25. || it will come back.

River waited for the shadows to grow long before emerging from their hiding spot beneath the little thornberry. All her red berries that had been ripe just days ago were now rotten and shriveled. She was quiet like the rest of the trees. Still. No earthly current rumbled beneath River's boots as they looked from the woods to the ruins of the springhouse. The effects of the crick filling with fracked demon excrement had rippled beyond just the spring and they had ignored the warning signs.

"Blessed Samhain, love."

"Samhain?" River's knuckles tightened around the shovel's handle as they turned. "It's not—"

"Losin' track of your days?" Vera sat in her usual spot in the dip of the trunk, but something felt different about her posture. Her shoulders seemed to sink deeper into the bark, her boot barely swung in the air. Even from the distance, her eyes seemed a little more gray than blue.

"Evidently, I have. But seems it's for the best." The golden hour sunlight washed over River as they rounded the hemlock and counted out five lengths of their foot from the trunk. Striking the pineneedle covered ground with the shovel, they began to dig.

"You gonna bury them rotten boys right behind me?"

"Nope." River continued digging quick as they could without looking up. "I buried ya on the southern side so ya wouldn't get cold. A lotta good that did."

Petite black boots stepped over the gnarled roots, careful to remain connected with the hemlock, but she didn't venture away from the trunk as she had nights past. "You still mad at me, love?"

"Not even sure mad is the word for it, Vera. I just want ya gone."

The faintest rumble vibrated up the wooden handle of the shovel as Vera stepped down off the trunk and balanced on a narrow root that reached towards them. "Stop that, now. Diggin' me bones up like a petulant child. What's the matter with ya?"

"I was a child, wasn't I? When I buried ya here?" River drove the shovel deep, striking what was hopefully a pile of charred black bone. "A changeling child. A demon, yeah?"

Grabbing the handle, Vera tried to yank it away from them, but her back foot slipped. River dropped the shovel to catch her waist. Her arms wrapped their neck, pulling them in close as River guided her back to the root before the unforgiving mountain seared the sole of her foot.

"Why'd ya do it, Vera?" River whispered, unable to break her hold. Lemon and bergamot filled their nose with every inhale of her coiffured blonde hair. "I know it was you who bound me to the mountain, tied me to a curse that had no business bein' mine, regardless what I am. And I know you was in love with that woman's granny and that's why ya need her blood to finish whatever you'ns started."

"I had ya bound here for us. So we'd always have each other." Vera slowly lifted her head from their shoulder. Her hands fell to their chest. "She wanted to send ya back and I couldn't. Ya know that already. Thalia betrayed me, Riv. How else ya think I ended up on that lime rick?"

"Was that before or after ya tried to drown her daughter in the springhouse?"

"Tried?" Her eyes sharpened as she laughed. "Was after ya stole me garnet and gave it to the wee hen to use against me." A stream of blood tinged brown dripped down out her nose and over her lips. "Against us both."

River reached up to wipe the blood from her nose, all viscous and gritty against their thumb. "It's in ya too," they murmured. "You're sick like the rest of the woods."

"Dyin', love." As she smiled, it continued to run from her nostrils. "Wee bit different this time around. But it's seepin' into ya too and ya know why it's here and who it's here for. I may have given Thalia that lock of your hair, but she bound ya with her piss n' blood. Same blood will end the curse and we'll be able to save this godforsaken mountain 'fore it dies."

From the pocket of her long black skirt, she drew out a hankie that matched the one she had stitched for them with their initials and the mountain's sigil, but this one was already stained with her blood, blood that hardly looked like blood. As she raised it to her mouth to cough, dark splatter further soaked the fabric.

River braced the small of her back and walked her back to the trunk. A cold breeze from the north slipped around the hemlock and the citrus of Vera's hair oil was all they could smell again, camouflaging the rotting decay that surrounded them. She slid down against the bark and settled into the mangled roots where the last of the day's sunlight remained.

"This side of the hemlock is quite warmer," she said with a sigh. "You were always so good to me, River. Even in death."

Kneeling down in front of her, River cupped her cheek. "And I still will be. I can move ya today, Vera. On Samhain. Bury ya somewhere far and away from this hell holler and maybe ya can finally rest in peace when she breaks the curse."

Vera's smile twitched against their palm, but before they could question its quirk, her stone blue eyes grew large. "River, look out!"

As River turned to look over their shoulder, the flat metal edge of the shovel cracked against their head. Dark sludge filled their mind's eye, plugged their ears, and weighed down their body as Vera's muffled shouts for them to get up drifted miles away. But they fought against the blur of brown mind slurry to focus on the blood soiled polo shirt and khakis that stood over them.

That jagoff, Brad, from the other night.

His clean-shaven jaw slung around all slack and loose, teeth cracked and gums raw, and he seemed like he was trying to laugh, maybe say something, but no words could find sound in that shredded gizzard, not after them roots burst all up and out through it. He had a half dozen holes in his chest you could see straight through past sinewy cobwebs of meat, and he wasn't moving all too great, not after decomposing the past couple days. River's head was still spinning like the morning after a fifth of whiskey, but they saw his next hit coming. Mostly. Just a little blurred and doubled.

They tore the hatchet out their belt and aimed for the jagoff's knee, but missed, and instead its blade sunk into the back of his scrawny little calf muscle, catching halfway while the point of the shovel caught the sleeve of River's flannel. Brad sorta howled if you could really call it that, more just a guttural, agonized bellow. Pinned to the ground, River ripped their arm free and wriggled the hatchet out of his leg. A backspray of blood that hardly looked like blood splattered across their face, but they sprung to their feet as that jagoff stumbled to grab the shovel once more.

"I sure am gonna enjoy killin' ya again," River mumbled, closing one eye to fight the double vision. Didn't help that their own blood was pooling all thick under their eye. They wiped it clean with their shoulder and steadied their back foot, hatchet ready.

He lumbered forward with a determination that seemed hardly his own, more like a force compelling him. Not that River had much time to consider why the mountain had rejected him in the first place, but even the look in his bugged out, cloudy eyes seemed like no one was home.

The shovel cut through the air, striking the ground next to River's feet as they maneuvered out its way. While the jagoff struggled to free it from the mud, River kept their eye winked closed and took one quick swing. The blade sunk through his neck muscles, stopping half way again and River made a mental note to sharpen its blade because it should've went clean through, but they let go its handle and Brad grasped for it as they dropped to their knees.

River kicked him over and stepped onto his chest to keep him down just as he and that other boy had done to them a couple nights ago. River had half a mind to let him suffer tonight. Hack him up limb from limb. Vera's eyes burned through their back and they knew she'd enjoy that kinda darkness. Maybe even get off on it some.

"That's me good girl," she encouraged. "This is who ya are. Exactly what you're meant to be in these woods."

But that kinda darkness was too hard to climb back out of. Gripping his hair, River held his head out straight while he scratched and clawed at their hand, and they unwedged the hatchet from his neck. Two more swings and it was done.

"The only way this curse ends is with her blood, River. Or yours."

They could hear the disappointment in Vera's voice, but it didn't matter because she was wrong about them. Thick brown sludge and white worms dripped from the jagoff's severed head as River raised it up by the hair. His teeth bit at nothing, clouded eyes rolled around his head, spilling more worms. "So be it."

"River," a voice gasped behind them, caught somewhere between a whisper and a cry.

And River knew that hushed voice. They didn't need to turn around. They didn't want to turn around. Not like this. She wasn't supposed to see them like this. The jagoff's slick hair slipped between their fingers and the head fell at their feet.

"You need to leave, Boots."