I had to work fast, before the winter froze the joints shut. My palms are sliced from where the teeth fought back, but if you ask the universe for a miracle, you have to offer a taste of your own life first.
I didn’t want to do it... to kill an innocent animal, but every time I close my eyes, I see that same nightmare of her falling. I’d kill a thousand stags if it kept her safe.
But it’s worth it.
She’s worth it.
Every mile.
Every bruise.
Because once I return, once I hold that final ingredient in my hand and complete the ritual, we won't ever have to be apart again. Not even for a moment.
I wonder if she misses me the way I miss her. I keep seeing her face in the fog on my windshield. That’s how I know I’m on the right path. She’s leading me to our destiny.
That’s what I tell myself as I pull off the highway and turn down an unmarked road. The trees here are gnarled and crooked, bowing over the road like a tunnel.
There’s no address.
No mailbox.
Just a red ribbon tied around a fencepost and the unmistakable scent of copper in the air.
I found the first two ingredients by listening—not with my ears, but with the parts of me that are most connected to her. That’s what led me to the jawbone buried beneath the church steps.
Tonight, though, the silence is deafening.
There are no animals.
No city hum.
Just the kind of quiet that feels like being watched.
I park on the edge of the gravel road and step out into the dark, leaving the engine running.
The cold gnaws at my skin. The little bite of pain keeps my mind from drifting back to Lumi—barely.
An old greenhouse stands half-collapsed in front of me. Its bones curve in on each other like the ribcage of something long dead. Most of the glass panes are missing or yellowed with time. My hand hovers over a vine creeping up the doorframe. Green and alive despite the cold outside. Thriving in neglect.I wonder what that’s like.
I step through the broken doorframe, and my breath hitches. Something in the atmosphere is heavy with a vitality that feels... familiar.
My skin itches, a strange, crawling sensation beneath the surface of my arms, like seeds pushing up from the soil. I’ve always felt out of place in the city, but here among the rot and reaching vines, I feel a steady thrum in the soles of my feet, like the earth is trying to strike a bargain with my bones.
I don’t know why I linger here longer than necessary. Maybe because I feel more at home in this damp, suffocating green than I ever did in my father’s house.
I find what I need suspended under a cracked glass cloche—a single bloom, pristine and untouched by its environment. It looks just like the rose from that old Disney movie my brother and I used to sneak and watch. We loved it, but dad said he wasn’t raising sissies. He’d catch us in the glow of the TV and use his belt until the metallic tang of fear was the only thing I could taste. He’d beat us until our throats were too raw to scream, then leave us on the floor to ‘be men’ in the dark. I learned at a very young age that there was no such thing as fairy tales. Beauty is something you have to hide, or someone will try to break it out of you. That’s why I have to protect her. I’m the only one who knows how to prune the world back until she‘s the only thing left growing.
Dad was wrong. I’m not a sissy. I’m just the only one who realized that a rose is a weapon if you hold it the right way.
I pull myself out of my memory and reach for the Belladonna. Ink-dark petals streaked in violet dangle from a dainty stem. The exact shade of purple as the shadows under Lumi’s eyes when she hasn’t gotten enough sleep.
The moment my fingers touch the stem, the thorn pierces me. I watch my blood bead against the dark velvet, rolling down to the dirt. The bloom pulses once as if it recognizes me. It’s atransaction. I’m feeding it, and in return, it’s going to help me bring her home.
Lust-vein nectar only blooms beneath a blood moon. Thick, sterling ambrosia pools at the base of the stem—just enough to enchant the wrong person.
In a way, we’re the same—deceitfully beautiful on the outside, and capable of anything to keep the frost from winning.
The bloom trembles as I draw its nectar into a vial. The smell is intoxicating—sweet, vanilla twilight.
