Page 31 of Woods of the Raven

“No matter,” he replied, watching, walking toward me, noticing just as I did that the dogs didn’t make a move on him. He was magic, after all, like me, and they weren’t sure what he was, but thus far, he didn’t strike them as something to kill. “I’m sure they won’t care if I kill a…what did I hear the man call you the other day? A kitchen witch? A hearth witch? What even is that? Something to say so humans won’t be afraid? How quaint.”

“You’ve been here? Listening at my door?” That was terrifying because it meant I’d missed his presence completely. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security because it had been years since I or the land had been attacked by anything. But this was a good reminder that vigilance, for a witch, was mandatory. Being caught off guard meant death.

“At the window, yes,” he told me, getting closer. “I couldn’t get inside, of course, but your land is needed, so my master bid me to come and procure it for him.”

“Who is your master?” I asked casually, hoping he’d say.

“You may be weak, but his name is not to be given without sacrifice.”

Which meant that for his master to cross from his realm to mine, there had to be blood offerings on both sides. “So you’re not gonna tell me?” I teased him, trying for innocent.

“No,” he said, tipping his head, regarding me. “You know, for a human, you’re not crudely made. You might do well as a thrall in my master’s bedchamber.”

“Tempting,” I said sardonically. “But tell me, what does your master need my land for?” Though I already knew. But best to keep the creature talking.

“My master needs to enter this realm, and your door is unguarded.”

All over the world there were entryways from one dimension to another. Some of them were guarded by whole covens of witches, some were too small to allow anything bigger than a mouse through, while still others were at the bottom of the sea, which was why I suspected that every now and then a new species of fish was discovered. Others were at the tops of mountains, where the air was rarified, and some were small, not much more than a tear, a sliver, only visible in the fog or in the moonlight, taken as a trick of the light and nothing more.

The one on Corvus, the one my grandfather had protected, and my father would have if he and my mother hadn’t been killed in a car accident years ago, was bigger than that. It was near the bend in the stream, and it could be drawn back like a curtain. It was large enough that several beings could come through at once. Not an army, but still. Over the centuries it had been used by many to cross into our world from places most people thought were myth. Everything from gods to sprites had left one land for another. Most went back and forth, some stayed, but nothing evil could cross as long as the guardian kept watch. That was me. That was what I was for.

“I assure you, friend, mage or not, the door is not unguarded.”

He grunted as though I was adorable. “Even if you show us some kind of feeble resistance, keep in mind that there is land on both sides of you, and I know you care about the farmers and the beekeepers, so lying is futile. I will run the land red with their blood and see how well you do then.”

He knew my weakness. Or thought he did.

I reached deeper into the earth, calling on the wards that had been crafted scores of generations before I was born.

The thing was, what creatures like this fae always missed was that witches and warlocks and mages were still, in essence, humans. Because of that, because most of us lived in a community with other people and had always liked our neighbors, we’d taken precautions to keep them safe.

There were journals in my little house that went back hundreds of years, talking about this neighbor or that and how friendly they were, and how much they all depended on one another. It was a symbiotic relationship, and then in more recent memory, my grandfather had been close friends with both families on either side of us, just as I was now. In that vein, someone somewhere in the Corey line had decided that our land, being the only survivor of some supernatural catastrophe brought to bear because of our guardianship of the doorway, wasn’t enough. We needed our friends to come through unscathed as well, not just our family. Since I was wildly fond of Charles and Allie on my left, as well as Troy and Rita, and now Delia, on my right, I was glad I could tell this creature to go right to hell. Or would have if I wasn’t smarter than that. It was always best not to tip your hand too soon.

“I do care,” I said, instead of provoking him, and exhaled deeply as I felt my power wash over me.

Safe, I said.

Safe, the land answered.

My magic rose steadily, and the way it worked resembled quicksand: one second whoever I was fighting was unaffected, nothing seemed to be happening, like they were standing on solid land, and the next they noticed they were deep in something. It wasn’t enough to frighten at first, but enough to make them uncomfortable. But then, suddenly, they realized they were trapped—up to their ankles, then quickly thighs, and finally, before they had time to be scared down deep to their core, they were drowning.

When my grandmother had first felt my power rise, she had stared at me afterward like I was a ghost.

“Gran?” I asked gently.

“Oh, love,” she whispered, finally reaching for me. “This is what comes of being seen by a god.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. Not then. It took me years to understand I was a very different kind of witch. To other magical folk, just by looking at me, I appeared quite benign, not at all frightening, and entirely forgettable. No one really saw me until my power ran over or through them.

The creature felt it then, and clawed at the air around him. It had to feel like he was suffocating, and his scream split the night, loud and filled with terror, echoing through the woods. He stumbled back, and I could see the white all the way around his eyes. “You’re not a common witch,” he rasped, and I heard him inhale sharply.

As if any witches were common. I scowled at him for that.

“You’re a branded witch.”

“I am,” I agreed, smiling as I felt my power radiate out from me, then tumble and roll, across the Wingate Farm, over acres and acres, sweep the Johnson land, to their apiary, all the way to the preserve, and then finally return to the font where it began, with me, with my land, with Corvus, that flowed from the edge of my drive to a cliff overlooking the sea. “My line, we were blessed by a goddess, but me in particular, I was marked by a god.”

It wasn’t important which goddess had granted us our gifts because that wasn’t the part that made me formidable. What made me different, especially for the creature standing close, was that a god had seen me and branded me as his own, only the second ever in my line to be marked by a deity.