30. || ring of fire.

"Your wife?" River echoed. Finley could see the realization build in their eyes. "Your ex. The Demon you've been runnin' from."

Finley's hands went numb as she watched blood spread out around her wife, but not the bright red blood like what still coursed through her own veins. This was that sludge that filled the dead; the toxic waste that had seeped into the forest. It stained the stark white snow, oozing from her wife's foot as she stood back up, unfazed.

"River, I told you she's not well," her wife murmured. "But thank you for taking care of her." She hid her anger behind a perfected feigned concern. "I see she's been eating well."

Finley lowered the rifle to try to hide her belly, but she seemed to notice. Her eyes sharpened with vile surprise.

"I think you'd best be goin' now," River warned.

"It took, didn't it?" She ignored River and stepped towards Finley, foot still bleeding through her boot. The gunshot didn't slow her down. She wasn't some zombified revenant that a shot to the head would take her out. In these woods, she truly was a demon. "You're pregnant."

Finley's spine went rigid. Her throat tightened. Her wife's fingers slipped beneath her coat and dragged over her belly like the cold edge of a blade. Deep within her, she could feel that little bud desperate to wriggle away. All the old traumas, those hungry white worms, came crawling to the surface of her skin, to the tips of her fingers. The palm of her hand throbbed where the thornberry had punctured her flesh.

The useless rifle fell from her trembling hands as her wife knelt down to her belly. "Finny, this changes everything."

River's eyes darted to her waist where the bone handled knife was sheathed.

"You're right," Finley choked out. "She has changed everything. But you'll never—"

Her wife caught her wrist before she could grab the knife.

As River lunged towards them, that sludge that bled from her foot lifted out of the snow like the tentacles they'd fought weeks ago, wrapping their ankle and River fell.

"You're not the only ones who made a deal with the devil," her wife snickered. Finley tried to jerk herself free, but she tightened her grip. "Once upon a time, there was a charming, but not-so-smart brute woodsman who lured a pair of misguided boys into the woods by way of a logging road on the heavily trail-cammed property of Hart's Content... Do I need to go on?"

"Boots, ya do what ya gotta do," River groaned, trying to free their foot, but more sludge crept around them. "I can handle ever what comes my way."

Finley stopped struggling. "I'll go back to the lodge with you, just leave River out of this."

"Finley, no—" River stumbled to their feet, held back by the sludge that encased their boot.

"Good girl." Her wife stood up, keeping her hold on Finley. "River, if you don't mind, I'd like to borrow your jeep."

Finley's eyes flicked to River before settling back on her wife. "You really wanna get into another vehicle with me?"

Fingernails dug into Finley's wrist as she jerked her towards the woods. "I guess we're walking."

Finley looked towards River one final time, knowing this could be the last. The gloaming sun set fast over the ridge, leaving River alone in its remaining golden rays. Her wife tugged her along as they trudged over the brush and brambles through the snow up the mountainside. At her hip, the bone handled knife rubbed against her side.

As Finley turned towards the east, her wife yanked her back south.

"We'll hit the mountain's boundary if we keep going south," Finley warned.

"Then we'll follow the edge to get back to the lodge."

"That will take twice as long."

Her wife's hand left her wrist to seize her jaw. "Do you think I care?" Sliding down her neck, her fingers wrapped her throat. "I've gone through hell and back trying to find you on this godforsaken mountain and sold my soul to a demon. Why do you always have to make things difficult? I've given you everything over the years, taken care of you, spoiled you—"

Finley shoved her off. "You turned my friends against me, forced me to quit a job I loved, isolated me from my family. I couldn't even go to my grandad's funeral."

"And what good would that have done? You think your white trash mother would've comforted you? What happened the last time you went to her?"

And she tried not to let her words sting, but she could still hear her mother's laugh. Finley had gone to her first, pleaded to stay with her to escape her abusive marriage, and she had just laughed, saying at least it wasn't a man hitting her. She'd gone on to agree with the other Christian women that it was God's way of punishing Finley for marrying a woman.

"And anyways, she died months ago. Overdosed," her wife stated and continued walking ahead. "I am your family, Finny. Everything I've ever done has been to protect you from yourself."

Somehow, Finley had known about her mother's death. She'd felt a shift that night she tried to leave, when she crashed the Mercedes. And the ancients had known. They had called to her. Finley swallowed hard. "You put your hands on me when I begged for a divorce, you doused me and all my clothes in gasoline when I tried to leave. You shot me and left me to die on this mountain."

"And yet, we're both dead because of you," her wife snapped. "You made me do those things. You were trying to leave me. I love you, Finny." She turned around and a strange sincerity filled her eyes, maybe even remorse. "But you don't believe me."

"No, I do." Finley continued forward. The mountain's boundary was closer than she thought. She could feel it starting to burn as they neared. "I used to believe only a demon, something pure evil, could be so cruel. But I've seen what the power of love can do when it's wielded for the wrong reasons."

Stretching out her hand, she let the fiery border singe her palm. Those white worms began to crawl to the tips of her fingers again. She could feel them itching to escape.

"What are you doing?" Her wife charged towards her as she tried to step through the boundary. Fingers tore through her hair, yanking her back over the line and down to the ground. Finley fought back to pull free, letting the fire fully consume her.

Darkness clouded her mind as she awoke in a familiar clearing. Lit only by the Cold Moon, the blighted hemlock loomed overhead. Fragrant florals filled her nose instead of the stagnant rot from the tree. As she sat up, she could see down the bank of the crick where the little thornberry had burst into blossoms against the snowy mountainside. Beside her, her wife began to stir.

Finley freed the knife from her belt and pressed its blade to her palm. Red blood dripped down her wrist, following the scarred lines of the mountain's sigil. She hurried to copy its mark on her wife and waited for the hemlock to take the Demon for good.

But no rumble sounded beneath the earth.

The Demon snatched the knife from her hands and drove it into her chest, pushing her down to the ground. It climbed on top of her and wrapped its claws around her throat, stealing the breath from her lungs. But those hungry white worms began to spill out around the bone handled knife, out from her wound. Except they weren't worms at all, but the curled tendrils of roots, and they split open the scabbed puncture on her palm and found a rotted root of the hemlock.

With a thunderous crack, the hemlock's roots snapped free and lifted from the earth, shaking the mountainside. Twisting roots spewed from Finley and wrapped the Demon to follow the mountain's rune. Its mouth opened to scream, but the white roots filled it with silence, dragging it back to the mangled maw of the hemlock. Finley fought against the pull of the roots, but couldn't free her hands to remove the knife. Slowly, it began to tug her back.

<River, she's here!>

As Finley looked back, River stumbled to her side with the hatchet in hand, hacking away at the roots that continued to pull her towards the hemlock. Each cut split the root into three and they only wrapped her tighter. Pulling the knife from her chest, River was able to cut through what bound her arms. Finley tore the knife from their hand and flung it behind.

"Buckmouse!"

Out of the shadows, the bony, undead, twenty-two point Not-Deer appeared. Finley reached back with her bloody, rooted hand and sent a shoot his way. The tendril wrapped the bone handle of the knife, breaking it free from the blade to anchor it in place, connecting the sinewy ribs of the white stag.

<It's done.>

The rough roots of the hemlock fell loose around Finley and slithered back to the tree. Heat coursed through her body to the tips of her fingers, settling with a smolder in her chest. Buckmouse—Ignatius, had kept his promise and her soul was returned. The fresh white roots continued to pump life between her and the hemlock until they too returned to her body. The wound on her chest tingled as it closed. The cut across her palm healed. Where the hemlock had rotten exposed heartwood, thick patches of bark now covered it, free of fungi and disease.

Beneath the scarred tattoo of the mountain's sigil, Finley's skin raised to mirror the rune. River slid back the cuff of their sleeve to reveal one that matched.

"Opposite ends of the same ol' curse."

Leaning her forehead against theirs, Finley smiled. "C'mon you long-legged, brown-eyed, handsome hillbilly. Let's go home." 

THE END... for now