Page 68 of Autumn of the Witch

Daria’s face was pale. Her hair hung limp over her shoulders, and she was scratching pink lines over her arms as the thing on the other side of the door shrieked, its mouth like a bottomless hole.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“You have to.” Sasha’s voice was harsh. Sharp. “This is what Viv sees when she’s sick. What Micah sees when people treat him wrong. It’s what Viv’s lived with her whole fucking life. You did this to her. This is what it looks like.”

Viv stared at him, shocked by his vehemence. Sasha had always been the best at knowing people—he’d seen into her heart from the beginning, breaking through all her defenses. And he loved her. If she’d ever wanted proof, it was in this: his eyes bright, his voice booming over the creature’s shriek, one hand holding hers.

Daria gazed at the creature, which gibbered as it tried to dig a hole under the door.

“I don’t need a doll.” Her voice was small. “I already made my shadow.”

She took a step forward, and Viv, despite herself, tried to get up to stop her.

“I thought a child would save my marriage,” Daria said. “I always wanted one, and I thought my husband would see why once the baby was born. But he had the same sickness my aunt had, and it killed him. My boy. He wasn’t even old enough to smile.”

The creature hissed and flung itself against the door, and Daria took another shaky step.

“I thought I could protect the next one. So I made a spell. My aunt had told me not to use it unless I needed to, and I thought… didn’t I need it? My husband wouldn’t help. He thought I was foolish to want another child so soon. So I made a shadow. I told it to protect my baby. To keep her from harm. And it… it killed her.” She was crying, still grabbing at her arms. “My third opened the door to it when he heard my voice. So I…” She turned to look at Viv. “I decided you were already dead. When you were sick, I prayed it would just… I prayed the fever would take you, because the shadow was worse. I was probably the one who made you think your sickness would kill you. I treated you like you were a ghost. And when you were older, I was too afraid to admit what I’d done. All I wanted was a family, and now I’ve lost every one of you. But you’re still alive.”

Viv reached for Micah with her free hand, and he squeezed her fingers. She didn’t know how to feel. Daria’s truth was tragic, and terrible, and heartbreaking—but her own hurt was still there, and knowingwhywasn’t enough to heal the wounds inside her that had formed every time her mother turned her aside.

But it didn’t look as if her mother was asking for forgiveness. She walked through the door and grabbed the shadow creature by the arms. It turned its gaping maw toward her and started climbing onto her, raking bloody lines into her skin.

Viv tried to stand, and Micah wrapped his arms around her to keep her at his side. “You can’t. It’ll kill you.”

“She knows what she’s doing,” Sasha said, holding her by the waist. Viv watched, trapped in a rush of terror, as her mother clung to the shadow creature. It howled and shrieked, spat and babbled, tearing at Daria’s hair, dragging them both to the ground. But Daria held on, even when it tried to writhe out of her grip, even when it cried the names of Viv’s siblings, even when it burst into broken, wrenching sobs. She hunched over it, and the wind whirled around her like a cyclone, whipping at her hair and her gown. Sasha turned to shield Micah and Viv from the storm, and they huddled together as, one by one, the candles behind them went out.

When the wind finally died down, a single figure lay in the grass before the door. Daria’s face was covered in dirt and scratch marks, and her clothes were a ruin, but when Viv approached, her eyes flickered open. “Vivian?”

Viv looked down at her through the barrier. “Is that you in there?”

“Yes.” Daria groaned, sitting up. “All of me.”

Viv let out a breath. “Then you should know most people call me Viv.”

Daria looked up at her. Viv understood that things would never be perfect. She would never have the mother she dreamt of as a girl. But there was something to be said for sharing the darkest piece of yourself with each other, and if they couldn’t be the kind of family they’d wanted, maybe they could be… something else. Something different but nonetheless good.

“Hello, Viv,” Daria said.

Viv reached through the doorway, holding out her hand. “Hi, Daria. It’s too dark to walk home, and my husband made a pie that’s supposed to help you sleep. So you might as well come in.”

Daria took Viv’s hand. Viv pulled her through the door, shadow and all, and turned to introduce her to her family.

ChapterFourteen

Snow fell over the kiln in the center of what used to be Micah’s house, covering the ashes and browning leaves that carpeted the ruins. Micah brushed some leaves aside, revealing the mark of a disk he’d made before the fire swept through the house, a perfect oval in a mess of blackened stone.

“Weird to think you used to live here,” Sasha said.

Micah smiled, thinking of Sasha bursting through the wall to save his great-grandmother’s book. “You get used to it. Then you forget you could have anything else.”

Viv, who was sitting on a fallen tree with a red shawl around her shoulders, gave Micah a knowing look.

They almost hadn’t come. Micah had dismantled the door spell, and he and Viv had slept for the better part of a day. Viv said bigger workings could do that, but Micah thought it was the emotional strain as well. Having Viv’s mother over, even for a night, had been exhausting.

She’d left the next morning, but she and Viv had set up a truce. They were writing each other, since they couldn’t talk face-to-face without it getting too awkward. But while her mother’s first two letters made Viv moody and disgruntled, she said it was what Daria could manage. It would do.

It felt like they’d barely had time to process what had happened that night. Viv couldn’t sleep alone—Micah learned that when she got up from a nap, grabbed him, and dragged him back with her so she could drift off curled around him. Sasha tended to twitch at shadows, and Micah couldn’t look at the place where the magical door had been without shivering. But they had each other, and the world moved on.

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