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A world of black spun around Sadie as she fell through emptiness, hollowness, rage, melancholy, revenge, fear, love. She didn’t think she would ever stop falling as she traveled through the darkness. But then a spark of light bloomed, and a woman with curly brown hair sat below her. Before she could make out any other features, Sadie crashed on top of her, or better yet, inside of her. Heather… Sadie could feel her, see into the young woman’s mind as if she were flipping through a book at warp speed—all of Heather’s memories.
An abusive childhood, running away with Blake to live in the woods after they suffered a miscarriage. A boy who had come from a home just as broken as hers. Heather set her book beside her in the warm sun, watching as the man she loved chopped wood.
There hadn’t been enough money for Blake to buy her an engagement ring, but he was her husband in every way that mattered. After growing up the way she had, she hoped they could still have a baby so she could prove that they were nothing like their parents while giving their child all the love in the world. As she pressed a hand to her stomach, looking at Blake now—possibly one day.
“What do you want for dinner?” Heather called. “My sister can’t make it tonight, so it’s just us.”
He didn’t answer, nor did he lift his head—he just continued to strike the wood into smaller pieces. Grunting louder with each chop.
Frowning, Heather stood and walked toward him. “Blake, did you hear me?”
Silence crawled through the air, the breeze stilling, the insects’ songs halting, leaving only the echo of Blake’s axe slamming into the tree stump. Harder and harder. No longer chopping wood. He finally glanced up at her with clenched teeth, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the axe.
An expression rested on his face that Heather had never seen, rage for her swirling in his gaze. Heather hesitated, taking a step back, remembering her childhood, knowing how to run and hide when necessary. But Blake was faster—he lunged forward, swinging his axe, the blade cutting clean through Heather’s swan-like neck. The pain radiated only for a moment, but Sadie felt it all. And somehow, she was still there, watching as Blake dropped his axe and fished out a pocket knife from his jeans. He flipped the blade open, his eyes inhuman, lifeless, while he drew a bloody smile across his throat. Thick crimson spilled down his chest from the wound as he collapsed on the ground beside Heather, his body still.
This was the couple who’d lived here, who’d died outside the cabin… A cabin that Sadie could now see perfectly—only the garden was blossoming, the home freshly painted.
And then Sadie was ripped away from the two dead lovers, drifting back into the swirling darkness, falling and falling, until another young woman came into view. Long blonde curls, her shirt sleeveless and tucked into plaid shorts. Sadie almost caught more of her features until she dropped inside the stranger’s body.
The woman’s memories barreled into Sadie. Her name was Kathy and she had a perfect life growing up, the ideal family, but she’d always wanted out of the small town. After meeting her fiancé, Keith, they had a pact to one day leave, pursue her dream to act in movie pictures while he did special effects make-up. When she couldn’t carry their baby to term, they decided to finally leave. They were camping out in the woods one last time before driving to California, to discover what new adventures awaited them.
Kathy placed another marshmallow on the end of her stick and held it over the fire. She’d already eaten several s’mores, but she couldn’t deny fixing an endless amount. In Hollywood, one had to watch their weight, but she wasn’t worried about that at the moment. She could still feel the loss of her baby inside her, yet she placed the memory in the little box at the back of her mind for now.
Glancing up at Keith, Kathy smiled as he cleaned his rifle, his chestnut hair hanging in his face. “Do you want me to make you another s’more before you go hunting?” she asked.
Keith didn’t answer, only continued to rub at his gun with the cloth, his movements rough. His hand picked up speed, running up and down it harder and harder. The woods grew silent, just as they had with Heather and Blake, same as they’d been with Sadie. Sadie held her breath, knowing this was the second couple who had died in these woods and what would happen to them soon enough.
“Earth to Keith, can you hear me?” Kathy laughed, nudging his leg with her bare foot.
He looked up then, his stare blank yet heavy with intent.
Kathy’s laugh cut off, a chill crawling up her spine, and she drew the stick away from the fire. “Stop staring at me like that. You’re scaring me.”
Keith raised his gun, and just as Kathy turned to dodge out of the way, a bullet rang through the air, piercing her skull. Her body collapsed, and she lay twitching for a few moments before becoming still.
Sadie blinked away the fading pain and watched in horror as Keith propped the rifle against the ground. He placed his mouth over the rifle, then pulled the trigger. She screamed, her sounds deafening to herself. But then she was falling once more into the sweeping world of darkness…
Again and again, Sadie collided with another body, where the young woman was murdered by the man she loved. He would then turn the weapon on himself or use another. In every occurrence, silence echoed, accompanying the tragedies, and always in the woods somewhere. With each spell into the darkened hellish pit, Sadie ventured farther back through time—decades, centuries. The women had been strangled, shot, stabbed through the chest, slit throats, so many deaths. As for the men, in every occurrence, they’d looked as though they were possessed, their eyes hollow.
This time when Sadie was dispersed into the darkness, a sparking sensation fluttered around her, inside her, and her gaze pinned to a woman wearing what looked to be a black dress with a collar from centuries ago, her obsidian hair braided down her back. Recognition set in—she knew that face—it was the woman who had been inside the mirror that had reflected back at Sadie.
As Sadie entered the woman’s body, she gasped, struggling to find air. So much pain and darkness pierced through her like a sharp blade that Sadie screamed, not knowing if she would ever stop.
The woman’s name was Harlow, and she was the youngest in her family. Her mother had suffered numerous miscarriages due to Harlow’s father’s beatings before eventually dying from infected lashings he’d given her. Out of her three oldest siblings who’d made it to term, Harlow’s two older brothers had passed away because of her father’s abuse—he’d made them continue to work the fields when ill. That left only Harlow and her older sister with their father.
Their father was a witch, and Harlow and Ada had inherited his abilities. If the town discovered it and accused them of being witches, death would soon follow. Witchcraft meant one consorted with the devil, even though that was false.
Sadie had never experienced such darkness firsthand. Her skin crawled as the memories shot through her. But Harlow hadn’t always been that way. Sadie caught glimpses of special moments—Harlow dancing at night in the woods beneath the full moon, even though she knew it was forbidden. A young man named Jasper discovered her there, a man who was a witch like her, except from a coven. He was a painter, and she was a storyteller, the perfect match. Harlow’s father forbade her from seeing him and wouldn’t allow marriage because he was a witch. She was to be betrothed to a nonwitch, the way her sister Ada was with Eben. She’d known the threat, but she hadn’t cared.
The rage within Harlow grew, and she’d snuck into the night to see Jasper anyway, yet her father had found them. As he tied a noose around Jasper’s neck, Harlow stabbed him in the throat, killing her father.
Sadie took deep breaths because that wasn’t all. What came after was far worse. Jasper’s coven discovered what Harlow’s father had almost done to him, and even though he was dead, they chose to take it out on her.
After lashings and placing her head beneath water numerous times, they went to burn her alive when Jasper took out the entire coven by using magic. Harlow knew that soon enough her village would do the same if they ever discovered what they were. That fear for her loved ones twisted into something angry, deadly.
They resided in the space below ground where Jasper’s coven would meet, and made it into their home. Together they started plucking animals from the wild, turning them into moths to protect them, using their eyes and ears to warn them. But that wasn’t enough to stop Harlow’s fear. The villagers of Salem came next, and so did those accused of witchery because of it. Harlow ripped their essence away, feeding off it, and created their protectors, made of animal and human bone. The portion that was unnecessary of the essence was hidden away in a room below ground, altering into something savage.
The fiends … the moths … Sadie had seen them.
