Chapter Four #3
She has gone white, like ash. The colour has drained from her mouth, from her cheeks. Her eyes are wide and fixed on the pouch as though it might move.
"Do not touch it," she whispers.
Her fingers tighten painfully when the flies buzz again, lifting and settling in slow, greedy circles.
The bundle lies between us, small and obscene on the threshold, red thread glistening faintly where the sun catches it. The laughter from moments before feels like something that belonged to another day.
"We have to burn it," Elena says, her voice barely more than breath. "If anyone notices…" She does not finish. She does not need to.
The square is still loud behind us. The doors of the church have only just emptied. Voices drift on the air. Feet on dust. Elena glances over her shoulder toward the path. No one looks our way. Not yet.
Her fingers fumble at the side of the house until she finds a flat shard of wood left from mending the fence. She presses it into my hands.
"Use this."
The shard is rough and splintered at one end.
"Quickly," she urges. "Before they come this way."
My knees feel unsteady as I crouch again.
The bundle sits where it fell, patient and obscene. The blood has darkened along the folds, cracked at the edges like dried mud.
I slide the shard beneath it. For a moment it resists, stiffened by whatever has soaked into it before it tears free with a soft, sick sound.
Flies rise again, irritated, then settle elsewhere.
The weight of it is heavier than it looks.
Something dense and hidden presses against the cloth.
The smell rises stronger now, catching at the back of my throat.
Elena slips inside just long enough to seize one of the torches from its bracket. She keeps it low, hidden against her skirts as she steps back out beside me.
"Go. As near the woods as you can. Don’t open it."
We move quickly along the side of the house, keeping to the narrow strip where grass grows taller and shadows cling.
My heart pounds so hard it smears the outlines of my vision.
The forest waits only a few steps away. I kneel near the first line of trees, where roots break through the soil and the earth darkens.
The air smells cooler here. Carefully, slowly, I lower the bundle onto the ground. It lands with another dull sound.
Up close, it looks worse. The pale cloth is stiff and creased where the thread has bitten into it. Dark patches spread unevenly across its surface, crusted and thick. One corner is torn jaggedly, as though ripped in haste.
For a moment I think I see something beneath it pulse.
I blink.
Nothing moves.
Elena kneels beside me and thrusts the torch forward.
"Do not open it." Her voice trembles now. "Whatever it is, leave it bound."
She glances back toward the village, scanning the path, the square, the line of roofs.
"I will watch."
My hand shakes as I lower the torch. For a heartbeat the flame hesitates, licking the air just above the cloth. Then it catches. The blood-blackened edge darkens first, then softens. A thin line of smoke rises, pale and wavering. The fire catches slowly, reluctant, as if tasting before committing.
The cloth shrinks inward. The red thread tightens, then snaps with a small, clean sound.
I crouch closer without meaning to.
Heat brushes my face. My heart beats so hard it feels separate from me, loud in my ears. A chill runs along my spine at the same time, cold fingers sliding down beneath my skin.
The cloth bubbles and spits, a thin hiss rising as the fire reaches whatever lies beneath.
A seam opens, and the inside shows itself in flashes between flame and smoke.
The smell changes. Iron first, then something bitter, green.
Juniper. It curls into the air as the cloth splits open.
A few crushed leaves spill out and catch, their tips flaring bright before collapsing into dark flakes.
Then, something pale rolls free. A cleaned bone, too small for anything but a bird or a hen.
It blackens quickly, cracking down its length with a soft pop that makes my shoulders jolt.
I do not look away.
A fine, dark strand slips from the unraveling cloth. Hair. They shrivel instantly, curling into themselves, vanishing into ash before I can draw breath. The smell changes again—thick, greasy, intimate. It makes my throat tighten.
For a moment, the sensation is unmistakable. A weight at my back, as if something A weight at my back. My skin prickles, a chill creeping into it. My eyes lift to the trees, but the forest stands still, sun-struck and quiet.
I look back down as the cloth splits wider. For a moment the weave shows clear beneath the smoke, coarse threads crossing unevenly, thicker in one place where the loom must have faltered. And there—
A faint line of blue woven through the pale warp, almost lost in the linen.
My breath falters. The blue thread blackens slowly, resisting longer than the rest. It glows faintly before collapsing into ash.
The smoke thickens as the flames consume the last of the cloth.
The blood-blackened fibres curl, harden, and give way.
The bundle collapses into itself, no longer bound, no longer shaped.
What remains is a darkened smear on the ground and a scatter of grey flakes where the bone once was.
The kind of thing my father warned me against. Knots tied in red. Herbs bound without prayer. Hair sealed with bone.
Old spells—not the soft kind spoken over wounds, or plants. The other kind.
The one that asks for something in return.