Number 667

Chapter Twenty-Three

Macy felt pain, but it was unlike any pain, ever. It was in her heart, right in the center, like a knife had been stabbed there.
And then she blacked out.
A girl.
With black hair.
Killing her.
Killing the Snatcher Woman.
She held her life.
Her life.
Thirty years there, thirty years.
She should be forty, not seventy.
And then she blacked out.
Release.
Rest.
Macy Annas was dead.
•
Vivian held the bloody metal in her hands, panting hard, her face twisted into a grimace.
She didn't kill someone.
It wasn't murder.
It was killing a thing.
A thing that she would turn into something beautiful.
She placed her hands on its back, on either side of the seeping wound.
Even murderers deserved peace.
She knew she wouldn't stay like this forever, but she could renew the spell.
She placed the metal back into the wound.
"This woman has made
Many cry tears
She will return to this form
In fifteen years
But for now
All will see
That she takes the form
Of a laurel tree."
•
Carrie needed to go to the hospital.
For two reasons.
She had seeping wounds all over her, bleeding ooze and puz, she had scrapes and dents and bruises all over.
Another was...
Was she hallucinating?
She saw a laurel tree in front of her.
One that stretched high, high, higher than all the other pine trees, higher than the roof, blooming beautiful purple flowers.
What had Vivian done?
•
Maple smiled and approached the tree.
It was truly beautiful.
She couldn't believe that it was the Snatcher Woman.
But she had more pressing matters to attend to.
She stomped one foot on the floor, hard. She heard a crack. Again and again, she persisted, until there was a hole. A large hole.
A Maple-sized hole.
And then she jumped.
She was fully prepared for lots of dirty hands to catch her.