When I finally reach the grave, deep into the shadows of the conifers but close to the bunker, I lay her down beside it. Bart has followed the whole way. He seems to know I mean no harm, or at the very least that it’s too late to do any further harm. Regis would seethe to see me cover up the Saranac Strangler’s crime, but he’s long gone, and I can’t have his officers snooping around. Can’t have her body discovered and splashed across the news for the venery. I need time to lie in wait. He’ll return—the Strangler. Myrtle won’t have satisfied him. He was there for me.
I kneel beside her, trying to drum up a few final words. My eyes are long since dry, though I know I’ll cry again. She was more a mother to me in these last few months than mine ever could be. I’ll miss her. And the guilt is an angry wasp, returning to sting my heart over and over. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Myrtle.” I sniff, brushing the long strands of her hair away from her face, closing her eyes. “You deserved better. I promise to make it right. Hewillpay. And once he does, I’ll turn myself over to the venery. I’ll tell the truth of what happened to you and where you are. Of the blame I share in it.”
Beside me, Bart lies down, poking his nose underneath her cold arm. I risk a rub to his brutish head. There must be someceremony, some special way bane witches bury their own. It pains me that I don’t know, that she won’t receive it. A tart scent gusts past and fills my nose, like molded lemons. I turn and spot the small clump of destroying angels nearby. Rising, I gather them in one hand and return to the graveside. I lay one solemnly on her chest, folding her hands beneath it, and push the other two in my mouth, chewing until they slip easily down my throat.
My eyes meet the dog’s. “Ready, boy?”
He looks up at me, head cocked, uncertain.
I purse my lips and wiggle my hands beneath her, rolling her over into the waiting grave. The thud of her landing sickens me, but I push my feelings aside as I begin to shovel the dirt back in. There’s nothing to do for it now. And I am an old pro at living with the unlivable.
When I’ve patted the last of the dirt down over her and pulled fern fronds across the obvious disturbance, I get to my feet and brush off my hands and knees. Bart and I walk back to the cabin together, careful to erase and obscure our steps, the tracks where I dragged her in. Inside the little house, I set everything right, so that it looks like maybe she’s just in the café or popped out to run a quick errand. I take a long hot shower in the bathroom, knowing it will be my last for a while, and dig a backpack out, stuffing the clothes she bought me inside. In the kitchen, I fill a reusable grocery bag with basic food items—peanut butter, bread, a block of cheese, cans of tuna. I turn off the overhead lights but leave the lamps burning, locking up as I depart. A few paces away, I stop and turn back, taking in the quaint cabin, its glowing windows and cheery appearance. This was home to me for a while, the closest thing to a home I’ve known. And it was her favorite place on earth. He took that from us both.
I will spend the coming days deep in her outpost in the ground, feeding. I don’t care if the mushrooms give me away to investigators, Regis too far away to protect me. I’ll eat whatever I can find, building her stores up in my body for the moment he returns for me. Then I will make this right.
Maybe I made some mistakes, took chances I shouldn’t have and left us vulnerable, but he stole the best of what this life had to offer each of us. I will make him pay for that.
Myrtle would be pleased, I think as I walk away, the dog shuffling beside me. I am finally proud of my heritage, finally glad that I’m a bane witch.
31Collision
Bart whines incessantly, pulling me from a heavy sleep, laden with disturbing dreams—Henry coming up behind me in the café, Myrtle’s ghost walking the forest at night, Regis dead in a pool of vomit with Verna standing beside him. It’s as if every fear I have is being projected across my sleeping mind, made all the more vivid by the mushrooms I keep eating. I know we aren’t subject to a plant’s poison as bane witches, but I no longer believe they have no effect on us. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been doing nothing the past three days but lying down in the dark, like an animal, chewing everything she left behind. It’s overkill, I know, but I don’t want to be caught off guard ever again.
It was a mistake bringing the dog with me. The constant trips to the surface to let him out put me at risk of being found. But he stood outside the door barking until I let him in, so I didn’t have a choice. I don’t dare pet him, for fear the toxins will leech out of me and into his skin. But he seems to understand, cowering in an opposing corner, watching with those big, soft, empathic eyes. And it’s been nice to have someone to talk to, even if he can’t say anything back. Apart from Bart, I am more alone in the world than I have ever been, which is saying a lot for someone who has lived my isolated past. And caring for him in whatever limited way I am able has given a modicum of structure to my days and nights, keeping the human in me alive, even just a bit, so that the witch cannot have all of me. But to be safe, I limit most of his potty breaks to after dark, feed him beans and tuna directly from the cans.
This time however, when I crack the door and he darts out, I see that it’s morning. That early, diffuse light is setting the world aglow like something from a dream. “Bart!” I try to whisper-yell as he springs into the underbrush after a squirrel, but he ignores me. I have to remind myself as the irritation sets my teeth on edge that his independent streak, annoying as it is, is the only reason this living arrangement works at all.
I cross my arms over my chest and look around, trying to find some calm. The woods are magical at this time, though the chill is beginning to seep beneath my jacket. In another couple of months, this shelter will become miserable without a heat source, dangerous. Something tells me—a niggling beneath my ribs, the feathers I keep in my pocket, a matching set—that I won’t need to be here long.
I cup my hands around my mouth and blow, duck back into the dugout to grab a mug of water. The carboy is nearly empty. I grab it by its plastic neck, the remains of my water supply sloshing in the bottom, and begin to climb back up. I can refill it at the cabin before it gets any later and the risk of being seen increases. Though I do not relish the idea of hauling it back alone.
Nearing the surface, I’m startled by a strange sound. I pause, clinging to the stairs, and listen. At first, I think it’s the hum of a distant engine. But it’s too early in the season for a snowmobile, and they don’t allow motorboats on the lake. Then I realize it’s much closer, much lower than that.
It’s Bart…growling.
I roll my eyes and heave myself up the last few steps. Stupid dog must have spotted something bigger than a squirrel this time, like a fox or a buck. At the top, I climb out, the carboy before me. Once I get fully to my feet, I start to scold him. “You goofy dog, there’s nothing that can get us all the way out—”
The words fall from my lips like pebbles, dropping to the ground.
He’s standing about twenty feet off, eyes focused on me, a curious look skirting his face. He is fixed, so still that the backdropof swaying green needles and falling leaves is the only thing that makes me aware time has not completely stopped. I know without a doubt who he is, though I’ve never seen him before. The latex cap is slick to his head, not that it matters. It’s clear he shaves. Not just his head, but his whole body. I can smell the coconut fragrance of the women’s shaving cream he uses. He’s wearing some kind of green waterproof suit—vinyl or PVC—zipped up to his chin, legs tucked into strange rubber boots with the soles melted down. He has a pair of tweezers in one pocket and a plastic bag lined with petroleum jelly. From his hand, the paracord dangles in a colorful loop. It’s new, a piece he’s been saving just for me.
His face is pink, pinched, soft around the brows with eyes set too close together. But beneath the tender flesh, his bones are hard and cold like galvanized steel. They cry out for blood. On the outside, he’s a stranger, oddly put together, a fish out of water in this environment. But on the inside, he is menacing, deliberate, removed. On the inside, he is Henry to the core.
The tremble begins at my feet, knocking my knees together as it travels up my legs and spine, setting my teeth to chattering. The fear is sharp, strong—it overwhelms me, all my brave ideas about killing this man melting at my feet like frost in the sun. The years that Henry tortured me rise up from the forest floor, taunting. I feel the weakness inside me cowering. I am just a woman after all.
But then I see Myrtle’s fierce smile as I left her that morning.Hunt well.And the woman transforms, gives way, for something far older and far darker to take over.
I drop the carboy at my feet, the last of the water spilling out onto the ground. We are locked in each other’s gaze, suspended by the experience of finally materializing that which we have hunted for so long, like bugs caught in amber. And then I do something he wasn’t prepared for.
I charge him.
It takes a split second for the alarm to register on his face, for the signal to move from his brain to his feet, and in that time I am gaining speed, ground. My teeth gnash the air, every part ofme committed to tearing his flesh from his bones. I will savor his death like wine, like that expensive Riesling from Alsace Henry couldn’t shut up about.
But then he does something I am not prepared for.
He runs.
I tear through the forest behind him, certain he cannot outpace me, or at least not Bart, who has bolted past me in pursuit. But he’s faster than I anticipated, and he’s scared. His adrenaline spikes are fueling him even as my body burns to catch up, the magic driving me on.
