A layer of fog blanketed the fields like a half-forgotten dream, swallowing the familiar rows of sweet corn that normally greeted Eloise Marlow on her journey into town on a summer's day. Only the white tassels at the top of each stalk sprouted through the mist. Any other day, her eyes would light up at the sign of impending harvest, but nothing could brighten the dark mood surrounding the morning. Just as nothing could stop her family's creaking carriage from reaching its destination.

Eloise hadn't spoken a word since Mama had woken her. The sun had still been asleep then, but now it peaked above the line of trees in the distance, rays bleeding across the sky and ticking away the final moments until Dreadwood received its sacrifice.

"You're white as a sheet." Mama's harsh whisper was like a sickle's blade cutting wheat. "You best compose yourself before we arrive. Father McRae will deem any sympathizers as guilty by association. Lenore Carrington dug her own grave."

Eloise cringed at her mother's sharp words and the truth she spoke. She remembered the daisies Lenore used to weave through her hair when they were children. Eloise would hide in her bedroom to keep the dainty yellow and white flowers tucked in her braids before Mama had a chance to rip them out. Then Eloise would hum one of the songs Lenore had taught her, ever quiet for only the two of them to hear.

Eloise's mouth went dry. "But Lenore is my friend." Her whisper didn't even sound like her own.

"Which is why you should be more cautious about your demeanor," Mama scolded. She tucked Eloise's stray hairs behind her ear, pinning it back with the rest of her pecan-colored hair. Eloise finally tore her gaze from the passing crops and to the judgement laced in Mama's wide nutmeg eyes. "The girl was guilty of impurity, and my daughter will not be suspect of the same. Not when the harvest is this close. Not when you're soon to find a husband."

Pa harrumphed from the box seat of their open carriage, reins in hand, his old straw hat tilted on his head. He never intervened, but Eloise wished he would. If he had, maybe Mama's nails would've retracted from Eloise's spine a long time ago. Maybe she wouldn't have become Mama's pretty puppet—a belle to be given as a prize to the man with the richest crops south of Dreadwood.

The carriage fell silent again aside from the creak of wood and the clip-clop of horses pulling them down the dirt road. Eloise glanced back out to the blossoming fields, and as Mama's words repeated in her head, a pit of gloom took root in her belly.

She understood Mama's worry. She knew what happened to sinners in Belle Parish because she'd seen them tossed away like they were poison—a risk to infect the masses. Father McRae preached that casting out sinners to the reaching, gnarled branches of Dreadwood was the very reason each harvest in Belle Parish had been so bountiful, and the town ate up those ideals like they were buttermilk pie.

Except for Lenore Carrington.

If Father McRae knew half of what the young men and women did behind their parents' backs, there would be no youth around for five-thousand acres. They were all sinners. It was just a matter of who got caught.

All the fields were empty as their carriage passed. Croppers usually began work in the early mornings during the summer, to avoid the late heat in the day, but not today. Not with Lenore's judgment hanging over the parish.

Eloise felt sunken in and hollow, everything seeming to pass in a blur even though the horses didn't move quick enough to rile a dust cloud in their tracks. Before she knew it, the cluster of buildings that stood as their town square came into vision through the fog that dissipated in the rising sun. The church's white steeple stood proud among the squatter cream-colored buildings, like an older brother watching for any wrong-doings committed by his siblings.

Other carriages rolled in from other connecting roads, some more extravagant than others, depending on the passengers, but none were in the condition of the Marlow's. The scandalous looks they received didn't bother Eloise in the least—her father had earned his place through hard work—but it made her mother's blood boil to know that some of the parish aristocracy would never except them as one of their own, simply because they weren't born into wealth like the rest of the land Holders. Mama's breathing quickened in response to the parade of carriages.

Eloise reached over and gripped Mama's hand. Augusta Marlow might've been a cold woman who expected too much, but Eloise loved her nonetheless. She received a small squeeze before Mama pulled her hand away and cleared her throat.

"I know this will be difficult," Mama said quietly. "But you must promise me that you will not act out of hand."

"Mama, I—"

"Promise me," she pleaded, her voice sinking down into a desperate whisper. Her eyes glistened for a moment, but she blinked it away.

"I promise." Although the words were simple to say, they tasted sour on Eloise's tongue.

Pa steered the horses into the line of carriages circling around the old weeping willow in the center of the town square. The green-leaved branches hung down to nearly the ground, swaying slightly with the warm breeze, greeting them with a solemn wave as if it too was dreading what was to come.

Croppers drifted in on horseback and on foot, dressed in their coveralls and aprons to get to work in the fields afterward. There would not be a wasted moment of despair for sinners.

They came to a stop at the end of a long row of carriages stopped between the willow and the church. Pa tied the reins to the front knob and Mama moved to rise from her seat.

Eloise could not move. Her muscles were suddenly as stiff as baked clay in the sun.

Their eyes were all over her—the children of the wealthy Holders in Belle Parish. They were waiting to see how she would react. Another test in their petty games. A test that Lenore had failed.

A high-pitched giggle cut through the tense air, snapping Eloise out of her haze. She turned her head to see Blanche Dixon shushing her sister, Constance, whose pressed curls framed her powdered cheeks like a doll. The two girls were already looking straight at Eloise, their painted lips twisting into smiles that lit a fire under Eloise. She rose from her seat with her chin held high, her fingers straightening the edges of the thin cream shawl.

Blanche's sneer faded and she glanced away, seemingly bored, before pulling her sister into the gathering crowd in front of the closed church doors. Hushed voices rose as more people nestled closer, and in moments, gossip was fleeting through the mass, passing from person like communion during Father McRae's services.

"Did you hear the word?"

"Lenore Carrington is a witch."

"I heard she seduced the Darcey boy."

"Will casting her out save our harvest? Maybe we should burn her at the stake just to make sure."

Disgusting. These people were disgusting. Eloise couldn't stand looking at their twisted faces sneering over a girl they used to adore. Instead, Eloise glanced down at the calluses along the tops of her palm and the bottoms of her fingers. She'd received them last spring when she helped her father, and the Croppers he'd hired, plant a new row of apple trees on the eastern border of their farm.

When she glanced back up, her gaze found a familiar pair of amber-honey eyes beneath a short mess of wheat-colored waves. Her fingers had been tangled in that hair this past summer when the boy had her back pressed against the trunk of her favorite apple tree with his lips at her neck. He gave a small wave with his fingers, the slightest of movements among the bustling crowd.

Eloise quickly flicked her eyes away from him. Winslow Truitt was a secret she would smother into extinction, even if she'd enjoyed every minute with him. She stared at the church doors with the focus of a farmer hunting down a chicken-stealing fox.

A hush went over the crowd when Father McRae opened the doors. The white church stood like a beacon, and behind it, in the distance, was a dark wall of dead trees--Dreadwood. A reminder why they were gathered in front of the church in the first place.

The shadows in the open doorway remained still, a quiet hovering over the parish with it. Then Father McRae stepped forward. His black clerical robes blended with the darkness within, his white cassock beneath his collar a stark contrast. Calculating, gray eyes roved over the crowd. While some found comfort in the cool frost of his gaze, Eloise felt nothing but bitter cold.

"Friends of Belle Parish," Father McRae announced, his voice carrying over the heads of everyone present. His tone was deep and powerful, but missing the drawl that the rest of them had, stamping him as an outsider in Eloise's eyes. "You've become more than friends to me during these times. You've become my family. Which is why today hurts me so."

The crowd leaned in closer as he spoke, entranced by him, but not Eloise. She'd never say the words aloud, but there was something about Father McRae seemed ungodly.

"I know you've all heard the news by now," Father McRae continued. "I know the pain you feel in your hearts at what we must do today, but we cannot allow one to damn the parish because one does not come before the whole of the parish."

Murmurs of agreement trickled through the crowd. Eloise's stomach turned sour.

"Our harvests have been bountiful year after year because of the purity of this parish. If we allow one to taint the population with their wicked ways, then we will be deemed unworthy in our God's eyes. The harvest is nearly upon us, so I ask you, my friends, my family; to ask for God's forgiveness upon Lenore Carrington."

At the mention of her name, Lenore emerged from the shadows of the church. In just the three days since Eloise had last seen her, she'd changed so much. Her long dark hair was a matted mess as it hung over her shoulders and framed her pale face. Gone was the twinkle in her eyes, replaced with a hollow stare. She reminded Eloise of a doll that had been lost and forgotten. Eloise caught her gaze, then quickly glanced away, her throat closing up.

"Just a few nights ago, Lenore Carrington was found unclothed while bewitching an innocent youth. By God's grace, he remains untouched by her seduction, but we cannot allow her to remain in the parish and taint the virtuous."

Eloise's gaze found Yates Darcy next to his parents. Yates stood taller than his mother and father, which made it easy to pick out his smug face beneath his neatly-combed blonde hair. When his parents turned to comfort their innocent boy, he quickly donned a mask, mimicking how a hurt child would look.

Lenore was just as much of a witch as Yates was a saintly virgin.

"Ultimately," Father McRae said. "We have no choice. We must cast out the stain before it spreads. It is with my divine intervention that I sentence Lenore Carrington to Dreadwood."

Eloise knew it was coming, but the finality of it almost made her legs give out from under her. Once her childhood friend entered the gnarled black branches of Dreadwood, she'd never see her again. Anyone who entered the cursed forest was swallowed whole by demons, their bones discarded among the tree's dead roots as a reminder to anyone who stepped foot inside.

She couldn't allow Lenore's light to be stomped out by such darkness. She had to say something. She had to do something.

Mama's hand was suddenly at her wrist like a shackle, holding her back from letting the words of her heart fly from her lips. Eloise turned her head to look at her with unshed tears in her eyes, silently begging Mama to not let this happen. But her mother could do nothing.There was nothing anyone could do once Father McRae passed a sentence.

"Lenore!" an anguished cry split the quiet morning. "Not my Lenore!"

There was movement to the right of the gathered folk, the crowd splitting for Lenore's mother as she came crashing through them. She stumbled to the steps of the church and threw herself at Father McRae's feet.

"Holy Father, please," she cried, her voice barely able to be heard. Her shaking hands reached forward, gripping the hems of Father McRae's black robes. "Please spare my only daughter. She's all I have left after her father's illness last year. Show the beauty of God's mercy! Show that we can be forgiven for the mistakes we make! She's just a child, my child!"

Father McRae gazed down his beaked nose at Ms. Carrington. "We are all children of God." He snatched his robe from her grasp. "And those who cannot follow the word of God will be punished. Your daughter is no exception." Turning away from her, he motioned to his clergymen to remove her from the steps of the church.

Through it all, Lenore was eerily still and quiet, her face expressionless as she gazed straight forward, like her mother wasn't right there begging for her life. Eloise watched her closer, confused why Lenore said nothing or showed no reaction. Ms. Carrington quickly scrambled to her feet and stepped in front of her daughter, framing her face with her hands as she kissed her cheeks. Her sobs drifted along the wind and Eloise couldn't hold back her tears anymore, letting them drip down her cheeks like warm summer rain.

The clergymen, dressed in white, stepped between Lenore and her mother. Ms. Carrington brought her hand to her lips as she shook her head back and forth, watching the clergymen guide Lenore from the steps of the church. Lenore took one long glance at her, chilling Eloise's bones with her blank gaze, then turned away with the men.

"Witch!" someone yelled to their backs.

"Be gone wicked one!" screamed another.

More and more shouts toward Lenore ate up the quiet morning as she was taken to the edge of Dreadwood.

Eloise had expected Lenore to turn and run or at least fight so hard that the clergymen would have to toss her in there. But when the men stepped back, Lenore walked into the twisted forest on her own, her dark hair blowing behind her in the wind.

When she disappeared forever through those blackened trees, the parish seemed to let go of the breath it was holding and started loading up their carriages to continue their day.

Not Eloise.

Eloise stood unmoving as the world kept turning, wondering if she would be next.

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