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The huntress is suddenly by our sides. It startles me. Odd that I never heard her approach. I can't help thinking of her offering me the berries. It makes me cold all over. She wipes a ringer across Felicity's bloody face, rubs the stain with her thumb. She brings the finger to her mouth, tastes it and smiles.
"You've made a sacrifice, I see."
"Yes," Felicity says. "Will you grant us the power to enter the realms?"
"Didn't I promise that I would?" She smiles but there's no warmth in it. "Follow me."
I grab Felicity by the arm. "This is wrong. We shouldn't go," I whisper.
"No, somethings finally right," she says, breaking away and running after the others.
I follow them under the silver arch, into the grotto. My mother is nowhere to be seen. The smells of my childhood waft by. Curry. Pipe smoke. And something else. There it is again. That unpleasant stench.
We've reached the Runes of the Oracle, the heart of everything.
The breeze shifts. The smell is back. Underneath the memories is something pungent, like meat rotting in the sun. Does no one else smell it?
"What do we do now?" Pippa asks.
"Use the magic to take me through to the other side," the huntress says. "If we join hands and take you through, you'll give us the power we need, to come and go as we please?"
"Not me. My mistress. She will give you what you deserve."
Wariness steals inside me and takes its perch.
"Your mistress?" Felicity is confused.
Everything in me is screaming to run. I've got my hand on Felicity's arm, and as if she can feel my terror, she backs slowly away from the circle. The huntress seems to grow taller. Her eyes go black; her voice becomes a hiss.
"Come to me, my pretty ones."
The sky opens into a churning sea of dark clouds. Quick as rain, she rises before us, a towering, screeching wraith, carrying the souls of the damned inside her unfurling black cape. Felicity can't break away, can't stop staring at that skeletal face, the eyes rimmed in red with swirling black ovals for centers, the sharp, jagged teeth. The thing clamps a hand onto her arm. Felicity's mouth stretches into a ghastly O. Like ink, the black floats across her eyes, till they're bottomless.
"No!" I scream, barreling headlong into Felicity, the two of us sprawled on the ground. She's shaking all over, her eyes still black. Screaming, Pippa falls to the ground, scrambles down the hill, toward the river.
"Ann! Help me! We've got to get her back now!"
We're on either side of Felicity, running for the river. We have to find Pippa. We have to leave. A storm wind is blowing. It rips blossoms, leaves, and branches from trees, sends them flying over us. A branch narrowly misses my head and scrapes the side of my cheek, drawing blood.
The dark wraith grows another pair of arms and another. She slinks toward us, ready to crush us in her embrace. Felicity is coming out of it now, stumbling, then running. We've reached the river, but where is Pippa?
Ann's scream rips the air apart. "Help me!"
She's staring into the river, tearing at her hair. Her reflection has turned. She's covered in hideous boils. Her hair falls out in thick clumps and sores bubble up on her scalp. It's as if her skin is melting from her bones.
"Stop looking at yourself, Ann! Stop!" I scream.
"I can't! I can't!"
She's leaning closer to the water's edge. I slip my arms around her chest, but she's heavy and won't budge, and then she's free, falling back in the grass, thanks to a hard tug from Felicity. The gray of Ann's eyes has returned. "Where's Pippa?" she screams over the wind.
"I don't know," I shout.
Something slithers over my hand. Snakes wind through the tall grass as it shrivels and dries up. We jump onto a rock. Pears fall from a tree and rot at our feet. Ann is whimpering, watching her skin dissolve into ugliness.
"Help me!" Pippa's scream tears through us. When we stumble across the brittle grass, we see her. She has taken a large boat, a bier, onto the river, where the wind has pushed her out into the wide deep of it. The wraith paces the bank, forcing us to keep our distance.
" Yes, that's it come for her " it laughs.
