Black sap wept from the apple trees like tears from a punctured eye, pooling in the gravel where my Jeep's tires crunched to a halt. The whole orchard reeked of fermentation and something deeper: clove and copper, bloodroot and regret. Even through the windshield, I could feel the wrongness seeping through my wards like cold water through cracked leather.
Rowe had called it "containment work." Simple stuff. I was pretty sure he'd never seen the place himself. The trees bled dark essence onto dead earth, a clear sign his description was pure fiction.
A cursed orchard in the Catskills, some local cult brewing wine from tainted fruit, nothing a competent Broker couldn't handle in a weekend. He'd offered bloodroot ink as partial payment, rare enough to make the drive worthwhile, and claimed the locals were just "eccentric farmers with a taste for ritual theater."
I killed the engine and stepped out into air that tasted like old wine. The silence hit first. No birds, no insects, no wind through leaves. Just the slow drip of sap hitting earth and the distant sound of something that might have been singing.
The orchard stretched away in neat rows, each tree heavy with apples the color of dried blood. But the fruit hung wrong, swollen and split, leaking the same black substance that stained the bark. Where the sap touched the ground, the grass had died in perfect circles, leaving patches of earth so dark they looked burned.
My tool case felt heavier than usual as I pulled it from the passenger seat. The Ash Chain down my spine hummed with defensive energy, recognizing the ambient magic that clung to this place like smoke. Whatever lived here had been feeding for a long time.
A cluster of weathered cabins surrounded the orchard's heart, their doors carved with symbols I didn't recognize but that made my glyphs itch. Smoke rose from one chimney in a thin, gray line that seemed to bend at impossible angles. And beneath it all, threading through the earth like veins, I could feel something vast and patient waiting in the dark.
As I walked deeper, the singing got louder. It was a harmony of voices, the words a language that tugged at my memory but refused to be understood. The melody wound around the trees like another kind of sap: sticky, sweet, and wrong, making the tattoos on my spine hum a warning.
I followed the sound to a circle of women gathered around what might once have been a well. They wore faded dresses and flower crowns made from apple blossoms, swaying in rhythm to their wordless song. Their bare feet were stained black to the ankles.
They stopped singing when they saw me.
"You're the ink-bearer," said the eldest, Mother Aline, with eyes the color of old wine. "Rowe said you'd come. Welcome to our blessed grove, child."
She smiled, and I caught a glimpse of something carved into the soft flesh beneath her jaw. Not a tattoo. It was a brand, half-healed and deliberately crude. "Thornhym has been expecting you."
"That's one way to put it," I said, my voice neutral. "I'm Larissa. And who, exactly, is Thornhym?"
Mother Aline's smile never wavered.
The other women moved aside as she approached, their bare feet silent on ground that should have crunched with fallen leaves. They all bore similar marks, brands, scars, or cuts that formed patterns I couldn't quite parse. Some looked fresh. Others had the silvered sheen of old keloid tissue. I kept my eyes cataloguing escape routes and the location of every person in sight.
"Thornhym?" I asked again, though part of me already knew I wouldn't like the answer.
"Our guardian. Our provider. Our lord of root and branch." Her voice carried the cadence of someone who'd spoken these words a thousand times. "He blessed this ground with his presence, and we tend his garden in return."
She gestured toward the bleeding trees with the reverence most people reserved for cathedrals. "The fruit of his bounty makes wine that opens the inner eye. Would you taste it, ink-bearer? The first cup is always free."
My instincts screamed. Free samples from forest cults never ended well, especially when the local trees were leaking what looked suspiciously like diluted Broker ink.
"Maybe later," I said, a little too quickly. "First, I'd like to see what's causing the... overflow."
