Chapter Thirty-One
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
Don’t let expensive taste become the enemy of good flavor.
You’ve known where she lives this whole time? And we’re just going to drive up to her house?”
“Not quite. Electricity, batteries, anything mechanical won’t work where she is. This land yacht would never make it.”
“Now wait just a molasses minute here—”
The Warlock pokes his head out of the passenger window. “Pull over here.”
Pull over is a courtesy. We haven’t been on an actual road in hours. Even the gravel and dirt paths gave out miles ago.
I park the Dodge in a slightly less overgrown clearing.
We hop out into still-as-death humidity, the truck’s settling engine the only sound.
Checking the sneaky tall grass and cattails around us, I’m grateful I swapped my clogs for these boots, but summertime is the worst season to take a hike in the South.
Mosquitoes. Ticks. Chigger bites like chickenpox.
Snakes. The wild and unkempt vegetation hides exactly what a person should be wary of.
Shoulder to shoulder, we stare into the depths of the woods past the tree line. The greenery is so thick, the morning sun won’t be following us in. “I suppose I have an abysmal chance of convincing you to stay here while I try to negotiate with the Widow Witch to help your mother?” he asks.
I half turn to him, real slow, and raise a brow.
“Right. Forget I asked.”
“This is my idea, remember?” I shake my head, tsking. “If only you had a driver’s license, you could’ve martyred alone.” Or if he, you know, still had any of his magic.
On the surface, he’s physically upright, but that’s about all he has going for him.
I can’t tell if the sun spots on his cheeks I like so much are evaporating with his color, or growing more pronounced as the rest of his skin flips through a Pantone swatch for shades of oatmeal.
I think he’d make Oris Webb look tan right now.
Every few minutes, his fingers subconsciously fidget, as if he feels an urge to snap, the phantom pull of the Language of Small Wishes.
If this comes down to a fight between an infamous Hedgewitch and a Warlock who can’t snap some hospital gelatin into existence, I don’t feel great about our odds.
“If we’re expecting to find her in just a day or two,” I grunt, hauling my gear onto my back, “why is my pack so heavy?”
“The extra supplies are just for an emergency. If we don’t reach her den after a couple of days, we’ll have a larger problem on our hands.
” His words are soft, as if to not wake something.
“Beasts roam these woods, sometimes orphaned familiars whose Witch or Warlock has died. They’re attracted to her energy. ”
Of course they are.
His fingers clench by his sides. “Don’t go far from me, Ms. Frost.” Then, with stubborn confidence, he goes headfirst into the woods.
The temperature sinks fast inside the trees. Gooseflesh pricks my skin like a rash, and soon our breaths frost over. It feels like November, not June. Unnaturally cold. Hedgewitch territory. Staying close won’t be a problem.
We trek without speaking. My lungs and thighs aren’t used to these dips and swells in elevation at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, and the Warlock appears to be listening for something.
There’s an occasional rustle of a critter, but nothing else.
Soon, he’s moving slower than me. Every step of his demands effort, and whenever he takes one of his shuddering, ragged breaths, I listen to make sure I hear him exhale again.
I’ve lost track of how far from town we are, but I don’t mind the quiet. Small towns always have a quaint quiet, but that’s not the real silence. Out here, in this forgotten piece of empty, is true stillness. Something… primordial. The nothingness before existence.
Ahead of me, the Warlock carves paths for us through curtains of foliage.
He’s in his sturdy gardening clothes, his bandana a welcome bright spot of color.
My attention sticks to him like epizoochorous seeds.
I’m following a man into isolated woods, alone, to confront his greatest foe, all on the chance I can persuade said foe to help a fellow Witch save her mom, herself, and any Frosts who come after us.
Oh, and maybe release the Warlock from his curse while she’s at it.
We trek until we’re both sweating, even with the chill.
The passing hours feel both too short and too long.
This hiking crap is exhausting. I’m grateful I listened to Silas and swapped my usual overalls for a durable yet lightweight set.
His other advice yesterday was less helpful: Don’t die tomorrow. Your mother will be unbearable.
Eventually, we take a break by a meandering, glassy creek.
The Warlock refills our bottles from the creek as I unpack some provisions: dried fruit and nuts, hard cheese, apples, dense molasses bread, wild turkey jerky.
Then a box of Lemonheads, a bag of mini marshmallows, and one half of a cherry Pop-Tart?
“Uh… question.”
“Lazlo wanted to help pack our food.”
“Ah.”
“I packed our other meals.”
“Bless you.”
We dig in.
“How do you know where we’re going?” I ask between bites, after I’ve restored some energy.
“Memory. Warlock’s intuition.” He chews on an apple as he paces the clearing, eyes tracking the ground.
He finally stops his odd shuffling at the bank of the creek, where his focus lands on the crisp surface of the water.
Satisfied with something, he extends a hand back to me. “We should keep moving.”
I’ve already packed our food and water. Hesitant, I approach and take his offered palm. He pulls me flush against him, to the water’s edge. Which I’m now noticing is oddly still for a creek that should be bubbling, on the move with rainwater from the mountains. Too perfect.
“Stay close for this next part, Ms. Frost.”
“If you want to hold my hand, just ask.”
He smirks. Wickedly.
I have zero time to regret being a smart-ass because he lifts a long leg and simply steps off into the water, taking me down into the depths right along with him.
I don’t even have a chance to hold my breath.
My body flinches, bracing for a rocky creek bed. But my brain stutters when we don’t land in the chill of mountain runoff. Instead, we sink right through the creek, as if swallowed by a looking glass.
Our bodies leave solid ground and my gut floats into my rib cage.
The only sign we’re passing through water is the mist kissing my cheeks.
The sudden drop, the unnerving weightlessness—I rode a log flume once and swore never to do it again.
I upchucked perfectly good corn dogs. What a waste of allowance money.
I cling to the feeling of the Warlock’s hand in mine. Solid. Solid. Solid.
Then in half a breath, we’re standing on a stony and uneven surface.
Unmoving. Gravity returns. I remember to breathe. Open my eyes. A damp darkness envelops us completely.
“Did we just fall through the earth?”
Give a girl some warning. I hope my nails leave vicious little impressions in his palm. This kind of magic is way beyond Farewitch territory.
“Yes and no. That creek is a window. I just had to find the right place to open it.”
My eyes adjust. Around us, boulders and sharp rock formations stick out like the canines of some giant creature. Nooks and gaps hide shadows blacker than my cast iron. A gaping dark hole yawns open up ahead.
“Welcome to the path to the Widow Witch’s holler.”
We have just days until the summer solstice, or Litha, when Witches normally prepare feasts to celebrate the longest day of the year and welcome the extra hours of sunlight. And we’re in—
“Caves?” I groan.
“Not a spelunking fan?”
“I was just envisioning something less… Batman.” I blink away water from my bangs. “Are we supposed to be wet?”
“Ah, no.” He shifts on his feet. “This portal operates with its own magic, but having mine would have made the transition… smoother.” He clicks on a flashlight from his pack. “Shall we?”
As we hike through the cave system, soggy darkness sucks any warmth from my core.
Ironically, the Frosts are not intended for the cold.
Bread does not rise in icy air. I cling to the thought of fresh steaming bread as we trek through the dark, like some hapless couple in a fairy tale.
Except we’re not a couple. And if this is a fairy tale, the villain is just around the corner.
After endless near tumbles on loose rocks, I feel myself growing less intimidated and more irked. The Widow Witch doesn’t have a side porch entrance? “If electricity and batteries don’t work inside her holler, we’re going to lose our light at some point, won’t we?”
The Warlock’s eyes glint in the flashlight.
“Yes. She allows some power and magic to flow within her own home, but not in the territory around it. To ensure another magical being can’t sneak up on her.
In a sense, she’s created a massive electric fence.
My magic always itched up against the buzz as I got closer. ”
How often has he done this? Did he come back at all before now to try to fix things? I haven’t felt any static pushback yet, but my Farewitch magic isn’t constantly on like his would have been.
“You know, when Lazlo disappeared during the tornado, I thought maybe he was showing early signs of being a Warlock, too. That his magic was peeking through enough for him to portal somewhere.”
The Warlock takes a long time to answer.
“He’s too young to know. But when it’s time, our power does often manifest with heightened emotion or stress.
The transition for a new Warlock can be unpredictable.
It’s easy to lose control.” He peers into the darkness ahead of us.
“Look out for anything that moves. The Witch has her own beasts roaming around.”
I don’t ask for clarification. When death comes for me, at least it’ll be too dark to see it. Gotta think positive.