Witch Creek

by Laura Bickle

  The Locus churned to life. Her spittle-flecked blood slid around the groove and clotted in the western direction.

  “Okay,” she breathed. “We go west.”

  She plodded along the dark tunnel. As she remembered, the tunnels weren’t uniform. They were narrow in places, with ceilings low enough that she had to stoop and feel the roots of plants comb her hair. In other places, two people could easily walk abreast, and the ceilings seemed to be that of a vaulted cathedral. It seemed organic in many places, as if it was a gap created between sliding faults. In others, the walls were smooth and round as termite tunnels. In more, the roof was held up by rotting pieces of wood, drizzling water. It was both familiar and foreign to Petra. Yes, she had been here before; it just hadn’t seemed to be exactly this way. Underfoot were bits of slate that she would surely have remembered. Sharp pieces of sandstone jutted out of walls, as if the tunnels were being closed by small earthquakes. But there had been no significant seismic activity in this area.

  Sig rubbed up against her, and she welcomed something wholly familiar.

  Petra trailed her fingers around the crisp edges of newly broken sandstone. Gabe had once intimated that his world had the ability to change. She assumed that applied only to the chamber beneath the tree, that the tree roots moved and were able to alter their immediate environment, according to the Lunaria’s influence. It would be impossible for the other tunnels to shift without there being some evidence of the movement reflected in the ground above—upheavals, sinkholes . . . or was it? Her rational mind tried to puzzle it out. Were these passages deep enough that small shifts and slips could occur without being obvious on the surface? Or was this, far more likely, a psychological trick meant to discourage intruders? One tunnel branched and melded into the next . . . In the darkness, it felt claustrophobic, and it was hard not to feel a sense of panic sinking in. Petra was reminded of a television show she’d seen about the tunnels surrounding the cave of an ancient sybil—they were designed to create awe, disorientation, and, in the presence of noxious gases, hallucinations.

  Maybe that’s what this place was. A hallucination.

  It occurred to her to strike a match, to test the volatility of the air. But her hand stilled, hovering over her pocket. Too much of her life was bleeding off into hallucinations and the spirit world. It didn’t matter, now, how real or unreal this place was, as long as it led her to Gabriel.

  She walked on, sweeping her light before her. She took a sharp corner and found herself in a tangle of roots. The twisted shadows bounced off the walls of a chamber, seeming to seethe in that trick of the light. The roots were blackened, curled.

  Petra knew instantly where she was: beneath the Lunaria.

  But it was much different than the last time she’d been here. Then, the roots had extended into a spacious chamber, where the Hanged Men dangled, like rotting fruit. Despite the smell of decay, the place had exuded life—artificial sunshine had pulsed in the tendrils of the roots, and the tree reacted to intruders, sensing the presence of life other than itself. It had been warm and womb-like, living and still at the same time.

  It was nothing like that now. The chamber was a tangle of blackened, rope-like roots, twisted in a frozen moment of writhing agony. The roots pressed up against the ceiling of the chamber, like smoke, as if they’d tried to flee from the fire. More spilled out limply along the floor, where they had begun to decay. The whole of it smelled like bitter smoke.

  Tears stung Petra’s eyes. The tree had been magnificent in life. In death, it was heartbreaking.

  But some part of it still lived, surely. Aboveground, the sapling had sprouted from the blackened earth.

  She shone her light up into the chandelier of tangled roots. Some of them were greenish and brown at the uppermost levels, bearing feathery tendrils cradled in structures that look liked eagles’ nests. It did live.

  She squinted up and peered at the area where the door was. New brown roots covered it—that must have happened after the fire. She was right—there had been some desire for the tree to shield itself from outsiders, from further pain. Maybe . . .

  Sig growled beside her, a deep vibration against the side of her leg.

  She turned, a squeak escaping her lips.

  Roots had unwound themselves from the nest-like tangle and reached toward her. Sig barked and snarled. Petra dodged and made a run for the entrance.

  But a tendril caught her, snatching up her wrist with speed like a striking snake. She wrenched against it, splintering off green wood, yet another root slipped around her ankle, and she stumbled. Appendages as thick as her arm wrapped around her waist and throat, lifting her from the floor. Above Sig’s frantic barking, blood pounded in her ears as her fingers dug into the root curling around her neck.

  No good. She felt the blood draining from her head, and she reached for a gun at her waist. Her jacket was bound up in the tree root, and she struggled to get it free. Fingers of roots dug into her ribs, and she gasped.

  Her fingers working frantically, she finally got a gun free and fired blind, up and away from Sig. The report was deafening in this small space, and her ears rang. That’s about all the gun did, though—it didn’t deter the tree, its roots continuing to dig into her throat and ribs. She hissed as they tore open the flesh of her torso, feeling the heat of blood soaking through her shirt and down her belt.

  The fucking tree . . . maybe it was like the Locus, craving blood, she dimly thought. And I served mine up to it on a silver platter—

  Abruptly, the tree loosened its grip and dropped her to the ground like a used tissue. Petra clambered to her feet, clutching a gun and flashlight.

  The thick root that had chewed into her ribs was stained red. The root flicked itself, like a dog that had gotten into something disgusting, trying to shake off the red. It clearly wasn’t the nourishment it expected.

  “Oh,” Petra breathed, scowling, as she pressed her gun arm around her waist to stanch the bleeding. “Chemo blood doesn’t taste good? Maybe it’s the arsenic. Or the cancer.”

  The roots retreated with a rustle and a wooden groan.

  Whatever the tree thought, Petra wasn’t sticking around. Sig barked at her to follow him down another dark tunnel, away from the suddenly carnivorous tree.

  Once she’d fled beyond the reach of the tree, Petra dropped to one knee. She shone the light at her damaged skin, peeling back her shirt, which was stuck to it. Not as bad as she thought—the injury was pretty superficial. It might ideally need a couple of stitches, but nothing major had been torn. Still, the blood loss made her vision narrow a bit, and she still wasn’t used to this kind of exertion. She pressed her jacket against the worst of it, and the flow slowed.

  Sig leaned in over her knee and slurped soothingly at her side.

  “Not you, too,” she muttered. Everyone wanted her blood.

  She climbed to her feet and trudged down the tunnel. She squinted up ahead, and it seemed that there was a bit of light.

  Her heart rose in her throat. Perhaps this way led to Gabe.

  The passage narrowed, and the ceiling lowered to the point where she had to stoop. She followed it until she wound up on all fours behind Sig, her back scraping against the roof. She had the feeling of crawling into some creature’s den that would corner her.

  But she focused on that tiny patch of light, that bit of dark that was greyer than the surrounding black.

  She wound up on her elbows, prone, crawling forward while her ribs ached. Sig had gone ahead of her, and she had a prime view of the coyote’s ass. Here and there, he’d stop to dig, kicking clods of dirt back in her teeth. She had to wriggle and suck in her breath to proceed, and she began to despair—this passage was clearly too small for Gabe to get through. In her emaciated state, she barely fit, and there wasn’t enough room for even the coyote to stand upright. She couldn’t even back up—dirt rained down on the backs of her knees.

  This was a mistake.

  A cold puddle soaked her knees an
d elbows. She made a valiant effort to push forward, following the coyote’s wiggling ass . . .

  . . . and got stuck. Her hips jammed in the passage. She tried to pull herself forward with her fingers and push herself with her toes. No good—she was wedged tight.

  “Sig!” she rasped, and the undulating coyote ass before her stopped. A nose and amber eyes turned back. “I’m stuck.”

  Panic rose in her. Of all the ways she’d contemplated dying lately—in a hospital, at home in a bed, in a firefight with Gabe’s abductors—this was the absolute worst. She’d likely die of dehydration, maybe exposure.

  Maybe stupidity.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. A veil of claustrophobia fell over her.

  Sig slapped her in the face with his tail, and she blinked.

  “You’re right,” she said to the coyote. She wasn’t going to die here.

  She squirmed right and left, turning her hips. Her gun belt slipped. She sucked in her breath and pulled. At the same time, Sig leaned in and grasped her jacket lapel between his teeth and pulled as hard as he could.

  The gun belt shifted, then slipped over her hip bones. Petra flopped forward in the mud, face-first in a puddle. She was filthy, and now she was cold. But she was free.

  “Good boy, Sig,” she breathed.

  She wriggled forward, managing to hook the loop of the gun belt around her ankle as she progressed.

  The light . . . it was close. She could see bits of it around Sig’s backside.

  She closed her eyes and lurched forward with the last bit of strength she had.

  Panting, she splashed forward, feeling cool air around her face. She lifted herself to a push-up position, up to her wrists in cold water.

  She was outdoors. In a culvert. Frogs sang around her, and she saw the blacktop of road just above her. She turned her head, and she could see the hiding place of the Bronco about a quarter-mile down the road.

  “Fuck,” she said.

  Sig sat down beside the puddle and gave a yip in agreement.

  Chapter 8

  Above

  “What the hell did you do?”

  Petra sat in a hospital bed, squinting at the bright fluorescent light. She’d fallen asleep, somehow. She remembered driving to the ER just to get some stitches. Somehow, she’d sprouted a line to an IV bag on her left arm and had grown a calico hospital gown over her chest.

  Maria stood over her on one side, arms crossed, glowering. Mike stood on the other, with the same expression. Petra had the same feeling she’d had as a little girl when she’d gotten into trouble with her parents.

  “Ugh.” She rubbed her face. “I don’t remember.” She said that for Mike’s benefit.

  “You don’t get to go anywhere until you start remembering,” Mike said. She mentally appended “young lady” to the end of it, in her father’s voice.

  “Huh. You’re not actually my supervisor, Mike.”

  “Well, Maria and I are apparently your emergency contacts. And the ER won’t let you go without someone to take you. So maybe a little less sass, okay?”

  She made a face. She doubted that. “Look. I just came in for a couple of stitches.” She lifted up the edge of her hospital gown to show a handful of neat black stitches tracking across her midsection. The skin was puckered and blue where it was held together. “No big deal.”

  “They said you were dehydrated,” Maria said. “Your electrolytes are shot, and your white cell count is low enough that they’re really worried about infection.”

  “Yes—it’s called having cancer, Maria.”

  Her friend glared at her.

  “I’m sorry. Look, I promise to drink some water. They can give me some antibiotics, and I can go.” Petra leaned back to search for the nurse call button.

  “What were you doing?” Mike demanded.

  “I was looking for Gabe, okay?” she spat. She was aware that she sounded like a teenage girl. What the hell.

  “God, Petra. Look at yourself. You can’t go it alone right now, all right?”

  “All right,” she said, blowing out her breath. “Will you sign me out?”

  Maria and Mike traded glances. “Okay. But no more wandering around without supervision, okay?”

  “Fine. Can I go home now?”

  “We’ll talk about it.”

  Eventually, the doctor on rounds came by and agreed to let Petra go. Petra went through the motions mostly out of politeness. She knew that they couldn’t keep her here against her will. But she didn’t look forward to yanking out her own IV and doing a dramatic stomp. Her shirt had been ruined. Her black jacket might be salvageable after a trip through the washer. They were both rolled up in a paper bag for her. A nurse had given Petra an additional hospital gown, and she layered it over her existing one, in the reverse direction for modesty.

  Petra returned with Mike to the Bronco, while Maria cranked up the ignition on her Explorer. Petra climbed up into the passenger seat of the Bronco and closed her eyes. She was tired, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  A cold nose pressed against her neck, and she reached up to pet Sig.

  Mike started the engine. “I think you should go see your dad,” he said quietly.

  Petra opened one eye. She glanced at her reflection in the side mirror. She looked like hell. “I will,” she said.

  “You haven’t seen him since you started chemo.”

  “Yeah. Well.” She turned away. “I’ve called. A lot.” And she had. She’d called her father nearly every day at the hospital. They were both stuck in institutions with nothing much to do except bitch about the food and reminisce about times past. She privately thought it was a good thing he was in a nursing home; if he wasn’t, she was certain he would have been hovering over her bedside, chattering at her when she craved nothing more than silence. She knew she needed to let her mother know, too . . . but it seemed just too big a thing to do right now. Like it was admitting defeat.

  “That’s not the same.”

  “I will,” she said, putting him off. She didn’t want her father to see her this way. Who would want that?

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. Parents expected their child to outlive them. Her dad wasn’t taking this well. And she honestly didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with his feelings bombs right now.

  But she knew she’d have to. To say goodbye, just once. Maybe that would be enough.

  Fatherhood was not anything Lev had ever contemplated. Not seriously.

  But he was contemplating it now, in the cold light of morning.

  He was washing down the bar in the silence of midmorning. He enjoyed working at this time of day more than any other. Light poured in from the stained-glass windows, making bright patterns on the floors. In warm weather, he’d prop open the front and back doors, letting a cross breeze in to sweep away the smell of cigarette smoke and spilled beer. He’d swept the floors earlier, and a bundle of sage was burning in an ashtray. A bucket of lavender floor wash was steeping in the corner. These were his rituals; the clearing out of the old and stale things that could cling to a building. Lev knew about these things, perhaps more than he knew anything else.

  “You’d make a great dad,” Wilma said. Her cigarette smoke snaked over the lavender and sage. “I’m not shitting you. You’d be good at it. Better than my fucking shitheel father, anyway. Obviously.”

  “Wilma. The swearing.” Father Caleb groaned.

  Wilma shrugged. “Sorry that I offend your tender fucking ears, Father. But I was here first. My house, my rules.”

  Caleb began, “It’s still God’s house . . .”

  “Not anymore,” Lev growled. “It’s mine.”

  “Well, regardless of who owns the property, you’d best be stepping up to fatherhood now.”

  Father Caleb was looking at Lev with as much sternness as his round face could muster, as if he could force Lev into saying Hail Marys by sheer force of will.

  “I don’t even know for sure he is my son,” Lev said.

&nb
sp; “He looks like you. And he saw Wilma.”

  Wilma smiled and puckered up her face in a kiss. “That’s because my irresistibility extends beyond the ether.”

  “Guys. Leave it alone, okay? I don’t know what he’s doing here, and I just need to think.”

  Both ghosts appeared to sulk. Wilma crossed her arms and Father Caleb’s frown deepened into his jowls. Lev continued scrubbing the bar, ignoring them, until the ghosts moved away into the back, cackling at each other like magpies.

  A thin shadow appeared at the door. “Lev?”

  He looked up. Today, he’d contemplated keeping the door locked. But the young man had said he’d come back. Lev had seen in him much of the same quiet determination Lev had at that age; he was pretty sure that if he locked the door, the fellow would keep coming back anyway.

  The young man, Archer, entered the bar.

  “Could you close the door behind you?” Lev asked. If they were to talk, what Lev had to say wasn’t meant for human ears.

  The young man obeyed, then walked to the bar, his hands in his pockets and looking up at the windows. “This is some place. How long have you been here?”

  “A very long time.” Lev figured that he’d probably best ease into this. There was no point in burdening him with too much information, particularly if Lev determined that Archer was not his son.

  Archer climbed onto a bar stool. He smelled a bit like leaf mold, as if he’d been camping. His boots left a fine crust of mud on the floor, but Lev didn’t say anything. Instead, he poured him a ginger ale.

  Archer smiled and cupped the glass between his hands. “Ginger ale. My favorite. How did you know?”

  “It’s a gift. I’ve been bartending for a very long time.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you would still be here,” Archer admitted. “It doesn’t seem like people really stay in the same place for very long. I’m glad you are.”