BLUE GATE, 1859
GRADY’S HANDS ARE COVERED IN blood as he drags his brother out of the gate. A dark smear runs over the dirt.
“Jacob? Jacob!”
His little brother’s face is smashed near his left eye from the horse’s hoof and his shirt is torn. Grady puts his hand on Jacob’s chest—no heartbeat. He lurches back, his palm warm with blood.
“No,” Grady says, his voice shaking. “No, you’re okay.” But his brother might be dead and Grady can hardly breathe. This can’t be happening. “You’ll be fine, you hear me?”
He looks toward the house. His father isn’t home, he’s still visiting a patient and won’t be back until tomorrow. There’s no time to wait for him—he has to do something! But what? What? And then a chill shoots down his back and it comes to him. A half breath later he’s carrying his brother as he runs, Jacob’s head bobbing against his shoulder. There’s only one place to go. Grady swallows down the dread in his stomach and keeps running toward the woods.
“Help!” he yells. “Please help us!”
He still knows the direction of the cabin, knows it from the way his hair prickles at the nape of his neck. He charges forward, weaving around trees and dodging branches, his brother heavy in his arms. Grady runs deeper into the woods, frantically searching for the old cabin. Here the trees are closer together and the sun is blocked from sight, but he keeps going, despite his father’s warning. This is for Jacob. Anything for Jacob.
“You’ll be okay,” Grady says, his breathing ragged. He can’t look down because he’s afraid of what he’ll see—the bruising, the wide gash across Jacob’s pale brow. Thinking about it makes adrenaline shoot through him, and he runs faster. There! There, ahead. This has to be it. He’s sure of it.
As soon as he veers onto the overgrown path he feels sick to his stomach. He doesn’t belong here; he can feel darkness eating at him with every footstep. I have to, he thinks.
And then the cabin is in front of him and there’s no turning back. It’s covered in shadow from the trees, and behind it the shed and well are being choked by vines. An ax is wedged into a log, but otherwise there’s no sign of life. Grady tries to ignore his terror and heads for the cabin door, still carrying Jacob. The old woman’s got to be here—he doesn’t know what he’ll do if she isn’t.
“Help!” he shouts again. “I need help!”
A bad feeling rushes over him and he turns. Behind him is a boy about his age, with the palest skin Grady has ever seen. He’s holding the ax and staring at him with dark eyes.
“My…my brother,” Grady fumbles. “My brother, he’s hurt. I need the…” He won’t say witch. “Pearl,” he says instead. “Isn’t her name Pearl?”
The boy doesn’t answer, just shifts the ax higher in his hands. Grady’s about to yell for the old woman when someone grabs his elbow. He startles—there’s a girl by his side.
How? He didn’t see her coming, didn’t hear her either. She’s standing next to him in a slip of a dress, a yellowish color that must have been white once, and there’s a faded red scarf wrapped around her hair and a red apron around her waist. She has to be the boy’s sister—she has that same pale, pale skin.
“Lay him down,” the girl says, pointing toward the cabin. Somehow the door opens before Grady can touch it and he stumbles into the dark room. Baskets are dangling from the ceiling and cuts of meat are hanging at the back. He takes another step and a sour smell hits him. In the dim light he can make out a cot near the fireplace, a shape huddled under blankets.
“Don’t mind Miss Etta,” the girl says. “Just put him on the table here.” At the sound of her voice Grady finds himself leaning over, laying Jacob’s body on the stretch of wood. His breath catches when he sees his brother’s face where the horse got him. It’s too late for a doctor, he knows that now without a doubt. He turns back toward the girl and she holds up a hand.
“I might can help,” she says. “No promises.”
“Now leave.” The boy’s standing in the doorway, the ax still in his hands, his dark eyes trained on Grady. He gestures with the blade. “Go. Come back in the morning.” He smiles strangely. “Or don’t.”
Grady looks down at Jacob. His chest isn’t moving; he isn’t breathing. Should he really leave him alone here? And where is the old woman?
“Come back at dawn,” the girl whispers, somehow at his side again when she wasn’t before. “Nothing you can do now. Nothing but wait and see.” It could be his imagination, but she seems to steal a glance at the cot before pushing him toward the door. “Go now.”
This is what happened last time, when he came here so long ago. Last time they shut him out too. But last time it had worked. One more look at the girl—at her dark eyes with a glint of amber—and then his feet are moving.
He lurches outside and the boy is in front of him again with the ax and nothing is making sense. The trees seem taller all of a sudden, and the wind is swirling, making the leaves rustle around him, and the ground at his feet is covered in gashes—someone has drawn lines in the dirt, deep lines that run all the way up to the door. He blinks and the girl is at his side too and his heart starts to race. He knows there’s some magic at play; it’s more than just quickness.
“I can’t leave him,” Grady says. Something’s digging into his spine and he yanks his book from his back pocket and then notices his hands are shaking. “I’ll wait all night if I have to, but you can’t make me go.”
“Can’t we?” the girl asks, and her brother laughs.
Grady forces himself to ignore them. He sits down with his back against the wall of the cabin, then opens his book and starts to sketch so they can’t see how scared he is. First he draws the well, swarmed with green vines. Next, the baskets full of green cuttings hanging near the shed. And the chimney, with smoke trailing up even though it’s hot.
“It’s getting dark,” the girl tells him. “You shouldn’t be here anymore.”
Grady clenches the book. “I’m staying,” he says. All of a sudden it’s like his breath is smothered, and he feels her before he sees her. The witch. His head turns of its own accord and then the old woman is stepping out from the trees. Her hair is white, her eyes dark, her features delicate like the girl’s.
“M-Miss Pearl?” he stutters. She looks just the same as before, as if he’s only seen her yesterday and not ten years ago. “I’m—”
“I know who you are and why you come.” The witch’s voice is low and hushed. “I remember Rose, but you’re not here for her, are you? You’re here for someone else.”
His heart aches when he thinks of what happened. “My brother. Can you help him?”
The witch looks to the sky like it’s speaking to her, then turns back to Grady. “Let the night take you far and the morning bring you near,” she says. “And don’t miss the morning. Never miss the morning.”
He doesn’t want to go, but he has to do as she tells him. He remembers that from the last time he was here. Jacob, he thinks, I’m doing this for him. His little brother, who can never leave the animals alone. Grady’s heart feels bruised, like the horse kicked him too, and all he can think of is Jacob, alone on that table in the cabin.
“You’ll heal him?” he asks Pearl.
Her eyes say Maybe, maybe not. “It’s my daughter who spoke to you first,” she says. “Ask Hanna.”
“Hanna,” he repeats, and looks at her. Grady takes in the girl’s dark amber eyes, the strands of her even darker hair that half cover them. Her pale skin, the veins showing through. She’s not much older than him, he decides, yet his brother’s life is in her hands. This girl is his only chance to save Jacob. This girl he shouldn’t be talking to, this daughter of a witch.
“Come back in the morning,” Hanna says, “and then you’ll see.”
Grady nods, and this is how it begins: with his desperation. Right now he has no idea what will come to pass, because the future is a door that only opens when it’s ready. At this moment Grady believes his intentions are good, yet it’s only pain that’s coming—not just here and now, but rippling years and years later—and even if he did know, even if we could warn him, it’s already too late.