Eli shudders as the forest canopy devours the moonlight.
Though the early-summer warmth abandoned him at forest’s edge, the young boy clutches his parcel and presses forward, the flickering lantern’s glow dancing upon the trees with gleeful menace. With each step a silence grows, as if the trees still to watch.
“Deep in the wood where no one goes, she finds the grove where no flower grows,” Eli whispers, reciting the children’s rhyme. Often had the couplings passed his lips throughout his sixteen years, never once thinking he would need their direction.
His boot sinks into frigid water. He stumbles back, lifting his lantern higher. A thin ribbon of water encircles a barren clearing covered in rocks. Not even a weed sprouts from the ground. The band of water widens. A stone slab emerges from the earth. It waits, expectant.
“She brings a gift more beloved than kin, such is the cost of the Witch Queen’s attention.”
Eli unfurls his parcel, revealing a single white lily. Even in the lantern’s dim light, its silky petals and emerald stalk are vibrant. His chest aches as he carefully lays the flower on the stone.
The mist around him thickens. A figure cloaked in black rises from beneath the rocks while an unintelligible chorus of whispers caress the air. A wreath of antlers crowns the Witch Queen’s head, her oily, black hair cascading down her shoulders to her knees. Her skin is pale, her features beautifully angular. A golden glow illuminates her pupils. She considers Eli in silence.
Twice the boy opens his mouth to speak and twice his breath catches in his throat. He rolls up his sleeve and extends his wrist toward the witch, revealing the crude outline of a lily embedded under his skin. “Y-you did this,” he stammers. “I know you did.”
The matron of the wood raises a finger and Eli’s wrist burst into white-hot pain, the lines turning phosphorescent blood red. Tears well in his eyes, but he keeps his arm outstretched.
The Witch Queen nods. “Indeed, you bear my mark.”
“A mistake,” says Eli. He swallows. “It appeared a fortnight ago, but surely it was meant for another.”
He blinks, and the witch is at his side smelling of wet earth and smoke. She clasps his hand, bends down, and slides her tongue along the mark before rising with a smile. “No, this was meant for you.”
Eli quivers, thrusting his wrist deeper into the witch’s grasp. “Take it back. I do not want it!”
The witch’s smile fades. Eyes still radiating their unsettling glow, her gaze traces the mark’s lines and the bruises above them. “My child,” she says, gesturing to the lily on the stone, “tell me of your gift.”
Eli’s cheeks flush. “A White Haven lily. My favorite. I have grown and tended them in a secret garden at the edge of town for years.”
“A secret garden,” the Witch Queen repeats, cocking her head. “An uncommon hobby amongst those in your village.” Statement, not question.
Eli shuffles his feet, his hands drift to his bruises. “My fath—the men in our village have no appreciation for beauty.”
“Nor the necessity for it,” the witch adds, eyes flitting back to the discolored patches of Eli’s skin. A sadness tinges her voice. The golden fire wreathing each iris surges. “My mark is not the only one you carry.”
“Tending flora is not a man’s work,” Eli explained. “My father does his best to keep me on a righteous path.”
The witch scoffs, her fingertips grazing her chest in indignation. “Only fools snuff a flame and call it light. Tell me, do you understand why your mark took the form of one of your lilies?”
“I care not what it means,” says Eli, covering his wrist with his sleeve. “I am not one of the young maidens you lead astray.”
A mischievous glint flashes in the eyes of the Witch Queen, the crook of a smile tugging the corner of her mouth. “Is that how you see me?”
Eli thinks about recounting the cautionary tales every child in the village is raised on—how girls shunning modesty and virtue would be marked for collection by the Witch Queen, damned to a heathen’s exile in her forest—but the witch appears well aware.
“You are in my presence, child,” she says, taking Eli’s hands into her own, “and I do not suffer lies told to me or oneself.”
His hands in hers, Eli feels a warmth course through his body, coalescing around each bruise. His breath shakes. The heat fades, taking the patches of blue and purple with it. “What do you want with me?” he asks.
“My mark finds those who deny their nature,” the witch answers. “My mark does not perceive a soul in the form of what it is conformed to, but as it was created: pure, untouched, brimming with potential. My mark is never wrong. For centuries, it has found and guided kindred souls to this place of freedom and communion, just as it has done with you.”
Eli recoils. “What are you saying?”
The witch closes her eyes. “I am inviting you to lead a life of beauty.”
The earth beneath their feet trembles. Eli’s mouth slackens as the barren clearing sprouts thousands of perfect White Haven lilies.
The Witch Queen extends a hand. “Within the coven, your love will be indulged, not hidden away.”
Eli hesitates. He had been warned of the deceptions spouted by the hag in the forest. In her presence, though, such tales feel like a yoke lifted from Eli’s neck. There is nothing but a sense of understanding, of acceptance.
The boy places his palm in hers, and with a smile she leads him deeper into the wood.
Moonlight breaks through the forest canopy, bathing the lilies in shining light as the flowers dance together in the breeze.
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