Hazel smiled. “All right, then. We’ll decide together.”
Gothel, Primrose, and Hazel were standing outside the conservatory, holding hands and waiting for their mother to come out to tell them it was time for the ceremony. There was a chill in the air that made them shiver and huddle close together. The sky resembled black cellophane with tiny pinholes of light, and the moon was a thin shining crescent. None of it looked quite real. It was like a paper cutout. It was too perfect to have such a remarkable witch’s moon on that night. The perfect moon for that sort of magic. And there was something inexplicable in the air. The dead woods felt different to the witches on that night, but they couldn’t figure out how.
“The woods feel alive,” said Hazel. “Somehow they feel alive.”
“The woods are alive, my dear Hazel.”
Manea came out to greet her daughters. She had artfully arranged her hair in a high elaborate configuration of large curls and golden rapunzel flowers. It had been many years since the sister witches had seen their mother so formally dressed. She wore a golden floor-length empire-waisted gown with long full sleeves that shimmered in the light, and her skin also glowed, like she had bathed in rapunzel flower dust. She didn’t look at all like the mother they knew. She looked younger, and somehow more majestic than they had ever seen her.
“You’ve always felt so much—too much, in fact. It’s the singular aspect about you that has always caused me trepidation, but I see now it will work in your favor. Always trust your feelings, Hazel. They are your guides. You feel the vibrations of the world around you. You feel the emotions of others more profoundly than anyone else I’ve met, even with only a small amount of my blood within you. You even feel the dead.”
“The dead?” Primrose looked around nervously, trying to find the dead, but all she could see was endless darkness.
“Yes, my dear child. The dead.” Manea took her gaze from her bewildered daughters and looked toward the dense part of the forest, where her creatures were waiting for her. “Come, my love, and bring my children forth so they may behold the future queens of the dead!”
The tall grotesquerie Manea had called her love stepped out of the shadows as if walking through a pitch-black curtain of night. His trousers and long coat hung on his lanky skeletal body like rags, and the leathery skin stretched over his skull glistened in the light from the open conservatory door. He was surrounded by innumerable skeletal creatures, their numbers stretching for miles into the densest parts of the forest. They were silent, morose creatures, standing almost entirely still, waiting for instructions from their leader. The lanky creature raised his hand, motioning to the skeletal minions to make a pathway, parting the sea of skeletons down the center. The witches couldn’t see what was making its way toward them, but they could hear something. It was a choir of little whimpers, the chattering of tiny voices, their pitch full of fear and muffled by sobs.
“Come! Come, my little ones. Welcome. Behold your future queens!” To the young witches’ horror, they saw what was coming out of the darkness: the children from the village.
The children slowly made their way through the sea of skeletons while huddled around a ghastly woman with putrid skin that was deeply bruised. The poor woman had a vacant, terrified look on her face, her bulbous eyes darting around, taking in the scene. She didn’t seem to notice the horrified children huddled around her, or their tiny hands grasping at her, trying to hold on to her.
“What’s wrong with the children’s eyes?” wondered Primrose, her voice barely a whisper.
The children’s eyes were covered in what looked like dried tar. It was black, shiny, and set into the hollows of their eye sockets. The young witches had never seen anything so horrifying. The sight of the poor children, with their fresh wounds and bruised little bodies, broke their hearts.
“Is this woman…are these children…are they from the village? You…killed them?” asked Primrose, trembling and fumbling her words.
“Calm yourself, Daughter. They would be even more terrified if they could see,” said Manea offhandedly.
“You’re a monster!” sneered Primrose, looking at her mother with utter contempt.
“What would you have me do? All of our creatures must be in attendance. They must be bound to you.”
“They are not creatures! They’re children! Children you killed! And now you’re parading them around for your amusement. It’s disgusting! I won’t have anything to do with it,” yelled Primrose.
“This is our life, Primrose! Stop being weak! You will take the blood, and you will help your sisters uphold our traditions. And you will never leave the dead woods! Do you understand? I do not want to hear another word from you, not one—not until it’s time to recite your portion of the ceremony!”
Primrose said nothing. Disgusted and horrified, she just looked at her mother as the dead children cried even harder at the sound of Manea’s angry voice.
“Not another word, Primrose! Or I will truly make these children suffer!”
Primrose’s anger and revulsion writhed within her, but she choked down her words.
“Direct your anger there, Primrose!” Manea pointed her bony finger at the woman standing with the children and gave her a wrathful look. “If she had agreed to the terms, these children wouldn’t be here! She wanted to be with her precious dead so desperately! To surround herself by death! Well, now she shall be! Forever! These children’s blood is on her hands! Not mine!”
The dead woman flinched, grasping the hand of a little girl in a tattered bloodstained dress and pulling her closer, as if the blind child could shield her from the queen’s wrath.
“Mother, please, stop!” pleaded Hazel.
Manea whipped her head around like a deadly viper to look at Hazel.
“Do you think I like ending the lives of children and bringing them here? It’s unnatural to end a life so young. They find it so much harder to transition and to accept that they have passed. I’ve covered their eyes to make it easier for them, Hazel.”
“Mother, they’re in pain. They’re suffering.”
Manea looked to the lanky skeletal creature. “My love, does it hurt to be dead?”
“No, my queen, not anymore.”