PART I:THE WITCH
IT WAS AN AUSPICIOUS DAYfor a burial, Aspen thought.
Dense morning fog clung low to the ground where the coven gathered before the ancient yew tree. Their figures cut ghostly outlines against the pale dawn, the women clad in loose white muslin dresses, the men in billowing white shirts untucked from their breeches. They seemed like extensions of the fog itself, quiet spirits emerged from the soil, uncaring of the cold pine needles beneath their bare feet or the frigid breeze seeping through their unseasonable clothes.
The first kiss of winter had blown through the forest overnight. This would likely be their last burial before the earth froze over.
Aspen suppressed a shiver, conscious of her mother’s eyes on her. This was no time to show weakness. She could already sense her mother’s displeasure at her appearance: the unruliness of her dark hair, her red-rimmed eyes, the tiny crescent-shaped stains on her dress from when she’d hastily pulled it on, mindless of the dirt beneath her fingernails, which she hadn’t bothered to clean after the digging she’d helped with last night.
A twilight grave for a dawn burial—such was always the way of the witch.
Somewhere above, a lark sang a deceitfully cheerful melody as the coven matriarchs guided Aspen’s younger sister into the plot of earth where she would lie. Bryony’s eyes met hers as she knelt in the grave, her own pristine white dress fanning around her prettily. Aspen’s heart lurched. She saw herself in Bryony’s strained expression, remembering how she had tried to keep a brave face for the coven during her own burial, evenas fear pressed heavy on her chest. It was four years ago now, but Aspen would never forget the taste of earth in her mouth, the suffocating darkness as she was buried alive. The unbearable uncertainty that followed her into unconsciousness.
You’ll be all right, Aspen mouthed. Her sister’s chin wobbled in answer. No one seemed to notice but their mother, whose mouth tightened in a way that Aspen was quite familiar with. The High Matriarch did not approve of weakness in her daughters, and this small chink in Bryony’s armor would displease her greatly.
What will the others say if my own daughter doesn’t have faith in the Sculptress?the High Matriarch had asked Aspen on her own burial day.The earth will receive you and sculpt you anew. This you must never doubt.
Of course, to a thirteen-year-old girl about to be buried alive, such a thing was easier said than done. But this was the way of the witch. Once they came of age, they were buried at the foot of the sacred yew, where the Sculptress—the deity whose very essence ran below the earth and fed into the land—awakened in them their latent clairvoyance. Amid the gnarled roots of the yew tree, they were born anew, emerging from the earth as proper witches.
They were expected to be steadfast in their belief in the Sculptress and the fate that awaited them after their burial.Faith conquers death, the coven matriarchs taught them from a young age, forgetting, perhaps intentionally so, all the would-be witches who never rose from their graves. All those souls forever lost to the earth’s embrace—or worse, snatched up by the demons who dwelled in the underworld far below.
This will not be Bryony’s fate, Aspen told herself as her sister lay back in her grave, glossy black hair spilling around her like a pool of darkened blood.She will rise again.
The sun was beginning to crown over the treetops when the matriarchs began their chanting. Dawn drowned the world in hazy blues and pinks, a study in pastels that painted too gentle a backdrop for this grim affair. The matriarchs dug their hands in the earth and held fistfuls of dirt over the grave as their chants picked up tempo, the ancient words meant to protect Bryony’s essence against demonic influence.
Bryony shot up, a broken plea bursting from her lips. “Please, I don’t want to do this.” Tears marred her face as she tried to stand, grasping for the hems of the matriarchs’ dresses.
Her desperation broke Aspen’s heart as well as her resolve. She tore from her place in the crowd and knelt at her sister’s grave, ignoring the daggers her mother stared her way.
“Promise you’ll be with me,” Bryony managed through sobs as Aspen cradled her. “Promise you’ll stay until it’s done.”
Aspen swallowed against the lump in her throat. She knew what Bryony meant, what she was asking her to do—just as she knew their mother was listening intently, and would no doubt give Aspen a verbal lashing later for this unruly interruption. “Promise,” Aspen whispered, giving her sister a final squeeze before pulling away. “Be brave now.” Louder, for her mother’s benefit, she added: “The earth will receive you and sculpt you anew.”
Bryony must have found courage in Aspen’s promise, steeling herself as she lay back in the grave. The matriarchs picked up their chanting again, as though the ceremony had not beeninterrupted. Bryony closed her eyes as the first handfuls of dirt fell atop her. Tears glistened on her cheeks before more dirt covered her face. Her small body disappeared bit by bit, the witches’ song growing louder and more frantic, the tense sound of it like a tree being uprooted from the earth. As the last of the dirt filled the grave, the song broke in one final, earsplitting note of triumph that sent the larks flying off in a frenzy.
And just like that, Bryony was gone.
In the sudden quiet, an unnatural wind wove through the yew’s leaves. Its branches creaked and cracked and groaned, and deep below their feet came a rumble, the tree’s roots moving to accept this offering of a witchling. For the next eight days, Bryony would stay buried beneath the sacred yew. Eight days to match the eight stages of a tree’s life cycle: seed, germination, seedling, sapling, maturity, flowering, reproduction, decay—and from there, a witch reborn to start the cycle anew, if the Sculptress willed it.
Eight days for Aspen to worry herself sick over her sister’s fate.
Aspen turned on her heel and ran from the clearing, narrowly escaping her mother’s clutches. She would deal with the High Matriarch’s displeasure later.
Her bare feet struck the earth, soles cutting themselves on pebbles and twigs as she ran through the woods she knew so well. The deeper she went, the denser and older and odder the woods became, full of magic from ancient witches whose decaying flesh and bones fed the trees and the Sculptress that had shaped them.
Few witches dared to venture so far, staying on the outskirtsof the woods proper, where the coven lived. Ordinary townsfolk tended to avoid the woods altogether, whispering among themselves about the evil spirits that dwelled there and the witches who consorted with them.
But Aspen did not fear the woods. She belonged to them, as they lived in her.
The leaves here were a thousand shades of gold and rust, beautiful in their decay. Coming upon a familiar ravine, Aspen welcomed the spongy moss that bordered it, so soft and pillowy beneath her feet. Frost lined the edges of the water. Cold seeped through her, and though she longed for the hearth in her room and the warmth of her bed, she couldn’t deny the grounding effect of walking barefoot through the woods. How it reminded her of her connection to the earth—that one sprouted from the other, and each fed on one another. A cycle eternal.
She could only hope the earth would be kind to her sister. That the Sculptress would deem Bryony worthy and awaken the witch in her.
Aspen followed the familiar melody of a nearby waterfall. It was unremarkable as far as cascades went, not very high or very powerful, but beautiful all the same. Strange, too, for a twisted tree trunk sprang from the ravine at the bottom of the waterfall. It was split down the middle to form an arch through which the cascading waters fell. Aspen had always found herself drawn to it. This was her place of refuge, where she came to practice her scrying and tap into the stranger parts of her abilities. The parts her mother did not want her to use.
Witches could divine things from the earth, see hiddenmeaning in bones and leaves and the rings on the trunk of a tree. Some could map out root systems invisible to the naked eye, feel the needs of plants and animals, sense the coming of a storm or a drought and tend to their crops and gardens accordingly. Others had their inner eye turned to the future or the past, seeing repeating patterns and webs of possibilities in people’s lives.
The magic that the Sculptress awoke in them manifested differently in every witch, but always it was tied to the earth and the connection their body had with it. Magic lived in their bones, sharpening their five senses and calling forth a sixth. In most it manifested in some form of art, guiding their hands to give shape to their visions. Sculpting, unsurprisingly, was most witches’ preferred outlet; Aspen’s mother had an entire gallery of wood carvings and ceramics and marble busts, each more detailed and strange and beautiful than the last. The work of witches long dead yet forever immortalized.
