The Year of the Witching(57)

“We’re here,” said Adrine, and she motioned to a wide plot of land, just beyond the reach of the forest where the grass grew waist-high. Immanuelle stepped off the road, into the meadow, and it was only as she drew closer that she saw the charred bones of the house’s ruins and the cracked stones of what used to be its foundation.

By the wreckage alone, she could tell that the house was far larger than the ones in the shanty village they’d passed through. In fact, it may have rivaled the size of the Moore house in its day. It was clear that despite their residing in the Outskirts, the Wards had been of good standing. Only a family of consequence could afford such a large home.

Immanuelle lifted her skirts, stepped gingerly over a charred piece of timber that may have been a rafter. She walked the perimeter of the house once, stepping carefully through the debris, then stopped and dropped to a crouch beside one of the large slate foundation stones. Up close, she saw that it was deeply carved with a strange symbol—a cross in the center of a circle—that looked like a letter in some foreign alphabet. The longer she stared at it, the more it reminded her of the witch’s mark.

“What is this symbol?” Immanuelle asked, tracing it with her fingertips. Despite the unrelenting heat of the midday sun, the stone was strangely cold.

“It’s a sigil,” said Adrine, stepping forward. “It’s our custom to carve the foundation stones of our houses with them. For luck, prosperity, protection.”

“What does this one mean?”

“It’s a siphon,” said the girl, whispering now though as far as Immanuelle could tell there was no one around to hear them.

“And what is it siphoning?”

Adrine looked reluctant to answer. “Power. From the forest.”

“And that one?” Immanuelle pointed across the ruins of the house to another foundation stone. This one was carved with a series of eight overlapping gashes that looked as though they were inflicted in anger.

“A shield,” said Adrine. “Meant to repel danger.”

Immanuelle didn’t need to ask about the marking on the next foundation stone. “The witch’s mark.”

Immanuelle walked to the last of the four stones, which stood at the far corner of the ruin, nearest the forest. It was capsized and cracked into two large pieces. The girls had to work together, rolling the stones over—as spiders and worms writhed in the newly exposed soil—and push the broken pieces back together. Immanuelle brushed the dirt off the stone to see it clearly, and when she did, Adrine drew back so quickly she nearly stumbled over a fallen rafter.

Immanuelle peered down at the marking, ran her fingers along the cuts in the stone. It looked innocuous enough, just a small hexagon with a series of crosses cut through its center. “What is it?”

“We should go.”

Immanuelle frowned. “Why?”

“Because that’s a cursing seal,” said Adrine in a hiss. “It’s meant to do harm.”

“But we don’t intend any ill will.”

“Doesn’t matter. Who knows what the sigil’s caster intended when they made that mark.”

“But it’s been years,” said Immanuelle, “and the house is long abandoned. There can’t be any power left in these stones now.”

“Once a sigil is made and a curse is cast, it’s done,” said Adrine, clearly exasperated with her. “It doesn’t matter if a person leaves or dies or forgets; the power that mark was made to represent lives on.”

A pit formed in Immanuelle’s stomach as she thought about the witches, and the plagues they cast with her blood. “So you’re saying that curses live on forever?”

“I’m saying that it’s difficult, often impossible, to undo what’s already been done. When you make a mark, it’s there forever. It can be altered but never fully erased.”

If what Adrine said was true, it meant there was little hope of breaking the cycle of the plagues. It seemed that the dark power of the woods would have to run its course. But what did that mean for Honor and Glory and the rest of the blight sick? Would they even survive long enough to see the plague’s end?

Immanuelle thought of the prophetic entry at the end of her mother’s journal: Blood. Blight. Darkness. . . . Slaughter. It was clear that if they didn’t find a way to break the curse, then there would be a mortal price to pay. There had to be a way to stop it, and based on everything she’d gathered thus far, her best chance was to decode the sigils, the language of the witches’ magic. If the people of Bethel had any hope of defeating Lilith’s plagues, they would need to understand them, know what they were fighting against.

Immanuelle slung her knapsack off her shoulder, dug through its contents, and produced a slip of paper and a small nub of graphite. Carefully, she smoothed the blank sheet of paper across the stone and rubbed the graphite back and forth across it, creating the perfect transfer image of the foundation stone. She proceeded to make copies of the next three sigils after that, then collected all of the slips, folded them carefully, and slipped them back into her knapsack for safekeeping. She turned back to Adrine. “How do you know so much about these markings, anyway?”

“They’re a part of our language.”

“You mean your origin tongue?”

Adrine nodded. “These marks are just words to us. It’s the intention behind them that makes the sigils something more . . . something dangerous.”