Oh yeah, this was a bad idea.

We were creeping through the wooded path, dry leaves crunching underfoot with each tentative step. The flashlight beam cast about, conjuring ghouls and nightmares from branches and stones. 

And every step forward brought me closer to something that set my teeth on edge and made my hackles rise. Every muscle in my body was wound tight, then pulled inwards. Like I was trying to shrink down and hide while also puffing myself up. Like a blowfish: get big and scary and hopefully the danger decides it isn't worth it. Nothing but the misapplied remnants of animal instinct. Our evolutionary inheritance, for all the good it did me. 

"Ah! Wait! Wait, hang on!"

"Keep up! We're almost there!"

Pushing through the dead branches, we had indeed reached our destination. Almost shining in the sparse moonlight that filtered through the clouded sky, dozens of pale gray monoliths jutted from the hilly ground before us. Irregular and at odd angles in the sloping soil, covered in ages of dirt, moss, and dead leaves, the old cemetery all but loomed up to greet the three idiots who willingly ventured into its grasp. 

"Whoa…"

I was wavering at the threshold, instincts burning. A feeling in my gut saying 'anywhere but here' and a seemingly magnetic force repelling me, turning me away. But Felix and Hazel were already making their way up the hill through the gravestones. Like this was nothing. 

Like they couldn't smell it. 

Okay, it wasn't a smell, not really. But it's hard to describe in conventional senses, the aura that emanated from his place. 

This was bad. 

Something primal in the back of my head had been screaming at me since I first laid eyes on the place: at a distance, through the woods, in broad daylight. But here now, in the dark, on the precipice… it was like I could smell it. The old grudges, the unsettled debts, the violent lives cut short, the lonely deaths drawn out. It was overpowering. Malevolent. More so than anywhere I had ever been. 

And my friends were stumbling blindly into the heart of it. 

"Damn it all," a whisper on my breath, a sigh, and a step forward. Maybe the hardest I've ever taken. 

I wish I could say I don't regret it. 

 

—

 

"Amy?"

"C'mon, you cannot hold out on us after that."

"What did you mean, haunted?"

The hazy autumn sunlight filtered through the old, iron-barred windows of the dining hall. The usual low murmur of conversation blanketed everything, and I wished I could hide in it. But the expectant looks from my friends left no room for silence. 

"Ah, I shouldn't have said anything," I whined, running a hand through my two-tone hair. It was heavy and straight, bleached yellow a year ago and left to grow out. My eyes were narrow and half-lidded on a good day and my face was far rounder than I liked, but with a pout I exaggerated both regardless. 

On some level, I already knew where this was going. It's hard to say, exactly, through the filter of hindsight and regret, but maybe I had some sense of the impending doom that awaited us less than twenty hours from now. All because I opened my big mouth. 

"Come in Ames, we've been talking about this for how long now? And you found the perfect place, a real haunted graveyard! Now spill, where is it?" Felix Cruz's enthusiastic interrogation washed over me from across the plastic-coated table. His brown eyes flashing with an intensity my friend saved almost exclusively for this: the supernatural. 

Well, that and girls. 

It was one of the few things we had in common, along with a terrible sense of humor and a fondness for Japanese animation. We had remarkably similar tastes in women. 

He should have cut an imposing figure: stocky with broad shoulders and thick arms dense with muscle. Maybe if he was taller. I had a good few inches on him and I barely cleared five feet myself. Short black hair and dark walnut skin was partially hidden behind his patterned black and green scarf and a thin, dark jacket. A perpetual frown sat at odds with his round cheeks and gentle smile. It tended to make him appear more intimidating than his teddybear-like personality really warranted. 

"I don't know exactly, somewhere northeast of campus?" I sighed. "It's not like I walked by it, I saw the graves from up on the hill. Over a dense patch of forest. I don't know how to get to it."

I squirmed, drowning in my oversized, olive-drab jacket. The gray sweater and jeans underneath hadn't been enough to stave off the cold earlier, but now they felt stuffy from the focused attention. The wall of the booth we sat in prevented any egress to my left, and unfortunately my escape was also cut off on the right by a very different problem. 

"How did you know it was haunted then?" Hazel piped up beside me. "You did say it was haunted right?"

All four feet of Hazel Hopkins stared up at me with puppy dog eyes full of expectations. My other friend, and surrogate little sister, even if I would never admit as such. She was a mousy little thing, stringy ash-blond hair that fell limp to her shoulders framing a soft, pale face that always looked mildly surprised behind her too-large glasses and splash of freckles. Thin and willowy, bundled in a fluffy cardigan and lined jeans. Yes, I could have physically moved her out of my way, but some part of me was helpless against that look… and she knew it. 

Make no mistake, she was far more devious than she let on. A fact she took regular advantage of. And she had an adventurous streak that lay somewhat disjointed from her usually rather timid personality. 

She was as bad as Felix.

I was cornered. 

"I can feel it, okay? Always could, not sure why," I sunk into the booth a little, heavy boots sliding slightly on the tile floor. "Haunted places just feel wrong to me, I can usually tell right away." They had both heard this already, but excitement makes people stupid sometimes. 

Not long after we all met freshman year, I had to go and ruin their hopes for a spooky misadventure by telling them the truth. That none of the classic 'haunted' locations on campus were actually spiritually active. The chapel crypt was quiet, recently renovated I suspected. The copse of trees behind the football field was inhabited by nothing scarier than a few squirrels. And anything in the tiny cemetery at the corner of campus was just… tired. 

Yet on multiple occasions these two airheads had dragged me from my cozy dorm room in the dead of night to go 'investigate' each in turn. No EMF meters or IR cameras or any such nonsense. This wasn't about hunting, just experiencing. 

Still, they wanted to see something, and grew steadily more dejected with each 'I told you so.'

Then a week ago serendipity struck. Or maybe just regular old bad luck. I was fed up with dining hall food and had the bright idea to walk all the way out to the small grocery store for ingredients so I could cook my own meal. Should have taken the bus. I mean, the walking was fine, but on the way back I got horribly lost. Ended up hiking up a narrow road that wound its way up a hill, giving me a great view of the sleepy New England town our college called home. 

Then I saw it.

Even from miles away, the sight of that cursed place grabbed my attention like a shock of lightning. It was like a stain. A tumor, set in the middle of a sea of red and yellow leaves, bleeding raw hostility. 

I made the mistake of mentioning it on the way to breakfast, and recounting the tale again prompted unimpressed looks, what with the lack of useful directions. Then Hazel sat up, pulled out her smartphone and began scrolling through maps and internet searches. 

Not long after, we had our location. It was unnamed, of course, and stuck in the middle of woodlands. Not a state park of anything: private property, but with no clear indication of who might own it. But it wasn't as far from a road as I thought it would be, and supposedly an old hiking trail led straight to it. 

A plan was coming together, and I wanted no part of it. I didn't want to go anywhere near that place, certainly not in the middle of the night. But Hazel insisted she and Felix were going tonight, with or without me. And in the end, protective instincts trumped caution. 

Besides, how bad could it be?

 

—

 

Run. 

Run!

Run!

Can’t help them, need to get away! 

Fear numbed my mind, a suffocating blanket that smothered thought. Only animal instinct bubbled up through that bog, spurring me into action I couldn’t refuse. I tore through the underbrush on numb legs, lungs seizing in short gasps. Twigs nipped at my exposed skin, grabbing for loose clothes. Hot tears crowded my vision and spilled down my cheeks, the dam burst wide open by abject terror and shame. An uneven mat of tree roots, rocks, and dead leaves threatened to undercut my escape. To snap my ankle and send me sprawling down, back into the yawning pit behind me. I could still feel it at my back, now matter how far I ran, the skin-crawling sensation of pure malevolence breathing down my neck. 

Where was I, even? 

Keep running. Keep running!

I hadn't run back down the path when everything went wrong, just barreled off into the woods. Blinded by panic, I could have been anywhere. 

Maybe that's what saved me. 

In retrospect, what happened next shouldn't have been allowed to happen. A chance meeting so absurd it would have caused any deity whose domain includes "luck" to have a stroke. A dozen coincidences and minor errors stacking up to allow for one single impossibility, the full extent of which I wouldn't grasp until much later. 

Trees flew by, my path twisting and turning as I threw myself through the first gap I could find at every intersection, never pausing for more than a heartbeat. And my heart was beating oh so fast. A deer fleeing through the trees, desperate to evade the predator on her heels. Desperate to live another day. Then all at once, the forest gave way to a small clearing drowned in moonlight. With a soft gasp, delicate fingers touched together in a configuration dense with meaning and purpose. 

Then reality unfolded. 

I cannot describe precisely what happened, not really. I saw it, but the memory is too badly stained by fear and stress to be coherent. Just a tangle of emotion and impression, uncoupled from meaning. 

Panicked escape, with doom on my heels. 

A dark, winding maze.

Light and open space, the exit of a dark tunnel. 

A vast maw, yawning open. 

A cliffside, the stormy sea.

Infinity. 

Ozone.

…

The jumbled mess of a record that is my memory picks back up at a peculiar place. In the spotlight on a dark stage. 

I found myself in a bright oasis ringed by the black silhouettes of twisted trees. A small clearing of grass and blue flowers that pushed back on the surrounding woods and collected moonlight like honey in a bowl. And in the center of that calm, cold light was a solitary figure. 

The most beautiful girl I had ever seen. 

Her hands were the first thing I noticed. Long, slender fingers tipped with bright red nails. Dexterous and precise, yet also soft and kind. Pretty, yet heavy with experience. The hands of an artist, faint hints of calluses on her fingertips stood at odds with the smooth, uninterrupted curve of knuckles down to a prominent wrist. They were hovering in front of her chest, inches apart from each other. Relaxed, but with an undercurrent of tension that brought to mind the feeling of a martial artist before a fight. 

Or maybe just after one. 

The rest of her was cute too. Tall but slight, her figure just hinted at by the subtle motion of her clothing. A long black skirt waved lazily about her ankles, feet all but lost beneath the cover of flowers. Colored like a sunset, a loose sweater with a high collar and asymmetric stitching shifted slightly with the steady rise and fall of her breath. A loose, canvas bag sat on her hip, the strap reaching up to hug her tight across her body. Stirred by a light breeze, long, wavy hair that might have been a deep chestnut or a light burgundy danced about, framing her pale face, then fanning out behind her to show off its full length.  

A librarian, somehow utterly at home amid these monster-infested woods. 

Caught on her lips was an expression full of compassion, concern, and uncertainty. But the look in her eyes was like night and day: cold and hard, calculating and judgmental. That look seemed utterly foreign in those big, soft eyes. Dark green slate shot through with a starburst of gold leaf, accented by long lashes and a small pair of rimless glasses perched on an elegant nose. Her brow was creased in a frown, but that didn't tell me much. Did it signal worried compassion, or scrutinizing irritation? The conflicting expressions I read on her face stirred up two very different feelings deep within me. It felt like she was examining my soul; guardian of the underworld, here to weigh my heart against a feather. To see if I deserved sympathy or judgment. 

Guilt caught in my throat as a fear of an entirely different texture strangled my thoughts. 

Then, like a cloud passing over the sun, a mask of expression slid into place. Carefully neutral yet vaguely kind. 

Decision made.

"Are you alright?" 

Gentle and husky, her voice was a warm balm for my tattered soul. It stilled my ragged breathing and brought me back to myself, blinking through damp eyes. At some point my legs must have given out, as I found myself kneeling in that field, my hands brushing against flowers damp with night dew. Looking up at her, my brain was a scrambled mess. Questions sparked and died, one after another, without ever making it past my lips. My mouth worked uselessly without the air needed to make sounds.

Eventually I remembered to breathe.

"W-who are you?" My own voice stuttered out, shaky and uncertain past the sandpaper in my throat. Not a great reply, and maybe not the most pertinent question to start with, but at least I hadn’t gone with ‘are you single?’

Bunching up her skirt, she bent down, sitting on her heels to bring her eyes level with mine. A light smile kissed her lips. 

"My name is Hannah," she replied, eyes twinkling.

"I'm a witch."

 

—

 

Nothing made sense anymore, but I was honestly too emotionally spent to care. Fear and adrenaline had sapped my reserves, leaving me numb and exhausted with a dull ache in my chest. My nerves were raw and I felt like blown glass: hollow and fragile. 

At least the midnight forest was less threatening with a cute witch holding your hand. 

We were moving slowly through the dark trees this time, hand in hand. No flashlight, but that didn’t seem to bother my new companion. She led on with confidence, like she knew every branch and stone in the area, and like it wasn’t pitch black. 

I, however, couldn’t see shit.

Dried tears still streaked my face, and the occasional, hiccuping remnant of a sob bubbled up from my chest.  

Hannah’s introduction had acted as a battering ram, knocking down whatever I had left inside trying desperately to hold everything together. 

I had quickly devolved into a sobbing wreck, the accumulated horror and stress of the night finally released as my body attempted to purge the pent-up cortisol from my brain. Hannah had patted uselessly at my shoulder trying her best impression of motherly compassion, but I really threw her for a loop. Turns out she was bad with crying girls. 

Between choked sobs, I tried my best to communicate. Questions, explanations, excuses, whatever bits of sense I could grab from my scattered mind. She just listened quietly, with the occasional nod. It took a bit, jumbled and largely incoherent, but eventually I got most of the story out. The graveyard, our ill-fated plans, my panicked flight as things went tits-up. 

I didn’t notice at first, but her eyes changed again with the mention of there being three of us, her mask shifted a little and a glint of cold steel slipped through. 

The sobbing eventually died down as I cried myself out, eyes red and swollen under my tear-stained face. I tried futilely to dry my eyes with my coat sleeve, but I probably just smeared dirt across my cheeks since the next thing I knew Hannah had produced a handkerchief from her satchel and started gently dabbing at my face.

I really hope it was too dark for her to tell that my ears had turned a fluorescent shade of red.

Embarrassed, I wanted to pull away, but my body rebelled. Not because of any hard-wired desire for the intimate female attention unfortunately, but for more mundane reasons. My legs were numb and my hands trembled: the come-down of adrenaline and the repercussions of a dead-sprint across uneven terrain for who knows how long. Even in good shape, I could only push my body so far without paying for it. 

A lesson I would need to learn the hard way many times over before it would eventually stick. 

She wasted no time once I was able to stand again. My face grew warm as she took my hand, but as she started towards the trees an echo of terror rang through my body.

“Wait, wha…?” I stumbled over the half-formed objection. 

Without breaking stride Hannah looked back at me, and her tone left no room for argument.

“We’re going to get your friends.”

I don’t know how long it took, trudging back through those woods that night, but there was still no hint of sunrise so it couldn’t have been all that long. In any event, I was getting rather sick of stumbling over tree roots in the dark. I tried to focus on the unbelievably sexy hand guiding me along, but my mind wouldn't allow me even this respite. 

I didn't really deserve it. 

There is a particular texture to the thoughts that do happen when you are desperately trying not to think about something. They are too soft and vaguely oily, slipping carefully around something that must not be observed directly. These thoughts are stale and brittle things, crumbling away unexpectedly just before they would intersect something unpleasant and true. Automatic and intentional in equal measure, this type of thinking in circles is a survival mechanism, a trick of cognitive dissonance. It's not as if you don't know what you are thinking around, at least in general. It does, however, save you from the inconvenient anguish that actually observing those thoughts would cause. Especially when the thing in question is spiked with a noxious mixture of fear, shame, self-loathing, and loss. 

In any event, processing my trauma would have to wait.

I knew we had arrived before Hannah did. Before the bone-white teeth of tombstones were even visible through the dark tangle of branches. An oozing, sticky sensation grabbed my senses as we approached. The not-smell was worse than before.

Way worse. 

What I had foolishly mistaken earlier for the peak of malevolent spiritual hostility had been nothing more than a light rain compared to the hurricane of evil intent that faced us now. It burned my lungs and turned blood to ice in my veins. I must have stopped short, Hannah had to take a half-step back before she turned back to me. 

"That bad, huh?" She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. I don't know if she could see the look on my face, or just feel the shaking across my arm. Either way, she had her answer and she didn't seem to like it. Hemming and hawing, I could feel her start rummaging through the bag at her hip which produced a wonderfully bizarre cascade of noises, none of which I could place with any confidence. 

"Ah, there it is!" With a plastic click, the lights went on. Or, at least one did. Really, calling it a light might be overstating things a little. Without even asking, I immediately understood why she didn't bother to get the thing out earlier. Little more than a plastic button with a small clear LED stuck on one side, it hardly illuminated my hand let alone the surrounding woods. Still, it had me blinking as Hannah withdrew her hand and replaced it with this small, synthetic firefly. 

"Hold on a sec, I'll find you something to defend yourself with."  With a nod, mostly to herself, Hannah turned and strode confidently towards a small tangle of trees, more dead branches than anything. "It'll be less scary if you can bite back," she said absentmindedly over her shoulder.  

At least she wasn't moving in the direction of the storm.

It was all I could think about, now, standing there before it. Without my anchor, I was cast adrift; clinging to a small raft of light in a dark and stormy sea, fragile and helpless. On the verge of drowning. 

The loud snap nearly made me jump out of my skin. 

Adrenaline surged and old reflexes asserted themselves. I was in the fighting stance before anything resembling conscious thought could pass between my ears. It was really basic: shoulders and hips squared up with the source of the noise, right leg back, elbows at my ribs, hands balled into fists by my cheeks. A stance I must have stood in hundreds of times. 

But never for a real conflict. 

Years of after-school karate lessons had instilled the muscle-memory well, but without any experience it was badly misapplied. I already knew a fist wouldn't stop the only thing I really had to be afraid of out here. It was probably lucky that when Hannah stepped back into view with her big stick that she was just out of arm's reach; I was so jumpy that I think I might have tried to throw a punch. 

You wouldn't know it from the triumphant look on her face, but her prize really was that: just a big stick. About the size of a baseball bat, it was tapered slightly at one end with a jagged mess of splinters at the other. Aside from the odd knot there was almost no bark or twigs left attached, and it didn't zigzag the way most tree limbs did. A nice solid club. 

For the next few minutes I watched in confused silence as Hannah worked her magic. With the keychain light clamped in her teeth, she had taken a good sized pocket knife out of her bag and set about carving something into the bare wood. Not the magic circles and runes I might have expected, but some kind of pattern. Maybe it could have been a language, but the carvings had a dense intricacy to them that brought to mind filigree and art rather than writing. 

Mostly, it was hard to follow. 

Hannah worked fast, her supple hands making quick, precise cuts with no hesitation. Instead of working one end to the other, the pattern was layered on, new cuts overlapping existing marks two or three times. Some were thin and deep, describing shapes or maybe letters. Others were wide and shallow, painting on depth and texture. Under the soulless artificial light, the entire project took on an eerie resemblance to scrimshaw. With each cut the shadows clung closer and closer, all but dripping with heavy purpose. 

Whatever else it was, it was beautiful. 

With a satisfied humph Hannah straightened up and presented her creation to me. Like some precious scepter I held it gently, trying and failing to trace the intricate markings as she returned the knife to her bag. 

"This is… magic, right?" I asked, my gaze rising to meet hers. "How do I use it?"

It was absurd, really. She called herself a witch once and I just accepted it, magic and all. Even if she wasn't lying, there were a number of mundane explanations that the title could stem from, no magic required. Yet I somehow believed it, no questions asked. 

To be fair, I had already witnessed things far harder to rationalize tonight. 

"Yup!" She chirped, brightly. "Just, hit something with it. Y'know, like…" and pantomimed a baseball swing, grinning like I had asked something silly. 

"What about you though?" I suddenly felt guilty and started to hand the engraved thing back. But before she could reply, a thought struck my head and it stayed my hand. 

The clearing. 

"Oh, no wait! Back in the clearing, you did… something… to save me, right?" The memory was hazy. It threatened to turn my stomach and send me into a cold sweat if I examined it too closely, but she had done something to drive away my pursuer. I was sure of it.

"Oh, that," and a self-conscious laugh. "Yeah, I probably shouldn't be doing that too much. I mean, it was an emergency… but still," she trailed off, caught in some internal debate. 

Then a nod. 

"No. Yeah. If we're going to get your friends back, we need to be prepared. Do this properly." 

I think that was more for her own benefit than mine, but it still raised a thorny question. 

"So what about you then? Don't you need protection?" Aren't you coming with me? 

I couldn't say the last part out loud. 

 

—

 

I shouldn't have worried. Mostly because then the indignation might have stung less. 

We stood together amid the crooked teeth of the graveyard, a few feet from the tree-lined perimeter, and I was still silently boggling at the bewildering anachronism my companion now wielded. 

Around a foot and a half long and roughly cylindrical, the makeshift device was equal parts bare metal, electrical tape, loose wire, and exposed circuitry. I think it may have been some sort of flashlight in a past life. A few of the dull circuit wafers that jutted out at odd angles had small lights attached, all of which shone brightly green. It looked like an electrocution waiting to happen. Which, it just so happened, was precisely the intention. 

A home-made stun baton, I was incredulous.

At least I had forgotten about being scared. 

"Oh, don't worry about me. I've got this!" Hannah had said, producing the haphazard wreck of a self-defense weapon. 

I think I had just stared, slack-jawed. The rapid translation of my emotional state between anticipated abandonment to stunned indignation had caught me flatfooted. It hadn't helped when she turned the thing on. 

I'm pretty sure these things aren't supposed to spark that much. 

One time in a museum I saw a demonstration of a Tesla coil, a big device that looked like a tower with a doughnut on top that was supposed to shoot lightning. I remember being disappointed in how small and infrequent the lightning bolts had been. 

Well, this handheld abomination of technology succeeded where reality fell short: it positively radiated lightning. 

Dozens of bright blue-white bands of jagged electrical energy danced along the weapon's length, arching lazily from the surface like tired cats. The air was filled with a loud crackling noise and my hair stood on end. This was an abstract impression of electricity. No one could possibly mistake it for the real thing, yet it was somehow more real than the genuine article would have been. It was as if a stun baton had been fashioned from nothing more than overdramatic, hyperbolic text descriptions. 

This thing was ridiculous.

"Do Tasers even work on ghosts!?" I had asked in disbelief. To her credit, Hannah considered the question carefully before replying.

"I don't know," she had answered. Her head listed to the side, lost in the hypothetical. "I've never seen anyone try…" 

Apparently we had been talking past each other though, because it took Hannah a moment to realize I had been referring to her Frankensteined bug zapper. 

"Oh, but this will definitely work," she stated with a nod, switching the device off. "I made it myself," she added, with a smile. As if that answered my unspoken retort. 

I was starting to wonder about just who, exactly, I had involved myself with. 

Back in the graveyard, the rustling of wind through dead leaves was somehow louder now, and a cold fog began collecting around our feet. Just like before, it was… Once my amazement at Hannah's choice of weapon started to fade, I began to notice that something was deeply wrong. And for once tonight, it wasn't the omnipresent sense of dread. 

Nothing was happening.

We stood among the scattered monuments, gray stone blanched stark white in the moonlight, utterly alone. Cold wind stirred leaves and fog, and played havoc with our hair. I was shivering inside my jacket, but nothing else moved. We were in a creepy cemetery in the dead of night, sure.

But that was it.

Last time, I could feel it coming immediately. Right away, Felix had been…

…

Hannah caught my eyes with hers, a silent question arched in her dark brow. I just shook my head.

"We're alone. Where is everything? Before…" I trailed off, spoken words no better than my inner monologue. 

"Why don't I go ask?"

Hannah strode confidently to the center of a rough clearing between the headstones. The dead leaves that crunched softly underfoot were somehow muted as she made her way onto her improvised stage. Farther up the hill, the lonely, weathered building I presumed was an abandoned church loomed menacingly over her, but she never shied away. 

Unlike me, cringing back, clinging to my supposed magic wand like a lifeline in a churning sea. How could she be so fearless? She must know what sort of things lurk here, right? Hannah is a witch, she must be able to sense the overwhelming evil we are wading into, right? 

Or is it really just me?

"Hello," Hannah called, "is anyone there?" Her voice rang out, saccharine sweet, but it wouldn't fool anyone. Her words positively dripped with evil intent all her own. 

"So sorry for dropping by unannounced, and for coming armed," she recited, slipping an embarrassed glance to the weapon in her hand, "but, see, a cute little cat told me that someone here hasn't been playing by the rules." She sounded like an irritated grade-school teacher, scanning the empty place as if her target was simply crouched behind a tombstone. But the venom in her words promised far worse than a scolding and a time-out. 

"So, I would be quite remiss if I didn't drop in to teach them a lesson." She let the rather blatant threat hang there for a moment. Then, with a shrug, Hannah turned on her heels back towards me. 

The moment her back was turned, I felt it. Just like before, the coalescing of hostile intent. A sickly, dead will made of cold fury and sharply honed grudges forced its existence upon the world, right behind Hannah. 

I couldn't see much of the dead thing, not this time. A bony, withered hand emerged with agonizing slowness from behind my witch. Rotten and twisted, it was a discolored patchwork of overlapping ailments, wounds, and diseases somehow too densely layered overtop each other, like an overhead projector stacked with far too many transparencies all depicting slightly different renditions of ghouls and zombies. No clothing adorned the withered limb that terminated in hideous, jagged, claw-like fingers. Despite the unhealthy appearance, I knew unnatural strength lay within that rotten arm.

It wasn't translucent, contrary to my expectations. They hadn't been before, either. If anything, it was too solid. Like clashing art styles superimposed together, it was almost jarring how unnaturally vibrant it looked, causing reality to look washed-out and hollow by comparison. Exaggerated detail of the warped flesh drew my unwilling attention and summoned a wave of nausea and revulsion just by hinting at the hidden form of this horrific caricature. 

I was petrified; a warning, or maybe a scream, died in my throat, choked on bile. It was happening again, and I was just going to let it.

But Hannah had things under control, no thanks to me. I barely saw her move. Somehow, in the span of time just long enough to blink, she had sensed the impending ambush and expertly countered it. Baton now in a reverse grip, bracing the end of the weapon in her free palm, she shifted back and struck so hard and fast that I was sure she had punched a hole in the thing. 

The moment hung like dropped glass, then shattered with a click. 

The unreal, crackling pops of arcing current drowned out the wind. Dancing blue-white lights cast kaleidoscopic shadows across the tombstones as the hateful, dead thing was wreathed in a veil of lightning. Paralyzed by the flowing energy, it seemed to offer no resistance as it began to burn away. 

I'm almost positive that isn't what getting electrocuted actually looks like.

Stepping back and clicking the baton off, Hannah didn't even watch as the monstrosity burned away into a cloud of static-charged ashes. She had already flipped the weapon back around and was wasting no time on giving it a check-over. A few of the indicator lights now burned dull red, and she was gently shaking her head, mumbling something about 'too much voltage'. 

A slow, creeping realization settled over me as I processed the last few moments. Not only had this woman been utterly unfazed by an attack from a creature that by all rights should have been fiction, but it seemed like she had been anticipating it. More importantly, that grip and stance had not been the startled flailing of an amateur: she knew what she was doing, likely trained. And I had a sneaking suspicion from the way she moved that she was even better with something sharp in her hands. 

That's not even touching on the look in her eyes. There had been no reaction. Start to finish, her expression never changed. No fear, no surprise, no anger, no satisfaction or relief with the fight won. Not even a twinge of sympathy as something at least superficially human was violently destroyed. Just the same even, cold concentration. 

Not for the first time, but now more urgently, I asked myself who the hell was Hannah? A self-proclaimed witch willing to casually risk her own life to help some dumb kids caught in a bad horror movie? What if I got it wrong and the most dangerous thing out here was standing right in front of me. There is always a bigger fish, right? Did I go and find a benevolent shark? 

How sure was I of her benevolence? 

"Well, that's them told I guess," her voice sent a cold chill down my spine, startling me out of a dark corner of my mind. Equipment check complete, Hannah was looking at me, not unkindly. She must have seen something of the disquiet behind my eyes though, because the light smile she wore faltered, just a bit. 

"C'mon, your friends should be nearby." She sighed, turning her back to me. I couldn't miss how the warmth leached out of her voice.

 "Let's get you all out of this nightmare." 

The fog was thick and cloying now, like cold soup. Somber sighs filtered through the trees on the wind. For a moment my heart split in two as Hannah started back up the hill, towards that warped and dilapidated building that presided over this haunted place. I wanted to say something, to reach out, to do anything to alleviate this new sense of accidental betrayal. But I didn't get the chance.  

She didn't make it three steps before I felt it again, that sense of forced presence that was becoming all too familiar. Another specter was about to make an appearance. Same tactic too, for some reason. Like it was following a script for some unknown play. The frigid hostility was condensing right behind Hannah again, only this time I had to witness it. 

Staining, that ended up being the best analogy I could find for the phenomenon, after the fact. Like a slow leak bleeding through drywall, something mean began staining the space behind her. It started small, just a pinprick, but quickly diffused out into a warped approximation of humanity. A dark discoloration in the fabric of the world, it saturated reality until the oozing silhouette began to take on a sharp, unreal focus. No details yet, but whatever membrane this stain was seeping through had become tissue-paper thin and ready to tear at the slightest pressure. 

Clammy with cold sweat now, my instincts buzzed with the same, fear-soaked imperative: run away, escape, live. But a different, detached, oddly calm part of my mind pushed back. No need, it said, it'll be fine. This is the same as before, Hannah will destroy it, and everything will be okay. I couldn't bring myself to trust that through. A third fragment of myself, deep within my stomach, was whispering icy panic. 

Something was different. 

The last encounter had played out perfectly, like a choreographed stunt. Hannah made her threat and then countered the resulting attack flawlessly. Like she had seen it coming. Like it was a video game, and she had memorized the boss' attack pattern. 

Patterns.

With growing horror, it finally clicked: Hannah couldn't sense these things the way I did, she just knew their patterns. And as predictable as they might be, she thought there was only one. Shame and guilt and fear all crystallized into a lead weight in the base of my stomach. Twice now, I stood by helplessly as others were attacked by these ghosts.

I couldn't do it again. 

Many people have waxed poetic about bravery and courage. About how it fills you with a fire that burns away fear and it lets you laugh in the face of danger. I'd love to say that my brimming self-loathing transmuted under pressure into something like that. That it burned hot and clean and set my limbs to motion, spurring me into action. 

Unfortunately, it didn't feel like that at all. There was only fear. Even as I charged forward on shaky legs, even as I swung my hand-carved gift like a crude bludgeon, there was only fear. The only difference between action and inaction was a precarious balance; somewhere inside me the distribution of fear shifted, and now it pulled me forward instead of rooting my feet to the ground. Icy fingers clutched at my heart as I lunged forward. Eyes wide, no thoughts except a breathless scream, I put everything I had into swinging that ornate stick. Willing the magic Hannah worked to grab ahold and tear apart the specter of dread manifesting between us. 

I don't actually know what I expected to happen, but an explosion was pretty far down the list. 

The makeshift weapon slammed into the half-formed ghost's waist and met all the resistance of a wet paper towel, ripping it fully onto this side of reality. For a moment, body language and physical feedback told a story completely at odds with the laws of terrestrial physics. The ghosts' too-present body crumpled sideways on impact, but to my arm it felt like no more of a shock than knocking down a cobweb. I was left with the impression of looking at an animation still: a single drawing with little detail, yet to come to life, but that could still somehow imply explosive motion. 

But instead of explosive motion, the ghost just exploded. There were no glowing magic runes, the carvings didn't come alive or move or shine, there was no build-up at all really. Just a sudden, loud detonation. Not like in the movies, this was more sound and force than fire and light. A deafening crack split the night as the club was wrenched free from my hands and I was knocked backwards. 

It's a small miracle I managed to stay on my feet. I think it was quiet, afterwards. It was rather hard to say though, as the only thing I could hear was a low, whining ring. An off-key musical note held far too long. 

Shaking my head and trying to reorient myself, I looked up to find the specter had been blown to pieces, quite literally. Small scraps of indistinct ghost flesh and cloth formed a slowly expanding cloud of debris that hung in the air as if it were water. A grizzly splatter of paint across the fabric of reality. That surreal scene threatened to send my world spinning again before the pieces began to fade away, broken down into whatever constituent elements would form such a dreadful thing. 

I was right though, this all caught Hannah completely off guard too. She was sprawled forward on the slight hill, staring up at me from behind a tangled mess of hair and leaves. Like a startled puppy on the 4th of July, her eyes were wide as saucers and a soft whine was easing out of her lungs: the tail end of a laugh or a sob, I couldn't tell. 

"There was… another one…" I started, lamely. 

Blinking through my own surprise at this unexpected peek behind the curtains of the cool and collected witch named Hannah, I did my best to suppress a grin and reached forward to help her up. She was adorably flustered, stammering out some mumbled thanks as I helped her to her feet and awkwardly picked crushed leaves from her hair. 

I tried a few times to explain myself, or apologize, but we kept talking over each other in awkward fits and starts. Eventually I realized how beet-red Hannah's face had become, and feeling my own cheeks start to flush I had to turn away myself, stammering out some excuse of looking for the dropped club. Searching the rest of the graveyard was mercifully less violent; no more impossibilities attacked us from the shadows. Which was lucky, since Hannah’s overturned taser was out of order, and my gifted weapon had shattered with the force of its ghost-destroying explosion. 

“It was a rush job,” she explained, after regaining her composure, “I hoped it would last at least a few swings, but I must have miscalculated. I’m just glad there was no feedback.”

I probably should have asked her what the hell that meant, but I was twitchy from the adrenaline high, and that always made all of my senses dial up to 11. 

Including the evil-detecting one. 

The dark bone yard had oozed malevolence before, but now it had a sickly edge to it. It was obvious now what I had felt before was only the overflow. Essentially excess radiation that had soaked into the nearby environment. The source was the weather-beaten church looming over us, the evil aura that emanated from it was a cloying, sticky tar. It seemed more concentrated, but also partially contained somehow. It had clearly bled into the graveyard, contaminating it, but something awful infested the building itself too. And I knew that opening the door would be disastrous. But we had no other choice. Hazel and Felix were nowhere to be found, and I didn’t have the naive luxury of assuming nothing bad had happened to them. 

Climbing the slight hill to the church took nearly everything I had. Each step towards that building was a test of will. Every fiber of my being was begging to put as much distance between myself and that forsaken place. But that spark of insane courage still smoldered inside me, indignant and spiteful. And every wave of dread just made it flare up hotter, like dumping pure oxygen on an ember. One way or another, something was going to pay for what we’ve been through tonight. 

Preferably by getting its teeth kicked in. 

 

—

 

A low groan warbled out of the darkness. A sound of pain and fear, like a wounded animal. With dismay, I heard a familiar voice distorted by unfamiliar emotions. My stomach sank like a rock. We found Felix, but he was not okay. 

I think I had known he wouldn't be.

It had taken some searching to find a way into the decrepit building. There were no doors facing the graveyard, and the only window was securely fastened. At Hannah’s suggestion, we tried the front door, but unsurprisingly it was boarded shut. Around the other side of the building was a small back door that sat ajar. It opened onto a dark, moldering kitchen. My friend’s voice echoed from farther inside. 

“Felix?” I called out. I wasn’t loud, he didn’t sound far away, but a creeping panic jacked my voice an octave higher than I intended. 

“Amy?” His voice strained with pain. “Are you okay?”

Suppressed guilt clawed at my chest. 

“I’m in one piece,” I replied, “brought help.”

“Oh thank fuck.” From deeper within the decaying structure, a flashlight clicked on, flooding the corridor beyond the kitchen with a wave of stark shadow and searing light. “Over here.”

He wasn’t far. I led Hannah to my injured friend, who was propped limply against a wall at the base of a staircase that looked like it would collapse in the face of a stiff breeze. Felix looked terrible. His left arm hung limp at his side as he sagged heavily against the wall. His face was set in a stony mask, but his right fist clenching tight around the flashlight gave away how much pain he was in. It was too dark to see his pupils, but I’d seen enough head injuries to recognize the unfocused look and floaty body language of a concussion too. 

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Help,” he said to my witch, his tone artificially light. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but well…” he trailed off in a grimace, eyes screwed shut against a new wave of pain. 

“None taken, Mr. Felix,” Hannah replied, matching his tone. “Let’s see if I can’t help with that.” 

She knelt down next to him and set about examining his arm. Her hands almost glowed in the stark torch lighting as she gently probed the extent of his injured shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re alright Ames,” he said, catching my eye, “and not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but where exactly did you—”

“It’s a long story.” I cut him off, my voice catching on the lump in the back of my throat. 

A shout  echoed through my memory, along with a vision of terrible, dead hands wrenching Felix’s arm backwards. Of him being thrown bodily into a tombstone. 

A splash of red, far too vivid in the dark…

…Hazel crying…

…

“... would be best practice, but I’m no doctor…” Hannah’s soft voice brought me back. She was gently manipulating Felix’s injured arm into a new angle, and bracing it with both hands. “On three, okay?”

“One, two…”

The three was swallowed by Felix’s scream as Hannah gave his arm a sharp shove and relocated his shoulder in its proper home with a sickening pop. I winced in sympathy, then worried about how loud that had been. Quickly scanning the area around us, there was no sign of movement. 

The flashlight still lit the interior in stark contrast, and it was enough to tell we were in a long, narrow hallway that seemed to span the length of the building. There wasn’t much of a landing for the staircase, it just kind of ended in the hall. Back the way we came, the doorway to the kitchen was a dark hole in the wall that the hallway continued past, terminating at an old door that was so warped I doubted it could open. Back the other way, the hall seemed to open up into some kind of foyer, though most was hidden from my current view. Unless I was really turned around, I figured the boarded up front doors we had tried earlier were up that way. Still no movement, but the sticky, ill feeling of the building seemed to be getting thicker the farther in we went, and it felt like the bulk of it was waiting for us just around that corner. 

“With luck, this will do for now. But you really need to have a professional take a look at this later, okay?” Hannah said. 

She had somehow produced a length of cloth and managed to fashion Felix a crude sling for his arm. It was enough to get him on his feet, but I could tell right away he was still in bad shape. Despite the tough guy act, my friend had an alarmingly pale complexion and was coated in a sheen of sweat. I was about to say something, but stopped me with a look. 

“She’s still in here,” he said, nodding towards the foyer, “I’m not leaving without her.”

“I know.”

 

—

 

In the end, confirming Felix’s assessment wasn’t too difficult. Really, it was the process of elimination: there just wasn’t anywhere else for Hazel to be. The graveyard was small, and other than our supernatural assailants, nothing much was hiding there. And while Hazel running off blind into the woods was technically possible—that was the way I went after all—I agreed with him that she had come in here. I didn’t have anything solid to justify this, but something about the forest around here kept nagging at the back of my head. 

We were near a small city, not out in the sticks. This patch of forest couldn’t be more than a dozen yards across. So how the hell had I run for so long without hitting a street or house? And where exactly was that clearing Hannah found me in? Hazel and I combed online maps looking for this place yesterday, and I think that kind of clearing would have stood out. As a false positive, if nothing else, since we were looking for a clearing in the middle of the woods. It wasn’t like I had riddled out all the secrets or anything, but my intuition said that if Hazel had fled into the trees like I did, we would have crossed paths by now. 

If nothing else, Felix was sure he saw Hazel heading for this building. That was why he made his way in here after all. A part of me still wanted to be skeptical about his assessment, the dried blood in his hair made me question his memory. But I didn’t have a better idea, so that just left the interior of the church. And that narrowed things down a lot. 

It was a small building, even by 1800’s standards. We had already cleared the kitchen, and Felix had checked the door at the end of the hallway earlier. Like I suspected, it was warped shut and hadn’t been opened in a long time. Hazel wasn't in there. Likewise, we could rule out the second floor. The staircase had actually collapsed farther up and was completely impassible. 

Which brought us to the doorway. 

It was around the corner from where we found Felix, set opposite the boarded-up front doors in the small foyer. Another wide set of double doors, firmly closed. They looked about a century younger than the rest of the building: still old, but functional. The doors weren't really decorated, but they had a certain gravitas all the same. It must have been the entrance to the nave, there just wasn’t enough building left to be anything else. And unlike the other doors, these were in fine working order judging by the clean arcs that had been scraped across the dusty floor. 

The three of us stood facing those doors, awash with moonlight from a shattered window above the entrance, and time seemed to hold its breath. The not-at-all-a-smell of the evil in this place was so strong I could taste it. Sticky and sour, like fermented honey. It made my skin crawl and my thoughts seize. And somehow, I could still tell that it was being diluted. Just the source of this miasma being behind a closed set of doors seemed to lock it down in some ineffable way. 

And we were about to open them. 

Well, that was the plan in theory. In practice, no one was moving an inch. I had made something of a habit out of freezing in the face of fear tonight, so my own inaction was a surprise to no one. Hannah and Felix though, they had both established by now that this aura I could sense didn’t bother them one bit. All night, they both strode blindly ahead into the maelstrom, unaware of its stinging wind. 

But neither of my companions moved now, either. 

Felix looked like he was trying to decide whether to faint or be sick, and was getting progressively more frustrated with the indecision. Some color had come back into his face, now that his arm was in the sling, but unfortunately that color was predominantly green. The tough guy act wouldn’t hold up much longer, but it seemed like he had staked something fundamental on Hazel’s safe return. Whatever it was wouldn’t let him back down. The result was like someone forcing themselves to confront a phobia: shaky physiological panic just barely held in check with obstinate willpower. 

Hannah, on the other hand, had gone very still. The self-proclaimed witch wielded no wand and no broom. No sword or taser. She wasn’t looking through her mysterious satchel bag, nor was she preparing any hand signs or reciting any spell. She was just still, right down to her core. Poised like a very dangerous animal getting ready to be very dangerous in the immediate future. And for the first time since I’ve known her, that mask of a smile had completely fallen away. The expression beneath it could freeze blood and cut stone. Not angry, mind you, nothing as emotive as that. Just… intense. Cold and sharp. But she wasn’t moving towards the door either. 

You could cut the tension in the air with a pair of bolt cutters, maybe. I found myself desperately wishing there was something to symbolize our resolve. A roaring fire, a gust of wind, sparks, dramatic lighting, something that could push me forward to take that step. But there was nothing. It was dark, dusty, cold, and quiet, with a sense of impending doom bearing down on us. 

And then it wasn’t. 

Impending doom, I mean. It was still very dark. And dusty, and cold. And quiet, though that wouldn’t last much longer either. All at once the omnipresent malevolence I had been wrestling with all night was just… gone. So suddenly and so completely that for a split second I doubted whether it had ever been there at all. 

The tension in me snapped like a piano wire. 

It was like coming up for air after being underwater for about twice as long as you’d ever held your breath. I was reeling and sucking in mouthfuls of air that tasted clean and clear. Maybe too clean, if I thought about it for more than a second. Almost… sacred?

I didn’t get that second though. Before anything else could happen, the doors before us swung open with a creak. And the unasked question on my lips was answered with about a dozen more. 

In the middle of the night, in an ancient, collapsing church, in the middle of nonexistent woods, next to a haunted graveyard, I doubt most people’s first answer to ‘what’s behind door number one’ would be ‘cosplay model’. And yet that is what we were presented with, as we stumbled backwards out of the door’s path.  

With pale, porcelain skin framed by heavy, dark brown hair, I could have mistaken her for a mannequin if it wasn’t for the scowl on her face. She had the kind of curves that were usually deliberate to some degree, and was wearing something between a Victorian-era boarding school uniform and a magical girl costume. A severe black dress with a gold trim, layered with a gray plaid skirt and knee socks. She had a short, black cape fastened with a ribbon and it bore a gold crest I didn’t recognize on one side. She was in the middle of placing something I’m pretty sure was a wand into one of her oversized sleeves when she noticed us. Thin, delicate fingers of pale ivory vanished the half-glimpsed instrument with a deft flick, then balled up in obstinate fists to find a resting place on her generous hips. 

“Excuse me, but who the hell are—” she started, her gaze sliding over us to lock on Hannah, “oh, you.” Her scowl twisted into something hateful, and the venom in her voice made me flinch. “What are you doing here, apostate?” 

“Hey Lexi,” Hannah’s artificially chipper tone was straining immediately, “I could ask you the same thing.”

“It’s Alexis, you hick, and I own this land, remember?” she sneered. “Actually, thank you for reminding me that you are trespassing right now and what the fuck are you doing here?” She actually leaned forward and clapped at the last part, giving me a better look at her hands.

She had the hands of an aristocrat: soft and untested. Pearlescent in the dim moonlight, her fingers were free of callus or blemish, but stained faintly with ink around the pads. Her nails were unpainted, but expertly manicured. Beautiful, in an arrogant, detached way. 

Around this point she finally seemed to register Felix and my presence, and her face deflated from malice into a baffled confusion. “And since when could you afford help?” she asked, giving us a practiced up-and-down look that reminded me of a farmer sizing up livestock. 

“They aren’t assistants, you racist bitch.”

“That’s not what I—”

“They got attacked by something you should have been keeping a lid on, Ms. property manager. I’m just cleaning up your mess. Again.”

“Hrmph,” the girl snorted, arms crossed. The perfect picture of dejection. Then she was looking down her button nose at us again. “Well then, job’s done. No thanks to you. I took care of it.” She was somehow pouting smugly at us now. “Go on, vacate the permisie already.”

I knew from the moment the doors opened that Felix wasn’t going to be any help here. He was tongue-tied. Stunned speechless. Unfortunately, I was right there with him. There are just certain types of people that you cannot deal with, and this ‘Lexi' was that for both of us in many different ways. But at this bizarrely phrased ‘fuck off’ I managed to find my voice. 

“Our friend was in there. She might be hurt. I’m sorry, but we can’t leave without her.” 

At this, the strange girl looked my way, somewhat startled. I think it was the first time she saw me as a person. Then she nodded.

“Of course,” she said, with none of the earlier hostility. Pitching her voice just a fraction louder, she called back into the darkened nave, “Jarvis, if you would please.”

Out from the darkness emerged something that on paper should have looked like a human butler. It should have had all the right pieces, and they should all have been in the right places. But somehow the full picture just refused to come together properly.

It had long, thin legs encased in stiff slacks and tipped with shiny black dress shoes that clicked neatly across the stone floor. It had a long tailed coat that evoked the image of insect wings encasing a narrow body with a ramrod straight back. Resting on top of a narrow, drawn-out face was a shiny, bald shell with a thin corona of graying hair. And between narrow eyebrows and a hooked nose it definitely had normal human eyes that weren't segmented at all. Its thin arms were folded neatly behind its back, making it hard to tell if its very normal human hands had more or less fingers than they were meant to. 

This also made no sense, since it was gently carrying the limp form of Hazel, and it absolutely only had one pair of arms to do that with.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lady Alexis Black, heir to the Lord Sorcerer and regent of this Between realm." She faced me directly as she spoke, her strange assistant stepping primly to her shoulder. "I now return one Hazel Hopkins, physically whole, to your care, and wish her a speedy recovery."

Hannah tried to interject with a "What the hell does that mean?" But she continued on, unfazed.

"You have my apologies for your regrettable experiences tonight, and my assurance that your trespassing will be overlooked, this time."

On cue, the definitely-not-an-insect butler stepped forward and presented Hazel to me. She was unconscious, and warm to the touch, like she was running a light fever. It was like she weighed nothing as I took her in my arms, the relief and concern burned out everything else. I took a moment to feel her shallow pulse and confirm the steady rise and fall of her chest to assure myself she was alive, then I faced her rescuers. 

"Thank you, seriously, for saving her," I said gravely, then flashed a smile, "and, uh, nice to meet you, Lexi. And you too Jarvis. If we're being formal, I'm Amanda Lee. Call me Amy." For some reason, this got another 'hmph' from Lexi and made her look away. Hannah didn’t move a muscle. 

"I guess I owe you one, yeah?"

"Quite," she replied promptly, "I'll call on you to repay your debt… Amanda." 

For some reason, I bristled slightly at that. Immediately I understood why Hannah insisted on calling her by a nickname. Yeah, she was Lexi forever now. 

"We're done here," she declared to no one, "come, Jarvis." 

And with that she strode past us and out into the night, through the front door that I could have sworn was boarded tightly shut. Her 'Jarvis' was a half step behind her, but it paused as it passed me, and in a voice like the rustling of dry leaves it said "your companion will awaken soon, mistress Amy, but mind her eyes when she does." Then Jarvis was gone too, following Lexi into the dark. 

 

—

 

When we emerged from the crumbling building, everything felt different. Like the world was smaller. The sky was shifting from inky black to pastel gray as the first hint of dawn eased overhead. The trees seemed to thin from dark, dense forest to thin suburban greenery in the burgeoning light. Finding our way through to a road was simple. We walked back in a quiet daze, Hazel apparently fast asleep in my arms. It wasn't until we were back on campus that I realized I had lost track of Hannah. 

My mysterious witch was gone, and she hadn't even said goodbye. 

There was more to do, of course. There were loose ends to tug on, questions to ask, and decisions to make. And there were injuries to tend to, both physical and mental. Plus the mundane weight of everyday life settling back over our heads. After all, the world doesn't stop spinning even when you get thrown off of it. 

But that could all wait.

For now, we returned to our dorm, and we slept. Completely unaware of just how severely a single night had altered the course of our lives.