Hidden in the Heartwood {sapphic paranormal}

CHAPTER THREE

03. || vide noir.

River waited and listened until the screen door creaked shut before turning back into the dark hollow towards their own cabin. Darkness never stayed dark for long and their eyes adjusted quickly to the twilight that lit up the quiet dirt road. Unfortunately, quiet never stayed quiet too long either.

<You gonna warn her about the trees?> a low voice purred through the back of River's mind. Turning around, they searched the branches above. The voice came from behind again. <Or should I?>

"Enough of your tricks, Ghost Cat." As River turned once more, they spotted the speckled white lynx lounging lazily along a limb, washing his paw. Though not a whisker moved when the cat spoke, his voice was anything but silent, much to River's displeasure. "You lured that strange woman up there, didn't you?"

<She needed water. I directed her to the springhouse.> The black tufts of his ears twitched at the groan of a nearby tree, but never one to hurry, he continued his bath. <Didn't know you'd try to shoot her.>

"I wasn't-"

<You should really work on your people skills, Riv.> With a stretch, the lynx arched his back then hopped down to the forest floor. <Spend too much time in these woods chewing the fat with phantom creatures. Don't even remember how to talk to a woman, do ya?> His bobbed tail thumped with wry content against the dirt road. <I haven't seen Blaire around lately.>

River waved the cat off and started heading up the road again, but not without stealing a glance back at the woman's porch. A faint warm glow filtered through the nearest wood paned window and River couldn't help but crack a smile, swinging the extinguished lantern at their hip.

<You're welcome, by the way.>

"Oh, yeah?" River scoffed, turning back. The lynx reappeared in the middle of the road. "And what exactly should I be thanking you for?"

<That woman knows where the talismans are buried.>

"That so? She tell you on her way up the mountain?" River continued forward past the lynx. "Best get those pretty white paws a-diggin' then."

<She doesn't know that she knows, but she knows.>

River tried to ignore the lynx; they needed to get home, get ready for the night. The moon would be peeking its face over the ridge soon and they'd already squandered enough time steering the strange woman away from ravenous roots unbeknownst to her. They certainly weren't fixin' to entertain the empty thoughts of a mangy wild cat.

But again, his voice intruded with a curious purr. <Didn't she seem... familiar?>

River's feet slugged to a stop. With a sigh, they turned back around. "Even if she did, Ghost Cat, even if she does know, I've held to my end of the demon's bargain this long. No reason to be changin' anything now. Woods are safer 'cause of it and I know you agree."

<These woods will be changing whether we like it or not. I heard McAfoos is leasing that old scald in the cove to a gas company. All it takes is one leak to ruin the spring and we'll be done for. We barely recovered last time.>

For the first time in a dog's age the damn Ghost Cat was talking sense. Eighty years had gone and went since the close of the mines and still Dewdrop Run just outside their hollow pissed orange from the mess of iron deposits below the surface-nevermind the demon the miners awoke and the haunts that followed. Aye, the coal mines went deep, but a fracking drill went miles slap-right down to the black bowels of the earth. Who knows what else would be released if they started churning up the ancient layers of shale.

"I'll handle Jedidiah McAfoos."

<Or-now hear me out-we break the curse. Winter solstice is just two moons away.> The lynx pawed at a clump of pine needles in the road. <She's the last of her blood, River.>

"That woman played no part in this. Likely just as cursed as you and me." As River drew closer, they could see drops of red leaching the yellow from the shedded needles. "Besides, she's not looking to stay."

<Were you?>

River looked up, but the lynx was gone.

Crouching down, they withdrew the bone handle hunting knife and pressed its tip into the fleshy pad of their thumb. Across the blanket of amber pine needles, they drew an inverted triangle below three overlapping crescents nested betwixt one another with the strange woman's blood at their center.

The gravel along the dirt road rumbled low as a tree root emerged from the point of the triangle, splitting in two to trace the lines of the sigil. Watching it closely, River tucked the hunting knife away, but kept their hand readied. The roots trifurcated to follow the curve of the crescents, then having reached their tips, the shoots lunged to lap the woman's blood like a thirst-stricken stag at the stream. Just as the woody shoots began to blacken, River unsheathed a hatchet from their belt and swung down, cutting the root's main artery clean through.

Three engorged white worms wriggled free from the severed inner wood, but River stomped down until a burst of viscous liquid shot out both sides their boot, filling the air with rot. The road rumbled once more as the other end of the root shrunk back into the ground, receding into the woods.

With one last glance at the strange woman's cabin, River made their way back up the road, trying not to think of what they had seen in the spring's reflection.