Chapter 13
MIA
There are whispers in the woods. In my dreams. Everywhere. Skelker. The rattling shake, shake, shake of bone scraping against bone fills every cavity. Every hole and space. It slithers, then it crunches before it glides across the ground. It gets closer every night.
Skelker.
It is a he; his chest is chiseled beneath thick, protruding black veins. They sprawl across his flesh like spider webs. Like dark constellations.
Skelker.
His eyes are spun gold, no, that’s the glint of light reflecting back. His eyes are resin. Brown. Cold cinnamon.
Your wounds are ancient, Mia. The scars you’ve left behind… they cut deep. We want your bloodline. You are all of them. And they are you. His voice is an echo. Raw. Cavernous. Inhuman.
I am not the past. I’m not them. Please. Let me go. I plead as I have pleaded with him in my mind a hundred times before.
His spiny branch-like veins mimic sludge beneath his leathery flesh, his inky blood twisting and winding around and around.
Every part of him is alive as much as it is dead.
You belong to the Wishing Tree. And the Wishing Tree belongs to me.
Mine. We can pretend you have a choice for a little longer though.
My chest tightens as if there’s a weight on it. I breathe in through my nose and count to ten. The oath… He tricked me. I didn’t agree to this.
His resinous eyes glow bright inside their hollowed sockets. It’s as if the bone has fused to his face. It becomes his skin. His armor. It becomes.
You traded your life for his. For Nox. And you opened a gate with your blood, with the raven’s blade, allowing all of us to cross back through. Mia Harker. It was your blood that started this all.
He’s right. These are ancient wounds. An offense committed centuries ago. Not my fault, but somehow I’m paying the price. We all have. But my bill seems to be the most expensive. The nightmare men. The trauma and chaos they have caused… all because one woman refused to take the devil’s hand.
The crunch of leaves splinters his psychic hold on me. I shiver as the vines release me and retract back inside the Wishing Tree.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself, Trouble. It’s not safe.” Draven narrows his eyes at me before taking a long drag off his cigarette. The glowing red butt sparks in response, creating a vanilla-soaked stream of thick gray smoke around his head.
Fuck. If he only knew the irony of his question. “How is it that you can stand in the woods in a designer suit and still not look out of place?”
He shrugs, his gaze distant. “Luck, I guess. I don’t let the suit wear me. Were you talking to the Skelker just now?”
I close my eyes as a warm breeze encircles me. I inhale it, cherishing the scents of earthen soil and mossy grass. “It’s not safe for me anywhere, Draven. Not with him in my head.”
He nods in agreement. “I get that… more than anyone, I think.”
My blood still stains the bark of the Wishing Tree, a reminder of that night. I wonder if it’s marked forever now. “Aries has told me bits and pieces of our history. I never thought he’d be the record keeper. Of all people.” I chuckle.
Draven presses his palm against the symbol I carved. “Every one of our families played a part in the founding of Ever Graves. The Thorns have a lot at stake. They record everything. What else would you like to know about it?”
Everything. And sometimes nothing. I’m afraid that the more I find out, the more I will be tethered to it. As if the knowledge itself is what binds me. But I know that’s foolish. I am bound in this life and the next, no matter what I do. All I can hope for now is to minimize the damage.
“I found a parchment with my family tree etched into it. Willa Harker married Enzo Crane. It shows they had two kids. Ophelia and Ruben. Ophelia’s bloodline stops there.
Whereas Ruben had a bunch of kids, which is Bones, Felix, and Lettie’s line.
And then I am a direct descendant of Willa’s brother Vlad.
I just think it’s odd that Ophelia never married.
In those days, it was just what everyone did.
” My mind races. Whenever I think of the past, I get a tightness in my chest and stomach.
“And there’s no photo or paintings of her anywhere in the house.
All the others are hanging in the halls. Isn’t that weird?”
“I don’t know why she didn’t marry. But we think she may have been ill.
Her portrait might be in the basement. Sometimes in the old days, if someone looked sickly, they wouldn’t display their likeness as it brought shame on them.
It’s hard to say. The Harkers had many secrets.
Especially your grandmother, Emma… There’s also another theory, but it’s a very dark one.
” Draven unbuttons his cuffs and rolls them up.
I gasp and grab his wrist. “Oh my god, Dray. Are you bleeding?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks down. “It’s not my blood.”
I often forget who Draven Blackwell is. Ever since we fell in love and called a truce on trying to destroy each other, I’ve blocked out this part of him.
The man who fights and kills and rages when he doesn’t get what he wants.
My broken psycho man who wears his heart on his sleeve right next to his knife.
I fish his hand out and rub my fingers over his reddened knuckles. “Don’t let it swallow you. You’re more than just one thing.” I look up, and we lock eyes. “You did what you had to do. Now let it go.”
He pulls me to his chest. “Fuck. I love you, Mia.”
I wind my arms around his waist and hold him tight. “I love you too, Slick.”
My head buzzes as the faint whisper of the Skelker pulls at the edges of my mind. Not now, asshole. Go away. I need more of a distraction. “So where does the Wild Hunt fit in? Nox seems to hate it.”
Draven pulls back only to tuck me into his side. He guides me farther into the forest. “Well, that was the start of everything. The whole reason this town earned the devil’s ire to begin with. Come on, I’ll show you where it all happened.”
A little burst of adrenaline shoots through my veins. A field trip with this man is exactly the distraction I need. “Where in Ever Graves could you possibly take me that I haven’t seen already?” I can’t hide the excitement in my voice.
He chuckles. “So curious, aren’t you? First off, you need to know that this town wasn’t Ever Graves in the beginning. It was called Evigheden, meaning time without end.”
My stomach knots, and all the hairs on my arms prickle.
The echoes of the past are stored in my cells, sacred and rooted like the branches of the Wishing Tree.
They aren’t quite memories but more like imprints.
Particles of another life that still shimmer around us like the little sparks that dot your lids when you pinch your eyes shut really hard.
I slip my fingers through his as we walk.
He takes me past the Circle, to a part of the woods I haven’t explored.
It’s hard not to think about our ancestors traveling these same paths hundreds of years ago.
Their lives were different, and yet, somehow, we’re still plagued by the very same things that kept them up at night.
“I am taking you down the path of Imogen Bishop. It was because of her and her sister, Lucy, that no more virgins were sacrificed to Saint Nick. These are Imogen’s footsteps we’re retracing.
It was the coldest winter; she almost froze to death.
And she was close to starving. The Four Horsemen hunted her through these woods.
First to a cave, then to a cabin, then to the land of false graves, and finally back to their estate.
“There, they defiled her like a whore before turning her into their queen. Lucy’s story is even darker, but it is because of the Bishop sisters’ sacrifices that no other was ever to be hunted again.
So Nox is somewhat mistaken in his disdain.
It is not the Wild Hunt that we celebrate so much as it is the Bishop sisters and what they did for this town. For our people.”
“What happened to Lucy?” I ask, fascinated by the lore and in awe that it’s part of the fabric of our history.
Draven holds my hand, steadying me as we cross what used to be a river. The water has long since run dry, but the terrain is still treacherous with rocks and branches and snakes hiding among the dead foliage.
“Not much is known actually. Lucy was kidnapped by Saint Nick, also known as Krampus. He took her to his palace in the North. There’s nothing written about what transpired there.
All we know is some time after, the Wild Hunt was no more.
And she pledged herself to three men, Atreus Graves, Vale Wickford, and Cage Blackwell, one of my great ancestors.
She had children with all of them, so our families are intertwined.
It’s uncertain if Imogen had any children. ”
“Wow. Wait, so if the Bishop women are cursed to never cross over to the After… where are they?”
Draven grips my waist as I start to stumble.
His hands are firm and hot. I lean back against him for a moment, enjoying the hardness of his body.
“Another mystery, little lamb. They vanished. As did the House of the Four Horsemen. It’s the only spot on our trail of tragedy that we won’t be visiting today. ”
I flip around and cozy up closer to him. “An entire house vanished too? That’s fucking weird.” I still wonder what that has to do with me and the Skelker.
He squeezes my ass and presses his body to mine. “Poof. Gone. There’s been stranger occurrences than that in Ever Graves. This town has a way of numbing you to your ability to be shocked and impressed.”