Page 19 of Soul of a Witch

“Come on, man…come on, it’s — it’s not serious, okay —”

He broke off into a ragged scream as I bit off his finger. I’d been undecided between starting with his thumb or his pinkie, but the thumb had such a satisfying crunch. I spat out his blood and the appendage with it, but the taste of it still lingered in my mouth. My excitement doubled as he struggled against me.

“Stop! Stop, please, I’ll do whatever you want — I’ll — please —”

“Aw, come now, Sammy, it’s just afinger,” I scolded. “It’s not even that bad. It’s nothing compared to the whole hand.”

I sunk my teeth into his wrist, savoring his screams as I bit through muscle and bone. His screaming was drawing the beasts of the forest; I could see their milky white eyes in the shadows, their sharp teeth clipping together with hunger. They didn’t come out during the day, but Sam’s screams of agony were too good to resist.

They didn’t dare approach any closer while I was here.

“Now, there’s a lesson in this,” I said calmly, smacking the palm of his severed hand against his cheek as he shook, still shrieking indiscriminately. “The lesson is that you don’t touch what’s not yours. Everly is mine.Mine.” I snapped my teeth near his face, eliciting a sob that made me absolutely giddy.

“Please let me go. Please, I’ll never go near her again, I swear.”

I got to my feet and tossed his hand away into the underbrush. Within seconds came snarling yips, the excited snapping of teeth as the beasts savored their little snack. Sam’s head bobbed about when he heard them, but his ruined eyes wouldn’t show him the horrors lurking nearby.

“You can go,” I said. “In fact, you should run. Run as fast as you possibly can.”

He shoved himself up and clutched his opposite arm. “I’m — I can’t see — how can I —”

I wished he could have seen me pout at him, but I’m sure he heard the vitriol in my voice. “Such a poor helpless thing. How will you ever find your way in the dark?” I chuckled as I circled him, watching his head jerk right and left as he attempted to follow my position. “But it doesn’t matter where you run. It only matters that you do. You won’t reach home, but you can at least give me a little entertainment.”

He ran, or tried to. He stumbled into the trees, gasping, screaming for help, arms outstretched. I thought it was rather nice of me to give him a whole thirty second head start, but I couldn’t let him gettoofar away from me. After all, I wasn’t the only creature in this forest who wanted to kill him.

But I was the one who did.

7

Everly

The morning brought thick gray clouds and pouring rain. My feeble hopes of walking out into the woods and finding my way to a road were dashed. With no GPS, not even a compass, it was nearly impossible for me to find my way to another shelter before nightfall.

For another day at least, I was stuck here. Truthfully, the idea didn’t bother me. In fact, I found myself hoping the storm would get worse, that it would keep raining until everything was flooded and I couldn’t leave at all.

Despite my terror the previous night, I slept well. The big bed, upon which the demon had unceremoniously tossed me, was more comfortable than any mattress I’d ever owned. The bedroom was large, with several pieces of intricately carved wooden furniture: a low table in front of the fireplace, a wardrobe beside the door, two bookshelves in the corner.

There was a bathroom connected to the bedroom, with a big clawfoot tub in front of a floor-to-ceiling bay window. Potted plants filled the room and the bedroom too. The toilet was old, but at least it worked.

After sleeping in my dirty clothes, I desperately needed a bath to feel human again. But the tub was strange, unlike anything I’d seen before. Instead of a single faucet with a knob for hot or cold water, there were six faucets and more knobs than any bathtub had a right to have. Half expecting it not to work at all, I chose a knob and cranked it.

There was a bang, and the pipes gave a massive groan. Warm, floral-scented water poured from the spout. The next knob smelled like baking cookies; the next poured water filled with pink bubbles. It took me a few minutes of fiddling before I managed to get normal hot water to fill the tub.

An exhausted sigh escaped me as I sunk into the steaming water. Closing my eyes, I let my limbs float freely for a few minutes before I scrubbed away the filth on my skin. The dirt and blood drifted away into the water and vanished, leaving it as clean as when I’d first got in.

Even the water was enchanted.

Why had Mama kept this place secret from me? She’d never spoken of any relatives, except for my grandmother, Winona, whom I’d met only a couple of times as a child.

All I ever knew about her was she was a witch and a diviner; she could see glimpses of the future.

She died several years before Mama did. There was no funeral, or if there was, Mama and I didn’t attend.

Even the warm water of the bath couldn’t chase away the chill that settled over me. I felt like a boat lost at sea, tossed by the storm, unable to anchor. All I could do was try to stay afloat, try to survive until I could find my way again.

Climbing from the bath, I rummaged through the cabinets until I found a stack of towels. To my complete amazement, they were soft and smelled clean, as if they’d been recently laundered. Wrapping one around myself, I left my dirty clothes in a pile on the floor and went to look in the wardrobe.

Most of the clothes were covered in lace and satin, with bodices designed to lace tightly up the back, as if they’d come straight out of the 1890s. After scrounging around in the drawers, I managed to find a loose white blouse and some high-waisted trousers that were slightly too short for me. Just like the towels, the clothes smelled fresh and clean.

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