Page 63 of Anathema

Short panting breaths beat out of me. I looked to the bones and up to the man who stared back at me, lip curled in repulsion, as if I were something dead that’d crawled out of a grave. The whole crowd had quieted, and I glanced over them to see their attention riveted on me. Torch still in hand, I waited, every muscle trembling and poised for their next move.

“Witch! Witch! Witch!” The crowd’s chanting grew fevered.

“Evil!” Sacton Crain shouted over them. “The girl is an abomination!”

“No.” I shook my head, backing farther away.

“Burn her!” someone from the crowd shouted.

“She’s a death witch!” another cried out.

“She must be destroyed!” the governor finally shouted, and a roar of assent echoed around me.

“No! Stop this at once!” Moros yelled, pushing his way through the surrounding bodies. “Stop this now!”

The crack of a gun silenced the crowd, and with slow and careful steps, Moros approached me, lowering the gun he’d pointed skyward. He reached out a hand for me. “Come, dear. Do not fear, I will protect you.”

“You are disgusting. What you’ve done to those poor women … is unspeakable evil. And I’d sooner face death than go anywhere with you.”

His eye flickered with an unsettling amusement, and I could’ve only imagined the visuals racing through his mind–my legs sewn together, my skin peeling away as I floated in that tank.

I glanced over my shoulder and whispered to Aleysia, “Run.”

My sister spun around on her heel and, to my horror, breached the archway into The Eating Woods.

“Do not follow her, Maevyth,” Moros urged, his voice a distant sound to the clamor inside my head. “Do not go into those woods.”

Frigid spikes of adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I dropped the torch as I chased after her, with the commotion of angry shouts at my back. A gun fired off behind me, but even if I’d been shot, I’d have refused to pause and look.

Passing over a fallen log, my cloak snagged on a branch. “Aleysia! Wait!” I called out, turning to yank myself free. Once loose, I shot forward after her, her pale form fading in the darkness of the trees. “Aleysia!” Cold air burned my lungs, but I pushed speed from my legs, ignoring the fatigue.

Dark trees loomed overhead, their gnarled branches reaching out for me as I ran deeper into the forest. Splintered branches tore at my calves and ankles, but I ignored them, keeping my eyes on her for as long as she remained in view—until I lost sight of her.

A crackling beneath my boot brought me to a halt, and I paused to catch my breath and bearings. Through a veil of white mist that blanketed the forest floor, I could just make out an object at my feet, the overall shape of it obscured, except for the dark hollow sockets that bled through the fog. A skull. Under the faint scent of pine needles and rich loam festered the sinister stench of rot and decay, the air thick with death’s putrid breath. A graveyard of bones.

I snapped my gaze back to the surrounding trees, and fell into a jog, anxious to distance myself from this godless stretch of trees. “Aleysia!”

Something buzzed past my ear, and I swatted my hand, knocking an object bigger than a pesky bug. I slowed my jog to a brisk walk, looking around for it again.

Zzzzzz. Zzzzzzz.

I swatted again, its shadowy form slipping past me, the size of a sparrow.

A sharp sting struck my leg, and I looked down, lifting the hem of my dress to find some strange creature clung to my shin. Its stick-like body reminded me of a small twig, with translucent wings that fluttered against my skin. I reached down and smacked it away, knocking it backward from my limb, and it hovered in the air a moment, its face horrifically human-like and covered in my blood.

A wicken. My head slipped into stories of the small sprites that were said to attack unwitting foragers who got too close to the woods.

It snarled at me and charged again.

More buzzing alerted me to others. Flailing my hands about, I took off running, choking back a panicked sob as they caught up to me quickly. An eerie tittering at my ear urged me faster. Another sting pinched my arm. Another struck my neck. Teeth sank into my back in two spots.

I ground to a halt, twisting and swatting, to no avail. The wickens surrounded me, chittering and giggling and biting. The sound of tearing fabric drew my attention to one chewing away at my dress, just before its teeth lodged into my flesh.

“Get off me!” My slapping and flailing only seemed to goad them.

A flash of black swished past me.

The chattering sound turned to squealing.

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