The Witch of Tin Mountain(20)

But nosy Ing, being Ing, would ask too many questions. Questions Deirdre didn’t want to answer. In the distance, a twig snapped. And then another. Deirdre scanned the dark row of cedars edging Sutter’s holler. A flash of pale corn-silk hair moved through the trees. Only one person she’d ever met had hair like that—Ebba, Ingrid’s little cousin.

What in heaven’s name was the child doing out in this storm? Was she lost? Ebba didn’t know these woods. If she wandered too far, she might end up falling off a bluff. Children didn’t fare well alone in the forests around Tin Mountain.

A few summers ago, little Tessa Ray, who had been born and raised right here, on her daddy’s land, had wandered off after a Sunday school picnic into Sutter’s holler. They’d found her days later, babbling about strange voices and a lady perched in a tree like a bird. Tessa’s mind went soft as grits after that. Eventually her babbling turned into endless screaming. The Rays had done their best by the girl, but as far as Deirdre knew, she still lived in a home for the feebleminded.

She doubted the Nilssons would have half the patience with Ebba.

Deirdre lifted her skirts and ran into the woods, calling Ebba’s name. Within moments, she spotted a flicker of movement to the side of the logging path. She followed, wet branches smacking against her face. The way grew steep and perilous, rocks slipping under her feet as she edged down the lip of the holler. She leaned against a tree to catch her breath. Her shins were lashed to ribbons by the underbrush, blood trickling from the welted cuts.

From the direction of Pa’s old homestead, she heard a shimmer of childlike laughter. “Ebba?”

No one answered her call. Something wasn’t right. Her heart juddered as she scanned the blackened cedars. Fear prickled along her arms and gathered low in her belly. She felt watched. Hunted.

In the middle of the clearing, the lone, gnarled locust rustled its leaves. A shape drifted out from behind the tree, unfurling like white smoke. Deirdre squinted through the driving rain. It wasn’t Ebba, or smoke. It was a woman, tall and slender and dressed only in a billowing white shift, its hem singed black. Her long auburn hair stood out from her head in a wild, messy halo. She lifted her hand and pointed at Deirdre, eyes as blue as the depths of the ocean.

Deirdre . . .

The woman’s voice, though soft and beseeching, reverberated through Deirdre. She fell to her knees and howled as a searing pain lanced her temple and thrummed behind her eyes. A horrific vision rushed into her head, unbidden. In it, the woman was being dragged from Pa’s old homestead by a man in black whose face was hidden in shadow. Outside the cabin, a jeering crowd stood, wielding torches and shouting. Though the woman had a proud expression, Deirdre felt her pain, her worry for her child, and the sting of her lover’s betrayal.

The man forced the woman to the locust tree and lashed her to its thorny trunk as the mob looked on. He took the same wickedly curved knife Deirdre had seen in the cabin from the folds of his cassock. With it, he carved a cross onto the woman’s forehead, and it was wrong. It was wrong because the knife was the woman’s—and it was never meant to do harm. Her blood trickled down her face and neck, painting her bosom red. The man grasped a hank of the woman’s hair and lifted her head.

Promise the child to me. Promise her to me and I will let you live.

The woman had made peace with her death, had known for some time that she must die, yet she gathered enough strength to speak:

Never, Nathaniel Walker. You will never claim what is mine. The land and my blood will remember what you’ve done. One day, there will come a reckoning and you will reap your own folly.

The man laughed. He took up a torch and held it to the woman’s hem. Fire licked at her feet, making her dance. A cry of pain broke free from her throat. Deirdre cried out with her—felt the biting tongues of flame as if she were being burned, too. But along with the burning pain, something else rushed through her, borne on a fast-moving current that lit up her bones with light. Her flesh sang with knowing. With power.

The vision faded along with the woman’s cries, leaving Deirdre spent and shaking. She lifted her pounding head from the ground. The woman was gone. Rain pelted Deirdre’s back, chilling her skin where moments before it had blazed with an unearthly fire. She crawled beneath the locust tree, taking what little shelter she could beneath its branches, and touched her hand to the rough bark. A voice flowed through her mind, like a soft whisper of shadow.

Remember, Deirdre. For her sake and your own, you must remember. Guard your heart from treachery, and beware the one who burns.



Deirdre woke to the muted sound of dripping water. Gray light spilled into the cave from the jagged entrance, where rocks hung like the crooked teeth of some fearsome creature. Her thoughts were muddied. She had slept fitfully, plagued with strange dreams and whispers. Garnet Cave was said to be occupied by restless spirits, though it seemed one couldn’t walk ten paces in these hills without setting foot on haunted land. But last night . . . last night had been a thing altogether strange and new. She’d run as far as she could from Sutter’s holler after her vision, not caring where she ended up, until her legs trembled and threatened to buckle beneath her. At least the cave had protected her from the storm, even though dark, wet places reminded Deirdre of graves and soft, wriggling things hidden beneath rotten logs.

She hoped that Ebba had made it home. She’d stop by the Nilssons’ for breakfast to make sure the girl was safe.