The Crows of Harvest
Sounded like a medieval tragedy written by candlelight rather than something that should be down here with the rest of the boring census records and various committee meeting minutes.
Pulling the book from the shelf, I opened it about halfway. Inside, the binding was all wrong, sloppy work. The pages were too modern and too fresh for anything that should have been stored down here.
Looking more closely at the words on the pages, my shoulders slumped. Instead of whatever should have been printed between the covers, it was a book detailing proper pruning methods for various apple trees. Flipping to the front page, it was published just five years ago.
Fucking useless.
Then… a cackle.
Shoving the book back onto the shelf, I rushed to the far end of the aisle.
“A book won’t tell you the answers you want to know,” the familiar voice of the unknown woman croaked from just behind me.
Spinning right back around, she wasn’t there.
Frustrated, I snarled. “Then what will, you cryptic bitch?”
More cackling.
I spotted her eyes peering through the shelves at me now with an unnerving intensity to them as they flickered and flashed ever-changing shades of red.
“Deals. I like deals.” Her voice was too high-pitched, too whiny, and definitely sounded like ice scratching at a chalkboard—horridly wet and cringy.
“A cat between the corn, that would be very tempting,” she suggested.
Hesitating momentarily, not because I was considering it—fuck that. I paused to listen to the meaning behind the words before I asked, “Another curse?”
“Mmhmm, very good, darling,” she crooned.
I shook my head. “Forget it, we have one too many in this town.”
“The choice is yours. Be the curse or burn it to its roots.”
In the blink of an eye, she was gone, and I was left without anything useful to bring back to the guys.
Refusing to watch time slip away as first light threatened the horizon, I shifted and hauled ass out of this place.
When I arrived on two legs, both men breathed a sigh of relief as I ran over to the maze’s exit point.
Bale skipped the pleasantries. “Where did you go?!”
“Library. Look, we don’t have a lot of time. Do you know anything about the woman who cursed you?”
With a dark look crossing his features, Corbin looked ready to storm towards the opening again until I held my hands up to get him to reconsider.
Looking at them both pleadingly, the first burst of color broke the blanket of night nestled over Falston.
“She can’t be trusted. All of this is her fault, that’s all we know,” Corbin finally said. His frustration was plain as day on his face that he didn’t have more to offer me.
Bale rested his hand on Corbin’s shoulder as he stepped forward as close as the barrier would allow.
“Look at me, kitten.” His voice was tender, bordering on a level of softness I wouldn’t have been sure he was capable of a couple of days ago.
When I did as he asked, the twitch of his lips at the corners spoke volumes. “You survived the hunt. That’s more than Corbin or I could have asked for.”
I felt the sting of emotion building up in my eyes. Especially when I glanced over at Corbin, and it looked like his heart was already being torn from his soul one crushing word at a time.
