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The makeshift trail looked plucked from a horror movie.
Branches circled overhead and a darkness surrounded each side of the trail, giving no light or indication of what watched you from a distance.
I couldn’t show my fear. Deidamia was like an animal. She sensed it. Carefully, I started down the path, praying it led me to her castle. Who else would live in the Dark Woods?
Maybe I didn’t need to think about it.
No one of interest to me would survive in the Dark Woods.
The sunlight hit my skin every few feet through the fog that acted as a canopy above me. The wind brought putrid smells and a brush of warm air so hot it seemed fire was nearby. Was that the smell of brimstone?
Though, the only smoke I saw was the billowing kind that came from a home. A castle.
Ash rained down on me after several yards into the forest. I smeared it between my fingertips, knowing it would lead me to her.
The crow had vanished from my sight, but the prickle on the back of my neck told me that he was still watching. The slingshot in my pocket waited on him.
Maybe this time I’d hit him right between the eyes and suck the life out of him like she’d sucked the life out of my wife.
Chapter Ten
Josie
I slipped in and out of consciousness.
Knowing I’d been taken wasn’t enough to keep my eyes open. The force of being tossed to and fro made my head swim and stars dance across my vision. Vomit climbed my throat often, but if I threw up I didn’t remember.
My eyes were glued shut.
They stayed that way for however long. Time didn’t really seem to matter to me when the distant smell of brimstone woke me.
There weren’t too many other things in my life that would wake me out of my sleep. Or make me gag. My cat from my elementary years got stuck in my closet one day while I was at school and left me a prize—or seven—for when I got back.
This was worse. Much worse.
It smelled like rotten eggs with an ungodly determination to drown you in it. Each breath smelled worse than the last.
A drop of water landed on my cheek, and I swiped it away as my eyes adjusted to the room around me.
At least I’m not dead.
I didn’t think the lady would kill me if she needed something in return, but luckily for me, this was my first time being kidnapped. How would my family even find me through a portal in the woods? Things weren’t looking good for me at the moment.
The room spun as I pushed myself up and tried to examine my surroundings. Darkness swirled in my vision along with cobblestone and one lone candle in the corner.
This was not anywhere I wanted to be.
I braced my palm along my forehead and took an uneven breath. The thin mattress underneath smelled like urine and mold.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, but the stench was so strong it nearly knocked me over. All my senses were coming back one by one, each bringing something grotesque with it. So much that I wished they’d stay gone until I was relocated out of this hellhole.
Crawling up to my knees, I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my palms until the sleepiness washed away. The room was bare other than the thin mattress and night table that held the candle.
A large wooden door was nestled into the corner of the room, one of those circular knobs you see on castles, which wouldn’t be too far-fetched at the moment, hanging against the wood.
This does look like a basement or a torture chamber.
The floor was damp when I stood. The fact that I wasn’t wearing shoes or normal clothes seemed to be the least of my worries.
