“Hold on, Iz,” I said, nudging her up with my shoulder. “Don’t let her fall, Baz.”
In answer he gave her a boost from his side.
The mud gave just a little more, and the water swirled around us. Isabel was crying now and blowing bubbles, coughing out water.
Mariana and the others were like ghosts on the bank silhouetted by ravaged trees. “Necuratul, Necuratul, Necuratul,” they chanted. Something was coming through the forest. I heard cracking sounds and the sulfur smell grew stronger. I could barely breathe.
I yelped as something brushed against me in the black water.
“What was that?” Isabel cried out.
The bump came again, pushing us forward this time. I stumbled and Baz yanked on the rope, keeping the three of us upright. The movement was everywhere at once. The wind picked up.
“Vengeance,” it whispered.
Something bumped me again. Then we saw the heads rising from the deep, dark lake, the dead eyes circled in shadows, the open mouths where maggots and small snakes crawled. They surged past us to the bank, and the fog shifted again. It was hard to see. The forest echoed with screams. Shouts. It wasn’t English, but I didn’t need a translation. It was the language of fear.
“C-come on!” I tugged on the rope that tied me to my friends. Our pockets and shirts were still heavy with stones and our limbs nearly frozen from our time in the water. Every step was tough going. We stumbled out of the lake and fell to the ground. Our bodies were too heavy to get far. I reached my fingers out and into Isabel’s pocket, pushing past the painful burn of the rope as it dug into my wrist. I only managed to pull out two stones. She tried to do the same for me but couldn’t reach. A sharp scream came from somewhere inside the forest, and my breath quickened.
“Go, go, go,” Isabel said, almost like she was willing herself forward.
“St-stand up. Toward trees,” I stammered. I was too cold to say much else.
We struggled to our feet and lurched toward the forest in a sort of step-hop. The fog was heavy. It gave us some cover, but it also hid whatever was happening inside its murky veil, and that thought had me hopping faster, forcing the others to keep up. A few feet in, we came to one of those sharp, dead trees.
“Lean d-down,” I said. I got close enough to use the rough edge of a limb to saw through my ropes around my hands, then I untied my friends.
“Oh God,” Isabel said, her eyes huge.
I followed her sightline, and through the haze I saw Mariana’s horrified face. Behind her the forest was full of the pale, long-dead children of Necuratul, half-eaten by vegetation and looking for justice. They advanced slowly, the bread crumbs falling from their mouths. They fell on Vasul, devouring him until there was nothing left. Then they turned to Dovka. She screamed and struggled as they dragged her into the lake, and she kept screaming until her mouth was filled with water and she disappeared beneath the murky surface. Mariana tried to run. She was stopped by several ghostly boys who held her tight. The hollow-eyed girl who’d led us into the forest that morning put her hands on either side of Mariana’s face. Where her hands touched, Mariana’s skin turned the color of putrefied leaves. She couldn’t even cry out as the rot spread quickly through her body. The dead girl blew gently, and Mariana’s decaying body disintegrated into a pile of wet leaves that were trampled by the feet of the dead.
I could hear screams in the fog and make out the voices of the old-timers. The tavern keeper stood at the edge of the clearing, shouting to the younger kids. They ran to him, and he motioned for us to follow. I reached for Isabel, who grabbed for Baz, and then we were forcing ourselves to stumble-run, our fear working hard to overcome the heaviness of our soggy clothes and numbed legs. With the screams of the others still echoing around us, we kept our eyes on the hope of his lantern. Pretty soon the lights of the village were close. The wind picked up again and I got that prickly feeling on the back of my neck. The forest glowed with a greenish fog; it thinned, and I saw that the dead were coming after us.
“The soul,” they whispered. “Give us the soul.”
The village was in view. The old woman who guarded the gate was shouting in words we didn’t understand and throwing salt everywhere. The kids ran ahead, and she pushed them inside the gate. I looked back as behind us the tavern keeper cried out. He’d slipped and fallen, and the hollow-eyed ones were almost on him.
“The soul,” he gasped out. “Must burn.”
“Poe!” Isabel shrieked, pulling me along.
We raced inside the gate and the old woman closed it with a bang and sealed it with salt. In the forest the tavern keeper screamed. There was no chance of saving him.
