The Bitterwine Oath Page 8

  “I’m trying to protect you!” she snapped, her eyes sharp in the shadows.

  More strangled, animalistic moans traveled through the night. This time, it sounded like two creatures answering each other’s call.

  Terror gave me no choice but to capitulate. The paste felt gritty as Lindsey drew on my forehead, each stroke familiar. “When I’m done, run back to the road as fast as you can,” she commanded. “You’ll be safe on the other side of the fence.”

  “What about the others?” The cloying scent of herbs and the putrescent, rotting remains threatened to make me gag.

  “I’ll protect them. They’re not the ones being hunted, at least not right now.”

  “Hunted?” I repeated feebly.

  “Just do what I say, and don’t mention any of this.” She raised her hands again and turned her palms toward me. One was covered in the herb paste, but the dot on her other glared like a watchful pupil as she rushed through another incantation. “Powers of the still, dark earth, mislead all prying eyes. Cast thy veil of trickery; by Warden’s Rune, disguise.”

  With that, she bounded away.

  Another howl came, closer now. I sprinted to the fence so fast that I lost a sandal and slammed against the chain links. Desperation lent me strength and I managed to foist myself over. I landed unevenly on the dirt road, but someone caught me before I stumbled onto my backside.

  “Whoa!” Levi said, propping me up.

  I whirled to face him.

  “What’s wrong?” He absorbed my wild-eyed expression but didn’t seem to notice the mark on my forehead. “I heard you yell and came back looking for you.”

  “That sound…there’s something out there,” I managed.

  “It’s just wild hogs,” he said, his hand hovering near my elbow.

  That was the logical explanation I wanted to believe, but I knew what I’d heard. I looked over my shoulder, expecting…What did I expect? The fear was amorphous in my mind: beastly, demonic, but undefined.

  “Lindsey and Vanessa ran off, but the truck’s unlocked,” Levi said, gesturing. “You want to wait inside?”

  I nodded. More than anything, I wanted to leave, but I clung to Lindsey’s promise that I’d be safe here, no matter how gullible that made me.

  “Do you want me to look for your sandal?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  The bench seat creaked under my weight as I settled in and shut the door, encasing myself in silence and solitude. While Levi walked to the driver’s side, I checked my forehead in the side mirror. It showed me a Malachian mark drawn messily across my skin, plastered with strands of blond hair. I looked like I’d just escaped a compound. With the hem of my shirt, I rubbed it away, leaving a dark smear on the fabric. Then I tucked my hands under my thighs to stop them from trembling.

  I thought about what Lindsey had done. Could it be a ruse? The incantations, the sacred circle, even the talismans…She and Vanessa could have faked them. Maybe they even convinced Kate to give me the journal.

  But that bit about “misleading prying eyes”? There was no explaining how the spell actually worked. It obscured the very obvious mark on my forehead—Levi hadn’t spared it a glance.

  Unless he was in on this, it made no sense. And frankly, that would be the most mean-spirited prank in history. I would only go to those lengths to punish my worst enemy.

  As Levi got in the car, I came close to spilling everything. But I hesitated. Lindsey was my best friend. Didn’t I owe her a chance to explain? Maybe she had been brainwashed. Maybe she was protecting me from the cult leaders after realizing she’d been deceived.

  After all, she was the one who’d theorized that they would be keen to ensnare me. She could have been trying to warn me the other day.

  She couldn’t really be one of them. A Malachian. A cultist. Not Lindsey.

  She would explain everything. We would tell the police as much as we needed to get her out, to get her safe.

  For a protracted moment, Levi stared through the windshield at the woods, long fingers lightly drumming on the steering wheel.

  “What’s taking them so long?” I asked, eager to have those buttery waffles with a heaping side of damn good explanations.

  “They were trying to summon the spirit that touched you,” Levi said. “Anything for a thrill, right?”

  I tossed my head in disapproval.

  “So, what do you think that was in the cabin?” he asked.

  “I’m hoping it was my imagination,” I whispered. “But that’s scary in its own way. I feel like I can’t trust my own mind right now.”

  “Don’t you…?” he started, and trailed off.

  “Don’t I what?”

  “I’m just…I’m surprised that you’re afraid out here.”

  Insulted, I scoffed. “Everyone’s afraid sometimes.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I don’t know.” He tapped his fingers on the wheel again. “You confuse me.”

  Wait, you’re the one who’s confused? I wanted to ask. Of course, this was a natural consequence of accidentally falling for the artistic, semi-aloof, tortured-soul type, the type whose award-winning poems were framed proudly next to his athletic trophies in the cases at school. He had no inkling of how complicated he came across.

  Rather than bristle at the implication that I was somehow to blame for our false start last summer, I let his words sink in. If he found me confusing, that meant he thought about me. He spent time trying to puzzle me together.

  “How am I confusing?” The old leather squeaked as I folded my bare foot under me and angled my body toward him. I’d been so ready to get the heck out of here, but now, I felt as I had stepping into Malachi’s sacred circle; fear and excitement braided together, indistinguishable and inseparable.

  “Sometimes you seem like an open book. Like a normal person living a normal life. But…” He chewed on his bottom lip, deliberating. “I know you have secrets.”

  I laughed. “I don’t have secrets! I’m an awful liar. I mean, I can lie by omission. I haven’t told anyone but Lindsey about…”

  Now it was my turn to trail off.

  “Our kiss?” he asked.

  I sucked in a rapturous breath. Not the kiss. Our kiss. “Yeah.”

  The cover of night gave me the freedom to shamelessly study Levi: the way his damp cotton shirt fitted his form like armor, the blunt line where his fiery hair met his soft, touchable nape, the strength of his hands gripping the steering wheel as though he couldn’t trust them not to touch me.

  I should have asked him what kind of secrets he thought I was keeping. But another question seemed far more urgent.

  Feeling like I was diving off a cliff into waters of unknown depths, I asked, “Do you ever think about it? The kiss?”

  His response was to drop his hands to his lap and frown at them. I girded myself for disappointment. Then his gaze locked on mine and a thrill spilled through me, warm and invigorating. “I think about it all the time,” he said.

  My breath lodged in my throat. Fear transformed so easily into desire. They both seared through my nerves and made me feel newly alive.

  Levi shifted in his seat, facing me, and I watched his broad chest expand with breath. I unfolded my legs and inched toward him. He rested his hand on the seat, one step closer to making contact.

  Fantasies of creating a brand-new moment to savor for weeks, even months, flooded through my mind. Those stolen seconds of sunshine, sweat, and surprise had lost so much of their addictive nectar, wrung dry by my greedy memory. This would open a new universe of sights and sensations in which to revel: the night, the stars, the close quarters, the cling of my cool clothes on my skin, the cadence of the words he’d just spoken.

  But laughter and mingling voices announced the others’ return. A flashlight beam bounced through the trees. I would have sacrificed myself to whatever lurked in the woods for just one more minute alone with Levi.

  The cabin light seemed more garish than comforting when
Abbie opened my door. “Ooh, are we interrupting something?” she asked, poking my side. “Nat and Levi…I’ve never even considered it before. I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  “Abs, you are a slovenly drunk.” I chuckled, nervous, and saw Levi’s mouth quirk up out of the corner of my eye. “We were just waiting together.”

  “I’m not drunk!” Abbie insisted, her allegation already slipping from her mind.

  “Where’re Vanessa and Lindsey?” Faith asked from outside.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and shrugged. “They were gone when we got here.”

  Instead of giving me a chance to move, Juliana squeezed past Abbie and climbed over me to the empty space next to Levi.

  “Why would they leave?” Bryce asked, peering back into the woods. “You don’t think the cops came and arrested them, do you? Oh god. I should have stayed with Ness.”

  “They’re fine, Bryce,” Faith said. “They’re just planning to scare us. Hurry up and get in, y’all. I don’t want them sneaking up.”

  Abbie plopped on my lap while Juliana seemed pleased to have an excuse to jam up against Levi. This time, I didn’t feel that traitorous pinch of jealousy. Instead, I was gratified that he’d been alone with me and not with her.

  Faith perched on Grayson and rested her elbow on Bryce, who was pinned to the window. “Did y’all hear the coyotes?” Bryce asked, voice muffled.

  “You mean the hogs?” Grayson asked.

  I didn’t know how anyone could confuse the two, but I didn’t really care at the moment. Sandwiched between my friends, I felt safe again. Maybe Lindsey did go to all that effort for nothing but a good scare. Maybe it was a grand gesture of friendship, a fond farewell to our high school shenanigans.

  A dark shadow moved by the passenger window, eliciting shouts from the others. Abbie mewled from my lap. I let out more of a pathetic whimper. Another palm slid across Levi’s window, and then Vanessa’s laughing face popped up. She dangled the car keys from one pointer finger and my lost sandal from the other.

  Levi manually rolled down the window and accepted both. The engine gave a gurgle as it started up. Our fingers didn’t touch as he handed me my sandal.

  The truck bed dipped, and I turned to see Lindsey settling in. Bryce climbed out to join Vanessa, giving us a little space.

  “All right, let’s get out of here,” Levi said in a low voice, shifting into reverse.

  We headed back toward friendly streets, passing a police cruiser on its way to the cabin. Everyone but Levi ducked so we wouldn’t get pulled over.

  “Yikes,” Grayson said. “Close call.”

  Next to me, Juliana scrolled through the responses to her live stream. I had to blink away to keep from getting a headache. I turned around to look at Lindsey.

  Her toned arms were spread out across the wall of the cargo bed. The bandage on her wound had detached on one side and was flapping, bloodstained, in the wind. Her brown hair looked shadow-black and streamed around her like a villain’s cape. I turned back around to rub the moist stain on my shirt from wiping the Malachian mark off my skin.

  Per tradition when it came to late-night adventures in San Solano, someone suggested we hit up the diner. Levi dropped us off at our cars on the way. He offered me a deep nod as I climbed out, and I tucked it away as a promise that we would find a way to be alone again.

  Next time I would ask what secrets he thought I was keeping. Did he believe the cult had survived? Did he think I was a part of it, because of my lineage?

  His first guess might be right, but the second certainly wasn’t. I would set the record straight soon enough.

  As I walked around the back of his truck, I bumped into Vanessa. “Here, hold this,” she said, and dumped white powder into my hand. I thought I smelled something aromatic and smoky, like charred lavender buds. “What tha—?”

  “By ash of bone and cleansing fire, forget what’s strange that hath transpired. Mystic events from mind now scour, to recall at an auspicious hour.”

  She blew, scattering the powder to the wind.

  EXCERPT:

  PAGANS OF THE PINES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MALACHI RIVERS

  Lillian Pickard, 1968

  I met Malachi when we were thirteen. A compulsory attendance law forced her into public school, and she was something of a legend already when she joined my class. Rumors that she had paralyzed a man’s arm, started the fire that had burned her father’s old church, and flooded the baptistery of the new church with blood on Easter Sunday agitated the teachers and aroused our imaginations.

  My parents did not entertain tawdry gossip. Upon hearing that Malachi would join my class, they encouraged me to befriend her.

  Our teacher would not permit us to stare at the newcomer during lessons, but lunch on the schoolhouse lawn was another matter. It was September. Malachi sat alone under a tree, her meal untouched beside her. She was pale, tense, and very pretty, with gold hair and gray eyes the color of a wrathful summer squall. Much like a disgraced queen, she was the subject of every whisper, exhibiting the air of someone who found us unworthy of her company.

  I approached and asked, “May I sit with you?”

  She studied my face before she said yes, furthering my perception that it was she who had set herself apart from us, rather than the other way around.

  “I’m Lillian,” I said.

  “I know. Miss Mauldin calls on you a lot.”

  I remember blushing, but secretly, I felt proud. “Did you enjoy this morning’s lesson?” I asked. I opened my lunch pail and waved the hungry flies away from my bacon sandwich, apple, and slice of cake.

  “I’m not any good at arithmetic,” Malachi said, picking at her cuticle. “I like reading and writing.”

  “You’ll like afternoon lessons, then,” I assured her.

  She leaned back on her palms and peered over my shoulder. “Who’s she?”

  I turned and found her looking at a girl with tangled, dull brown hair and an even duller brown dress. She sat alone, but for the boys who liked to hassle her. Underneath the grime, she was the prettiest girl in class. “Oh, that’s Johanna Mead. Her papa doesn’t like her coming to school, so she comes as seldom as possible. Sometimes she brings nothing but a boiled potato, and I give her some of my lunch. I’ll save my cake for her. What did you bring?”

  “Ham slices and a biscuit with blackberry jam. She can have it all.”

  I’d taken a bite of my sandwich, but guilt made it go down like a lump of clay. I wondered if I should save my whole lunch for Johanna, too. Ignoring the rumbling in my belly, I wrapped my sandwich back up and dropped it in the pail. “Why do people say you did all those terrible things?” I asked.

  “I reckon it’s ’cause I did. The fire was an accident, though.”

  “An accident? What happened?”

  Malachi pursed her lips and dug into the grass with the toe of her shoe. Her clothing was quality and clean, but simple as simple could be. “I was right livid with my mama and papa that day, and I was staring at the cook stove in the parish house. Everything went out of control. My power over fire is more unwieldy than the others. That’s why I never use it in spells, except for a small candle flame.”

  “Spells?” I repeated flatly. “You mean witchcraft? Magic?”

  She nodded.

  “Magic isn’t real.”

  She didn’t seem to care whether I believed her, closing her eyes and tipping her face to the sky. “You can ask the pendulum if I’m lying.”

  “The what?”

  She sat up and dug into the pocket of her dress, extracting some kind of canine tooth tied to a leather cord.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a fox fang. Bones work best for divination.”

  I shuddered, but she had piqued my interest. “Do you kill animals to get their bones?”

  “I take only what nature willingly provides,” she answered.

  I looked to make sure Miss Mauldin wasn’t watching. “How do you use it?�
��

  “You ask it whatever you want to know, but it has to be a question with a yes or no answer. First, you establish what means yes and what means no.” She dangled the fox fang over the grass, holding the leather cord between her thumb and index finger. “Are my eyes brown?” she asked. I watched, holding my breath until the fang started swinging from side to side. “Is Lillian’s hair auburn?” The fang swung forward and back. “Forward and back means yes,” Malachi declared.

  “It’s a trick!” I said. “You’re moving it yourself.”

  Malachi smiled. “Here, try. You’ll feel it.”

  I looked again to make sure Miss Mauldin wasn’t watching. If necessary, I could say I had only played the new student’s game to make her feel included. No one had to know about my deeper curiosity.

  I accepted the leather cord from Malachi and held it the way she had. “Does Malachi have real magic?”

  The pendulum yanked forward and back. I gasped in awe.

  After that Malachi and I became fast friends. She often ate dinner at my house but never accepted my parents’ invitation to stay the night. Whenever she tarried past mealtime, Reverend Rivers would belt her for fraternizing with the “unsaved.” My family were devout Episcopalians.

  Right away I understood that Malachi had a complicated relationship with her parents. She both despised and pitied her mother. She would defend her father in the face of my parents’ concern, but privately—to me, who was powerless to intervene—she would speak of him with blistering hatred.

  Once I saw stripes on the backs of her thighs. My father had only ever whapped me lightly with a paddle, and only because I had been terribly insolent. I couldn’t imagine the anger it took to make those marks on her young flesh, or how I would feel if my father had treated me thus.

  “Why did he do that to you?” I remember asking her.

  She finished dressing. My growth spurts made hand-me-downs of even my favorite new dresses, and Malachi was waifish enough to wear them. I remember her staring into my mirror, eyes darker than dark, the color of cold steel. “‘The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil,’” she replied.