Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hyacinth
Hyacinth waddled through the rain, holding onto the front left horn of an ornery billy goat.
Austin had the other. He tried to block the sideways rain but there was nothing to stop it.
Their umbrella turned inside out the second they stepped outside.
Melody was forced to stay at the front door and batten down the hatches as the wind grew to window-shattering speeds.
Hyacinth could feel her wings catching with each gust. There was a funnel spinning on both the left and right sides of the house.
“Boy, we really pissed Sabine off this time!” Austin laughed over the roar of wind.
Hyacinth opened her mouth and promptly forgot what she was about to say as she was violently gargle-rinsed with rainwater.
She choked on it and spat it out only to have more flood her throat.
Coughing until it hurt didn’t help, but they made it to the safety of the barn swiftly after.
The doors were flapping open in the wind, but a protective bubble covered the inside of the barn.
Rain splashed against the invisible shield, leaving the inside dry and warm.
Crowded, but hospitable. Austin and her barely made it through the door and pushed the goat into the stall with his name on it.
Austin slapped his palm against her back, dislodging the rain from her lungs. “Don’t drink the storm. It doesn’t taste good.”
Hyacinth wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her voice was hoarse and she was forced to yell to be heard over the menacing wind. “Why does he have a stall? He’s not a horse.”
“Oh, because sometimes when he’s naughty, the only creatures not afraid of him are the horses.
So Stewy got a stall to go into time out.
” Austin explained as he locked the wooden door behind him.
“Kevin must have forgotten to lock him up. Not sure why or how he got into the library, but I’ll ask Greggory. ”
Hyacinth glanced around at all the farm animals hunkered down for a storm.
All shivering and letting out low sounds.
Austin walked around the best he could. Squeezing between pens and bodies to calm them down.
She watched him every step of the way. Crouching low to stroke the little calf’s head, then talk with the large cattle.
He even stopped to smile and greet each horse.
He’s so good with everyone. He’s easy to love.
That was it, wasn’t it? Austin was probably the easiest person to love because he was a gentle giant.
Kind, thoughtful, easy to excite, happy to just be there, Austin was the sunlight to her storm.
Her turbulent, howling winds and bitter, cutting rain.
I am too literal. And yet too curious. I want to know everything and be friends with everyone and desperately wish I was as easy to connect with as Austin.
But she wasn’t Austin. She was Hyacinth… an undead grove witch.
“I’m a grove witch,” she murmured, glancing back out into the rain.
Sabine is a grove witch, and while her body was dead…the tree was still there. “Austin! That story you told me. The one Greggory told you? That the first Grove Witch, he burned her and her tree.”
“Yeah, what is with clerics and burning stuff? I mean, there are other ways to rid the world of evil. Can’t we try just beheading people for a change—oh, wait, you weren’t asking because of that, were you?
” He peeked up from the little piglets snorting at his hands to the dead woman at the front of the barn.
She grinned at him, “No, I wasn’t, but I’ll let you know if it works.”
“If what works?” He blinked rapidly. There was a moment when Hyacinth almost flew off into the storm without explaining.
No, no we’re in this together. We’re figuring this out together.
He said I love you, lovers don’t just fly off without explanation.
She took a deep breath to keep her vibrating blood from sending her into the rafters of the barn like a bottle rocket.
“Sabine’s not possessing me, like you said.” She flapped her wet hands excitedly, her sleeves slapping at her side. “I think she wasn’t fully dead. Because what if you have to destroy the tree too? What if she’s stuck, not quite dead, but she’s not alive either.”
Austin’s eyes widened. He stumbled up to his feet, waggling a finger at her. “Sabine must be able to regenerate or something, and the tree is a part of her!”
“But when I took root in my body, she was still stuck here with me!” Hyacinth jumped up and down three times before spinning around with excitement.
“Austin! What if I can do what she does? What if I just need to pick a tree, huh? Make it my tree! Then-then-then maybe I can do everything she used to? Greggory says if I’m Old Fae, I should be able to do all these things, and clearly she’s doing all these things but I’m not…
so what if it’s because I haven’t picked a tree yet! ”
Austin glanced over her shoulder at the torrential downpour behind her and grimaced. “Where are we going to find a tree in this weather?”
“The willow.” She beamed, stamping her feet excitedly against the hay. “The willow out front, where we found Snuffles!”
His eyes lit up as he nodded rapidly. “It’s the sturdiest tree in all of this realm! It was here since before even Smith!”
“Austin!” She laughed throwing her arms out to the side as the realization hit her. A cannon ball to her chest, shattering the reflection of a woman who knew what she was doing. “I don’t know how to do this! I could be wrong.”
“Well…” he trailed off, walking to the swinging doors.
The pair glanced out at the yard. Grass and hay swirled angrily in the air as the sky roared.
Rain fell over the house in buckets. Three bolts of lightning shot through the sky and lit other trees beyond the fence on fire before the storm quickly put it out.
The following thunder rolled across the realm and left the pair both shaking.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if this is a good idea.
I don’t even know if this will work! Austin laughed sheepishly, “It’s just a little rain.
We make a break for the front yard, use as much of the porch as we can, then, you know, if it doesn’t work, then we go back inside.
We sit by the fire while Greggory does some research, and we try again.
We’re necromancers, not necro-giver-uppers! ”
Hyacinth sputtered, hysteria and disbelief battling in the cavity of her chest. Laughter bubbled up through her until she was holding onto Austin for dear life.
He grinned at her, scooping her up in his arms. He left a kiss to the tip of her nose before turning her toward the door. “I’ll be right behind you!”
She put her hands to the frame much like a cat avoiding a bath, her heart thundering. Because what if this doesn’t work. I saw what my rushing into things did. I felt what it did. We burned nearly to death-death. She squawked, “What does a kiss on the nose mean!”
“That I believe in you!”
A bark of laughter exploded out of her as she launched herself forward.
Rain immediately slapped her. It dumped over her and re-drenched her as she pumped her arms. Her intention was to make it to the porch.
Austin said to use the porch as far as they could.
The long stretch of gravel was already underwater.
Her feet grew heavy, kicking and splashing..
She hiked up her skirt, pocketing it into the crook of each arm to keep the wind from catching it.
Hyacinth fought bitter air that sliced against her cheeks, even though the pain was a distance memory, she could still register the wound.
She was knocked left and right, her wings tugged like there were fingers wrapped around them.
The rain was cruel. Cold and unforgiving, it was like running her face into a multitude of walls.
One right after the other. Her legs ached.
Exhaustion was the real villain as she stumbled up the steps toward the house.
The world tilted and her legs stumbled over each other.
If it weren’t for Austin catching her, she’d have hit the creaking wood like a sack of rocks.
Hyacinth swiped her dripping hair from her face.
We did it! She was bouncing on her numb toes.
We made it! Austin shivered under the awning with her.
Lightning split the sky behind him, his eyes glowing a bright red.
His smile made bigger by his tusks as he swiped droplets off them. Now we just need to…
Her attention followed a dark mass crawling over the banister of the porch.
Her stomach bottomed out. Hyacinth stumbled back, dragging Austin with her as Sabine stood up at the other end of the porch.
No longer trapped behind a mirror or within dreams. Made of graveyard soil, gravel, bones that were carried away by the storm, and moldy leaves, her body formed slowly.
Till her hollow eyes opened, staring directly at Hyacinth.
Austin bellowed. “Hyacinth…run!”
She didn’t have to be told twice. Twisting on her wet, bare feet, she bolted across the porch.
It wrapped around the manor and she hit the corner a little too sharply.
Her feet spun like carriage wheels in mud, going nowhere and everywhere all at once.
Her left side hit the railing first and the air was knocked from her lungs.
She danced away from the banister, gasping for air and holding her side.
The wet fabric of her dress weighed her down as she stumbled over herself.
Wind yanked her by the wings, and she fell down the side stairs into the thick, uncut side yard.