify the direct descendants of witches and trace their bloodlines. Days ago, when my father asked me to go through the census files, that’s what he was looking for.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Ezra rubbed the back of his neck like his muscles were paining him. He looked about as haggard and weak as he had at the pond, days ago. “The Mother’s mark appears beside at least one of your ancestors, every other generation, on your father’s side. The last being your grandmother, your father’s mother, Vera Ward.”

  “Which means . . .”

  Ezra just nodded, quiet and despondent. Neither of them spoke to the silent accusation that hung on the air between them like a pall of pyre smoke.

  “When did you discover this?” Immanuelle whispered.

  “The night before we entered the Darkwood. Your census was one of the first ones I read.”

  Her hands began to shake. “Have you told anyone?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Will you tell anyone?”

  Silence, then: “I’m not my father.”

  “And yet here I am, under an inquisition.”

  “Is that what you think this is?” Ezra demanded, looking almost betrayed.

  “What else would you call it? From the moment I entered this room, all you’ve done is question me like I’m some sort of criminal on trial.”

  A long silence spanned between them, broken only by the crackling of the hearth fire. Outside, a rogue wind ripped across the plains, and the windowpanes rattled in their casings. A disembodied chorus of laughter and music floated up from downstairs, the sounds so distant they seemed almost spectral.

  Ezra turned to Immanuelle, extended his hand. “Give it to me.”

  “What?”

  “Your census account. Give it to me.”

  “Why?” Immanuelle whispered, stricken and perhaps more terrified than she had ever been before. “What are you going to do with it?”

  Ezra didn’t ask again. He stepped forward and snatched the papers so quickly Immanuelle didn’t have the chance to grab them back.

  “Ezra, please—”

  He hurled the papers into the fire, and they both watched in silence as the hungry flames devoured them.

  “We’re going to keep this quiet,” said Ezra in a hushed murmur. “I won’t speak of what happened in the Darkwood that day and neither will you. No one need know the truth of your heritage. When we leave this room it’ll be like it never happened—the woods, the witches, the census, all of it. We’ll never speak of it again.”

  “But the plague—”

  “Is over, Immanuelle. You ended it at the pond.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said, remembering her mother’s journal, the words scrawled across its final pages: Blood. Blight. Darkness. Slaughter. “What if there’s more to come?”

  “More of what to come?”

  “Plagues,” said Immanuelle, treading carefully now. “What happens if it’s more than just the blood?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what if this plague isn’t the last one? What if there’s more to come?”

  “It ended with the blood,” said Ezra, and he sounded so much like his father that Immanuelle cringed.

  “Just because you want that to be true doesn’t make it so. The Sight is formidable, yes, but it only allows you to see glimpses of the future. It doesn’t give you the power to shape it. I know that you’re afraid, Ezra. I am too. But that doesn’t give us the right to close our eyes and pretend what scares us doesn’t exist. If more plagues are coming—”

  “For the sake of the Father, they’re not.”

  “If they are, we have to be ready to face them.”

  Ezra returned to the seat beside her, looking exhausted. He hunched forward, arms braced against his kneecaps, head hanging low. “Listen to me, Immanuelle. It either ends here, with this, or it ends with you dead. There is no in-between. That’s why I’m telling you—I’m begging you—to lay this to rest.”

  She faltered at that. It wasn’t a threat, but the way Ezra spoke made it seem like the future was immutable, which was, of course, impossible. Unless . . . “Did you see that in one of your visions? Did you see me?”

  He dodged the question. “I don’t need the Sight to confirm what I already know to be true. Girls like you don’t last long in Bethel. Which is why you need to keep your head down if you want to survive this. Promise me that you will.”

  “Why do you care what I do, Ezra?”

  He kept his gaze fixed on the floor, like he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “You know why.”

  Immanuelle flushed. She didn’t know what to say to that, or if she was meant to say anything at all. “You make me a promise too.”

  “Anything. Whatever you want.”

  “It’s in regard to your father.”

  Ezra froze. A range of expressions passed over his face in quick succession, so fast she couldn’t tell what he was feeling. “Did he hurt you?”

  Immanuelle shook her head. “Not me. A friend. She was young when it happened, and I fear she’s not the only victim of the Prophet’s . . . compulsions.”

&n
bsp; Ezra stood so fast the feet of the armchair scraped the floor with a screech. He half turned to the bedroom door.

  “Don’t,” said Immanuelle, throwing out a hand. “He’s dying. Some say he won’t last the year. He’ll never take another bride. He’s too weak to raise a hand to anyone now.”

  “Then what would you have me do?” Ezra demanded, and she saw the rage in him then. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing except promise me that when it’s your turn to wear the Prophet’s dagger, you’ll protect those who can’t protect themselves—from the plagues, from their husbands, from anyone or anything who might hurt them. Promise me you’ll right the wrongs of the past.”

  “I promise,” said Ezra, and at once she knew he meant it. “On my life.”

  Immanuelle nodded, satisfied that she’d done what little she could. For a farm girl from the Glades, she had certainly come far. It seemed surreal to her that she was cutting bargains with the Prophet’s heir, reckoning with witches, making plans for the future of Bethel, when just weeks ago the extent of her responsibilities ended with the borders of the Moore land.

  But the time for thrilling schemes and grandeur had come to an end. For now, and perhaps forever, the plagues were over. Ezra would go his way, and she hers. Whatever affinity they shared would quickly die. In fact, she doubted they would ever speak in such a candid way again. In due time, Ezra would rise to take his place as Prophet, and Immanuelle would recede into the shadows of his past. She should have been content with that. But she wasn’t.

  “Take care of yourself,” said Ezra, and he, like she, seemed to sense this was goodbye. “Please.”

  She forced a smile as she pressed to her feet. “You do the same.”

  “And if you ever need anything—”

  “I won’t,” said Immanuelle, striding to the door. She stalled a beat, her hand on the knob. “But thank you. For all of it. You were a friend to me when I sorely needed one, and I’ll never forget it.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  From the Mother comes disease and fever, pestilence and blight. She curses the earth with rot and sickness, for sin was ushered from Her womb.

  —THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

  THREE WEEKS PASSED without any sign of the curses. The beasts of the Darkwood were dormant. No witches called to Immanuelle in the night or haunted her dreams. Had she not seen them firsthand—had she not felt Lilith’s cold fingers lock around her wrist—she might have believed the plagues were over and been lulled into complacency like the rest of Bethel, convinced that whatever evil descended upon them had been purged by the Father’s light.

  But Immanuelle had seen, and despite her oath to Ezra, it wasn’t easy to forget it.

  That evening, Glory and Honor had retired to their beds early, sick with a summer flu. For a while, Immanuelle and the Moore wives stayed awake to tend to them. But after the girls drifted off into the fitful sleep of fever, they too retired to their respective chambers for the night.

  With everyone asleep, and the farmhouse quiet, Immanuelle returned to the pages of her mother’s book. This had been her ritual every night since Ezra’s formal investiture as the Prophet’s heir. She turned to her favorite drawing in the book—the portrait of her father, Daniel Ward, that Miriam had sketched all those years ago.

  Now that the plague was over, she felt she had time to mourn her father in a way that she never had before. She’d always lived alongside Miriam’s memory, having grown up in the house of her childhood, but it was different with Daniel. He had never been fully real to her in the way that Miriam was . . . until that evening, weeks ago, when she’d first read her census account at the Haven and seen the witch mark beside her name, the same one that denoted the accounts of so many Wards who’d come before her.

  And while a part of her desperately wanted to keep her promise to Ezra and put the past behind her, an even greater part of her wanted to understand the truth of who and what she was. She wanted to know her kin in the Outskirts, and if they suffered from the same temptations she did. She wanted to understand why she was so compelled by the Darkwood, why the witches first gave her Miriam’s journal, why they chose to use her blood as an offering to spawn that horrible plague. Perhaps it was just her pride, but try as she might, she couldn’t resign herself to the life she’d led before. She wanted answers and she knew where to find them: in the Outskirts, with the kin she’d never known.

  The only thing that kept her from pursuing answers was her oath to Ezra. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that, of the two of them, she was the one made to sacrifice more. After all, Ezra knew who he was—son of the Prophet, heir of the Church—but the same couldn’t be said about Immanuelle. The question of who and what she was remained, and unless she delved into the mysteries of her past, it always would.

  With a sigh, Immanuelle shut the journal and padded across the room to the window, climbed to a perch on its ledge, and brushed back the curtains. The moon was a crescent cut into the night sky. In the distance, the Darkwood was black and motionless, and even though there was no wind to whisper her name, Immanuelle could still feel its call. The weeks of denial and repression still weren’t enough to silence it. Staring at the trees, she wondered if she would ever be free of that temptation. Or if the Darkwood’s thrall was as intrinsic to her as the Sight was to Ezra.

  Maybe she didn’t have a choice. Was it foolish of her to think that she did?

  A dull ache throbbed in her stomach, and Immanuelle startled to attention. It took her a few long moments to realize what it was: the pains of her bleed. Sure enough, when she raised the skirts of her nightdress and checked her undergarments, she found them wet and red, stained through.

  Slipping off the ledge of her windowsill, Immanuelle left her bedroom and climbed down the attic steps. She crept into the washroom and took her basket of rags from the cabinet beneath the sink. Anna had showed her how to cut them so they’d be comfortable to wear but also thick enough to staunch her flow.

  She fit them into her undergarments, then washed her hands in the sink. As she did so, she was conscious of how tired she looked in the mirror, her bloodshot eyes shadowed by dark bags. She was walking back to her room when she heard a sharp rapping on the back door of the farmhouse. It was midnight, far too late for visitors. But the knocking continued, its rhythm steady as a heartbeat.

  Moving a hand to the wall, she slipped into the hallway and down the stairs, entering the front parlor. There, she found Glory standing in front of Martha’s armchair, her eyes closed.

  Immanuelle relaxed then, as Glory had been known to stroll in her sleep. The girl wasn’t adventurous in her waking hours, but at night it wasn’t uncommon to find her roaming the halls in her dreams. The Moores locked the doors every evening, just to keep her from wandering into the woods.

  “Glory.” Immanuelle put her hands to the girl’s shoulders, trying to shake her awake. She could feel the heat of fever burning through the fabric of her nightgown. “You’re walking in your dreams again. Will we have to tether your wrists to your headboard to keep you from wandering awa—”

  Another crack. This one struck with the hollow sound of a bone breaking—and it had come from the kitchen.

  Immanuelle’s hands fell from Glory’s shoulders. Following the sound, she eased through the front room, pausing to lift a heavy bookend off the hearth’s mantel. As she rounded the corner and entered the kitchen, she raised it high above her head, ready to strike whatever stranger had found their way into their home.

  But there was no intruder.

  Across the kitchen, standing in the shadow of the threshold, was Honor, her forehead pressed to the door. Her back arched as she threw herself forward, and her head struck the wood with a stomach-churning crunch. Blood streamed down the bridge of her nose.

  Immanuelle broke forward, the bookend clattering to the floor.

  Honor struck the door again, with so much
force the windows rattled in their casings. Then Immanuelle was upon her, dragging the child away, crying for help. Honor lay in her arms, stiff and stoic, burning with fever, deaf to her cries.

  And so, the second curse came upon them.

  PART II

  Blight

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A man who knows his past is a man with the power to choose his future.

  —FROM THE PARABLES OF THE PROPHET ZACHRIAS

  IN THE DAYS that followed, more than two hundred fell ill, succumbing first to the fever, then to the madness after it. Immanuelle heard stories of grown men clawing their eyes from their sockets, chaste women of the faith who stripped off their clothes and fled, naked, into the Darkwood, screaming as they went. Others, mostly little children like Honor, suffered from a different, but perhaps more sinister, affliction and succumbed to the clutches of a sleep as deep as death. As far as Immanuelle knew, none of the healers in Bethel were able to wake them.

  Of those who fell ill in the early days of the contagion, sixty died before the Sabbath. To keep the plague from spreading, the dead were burned on purging pyres. But those who fled to the Darkwood in fits of madness were never seen or heard from again.

  By all accounts, it was the worst contagion in Bethel’s thousand-year history, and people called it many things—the affliction, the fever, the manic flu—but Immanuelle only ever referred to it by one name, the one written dozens of times in the final pages of her mother’s journal: Blight.

  “More water,” Martha demanded, mopping a sheen of sweat from her forehead. Though all the windows were open, each breath of wind brought the hot smoke of the pyres that burned throughout the Glades. “And bring the yarrow.” Under normal circumstances, burning the bodies of the blameless was a grave breach of Holy Protocol. But in a desperate attempt to stop the spread of the disease, the Church made a rare amendment to its sacred law.