Page 56 of Autumn of the Witch

“Why would she make something so violent? Because maybe it said it wanted to protect you, but the way it moved, how it came after me? I don’t trust it.” Micah wrapped his arms around her as though protecting her from the thing that waited in the woods.

“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t want it to hurt me. It was talking about babies, wasn’t it? What if… what if it… I don’t know. It’s all conjecture.”

Micah sucked in a sharp breath. “Maybe there’s something in the book. Something to fight it or protect us.”

It was worth a try, in any case, and it was better than sitting on the floor. They moved to the couch, where Micah grimly set down the most beautiful tart yet, then opened up his great-grandmother’s book.

“There’s a section here called ‘When Needed,’” Micah said, flipping through the pages. “I always thought it was her being nice, you know, giving her descendants ways to deal with their emotions and stuff. Like wanting to feel better or safe, or giving yourself more energy. Learning to ask for help. But if they’re spells…” He tapped one. “This might work. It’s a door.”

Viv looked down at the page. The door was flimsy, sketched to look like three twigs held together with string. There was no reason to believe it would ever stand up, let alone stop anyone from coming in. But the note below it was clear:Only invited guests can enter.

“It’s a pretty easy spell,” Micah said, skimming through it. “We just need some wood, string, and salt. Make a line of salt around the entrance to the house, and nothing can get past it unless we invite them in.”

“But is there anything to fight the creature?” Sasha asked. Micah shrugged and flipped through the pages.

“I don’t know. It’s all metaphors. Making light. Laughter. Speaking the truth. An extra pair of hands?”

“Wait, stop there.” Viv held Micah’s hand before he could turn the page. The “An Extra Pair of Hands” page featured the drawing of a small clay doll, but there was a shadow stretching from it, impossibly long.

“‘When needed,’” she read aloud. “‘How to make a shadow. Tell it who you are in the dark, and it will do what you need. It is your shadow. You cannot hide the truth from it, or it will twist your words…’ Micah, how did you not know your great-grandmother was a witch?”

“I thought she was being metaphorical! But we shouldn’t do this, Viv. It sounds dangerous. If you have to tell it who you are in the dark… that probably means you have to say something you don’t like. Your true self, without hiding.”

Viv nodded, running her hand over the image of the doll. “I wonder if other witches knew this spell.”

Sasha looked at the door. “Like your mom. You’re saying she made some shadow thing?”

“Maybe. Everyone said she was inconsolable when my brother died. Maybe she wanted help.”

Micah closed the book. “So she made a shadow. And now it wants you. It thinks it’s protecting you.” They sat there for a long time, staring at the book with the witch symbol etched into the cover, before Micah stood up. “All right.”

Viv saw the same look in his eyes that he had when he was working on a new design, his mind whirling like a storm. “Micah?”

“We know what’s out there, now,” he said. “We know why it’s here. So I think, between the three of us, we can probably… What’s the right way to say this, Sasha?”

“Kick its ass?” Sasha asked, grinning. Micah smiled back.

“Yeah. Kick its ass.”

ChapterEleven

Sasha spent the next few days being the most bossed-around submissive in Lukos.

His wife and his… husband, really; they’d make it official soon enough… were in the throes of intense witchy shit, and for it to work, they kept sending him on errands.

“Sasha, we need, hmm. A pile of twigs?” Viv looked at the scribbles Micah was making on the slate. “Yes. Twigs.”

“Cool. Twigs. I can do twigs.” Sasha went outside, gathered up more twigs than they could possibly need, and brought them in.

The twigs were fussed over and discussed, and then Viv decided they needed some of the weeds that grew near the Compound entrance. Sasha went to get those, then did the washing for the week, since Micah and Viv were mumbling together on the couch, poring over the book.

He didn’t understand most of what they were talking about—sigils and poppets and strings, doorways that weren’t supposed to open, circles of salt—but every now and then, he’d smile, seeing how engrossed they were and how, when they looked up in surprise to eat the meal he’d made for them, they both had the same faint, glowing violet light in their eyes.

Sasha didn’t mind. He knew they were figuring out something important, and he didn’t feel as if he wasn’t helping just because he was sent on errands instead of muttering over a book he didn’t really get. He wasn’t a witch, and he didn’t mind being their errand boy.

The problem wasn’t the various and sundry tasks they were setting him. The problem was the way they would take their frustrations out—or, more to the point, how they wouldn’t.

Micah, while working on a complex… thing… for the spell, asked if Sasha would kneel, gagged and with his hands behind his back, so Micah could pull his hair. Sasha agreed, because that seemed about the best thing ever as far as tasks. He let Micah fit a strap in his mouth, knelt eagerly… and then was mostly ignored, except for a few times when Micah would get irritated at whatever he was doing, make a disgruntled sound, and reach out to give Sasha’s hair a quick tug.

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