Page 3 of Eldritch
A scream tore through her chest at the same time as a hard yank sent her flying through the archway.
Into The Eating Woods.
Shrill wails of agony rang out in the distance, and The Crone Witch straightened from where she bent over a patch of frosted moonberry. She twisted toward The Eating Woods, pausing to listen. Wasn’t unusual to hear the occasional scream of some poor, unwitting soul who’d gotten a bit too close.
Fools.
She turned back to her toil, but another sound rose above the first. A long, nasally cry of a child, higher pitched and more frantic. Like that of a newborn.
Frowning, she lifted her lantern and hobbled around the corner of the cottage, toward the center of her yard, where she could see something at the foot of the distant archway surrounded by a cluster of ravens.
A small babe in a basket?
Scanning the surroundings showed no one, but those cries went on, until The Crone Witch could no longer ignore it. Keeping to the edge of the trees, she limped closer. Closer still—until she came upon the basket in which a baby lay trembling, its tiny hands having come loose from its swaddling. A raven sat beside the child, roosting close, which seemed to fascinate the babe, as it no longer screamed. Those eyes, silver eyes, remained riveted on the bird.
Eyes of silver and deathly pale skin.
The child her priestess had prophesied would arrive with a new moon.
The Crone Witch glanced up at the black sky and trailed her gaze downward, to where a flitting piece of red fabric had caught on a sharp tine of the archway’s bone. She lifted it from the pointed tip, noting a wet saturation, and released it, watching it vanish into the trees. What she surmised to be blood coated her fingertips.
Perhaps the child’s mother, eaten by the woods.
Masculine voices emerged from the distant tree line ahead of her and the old woman dimmed her lantern, scurrying to hide amongst a copse of shrubs. She watched as an older man approached—a hunter, judging by the bow strapped to his back, the earthy tone of his clothing, and the snares he carried at his hip. A boy, no more than twelve, walked alongside him, garbed in the same clothing. Both of them headed toward the baby, and as they seemed to catch sight of her, the older hunter frowned.
“By God, is that a baby?” The boy lowered himself alongside the basket, and the older hunter knocked him backward with a swift shove of his shoulder.
“Keep your distance.”
“But it’s just a babe, Pa. So tiny, like Margaret.”
The boy’s father nodded toward the child. “Look at its eyes. An aberration.” He looked around, his palm resting on the hilt of a dagger at his hip. “Ravens flock to evil. Whoever left it here, did so with intention. And we will do the same.”
“But the animals will get it, won’t they, Pa? Won’t the ravens eat the eyes out of it?”
“I should think something far worse. It is the will of The Red God, boy. Leave the child.”
“It’ll freeze,” the boy argued.
“Leave it! Go now, finish these snares.” The older hunter handed them to the boy, casting an uneasy glance toward the ominous trees at his back. “Keep them hidden in the shrubs.”
Setting traps anywhere near The Eating Woods was against the law and the parish doctrines, as the animals that dwelled in proximity were considered to be infested with evil. Unfortunately, as winter raged on, food had become increasingly scarce, forcing hunters to venture beyond their usual grounds. Punishment, if one were caught committing such a crime, was banishment to The Eating Woods, as anyone who consumed the meat was thought to carry evil in their bellies. “I’ll set a few a ways down, and we’ll retire for the night. Come find me when you’ve finished.”
“Yes, Pa,” the boy answered solemnly.
“Stay away from that archway, and do not touch that child. Understand?”
The boy lowered his head and nodded.
With that, his father strode off, farther down the tree line, and the boy set to work laying his snare in the shrubs, as his father had instructed. When finished, he stood over the babe and shooed off the bird, which cawed and flapped its wings at the boy.
“Be gone, you wicked beast!” With a long walking stick, he batted the creature away and stared down at the child. “Father says to leave you be. But perhaps it’s more merciful…” He drew his dagger from his hip, its tip sharp and glistening. “You are an ugly monster with those eyes. Perhaps I should pluck them out of your skull.”
The Crone Witch pushed up from her hiding spot and crept toward the boy with light steps, so as not to make a sound, until she stood at his back. So close, she could feel the tickle of his stray hairs upon her nose. He drew back his dagger, as if to strike the baby, and the old witch caught his wrist from behind.
Gasping, he spun around and let out a small cry that died in his throat.
Still gripping his limb, she slapped her hand over his mouth, eyes stern. “You would pluck the eyes out of an innocent babe, would you?” Brows raised, she lowered her hand from his face.
