What Gifts She Carried

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  “Huh,” I said, taking it from him. Sneaky Sorceressi.

  When Tram pushed the door closed behind him, the rush of air puffed a curl of smoke from the remaining candle before it flickered out.

  Complete dark crept over my skin with hundreds of tiny legs. It pressed in and crawled down into my lungs. The rhythm of my gasps matched the dig of my fingernails into the ax handle. With trembling hands, I dropped the blade to the floor and pinched the handle with my knees, then skimmed my fingers over the table, searching. There had to be matches or a lighter somewhere.

  My fingers brushed against something alive and hairy, and in my leap to get away from it, I knocked over something made of glass. It rolled to the floor and smashed at my feet. The ax handle held between my legs knocked to the floor. Right next to where the glass thing had been, my fingers found a small, square-shaped piece of cardboard. Matches.

  I fumbled to get them open. With shaky fingers, I plucked one loose and dragged it across the little strip on the back. Nothing happened, not even a spark. I struck the next one, and it flickered to life.

  A creak sounded to my right, and I whirled around. The bathroom door was open a crack. The door that I had closed. And out of it wafted the nasty stink of decay.

  “Tram?” My quaking whisper sliced through the silence. Not even the floorboards moaned overhead. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but that was as much noise as I dared make.

  I froze, my eyes burning from watching the door so hard, and pressed my lips together to quiet my breaths. The lit match in my hand burned down to my fingertips. Instinct made me flick it away, and it fizzled out before it hit the floor.

  Shit. My trembling fingers felt as though they belonged to someone else as I tried to light another match. Finally, one caught. Before I could do anything stupid like drop it again, I touched it to the candle and turned toward the bathroom.

  Shadows jumped over a pale, muddy hand gripping the doorframe. A dirt-spattered sleeve cuffed its bony wrist. Out of the bathroom that had just been empty minutes before.

  I choked back a scream and shrank away into the counter. Another dead person back from the dead. Here, at Whaty—

  “Leigh, get out of there!” Tram shouted from somewhere far away.

  Something scraped over the floor to my right, the opposite direction of the dead person. Shadows leaped and twisted. A quick puff of air teased past my ear and blew the candle out.

  Chapter 8

  Terror screamed through my veins. I dropped to the floor, searching blindly for the ax.

  Someone blew out the candle. Not the same someone coming through the bathroom door. It creaked open farther, the growing stink clenching my stomach. Glass crunched just to my left.

  As soon as my fingers curled around something that felt like a handle, I swung up and to the side with every bit of strength I had. The blade connected and buried itself deep. Something shrieked, a terrible inhuman noise that stabbed frozen needles up my back. I gave the ax a yank, but it was lodged inside.

  The bathroom door creaked open the rest of the way and slammed against the side of the couch. A single footstep inside the small room unhinged my grip from the handle, and I scrambled for the matches again.

  Another footstep.

  “Leigh?” Tram shouted, closer this time. “Run!”

  I dragged a handful against the strip and touched them all to the candle, my hand shaking so bad, it was a wonder the candle caught.

  One more step. Closer.

  I spun around and stared into the eyes of the dead. Pale, paper-thin skin. Black mouth held open by a silent scream. Mud-sprayed scraps of clothing covered the bony frame of a man. Pieces of white hair draped down skeletal shoulders.

  Another dead person had come back. Another one. And a burning kind of hatred sparked in his eyes.

  Lit matches stuck out from my fist, and I threw them at him. While they tumbled down his clothes, I stuck my boot into his chest and shoved. The matches didn’t catch until they hit the spilled liquid on the floor just in front of him. A wall of fire burst up between us.

  Growing heat pressed me backward into the counter. I glanced to the side where my ax was still buried. A woman sagged against the back of a recliner, head tilted to hide most of her face behind the floor-length curtain of her dark hair. Small, pasty-white hands stuck out from long black sleeves in a dress that covered her from neck to toe. One of those hands rested on the back of the recliner and had an ax blade sticking out of her wrist. Long crimson streaks ran down her hand to drip to the floor in thick spatters.

  “You want the power of the Trinity grave,” she croaked. “I can see it inside you.”

  A loud pounding vibrated the wall of the only exit combined with shouts of my name. Thick, wavering shadows pulsed over the walls, the door, the ceiling, and even the burning ground. Something was blocking my escape, something this woman probably had something to do with, and not even Tram could break through the other side.

  The woman looked up at me with crazy, dark eyes. Silver wire crisscrossed over her top and bottom lips, sewing them together into a permanent smile.

  “I see the darkness inside you, making you crave the power of the Trinity grave.” Somehow she spoke with her mouth tied together, almost as if she was speaking to me inside my own head. “Claim it, and I’ll set you free.”

  Behind me, the dead man heaved a long moan over the roar of the rising flames. He turned away from the fire to kick a path through the maze of what wasn’t burning on a direct path toward me.

  I jerked the ax handle back, but it was wedged into the woman’s wrist too tight. It might be the only thing to get me out of here, though, because I would never say what she wanted me to.

  The wall of fire behind me licked its flames too close to my back. Another few seconds and the heat would scorch me. Just after the dead man gripped my neck with skeletal fingers.

  A quick glance over my shoulder showed he was already reaching for me. Only a coffee table and a few feet lay between us. The thought of his touch spiked the hairs on the back of my neck. I tried to focus all my attention on the blade wedged inside broken flesh and bone even though it ran a shiver of disgust over my shoulders every time I pulled on the handle.

  The pounding on the door stopped, and a bright white light shown through the crack under the door. The black shadows sliding over the entire room twitched and seized up.

  Smoke poured into my lungs and stung my eyes. Blinking back tears, I gave another sharp yank. The blade sprang free. The sudden weight spun me back, and flames danced across the blood pooling on the sharp edge.

  The door ripped open and there stood a furious-looking Tram. Roots tore through the ground, pitching me sideways, closer to the dead man.

  His smell washed over me from his black, yawning mouth just inches from my own. His bony fingers wormed through the ends of my hair on their way up to my neck. I opened my mouth to scream at the feel of his dead gray flesh sliding over my own.

  But instead of screaming, I swung the ax. I didn’t hit him, though; I struck bark. Roots tore the dead man away from me while the force of the ax vibrated a shock up my arms. The root carried the dead man and my ax down into a hole in the ground. More and more wound around each other in thick cages over the hole, cocooning both the dead man and the axed woman and pulling them into the ground in the blink of an eye.

  “Leigh!” Tram came at me through the thick haze of smoke and flames that leaped toward him.

  I jumped over the hole and into his arms.

  Something crashed behind me. A support beam from the ceiling had fallen, all ablaze, and touched fire to everything not already burning.

  Heat seared over my face as we rushed out the door. I lifted the neck of my shirt over my nose and ran with Tram’s hand tucked in mine. Mrs. Rios met us in the hallway and ushered us through the thick haze of smoke and up the stairs. We didn’t stop until we were outside and breathing fresh night air.

  “What just happened?” I gasped, posting my
hands on my knees and hacking up a lung.

  “Did you find it? Did it lead here like I thought?” Mrs. Rios asked. Her eyes looked panicked. Seeing her like that and not her usually smiley self unnerved me, more than I already was.

  “Find what?” I asked.

  “I did,” Tram said, his face grim. “The tunnel led from Ica’s tree in the graveyard to the cupboard in the bathroom. Both the dead man and the cult member were bitten by spiders.”

  I took Tram’s elbow and turned him toward a streetlight so I could look him in the eye. “Wait, what are you saying?”

  Tram’s gaze pierced me to the core. “Someone dug a tunnel from the center of the Trinity, right below Ica’s tree, to this store. I didn’t detect it, so it must be someone with spider venom inside them. And whoever it is must be raising the dead now, too.”

  I shook my head, refusing to believe it even though I’d seen the dead man with my own eyes. Why him? Why raise him? But most importantly, who raised him?

  “The granny spider twins,” I blurted. “It’s them. It has to be. I thought they were dead, but they’re not inside Whaty-Whats, so it has to be them who dug the tunnel. Maybe...maybe they raised that guy from the dead, too. Or the woman did?”

  “It wasn’t the woman. She’s not powerful enough. She barely put up a fight,” Tram said.

  “Well, how do you know for sure? Did you ask her?” I asked.

  “Leigh, only Trammeler Sorceresses like Gretchen and One and Two have enough power to raise the dead,” Tram said and looked down at the parking space between us, his fists clenching and unclenching to the beat of his pulsing jaw. “I learned that from the book in the basement. The one—”

  “I know which one.” A cool breeze chased the fire’s heat from my body and replaced it with one long shiver that clacked my teeth together. “Only...only Trammeler Sorceressi can bring back the dead?” I swallowed. That meant there were more of us? But if this other Trammeler Sorceress person was helping Gretchen’s cult, why weren’t they volunteering to be Three? It didn’t make any sense.

  Mrs. Rios glanced at the glass door of the building behind us, the moonlight emphasizing the concern etched all over her face. “Should we call the fire department?”

  Black smoke had climbed up to the main floor. It crowded behind the glass in whirls, like if it pushed hard enough it could break free.

  “I vote to let it burn,” I said. It would never rank up with my favorite places again, so what did I care?

  Tram turned his sharp gaze to Mrs. Rios. “Would you mind calling them? I need to get the prisoners inside proper cages and then get Leigh home. We don’t want the fire to spread.”

  “Of course, Our Trammeler,” Mrs. Rios said. “I wished I could’ve done more, but like I said when I got here, I was walking through the graveyard after my watch and tripped over that hole. It definitely wasn’t there when I arrived, and Ms. Hansen didn’t see it either when she took over for me. So I thought I’d check it out so you didn’t have to.”

  “You did what you could,” Tram said and shook his head. “And the empty grave?”

  Mrs. Rios glanced at me and then slid the hair out of her face with a slim finger. “I filled in Mr. Benjamin’s grave the best I could.”

  “Thank you,” Tram said.

  “I’m sorry, Leigh.” Mrs. Rios touched a hand to my arm, her face locked into a sad kind of grimace. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but I wasn’t exactly sure what she was sorry about. After she drove off, I turned to Tram again. “When did the dead guy come back?”

  Tram stared at me a long time before he answered, a mix of emotions playing across his face. “Tonight.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and warmed it with a single breath. “And if this one came back tonight, then the one that went to the motel last night isn’t the same person.”

  My muscles stiffened. “So...so how many people are back?”

  “Only the one grave is empty. Are you sure the person at the motel was dead?”

  “I’m pretty sure I know what dead smells like.”

  With a small smile, sadder than I’d ever seen on him before, he held out his hand over a hole forming between us. Concrete scraped against concrete as roots tore it open farther.

  “If you trust me, I won’t carry you this time,” he said. “But we’ll have to move slower to put the prisoners in place.”

  “I trust you.” More than most anyone.

  He closed his fingers over mine and pulled me forward to the black void. Roots creaked and shifted to place themselves under my feet as they lowered us deeper and deeper into the tunnel until darkness zipped shut the last of the street lights overhead.

  While we walked along in complete darkness, a steady dragging noise sounded behind us. I guessed it was the dead man and the axed woman, and lucky for her, she kept her thoughts to herself.

  I waved my hands around and scratched at dirt. “How do you see anything down here?” Not that I didn’t welcome the dark, which hid the dirt-packed walls so much like a grave.

  “I don’t, same as you. I tell the roots to lead my way.” A hand patted over my shoulder and down to my fingers where they pressed something wooden into my palm. Then he reached for my free hand and squeezed. “There’s your ax, by the way.”

  “Oh. Thanks. So you’ll teach me to do that? Communicate with the trees?” Such strange things came out of my mouth lately, things I never thought I would say.

  “I will, though it will take a lot of practice.”

  “How long did it take you to learn?” When he didn’t answer, I dug my heels into the roots to make him stop. “Tram?”

  He took a breath. “Years. But that’s because I learned most of what I know on my own.”

  “I don’t have years,” I said, the words blowing out in a rush. I needed to know how to work my tree magic now. Today. Yesterday would’ve been even better.

  “You already turned someone into a tree, and even I don’t know how you did that.”

  “I don’t either,” I muttered. “It just kind of happened when my blood met an ash tree key.”

  The roots under our feet slowed and then stopped. There was more dragging behind us, the scratch of rough bark that sounded like two sticks sliding against each other, and then a sharp click.

  “I wish we had a light so I could show you their cages,” Tram said. “You could see how I’ve structured my temporary prison so you can build yours out of your own roots. You can design it any way you want. I put my sleeping area right below the Trinity, though I don’t have much time for sleeping anymore.”

  No way would I sleep down here. It was too confined. If I slept like a normal person, I would make my sleeping area on top of the tallest tree in Krapper, out in the open, with lots of air surrounding me instead of dirt.

  “Wait, what do you do for food?” I asked, since he definitely couldn’t eat dirt. Could he? “Do you eat dirt?”

  Tram laughed, and he didn’t even try to hide it that time. The Counselor’s warning bells soon followed. If we kept this training up and made those damned bells ring all the time, Tram wouldn’t have any undamaged parts of his body left.

  “I don’t need food. As long as my roots have enough water, that is. It’s one of the perks of being an official Trammeler.”

  Yeah, the only perk. “Well, what about Ms. Hansen?” I asked. “Does she have a light so you can show me all this?”

  “Yes...”

  I could sense Tram’s hesitation in the long silence after that and I knew exactly why he did. Seeing Ms. Hansen meant seeing One and Two. The thought of seeing the dead Sorceressi again filled me with so much dread, I struggled to breathe. My fingers flapped to the shreds of fabric on my shirt, but there wasn’t anything left to tear through. I chomped down hard on my lip to keep the terrified gasps hidden away inside my lungs.

  But I had to see the cages. I had to know everything.

  “Show me,” I said in as even a voice as I could.

  If Tram
felt my panic attack just inches from him, he didn’t give any indication when the roots started moving forward again. Or maybe his silence proved he did. Either way, he didn’t argue.

  A dull glow soon shined from up ahead. As we drew closer to the corner of a wall that hid it, a soft buttery light slanted over my boots, and I could see everything. We stood in a long stretch of tunnel with others forking and winding away from it. Sorceressi and even some Sorcerers with scraggly hair and broken teeth peered through the breaks in their root-covered cells on both sides of us. Some beckoned with curled fingers for me to come closer. Some glared at me with murderous eyes. None of them made a sound.

  “Trammeler magic keeps them quiet down here,” Tram said, seeming to read my mind. “It also prevents them from using any of theirs.”

  “There’s so many,” I whispered, but I didn’t dare ask any of the questions that rushed to the tip of my tongue. I didn’t want to look like a clueless newbie, not in front of all of them anyway. But I wanted to know how long some of them had been here, waiting for the Counselor to convict them to the Core.

  “They’re up ahead around that corner. Ms. Hansen is sitting outside their cell,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t have to do this today.”

  A chilly sweat clung my shirt to my armpits. I took a breath, willing my jumping heart to stay inside my chest, and swept past Tram to confront the Sorceressi who had tried to kill me.

  Ms. Hansen scrambled to her feet at the far end of a tunnel. A thin, rubber hose attached to a metal canister at her side wound over her arm and into her hand. A large flashlight next to her feet picked up streams of floating dirt in its beam.

  “Leigh,” she said, spitting the hair from her mouth. “Our Trammeler, did Mrs. Rios find you?”

  I slowed. Soft sprays of dirt whispered down from cracks between the roots in the ceiling. It sifted out from the walls and settled into piles as tall as my ankles. If we stayed down here, we’d all be buried alive. I opened my mouth to beg that the flashlight be turned off, but being down here in the dark with One and Two seemed worse than seeing the walls crumbling down to bury me inches at a time. I took a deep breath and willed myself to be calm.