Michele Hauf - The Witch's Quest

The insect chirped and hopped off to a more private leaf.

And Valor pulled out a small mason jar half-filled with angel dust to use as a marker for the ritual sigil she now intended to create. A collection of rose petals she had gathered surreptitiously from a floral shop before heading out here today would also serve in the design.

No time to back out now. She’d come here with the intent of finally serving herself what she deserved. “Here’s to love.”

Cupping a handful of fine angel dust and funneling it through her curled fingers, she marked out on the thick moss the pattern that she’d studied in her great-grandma Hector’s grimoire. Small, smoky quartz crystals were then placed at the compass points and rose quartz along the borders of the sigil. She kissed and blessed the flower petals, then placed them on the moss.

Leaning back to inspect her work, she decided the design looked much like a voodoo veve. But this sacred sigil, infused with her light magic, would wield so much more power.

She didn’t notice the darkening sky as she laid a crow foot, a mouse rib and a dried rat heart at the center of the sigil. Red and pink candles were tucked into the moss, and with a snap of her fingers they ignited. So she had a little fire magic to her arsenal, as well. It was just for small tasks. A witch should never risk invoking more fire than she could handle.

Now the invocation—

Valor’s hand slipped on the thick moss, and her leg suddenly slid out from under her kneeling position. She hadn’t made such a move. Something tugged her ankle roughly.

She slapped the moss with both palms and yelped as her body slid backward across the forest floor, dragging her hands through angel dust, petals and crystals. Twisting at the waist, she searched in the dimming light. One of the tree roots had wrapped about her ankle, clasping the leather combat boot in a painful pinch.

“What in all the goddess’s bad hair days?” She kicked at the root with her free foot.

And then the frowning bark opened wide and growled at her. The tree had a merciless hold on her. And the root only grew tighter about her ankle.

Valor had heard of faery trees. And this woods was a place where the sidhe mingled with those from the mortal realm. Another reason she’d been warned away. Faeries who did not live in the mortal realm generally didn’t like witches.

She hadn’t an enchanted sword to cut her way free. But she did have witchcraft.

“Loftus!”

Her air magic whisked over the ancient tree bark with the waning effect of a whisper. And the tree actually seemed to chuckle as its trunk heaved and the bark crinkled. The root about her ankle tugged again and her boot disappeared into the soft, loamy ground at the base of the tree.

She groped for the moss, on which the candles had extinguished and the angel dust sigil had been disturbed. It was out of her reach. So was her tackle box, in which she’d stashed her cell phone.

This was bad. On a scale of one to ten for oh-my-mercy-this-is-bad, this probably rated a seventy.

“I’m fucked.”

* * *

Valor had parked on a turnoff from the gravel road that wound about three hundred yards away from a highway. It was set near a gape in the forest and not easily seen or even known about. At the time, she’d been pleased that no one would see her car. And she’d entered the forest from the opposite end of the woods where Blade Saint-Pierre lived for the specific reason she hadn’t wanted anyone to think she was trespassing. That vampire did not own the forest, but he acted as a sort of portal guardian, keeping others out of the forest.

For their own good.

Witches and the Darkwood? Not cool.

Valor tugged futilely at her pinned legs. Yes, now both were being sucked slowly down into the earth beneath the tree. She’d been here two hours for sure, and no matter how she tugged she remained pinned into the mossy ground by the oak roots. And that was exactly what had happened. She’d been pinned by a faery tree.

What she knew about such wicked magic was that eventually she’d be sucked completely into the earth and, perhaps, even into Faery. But she wouldn’t make the journey alive. And judging by how far in she’d been drawn, she suspected the process generally took less than a day. She didn’t even want to calculate how much time she had left.

She’d tried speaking a releasement spell. That had only bothered the crows perched in the crooked elm boughs overhead. They stared with beady black eyes at her like vultures waiting for carrion. She’d tried apologizing to the universe for stepping on sacred faery grounds. She’d felt the earth shudder then and had quietly lain there, palms clutching at the dried leaves and undergrowth, her cheek wet with tears.

All she’d wanted to do was invoke a spell. For her. For once in her long lifetime, she’d finally thought about herself and what she wanted.

Eyes closed now, she thought the loamy scent of moss and earth were too rich for such a fool as herself. The crisp promise of crystal clear water babbled from somewhere behind her. Even the bird chirps seemed to admonish her for being an idiot.

Would her friends think it was odd she did not show up for work tonight at the brewery? Of course Eryss would wonder. Give her a call. But Valor often did not answer her phone. Eryss would shrug and figure Valor had forgotten. It was a Thursday night. Never too busy. Instead of a staff of three, the Decadent Dames could easily manage the microbrewery with two.

They might not bother to drive by her loft at the edge of town in Tangle Lake until the next day when Valor didn’t show up to help carry in a delivery of grains that was expected to arrive in the afternoon.

She’d be dead by then. Even now she sensed her energy waning, seeping from her. Bleeding her life into the ground.

“Stupid tree,” she muttered. “A simple lash across the face would have served me well enough.”

But she knew faeries—and their trees, for they were alive and sentient—never did anything half-assed. Be it mischief or unspeakable malice, it was either all-in or all-out.

Clasping the moonstone amulet she always wore strung from a leather cord about her neck, she bowed her head to the leaves on the forest floor before her. It was time to start thinking of leaving a message for her friends. Who may eventually find her decayed corpse still pinned to this earth, perhaps one clawing hand still sticking out from the ground, surrounded by the malevolent tree roots.

“Aggh!” She had to stop thinking of how dire her end would be. That wouldn’t solve anything.

Valor grabbed a thin branch and decided the moss was so thick she could probably write in it. No. It would never work. The mason jar of angel dust sat two feet out of her reach. So blood was the next option. And her parchment? A wide maple leaf.

She broke the branch in two and was holding the serrated end poised to stab at her skin when the rapid beating of hooves alerted her. She glanced up and just had time to tuck her face against the leaves as the sleek doe beat a path toward her. The deer probably hadn’t expected a nonanimal to be sitting in the forest, so the beast hadn’t much time to correct her trajectory. Valor sensed the deer’s surprise as her front hoof nearly stepped on her hand and she leaped high and over Valor’s head.

Muttering a quiet oath and a quick blessing of thanks, Valor followed the deer’s path. Then it occurred to her that something might have been after it. She swiftly turned and spied the man running toward her, a blur of gold and green. When he was but twenty feet away from her, he suddenly halted, appearing to put on the brakes as a runner in an animated cartoon would, heels skidding and body lagging behind as his speed dropped from swift to stop.