Page 23 of The Year of the Witching

THERE WAS FIREon every tongue when the meeting adjourned. Burning was the traditional punishment for witchcraft or heresy in Bethel, but it had been years since the last purging. Some spoke of it like a blessing, others a thrill, recalling the great pyres that had burned atop the hills in purgings of the past. While it seemed everyone was badly shaken by Apostle Isaac’s proclamation that a curse had been cast deliberately, Immanuelle couldn’t tell what frightened them more: the blood plague or the threat of the holy flames.

“Immanuelle.” She turned at the sound of her name to find that Leah had escaped the clutches of the Prophet’s other brides.

It was the first Immanuelle had seen of her friend since the night of her cutting. The seal between her brows was healing well, though the bruise-dark bags beneath her eyes had deepened, if only slightly.

“You look well.” Immanuelle allowed herself this small fib as they embraced. “Are the others kind to you?”

“They treat me as they will,” Leah said, then glanced over her shoulder. A few yards off, the Prophet’s other wives clusteredtogether, their mouths pressed into thin lines as they studied the crowd. She took Immanuelle by the elbow and guided her a few paces away, where listening ears wouldn’t hear them. “Most of them aren’t cruel, but they’re not kind either. Esther—Ezra’s mother—is the only one who’s truly good to me.”

“And what of your husband? Is he good to you?”

Leah blushed, but her eyes didn’t warm. “He summons me often.”

He beds her often.Immanuelle cringed at the thought. “And... does that please you?”

Leah stared down at her hands, and Immanuelle saw that they were shaking, ever so slightly. She grasped her fingers in an attempt to still them, squeezing so hard they went bloodless. “It pleases me to do the Father’s will.”

“I’m not asking about the Father’s will. I’m asking about yours.” She angled a little closer to her friend, lowered her voice. “Does he please you? Are you happy?”

“What pleases me is being here with you.”

“Leah—”

“Don’t,” she said, a firm rebuke. “Please, Immanuelle. Can we just talk of something, anything, else? It’s been weeks since I last saw you. How have you fared?”

“Well enough,” said Immanuelle, reluctant to change the subject but knowing she didn’t have a choice. “The flock is doing well, considering, though I’ve lost a few lambs and one of my best breeding ewes to the plague—”

“But what ofyou, Immanuelle? How are you?”

“I... well. I bled.” Something locked into place when Immanuelle said those words.

Shebled.

Somehow she’d almost forgotten. That night in the Darkwood, as Lilith stood over her and Delilah moved through the shadowsof the deep, her first blood began. Her flow was steady by the time she woke the following morning, on the floor of the kitchen, but she’d first begun bleeding that night in the pond with the witches.

Immanuelle’s hands began to shake. Her heartbeat quickened to a fast and brutal rhythm.

What if her monthly bleed was the blood sacrifice Apostle Isaac spoke of? What if she had spawned all this evil? Was it possible that she’d been some unknowing accomplice in Lilith’s plot? The very idea made her want to vomit, but she couldn’t deny the growing suspicion that whatever had occurred in the Darkwood that night was far greater than a chance encounter.

A horrible thought occurred to her then, the answer to a question she’d been asking herself ever since she first entered the forest. What if the journal was bait? All those weeks ago, when the witches first gave her the gift of her mother’s words, she’d assumed their motive had been some sort of kinship or affinity toward Miriam. But what if that wasn’t it? What if the real reason they gave her the journal was to ensure that she’d come back to bleed there? What if the journal was just a lure, a tie to the woods?

Immanuelle’s legs went weak with dread as the full truth dawned on her. That night in the Darkwood, she’d been baited and manipulated into making the blood sacrifice the witches needed to spawn the plague. She’d set something in motion. Opened a door that she didn’t know how to close, and now all of Bethel was suffering for her sin and naivete.

Shehad done this.

Leah reached for her hand. “Immanuelle? What’s wrong?”

Immanuelle didn’t answer. Her thoughts were reeling so quickly it was impossible to form words. If she were a better person, she would have confessed to everything then and there. She would have gone to Apostle Isaac, told him what she knew about theplague—how it started, where, and the fact that she suspected there were more to come. She would have turned in her mother’s journal. But Immanuelle knew that if she did that, there was a strong chance she’d be sent to the pyre on charges of witchcraft. To inform the Church was to damn herself—she was certain of it. And the thought of rendering Miriam’s journal to the Church was unbearable. It might have been used to bait her, but it was still a piece of her mother, and more than that, it was the locus of her knowledge about the witches and the woods they roamed. Perhaps it could still be of some use to her.

Something dawned on her then, a dangerous idea... What if there was another way? A way to stop the blood plague without involving the Church, without incriminating herself. What if she could end the plague the same way she started it: with her blood?

It wasn’t such a strange idea. It stood to reason that if a sacrifice unleashed all this evil upon Bethel, another sacrifice could draw it back. Perhaps if she returned to the forest, she could undo what was done. After all, it was her blood that spawned this plague; maybe her blood could end it too.

But if she entered the woods again—no,whenshe entered the woods again, she would need to be prepared. This was no time for instincts and deductions; she needed facts. She knew that breaking the plague couldn’t be as simple as going to the Darkwood and bleeding. There had to be something more, some ritual to how an offering was made. But there was no way for her to access that information on her own. Immanuelle was going to need an accomplice—someone with the keys to the Prophet’s library—and she knew exactly whom to turn to.

“I need to speak with Ezra,” said Immanuelle, craning to peer through the thinning crowds. “Do you know where he is?”

Leah frowned, clearly confused. “Why do you need to speak to him?”

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