“Where are you going?” asks Otto. I don’t answer.
“Lexi,” he warns. “I told you—”
“Then I’ll face banishment.” I cut him off. “When this is over.”
When Wren is safely home. I’ll face anything when she is safe.
“Lexi, don’t do this,” he pleads. He lowers the gun and it hits the table, metal scraping wood. The sound sets my feet in motion. I turn and hurry down the hall.
The front door is open, and the wooden crow that was once nailed to our door is lying, warped and broken, on the front steps. The moor-made Cole urged the nails from my window. It must have urged the crow from the door. The Near Witch knew I was trying to find the children. She knew I was in her way.
I cross the threshold, trying to remember the moment I came back through the window and into my room. I remember the pile of blankets. Wren must have been gone already.
I feel ill.
I’m halfway across the yard when fingers close heavily around my wrist.
“Where do you think you’re off to?”
“Let go, Bo.”
He gives me a slow curious frown, and his hand tightens.
An arm, Tyler’s arm, closes around my shoulders from the other side. “I can handle this, Bo.”
But Bo doesn’t let go. Tyler pulls me closer, fitting me against his side. “I said I can handle this. Go tell Otto we’re ready.” Bo lets go, one finger at a time, that same amused expression on his face.
“Ready for what?” I ask, trying to pry myself free. I can’t.
“How did things go so wrong?” asks Tyler softly, but his arm is still firmly around me. “You’ve made a mess of things now, Lex. The Council knows what you’ve been doing. They’re furious. They’re going to put you on trial. But we’ll plead with them.” His hand trails down my arm to my fingers, intertwining his with mine.
“This isn’t about us, Tyler. Not at all.”
“I’m so sorry about Wren,” he says.
“I’m going to find her. I know where she—”
“In the forest, right?”
“Yes! Yes, that’s exactly where.” I disentangle my fingers and bring my hands to his chest. “I just have to go—”
“Lexi, we know about the forest, and there’s no children there. We looked.” His face darkens. “Lies won’t help your friend now.”
“Tyler, it’s not—”
“The only thing hiding in that place is a witch. And we plan on fixing that.”
“What do you—”
“We’re ready,” calls Bo as he comes back into the yard, Otto and my mother behind him. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” I ask, exasperated.
This is all wrong.
“We have to go to town,” says Otto, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. “All of us.”
Bo, Otto, and my mother walk ahead, but Tyler lingers a moment.
“I know you want to believe that witch, Lexi, but he tricked you. He cast some spell on you.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Tyler, and you know it.” I try to push away, but he pulls me in closer, our noses almost touching.
“Doesn’t it?” he whispers. “Didn’t he cast a spell on those children, on your sister too, luring them from their beds? He must have done the same to you.”
“He’s not the one doing—”
“It would have been better if he had just died,” he says softly. “I never really knew it was him, you know. Until he attacked us. The look in his eyes, Lexi.”
This is nonsense. Wren’s absence and this sick procession to town and Tyler’s arms, too warm around me, are all the stuff of bad dreams. I feel stifled again, twisted in too many blankets. I close my eyes, hoping to wake up.
“Don’t lie, Tyler. Not to me—”
“How long did you know he was a witch?” Tyler breaks through.
“Does it matter?”
After a long pause, he says, “No, I don’t suppose it does.” He pulls me in the wake of the others, toward the center of Near.
“We’d better catch up.”
All the villagers have gathered, and the three old Masters of the Council step up onto the low stone wall in the village square. I catch sight of Helena across the square and strain to get her attention, but she doesn’t see me. Mrs. Thatcher is standing by my mother. She meets my eyes for a moment, but then Tyler pulls me against him, forcing us forward into the throng of tense, angry, tired bodies. But he stops in the middle of the crowd.
“They’re going to arrest you,” he whispers. “At the end of the meeting.”
My heart lurches. The three Council bells sound, each a different pitch, and the square goes quiet. This can’t be happening.
There’s no echo when the Masters speak. Their withered voices grate against each other.
“Six days ago a stranger came to Near,” announces Master Eli to the villagers, his dark eyes deep and narrowed in his face.
“That stranger is a witch,” chimes in Master Tomas, towering over the others.
A murmur passes through the square.
“He has the ability to control the wind,” adds Matthew, the sun glinting on his glasses.
“This witch proceeded to use this power to lure the children of the village from their beds.”
“And he used the wind to cover his trail. This is why we have not been able to find them.”
I try to pull back, away, but Tyler’s arms are still around mine.
“And yesterday, when we finally confronted this witch, he used the wind to attack our men and escape.”
The murmur grows louder, higher pitched.
Several people ahead, and just shy of the wall, Bo, Otto, Mr. Ward, and Mr. Drake are huddled, muttering to each other, but I can’t hear them over the crowd.
“What about the children?” calls out Mrs. Thatcher. A dozen voices shout in agreement, and the mass of people seems to surge forward slightly.
Matthew’s withered blue eyes travel over the crowd and land on mine. “We have found no trace,” he says, looking even older than he did when I saw him last. “We are still searching.”
The crowd gives another surge forward, bringing me closer to the group of men by the wall, and I can just make out Mr. Drake’s words. He’s leaning in toward Otto, and he looks shaken, the way Helena did by the river. The way Edgar did when he fell in the square that day.
“You really think he’s in the forest?” he whispers.
“Something is,” grumbles Otto.
“What are we going to do?”
“Get rid of him,” suggests Mr. Ward.
“That went so smoothly last time,” interjects Bo, dryly.
“At least we know he can bleed.”
“Won’t miss again.”
“Got to find him first.”
Master Tomas’s voice travels over the crowd. “This witch is loose. No one is safe until he is caught.…”
The whole crowd clatters. Voices mix with the sound of feet shifting and grips tightening on guns.
They’re hunting the wrong witch.
I press my elbows into Tyler and arch my back away from him, creating a small gap.
“…telling you, Bo,” Mr. Drake says, “it’s her. Me and Alan went back to that forest like you said, and we could hear her crows.…” The men’s voices begin to bleed together in the growing noise of the square.
“Matthew says it’s her, the Near Witch.”
Bo and Mr. Ward both let out bitter laughs.
“You can’t actually be serious.”
“The Near Witch is dead.”
“One witch or another, it doesn’t matter.”
“But when Magda brought that charm, she said—”
“I say we take care of the sisters, too,” says Bo. “Burn out all the bad at once.”
“This isn’t about them,” cuts in Otto, glancing back.
“Isn’t it? Didn’t they harbor the stranger?” Bo says, his smile twisting. “Didn’t they know all along what he was? They’re just as
responsible.”
Tyler’s grip has loosened a fraction. I manage to slide one hand between his body and mine.
“But what if the children are there somewhere, in the forest?”
They are, I think, they have to be.
My fingers close on the handle of my father’s knife.
Master Eli’s voice reaches me. “The witch was not acting alone.” No. The crowd begins to whisper.
“We would have found the children,” mutters Bo.
“You can’t be certain,” says Otto. “As soon as the meeting is over, we’ll go to the forest ourselves. If something, or someone, is in there, we’ll find out.”
“And if not, we’ll burn the forest down.”
Master Tomas clears his throat. “There is a traitor among us.”
My foot comes down on Tyler’s, and he yelps, releasing me. Only a moment, but it’s all the time I need. I slide the knife free, spin on him, then pull his body back against mine. The tip of the knife rests under his chin.
“Lexi,” he hisses. “Don’t do this.”
“Sorry, Tyler.”
I shove him back, hard, and run.
The crowd is thick around me, pressed close, and Tyler catches my arm just as I break through at the edge of the square. But his hand falls away suddenly, and he’s sitting on the ground, dazed. A broad form stands over him. Mrs. Thatcher. Her large hands wrench him up by the collar.
“Show some respect, Mr. Ward,” she says, turning him around. “Your Council is speaking.” He tries to free himself, but she escorts him back into the crowd, glancing at me with only a strong look and a nod, and I’m gone.
I CUT BETWEEN THE HOUSES, weaving out of the town center. The wind rushes through my lungs as my feet find the path to the sisters’ house. The fastest way. I never look back. Across the fields, through the grove, and up the hill, and all I can picture is the world on fire.
Magda is squatting in the garden bed, muttering something and looking more than ever like a large and very wrinkled weed. Dreska is leaning on her cane and telling her sister she’s doing it wrong, whatever it is she’s trying to do. I can just see buds and shoots poking through the soil. Several feet away, on the scorched patch of earth, a pile of stones that wasn’t there before rumbles and shifts.
The sisters look up as I climb the hill.
“What is it, child?”
I stagger to a stop, breathless.
“Wren’s gone,” I gasp. “The Council’s turned the village against Cole. Bo plans to burn the forest down. Now.”
“Foolish men,” says Dreska. Magda uncurls herself, turning her creased face to the sun as she stands.
“Where’s Cole?” I ask, drawing deeper breaths.
Magda shakes her head. “He waited, but you didn’t come. He went on ahead to the forest.”
If I’d had any air left in my lungs, it would have been knocked out.
The forest.
Everything I hold dear is in those woods.
“Bring us the bones,” says Dreska, glancing at the shifting pile of stones. “All of them. We’ll have the rest ready.”
“Run, Lexi dear,” adds Magda. “Run.”
I want so badly to stop running.
My heart feels like it will abandon my chest. My lungs are screaming.
I don’t need air, I tell myself.
All I need is the image of Wren wandering through a forest on fire. The image of Cole surrounded by men, watching the world go up in flames again. The cocoon crumbling down over the witch’s bones.
How far out are Otto’s men? Does Bo have matches on him? The dead trees of the forest will go up like straw.
I crest the final hill, and there in the valley I see it, the tangled branches so close and dark at first I think they’re smoking. I half slide down the hill to the cluster of trees jabbed into the earth, just as a gray cloak slips into the forest.
I plunge in after.
“Cole,” I shout, upsetting a crow on a nearby branch. The gray cloak turns as I close the gap between us, and I practically launch myself into his arms before remembering his wound. His shirt is gone beneath his cloak, and his chest is a web of bandages, here and there a slice of dusty red seeping through. The pain lingers like a shadow on his face, and his fingers tighten around the handle of a basket at his side.
“You didn’t come, so I thought I should…” He stops short, searching my eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Wren,” I say, gasping for air. “She’s gone.” My chest tightens, and I can barely breathe. It is not the running, but the words themselves, sealing my throat. Cole pulls me in close, and his skin is cool against my flushed face.
“And the village,” I say. “They all think—”
“Lexi,” he says, keeping his voice even and calm, “it doesn’t matter now.”
I pull back. “Cole, they’re coming now to burn the forest down.”
His eyes narrow, but all he says is, “Then we’d better hurry.”
He casts a last glance back to the edge of the trees and the hills beyond. The wind over the wild grass picks up, growing tangled and fierce. It grows and grows until the ground ripples this way and that. The world begins to blur. It’s strangely quiet, this wall of wind, at least from our side.
“To slow them down,” he says, meeting the question in my eyes. We set out, hand in hand, for the clearing and the bones.
“You’ve been practicing,” I say, glancing behind us.
“I’m trying. I’ve got a ways to go.”
“What were you thinking when you made that wall?”
“Not thinking, really,” he says, without breaking his stride. “It’s just want. I want to keep you safe. I want to find the children. I want to put the Near Witch to rest. Because I want to stay.” He looks down at the ground, but I can hear him add, “I want to stay here, with you.”
I weave my fingers through his as the thickest part of the forest closes over us.
“Everything about this place, it’s listening to her.” Cole gestures to the entire forest, to the ruined nature of it. Everything is half rotted, half collapsed, like a spectacular grove fallen into total disrepair. “She must have been a very strong witch.”
“But how can she control it? It’s day. The sisters said she could only take shape at night.”
“Take shape, maybe,” says Cole. “But she is still here, and still strong. The woods obey her. They’re enchanted.”
I lead him through the sharp scrawny trees, my boots adding to the many sets of smaller feet still vaguely stamped into the soil. Otto’s men have added prints, cutting their own road. Large feet clumsily dragged across the earth. No method, no skill. I try to follow the children’s, but many of the small tracks are ruined. I look up at the thin light slipping through the canopy.
We’ve been walking for too long.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to find.”
“What are we looking for?” asks Cole.
“A nest of trees. A clearing. Even if the witch could move, those trees are old, deep rooted.” I look down at the half-smeared steps and stop. Set over the others, flitting and light, is a new pair of feet.
Wren.
Her steps are so light, they barely leave a mark, but I know them and the ways they move. I kneel, studying the strange little dance. She was playing a game. Not the circle-spinning game of the Witch’s Rhyme, since that one takes a group, but one of her own games, the kind she played in the hall before bed.
“What is it?” asks Cole, arms crossed, but I hold up my hand. I stand and scan Wren’s hops and skips and sideways jumps. Then I hurry along, following the strange steps that would never look like tracks to anyone but me. Cole follows silently behind.
At last, Wren leads us to the small clearing, the space where the trees have scooted back to make room for the earth, and the boughs bend low to form a kind of shelter. In the clearing, Wren’s footsteps vanish with the rest, and I try to bite back the panic of having lost her trail.
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“Wren?” I call out, but only the cracking trees reply. I circle the clearing, searching for something, anything, but there’s no sign.
“Lexi,” Cole calls, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking back the way we came. I follow his gaze, but the woods are thick, and the edge of the forest is far beyond our sight. I wonder if the hunters have reached the tree line, if Bo is already digging out flint or matches or oil.
“They’re coming,” Cole says. “Where are the bones?”
“In there.” I point to the mass of branches. On all sides above the nest, a dozen crows like black signposts sit and wait and watch with small stone eyes and beaks that glint even in the gray light.
Cole drops the basket and makes his way up to the cocoon, peering in between the crossed limbs. He looks as if he expects the cocoon to simply peel itself back and let us in, but the mass doesn’t stir. If it did, I would trust it even less. He unfastens his cloak, letting it fall away and exposing the bandages that crisscross against his chest and back. The branches crack and snap in protest as he hoists himself through an opening, vanishing into the dark interior. Overhead, one of the crows flutters its wings.
“Wait.” I hurry over, thinking of his wounds. “Let me do that.” I keep my voice low, in case the men are getting close.
“I’m fine,” he says automatically, his words muffled by the wall of sticks.
I find one of the larger openings, a place where the branches cross to form a kind of window. I peer down into the earthen nest, and the moss and rot make me feel ill. Cole stands in the center of it, up to his knees, and begins to dig. He hands me one bone after another, glinting and white as though they’ve been picked clean and bleached, despite the mud and moss clinging here and there. He searches in the semidarkness, and I lift the basket and climb the nest toward the top.
“Watch out,” I warn, as I bring my boot down hard against the roof of branches. Most of them resist, half petrified with time. But several smaller ones snap, showering Cole with slivers of wood and shavings of light. The white bones glint where they jut through the earth, caught by the new beams of late afternoon sun. I resume my post, taking bones as he hands them up to me. Each one is a surprise of sorts. A thin finger. A splintered femur. A shoulder blade.