Winterwood

This is how it kills. It traps and suffocates. It smothers the life from living things who have intruded where they shouldn’t have. This is why no deer pass through the Wicker Woods. No rabbits or mice or birds. They fear this length of forest. They know what hides inside it: death.

The forest shivers with the rupture of firelight. The trees howl—a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

The flames move swiftly now, spiraling up a dead tree into the night sky. The roots that had entwined themselves around Suzy’s ankle slither back down beneath the soil, retreating. “Nora?” Suzy asks, looking like a small child, terrified.

“We have to run,” I say. Fire leaps from one tree to the next, roaring, creating its own wind, sparks catching on limbs and scattering across the forest floor. Fury igniting them, malice and anger more flammable than any fuel.

“Which direction?” Suzy asks.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Rhett is squeezing his hands against his hat, Jasper’s eyes are too wide, and Lin is looking back at me, waiting for me to tell them what to do.

Ash already begins to flit down from above, burnt remains of pine needles, some still lit and smoldering. And then, between the particles that fill the air, I see the subtle flicker of wings.

White wings beating.

White wings that won’t leave me alone.

White wings zigzagging through the strange air—sparks and burning trees and the night sky opening up above us.

My moth. A bone moth.

It hovers a few feet ahead of me, then quivers away in the direction of the old creek bed. Death wants me to follow.

So I do—what choice do I have? Any of us?

I start down the shallow creek and Suzy follows. The moth moves quickly, fleeing the smoke and the growing flames—white shredded wings thumping nervously. It wants free of these woods just like we do. It wants out.

I break into a run, and I can feel the trail of boys behind me—everyone sprinting now. No one worried about finding Oliver or gathering lost things, we just need to get out. Now.

The air turns hot and ashy, smothered by smoke, and my eyes water—stinging with each blink. I try to see the terrain in front of me, but I trip on rocks and clumps of snow and roots woven above the earth. I blink and I run. I run. I had felt chilled only moments ago, but now sweat beads from my skin, slips down my spine, and trickles into my eyes, making things worse.

I lose sight of the moth. It gets lost in the growing smoke, in the thick brush, but then it reappears again. The dry creek bed fades to nothing. I can’t be sure we’re going the right way—deeper into the mountains or back toward the lake. The ground slopes down, but at times we climb up. Higher, farther into the wilderness.

The fire expands, groaning and popping and wailing, like a beast chasing us, spurred on by its own cyclone of wind. The heat is unbearable, the smoke suffocating.

“We should be out by now,” Rhett calls from behind me. But I ignore him.

Every breath grates against my throat like sandpaper. Smoke fills our lungs. The entire forest is burning and we are lost inside it.

“Then don’t follow us,” Suzy snaps. She’s had enough of him.

Lin keeps pace with Suzy and me, but Rhett and Jasper are slower, second-guessing every turn.

I pause at a place where the forest is divided in two. Pine trees on one side, a grove of hemlocks on the other. And I’ve lost sight of the moth again.

“Where the hell are you taking us?” Jasper shouts when he catches up. He steps closer to me, like he’s going to reach out and grab my arm, but I move away.

“Leave her alone,” Suzy says to him. “She’s the only chance we have of getting out of here.”

“Unless she wants us to die in here,” Rhett says. His eyes have taken on the shadow of someone who is desperate, willing to do whatever it takes. Someone who will fight to survive. “She is a witch after all,” he says. “Maybe she has something to do with this.”

“Jasper started the fire,” Suzy says, meeting his gaze. “Not Nora.”

Flames tear through the trees behind us, cyclones of hot, ashy wind whipping closer, right at our heels. We need to move.

“Maybe she cast a spell to make the forest angry,” Jasper says, his mouth flattening into an unbroken line. “Maybe she doesn’t want us to find our way out, and it’s all a trick.”

“Maybe I did,” I spit, eyeing him now, anger coursing like black ribbons through every vein. “Maybe I’ll make sure you never leave these woods.” It’s a lie, but I don’t care. I want him to think I could conjure up death with the curl of my index finger.

Jasper moves toward me but Suzy steps between us, pushing her small hands against his broad chest. “Don’t fucking touch her,” she says.

Jasper shakes his head but keeps his eyes on me. “I vote we sacrifice her to the forest, let her burn in here like the witch she is.”

“Shut up, Jasper,” Lin interjects now, his face flush, the flames working their way up the pines only a few feet away from us.