Page 19 of The Year of the Witching

Just beyond the pasture’s edge, the Darkwood loomed, the forest’s shadow clawing across the plains as the sun shifted. A few vultures circled the pines, riding the wind, but there was no sign of the witches. No women of the wood. No writhing Lovers. Delilah didn’t lurk among the trees and she saw no sign of Lilith.

The woods were silent.

As the light of the rising sun shifted through the trees, Immanuelle’s thoughts went to the final entry in Miriam’s journal:Blood. Blight. Darkness. Slaughter. Father help them.

What had Miriam seen in the woods that inspired those writings? What did she know that Immanuelle didn’t? And perhaps most importantly, what was the carnal urge that compelled Immanuelle to return to the forest again and again despite the danger?

Why did the Darkwood call to her?

Immanuelle might have sat there all day, staring at the trees and struggling with the truth, if she hadn’t been distracted by the sound of someone calling her name.

She turned, squinting against the light of the rising sun, and saw Ezra coming toward her, a package in his hand. “Good morning,” he said.

With a pang, Immanuelle remembered seeing him the previous night, on the edge of the woods, wrapped in Judith’s embrace.

Immanuelle shifted her gaze back to her sheep. In the distance, their farmhand, Josiah, herded the flock away from the Darkwood. “May the Father will it so.”

Ezra stopped just short of her, but the breeze carried the scent of him—fresh-cut hay and cedar. A beat of silence. He slipped his hands into his pockets. “I’m here to apologize.”

Immanuelle faltered, unsure of what to say. Officials of theChurch rarely offered apologies, on account of the fact that they rarely sinned. “Apologize for what?”

Ezra sat down in the grass beside her, so close their shoulders almost touched. He watched the pasture in silence, then turned to her. “For what you saw last night, after the feast. I didn’t behave in a way that was worthy of my name. It was low of me, and it was also selfish to make you privy to my sins.”

His sins weren’t her concern. Immanuelle’s gaze moved to the tree line. She hugged her knees to her chest and stayed silent. Without waiting for her reply, Ezra pushed the package he had been carrying into her hands.

Immanuelle was of a mind to refuse his gift, until she felt the weight and shape of it. It was a book.

“It’s the one you were reading in the market,” he said as she ripped the paper away. A little color came to his cheeks and he almost looked embarrassed, though she knew that wasn’t possible. There was no way someone like her could provoke that reaction from the likes of him. “The same exact, nearly.”

Immanuelle flipped to the middle of the book until she found the poem she had read that day. He was right, it was the same, though the binding on the outside was different, and most every page was marked with the seal of the Church. He must have searched the Prophet’s own private library for it, she realized with a start. It would have been a kind gesture, if not for the fact that it was a bribe.

“I don’t need a book to keep quiet.” She snapped the book closed and held it out to him. “Your business is yours. I won’t tell anyone. You needn’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. I... just feel guilty for asking you to keep my secrets.”

“Then don’t ask,” said Immanuelle, still holding the book out to him. “It’s no trouble.”

“But it is a sin.” Ezra was right about that much. It was a sin, and a grave one at that. The same crime that put her father, Daniel, on the pyre. But in light of what she’d seen in the woods the night before, it seemed almost trite.

“Sins can be forgiven,” she said, echoing Leah’s words from a few Sabbaths prior.

“Aye,” said Ezra. “But guilt’s a hard thing to ease.”

“And that’s why you want me to have the book? To ease your guilt?”

“If it’s not too much to ask.” Ezra shrugged. “Besides, I’d rather like to have someone to chat with.”

“About poetry?”

He nodded. “There’s more of it in the library. I can check the shelves, bring you more books.”

“No,” said Immanuelle. “This will do, thank you. Even if you are trying to buy my silence.”

She cringed, anxious that yet again she’d gone too far and said too much, but Ezra only smiled.

For the first time, she noticed he had a light dusting of freckles across his nose, which was slightly crooked, as if he’d taken a bad punch in a schoolyard fight. And perhaps he had. Rumors about Ezra spread about as quickly as the rumors about her. He was known to be wickedly smart, always reading or studying, the kind of person who knew how to ask the right questions. He was also strong, with his father’s stubborn will, and like him, Ezra had the respect of most men in Bethel, and if not that, then fear—fear of the Prophet’s power that burned in him like holy fire, though he hadn’t even witnessed his First Vision yet.

“What happened to your lip?” Ezra’s question pulled her from her thoughts, and she realized he was watching her. She raised a hand to touch the spot where Judas had struck her. Though hersplit lip had long since scabbed over, the edge of her mouth was still bruised and swollen. “I lost a fight with an angry ram.”

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