Hidden in the Heartwood {sapphic paranormal}

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

25. || it will come back.

River waited for the shadows to grow long before emerging from their hiding spot beneath the little thornberry. All her red berries that had been ripe just days ago were now rotten and shriveled. She was quiet like the rest of the trees. Still. No earthly current rumbled beneath River's boots as they looked from the woods to the ruins of the springhouse. The effects of the crick filling with fracked demon excrement had rippled beyond just the spring and they had ignored the warning signs.

"Blessed Samhain, love."

"Samhain?" River's knuckles tightened around the shovel's handle as they turned. "It's not—"

"Losin' track of your days?" Vera sat in her usual spot in the dip of the trunk, but something felt different about her posture. Her shoulders seemed to sink deeper into the bark, her boot barely swung in the air. Even from the distance, her eyes seemed a little more gray than blue.

"Evidently, I have. But seems it's for the best." The golden hour sunlight washed over River as they rounded the hemlock and counted out five lengths of their foot from the trunk. Striking the pineneedle covered ground with the shovel, they began to dig.

"You gonna bury them rotten boys right behind me?"

"Nope." River continued digging quick as they could without looking up. "I buried ya on the southern side so ya wouldn't get cold. A lotta good that did."

Petite black boots stepped over the gnarled roots, careful to remain connected with the hemlock, but she didn't venture away from the trunk as she had nights past. "You still mad at me, love?"

"Not even sure mad is the word for it, Vera. I just want ya gone."

The faintest rumble vibrated up the wooden handle of the shovel as Vera stepped down off the trunk and balanced on a narrow root that reached towards them. "Stop that, now. Diggin' me bones up like a petulant child. What's the matter with ya?"

"I was a child, wasn't I? When I buried ya here?" River drove the shovel deep, striking what was hopefully a pile of charred black bone. "A changeling child. A demon, yeah?"

Grabbing the handle, Vera tried to yank it away from them, but her back foot slipped. River dropped the shovel to catch her waist. Her arms wrapped their neck, pulling them in close as River guided her back to the root before the unforgiving mountain seared the sole of her foot.

"Why'd ya do it, Vera?" River whispered, unable to break her hold. Lemon and bergamot filled their nose with every inhale of her coiffured blonde hair. "I know it was you who bound me to the mountain, tied me to a curse that had no business bein' mine, regardless what I am. And I know you was in love with that woman's granny and that's why ya need her blood to finish whatever you'ns started."

"I had ya bound here for us. So we'd always have each other." Vera slowly lifted her head from their shoulder. Her hands fell to their chest. "She wanted to send ya back and I couldn't. Ya know that already. Thalia betrayed me, Riv. How else ya think I ended up on that lime rick?"

"Was that before or after ya tried to drown her daughter in the springhouse?"

"Tried?" Her eyes sharpened as she laughed. "Was after ya stole me garnet and gave it to the wee hen to use against me." A stream of blood tinged brown dripped down out her nose and over her lips. "Against us both."

River reached up to wipe the blood from her nose, all viscous and gritty against their thumb. "It's in ya too," they murmured. "You're sick like the rest of the woods."

"Dyin', love." As she smiled, it continued to run from her nostrils. "Wee bit different this time around. But it's seepin' into ya too and ya know why it's here and who it's here for. I may have given Thalia that lock of your hair, but she bound ya with her piss n' blood. Same blood will end the curse and we'll be able to save this godforsaken mountain 'fore it dies."