And we’re done! Thank you SO much for joining me for another year of fun, mystery, and horror. 

I cannot express enough how much I appreciate everyone who contributed suggestions, whether once, occasionally, or on every single part. It wouldn’t be the same piece without all of you, and I’m so, so grateful for all of you. I really have fun playing these story games with folks every year! 

The full story ended up being ~42000 words! A tidy novella.. If you want to read it again from start to finish, the Index will stay up, and you can find the whole thing linked off my Interactive Fiction page.

If you enjoyed reading and/or participating in this, please consider leaving me a tip over at my ko-fi, and I’d also love it if you checked out more of my work! I do this particular project for free but I’ll never say no to getting to enjoy a cup of tea (or some magic cards) after a long month of writing.

Now… ask me questions! You can ask me about the story, about the characters, about the writing process, about how something looked in my planning doc and how it changed to now, what would have happened if you’d done x instead of y, any background details about a character that you’re curious about, whatever! AMA! (And if you don’t have questions, feel free to share some part of it you enjoyed and I’m happy to talk about that part at random!)

Here are a couple teasers to get you started:

• While certainly not a retelling, elements of this novel were inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest! I’m sure some of you picked up on that but hopefully it snuck past for a few!
• Aris is actually just short for Pinus Aristata, not an actual name.
• Fern did in fact end up having to take antibiotics for 2 weeks.

Feel free to ask follow-ups, come up with your own questions, or just talk to me :> It’s been a lot of you suggesting things and me turning it into story, but I’d love to just chat.

[index]

“Are you sure about this?” Adrian asked dubiously. “You can move back any time you want, you know, mom told me to make that absolutely clear.” He put the box down in the entryway. “I don’t know how well you’re going to do living alone long term.”

Fern nodded. “Yeah,” they said. They couldn’t explain it to Adrian. He wouldn’t understand. “I know. But the peace and quiet did me some good, and the public transit around here’s great. If things get bad, I’ll reach out. Don’t worry.”

“I do worry,” Adrian sighed, looking around the new place with a critical eye. 

Fern knew it didn’t look like much—they couldn’t appear to afford too much, after all. Their recent ‘found footage’ horror podcast had taken off, with supplemental and carefully edited videos from their phone, but there was no guarantee that the funds would keep coming, their parents had said. Still, with a sudden windfall, it was a perfect time to put a down payment on a starter house, especially in this economy. Fern knew their family probably expected to have to help out once in a while, so had kept the purchase very modest, the mortgage slightly less than rent would have been.

This was fine with Fern, especially after the cottage. This one was smaller, a cheap house out in the suburbs. It was a one-bedroom bungalow, but it had the most important features to Fern: Not sharing any walls with neighbours, so they could do their work at odd hours without drawing suspicion, and woods out back.

There was no way to tell Adrian that they would be rich for the rest of their life, not in a way he’d understand. Fern could still barely grasp it, frankly. Bannick had nothing to give, but Aris came from a world where wealth grew on trees, and insisted they owed Fern a debt of freedom. In a capitalist world, freedom meant the funds to do whatever you wanted as you wanted it without being bound to anyone else’s restrictions.

So Fern would wake up to golden branches laid across the foot of their bed, gems under their pillow. That would have been hard to explain to their family, so they simply didn’t. They sold them on ebay instead and began to rack up numbers in their bank account that it had simply never seen before. They didn’t have full plans for it yet—they were securing their own future, first—but they hoped they might be able to do some real good out there.

They kept writing, though, and working on their podcast. The work part was something they could phase out over time without drawing suspicion, but they figured they might stick with the podcast. It gave them plausible deniability and also the joy of a creative outlet when they were dealing with some seriously strange stuff after those two weeks.

Two weeks. They’d had that cottage for two weeks still after they’d woken up back in it, Bannick having carried them out. Two weeks to slowly sort through everything there, and their feelings about it. To gather every mineral and oddity and examine it, learning how each gemstone had not just its outward look but its metaphorical qualities. For example, the petrified wood and amber were both materials meant to set up the spell of extended life due to their metaphorical qualities, but only for the initial casting. Some things were left unanswered. Fern never learned what the meat was and Bannick had suggested they might not want to know. That Madoc had done things to extend his life and enact his vengeance that Fern would be unable to let go of. That had, unfortunately, got Fern’s imagination going, but they did their best to obey and not think about it, over those two weeks.

They almost hadn’t left at the end, despite their constant fear and loathing of the place now. Almost reached out to the owner, Madoc’s descendant, to ask to purchase it just for the sheer amount of knowledge and sorcery in it—but it had such horrors in it, and also, was really isolated, especially for someone who couldn’t drive. They’d still suggested contacting the owner for emotional reasons, but not their own—Bannick’s. Yet when they’d asked Bannick if he wanted to, Bannick hadn’t responded, and Fern had read distress into that, so they left it alone, at least for now.

After all, they were busy with their decision to commit to a new life. A different life. To really interrogate what that meant.

The journals hadn’t survived. But… the strength Fern had was their own, not borrowed from any old sorcerer. They had spirits to learn from, magical arts to enchant with, and it was all something that they could form their own approach to. 

And who were better teachers than a pair of spirits? Who could teach them more about working with the fairy folk than Aris? Who could caution them more about what working with demons was like than Bannick? Those two weren’t bound in any way, which Fern knew was something generally dangerous, but the debt they owed Fern was huge, and…

Fern didn’t want to call it in. They just wanted their friendship, and maybe…

“This is the last of ’em,” Trev said, putting another box down. “You want help unpacking?”

“Naw, thanks,” Fern said, fistbumping Trev briefly. “I kind of want to flop on the bed and be overwhelmed by boxes for a bit.”

Trev snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I feel you. If you haven’t unpacked them in three months I’m coming here and doing it.”

“No, you won’t,” Fern said fondly.

“Well, I’d think about it,” Trev said. He cracked his knuckles and nodded to Adrian. “Time to go, I think?”

Adrian made a face. He didn’t hate Trev but they weren’t the best of friends, because Adrian was Fern’s brother and Fern and Trev had broken up. “Sure. I’ll drive on the way back.”

Fern waved while they left, then looked around again at the little old place. Other than new appliances, it still felt like it was a time capsule from the 70s or something, but there was something a bit charming in that.

After unpacking the sheets and setting the bed up, Fern collapsed onto it as promised and had a nap.

They’d been tired lately. Everything they were learning cost energy, and they were having to learn how to balance that. It had been especially hard at home, but had kept Fern social; they had to go join their family for regular meals if they were to keep their energy up at all. It had been easier in those two weeks in the cottage when Bannick had been feeding them. Something about macros and proteins and fiber or something?

So it should be easier again here too.

They dreamed of the cottage—no helping that, they’d dreamed of that final confrontation a million times. Sometimes they were fantasy dreams, where everything went right and nothing bad had to happen. Where Miranda was reborn and got to have her own life. More often, they just replayed what happened. A sudden stop, Miranda gone by the time Fern awoke, never seeing her again, but being reassured after that shewas resting now. The memories were bad enough with the screaming. The organs. The blood and pain. Yet worst of all were the nightmares, the bad ends Fern hadn’t seen where they gave in and let Madoc in, lost themself under his iron will, tortured Bannick and Aris themself for turning against Madoc, put Miranda back in the wardrobe.

This dream was one of those last, and they woke with a terrified start, not sure where they were with the ceiling so unfamiliar. There was someone on the foot of the bed and they scrambled backward for a moment, pressing against the headboard.

“I unpacked everything,” Aris said, and then slid off the bed. Fern lost sight of them from one blink to another, and slowly relaxed. 

Something smelled good. They left the bedroom to find that Aris was true to their word, had unpacked the entire house in the short time Fern was asleep. It wasn’t entirely how Fern would have set things up, but they’d leave it as it was for now to not offend. 

Bannick was cooking in the kitchen, his form from behind looking almost as delicious as the smell of the meal he was making. He was wearing tight jeans and a flannel shirt, his hair tied back in a loose braid. He turned as Fern entered, revealing that he was wearing a band t-shirt. His empty face tilted at Fern in acknowledgement. 

Aris had been spending a lot of time in some otherworldly place, though Fern hoped now that they had a house, Aris would show up in it more often—already proving to be true, apparently. Bannick… Fern expected to see Bannick around nearly all the time. He’d already said he didn’t want to keep going into his own otherworldly place. He’d shown it to Fern once, and they could understand why. It was a perfectly lovely, even luxurious bedroom, but the windows showed only void, and the longer Fern spent in it, the more they felt unnerved, uncomfortable, their skin not fitting right, feeling right, slowly becoming more and more aware of their own miserable flaws.

It was one of the reasons they’d been firm on getting a place alone. So Bannick would be able to come out more often.

“Food’s almost ready,” Bannick said. “Working tonight, or resting?”

Fern grinned at him. “Resting, I think,” they said. “But if you have ideas for the next podcast, co-host, we can bandy them around.”

“You’re speaking my language,” Bannick said, laughing.

Fern closed their eyes, luxuriating in the sound of it, their shoulders slowly relaxing. 

This was, they thought, the start of something good. Indulgent, maybe? But free.

And that was the important part.

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For one last moment, Fern hesitated. They knew they didn’t have the time to waste, but the thought of all that knowledge, lost—

But Madoc had essentially confirmed that the knowledge he’d written down had a particular slant to it. Madoc had seen everything in the world as something to manipulate or harm. 

Learning from that would be dangerous. Fern knew how algorithms worked, after all. Once they got used to learning a specific type of thing in a specific way, it’d be too easy to continue to seek out that specific thing…

No, any further learning in this area, they’d do under their own merits. They could only hope they didn’t have to do it alone.

“Bannick,” Madoc said again, warningly, and Fern realized they were out of time to decide.

Fern pulled away from Aris’s embrace, Aris willingly letting them go as they whipped their backpack off and turned it upside down. The jar crashed first, glass shattering and dropping disgusting, sickly-sweet smelling meat out with a splash of blood over Fern’s shoes and jean cuffs. The journals followed.

“You mustn’t—” Madoc gasped, eyes widening.

Bannick whipped around while carrying him, pointing him at Miranda. “Go on, girl. I’ll hold, you punch,” Bannick purred.

And Miranda let out a shriek, rising from her crouch like a trained athlete to launch herself at Madoc.

Fern didn’t have time to focus on exactly what she was doing to him, nor did they want to—though they wished her all the best of it, frankly; she deserved this chance. They needed to make sure that Madoc’s attention didn’t focus again on her, to give her the opportunity to do what she needed to do.

Their hand was bleeding already, but they didn’t want to take any chances. Hoping inanely that they didn’t get an infection from this—trying to remember the last time they got their tetanus shot—they snatched up one of the larger pieces of glass and sliced their palm open.

The hot pain of it almost made them scream, but they strangled the sound, curling their hand a couple of times to be sure they hadn’t done too much damage. Blood poured over their palm, hot and searing; they turned it over, dripping across the covers of the books, then flipped the books open and began dragging their hand over the pages. 

Madoc was screaming, the sound paper-thin and raspy with such dead lungs and fragile throat. Fern risked looking up and saw that Miranda was pulling parts out of Madoc. They tried, simultaneously, to blank out what they were seeing and knew that they’d be reviewing the image over and over for years.

They looked back down and took a vicious, pained pleasure in smearing the pages about fairies and demons with their blood, then began to pull out pages.

They tore a bunch, but that was taking too long—they didn’t think they could stay conscious through doing this on every page. With the clarity of panic, they remembered the weapons they’d brought with them, grabbing the screwdriver and lining it up like an awl, and then using the hammer and all their strength to hammer it through the cover and all the pages. A few more taps sent it into the book below as well, impaling both.

Aris leaned down behind Fern, needle-like hair tickling Fern’s skin as it fell around them. They were glowing again, luminescent, but that might be the blur in Fern’s vision, the aching exhaustion that made the hammer feel like a thousand pounds.

“You can’t take much more of this,” Aris whispered into Fern’s ear.

Fern drew a ragged breath. “I know,” they said, and brought the hammer down on the screwdriver’s head again and again, driving it deeper and deeper until the screaming stopped. 

It tumbled from a numb, bloody hand. Fern tried to look up, couldn’t raise their head, saw Aris’s arms closing around them, saw Bannick’s feet approaching, and then saw nothing at all.

[Tomorrow, the EPILOGUE will go up, along with an Author Q&A!

Rather than the usual general suggestions, tell me what you’d want in an epilogue.
Who would be there, what questions answered, etc. I can’t guarantee they’ll
get in there — some things are locked based on the choices made to date —
but I’ll try to address ’em!]

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Two things very quickly became apparent to Fern as they stared at Madoc’s twisted, living corpse, his daughter forced down to her knees, his body decaying around whatever force of will was still inside it. It looked… fragile, though Fern imagined looks could be deceiving given that Madoc was somehow still in there. They still had a hammer in their pocket, and their hand closed around it in a quick spasm.

First, that they were going to have to do something about this. Aris and Bannick were gone, and Miranda was in some kind of distress, and there was nobody else here to do it. 

And second, they didn’t know if they could kill anyone. They didn’t want to kill anyone, even someone who really, deeply, truly deserved it. They’d been indirectly responsible for one death already and it had nearly broken them. This man was the worst person Fern had ever been face to face with—had enslaved two other thinking beings, had tortured and murdered his own daughter—but the idea of using a hammer to cave in his head and then just walk away made Fern light-headed with fear and nausea.

They weren’t cut out for this, they thought helplessly. Why them? Why this? They came here to get away. To recover. Not… this.

“You’re so quiet, child,” Madoc said. “Come closer. It’s hard to see with these old eyes.”

Involuntarily, Fern took a step closer before locking their knees and refusing to budge any further, tearing their gaze away from Madoc’s watery eyes. “I’m thinking,” they said. They slid their hand off the hammer, moving instead to their phone. As best as they could without looking, they turned it on recording. For evidence, at least. But maybe Bannick was still out there somewhere, listening.

Madoc let out a dry, scraping laugh. “That’s understandable,” he said. A shiver ran through Fern’s body; they got the abrupt, unshakable sensation that they were being read like a book, words on a page. “Ferd… no, Fern Grant, is it? A pleasure to meet you. I am Madoc Kemp.”

“I’m aware,” Fern said. They forced themself to stare at Miranda. She seemed to be …bleeding? No, there was no blood, but she was clutching at her gut like there was a wound, doubled over, head down, eyes furious. As if she’d been forced to bow even as she curled around an injury. “Why are you… like this? Nailed. To this wall, I mean.”

“Well, my body grew weak, and I hadn’t found a solution. I wanted not to be easily stumbled upon, and I wished to stay upright on legs that couldn’t hold me well,” Madoc said. “It’s an embarrassing state, I’ll grant you that. But you can help me. You’re a helper, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk with you. I want to talk with Miranda.”

Miranda’s gaze flicked to Fern.

“Don’t be foolish,” Madoc said. “Why would you want to talk with Miranda? You’re the one who is craving power over your own life. I can hear it, your desire for my journals. You’d love to learn from them, wouldn’t you? From every experiment I ran, every note I made on how to bend and break the spirit world around me. I am a master of binding things. I can teach you how to bind anything.”

They did want power. But was that kind of power what they wanted? There was nothing in there of kindness or compassion, only control and harm. They focused on Miranda, trying not to listen to Madoc. “Miranda, what do you want?”

Her lips pulled back from her teeth. “Revenge,” she said. It was actually audible to them this time, the same way that her body was actually visible. Fern wondered briefly if it was them changing or if it were something she or Madoc was doing.

“Oh, you can hear her?” Madoc murmured. “You’re changing. You’ve become so open to what the world could be. We could work on it together, you and I, you know. It’s not that I would destroy you, unless you didn’t have the will to stand up to me. I think, if you reject my journals’ teaching, you will have a much harder time mastering the power you want. You’d have to do studies from scratch. If we were together, I could help you with that. I have all the basis for understanding, even if what I wrote down was… specifics.”

Fern kept their eyes on Miranda. They were shaking. Fear and adrenaline were draining them fast, too fast, and they weren’t sure if that was the only thing. They’d just done a bunch of magical contract-breaking, and Bannick had mentioned before that Fern was spending their energy in ways they couldn’t understand or notice. “Only revenge?” they asked softly. “Is there more you want? A new life?”

“If you want to give her one, that’s simple. Once we’ve mastered giving me one, we simply need to find a good host, and that will be easier when I’m… mobile again. You can’t build flesh out of nowhere, you know. Age, mortality, death are all inevitabilities of the body. It’s the spirit that can survive, but finding a young, sensitive woman shouldn’t be so hard,” Madoc said lightly. “Come here, child, let’s discuss our daughter’s future—”

Miranda said, “Rest. I’m dead. I’m gone. I don’t know this world and my child is gone and I do not know who came after, nor do I care to. I want revenge and to rest and to see what comes after on my own merits.”

It was impossible not to feel a little sad about that. Her life had been cut so short. Maybe she didn’t know what she wanted—? 

Fern almost saw that thought form, imagined themself strangling it. They didn’t have the right to overwrite anyone’s will. “She doesn’t want to.”

“It’s a parent’s job to guide unruly children.”

“That’s not what you did,” Fern said, voice rising and cracking. “You call that guidance?!”

Madoc fell silent for a moment, watching Fern almost with disappointment. Fern drew a deep breath and tried to focus. The world felt overly sharp, surreal. Something felt… wrong about what Madoc had been saying, eating at them. Age, mortality, death are all inevitabilities of the body. 

How, then, was Madoc still here, if he hadn’t yet had a body to transfer his will into?

Fern drew out the compass. They focused their will on it. Something to defeat this man, something to destroy his plans, something to free Miranda—their thoughts were going a mile a minute, but slowly the needle began to tick backward. Toward Fern? Or something behind them? 

“I’m tired of this,” Madoc said, sadly. “I had hoped to have you accept me willingly for the ease of it, but we can do this the hard way. Aris! Bannick! Attend me.”

Fern almost laughed. Those two were gone, couldn’t serve him—

But both spirits appeared, Aris with shadows crawling across them (What? When? Why?) and Bannick naked, unveiled, his face a bottomless hole where features should be.

“Ugh. Who took your veil? Unbecoming,” Madoc muttered. “Seize this human for me.”

Fern began to back away. “You can’t,” they stammered. “I let you g—”

Aris was suddenly on them, arms winding around Fern, pinning them to their body, Fern’s backpack squished awkwardly between them, the harsh edge of a book digging into Fern’s spine. “Shh,” Aris whispered, soft, direct in Fern’s ear. “Don’t tell him that. He hasn’t realized yet.”

Their heart started beating again. They nodded, hopefully imperceptibly, then began thrashing to try to get away from Aris, putting on a show. “No, stop! Let go of me!”

“Yikes,” Bannick said. He looked at Madoc. “Both of us? Aris can handle one skinny human.”

“No,” Madoc said, after a moment. “You can detach my body from the support structure. Help bring me over.”

“Yessir,” Bannick said. 

Even if the spirits were still on their side, that didn’t necessarily solve anything if Madoc still got his hooks in. Fern turned their attention back to Miranda. “Fight back,” they begged her, not having to fully fake their panic. “Please! You can do it. He can only kill or coerce you, right? You’re not bound!”

“His will… is strong,” Miranda breathed. “He’s drinking the edges of me… Break… his focus, and I…”

Break his focus, but how? Fern closed their eyes, frantically thinking again of that incongruity. Why was Madoc still here? It had to do with his magic. What had he said about his magic? Experiments. Bending and breaking and control. Binding. That’s right, he was a master of binding.

He couldn’t be under his own control, so that one was out. Binding it was. He must have bound his will here somehow. The hunger beneath the cottage. He bound things to objects previously; Aris’s freedom to the bud and Aris’s imprisonment in the tree. Bannick’s obedience to the contract, Bannick’s imprisonment to the mirror. Miranda’s spirit imprisoned inside the wardrobe. Even his body-stealing plan had to be some kind of binding.

There must be some object that Madoc had used as a focus to remain in his withered flesh. If Fern could destroy that object…They’d already learned too that there were specific methods of disposal. Blood had worked for Bannick. Maybe for Aris, too, given how the root had dug. 

They were a sensitive, and they hadn’t really asked much about what that meant. Madoc wanted them for a reason. A suitable body for a sorcerer. They had energy they could spend, they just hadn’t learned how. Fern looked down slowly at where the compass had fallen. It was still pointing at Fern—no, slightly behind them.

Bannick had lifted Madoc off the wall and was carrying him over. Impossible to read Bannick’s face, but he tilted his head at Fern as if in questioning, arms tensing around Madoc.

“Faster, Bannick. What’s wrong?” Madoc asked, an edge of suspicion entering his voice.

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern]

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No, Fern decided, weirdly reluctant. No, they shouldn’t try controlling Aris and Bannick. That should be a last-ditch attempt at best, something done to wrest their leashes away from Madoc, not something they set out to do in advance. They’d already seen how those spirits felt about their imprisonment. Fern didn’t want to be the cause of that.

Destroying the items… also felt wrong. The contract, maybe it’d be fine—but the bud? This was Aris’s literal freedom, removed from their own control. Destroying it would destroy the freedom itself. Aris would never get it back, and if their freedom was gone, not just under someone’s control…

Fern shuddered at the thought. 

Maybe it required blood. They were already bleeding, but this wasn’t the sort of thing they wanted to mess around with blindly, either.

They were going to need an expert opinion.

Bracing their rear against the overturned shelf, Fern swung their backpack around and dug out the journal with the references to binding a fairy and controlling a demon. Once again, as soon as they were touching the book, a combination of weakness and greed seemed to settle into their bones. They hated themself. They wanted to be who they were with this power. Only the power of these books would make them into anything worth anything—

That’s rough, buddy, they thought desperately, sucking deep, disgusting breaths in an attempt not to burst into tears again. This was a corruptive influence. A One Ring. They more they used it, the worse they’d get, probably—no, the better? that voice whispered. 

Either way, it was the only information they had right now.

With the flashlight, they did their best to read, awkward and shaky. The book described the binding ritual, done with salt and iron to carve the freedom out directly no matter how the captured fairy protested. Somehow, Fern thought that protest was a euphemism in this case. Once extracted, they must remain separated, so the fairy couldn’t take the bloom back. They must be forbidden from entering the room in which it was kept, and kept in the dark, ideally, to where that room even was.

Okay. That was something.

Next, Fern flipped to the page about controlling a demon. This one didn’t mention summoning, which was odd—it sort of implied the demon was already here, so surely there was something that Fern had missed—but again, involved surrounding them in a magic circle and bargaining with them until they signed a contract. As long as that contract remained safe, the demon would then be bound to obey the contractor’s orders until they enacted the contract’s demands or until that will was no more. Madoc had added, This can persist beyond death so long as the will itself endures.

Another note underneath it: Aris must be forbidden from damaging the contract.

God, Fern had so much power in their hands right now. They had just learned how to use spirits to do whatever they want. What other knowledge was contained in here…?

No, that wasn’t them again. They hoped, anyway. They hoped they weren’t considering slavery a good cost for knowledge. Fuck.

Hurriedly, they shoved the book back into their bag, wiping their hands off on their pants as if it could actually clean off the guilt. In their pockets, they felt the wards.

Fern closed their eyes.

It was time. They had to throw at least Aris’s ward away now, if Fern was to bring them here to give the bud back. And while technically they wouldn’t need Bannick here to destroy the contract… they felt he’d want to be there. He’d hate for Aris to get all the fun when he had to miss out on it.

It was a risk, Fern knew. If they threw the wards away and Madoc had given them a command, or somehow felt Fern’s interference and gave them one immediately, Fern could get whisked away before they could act.

But… Miranda had gone on ahead.

Fern thought that Madoc was probably a little distracted.

No more hesitation, they told themself firmly. It was time to commit.

Fern reached into their pocket, fingers closing around the paper, the spike. They wadded the paper up, took both out, and then pitched them as far from them as they could, watching them vanish into the chaos of the room.

Suddenly, the energies of the room were thick, even more choking than before. Fern shouted, “Aris! Bannick! Come here, quick!”

Bannick appeared. Aris did not, but Fern saw two green pinpricks of light glowing outside the door. Ah, right, Madoc had fucking forbidden Aris from entering.

“You’ve found them,” Bannick breathed, eyes focused hungrily on his contract.

“Yeah. Let’s get Aris free first, I have a question about yours,” Fern said. They reached over, closing a hand around the bud.

It fought in their grip like a cat in the carrier, panicking on the way to the vet. Fern jerked helplessly as a vine began to dig through the flesh of their hand; it hurt, it hurt, it hurt—

“Easy there—!” Bannick scooped Fern up in his arms—odd-feeling, wrong, but Fern was too focused on holding onto the thrashing bud to pay much mind—and bounded over the rubble like it was nothing, depositing Fern outside the door.

“Oh,” Aris said, and reached out, plucking the bud from Fern’s hand. The burrowing root came free with a gout of blood that left Fern reeling, light-headed from shock.

Aris gazed at it, their bloody freedom, expression enraptured, and then opened their mouth, swallowing it down. Shadows crawled over Aris’s skin as if fleeing it, rats from a sinking ship. They began to glow softly, emanating their own inner light.

They looked up at Fern in Bannick’s arms with a beatific smile, and—vanished.

Fern tried not to feel hurt. That was fair. Aris had been trapped here a long time. If they needed to go now—even if Fern thought they might have needed Aris’s help—that was fine, surely. It was the cost of not controlling them; they had the right to choose what they wanted.

Bannick lifted Fern’s bloody hand and licked it. “Now what?” he said softly. “Tick tock.”

Understood. They were running out of time. Fern tried to pull themself together against the way the room was trying to swim at the edges. “What were the terms of your contract?” Fern asked.

“To find Madoc new bodies,” Bannick said, “until he was satisfied, or had grasped immortality under his own terms.”

That… could be never. Bannick could be told to find people like Fern for sacrifice for the rest of eternity, trapped endlessly. “You must have been in a real bind.” 

“He left me in the circle for seven months,” Bannick said. “So yeah. Hurry, Guy.”

“It’s Fern,” Fern blurted. Maybe shouldn’t, but fuck, at this point…? They clambered back over, hand throbbing hard, and pulled the paper free from the mirror. It came out undamaged, which didn’t feel right, and they gave it an experimental, and fruitless, twist. “How do I destroy it?”

“Cover the signatures with blood,” Bannick said, hungrily. “Then you can tear it.”

And then Bannick would be uncontrolled, free to do whatever he wanted, no facade of civility or bowing to anyone else’s rules. Fern hesitated just a second, thought about Bannick on the other side of that bathroom door, and smeared their hand over the signatures.

Heat arched out from it, a sudden stifling wave. Bannick let out a shout, nearly a scream, and Fern quickly took the paper in both hands and ripped.

Somewhere, the lantern crashed to the ground and shattered. The room went dark except for the thin beam of Fern’s flashlight.

Fern fanned it around. For a moment, they thought they saw Bannick—but it was just his veil, draped over a shelf, and Fern’s own shorts, as if Bannick’s flesh had vanished completely, as if Bannick was no longer a body that existed in this world.

Fern suddenly felt horribly lonely, abandoned. They told themself again that, if this is what the spirits wanted, that was far.

Slowly, aching and sore and exhausted, Fern picked up the two items of clothing and stuffed it in their backpack. They crawled over the debris with just the flashlight in their hand, panning it around the area once they were able to stand. 

All the roots were gone.

God, they wanted to go home. They weren’t sure they could find a way back to the cottage if they tried, though, the paths winding and splitting and now unmarked.

Dully, they checked their pockets for anything that might help—and pulled out the compass they’d found in the cellar. It was pointing steadily to one specific exit, which felt promising. They took a few steps toward it, then paused.

Maybe …

“I want to find Madoc,” they said aloud, and tried to believe it. Tried to forget about home. Tried to think about Miranda, likely struggling against Madoc alone, about Aris and Bannick, who had been trapped here by this man. About everyone else like Fern who might be in danger.

And, sure enough, the compass’s needle switched to showing another exit.

They followed these, deep, deep into the dug earth until emerging finally into something new. It looked like the passage had connected to an old mine—dangerous, if so—and long empty tunnels went off in different directions.

And, against the bracing wood, a corpse was crucified here. At its feet, Fern could feel—no, Fern could see Miranda, bowed, shaking with fury, forced to her knees.

The corpse slowly raised its head. “Oh, little one, you’ve made it,” Madoc said, through rattling, dried lungs. His lips peeled back in a smile, his tone gentle. “Those traitors have abandoned you too, have they? Come here. You have it all wrong; they’ve been lying to you. This is a misunderstanding. I can make things clear, if you just help free me.”

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern]

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