“Get your bag,” I ordered, glaring at Ash and hurrying toward the small pantry closet off the kitchen. I hauled open the door, kneeling
in front of the panel in the floor. My fingers felt along the edge, searching for the tiny groove where they would just slip in, and lifted the wood to reveal the rough, shabby staircase my mom and I had built ourselves when I’d turned sixteen.
“Low, what is that?” Ash asked, hiking his backpack up on his shoulders. I stood, placing a hand on the small of his back and pushing him into the dark. I flicked on the light to the hidden basement, illuminating the dirt floor at the base of the steps.
“Down you go,” I said, trying to keep the urgency from my voice. I didn’t want to frighten him—not when there were so many things he didn’t know. But with the Vessel waiting outside and plotting a way to force us out of the house, we needed to move.
He descended the stairs quickly, leaving me to slip into the narrow passage and pull the wood panel closed above me to cover our tracks. Every moment would count when it came to getting Ash out. With his powers bound, he would be safe from the Coven until I died at the very least—the ropes of his binding forged with grasses summoned by my magic.
I moved to one of the paneled walls of the basement, sliding the wood to the side to reveal the massive tree roots that had grown and spread beneath the passage that would lead us to freedom. It was why Mom had
chosen this house, this place, as our sanctuary. The trees here went deep underground, making it easy for us to create tunnels beneath the surface.
“What are you doing?” Ash asked as I ran a palm over the first tree root. I grabbed the knife and sheath off the shelves of supplies in the basement, strapping the holster across my thigh and forcing myself to ignore the confused pain on my brother’s face.
This was the day I’d dreaded, the day that all our deceptions came to light.
I watched his face, his little forehead creased in confusion as I pulled the knife from the sheath.
“Willow,” he said, stepping forward as if to stop me when I drew the sharpened edge of the blade against my palm. A thin line sliced through, blood seeping through too slowly as I clenched it and pressed my fingertips into the wound. I held Ash’s horrified stare as I reached out with my palm covered in my blood, touching it to the tree root.
“Sanguis sanguinis mei, aperte,” I murmured, allowing my eyes to drift closed as the tree drank from me. As it took the blood I offered in exchange for safe passage to the woods. The magic of the Greens flowed through my veins even if the bones of the Blacks eluded me.
The root beneath my hand shifted, drawing my attention to it as it staggered and pulled itself through the earth. Dirt rained down from where the root moved, falling to the floor and finding a new home there. As it shifted to the side and rose, a tunnel appeared in the space it had once blocked.
I sheathed my knife, grasping Ash by the hand and tugging him toward
it.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,” he said,
snatching his hand back as he left me glancing between him and the tunnel that offered us our only chance.
“There isn’t time,” I protested.
I went to the shelf of supplies we’d kept tucked safely away down here all these years, away from his prying, nosy eyes. My aunt’s journal rested on the top shelf, collecting dust since I’d finished reading through her experiences at Hollow’s Grove University years ago.
Stepping around to his back, I unzipped his backpack and deposited the journal into it. “This will explain most everything, and when you’re older, I’ll find a way to tell you more.”
My aunt wasn’t his aunt, and he wouldn’t have the same magic she did. She’d had the magic of the necromancers, not the earthen magic of Ash’s and my mother. But he would understand the basic notion of what it meant to be a witch.
Of the dangers lurking in Crystal Hollow that I needed to protect him from.
“Did Mom know?” he asked as I moved around to the front and guided him into the mouth of the tunnel.
Grabbing a flashlight quickly and turning it on, I grasped the wood panel, pulling it closed as we moved inside.
It was always so dark underground, the lack of stars shining in the sky making this tunnel some of the truest darkness I’d ever known. Panic threatened to consume me, the reminder of the other true darkness lingering. I shoved it down for the sake of my brother, pushing through with a deep, steadying breath.
“Claudere,” I murmured, instructing the tree to resume its natural positioning. It moved, sealing us off from the basement once again as I took Ash by the hand. My skin was wet with blood as I gripped the flashlight in my injured palm, nodding until I realized he probably couldn’t see me well. “She was a Green Witch too,” I said, glancing over at him as I moved us through the tunnels slowly but steadily. The ground beneath our feet was uneven, the dirt dug out slowly over the course of years, magic chipping
away at it bit by bit to avoid overuse. “As are you.”
His lips parted in shock, staring down at his hand as he lifted it to look at it with new appreciation.
I didn’t tell him that I’d bound his magic to keep him hidden, choosing instead to leave that conversation for when he came of age. Until that day, until he could make the choice of what he wanted for himself, I wouldn’t allow the Coven to take it from him.
“But I’ve never—”
“And you won’t be able to until you’re older,” I answered, pausing my steps to turn and look at him with the stern set to my lips that he knew all- too-well. “You can’t tell anyone. You understand that? Your father isn’t like us. His family is not like us, and revealing what you are will just mean that creatures like that man outside find you and take you.”
“What was he?” Ash asked as I tugged him forward more quickly. Once we reached the cave, we would have to run through the woods. We’d have
to hope that the Vessel couldn’t scent us.
“Something called a Vessel,” I explained, contemplating how much I should tell him. He was so young, so impressionable. I still remembered my first nightmare of the creatures who survived off witch’s blood when I’d been too young to know the horrors of them. “They work with the Coven of witches and live together. We want to avoid going there altogether,” I said instead of giving him the truth.
That they were bodies crafted by the Hecate line, designed to live forever and house the things inside them. Without those Vessels, they burned through human bodies within a year.
What had once been allies serving the same higher power had become tentative enemies trapped together—an animosity that grew over generations.
Light shone faintly in the distance, the sun setting not quickly enough for my taste. The cover of darkness would have helped us blend in even slightly against the Vessel’s strong senses.
I stopped as we emerged from the tunnel, climbing up toward the cave entrance in the woods. I knew if we continued away from the house, we would eventually reach the bus station. We were blissfully close, given how far apart things tended to be in our town, particularly after our traipse under the yard and beginning of the woods.
In the distance, I could see the faint movement of people around our home. Of those who would seek to chase us out of the place where we’d lived for as long as I could remember. I kept us tucked safely within the mouth of the cave, squatting down in front of Ash and taking his hands in mine as I tossed the flashlight back into the tunnel.
“No matter what happens, no matter what you see, you keep going,” I said, ignoring the way his eyes widened. “You run as fast as you can, and if you keep going straight, you’ll end up at the bus stop. Your dad is meeting us there. You just have to get there, okay? Promise me you’ll get there, Bug.”
Ash nodded, blinking rapidly. “What about you, Low?”
I cupped his cheek in my hand, forcing myself to smile as I pressed my forehead to his. So many lies in so few hours. “I’ll be right behind you,” I said, nodding as I stood and patted him on the back. I moved him behind me, positioning myself between his body and the Vessels. I pointed him in the direction he needed to go.
“Go!” I whispered harshly, giving him the little shove he needed to stumble into the woods. He was short enough that he blended in with the brush of the unkempt forest, the green clothing he and Mom favored helping him blend in. He’d worn her favorite color for her funeral, and I suppressed the quiver to my lip as I knelt and touched the surface of the dirt.
Pressing my fingers into the earth itself, I didn’t wince when the grains wedged themselves beneath my nails. It was packed on the surface, leaving me to claw my way through until I reached the soft, fresh soil beneath.
I waited, sending my magic out in a wave through the earth of the forest. I felt each tree, every root, where it connected to the very dirt that surrounded my fingers. Planting myself as if I was one of them, I closed my eyes and drew in a deep, fortifying breath. When I flung them open, I knew that my eyes pulsed with a thread of green lacing its way through them at the center.
I waited still, giving Ash time to put a healthy distance between us before I created a distraction. Time passed as if it had slowed, the call of the Vessels striking me in the chest as they tried to call to Ash. To convince him to just open the door for them, that they could offer him a new life away from this place. I hoped he was far enough that he couldn’t feel the press of it, that it wouldn’t tempt him to return.
Only when one of the Vessels turned his attention toward me did I send my power out in a ripple through the forest. The words left my mouth as I called to the trees that surrounded me, to the ones closest to the house. The Vessel closest caught sight of me as my lips formed them, his head snapping to the side as he tried to warn the others.
“Adiuva me,” I said, asking the forest for help.
A thick branch from the tree closest to the Vessel snapped out, creaking as it struck him in the chest and sent him flinging back. He screamed as he flew through the air, colliding with the side of the house and bouncing off it to fall in a heap.
The other male, the one from the porch, spun to look at his fallen friend. His attention snapped to me as I stood, raising my chin as I met his gaze. He took the first step toward me, cracking his head to the side. When I didn’t move, I smiled, knowing that even with his heightened senses, he would hear me.
“You wanted me to come outside. What now, Headmaster? Do you need an invitation?”
He took another step forward, his second foot poised to move. I knew it would come more quickly, that he would cross the distance between us with speed I didn’t have a hope of keeping up with.
I dropped to my knees suddenly, slamming my palms down on the ground. The earth rose in a wave, a ripple shuddering through the forest as it moved toward the house and the yard. The Vessel, Headmaster Thorne, must have cursed as he surged forward. The forest met his advance, trees crossing their branches to block his path as the ground lifted and knocked him off his feet.
I watched the first tree roots rise from the ground, grasping him by the ankles and wrapping around his arms. They pinned him to the earth as I turned back to the forest.
And I ran.
