Chapter Text
The first thing Mara Vey noticed about Gallowmere was that every door stood open.
Not ajar. Not carelessly left to swing in the wind. Open wide, as if the whole village had fled in a hurry and expected to come back before supper.
The second thing she noticed was the smell.
Wet earth. Cold ash. And beneath both, the sweet, cloying stink of something left too long in the sun.
Mara stopped her horse at the top of the hill.
Below, Gallowmere huddled in the valley beneath a sky the color of old pewter. Smoke did not rise from its chimneys. No dogs barked. No children ran along the muddy lanes. At the village’s heart, the stone well stood in the little market square, wrapped in black vines.
The vines climbed over its rim and spilled down the sides like a tangle of drowned hair.
Mara’s horse snorted.
“Don’t start,” she told him.
He started anyway, backing up until his rump bumped a roadside milestone.
Mara patted his neck. “Yes, I see it too. It’s unsettling. You’re still being dramatic.”
The horse gave her a look that suggested he had never once asked to be taken monster hunting.
She dismounted and checked the leather straps on her sword belt. The blade at her hip was plain, nicked, and well cared for. A narrow silver knife sat in her boot. She had a crossbow slung over her shoulder, three bolts in its case, and a small glass vial of bright-blue powder tucked inside her coat.
She had no idea what the powder did.
The alchemist who sold it had said, “It reacts to unnatural things.”
When Mara asked what that meant, he replied, “You’ll know when it happens.”
She had paid extra for the vial. She regretted it already.
A wooden sign creaked beside the road.
GALLOWMEREA GOOD PLACE TO REST
Someone had crossed out good and carved quiet beneath it.
Mara looked down at the village. “Well, that’s honest.”
She led her horse downhill.
The road grew softer underfoot as it entered the valley. Mud clung to her boots. The hedgerows on either side had gone brown, though it was early spring. Their branches were threaded with thin black creepers. Mara crouched beside one and touched a vine with the tip of her knife.
It twitched.
She stood.
“No.”
The vine curled around the blade.
Mara yanked it free and wiped the knife on the grass. “That’s a boundary. I’m very good with boundaries.”
The village’s first cottages stood close to the road, their whitewashed walls stained by rain. The doors were open. So were the shutters. In one house, a kettle sat on the hearth, cold and black. In another, a pair of muddy boots rested neatly beside the entrance.
Mara called out.
“Hello?”
Her voice moved through the empty lane and vanished.
She tried again, louder. “Anyone alive in there?”
A loose shutter knocked against its frame.
That was all.
Mara chose the cottage with the boots. She stepped inside, keeping one hand near her sword.
The main room was tidy. Too tidy, perhaps. A wooden bowl sat on the table beside a loaf of bread gone hard at the edges. A chair had been pushed back from the hearth. On the wall hung a child’s drawing of a yellow sun and a tall, crooked tree.
The tree had been drawn in black.
Mara leaned closer. The child had pressed so hard that the charcoal had torn the paper.
Behind her, the horse stamped outside.
“Stay there,” she said.
The horse stamped again.
“I mean it.”
She searched the cottage. Empty bedroom. Empty pantry. Empty washroom. No blood, no signs of a struggle, no bodies.
That was worse than finding bodies.
People did not vanish from their homes without taking their shoes.
Mara returned to the lane. The village seemed to tighten around her. Every open doorway was a dark mouth. Every window watched without eyes.
She walked toward the square.
Halfway there, she found a dog.
It lay on its side in the middle of the road, ribs showing beneath its brindled fur. Mara slowed. The animal’s eyes were open, fixed on the sky. A black vine had wound around one hind leg.
She knelt and reached for its neck.
The dog’s skin was cold.
Mara swallowed, then gently freed the vine from its leg. It came away with a wet tearing sound. Beneath it, the fur was slick with blood.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
A faint scratching came from inside the nearest house.
Mara stood and drew her sword.
The sound came again. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
She crossed the threshold.
The house smelled of mildew and old soup. A table had been overturned. A cupboard door hung from one hinge. The scratching came from somewhere below.
Mara lifted the trapdoor in the floor.
A narrow ladder descended into darkness.
“Of course,” she muttered. “Why would it be upstairs?”
She took a lantern from her pack, struck a match, and lit the wick. The flame shivered, though there was no wind.
Mara went down.
The cellar was small, with jars lining the shelves and a stack of firewood against the far wall. At first she saw nothing unusual.
Then something moved behind the wood.
Mara raised her sword. “Come out.”
Silence.
She stepped closer.
A child peered at her through a gap between the logs. He couldn’t have been more than seven. His face was pale, his hair tangled, and both hands were clamped over his mouth.
Mara lowered her sword.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Mara. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The boy stared at her.
“Are you alone?”
He nodded.
“Is anyone else here?”
Another nod.
“Where?”
The boy pointed toward the ceiling.
Mara looked up.
A heavy thump sounded overhead.
The child flinched. Mara moved between him and the ladder.
“What was that?”
He shook his head, hands still over his mouth.
A second thump. Then a long, dragging scrape.
Mara’s lantern flame guttered.
The boy began to tremble.
“Right,” Mara whispered. “We’re leaving.”
She crouched to help him out from behind the wood.
A vine burst through the cellar wall.
It came fast, black and slick, punching through the old stone between two shelves. It snapped around Mara’s wrist.
Pain flared where its thorns bit into her skin.
She slashed at it. The vine recoiled, but the cut oozed dark sap that smoked against the cellar floor.
The boy screamed.
Above them, something answered.
The sound was almost a voice. Almost a person calling from the bottom of a well.
Mara grabbed the child and hauled him toward the ladder.
The vine lashed around her ankle.
She hit the ground hard. The lantern rolled away, casting wild shadows across the cellar. The boy scrambled for the ladder.
“Keep going!” Mara shouted.
The vine tightened. Its thorns dug into her boot and through the leather.
Mara reached for the silver knife in her boot. She cut once, twice. The vine split, releasing her leg.
The child was halfway up the ladder.
“Don’t stop!”
He climbed out of sight.
Mara snatched the lantern and followed. Something scraped across the cellar ceiling above her. Dust fell into her hair.
She reached the trapdoor and shoved it open.
The child stood in the kitchen, frozen.
Mara pushed him toward the front door. “Run to my horse. Don’t stop for anything.”
He bolted.
Mara followed close behind. The moment she stepped into the lane, the village bell began to ring.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
No one was in the bell tower. She had seen it from the road: the narrow stone structure at the north end of the square, its upper windows empty.
The bell rang again.
Mara looked toward the square.
The black vines around the well were moving.
They peeled away from the stones, stretching upward, tendrils twisting together. Something beneath the well gave a deep, hollow groan.
The sound rolled through the village.
Every open door slammed shut.
Mara’s horse screamed.
She turned. At the end of the lane, the boy had reached him. The animal reared, nearly knocking the child into the mud.
Mara sprinted.
Behind her, wood cracked. Stone groaned. The bell rang and rang, faster now, as if someone were hauling on the rope with both hands.
She grabbed the boy by the collar and lifted him onto the horse.
“Hold on.”
He clutched the saddle.
Mara swung up behind him. Her horse surged forward, hooves tearing through the mud. They shot past the cottages and beneath the crooked sign.
At the village boundary, the boy twisted around to look back.
Mara followed his gaze.
The vines had climbed the bell tower. They wrapped around its roof and dragged at the stone. The tower leaned toward the square.
Then the well opened.
Not collapsed. Opened.
Its stone rim split down the middle, and something pale rose from within.
Mara saw a hand.
Long fingers. Too many joints. A black ring around each nail.
The hand gripped the broken rim.
The boy buried his face against her coat.
Mara drove her heels into the horse’s sides.
They did not stop until Gallowmere was a smudge beneath the gray horizon. Even then, the horse kept running.
At last, Mara pulled him to a halt beside a stream. The boy slid from the saddle and landed in the grass. He stared at her with wide, frightened eyes.
Mara dismounted more carefully. Her ankle throbbed where the vine had caught her. Blood darkened the torn leather of her boot.
“Let me see your hands,” she said.
The boy held them out. Muddy, scraped, but unmarked.
“Good. Any bites? Cuts?”
He shook his head.
“Can you tell me your name?”
He hesitated, then whispered, “Ewan.”
“Ewan what?”
“Bell.”
“Are your parents in the village?”
His face crumpled. He looked back toward the road.
Mara crouched in front of him. “Ewan, I need you to tell me what happened.”
He pressed his lips together.
“Did the vines come into your house?”
A tiny nod.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Did they take your family?”
He shook his head, then nodded, then seemed to give up trying to answer. His eyes filled.
Mara let the silence sit between them. She had learned that questions could be another kind of weapon. Sometimes it was kinder to put one down.
She took a waterskin from her saddlebag and offered it. Ewan drank with both hands around the neck of the bottle.
“Where were you hiding?”
“In the cellar.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you hear anyone?”
He stared at the ground. “Mum.”
Mara’s fingers tightened around the waterskin. “You heard your mother?”
“She was calling me.”
“From where?”
“Down the well.”
The stream burbled beside them, bright and ordinary. Mara looked at the water, then at the black smear of sap on her sleeve.
“What did she say?”
Ewan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “She said to come home.”
The horse tossed his head. Mara put a hand on his bridle, though she wasn’t sure whether she meant to calm him or herself.
“Did you see her?”
“No.”
“Did the voice sound like her?”
He nodded.
Mara studied the boy’s face. He was exhausted, cold, and terrified. He was also telling the truth—or at least the truth as he understood it.
“Do you have anyone nearby? Family in another village?”
“My aunt lives in Dunridge.”
“Good. We’ll take you there.”
Ewan looked up. “Are you going back?”
“Not alone.”
“Will you save them?”
Mara glanced at the wound on her ankle. The skin around it had gone red, and a thin dark line crept upward beneath the torn leather.
She pulled off her glove.
A thorn had broken beneath the skin.
“Damn it.”
Ewan backed away.
“It’s all right,” Mara said quickly. “That was for the thorn. Not you.”
She took a small knife from her belt and cut away the boot leather. The thorn was black and fine as a needle. When she pinched it, it sank deeper.
Mara swore again.
“Does it hurt?” Ewan asked.
“Only when I’m awake.”
She poured a little clear spirit over the wound. It stung sharply. She bit down on a curse and used the point of her knife to dig out the thorn.
It came free with a thread of dark blood.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the thorn curled in her palm.
Mara dropped it.
It writhed in the grass, twisting like a tiny worm. Ewan made a frightened sound. Mara crushed it beneath her boot.
“Right,” she said, wiping her knife clean. “We are definitely not going back alone.”
She wrapped her ankle in a strip of linen and tied it tight. The skin beneath the bandage burned, but the dark line stopped creeping.
For now.
Mara swung Ewan up behind the saddle and climbed on after him. “Hold the pommel. Not my coat.”
He gripped the pommel.
“Good. If you fall off, I’ll have to explain it to your aunt, and I’ve had a long day.”
The horse turned toward the eastern road.
They had gone perhaps half a mile when the bell rang again.
One slow toll drifted across the valley.
Mara pulled the reins. Her horse stopped, ears pricked toward Gallowmere.
Ewan clutched her waist. “It’s calling.”
The bell rang a second time.
Mara looked back. The village was hidden behind the low hills, but she could see a smear of black above the rooftops. The vines had reached the bell tower. Perhaps they were dragging it down. Perhaps something inside the well was ringing the bell.
A third toll rolled across the fields.
The horse shuddered beneath them.
Mara took the blue vial from her coat. Its contents glimmered faintly, bright as a trapped summer sky. She had been saving it for a proper emergency.
Apparently, the alchemist had a generous definition of proper.
She uncorked it.
The powder inside lifted in a slow spiral, though there was no breeze. It turned toward Gallowmere, each grain shining like a tiny blue eye.
Then the glow went out.
Mara stared at the vial.
“That’s not encouraging,” she said.
“What does it mean?” Ewan asked.
“I was hoping you’d know.”
The bell rang a fourth time.
This time, another sound followed it: a woman’s voice, thin and distant, carried over the fields.
“Ewan…”
The boy went rigid.
Mara tightened one arm around him. “Don’t answer.”
“Ewan, come home.”
He turned in the saddle, tears bright in his eyes.
The voice was unmistakably a woman’s. Soft. Familiar. Loving.
“Ewan, darling. I’m cold.”
The boy began to cry.
Mara pressed her palm over his ear and looked toward the hidden village. “That isn’t your mother.”
“How do you know?” he whispered.
“I don’t.” She swallowed. “But it came from the well.”
The voice rose again, nearer now.
“Please. It hurts.”
Ewan twisted against her. Mara held him firmly, though every part of her wanted to turn the horse and ride back.
The bell gave one final toll.
The voice stopped.
For a long moment, the valley was silent.
Then, from somewhere beneath the earth, something laughed.
Mara dug her heels into the horse’s sides. They galloped east, away from Gallowmere, while the evening light thinned behind them.
By the time they reached Dunridge, night had settled over the road. The village was smaller than Gallowmere, but it had a watchtower, a palisade, and a gate that was shut tight. A guard raised a lantern as Mara approached.
“Name your business.”
“Monster trouble,” Mara called. “And one frightened child who needs his aunt.”
The guard looked at the blood on her boot. “What kind of monster?”
“The kind that grows out of wells.”
He lowered the lantern. “That’s not a kind.”
“It is now.”
The gate opened.
Ewan’s aunt came running as soon as she saw him. She wrapped him in her arms, crying into his hair while he clung to her. Mara watched from the saddle, suddenly aware of how tired she was.
The woman looked up. “You brought him back.”
“I found him hiding in a cellar.”
“Did you see my sister?”
Mara hesitated.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
It was not the whole truth. It was the only piece she could offer without breaking the woman’s heart in the middle of the street.
Ewan’s aunt thanked her, then led the boy inside. He looked back once over his shoulder.
Mara raised a hand.
The door closed behind them.
She dismounted and leaned against the gatepost. Her ankle throbbed beneath the bandage. The guard was still watching her.
“Will you send for help?” he asked.
“I’ll send a report to the capital. If anyone asks, tell them Gallowmere is abandoned.”
“And if they ask what happened?”
Mara looked east, toward the dark hills.
“Tell them the forest is growing.”
She found a room at the inn and paid for it with two silver coins. The innkeeper offered her a bowl of stew. Mara ate half of it, discovered it contained turnips, and decided the village had suffered enough for one day.
She was washing the blood from her hands when someone knocked at her door.
Mara reached for her sword.
“Who is it?”
“Your horse,” said a man from the hallway. “He’s eaten my best saddle blanket.”
Mara lowered the sword.
“Tell him I’m proud of him.”
The man sighed and walked away.
She sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed, and listened to the inn settle around her: footsteps overhead, a cough from the next room, wind worrying at the shutters.
Then came a faint sound from beneath the floor.
Scritch.
Mara stood.
Scritch. Scritch.
She drew her sword and crossed to the middle of the room. The sound came again, directly beneath her boots.
Something was moving under the boards.
Mara knelt and pressed her ear to the floor.
A woman’s voice whispered from below.
“Ewan…”
Mara backed away.
The voice changed.
“Come home, Mara.”
Her breath caught.
She had never heard that voice before.
And yet, somehow, she knew it.