Stories say that the Witch rained curses down on Devil's Corner, that she made the woods grow strange and wild, made shadows leap and dance and snatch up stray children for supper. In a small town on the edge of a dangerous forest, stories are never...
Thea saw this at once, and part of her terror left with it, bursting out of her chest in a high-pitched, relieved sort of giggle. They were animal bones, brittle with age, stained with black and brown tones from the earth.
Ceridwen's talons tightened on her shoulder. The bird seemed startled now, more than ever before. Her feathers stood on end slightly, like she was inflating herself. "Get out of here, Thea."
The warning came too late. A terrible wave of feeling started in Thea's gut — dragging her down, filling her with the irresistible desire to fall to the ground and surrender to the sudden surge of crippling panic borne on the back of whatever this was. It was a feeling that was eerily familiar; she'd felt it That Night, the bridge point between the Before and After, when everything had gone so wrong.
A howling came from the distance. It wasn't the howl of any ordinary wolf — Thea felt it, in the air, in the ground, which trembled underfoot. This was something ancient, and far more dangerous. And Thea was a scared girl lost in the woods.
Thea was prey.
"Run." Ceridwen urged.
Thea uprooted herself from the ground and ran, doing her best to avoid the bones scattering the ground, trying to bring her down. A wind had started up, rustling the leaves and branches, the trees groaning slightly as though they, too, were scared of what was coming and wanted to run with her. The ground was shaking fiercely now. Such tremors sometimes happened in Devil's Corner, shaking crockery and pictures free from the walls, deepening the cracks that spread along the fences and threatened to break open the village like a windowpane. On the edge of things, Thea could hear a loud, animal panting and the gnashing of many teeth.
The ground began to slope downwards, and it was here she tripped. Her foot caught and she let herself fall, taking the brunt of it on her shoulder, tucking her head in to protect it as she rolled down the hill faster than she thought she could run. She reached the bottom and straightened up, spitting mud, looking around.
A wall of rock stretched up before her.
A monstrous snarling sound came from behind. She whipped around. A huge creature of shadows and teeth stood halfway up the slope, watching her with gleaming white eyes, sizing her up as a midnight snack. Thea whimpered. Wilf pressed himself against her leg, hissing, back arched. Ceridwen squeezed her shoulder even tighter, and Thea wondered blindly if she might take off, leave her and the cat there to die.
Because they were going to die, those pitiless white eyes were telling her so. The grumbling noise forming in the Night-wolf's throat was enough to know that it appreciated its gift. The air stank of rotten eggs, clung to her skin, vile, alive.
Ceridwen cawed, almost defiantly. Go. Thea thought. Find my brother. Find Mam. Tell them I tried.
The back legs of the Night-wolf bent. It gathered itself and leapt forward.
Thea screamed, jerked away, desperate to delay the inevitable. The Night-wolf barrelled into her, knocking her backwards, into the wall of stone. A crack and a rumble like that of thunder ripped through the air, and black flooded into the place where the world had just been.
I'll see you in the next life, Ridoc.
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