The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson Read Free Book Online Page B

her eyes, and she could still see Judas’ head perched atop that stump. “I lost him. I lost him in the woods.”
    “You went into the Darkwood? At night ?”
    “I didn’t mean to,” Immanuelle said softly, her split lip throbbing as she spoke. “Judas broke free of his tether and ran into the trees. I thought I could find him, but there was a storm and I got lost, and then night fell. I’m so sorry. It was dangerous and foolish. I should have known better. I should have listened to you.”
    Martha pressed a hand to her brow. She looked old in that moment, withered, like the happenings of the night had drained what little youth she had left. Abram was not the only one who had wasted over the passing years. Immanuelle had watched Martha suffer too. She knew her grandmother clung to her doctrines and her scriptures not out of faith, but out of fear. For though Martha never so much as muttered her daughter’s name, Immanuelle knew she lived in Miriam’s shadow. Everything Martha did—from her prayers to her charity—was just a futile attempt to escape the curse of her daughter’s death.
    “I saw something,” Immanuelle said, and her own voice sounded distant and foreign, like some stranger was speaking from another room.
    “What?” A terrible light came to Martha’s eyes. “What did you see?”
    “Women. Two women in the woods, alone.” Immanuelle folded her fingers around the strap of her pack. The strange book felt as heavy as a stone at the bottom of it. She knew she ought to surrender it to Martha. But she didn’t; she couldn’t. The women’s words in the wind traced through her mind: It’s yours. Immanuelle had never owned much of anything. Sometimes she felt like she barely belonged to herself. The idea of parting with one of the few things in the world that was hers to claim was almost unbearable, worse than a lashing. No, she couldn’t give it up.
    “And what were these women doing in the woods?”
    Immanuelle swallowed thickly. For a moment, she remembered how she had felt back at her first confession: sitting at the edge of her chair in the shadows of the kitchen, the apostle Amos seated opposite her, Scriptures in hand, frowning. He’d asked her if she’d ever indulged in the sins of the flesh, or if, in the night, her hands had wandered where they ought not go.
    Martha huffed, and Immanuelle returned to the present. “They were together, holding hands. And their eyes were odd, glazed, all white. They looked sick. Almost, well . . . dead.”
    Martha’s lips twitched, then twisted so violently that, in the dull glow of the hearth, she almost favored Abram. Her hand shook as she reached for the poker again, grasping its iron hilt as she drew it from the coals, hot and red and smoking. “Hold out your hand.”
    Immanuelle took a half step backward. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to unfurl her fingers. Her nails cut deep into the soft of her palms.
    Martha’s gaze darkened. “It’s either your hand or your cheek. Choose.”
    Gritting her teeth, Immanuelle raised her arm and extended her hand into the bloody glow of the fire’s light.
    In turn, Martha uttered the sinner’s prayer. “Mind thine eye and heart’s desire. Still thy tongue and stop thy ear. Heed the call of thy Father’s whisper. Linger not with devils near. Turn thy heart from sin’s temptation, and when thy soul is cast astray, seek solace through true confession, in atonement find thy way.”
    Martha’s grasp tightened around the poker’s hilt, and she lowered its glowing point to the flat of Immanuelle’s palm. “For the glory of the Father.”
    The scorching pain of the burn brought Immanuelle to her knees. She cut a scream through gritted teeth and collapsed, weeping, clutching her hand to her chest.
    Her vision went for a moment, and when her eyes focused again, she found herself leaning against the kitchen cabinets, Martha on the floor beside her. The faint smell of flesh char hung on the