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Separated by a line of fencing that only reached partway up his thighs, Drake cleared his throat, raising his voice to the hooded figure in the otherwise barren yard. “I was told you could tell the future.”
The heavy fur cloak made it almost impossible to tell the gender of the person he was speaking to, and from a distance, and the rumors surrounding them were just as useless as Drake’s own eyes. The townsfolk spoke of the witch in both terms—some addressed them as male, others as female, and stranger still, sometimes as something in between. Such was the nature of such beings, people insisted. The Church had harped on enough about how the devil appeared in beguiling forms. Maybe that multi-faceted facade was what drew others in, seeking fragments of what they lacked. Maybe, if the witch was truly all and neither, was why all tales had proven so vague. Drake prided himself on being a logical man, but yet here he was, hands gripping a poorly put together wooden fence.
“Is that what they are saying now?” The witch’s voice held a strange cadence to it, the words teasing as slender inked hands pulled back their hood. Bright yellow eyes, like a cat’s, focused hard on Drake. Lips curved into a confident smirk as they moved closer to the fence line. With each step nearer, Drake noticed a short but shaggy patch of raven black hair marked the other’s chin. A man, then, he noted.
“Yes, which is why…” Drake swallowed, his heart and words suddenly stuck in his throat like a bone. He sighed, closing his eyes, forcing his thoughts away from the witch with cat eyes and boyish hair, cut raggedly short. “My father has been missing for the better part of a year now. I want to know if he is dead.”
“A missing father? Most want answers about who they are to wed.” The smirk still danced on the witch’s face, even as they waved a dismissive hand, “Can you pay?”
“I can.” Shifting a heavy sack off his shoulder, Drake dropped it over the fence. Inside he had brought everything he had thought he could trade: coin, food, and a bottle of wine that had cost him more than he had liked. If it would be enough, he could only guess, but Drake prayed more would not be asked of him.
A hum followed as the witch knelt, spider-like hands working through the contents. Seemingly satisfied he hefted the bag over his shoulder, before unlatching the gate. It swung open and Drake paused as the witch beckoned to him. Trepidation filled Drake from the soles of his leather boots up into his heart, pounding in his chest. Desperation had sent him here, a desperation built on the back of something frigid and repulsive. If he crossed this threshold, would he be able to come back?
“Are you coming?” Golden eyes stared back at him and Drake shuddered, even as he felt his legs move him forward seemingly against his will. His breath caught in his lungs, as he crossed over the line, eyes focused hard ahead of him.
Once upon a time, the story of witches and werewolves frightened him until he trembled beneath his meager threadbare blankets. Cold rationality replaced fear as Drake grew; his mother’s absence and his father’s beatings gave him more to be terrified of than mere stories. Yet here he was, on the cusp of one of those stories. The witch was real, and while he was no child, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be devoured alive.
Following, he paused just shy of entering the other’s home. The fading midwinter light filtered in through the open door, illuminating what Drake could barely call a cottage. Plants hung off the rafters, drying in bundles, along with strings of what he assumed were bones and charms. The fire blazed hot, forcing out the chill, as a black iron pot on it bubbled over, filling the small hut with the scent of rendered animal fat and root vegetables. The witch cursed as he rushed over, dropping the bag on the floor.
Drake had to stoop to enter, and once straightened to full height, he immediately bumped into a line of hanging charms. The bones clattered together, made into a morbid chime that yanked him from his wandering thoughts, back to the present. Ducking low, he sat on one of the stools that framed the table in the center of the room, knees drawn uncomfortably close together.
Only when certain his meal had been saved, the witch rapped his spoon against the pot, and Drake startled at the noise.
“So your father is missing—was he a hunter? A farmer? Maybe he ran off with another woman?” he clicked his tongue at the last suggestion, as he stood.
Unfastening the cloak, the witch discarded it onto a pile of furs that Drake presumed was his bed. Out of the cloak, it revealed the other not as a peer in age—described by the hair on his chin and the deeply set bags under his eyes—Drake now saw him as a slip of a youth. White linen covered over his slender body, the hem falling a few inches above his knees. The thin material shielded the barest rounding of breast and the chill-hardened nipples underneath. Peeking out from the open neckline, black ink traced over dark skin, the markings of which Drake had no recognition. Despite the cold, the witch’s feet were bare, stained from the dirt of the floor and from the forest in which he dwelled.
“A military man, or was. He deserted his unit.” The story was a bitter one to tell, and Drake’s jaw ached from gritting his teeth. Once, he’d been proud of the man, living not in his shadow, but his glory—a glory that had ended with the man turning into a monster. “Killed some of his men too it seems. What was left, they said, was so brutal, they refused to say it was made by the hands of man.”
“So you are that man’s son?” the witch asked, as he lounged back on to his furs, fingers teasing at the ruff of what had once been a wolf. “I have met him, once. He came to me for something I refused to give him.”
“And that was…?” It felt as if a noose had tightened around Drake’s neck, fingers clenching at the wood of the table. What could Barrels have wanted from this youth, this witch, with his dark hair and cat eyes?
“That is between myself and him. Discretion is part of any bargain I strike.” He ran his fingers through his hair, sighing as he adopted a lazy spread-legged sprawl. Faced with the barest flash of the junction between the witch’s legs—a thatch of short hair framed by white cloth and warm thighs, Drake flushed a vivid red, turning abruptly from the sight. “—That extends to you as well of course.”
Hope surged, coloring his words, “Then you’ll help me?” Tentatively glancing back, he found the witch extending a hand out to him.
“Depends. I doubt your Church or your family would be pleased. What would your wife say?” The words were predatory teasing, and the warmth of the fire no longer banished the chill that now crept into Drake’s soul.
“I’m unwed,” Drake’s words escaped in a clumsy slur.
The witch raised an amused eyebrow, withdrawing his hand to stifle a laugh. “Unwed, of course.” Fingers played across his lips, that teasing smirk heard within the first moment of their meeting returning. Heat pooled against the back of Drake’s neck, shame twining around his gut like a thorned vine. Irritation followed after—he’d come here for answers, not to be taunted like a girl at the village square.
“I don’t see how that is pertinent to my current question.” Drake bit back the snarl that threatened to taint his words. Still, the witch smiled, and the irritation and shame curdled into a bitter taste on his tongue.
“It may or may not be in the future.” The coyness vanished like snow in the spring sun, the lithe figure before him leaning forward, “But I need no magic to tell me about your father. I dealt with him in the past, as I said. He is alive… in a manner. Where, I don’t know, and frankly you didn’t give me enough to care beyond that.”
“What do I have to pay for where?” Drake pushed himself upwards, the stool legs scraping across the floor and his head cracking into the rafters of the ceiling. He cursed, rubbing his head, face flushing.
The witch laughed, the sound mocking and ugly, “Maybe you could not destroy my home, but something like…” he crooked a finger, beckoning Drake closer. Foolishly, he moved leaning across the witch’s thin figure, the bed underneath sagging under his weight.
“Such as?” Drake’s breath quickened, his blood hammering in his ears. Something stirred in the back of his mind, hungry and impatient. It would be easy to wrap his hands around the slender throat, to feel the youth’s blood thundering under his fingers—Drake shook his head trying to swallow down those animalistic urges. He licked his lips, looking down into amber eyes.
“A kiss.” The witch said, winding his arms around Drake’s neck. His skin smelt like forest, a mixture of the sticky pines, the sharpness of the winter air, and of the herbs that hung bound. It made Drake’s chest ache, a deep hollow feeling he couldn’t name.
“Just a kiss?” Drake asked, as a slender leg hiking up to keep him from trying to flee, “I-I don’t even know your name.”
“Do you need a name for a kiss?” The words sounded like a purr to Drake’s ears, as Law’s fingers ran along the back of his neck, tangled in ginger hair. Laughter followed, sweet as honey, skin hot against his own. “Is a pretty face not enough?”
For most, perhaps it would be. As they’d grown, Drake witnessed his childhood friend chasing whatever pretty thing that crossed his path. There never was any reason to it—maybe it was some kind of thrill that Drake didn't understand, a thrill the witch seemed to be seeking here, and one that Drake was not willing to give. He frowned, the question digging in like a needle shoved into his skin as he stared down at the witch. Then, chastely, Drake placed a gentle kiss against the witch’s forehead, whose nose wrinkled, his pretty mouth crunching up into an expression of both surprise and irritation.
“You said a kiss was all that I owed,” Drake stated resolutely, trying to quiet the thundering of his blood as he pulled away. He shut his eyes, his teeth and gums itching as if he had swallowed down some irritant. No doubt there would be no answer; the witches in his mother’s story, after all, cared little for being tricked or their bargains being twisted up on them. He waited for whatever cruelty would be flung at him, be it curse or hand, but the silence was broken by that sweet laughter.
“I did not tell you where, so… Fine. A bargain is a bargain.” The witch rose from his bed, all long limbs and wicked smile. He clicked his tongue and the sound drew Drake’s attention back to the table, “Give me time: two weeks, and I will find your father.”
The witch held up two delicate fingers, eyes seemingly glowing in the light. Drake felt his chest tighten. His mind wandered to the few times he’d caught his friend dallying with the pretty men and women in their village. Drake’s mouth felt dry, and the desire to draw those slender digits into his mouth unfolded, to taste if the other’s skin tasted like he smelled. Drake shook his head and snorted, smothering whatever it was that threatened to bubble over.
“Two weeks,” Drake repeated, as he turned toward the door. He hoped these feelings would vanish on the trek home—that it wasn't some ensnaring hex placed upon him. Two weeks; it would give him time to clear his head, to sort through the feelings long since buried, like the grass under the winter snow. Maybe when that time was up he would forget this foolishness.
“Two weeks,” the witch’s words sounded more like a promise than a reminder. He smiled, and Drake couldn’t help but shudder, “—and maybe then I will give you my name.”