The Weaver's Source

Chapter 24

I must've been knocked unconscious on the journey back because one moment I was struggling on the shoulder of the large hunter as he marched through the forest and the next I woke up in darkness with my nose sore and blood touching my mouth. I didn't much care for how I ended up here. I kept thinking of the strong boy who had died before me. The little boy who had tried so hard to protect me, a complete stranger, from Black Annis.

I swallowed my burning tears, ignoring how my throat was thick with despair. Crying wouldn't help me now and I tried to make out something in the heavy gloom. I couldn't hear anything nor could I see much, but the horrible stench that filled my nose was hauntingly familiar. The stomach curling and throat gagging stink was something I could never forget. I knew where I was even if I couldn't observe with my eyes. I was below Annis' hut, in her hidden butcher's room. Fear touched me. I shouldn't be here. This room meant death.

I looked about wildly, trying to see something but was met with solid nothingness. Beneath me was splintering wood that pinched at my bare feet and it squeaked ominously whenever I wiggled. I assumed it was a table. I tugged at my hands lightly. They were tied to something, keeping them by my head. By the horrible biting of the skin I guessed it was rope. Escape wasn't going to happen. Easily at any rate. I wasn't going to let Black Annis eat me. I wasn't going to let Gerald die pointlessly.

I gritted my teeth and tugged, twisting my hands around frantically in the dark. Rope chewed at my skin mercilessly, burning my wrists savagely to the point tears swelled, but my frantic attempt to escape came to a sharp stop when I heard faint footsteps echoing down the tiny narrow passage. A glow of yellow light suddenly blossomed out of the tiny cracks, forming the vague shape of a door. A moment later, the door was opened and in shuffled Annis. I froze.

She smiled at me and I scowled hotly at her in response. She hummed to herself as she went to put the torch in its iron handle and began to set about getting the fireplace burning. With light now flooding the room, I could see every inch of it clearly. As my eyes swept over the horrible, web and blood covered room and latched onto a body in the far corner, I wished I couldn't.

The tiny one-armed body of Gerald sat tucked in a ball, partially covered with a thick blanket. The arrow that had taken his life was still lodged in his neck and his blood had dried around his mouth. I swallowed thickly in despair. He looked so small now.

Seeing her ugly face smiling that horrible smile and Gerald's tiny body reignited my desperate need to run far and fast, taking Gerald with me. I wasn't going to let her eat us both.

I wriggled a little on the wooden table I was bound to; the same one Gerald had had his arm cut off, I realised hollowly. But no amount of squirming did any good. I was bound fast.

"Welcome back, Lyra." Annis said in a warm tone.

"Let me go." I said sharply, my chest heaving from exertion and cold dread.

"No, Lyra." She replied as she pilled wood and oil into the hearth.

"Why not?"

"Because I intend to eat you. I thought you'd know that by now."

I bit my lip and glared. "Why? You could've just let us go. Why did you have to let Gerald die?" I demanded.

"Gerald was not meant to die." She said absent-mindedly as she worked, sparing no glance to the child's corpse. She was now going over some quite ugly tools; saws, knives, weird utensils. It made my throat close up. "His death was an accident. I never kill those of this town unless they step over the line. I intended to punish him again for not coming home but not kill." She paused. "Not yet anyway. He was beginning to get out of hand."