Chapter Eleven

  The bile burned her throat, hot and sour, and her whole body trembled as she retched again, emptying herself until there was nothing left but dry, heaving sobs.

  Above her, the tree, now barren and empty, creaked in the summer breeze that dusted the tops of the trees. It towered over her, menacing and dark. She couldn’t look at it. She couldn’t look at anything. Her fingers dug into the dirt, clinging to the ground like she might be swept away if she let go.

  She’d left him.

  The thought was a knife that turned in her chest, sharp and relentless. She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the flood of guilt from drowning her. Chris was still there, trapped with Kat in that awful, broken place, and she’d left him. She’d left him. The words repeated in her head like a chant, growing louder until they blocked out everything else.

  Above, a crow jeered at her.

  Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and looked at squat ranch set into the sloping hillside. From her angle, she could see the garage door was open, offering safety. Her arms shook as she pushed herself to her knees, but her body screamed in protest. Her back screamed where she’d landed, and her knee throbbed with every movement. She crawled blindly toward the garage, her breaths shallow and ragged. The hot August sun pressed down on her as she labored toward the silent house.

  Hot tears burned in her eyes as she crawled across the grass. Chris was still there, trapped and alone, and she’d done that. It was her fault. When she reached the house, she collapsed against the side of the open garage door, her nails scraping the concrete slab. Her knees ached where they pressed into the cracked driveway, but she barely noticed. Her entire world had narrowed to the single truth she couldn’t escape: It’s my fault.

  Hot tears burned her cheeks, and she let out a choked sob, covering her face with her filthy hands. Her ribs ached from the force of her grief, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Chris was gone, and it was her fault. Just like Maggie.

  In the corner of the empty garage, on a shelf above an old wooden workbench, an old radio flared to life. “Greer,” Maggie’s voice cut through the silent garage.

  Greer froze, her breath hitching painfully. The sound of her mother’s voice—so familiar and impossibly real—split something open inside her, and she let out a raw, broken cry. She dragged herself upright, using the garage doorframe for support. She limped inside to the workbench.

  “Mom? Oh God, Mom.” She fell bodily against the wooden work surface and pulled the radio down, cradling in her lap as she sank to the oil stained concrete floor. “Everything is so fucked up,” she sobbed.

  “Greer,” Maggie said, her voice sharper now. “What happened?”

  Greer choked on a sob, her fingers curling tightly around the edges of the radio. “Grandma’s alive,” she blurted, her words tumbling over each other. “She’s alive, and she has Chris, and I—I left him.” Her voice cracked as the weight of the confession hit her. “Oh God, I left him.”

  The words echoed in the empty garage, stark and unforgiving. Saying it out loud made it worse, not better. Her throat felt raw, her chest tight, and for a moment, she thought she might drown in the enormity of it all.

  “Greer,” Maggie’s voice came again, quieter now, more insistent. “You have to breathe, baby. I need you to take a breath.”

  Greer sucked in a ragged gasp, but it caught halfway, choking her. Her chest heaved, her pulse pounding in her ears. The radio shook in her hands, her grip so tight her fingers ached.

  “Listen to me,” Maggie said, her voice cutting through the chaos with a sharp edge. “You can’t help him like this. You have to pull it together. Start at the beginning—what do you mean, ‘Kat’s alive’?”

  Greer froze, her breath hitching. The radio seemed impossibly heavy in her lap, like holding onto it might crush her. “She’s alive,” Greer whispered, her voice trembling. “I saw her. She was— she’s not the same but she’s still there, in that place. And she has Chris.”

  Maggie didn’t speak right away, but the silence crackled with static, jagged and uneasy. “That’s not possible,” Maggie said finally, her voice low. “Greer, are you sure?”

  “She was there, Mom,” Greer said, her voice breaking. “She spoke to me. She... she called me weak.”

  Maggie swore sharply, a sound Greer had rarely heard from her mother, even in life. “Jesus,” Maggie muttered, her voice barely audible through the static. “That woman never could stay buried.”

  Greer let out a hollow laugh, bitter and raw. “Guess it runs in the family.”

  “Don’t you start with that,” Maggie snapped, her sharpness tempered by worry. “This isn’t on you, Greer. You didn’t bring her back.”

  “I left him,” Greer said again, the words spilling out in a desperate rush. “I left him with her, and now he’s—he’s—” Her throat closed up, choking off the rest of her sentence.

  “The Mueller boy? The one you used to play with?”

  Greer nodded, even though her mother couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”

  Maggie’s voice turned fierce. “Okay, Greer, listen to me. Kat hasn’t won yet. Chris isn’t gone yet. But if you sit here drowning in guilt, he’s as good as dead.”

  Greer flinched, the words landing like a slap. She pressed her forehead against the edge of the workbench, tears still spilling down her face. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “She’s too strong. I’m not—I’m not enough.”

  “Yes, you are,” Maggie said, her voice firm and unwavering. “You’re more than enough. You’ve always been. You’re just too scared to see it.”

  Greer shook her head, her hair sticking to her damp cheeks. “I can’t fix this.”

  “Then stop trying to fix it,” Maggie said. “Start fighting. Start doing something. You want to save him? Then stand up, Greer. Stand up and fight.”

  The words hit her like a shock, snapping through the fog of despair. Greer blinked, her tears slowing, her breaths steadier. She stared at the radio in her lap, Maggie’s voice still echoing in her ears.

  “You don’t have to do it alone,” Maggie continued, softer now. “You have me. And you know who to talk to. Someone who can help.”

  Greer’s fingers tightened around the radio, her mind racing. She thought of the tree, the shadowed place she’d left behind, and the black depths of her grandmother’s cruelty. The ache in her chest was still there, but now it burned, sharp and focused.

  Her gaze fell to the garden tools piled on the floor beside the workbench. Among them, the dull gleam of an ax head caught the light. Slowly, Greer reached for it, her hand closing around the worn wooden handle. She pulled it free from the other tools and the ax head gleamed dimly in the low light, like a dim star in the dark.

  It was heavier than she would’ve expected, with a top-heavy head and a thick handle that took two hands to grip. Holding it calmed her stomach enough so that she didn’t feel like she was going to throw up anymore.

  “Better?” Maggie asked.

  Greer grit her teeth and pushed herself to her feet. “Better.”

  She shouldered the ax and grabbed the radio with her free hand before setting off down the slope to the backyard. Henry’s house was set into the woods, and whoever had built it had carved a rectangle of grassy yard out of the sloping forest. The pine trees that surrounded it swayed in the summer wind like rows of wheat, and that same wind grabbed her tee shirt and hair, pulling them away from her body, tugging on her insistently, urging her to hurry.

  She took a deep, shaking breath, then spoke. “What is that place?” she asked her mother, setting the radio on the grass next to the house. “The place I go to when I phase?”

  Maggie’s voice crackled back after a long pause. “I don’t know,” she said finally, but there was something uneasy in her tone, a waver that made Greer’s stomach churn. It wasn’t a clean “I don’t know.” It was tangled and knotted, like something she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—unravel.

  “Don’t lie to me. You always say you don’t know.”

  “I don’t!” Maggie argued, her tone sharper now, but not unkind. “It’s not like I can go with you, Greer! I’ve never been there. I can’t see what you see.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve described it to you more than once,” Greer shot back, frustration bubbling over.

  Ahead, the tree stood in the middle of Henry’s backyard, twisted and blacked like it’d survived a forest fire. The ax rested hard on her shoulder, its weight solid and grounding. She tightened her grip on the handle, the memory of the creature’s scream still sharp in her mind, a reminder of how close it had come. At least now she had something to protect herself with.

  “You can’t tell me that Grandma didn’t talk about it,” she continued. “That woman loved to crow about how good she was at magic. She must’ve said something!”

  Her mother was silent.

  “Come one, Mom!” Greer cried, her desperation making her shrill. “Help me save him!” Frustrated tears burned her eyes and stopped up her throat. She was drowning without a life raft, with no help on the horizon. He was there because of her, and that one thought was enough to make her bend every rule she’d ever made for herself.

  She needed help, and she didn’t care who she had to beg to get it.

  “There was one thing,” her mother began, almost hesitantly, like she was afraid of the words. “My mom used to ask me if I’d fallen Under when I was a teenager. It’s like she was checking to see if I could do what she could do. When it became clear I would never be like her; she stopped asking.”

  Greer could work with that. “Okay,” she said. “What was it called?”

  “Mom just called it the Under.”

  “The Under.” Greer tried the words out in her mouth, rolling them around with her tongue to see how they felt. It felt... right. “Okay,” she said. “I need to figure out how to get back there.”

  “Greer,” Maggie said quickly, her tone thick with worry. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  Greer’s jaw tightened, and she lifted the ax higher on her shoulder. “I got him into this mess,” she said. “I’m not letting him stay there.” She stared up at the tree, wondering how she could do this. It was connected; she was sure of it.

  A thought occurred to her.

  The books in the attic might be able to help. If they’d come back, that was. She turned, orienting herself to where the Dane farmhouse must be on the other side of the trees when a loud pop cracked through the forest and something sharp bit her leg. She looked down in surprise and watched as blood welled up in a long graze mark that ran crosswise across her thigh.

  “Hands up!” a craggy voice shouted from the trees.

  Greer looked up in shock at the sight of Wilhelm pushing his way through the undergrowth at the edge of the yard. He held the same long rifle he’d shot the Hunter with, only this time, it was pointed at her.

  ---

  The smell hit him first.

  It was different than he remembered. Gone was the stench of burning plastic and wood. Only sulfur remained. Around him, the pit was black as pitch. No light radiated through the darkness. Tad rolled off Henry and gagged. He struggled to his hands and knees as the ground beneath him shifted under his weight. His body felt different too. Heavier somehow.

  In the darkness, Henry coughed and groaned. He’d taken the brunt of their fall, landing on his back in the dark.

  “What did you do?” Tad tried to ask, but his voice caught in his throat. The air in the pit was humid as fuck. It clung to him, making his jeans stick to his legs and drawing out beads of sweat along the back of his neck. It was a struggle to draw in breath, like trying to breathe water, and he coughed. “What did you do?” he tried again.

  The ground shifted again as Henry moved. “I did what I had to,” he said. Like Tad, his voice was rough.

  “Why?” Tad countered.

  Henry maneuvered himself up and Tad reached out, feeling for the other man. His questing hands found Henry’s thin body, and the other man grabbed his wrist and used Tad’s bulk to keep himself upright.

  “Because if I didn’t, she would’ve killed it,” Henry said.

  Tad didn’t follow. “What?”

  “The Tree.”

  Tad stilled as confusion bled into anger. “You knew where it was all this time?” he sputtered. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  Henry’s grip tightened on his arm, and Tad could almost feel his glare in the dark. “Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not gonna let her destroy something I worked so hard on,” Henry snapped.

  Tad pulled himself away from the other man, disgusted. “You’re crazy.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Henry hissed. “I’m not going to let her do the same thing she did last time. You don’t understand how long it took me to coax it from seed.”

  Henry was right. Tad didn’t understand.

  Everything Simone had said to Henry came flooding back to him as the older man spoke. About his pride. About those kids getting killed... at the time, he hadn’t understood, but now, standing there in the dark with a man that might very possibly be insane, it made his stomach turn.

  “What have you done?” he found himself asking, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

  “I did what none of them witches ever could,” Henry crowed. “I grew a Tree from a seed! They said it was impossible, that it couldn’t be done, but I did it! Me!”

  Tad was going to be sick.

  He had to get out of there.

  The only problem was that it was dark as fuck in the pit. He couldn’t see anything. He wished he still had his mug flashlight, but that had been lost since the first time he’d gone down into the basement, and he had no hope of finding it now. Then a thought occurred to him.

  He still had his phone.

  He turned away from Henry and dug in his pocket. Damn, it felt good to have full range of motion again. For the first time in days, Tad could move normally, thanks to Kenny’s work. He pulled his phone out and thumbed it on. His heart sank when he saw the battery percentage. Less than half a charge left. The flashlight function would drain it, but he couldn’t see any other option. He couldn’t fumble around in the dark and hope to find his way out.

  He pulled down the menu and turned on the flashlight. He aimed it into the dark, but it did little to penetrate the thick black. Tad pointed the light down at their feet. Instead of the dirt floor, he remembered, they were standing on a fibrous landing of long, twisting ropes that were so intertwined that they created a solid floor to stand on.

  Not ropes, he realized. Roots.

  They were standing in a nest of Tree roots.

  Alarm slithered down into his belly, making his balls tighten with fear. He pointed the light up toward the direction where they’d fallen from and watched with sickening dismay as the roots twisted above their heads until they were encased in a twisted nest of vegetation that cut them off from the dark in all directions, save one, where the roots led away into the darkness like a corridor.

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  He shoved his phone into his jeans pocket, not bothering to douse the light, and cupped his hands around his mouth.

  “Simone!” he shouted, a sliver of dread making its way into her name.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Henry said from his right.

  “Why not?” Tad turned to the other man, laying eyes on him for the first time since falling. Henry had propped himself up against a thick, twisted root. The other man’s face was grotesquely lit by the phone’s light below, and he smiled at Tad, but it was far from friendly. “We’re not alone down here, or don’t you remember?”

  Shit.

  Tad hurriedly dropped his hands as memories of the Hunter filled the darkness around him, and he reached for his phone automatically, needing something to chase away the dark.

  The other man turned from him, using the thick root he’d leaned against as a prop, and limped away from him into the corridor of darkness. “Come on,” he said, not looking back at Tad. “If you want to get out of here, follow me.”

  Tad wanted to ask him what he meant, but he didn’t think Henry was in the mood to answer, so, with no other options available to him, he followed the older man gingerly through the darkness. The roots gave a little under his weight, which concerned him, but they held, and he bit his tongue. He looked worriedly back at the spot where they’d fallen down, knowing there was no way they could return the way they’d come in. He briefly wondered if Simone would try to rescue them, but then he remembered what she said about sending two people in and realized there was no way she’d risk a third. Whether he liked it or not, he was on his own.

  He followed Henry into the dark, the thin light of his phone doing little to light their way. The tunnel of roots narrowed as they walked, forcing him to stoop under the slope of the ceiling. Tad couldn’t stop thinking about that wild moment when he saw Henry coming toward the circle. What compulsion made him turn and try to catch him? Didn’t his dad always tell him that his instincts would get him into trouble someday? Tad was beginning to realize that maybe his dad was right after all.

  The thought left a sour taste in his mouth. His instincts had led him to Simone, and that clearly hadn’t been the best decision he’d ever made.

  “Why did you plant the Tree?” he asked, needing to fill the hollow silence around them with words.

  “The first time or the second?”

  He didn’t think it was possible for Henry to surprise him anymore, but there he was, flabbergasted by the words that came out of that man’s mouth.

  “It was you both times?”

  “The first time was an accident,” Henry said. Tad could practically hear the shrug in the older man’s voice. He was far enough ahead that he was little more than a ghost of darkness against the deeper black of the tunnel.

  “Maggie and I were in her mother’s attic, and we found the seed. We were just kids, you see, messing around. We had no idea what we were doing. Hell, I still don’t know what made it grow that first time. One minute it was in my hands, then next, Tommy and Randal had pushed me down, and I lost my grip on it.” Ahead of him, Henry paused and let Tad catch up to him. His face was grim.

  “We were at the football field, see, for the play that night. Maggie was in the play, and I’d grabbed the seed when Simone came to pick us up. When it hit the ground, it was like it had a life of its own. It burrowed under the grass, and I knew something was about to happen. When it burst out of the ground, it was almost a fully grown tree already and hungry. I had the good sense to run, but Tommy and Randal weren’t so lucky.” Henry trailed off, then he shook himself and shot Tad a look.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and the best guess I’ve come up with is that it acted that way because it was an original seed—from a Tree in the Under. The seed I raised was one from that Tree—the one that grew in our world. They must be different somehow. That one took a lot of coaxing to germinate. It wasn’t under my dad fell-” Henry broke off and shook his head. He turned away from Tad and started down the tunnel again, leaning heavily on the sides to stay upright.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Henry said gruffly. “They were different; that’s all you need to know.”

  “But why did you do it?” Tad persisted. The tunnel was narrowing even further, and he was forced onto his hands and knees. Ahead of him, Henry had turned onto his side and was pulling himself along by his hands, pushing himself as best he could with just his one foot.

  “Because,” Henry said as if it were obvious. “If you had a chance to prove everyone wrong, wouldn’t you do it? All my life, they’ve been telling me I wasn’t good enough. Well, they were wrong. I did it what they couldn’t. Hell, I did it twice! If I can do that, then what else can I do?” He glanced back at Tad from over his shoulder, his eyes bright in the light of Tad’s phone flashlight.

  “They say we can’t do magic, but they’re wrong. They just want to keep it all for themselves. They say that every living thing has magic inside it. Why can’t I tap into the magic I have inside me? Why do they get a say over my own body?”

  There was a wild look in Henry’s eyes, a fervor that scared Tad.

  “Think about it,” the older man continued. “If they can move magic from a patch of grass and channel it into, I don’t know, a fucking cow, then why can’t I channel the magic that I already have inside me? Why do they get to say I can’t? It’s not right. It’s my magic, isn’t it? I mean, it’s inside me.”

  Tad wasn’t sure that was how it worked, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to argue with Henry. “Where are we going?” he asked instead.

  Henry started his strange slithering again. “These roots are coming from my Tree,” he said. “It’s leading me home. All we have to do is follow them.”

  That didn’t make any sense to Tad. “Where do you live again?”

  “Rease Hill.”

  Dismay threaded through Tad. “That’s a good ten miles from here!” There was no way he wanted to crawl on his hands and knees for ten fucking miles.

  “Relax,” Henry said scathingly. “Things move differently in the Under.”

  That didn’t inspire the confidence that Tad suspected Henry thought it would. They crawled in the darkness with only the light of Tad’s phone to guide them. It was a blinding light, and Tad half wished it wasn’t. If it was weaker, then it might last longer. The last he’d checked, the battery was just under a quarter. But they couldn’t see without it. The thought of no light triggered a basic fear within him that was hard to shake loose.

  In front of him, Henry was tiring. He moved with much less vigor, and Tad could hear his labored breath as he struggled to keep pace. Tad eyed him. He didn’t want to suggest Henry should take a break; after all, the older man was driving the bus there, but he was lagging.

  Eventually, though, Henry just couldn’t keep going.

  At first, Tad didn’t realize the other man had stopped. When it registered that Henry wasn’t moving anymore, Tad crawled up beside him in the narrow space of the tunnel. In the light of the phone, Henry’s face was haggard, and a sheen of sweat stood out on his pale face.

  “You alright?” Tad ventured.

  “I need a minute,” Henry wheezed. He fumbled behind him with one shaking hand, feeling for the tunnel wall. Finding it, he leaned back, his chest shaking with effort. Tad crouched in front of him, taking in the pallor of Henry’s skin. He was paler now than Tad had ever seen him. A chalkiness clung to him, turning his skin almost gray in the light of the phone. Tad focused his gaze on the other man’s leg.

  Something moved in the darkness ahead of them, a slithering sound. Then he heard a ghostly giggle. Taaaaaad, a voice said, drawing out his name in a sing-song tone.

  Tad froze and whipped around, taking the light from his pants and shining it into the dark.

  “Don’t listen to it,” Henry said. Tad swung back to the other man, and Henry’s face looked monstrous under the harsh light of the phone.

  “What is it?”

  “Shadows,” Henry said. “They can’t hurt you if you don’t pay attention to them.”

  The thing giggled again, a lilting mocking sound. Taaaad.

  “Relax,” Henry hissed.

  Tad swallowed thickly, doing his best to push the voice from his mind. “May I?” he asked.

  Henry nodded and coughed wetly, burying his mouth into his forearm.

  Tad eased the green fabric of the sweatpants up Henry’s leg. He frowned and looked up at Henry. “When were you going to say something?” he demanded.

  Henry looked down at his pants. Tad had rolled the fabric up until it was almost at Henry’s crotch. The charred and blackened remains of Henry’s leg were barely visible. He smiled, and for the first time, Tad noticed the blood on the other man’s teeth. “What’s the point?” he said again. He used both hands to raise the hem of his sweatshirt. Black lines crawled under the other man’s skin. They rose from the waistband of his pants and reached upward toward his chest. Tad sucked in a breath at the sight. Henry tugged the shirt back down and grabbed for the crutch again. “We’re both fucked,” he said. He nodded toward Tad. “How’s the leg?” he asked.

  With everything that had happened, Tad had nearly forgotten about it. That in itself was nuts. He glanced down at the rip in his jeans, and he could see dots of darkness through the holes—the poultice long gone, forgotten on the floor of Simone’s bathroom.

  In the darkness around them, a second voice joined the first, giggling, mocking, jeering. Tad, it whispered, sounding like his old ex-girlfriend—the one he had in college. Its voice tickled at the back of his mind, like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

  “Fine,” he managed. The wound was still numb, adding to the illusion that it never happened, but Henry’s words rattled him. “What do you mean?” he asked. “That we’re both fucked?”

  The voices laughed lightly, and Henry grinned again, showing off his blood-stained teeth. “Being down here changes you,” he said. “You think this,” he gestured to his leg, or rather lack thereof, “would’ve been gone this quickly up there?”

  Tad swallowed thickly. “What’s gonna happen to you?”

  “Up there, I would just have died when it reached my heart.” Henry absently massaged his chest. “Down here,” he shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll just fade away.”

  Tad could see on his face that neither of those options sat well with him, no matter how casual he acted. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Henry scowled at him. “Not unless you can drag me through here. Now, out of my way.”

  But Tad didn’t move. Henry’s words had triggered a thought in him. “Take off your pants,” he said, shoving his phone into the waistband of his jeans. It didn’t do a great job of lighting their way, but at least it was something.

  “Fuck you,” Henry snapped. “I ain’t getting naked around you-”

  “Stop being a jerk,” Tad said, “and give me your pants. You think I want to see your naked ass?”

  Henry grumbled some more, but he did as Tad requested and shimmied out of the pants. He passed them to Tad. “Here you go, pervert.”

  Pervert, the voices mocked.

  But Tad wasn’t listening. Instead, he knotted the legs of the pants together and tested them. He looped the pants around Henry’s torso until they encased the older man like a sling. Then, Tad looped the other end of the pants around his own torso. He tested it, and the knot held firm.

  “You ready for this?” he asked, looking back at his companion.

  Henry nodded mutely.

  The Under laughed breathily, like a lover close to his ear. He snapped his head to the side, but there was nothing there.

  “They’re just shadows, kid,” Henry said. “Ignore them.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “Try harder.”

  Tad moved forward slowly, dragging the weight of Henry behind him. The older man’s weight slithered behind him, sliding along the rough floor of roots like dead weight. They crawled in silence for several long minutes, traversing the dark like old-timey miners. After a while, something seemed to change in the air around them.

  Was it just his eyes, or was the darkness getting... lighter?

  “Almost there,” Henry said from behind him.

  Tad looked over his shoulder at the older man. “Where is there?” he asked. “Your house?”

  Henry nodded and pointed. “Look,” he said. “She’s opening up for us.”

  Tad turned back to the tunnel and realized Henry was right. A circle opening was forming ahead of them, like a pupil contracting, letting in a dim light.

  “We’re here,” Henry said unnecessarily.

  Somewhere in the darkness behind them, the voices laughed.

  ---

  The graze on her thigh burned like a motherfucker.

  Greer stumbled backward, away from the black point of Wilhelm’s rifle, and clapped a hand to the line of fire on her thigh. She held the ax in her other hand in a death grip, but without a two-handed grip, the weight of it dragged in the grass, the edge of the blade catching in the moist dirt.

  “What are you doing?” she asked dumbly.

  Wilhelm stepped free of the tangled undergrowth, never lowering the rifle. There was a rustle from the trees as a group of crows took flight, cawing their annoyance. “Where is my grandson?” he asked instead of answering her question. His eyes shot first left, then right, looking for Chris before coming back to rest on her. “What did you do to him?”

  Guilt flooded through her, but she shook her head, her hair catching her in the mouth. “Nothing,” she managed, but from the look of outrage on Wilhelm’s face, he didn’t believe her.

  He thrust the rifle at her like he wanted to skewer her from where he stood. “Bullshit,” he bit out. “I know that boy! He wouldn’t abandon a fly to save his life! So either you tell me what you did to him, or I’ll shoot you right here and now!”

  Greer limped back toward the tree, hoping she could use it for cover, never taking her eyes off of him, but he only followed determinedly, keeping her in his sights. Her back hit the rough bark, and, for a second, she was overcome with deja vu, but then her knee buckled, and her thigh screamed with pain, dragging her back to reality. Above her head, the bare branches moaned.

  Wilhelm charged across the yard and grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet. She screamed as her knee buckled again. Wilhelm released her arm and wrapped his thick hand around her neck, raising her up until she dangled in the air. Her hands scrabbled against his as she gasped for breath. When had he gotten so strong?

  “Where is he?” Wilhelm bellowed, his face beet red and his eyes enraged.

  Her own eyes were wide as she struggled in his grip.

  That’s when she saw it—an amulet dangling from his neck. It buzzed a tiny high-pitched vibration that she could feel all the way in her bones. She reached for it, knowing it must be what was fueling his strength, but he growled at her and held her further away, still with just one hand.

  “I’m not stupid!” he barked, his voice a whip. “You won’t get your hands on this one. You think I can’t see what you’re doing? I learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again!”

  He snarled like a feral beast and, with lightning speed, slammed her to the ground. She grunted in pain as her body crashed into the earth. She lay there, gasping for air, as her chest rattled with waves of agony that spread throughout her frame. He stepped over her prone figure, planting one booted foot on either side of her torso, and pointed the long muzzle of the rifle at her face, staring down at her with eyes blazing with hatred. His fingers clenched around the rifle, pointing it directly at her forehead.

  “Now,” he snarled, “where is my grandson?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a word, her lungs spasmed and expelled air through her throat in wracking coughs. Wilhelm growled and lashed out with his heavy boot, striking her in the ribs. She gasped in pain and tried to pull away, but his iron-like grip on her arm pulled her back. His cold eyes bore into hers as he slowly brought the muzzle of his weapon up against her forehead, daring her to move. She froze when she felt him press the cold steel of the muzzle against her skin, terror writhing in her belly.

  “What have you done with him?” Wilhelm screamed, his spittle landing on her face. His eyes were enraged, and his face was turning purple. Suddenly, his eyes widened in a look of surprise, and then he was lifted off his feet. He tried to turn, but he couldn’t because of the thin end of a branch that broke through the shoulder of his shirt. He writhed like a vampire on a stake, crying out wordlessly. Greer pushed herself up, using the handle of the ax to leverage herself off the grass. The tree groaned a hungry sound that sent a shiver of terror down Greer’s spine, where it pooled in her belly like a block of lead.

  The sound of creaking wood filled the summer air, and as Greer watched in horror, the trunk of the tree dilated open like a mouth, revealing a moist, wet interior. The sweet smell of rot filled the backyard, and Greer caught a glimpse of a half-devoured deer head, the skull, and antlers pale against the dark.

  Suddenly, a scream ripped through the air, only this time, it was the all-too-familiar scream of a creature. Greer turned, expecting to see the dark shape of the monster running out of the forest. The scream sounded again, and this time she realized it was coming from inside the tree. Greer squinted in the bright summer afternoon light. She could just make out a dim oval of purple in the darkness of the tree’s cavernous mouth-

  The tree seemed to roar as it dragged Wilhelm closer, and the old man wailed with terror, his gun clattering from his nerveless fingers. A dark shape shifted inside the tree, and then a long dark arm slithered out of the opening and grasped onto the edges of the bark. The creature’s head followed soon after; its face contorted into a macabre grin as jagged and sharp teeth glinted in the sunlight. Greer staggered to her feet, her leg ablaze with pain. She grasped the ax with both hands and charged forward, swinging it over her head. The creature spun round just in time for the ax to smash into its neck with a sickening crunch, cleaving right through bone and flesh.

  Greer felt the ax slice through the creature’s neck and was instantly sprayed with a shower of warm blood. The creature’s body twitched once, then slumped against the inside of the tree’s cavernous mouth, writhing in its death throes. Greer stood there, panting heavily, her heart pounding in her chest. She had done it; she had killed a creature! But her triumph was short-lived as Wilhelm stirred above her, still pinned by the tree’s branches, and began to moan.

  Greer shoehorned the ax from the remains of the creature, and as the tree bent its branches low to stuff the old man into its waiting mouth, she swung a second time. Once she got it high enough over her head, the heaviness of the ax head did most of the work for her, coming down onto the outstretched branches. The tree roared when the blade bit into it, dropping the old man as it rushed to retreat from the sting of Greer’s ax like a wounded bear.

  It took only a second, but the tree recovered from its shock and pain. The tree seemed to roar in rage as it struck out at Greer, branches raining down upon her. She swung the ax at them ineffectually, managing only glancing blows before a branch connected with her hip and sent her flying across the ground, the ax tumbling from her grasp.

  Greer scrambled back to her feet, gasping for breath as she swatted branches away from her face and limbs. The tree was looming over her again, its branches reaching out like grasping hands. She stumbled backward, searching desperately for something to use as a weapon. Her eyes landed on the ax where it had landed a few feet away, and she lunged for it.

  Her fingers closed around the haft just as a branch closed around her wrist, yanking her into the air. She yelped and clutched onto the ax tightly as she was lifted high into the air. The tree was pulling her closer and closer toward its dark, wet mouth. Greer screamed and swung the ax down with all of her might onto one of its largest branches. The wood cracked and splintered, sending an explosion of bark everywhere. The tree shuddered and let go of Greer, who fell to the ground with an agonized cry.

  The next instant, she was up again and sprinting towards Wilhelm, who had managed to stumble away from the tree’s grip while Greer had been distracted by its attack on herself. He looked pale in the sunlight but did not seem injured beyond the hole in his shoulder. Greer grabbed his hand firmly in hers as they both ran headlong away from their attacker, desperate to get to safety.

  “The garage!” she cried. She shoved the ax into his hands and pulled him after her as she sprinted across the lawn. Behind them, the tree screamed as they passed out of range.

  Panting, the old man and young woman limped into the dim safety of the open garage. They collapsed onto the concrete floor. It was cold against her skin, and it smelled like oil. Her leg was killing her. She twisted so she could see the angry skin of her thigh better. The graze had split her skin, and it oozed blood. It needed to be bound. She looked around the garage, but nothing looked even remotely clean enough to use.

  “What the fuck is that?” Wilhelm wheezed.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. She pushed herself upright, trying to ignore the pain in her leg. “But I have to get it to open its mouth again.”

  The old man looked at her like she was crazy. “Why in hell would you need to do that?”

  “Because Chris is on the other side.”

  Something changed in Wilhelm’s face. To his credit, he didn’t ask her to explain herself. He just took her at her word, which she supposed was the best she could possibly hope for.

  Outside the garage, the radio crackled and Maggie’s voice flared to life. “No!” she said, sharp and panicked. “Greer, you can’t—” Her voice cut out abruptly, replaced by a burst of static that buzzed through the tense silence.

  Wilhelm didn’t so much as glance at the radio. Instead, his sharp eyes stayed fixed on her. “How are you going to get it open?” he asked, his tone wary but steady.

  Greer gripped the axe tighter, the worn wood digging into her palm. “I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice low.