Bones of the Witch

by A. L. Knorr

  “Any idea how many security guards they would have on watch right now?” I asked.

  “I’d be surprised if they had more than two. Blackmouth is a small community, not much in the way of crime. No one will be on their guard. They rarely are. It’s one my father’s biggest complaints, although you can’t blame the guards. Nothing much happens except maybe a few supplies get nicked here and there by patients and staff.”

  “We need a story.” I pulled the hat off my head and scratched at my scalp where the wool itched. “What are we doing here in the middle of the night?”

  “We could say one of us forgot our cell phone from an earlier visit, or something else equally important.”

  “And what if they escort us?”

  A sharp rap on the back window was followed by the rear door opening. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp. Lachlan jerked around to look as Jasher slid into the back seat.

  “Well, well, well.” His eyes were fever-bright and his hair wild. “What are you two conspirators up to? Can’t be having your midnight fun without me.”

  Lachlan looked like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or wring Jasher’s neck. “Almost gave us a heart attack.” He waved a hand in front of his nose. “You smell like a brewery.”

  Jasher laughed, a borderline mad sound. “Apologies. I thought I’d sleep it off and then come back to the hospital in time for visiting hours this morning.” He let off a raspberry that sent a waft of hops by my nose. “Turns out, nope. Still drunk.”

  “Jasher, you need to go home,” I said over the seat. “I did come to wake you but you were dead to the world and in no shape to help out. We don’t have much time.”

  “You did wake me, I just had what you might call a delayed reaction.” Jasher scooted forward on the back seat and put his arms over the seat. He hammered out a rhythm on the vinyl, looking from me to Lachlan and back again. “Don’t have much time for what?

  “Jasher…” My patience was wearing thin.

  Lachlan gave me a look, like he was having an idea. “Wait, this is perfect. Jasher already smells like a boozehound.” He looked at Jasher. “Think you can act even more drunk than you currently feel? Like falling down, might need to have your stomach pumped kind of drunk?”

  I brightened as his idea made the leap from his mind to mine. Unfortunately, it didn’t make it as far as Jasher’s.

  “Why would I do that?” he asked.

  I grabbed Jasher’s hand. “We don’t have time to explain, but we can help Evelyn. We have to get her out of there, take her somewhere far from town and find a big hawthorn tree.” I pulled the vial out of my pocket and showed him. “And we have to give her this.”

  Jasher’s eyes widened so much he looked like he had those plastic googly eyes you find on kid’s stickers. His voice went hushed with awe. “What’s that?”

  “It’s from the faeries,” I replied, saying the thing I thought would most get him to trust our crazy plan.

  “They gave you a potion?” Jasher looked on the verge of disbelief, but I understood why.

  “It’s not from the little faeries, it’s from the big ones.”

  “Laec gave it to you?”

  “A friend of his. We don’t have time to go into details. Will you help us to help Evie? This might be her only hope.”

  I saw Jasher’s throat bob as he swallowed, then he nodded.

  “Okay.” Lachlan turned in his seat, body tense with energy. “Here’s the plan.”

  Chapter 23

  The emergency entrance was a long set of double doors which slid open automatically. To the left was the waiting room where the inspector had grilled me, and to the right was a treatment room with all the bells and whistles. A nurse I’d never seen before stood just inside the doorway of the treatment area, holding a clipboard. She looked up as Lachlan and I half-dragged, half-carried Jasher between us. We stopped in the vestibule and the nurse opened the door to the treatment room and beckoned us in.

  Most of Jasher’s weight was on Lachlan. His head lolled to the side and his eyes were at half-mast. If I hadn’t known he was faking it, I would have been convinced he was completely wasted.

  The nurse gestured for us to set Jasher on a chair beside the door. We helped him down and there he swayed, mouth closed, eyes unfocused.

  “A little too much to drink, I’m afraid,” Lachlan explained to the nurse. “And he can’t seem to open his mouth.”

  While she hadn’t reacted to the drinking comment, her brows spiked at the other.

  “His jaw is locked?”

  She’d already set the clipboard down and was pulling on a pair of gloves. She bent to look at Jasher’s face, peering into his eyes, fingers probing at the sides of his face. She frowned and straightened.

  “I’ll ring for the doc. One of you will have to give the receptionist his details.” She gestured to the waiting area but her attention was on Jasher. “Go on.”

  Jasher didn’t so much as nod or bat an eye as Lachlan and I left him there under the concerned nurse’s care. Following Lachlan into the reception area, we were greeted by a woman with an explosion of dark hair on top of her head and a serious pair of cat-eye glasses. She handed us a clipboard and pen and bade us to fill out as much as we could about Jasher. There was no security guard in sight, but my stomach twisted with nerves at the security camera surveying the doors and waiting area. If this didn’t work, we’d be in serious trouble––potentially manslaughter trouble. I refused to let the fear take root and shook my head. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Evie.

  I took the clipboard and shot a look at Lachlan. Slipping off to the side of the receptionist’s desk, just barely in her peripheral vision, I took the pen and set to work on the forms, taking my time with the particulars.

  Lachlan was already down the hall and around the corner. It seemed too easy, but then, how many kidnappings were there in small towns in the highlands? This staff wouldn’t know what hit them.

  Glancing at the receptionist, whose head was down and fingers were working over her keyboard, I sauntered over to a chair just out of her line of sight.

  The moment I slipped out of her field of vision, I froze and waited, expecting her to address me. The sound of typing continued. I let out a quiet breath, set the clipboard silently on the chair, and followed Lachlan down the hall. As I rounded the second corner and hit Evie’s hallway, I realized with a flood of relief that our crazy plan might actually work. Evelyn’s door was open and I slipped inside, soundlessly.

  Lachlan had already unhooked her IV and had Evie’s sleeping form wrapped up in a blanket. He was just picking her up when I joined him. Evie’s small pale face made my stomach twist into a coil of worry. If the antidote didn’t work, I knew I would go after Laec and Fyfa and use every ability I had to make them pay. I squeezed my eyes shut, pushing the negative thoughts of vengeance away. Thinking bad things about anyone was dangerous. I never wanted to repeat the harm I’d done my mother by allowing negative emotions about her to run rampant. I slammed a lid on my doubts and focused on the fact that the fae I’d spoken with had nothing to gain by harming Evelyn.

  Lachlan’s face was beaded with sweat but he gave me a grim nod. I went to the door. Peeking out, I gave him a signal that all was clear. With Evelyn’s bundled form in his arms––she looked like a child––we headed for the staff entrance at the back of the building. I went in front of Lachlan, holding open a set of doors which separated intensive care from another wing of the hospital. We were nearly home free.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” A thickly accented and extremely surprised male voice foze us in our tracks.

  We turned, Lachlan swinging slowly with Evelyn’s body draped over the crooks of his elbows, her head lolling against his chest.

  A portly security guard stood a few feet away, his expression wide with astonishment.

  Without thinking about it, I went around Lachlan and approached the guard, a serene smile plastered on my face.

>   “I’m sorry about this.” I reached up to touch his cheeks. A dose of belladonna flowed from my glowing fingertips. Spots lit up on his cheek like white Christmas lights beneath the surface. The guard slumped immediately and I wrapped my arms around him to break his fall. I let him drop gently to the floor, his head tipped back. His hat fell off and went rolling. I grabbed it and put it over his face.

  “Come on.” I left the guard there and went to the door, which I held open for Lachlan.

  Lachlan was staring at me, waxy and sweating. “What did you do to him?”

  A loud snore issued from beneath the guard’s hat. “I put him to sleep. He’ll be fine. Come on, we don’t have all night and I don’t want to have to put everyone to sleep in the bloody place!”

  That got him moving. We made for Lachlan’s car and I opened the back door for him to settle Evelyn in. When she was tucked in, Lachlan slid into the driver’s seat while I ran around to the other side and got in next to Evelyn’s head so I could keep her steady and monitor her.

  “Let’s go!” My body was vibrating from head to toe. Not in fear, not even with nerves, but with excitement. It was going to work!

  Lachlan had just backed the car up and was preparing to turn when a figure came running around the side of the clinic, jacket flapping and sneakers slapping on the pavement. Lachlan waited until Jasher got into the passenger’s side before driving away.

  “Go, go! They’ll be on the phone to the police by now.” Jasher was panting after his sprint but he grinned like a wild man. He peered into the back at where I sat with Evie’s head in my lap. “This is insane!” He said it in the same tone as someone shouting ‘we won the lottery!’ “It feels so good to be finally doing something! All the waiting around has been killing me.”

  “I wonder if they have my plates on video,” Lachlan added in a much calmer tone.

  “Why do you care? By the time they sort their heads from their asses, we’ll be long gone. We might even be on our way back with a healthy Evelyn.” Jasher’s eyes were wild and still had that glassy look. He was desperately afraid for her; I could practically smell his fear, beneath the smell of beer. “This is going to work, right Georjie?”

  “It will,” I replied with conviction. “The fae won’t let us down.”

  I never would have dreamed of trying such a crazy stunt if Evie’s life hadn’t been on the line. It would work. It had to, because the alternative was unthinkable.

  “Just drive,” I said. “Get us as far away as you can reasonably get us, Lachlan.”

  I looked down at Evie’s sleeping face, so fragile in the dim light. She was a mere shadow of her former self.

  The wheels turned and the miles slid by.

  Lachlan turned the car off the main road and onto a side road which wound through the highlands like an endless serpent. I straightened in my seat when he turned the car again, this time down a single-track dirt road leading through a grove that was as black as the bottom of a well.

  We passed through this dark tunnel very slowly, the vehicle rocking over the rough road. I held Evelyn with a hand on her shoulder and one on her forehead. From time to time I felt her pulse, which felt like the slow flutter of a butterfly’s wing under her jaw. I sent a steady stream of earth energy into her, bolstering her strength.

  “Where exactly are we?” Jasher muttered, speaking for the first time in well over an hour.

  “I haven’t been back here in years.” Lachlan peered out through the windshield at the seemingly endless tube through the foliage ahead of us. “But I’m pretty sure there’s an opening up here where we can park. I don’t know how far out Fyfa was hoping we’d get, but this place is as remote as any.”

  “It’ll have to do, because we’re running out of time,” I said.

  Jasher peered back sharply over the seat, his eyes glittering coals in the dark. “What do you mean?”

  “Her pulse has slowed even further, and…” I hesitated.

  “And what?”

  “I think she’s…smaller. Is that possible?”

  “If you said she’s grown toadstools for ears, I’d believe you at this point,” Lachlan said. “What do you say we stop this jalopy and get on with it?”

  Jasher and I didn’t have to say anything to agree with Lachlan; the tension in the vehicle was ratcheting up. My excitement at having broken Evelyn out of the hospital with relative ease had fizzled away and was replaced by nervous anticipation.

  “Hang in there, sweetie,” I said to the woman sleeping on my lap, who I was certain had lost mass in the short time we’d been in the car.

  “Fyfa wanted hawthorn. I give you the biggest hawthorn I know of,” Lachlan said as he pulled the car onto an open patch of earth. A soft rolling hill fell away and a large pasture opened up under the moon. A lonely tree stood sentinel in the middle, casting a shadow as the clouds broke and cold nighttime light poured over the hills.

  The car’s engine had barely died when both men were out of the car and had opened the back door nearest Evelyn. I cradled Evie’s head as Lachlan pulled her form toward him. Jasher helped lift the sleeping woman up and settled her in Lachlan’s arms. Jasher was still a little unsteady on his feet.

  “We’ll trade when you get tired, yeah?” Jasher said.

  Lachlan nodded and we began to walk into the pasture toward the hawthorn.

  Chapter 24

  Lachlan carried Evie across the spongy earth with sure steps. Jasher and I hovered close by in case he needed help, but he never faltered. A thick rind of moon cast its blue light over the rolling open hills, illuminating the landscape well enough to make out pockets of gorse. In the moon shadow of the hawthorn, Lachlan got to his knees and laid Evelyn carefully on the ground. I toed off my shoes, then pulled off my socks and tucked them inside my shoes. I didn’t need skin to soil contact to help her, but the stronger my connection to the earth, the more powerful I felt. The ground was wet and cold. Moisture squeezed between my toes and soaked the knees of my jeans as I kneeled beside her. I pulled the vial out of my pocket and unscrewed the cap. Jasher knelt on Evie’s other side and took her hand, while Lachlan squatted behind me and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  Evelyn’s face had changed so much since she’d first gone into the coma. The hollows under her cheekbones were pooled with shadow and her eyes seemed to rest too far back in her head. Her hands had always been thin, but now we could see the fine webbing of bones and veins threading over the backs of them. I remembered what Fyfa had asked, whether she was still beautiful or not. Evie was looking older now, and I was grateful we were so near to the end of the task.

  Resting my thumb gently on her chin, I pulled her jaw down to open her mouth. Tilting the vial, I let half the contents trickle between her lips, slowly so as not to lose any of the precious liquid. Recapping the vial, I slipped it back into my pocket and put both of my hands on Evie’s face.

  Closing my eyes, I sent my focus into the ground, drawing on the earth’s healing powers, pulling on plants up to a mile away. I could feel my hair moving on a supernatural wind. With a surge of power, the hawthorn tree’s energy overflowed into me, spilling everywhere and making my whole body hum. I poured all of it into Evelyn, every muscle vibrating with it. Opening my eyes, I smiled as Evelyn’s cheeks warmed and flushed with blood, her heartbeat grew stronger.

  With a big inhale, her eyes flew open. A small cry escaped her lips as her gaze darted around the faces hovering over her.

  I glanced around, eyes peeled for the eldritch thing. There was no sign of anything malignant and I felt the tension run out of my shoulders.

  “Shh, you’re all right.” Jasher squeezed her hand and knelt low to kiss her cheek. “You’re all right, Evelyn.” A tear tracked down his cheek, glimmering in the moonlight. He brushed it away and smiled at me. “You did it. It worked.” His voice cracked with emotion. “Thank God.”

  “Where am I?” Evelyn made as if to get up, but put her head back on the ground and closed her eyes. “I fee
l like a newborn. Why am I so weak?”

  “You’ve been asleep for almost a week,” I explained, brushing her hair back from her brow.

  Her eyes misted up. “A week?”

  “Don’t talk right now and don’t try to get up.” Lachlan put a hand under the back of her neck. “Let me carry you, when you’re ready.”

  Evelyn nodded, tears running from the corners of her eyes and into her hair. “My parents?”

  “They’re at home. They’ll be the first people we tell once we get you back to the hospital. Don’t worry.” Jasher kissed her again, this time on the lips. “They’ve been worried sick. We all have.”

  “Where are we?” She looked beyond us, at the sky, the field, the hawthorn.

  Jasher and I looked at Lachlan. “I don’t actually know,” I said with a laugh.

  Lachlan’s cheek dimpled deeply under the starlight. “We’re in a vacant field owned by my uncle. We were instructed to take you far from civilization and this was the best I could do on short notice. Seems to have worked.”

  Evelyn blinked slowly. “I feel so tired. Don’t talk anymore.” Her voice became a whisper. “Tell me everything, after…”

  “After get your strength back.” Jasher nodded. “We will.” He glanced up at me and saw my hesitation. “We’ll tell you as much as we can.”

  When Evelyn was ready, Lachlan picked her up. She tucked her head under his chin and closed her eyes. Her color had improved as well as the strength of her heartbeat, but she looked almost as frail as she had before. As Lachlan led the way back to the car with Evie, Jasher pulled on my arm and kept me back a few steps.

  “She still doesn’t look like herself,” he whispered, his dark eyes clouded with concern.