By Any Other Name

by Kayti McGee

  Thorn walked us home brusquely, shielding me while I fought to regain control of my body. Once we were safely back inside, I went straight to the painting. The only way I knew to show him that I was with him was to fight at his side. And he had a new reason to fight now, beyond just defending me. I owed it to him to make sure everything went flawlessly—to make sure he didn’t die.

  I spent a long time in the painting without Thorn, creating creatures to fight and kill and reabsorb and remake.

  After an even longer time, I stopped getting lost in the bloodlust.

  When Thorn appeared by my side to fetch me to the Samhain rites, I was as ready as I could possibly be. For both of my mothers, for Tessa, for the past and future of Juniper Hollow, I would fight. But most of all, I would fight for him.

  Twenty-Three

  Thorn

  Samhain dawned cold and clear. I had hoped for clouds, snow, rain, or fog—anything to help obscure Rose as she hid in the woods that night—but we had no such luck. The moon would be a lantern hanging over the snow. For that reason, I bought her a glittering white costume. She would be an arctic fox in a white gown, a faux fur cloak and trimmed hood, long white gloves, and a mask concealing the top half of her face.

  Fury and focus overwhelmed my desire to participate in Samhain. The holy night held no thrill for me now. I had no family—no coven. My long and violent life, in which I had always taken a perverse pride, was a sham. And it wasn’t Rose’s coven that had killed my parents at all; it was the very coven that had raised me, a brood of vipers. I hated Marion completely now, and all the rest of them, and my hate was as clear and cold as the day.

  Even so, I had returned to Marion, Imogen, and Tessa repeatedly between my marathon casting sessions with Rose. It was more important than ever that I remained within the coven’s inner circle.

  Tessa was still alive; she was still being held in Imogen’s basement. I had pretended to search her mind again. I had laughed callously when Imogen mentioned how little they were feeding Tessa or how few bathroom breaks they allowed her. I had also avoided telling Rose those details. She would need all her wits about her if I failed to find Tessa tonight, or if I failed to sneak her safely away from the coven.

  “And you have no idea where she’ll be?” Rose asked.

  She was rolling one of the satin gloves down her arm. I paused to admire the sight. She hadn’t yet put on her gown and only the cloak hung around her body for warmth. Meanwhile, I was dressing simply in dark, comfortable clothes, a hooded cloak, and a plain white mask. The mask made no pretense to terror, which almost made it more frightening. The lips formed a straight, unsmiling line. The eyeholes stared sightlessly.

  “I doubt she’ll be in Imogen’s basement. We hold the feast in the glade. Marion will want to keep her close. If she is at Imogen’s she’ll be guarded, but I’m confident I can handle any witch in the coven.”

  Except Marion, I thought grimly. And Marion was the very witch I wanted to kill. I was the great deceiver, the hand in the darkness and the knife in the mind, yet she had managed to deceive me all my life. She had stolen me away from my parents, killed my family, and raised me to be her murderer. So many things made sense to me now—my endless sense of displacement, my aptitude for shadow magic, my utter loneliness and inhumanity...

  Until Rose.

  I tossed my mask onto the bed and pulled her against me. Now, I thought, one more time in this life.

  I had already made my plan for Samhain. Rose believed we would go to war with the Blackmanes tonight, hand in hand. She believed I would allow her to risk her life with a monstrously difficult spell and against the terrible power of the coven. I had no such intention. She was far too precious to me now, more precious than ever, because she had become the truest thing in my life. Apart from the unremembered, phantom love of my parents, Rose’s was the only real love I had been granted.

  Finally, for me, the road that had brought her to Juniper Hollow made sense. It was the same lost and lonely road that had brought me there, and that had brought us together.

  “For courage,” I whispered in her ear, tugging her against me.

  I would find Tessa. I would deliver her to Rose. They would flee and I would go and challenge the Maven, creating a distraction, and I would probably die. Rose’s prophetic death dream came back to me. Perhaps the details were wrong, but the idea was right. Rose and I were not destined to be together in the way I had imagined. I was destined to lay down my life for her.

  “Do we need courage?” she responded playfully, sliding her fingers through my hair.

  The touch shook me. All my nerves were prickling with arcane energy. I smiled and knelt and kissed her between her legs. I did need courage. I needed courage to fight and die, and I needed courage to say goodbye to her.

  I stayed on my knees as long as Rose allowed me. Her head rolled back and she moaned my name at the ceiling. She tasted the same way I felt: Strong and sensitive, raw and furious. I pitied any witch who would challenge us tonight.

  She wanted to climb onto me, but I made her come against my tongue and fingers before I pulled her onto my lap. We both gasped as I pushed up into her. I hid my face against her chest as we rocked together. Patches of darkness pulsed behind my eyelids. She came again, arching into me, and I pressed her back into the bed. I could have finished a dozen times, but I waited and slowed and started again because I wanted it to last forever.

  We warded ourselves as night fell, just as we had for the séance. I brought my athame, which I tucked into my boot. Rose brought her grimoire. I smiled as we moved out into the evening. Only Rose’s hand still tethered me to the earth.

  The sounds of revelry reached us as soon as we stepped into the woods. Voices chanting, laughing and singing, and some already sultry with pleasure, drifted on the wind. We smelled smoke and magic, blood and dirt.

  As anticipated, the moonlight shone brightly on the snow. I felt exposed as we crossed into the forest—and even in the forest, I must have stood out sharply in my dark clothes. No matter, though. All the better if they saw me coming.

  Far below, in the valley, the humans had long since finished their celebrations. Midnight approached. The coven would be expecting me.

  We skirted past Imogen’s house. The windows were dark and the curtains drawn. I listened for Tessa’s faint heartbeat, but there was nothing.

  Rose and I didn’t need to speak much anymore. So far, everything was going according to plan. We simply held hands and continued up the mountainside, toward the glade, our heavy cloaks whispering over the snow.

  When the muffled voices became audible and the glow of firelight visible through the trees, I held up my hand, indicating that Rose should go no further. She nodded and crouched in a diamond of untouched snow. She traced a rune in the air, whispered a few words in Latin, and faded against the luminous flakes.

  She had become so capable and wise. I loved her truly, and only then—exactly then—did I realize it was goodbye. But she couldn’t know that yet. Regardless, we exchanged a look that made me think she knew. And hers was the dream, after all, in which I died.

  I turned and breezed toward the firelight and smoke. Moving in amongst my so-called family was second nature, in spite of what I knew. No sooner had I entered the clearing, though, than I watched our plan fall to pieces.

  Near the edge of our bonfire, tied up to a crude cross, was Tessa. Marion had not merely moved the girl closer; she had made Tessa the centerpiece of our celebration. I forced myself to smirk as I looked up at the girl. She was thinner, with bruises around her wrists and ankles, and wearing only a ragged white dress in the frigid night. The bonfire did not appear to be keeping her warm. In fact, she flinched and struggled against the cross every time the flames licked close to her feet.

  Marion spoke into my mind.

  How do you like it, Thorn?

  I found her across the glade, dressed all in black with lupine ears protruding from her mask and a long, fanged snout leering ove
r her girlish mouth. Her eyes locked on mine.

  Murderer, I thought. The thought was meant only for me, yet it slipped into Marion’s mind with all the vitriol and hate I felt. I could never sneak Tessa away from the clearing. We were doomed.

  Through the throng, behind her mask, I saw Marion’s eyes widen slightly. We were both murderers. The word had not surprised her, I think, so much as the rage behind it. The game was up.

  And you? she replied. Aren’t you my murderer?

  We were crossing the clearing toward one another, pushing through the other witches. Ale sloshed onto the snow at my feet. I was dimly aware of the singing and dancing and sex carrying on around me. I had begun to chant under my breath.

  From behind me, no doubt at Marion’s mental bidding, a witch rushed up. I crushed her mind with a gesture. I felt the pulp of all her memories disappearing forever and a shock of power went through me as she collapsed.

  That got the coven’s attention. A few witches were too far gone to notice their family member twitching in the dirt, but the glade went suddenly, entirely silent. I tore off my mask and threw it down. It was a nuisance now. Marion was casting, her hands raised and her palms crisscrossed with oozing cuts. I had never been able to wring as much power out of my blood as Marion—and of course not, because I wasn’t a blood witch at all.

  The Blackmanes moved back, forming a large circle around Marion and Tessa and I. She could have commanded them to fight and maybe she was trying, but they were all too shocked or frightened to do it. Instead, her own spell bore down on me with oppressive force. I pushed back, thrusting her out of my thoughts. I could barely move. My limbs were heavy, my tongue thick.

  “Sleep,” Marion said.

  I barked out a laugh.

  “I am your murderer,” I said aloud. I had finally reached Tessa. I gripped her ankle. Marion flickered toward me, intent, I suppose, on stopping me. I swiped at her. Although my arm arced through the air, it was a mental swipe that hit her and knocked her back across the clearing. She was afraid! I could feel it when I hit her. She didn’t know how much I knew or how I knew it. Rose had been haunting Marion for weeks and now I was haunting her, too. I seized the advantage.

  As Marion staggered up and ripped off her mask, I loosened Tessa’s bindings with a word. She slumped down from the cross and sagged against me. I was dragging her back, away from the fire, when Marion came at me. She snarled like a hellhound and her lips peeled back hideously.

  “Manere retrorsum,” I hissed. She slammed into an invisible wall. The wall held by the force of my will. Without a word amongst them, every other witch in the clearing seethed towards me. They, too, collided against my spell. I shuddered and continued moving back, my hand upraised, my other arm locked around Tessa. She moaned softly and staggered in the snow.

  For one fleeting moment, I believed I might make it.

  Tessa stood up stiffly, abruptly, and her hands locked around my neck. They were like talons, squeezing and crushing. I snarled in pain. Beyond my invisible wall, I saw Marion grinning at me as she intoned the words of another spell. As well as I could control the mind, a blood witch could control the body. Tessa had become a nightmare puppet. She bit at me and throttled my neck with preternatural strength. Her eyes rolled back. Her veins stood out thickly.

  “Tessa!” I rasped.

  I began the words of a spell that would soothe her mind, but I couldn’t hold back the coven while I did so. The witches pressed against my wall with their collective influence. I laughed, a wheezing sound that barely escaped my throat. So this was it: we would all die—Rose and Tessa and I—tonight in this glade. The Blackmanes would paint themselves with our blood.

  I dug my boots into the earth and tried to pry Tessa off my neck. As the witches dispelled my fortification, I fell to my knees with the effort it took to keep them back. Several at a time, they pushed through. I turned and fled with Tessa clasped against my body. My wall crumbled.

  “Rose!” I shouted. “Run!”

  Rose was not running. I materialized in the spot where I had left her and she was there, but she was also gone. Her hands were deep in the snow. She had cleared away patches and scraped runes and sigils into the soil. Her eyes were closed and her grimoire was open in front of her. She was speaking the words of a spell not unlike the one she had used to summon her mother. All around her, darkness gathered. The canopy was thin there and the moon should have been shining on us. Instead, I could barely see my own hands.

  “Dormi,” I murmured. Tessa wilted in my arms. “Rose... Rose!” My voice was urgent. The thick shadows had disoriented the Blackmanes, but they would find us soon enough. I could hear them scouring the area.

  I laid Tessa in the snow and shook Rose. Her hands were cemented in the earth. She was rictus stiff and sweating. I tugged at her. I couldn’t move her. Frantically, I brushed the snow away from her wrists and gasped. As on the night of the séance, cold fingers from within the earth gripped Rose’s hands. And her feet. And, as I watched, a bony arm reached up and knobby fingers grasped her hair. She barely flinched. She whimpered and continued her incantation. The earth shifted under my knees. The dead began to pluck at me, too. I heard a roar of confusion from the darkness, from the coven. Rose was doing it—she was raising her fallen coven—or maybe she was killing us all.

  The spell was halfway complete and she began to quake violently with the effort of casting. She yelped and I heard a crack from her hand. They were breaking her bones. They were going to crush her if they couldn’t climb out of the earth.

  I reeled upright and shook off the clammy hands snatching at me. The dream, I thought at last. The dream! It was obvious now what I needed to do. As if I had done it a hundred times before, I snatched the athame from my boot and drove it directly into my chest. I pushed it up under my ribcage, piercing my heart.

  Imogen charged out of the darkness. How she reached us first I will never know. Maybe she really did love me.

  “You killed him!” I heard her shriek. “You killed him. Necromancer.”

  It was not cold in the snow or in dying, the way I had sometimes imagined. It was warm and muffled. I curled in on myself as my blood pumped into the earth.

  They were climbing out of their forest graves around me, the Brennan witches who had died for nothing. They crawled and walked right over me. Strong with my blood and the power of Rose’s authority, the Brennan witches began to cast against the Blackmanes. How I wanted to watch! How I wanted to fight alongside them. And I wanted to see the bridge again, the ravine at night... the moon one more time, Rose’s face as she slept...

  My blood was gushing now, surging out of me in great, damp pulses. It hadn’t been such a long life after all. A deadened hand gripped my shoulder as it wrenched its body from the frozen soil. My body gave an involuntary spasm. From somewhere outside of myself, I saw my raven hair straggling across the white ground. I saw the dead climbing over Blackmane corpses. I saw Rose in her trance. I saw Rose.

  Epilogue

  Rose

  I did what I had to do.

  After Samhain, it was quite obvious.

  The Blackmanes had taken what wasn’t theirs to take, but they weren’t all bad witches. A lot of them hadn’t even known what had been done in their name. I stuck around Colorado long enough to refuse the mantle of Maven that was offered to me. I was no leader. They thought I was. But no leader kills her own general for victory.

  No female leader, anyway.

  That’s the kind of thing men do.

  Back home, I groveled. Tessa forgave me readily, of course, though I didn’t think she was long for Boulder knowing what she knew now about the coven in the mountains. My parents were more aloof. I couldn’t blame them. I had disappeared a book-crazed irresponsible girl and returned a sober, obsessive woman who had very little explanation for the missing time.

  Late at night, I heard them wondering whether it was drugs. A cult. It didn’t matter. They were safe, and that was the important part.

>   I returned to my studies, the only thing left that brought me any joy.

  The day before Beltane, I told my parents I needed to run a quick errand. And then I drove to Juniper Hollow. Find yourself here the sign said. I had. And then I’d lost myself, when I lost him. This time around, the sky was still light when I pulled onto Main. The henna-d woman in the inn didn’t speak as she handed over my key this time. I noted a new grouping of little mice, these in a circle, and I wondered how exactly much the town truly knew about their benefactors.

  The morning dawned cold and bright. I drove down Main north to the foothills, took a right on Sable. As I passed Rune’s, I said one of the new prayers I’d learned since last fall. The Catholics believed the more a saint suffered, the more likely they were to intercede on your behalf.

  I was a sinner, but surely I had suffered enough to demand Rune’s happiness in Summerland. I liked to think of him holding Luna’s hand.

  Back in the clearing, I wasn’t surprised to see that the Beltane rites were no longer being held here. It was less a ritual space now than a graveyard. For a death witch, the two were the same. I knelt on the earth, and opened my grimoire. No opening circle for me this time. I didn’t have any life left for the dead to disrupt. A bottle of thirty-year old vintage mingled with my tears in the soil. I pictured his face, his body.

  Thorn.

  Thorn.

  Thorn.

  When I placed my hands on the earth, it was a relief to feel it break beneath me to reveal the dead fingers of my love. When they intertwined with mine, I felt no fear, even as they began to pull. I took one final breath of air on earth, and relaxed into the gravitational pull he’d always had on me.