Elders whisper the command to children from the moment they can recognize the dangers around us. “Go to the Black Forest if anything happens,” they say. “The forest folk will keep you safe.”
But asking to be taken in by the forest folk, the goddess-chosen guardians of the source of our magic hidden in the dark deep of the Black Forest, is only a solution used by the most desperate of covens and witches. The thing we are to do when we have no other options—getting there requires traversing the many, many miles between us and the Black Forest, evading hexenjägers and whatever other prejudices lurk in the surrounding territories.
And most of it sounds like a bedtime story, anyway. Too good to be true.
Especially for a witch like me.
The forest folk guard the source of our magic, the Origin Tree—one colossal fixture composed of three trees braided together, each older than time itself, one birthed from each goddess and infused with their magic. The Origin Tree’s power gives all magic life, and the forest folk ensure that the Well of magic that springs from the Origin Tree stays protected from corrupting forces—like wild magic.
Witches—good witches—access the Well’s magic through the rules laid down by the goddesses and enforced by Elders.
But other witches—bad witches—can access a different sort of magic, a magic of chaos and corruption, spoken of in just as hushed tones as the forest folk, but fearful tones, cautious and terrified.
A witch can do anything,anythingat all with wild magic, the sorts of magic that the hexenjägers fear us for. But a witch can only draw on one source, so to access wild magic, they must sever their connection to the Well, then connect to wild magic through evil acts of sacrifice, revenge, and murder. The longer they draw their power solely from wild magic,the more their soul twists and rots, until they are that which they seek: evil, through and through.
When I mix potions, the spells I speak tether me to that Well of uncorrupted magic, and infuse the potions with power.
When Liesel speaks her spells over lit flames, the words connect her to the Well and pour magic into her veins and let her see the answers to questions in the heat of the fire.
When Mama speaks her spells over bones or fur or animals, those spells tether her to the magic, and let her control creatures or portend warnings in bones and more—
Or she used to. She used to be able to do that.
My heart bucks, bruises, and I push on my chest, hand fisted.
The forest folk and the Origin Tree are protected by the goddesses, hidden away in the impassable bulk of the Black Forest. It’s almost a fairy story, but now…
Why didn’t we leave sooner?
Why did we stay in Birresborn?
The thought has been a persistent itch in the back of my mind since I left. Mama’s words roll through me:The hexenjäger threat is our responsibility.
There are no other covens left to stand against them now. A few burned; more fled to the Black Forest. We have failed in that then, too.
No—Ifailed in that. I led everyone to slaughter.
Guilt is iron, it is lead, a weight in my lungs, invisible and intangible but relentless. So when I shake myself to focus, or focus as much as I can in my exhaustion, the guilt does not go away—it shifts, retracts, but there it waits, like my grief, watching and patient. Both know they will conquer me eventually. Both know I am as good as decimated under their power. They are in no hurry.
I swallow a spurt of nausea, my mind flashing with images, the grotesque transformation of people I loved into corpses. The hexenjägers were thorough; I couldn’t find any trails taken by others who might have gotten away.
But someone else had to have escaped. Right? And if they did, they would be heading to the Black Forest. My aunt. My cousins. Any of the little ones. They all knew, from the moment they could talk,“If the hexenjägers come and Birresborn is no longer safe, go to the Black Forest. Go to the forest folk. They’ll take you in.”
But Liesel didn’t escape.
My eyes blearily drift to snatches of sky through the canopy, gauging my direction, but I’m tired, and I ache. Keep walking, keep going—
I imagine my cousin shivering in a cold, dark cell, her little body racked with sobs as she awaits an unjust trial at the hands of the hexenjägers in Trier.
Another step. One more. Everything in me hurts, battered in the coming winter chill, but the pain is deeper than surface discomfort, my muscles wrenching in a way that reminds me, with every beat, I am alive.
The grate of ashes in my lungs—I am alive, I lived through the plumes of smoke.
The cuts on my fingers and arms—I am alive, I lived through clawing my way out of the cellar.
The grit in my eyes—I am alive, I lived through the sobbing as my mother burned.
Alive. Alive.
