Throwing the front door wide open, Ian stumbled to the porch, his loafer catching against the aluminum threshold. His knees caught the brunt of his hard fall. Searing pain shot from his thighs to his hips. He scraped his fingernails on the planks of the porch as he tried to claw his way to his feet.
Turning her head toward Ian, June unintentionally squeezed the serpent in her hands. The sharp prick of fangs jolted her from her haze. “Ouch,” she squealed, dropping the snake to the porch.
From the open doorway, Dixie growled, the rumble building in her throat until she pounced, muzzle-first, at the slithering intruder who had bit June. The black crow saw Dixie as competition. Thus, while Dixie snatched up the head of the snake, the bird grasped the snake's tail with his beak. Dixie shook the serpent violently inside her frothing jowls. At the same time, the crow would not let go of the snake's tail.
Tighter they tugged, until the serpent's split into two halves appeased them, a spray of dark blood hitting the porch. Moaning above the tug of war, June spewed sickness from the depths of her gut, her body falling, limp, against Ian. The crow rose to the sky with the tail of the snake dangling from his beak. Far below, Dixie clung to the head of the reptile and darted inside the open front door of Peyton Manor, her empty stomach eager for the dead prize.
The smell of smoke, pungent and heavy, lolled toward the porch from the trees. June knew it was the smell of flesh. She grasped the sweaty, wrinkled collar of Ian's once-crisp, starched-white shirt. Inside the house, Dixie howled, while the high-pitched yelp of a beast could be heard from the forest beyond the front porch and winding driveway of Peyton Manor.
Clutching June in his arms, Ian patted the top of her head calmly. “We're leaving,” he said softly. “Tree be damned. I'll drive through the woods if I have to.”
“No,” June quavered. Her catatonic mask evaporated and the lines of her face sharpened like daggers, aimed at Ian's scowl.
June pushed off his chest with her frail arms and she backed away from her dear friend, her green eyes deciphering his wounded expression. Flipping her white curls haughtily behind her, she stormed into her house, her tattered and mud-stained robe brushing the shiny wooden floor. The staircase loomed in the foyer. At the top of the steps, Dixie rolled on her back, her pink belly shaking at the chandelier dangling from the soaring ceiling.
“Here!” June commanded from the bottom of the staircase. Whining, the dog bounded down to her master. “Fetch her leash, Ian,” June snapped, tossing her head back to her companion. He was staring, wide-eyed, in the threshold of the gaping front door. “We're going for a walk.” Raising a bare foot to the bottom step, June latched her arm on the iron banister and pulled herself up to the next step. “Now excuse me while I change these rags, won't you?” she asked, her eyes focused on the top of the staircase. “I won't be long.”
Mounting the steps, June heard the crack of a gunshot ring in her ears. Standing on the porch, Ian shook his head. The trees had grown silent. He could not hear the battle raging in his old friend's headâthe piercing wails of rage echoing through her skull.
“We may have a guest for dinner this evening,” June said, stopping in the middle of her flight up the steep staircase. Taking a deep breath, she turned to her friend, who was standing below her. The sound of a gunshot reverberated through her mind. She smiled.
The witch in the woods
, she thought. A pistol waited silently in her bedside drawer. “I'll be down shortly, Ian,” she called to her friend, her hand clenched around the top rail of the black iron banister.
Ian's left shoulder was resting against the frame of the gaping front door. He shoved his shaking hands into his pockets and kicked at the aluminum threshold with the toe of his right loafer. There was a stench of pluff mud from the marsh tucked along the western edge of the Peyton property. This smell twitched in his nose; he knew it was low tide. He glanced nervously at the trees behind his shoulder.
Time to hunt
. This thought flitted through his head when a low rustling echoed through the brush among the trees. Beyond the gravel driveway and rows of towering pines, a tract of swamp grass, fetid ooze, and moss-soaked willow trees hugged the edge of June's land. The ocean breeze siphoned the stench away from the marsh and deposited the smell on his old friend's porch. At low tide, the smothering stink of the mud turned his stomach because it smelled like death. Beyond the house, the Atlantic stood calm, a warm breeze churning the sand as the shoreline dried out from the hurricane's fury.
In her bedroom, June unlocked the windows and hitched the glass panes from the sills. The storm shutters creaked when she threw them open. She wanted to see the wide swath of Atlantic Ocean, beyond the sand dunes buffeting her home from the sea. Holding aside the billowing, gossamer curtain, she stepped closer to the open window. A man's figure in gray stood at the edge of the water, his face focused on the waves.
June remembered that her binoculars were in the drawer beside her iron canopy bed. As she slipped her fingers inside the drawer, her skin shivered when she touched the cool steel of the revolver. She shivered. Hugging her terrycloth robe to her chest, she removed the gun and nestled the weapon inside the robe's soft, deep pockets. Putting her hand back in the drawer, she withdrew the binoculars and returned hurriedly to the open window.
The heavy, Army-issue binoculars had been a souvenir of war. When she brought the lenses to her face, they tugged at the fragile skin of her bony, sharp cheeks. Her arms wobbled, struggling to hold the lenses to her eyes.
She considered who might be on the beach.
Perhaps it was Joseph
, she thought to herself, her dead brother. He had etched his name with a pocketknife into the side of the binoculars in Germany during the turmoil of war.
Or possibly it was Captain Charles Peyton.
As she thought of her father, the edges of her thin lips curled into a smile.
Narrowing her gaze to the lone figure on the beach, she squinted. She rested her chest against the wooden sill while she poked her head through the open window.
“Joseph, it's you!” she whispered emphatically. June dropped the binoculars and wept.
On the porch, Ian tapped his foot and crossed his arms, waiting for June to return, re-dressed. He spoke toward the empty staircase, “I'll carry you down if I have to do so, June.”
“Ian,” her shaking voice called from above his head. His name echoed through the house and through the trees.
“June!” he answered, leaping up the stairs. His voice carried her name into the thick forest of oak trees and pines surrounding Peyton Manor.
Outside, behind the curtain of wood and brush, there was a cramped, human-made clearing. The spot was hidden from anyone who might have been on the driveway or in the house. But it reeked of boiling rabbit. The stench had tempted a crow to sit on a branch above the grass while a brown, dancing woman laughed in the midday sunshine. Silently the bird gaped down at the humble cemetery, four flat gravestones aligned in a tidy row, while it finished swallowing the tail of a green snake.
“Me tink dat root, dat moss, dat rabbit, dem feaders,” the dancing woman said, her Gullah voice breaking the silence of the smoky clearing. Her black eyes met the stare of the crow resting in the low branch above her head. “Dem feaders gonna make dis stew do right.” A shallow fire pit, dug hastily in the sandy soil, cradled an iron pot. Jasmine added dry pine needles and oak leaves to the burning kindling beneath the bowl. The kindling under the mixture hissed and popped. The mixture bubbled at a low boil.
Dat Cyrus!
she asserted.
Dat Cyrus not dead.
She leaned over the pot so that her wrinkled nose stopped inches above the wretched, frothing stew. “Dat sometin,” she proudly told the crow, which was still perched on the thin pine branch above her. “Smell it,” she told the bird, as she sniffed the air deep into her chest. Then she clapped her palms together, and suddenly the crow dropped, lifeless, to the ground, Jasmine's shrill slap was still ringing through the clearing.
At her bare feet, a white wolf pup whined, his empty belly growling eagerly for a meal. Jasmine stroked the wolf's muzzle as she plucked a pair of black feathers from the dead crow's back. “No done yet,” she told the pup and dropped the feathers in the boiling pot. With a heaving gasp toward the fire, she emptied the breath from her lungs. She grinned at the flames flaring up from the blazing kindling. Rancid, gray smoke rose from the pit and blanketed the clearing and the Peyton graves like a fog.
“Me tink time now.” Jasmine grabbed the pot in her calloused hands. When she rested the iron bowl on top of a flat, white-marble grave marker, splashes of stew spilled on the name carved in the smooth stone. The raised letters formed the name Joseph Peyton. The letters soaked in the boiling broth, while Jasmine closed her eyes and spoke to Cyrus.
“Cyrus, rize dem eyes, dem tooth. Da sky gonna fall on dat girl. Da ground gonna drink blut. Eat dat stew.” Her hands raised the pot toward the blue sky. Jasmine stepped on top of the gravestone and chanted: “Free, Cyrus. Fight.”
Up in the attic prison at Callahan's house, Cyrus was awakened by a stirring in his gut. Cyrus rose from his stupor. He had a hazy memory of the night before, a dream in which he was caught in the grasp of a winged creature. This unpleasant image crawled through his drowsy brain. He growled. His mind whirled without thought, fueled only by the instinct of hunger. He must eat. He felt pain in his belly. The house below him seemed quiet. He sniffed the air, but smelled nothing, no one. He was alone. Now was the time to escape. The sleep had brought him rest and the bruising across his battered yellow skin had faded. Breathing deep into his chest, his broken ribs rose, the fractures mended.
He moved to a crawling position on his naked hands and knees. He bowed his head and clenched his teeth. A tingle rippled across his back and down his bony spine. The veins of his forearms disappeared under a thick brown coat of wolf fur. Abruptly a howl escaped from his throat and his hind legs propelled him against the locked attic door.
The wolf hurled himself against the wood. Again and again, the animal used his shoulder to ram the door. A crack appeared on his third try. Cyrus grinned to himself, his black lips parting over his razor-sharp canine teeth.
On the grave of Joseph Peyton, Cyrus's wifeâhis masterâ shook with laughter.
Freedom!
Jasmine grinned as she raised the iron pot to her mouth. The rancid broth dripped from the sides of her mouth and ran down her chin.
Freedom!
she thought again, setting the pot down so that her wolf pup could slurp the stew.
Jasmine cackled, her hands on her swaying hips. “Dat book gonna be mine,” she shouted into the clearing. “Da devil told me so.”
Fury boiled in Kraven's veins. Sparks of madness flamed and spat white-hot from his rage. The evil wizardâthe spell casterâhad brought his dragon to the doors of Kraven's castle. The monster had come for them. While the people begged at the castle entrance for their prince to save them, the village behind them burned. His brideâhis brave, beautiful Iselinâ did not want to run. She begged him to let her stay. But instead, he wanted to send her away to the hills beyond the wide river, toward the sea. The wizard would not find her there, Kraven reasoned. To show her the way, her father would give her a map, one he had made from his journeys across the hills and valley of Kilhaven.
Kraven did not want the people to suffer. Already, billowing clouds of black smoke rose from the pyres of their homes. He knew that he must face the wizard. But what would it cost him to save his realm?
He urged Iselin to flee. He knew that she was afraid. Her eyes had betrayed her fear.
“You must go,” he told Iselin, his hands wrapped around her shoulders.
“Wait for me,” she said.
“Forever,” he whispered to his princess bride, even as the rumble of thunder rolled across the darkened sky. The valley of Kilhaven burned, and above them, storm clouds swirled, mixed with plumes of smoke.
“Save Kilhaven,” demanded Iselin, bravely realizing that with Kraven thus engaged, she would be unprotected.
A roar reverberated across the valley and the walls of Castle Kilhaven shook. They both knew that she should run far and fast.
The auburn-haired girl stood on the tips of her bare toes and planted a kiss upon her beloved's forehead. “Forever,” she promised, hugging her arms around his broad shoulders. She did not tremble. But her embrace was frenzied.
“Hide in the cave,” Kraven whispered into her ear as he stroked her long locks, his fingertips delicately entwining themselves with her curls, as if he could not let her go.
Embers of hate and vengeance sparred within her heart, but her emerald-green eyes revealed the innocence of her soul. She knew she might never see him again. Above her, heavy gray smoke swallowed the blue heavens. It was at that moment that he closed his eyes briefly to fight the swelling tears. When he reopened his eyes, she had vanished, off to the hills surrounding the valley.
Dropping to his knees, he cried up to the darkening sky. His bride was running for her life into the forest and he must stay to fight. He could only hope that she would reach the cave in time. But he knew that it was so far away. He was seized by despair. The sound of his anguished cry echoed through the valley.
Thunder rumbled above his head. He realized that the sound belonged to the dragon, not a storm. He rose to his feet. A violent wind whipped his raven hair from the tops of his shoulders. A cry from the bowels of hell rang in his ears. Darkness followed, as the creature blotted out the light of the sun. The dragon descended, kicking dust from the ground into Kraven's face. He threw up his arms to shield his eyes. The beast's wide wings retreated to his sides and, for a moment, the creature stood silent, bowing his head, while a lone rider, his body hidden beneath the folds of a hooded cloak, slid from the dragon's neck. It was the spell caster, the wizard.