April 2026 Volume 16 No 4

House of Honeyed Soil

by

Natalie Wollenweber

Amelia's favorite time of day is before dawn, when all the beauty is hidden by shadow. She rises from her bed every morning, shivering in the hushed air, and gets dressed in the dark. Sometimes she has to redo the buttons, but she doesn't turn on the light or examine herself in the mirror. In the soft dark, she can pretend to be bodiless—or imagine herself as a spider, a moth, a honeybee. This vision soothes her as she gets ready for work.

The ghosts run their hands through her hair, combing it for her. They slide her work boots over and open the door to escort her outside.

She visits the cockatrice first. Blindfolding herself, Amelia enters the crown-high enclosure and holds out palms full of raw meat. She hears the cockatrice shuffle forward, clucking softly. Then a beak gently plucks the meat from her fingers. Amelia strokes the cockatrice's head, wondering yet again about a name for her, but nothing seems to fit. Nowadays, the cockatrice is the farm's most dangerous creature, but she lets Amelia stroke the feathers on her head and the scales on her back. When Amelia takes that morning's egg, the cockatrice clucks at her, pleased.

The other animals are less deadly and more numerous. Amelia collects all the scorch-blue phoenix eggs, ignoring the birds' delicate song. Guests used to beg to sit by and listen to the music, or watch the phoenixes burn, but Amelia dislikes all those thrumming melodies; they scrape her ears. She isn't fond of the strix birds either; their chatter and fist-sized eyes remind her of all the people who used to pass through here.

Her brother and sister loved people, glowing from attention like the phoenixes. Amelia's siblings used to dazzle and dance and charm anyone and everyone who graced the doorstep of Hunter Lane.

But they're dead now. And Amelia has never cared for charm.

The sun always rises by the time she suits up and checks the bee hives. At one time, they had four hundred, but now the number of hives has dwindled to under two hundred. She opens one, and the honeycomb shines in the dawn, oversaturated like sun-yellow paint. Soon, the local workers she hires from nearby towns will arrive to help her collect it and strain it, bottle it and send it off to be sold in local markets. The Hunter family has done this for generations, and she will not be the one to end tradition.

Their honey is known for its enchanting taste—like summer days and decadent sugar—and its enchanted properties. A spoonful of Hunter's Honey can heal a bad cold or soothe a burn. Generations of Hunter magic have gone into the soil, flowers, and beehives, ensuring that the honey will always be glorious and powerful.

Later, she checks on Poppet in the fields. Poppet works silently, given that she does not have vocal cords. Her cloth hands are always watering the plants and mixing in compost. This time of year, she has begun to harvest. Nowadays, her fabric scarecrow face is concealed beneath a bright orange pumpkin. In other seasons, she wears a veil or a wood-carved mask.

The generations-old magic that animates Poppet has failed to give her a personality. Amelia once tried to figure out how to add more life—to free her—but none of the cobbled-together spells worked. Poppet will tend to her plants until the farm burns or drowns.

Normally, the land rings with predictable sounds: animal cries, humming bees, pattering rain, and the clean thuds and snicks of metal tools. But today, a screech sounds all through the house. It's the telephone. Amelia stares at the black thing, rhythmically tapping the rotary dial. She almost never uses it, and when she lifts the receiver off its little platform, she half-expects her sister's ghost to slide out of it.

"Hello?" she says, after the operator puts her through.

"Honey!" trills the voice on the other end. "It's been ages, I know. You probably don't even recognize—"

"Cousin Prim," Amelia says. Her own voice sounds sandy at the edges.

"That's right. God, it's been…how many years? Don't answer that, it'll throw me into a pit of despair. Anyway, I'm finally home from my latest trip—gorgeous ocean liner, terrible company—and I'm coming to visit you."

Amelia's heart grows claws. "You are?"

"Yes, and I won't hear a word against it. Don't worry, you won't have to prepare anything, I've already rented a little room in town. But it's indecent for family to go so long without seeing each other, don't you think? Especially with…"

In Prim's bitten off-sentence, Amelia's siblings bloom.

There is little else to be said. Don't come here, Amelia thinks. Don't come, don't come, don't you dare, you bloodless thing—

Primrose Ridgeway, second cousin and occasional childhood friend, arrives two days later with a strange man in tow. Amelia greets them both with a thin failure of a smile, wearing a faded green dress with soil stains on the knees.

By contrast, Prim and her friend carry themselves like film stars. "Oh, Honey," Prim hums, eschewing Amelia's hand and moving in for a hug. The cold embrace is over quickly, and leaves not a single stain on Prim's airy blue dress or soft white gloves. She has grown tall, her blond hair snipped at the chin.

The man beside her is slim and redheaded, with a heart-shaped face and night-black suit, pinned and fastened with ivory carvings. "Wendell," he introduces himself, not clarifying if this is a first or last name. "I've heard a lot about the reticent Honey."

"Only Prim calls me that," Amelia mutters. It's not even a term of endearment, just a dig at the family business and history, scraping the edges of Amelia's skin.

"Amelia then," he says.

Prim's eyes trail over the fading wallpaper and the scrapes in the tile. Of course, she doesn't appear to notice the amorphous ghosts crawling across the ceiling. Gently, she asks, "Does anyone ever stay here with you?"

Amelia bristles. "It's just me and Poppet. We do just fine on our own."

"Who?" Wendell mutters.

And Prim hisses in reply, "She means the poppet, the animated scarecrow they always had working out back." Then Prim shoulders her way through the living room and into the kitchen as if she owns this place. She finds a box of black tea and a jar of sunflower honey and makes cups for everyone while Amelia watches.

Instead of bothering with the kettle, Prim hums a spell over the water and it heats immediately. She catches Amelia's startled look and laughs. "My magic's grown a lot since we were kids, hasn't it? I had lots of practice on all those trips around the world. Weeks out at sea, then staying in picturesque coastal cities and mountain villages with sacred springs…"

"And your little visit with the mermaids," Wendell interjects. "It would have made a water witch of you all on its own."

Looking at Prim's laughing blue eyes, Amelia can't help being reminded of her sister. Melody glittered like that too. And Wendell calls forth her brother Gideon, who also walked with cheerful confidence and loved sharp suits. She can almost see her siblings' faces superimposed over those of her guests, and though these particular ghosts are not real, she flinches anyway.

"Water witchery isn't too hard to learn," Prim says, taking a sip of her tea. "But enough about me. What have you been doing with yourself, Cousin Amelia?"

Keeping the farm intact, barely. Crocheting shawls and sweaters when she has time. Reading murder mysteries and old poetry. Salting the earth at night to make dead things leave.

"Working," she says.

A brief silence passes between them before Wendell breaks in, saying, "I've heard all the stories and tasted the honey, of course, but this is my first real visit. Mind showing me around?"

So, Amelia gives him the tour. Prim follows along, pointing out sights and scents she remembers from their childhood. Wendell is conventional: he exclaims over the phoenixes, shivers when he sees the strixes, and enthusiastically compliments the flowers, squashes, and beehives. Though he stops when they get to the cockatrice's enclosure and declines a blindfold and a visit inside.

"I cannot believe you still keep that thing," Prim says. "I know the eggs are a delicacy and all, but it's not as if you're producing enough to sell."

"She's a part of this place," Amelia replies, not bothering to mention that cockatrice eggs are meant to strengthen ones' magic and endurance. Though she's been eating those eggs for breakfast every morning for years now, and it hasn't improved her yet.

"How is business, anyway?" Prim asks in a falsely nonchalant voice.

"Alright," Amelia replies, worms tunneling through her gut. Business is the slowest it's ever been for the farm, and she isn't sorry. A part of her hopes it dries up completely and this place grinds to a halt. Her family would despise her for that.

"Have you thought about expanding? Selling to overseas businesses? I might be able to work something out for you," Prim says. Her eyes run over the land as she speaks, taking in the fields, birds, beehives, and Poppet. There's an appraising look on her face, as if she's calculating the substance of everything here.

"I work in advertising," Wendell adds. "I'd certainly be interested in taking you on as a client, if you'd be amenable."

"It's not fair for you to do all this work on your own," Prim says. "I've been looking for a place to settle since my last trip. Perhaps I could be of use here." She smiles, but it looks too shiny and shallow.

Amelia eyes them, her lungs filling with doubt. Why would anyone be interested in Hunter Farm now, when its twin hearts are dead? Gideon and Melody built this land up and fed it steady meals until it sang for them. They reeled in all the customers and investors, and now everyone's gone. She's all this farm has left.

She does not want anyone to join her.

"I'll consider it, thanks," she tells them both, not even trying to sound sincere.

Their reactions differ. Wendell hesitates and glances at Prim as if he's waiting to see how she'll respond first. Prim doesn't waver at all. She meets Amelia's eyes, giving her that same cool, appraising look. The words that leave her mouth are smooth as butter.

"Of course, Honey. You know what's best. Now, would you care to join us in town for dinner? There's a diner there I'm dying to try. I do love working my way through tearooms and restaurants when I'm staying somewhere awhile."

Awhile is such a short, innocent little word, but it elongates in Prim's voice. She has a way of speaking that's so similar to Melody. Like she's glittering on a stage, reeling in every soul. Like she knows no one could ever be indifferent or unimpressed.

If Primrose Ridgeway thinks she can steal this land—that she can assume control without the bad things rising up to swallow her—then Amelia will shatter that vision to pieces.

At the end of the day, when she finally has the place to herself again, she discovers writing on the bathroom wall. In bright red lipstick, someone has written in awkward letters: "Feed me more."

If this is a ghosts' joke, she doesn't care for it. Then she realizes it's the same shade that her cousin was wearing earlier and has to fight down rising nausea.

~~~

The days stretch into a full week, and still Prim keeps showing up at the door. She trails after Amelia throughout the workday, stopping to speak with workers who are straining honey, packaging phoenix and strix eggs, and sorting through vegetables. Though she draws the line at cleaning out the birds' enclosures.

"I don't know how you do this normally with so little help," Prim says, taking the time to rest in Gideon's old armchair. "You've only got some village workers showing up here, for goodness' sake, and they didn't stay very long. Not very talkative either."

The farmhands do not talk to Amelia unless necessary, and she does not talk to them. This is the way it's been for two years since she took over. They collect honey and take it away to put on shelves. She can never look directly in their eyes, and they never quite look in hers.

"Are there good spells for farm tasks?" Prim asks, tugging Amelia back to their conversation.

"There's Poppet," Amelia mutters.

"This place used to be so lively," Prim observes. "Back when we were kids. It got even louder after your parents died and Giddy and Mellie took over, right?"

That's one way to put it. Amelia snorts at the old nicknames which sound absurd when applied to her golden brother and sister. "Yes. They loved people. Couldn't get enough of them."

"They would hate to see how quiet it's gotten," Prim says, her tone gentle but a little provoking too.

A sudden pain stabs Amelia's chest with all the force of a hammer and nail. Guilt and rage follow it, but she gulps everything down and keeps her face still. "They probably would," she says, "but I don't care what they'd think."

Surprise flickers in Prim's eyes, along with something else that Amelia can't read. But her reply is casual. "Well, it's not as if the living have a duty to please the dead."

This makes Amelia crack, and laughter spills out. She can't seem to stop; she lays her head against the countertop, giggling. Her heart is pounding so loud that she can almost hear it, wildly mocking her.

Prim stares at her, bemused. "Anything you want to tell me, Cousin Amelia?"

Finally getting control of herself, she replies, "Not at all, Cousin Primrose."

The moment passes, but she's sure her cousin has taken note of it and filed it somewhere. Prim likes to chip away at things, trying to learn through subtle pokes and prods.

Wendell is a different beast entirely. He doesn't accompany Prim on every visit, but he appears multiple times, always dressed in an obscenely nice suit. Once, he asks, "Are there any illusions woven into the garden? You know, to make the flowers more attractive to bees or visitors? I know plenty of people who use illusions to polish up their houses. Some are so intricate and creative that you'd swear they were the real thing."

He is worse at seeming offhand than Primrose. He sounds too keen, glancing at Amelia whenever he thinks she's not looking at him. But there's a little awkwardness in his speech too, as if he suspects the subject is sensitive.

The questions make Amelia tense. A horrible suspicion occurs to her, but she is careful not to give it full rein lest it show on her face. All she says is, "There haven't been any illusions in place for years. I'm no good at them."

This, at least, is the truth.

Perhaps he senses her tension because he gives her a friendly grin and replies, "No shame in that. Just means you're more honest than most. I should know; you'd be amazed at the things people try to get away with in advertising."

She's not sure how to reply, so she busies herself with tearing weeds from the ground. "But why do you do that work if you don't respect it?" she finally thinks to ask.

His reply is rueful. "Oh, I suppose we just fall into these sorts of things and then don't know what else to do with ourselves. My family's in the business, so I wound up in it too."

A strange, twisted sense of kinship rises in her chest; she quashes it. At least her worst fears seem unfounded. Wendell doesn't act as if he suspects wrongdoing. In fact, he seems almost friendly. But she doesn't trust his good cheer or his sleek appearance and handsome face. In her experience, loveliness is an effective disguise.

A part of her wants to leave the door locked every time they appear, but displays of strength have never been her forte. And despite how wrong Prim and Wendell look against the sunlit background of the farm, they seem determined to stick around.

They still haven't noticed the ghosts.

It's no surprise that Prim and Wendell can't see them. Melody and Gideon couldn't either. Or wouldn't. It's only Amelia who sits alone at the end of the day, watching gray figures shudder around the property. Sometimes she can see their faces, but often they just look like fog in the shape of humans.

But they also tease the bees, rearrange portraits and other objects throughout the house, and bring Amelia gifts of their own: acorns, leaves, and stones. Once, they were an accusing swarm, but now they are tender with her.

The ghosts must sense her discomfort with Prim and Wendell because they slowly begin to act up whenever those two are around. They make a picture drop right next to Prim's head. They roll pinecones and small pumpkins under Wendell's feet, making him trip more than once. They move teacups and coats out of reach. More than once, Prim asks, "Where on earth did my cup go?" but she doesn't see the gray, angry faces.

Amelia appreciates the help, though she knows they are doing it more for themselves than her. If Prim and Wendell took over the farm and forced her out, there would be nobody left to believe in ghosts. No one to research how to set them free.

But they won't hurt anyone. They can't, she thinks.

Still, they almost make her feel protected. Especially after she finds another message on the bathroom wall. This one is written in pink nail polish and says, "I'm hungry."

"Did you write on my wall?" she asks Prim once, and gets a confused look and a shake of the head in reply. But this means nothing. She's certain her cousin is an exquisite liar.

Then one night arrives where Prim and Wendell won't leave. The sky unleashes a torrent of rain, wind whipping through the trees and scattering debris everywhere. None of the regular workers have bothered to show up, so Amelia runs to make sure everything's secure. The beehives are always tied down and kept away from nearby branches, so they're fine. The birds are in their coops. Poppet follows along, silent as a cat, rain shining down her pumpkin mask and yellow dress.

In truth, Poppet could probably get all of this done on her own, but Amelia's afraid the scarecrow will blow away in the storm. The ghosts aren't any help here: they've always kept away from Poppet, presumably repelled by her lack of anything like a spirit or soul.

Rain drenches Amelia's coat and runs into her eyes as she calls, "Cockatrice? Get inside!" For lack of a blindfold, she leans against the enclosure and listens. Below the wind's howl, she catches the cockatrice's gentle purring chirp and then the scrape of talons, running into the coop.

Then suddenly, the rain is off her face, blowing away from her. Amelia looks up into Prim's hard eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?" Prim hisses. Her hands are raised above her head, surrounded by drops of rain. She's weaving the water, creating a dry bubble for herself and Amelia.

Stunned, Amelia says, "I was afraid she wouldn't go inside until she knew I'm okay." For once, she's speaking plain truth. It's possible that the cockatrice is the only creature on this farm who loves Amelia, completely and without complication.

"Come inside," Prim snaps, waving Amelia forward.

In the house, Wendell has prepared blankets and hot water, and he's in the process of making soup. This gives Amelia a start: neither her father nor brother would have been caught dead cooking. Melody had been a wonderful cook though. It was one of the ways she'd coaxed people into loving her.

Wendell glances at them both, looking concerned but not terrified. Clearly, he trusts Prim to look after herself and her cousin. Two ghosts have taken up residence in the kitchen, watching him stir and moving the vegetables around when his back is turned.

"We'll have to stay the night," Prim says. "We're not driving back to town in this."

Amelia's chest clenches. No one else has spent a night here since Gideon and Melody died. It feels somehow precarious, like they've all been dancing on glass this entire time—just waiting for a crack. "But you're a water witch," she says. "Can't you, you know…"

Prim snorts. For once, she looks disheveled: hair a mess, mud on her shoes and skirt. "I control water, not wind or electricity. I won't risk ending up in a ditch, struck by a falling tree, or set aflame by lighting. We're staying. I'll take Melody's old room. Wendell, darling, you should have Gideon's. If Honey doesn't mind, of course."

For a second, Amelia almost accuses them of planning this so they'd have a chance to snoop in her siblings' old rooms. Then she collects herself and nods. Prim's right, she can't shove them out into the cold.

Anyway, she cleaned those rooms out when her siblings died. There's nothing to find.

Wendell gives her a bowl of tomato soup that matches his hair. "We'll let you get your rest," he says. "You look like you could use it."

As Amelia gulps down the soup, a ghost climbs up the peeling wallpaper. Dangling upside down, the ghost glares at Wendell and Prim. The next moment, a nearby sugar bowl hurtles across the room, narrowly missing them both.

"What in God's name—" Prim yelps, while Amelia frowns at the ghost. The gray face does not appear penitent.

"The wind," Amelia offers. She thinks to the ghosts, Don't hurt them. Only scare them so they'll leave tomorrow.

This explanation doesn't seem to satisfy Prim; she presses her lips together and mutters something under her breath. Wendell looks at Amelia, a question on his face. But he doesn't ask it; instead, he slowly scans the room. His eyes catch on the ceiling for a moment, but they don't settle on the ghost there.

This will be a long night, Amelia thinks.

As she readies herself for bed, the hum of conversation floats upstairs. She creeps to the landing to eavesdrop, but they must have heard her, because their voices lower to near-whispers. All Amelia can discern is the tone, which seems heated. Prim seems to be urging something, while Wendell disagrees.

Maybe one of them doesn't want the farm after all. Or maybe they're trying to decide on a new angle. Melody and Gideon were like this, shutting themselves in a room together to talk strategy. Probably Mother and Father had their own secret conversations, but they died when Amelia was too young to wholly remember. Aged before their time.

The next thing she knows, Prim is at the door, inviting her down for a nightcap. Amelia does not drink, but there are old bottles of mead in the pantry. She almost declines, but like so many things, it seems easier to just agree.

Just after they each pour a glass, Prim says, "Excuse me, my head just started throbbing. I'll run and get a washcloth and aspirin." She hurries out of the room, leaving Amelia and Wendell alone.

He ignores the fact that Amelia's changed into a nightgown and slippers, focusing more on his drink than her. After an appreciative sip, he says, "It's amazing how your family's honey tastes like sunshine. It's like nothing else."

"Mm hmm," she hums, watching the mead swirl around her glass. Gideon made this batch just before he died, from the same honey that Melody had jarred herself. It tastes a bit floral; Melody always liked to infuse lavender and honeysuckle in everything.

"Prim brought me a jar when I had pneumonia," he continues. "Somehow, it soothed my throat, and my lungs just…seemed to get stronger after that."

She doesn't answer.

Wendell waits the appropriate amount of time for a response. When he doesn't get one, his voice lowers, becoming gentler. "It must be lonely to run everything on your own. I know I couldn't do it."

"I barely can, most days," Amelia says, more to the mead glass than him.

He gives her a soft look, the way men sometimes look at women in movies. Not sexual, just sympathetic. Almost protective. She nearly appreciates it, even as she thinks, You idiot. You don't know anything.

"What was it like when your brother and sister were here?" he asks. He must know he's treading dangerous waters, but he keeps that soft gaze steady.

Fragments float in front of Amelia's eyes. Melody dressed in gold, hosting a party and dancing with all the guests. Gideon showing off with the phoenixes, full of joyful laughter as they burst into flames and rose again.

Then blood seeps through the fragmented memories, decomposing flesh and flowers stuffed into empty eye sockets, and Amelia frantically slams the door on her past.

When she looks up, she suspects that some of it shows on her face. Wendell is staring at her. She says, "Everything was more beautiful when they were alive. Shinier and louder. I hated it. They never knew when to shut up."

The words come too quickly for her to stop them. She'd blame the mead, except she still hasn't drunk any. Her hands are trembling, and she squeezes them into tight fists.

"Oh," Wendell replies. Apparently, his clever ad man's brain isn't sure how to respond to that. He pauses, then says, "I'm sorry."

She laughs. There's a ghost creeping up behind him, close enough to breathe on his neck. Thin gray fingers hover over his shoulders, just brushing his nice black suit. Amelia says, "You and Prim look like them. Prim especially. You gleam more than other people."

"Oh," he says again, sounding confused now. "Thanks?"

Come to think of it, what's taking Prim so long? Amelia wonders. Could she have deliberately left so Wendell would ask the questions?

"It's not just us," he says abruptly. "You gleam too. I mean…you're beautiful as well."

The words hit her like a flame, warm and painful all at once. She stands up, snapping, "Don't say that to me. I don't want to hear it."

Before he can apologize or hit her with more questions, she leaves the room. Why has she put up with both of them for a whole week? This is her property. She doesn't have to explain herself to them. Her stomach is churning and she just wants to escape to the shadows of her bedroom. A few ghosts trail behind her and she wishes they'd leave her alone too.

In the bedroom, she locks the door and sighs in relief. Then she sees a flash of something out of the corner of her eye. It's a message scrawled on the mirror, written in mud. It says, "They always fed me. You are a bad thing."

Beneath the mirror, little yellow objects are scattered on the nightstand. Amelia peers down at them, wondering if they're marbles.

"Oh," she says, and she throws up. Because they are human teeth.

Oh what is happening why is it happening again—

She straightens up and wipes her mouth. Her breath is screaming, and she can't seem to see clearly. Little black spots keep appearing.

The ghosts wrap themselves around her, blanketing her like a shield. Somehow, it keeps her mind clear. They didn't do this. They wouldn't. Which means there's only one other option.

Amelia flings open the bedroom door, suddenly too furious to worry for her own safety. "Primrose Ridgeway!" she screams at the top of her lungs. She charges down the hallway, ready to find her cousin and throttle her. It's not fair of her to do this, not when Amelia's worked so hard to keep the bad memories at bay. How dare Prim bring the darkness back?

Sometimes, when Amelia panics or rages, her mind blackens for a few seconds. She blinks, and there's a little gap in her memory. She has made it to Melody's old bedroom and thrown open the door, but Prim isn't there. The room smells of honeysuckle, even now. Amelia gags on it.

Someone else is screaming. It's a jagged, sobbing sound, coming from downstairs. As Amelia raises her hands to cover her ears, the sound cuts off.

"No," she mutters to herself. "No, stop."

Her quivering legs want to run back to her bedroom, but she forces them to the stairs instead. Descending down the spiral staircase makes her dizzy and she grips the bannister tight. Slowly, she moves to the living room. She does not want to look. But she must. Because she has always been the one who looks.

Wendell is lying on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and a pool of blood. It's ruined his suit and gotten all over the green floor tiles. Someone has cleaved off both his hands, leaving sad stumps with white bone showing through. His mouth is open in a broken-off scream. Both his eyes are gone, replaced with small bundles of lavender.

But the actual source of his death lies in the hole in his chest. The hole isn't as big as Amelia's seen before. Which means the killer ran away before they could cut out his heart.

She takes all this in, panic rising in a crescendo before flattening into something almost clinical. She thinks, You shouldn't have been here why is this happening again—

Then a sob rings through the room, and Amelia looks up to see her sister standing opposite the body. Melody staring down at Wendell, tears rolling down her cheeks, but it's all a lie, because Melody has never and will never feel grief or guilt or anything—

"You!" Amelia howls, at the same moment Melody sees her. And it's not Melody, after all, it's Prim, but aren't they all the same in the end? Isn't every Hunter filled with the same ugly blood, even Amelia herself?

"Bitch," Prim hisses, then raises her arms and screams a spell.

It hits before Amelia has time to resist. Water rises through the floorboards and crashes over Amelia in a wave, knocking her off her feet. It pours into her mouth and she gags, curling up to protect herself. A second later, Prim's hands are at her throat.

She killed Wendell, she killed her friend, she is going to kill me, Amelia's mind shrieks. She writhes in Prim's grip and kicks blindly. Her foot connects with bone, and Prim's grip weakens. Amelia claws at Prim's face, at her eyes, because goddamn it she stole Wendell's eyes.

Prim catches the water again, wrapping it around Amelia so she can barely see. But through the watery blur, she watches the ghosts swarm Prim, forcing her arms down and shoving her backwards. It takes all of them to do it, the entire cloud of ghosts, but they push Prim away from Amelia.

The water slides away, so now Amelia can clearly see Prim's contorted face.

"Why?" Prim shouts. "What did he do to you?"

The words make no sense. Amelia wants to bury them in Prim's throat. She snarls, "You killed him, you cut off his hands, you're just like them!"

Something happens then: Prim stops trying to rush towards Amelia. She blinks, and the tears still flow, but the rage slips away. "I don't…just like who?"

"Melody! Gideon!" The secret pulses against her teeth, tearing its way out of her lips. "They thought it was fine! Other people didn't matter to them, just this goddamned farm. I tried—I told them stop—but it never mattered, they wouldn't listen. They just told me not to worry and locked my bedroom door!"

"Amelia," Prim says, drawing out her name on a long breath. "You didn't…you didn't hurt Wendell, did you?"

The sudden calm makes Amelia stop and bend over double, as if all the screaming has solidified into a mass under her breastbone. "No," she chokes out. "I wouldn't."

"But my other cousins," Prim continues, slow and hushed. "They murdered people. Didn't they?"

The ghosts all let out a collective sigh.

Amelia had known before she'd ever seen a body, when she was just a kid. Knew it somewhere in her bones. Flourishing flowers, sun-bright honey. A land that rang with song, that called the phoenixes and other wonders. And Melody and Gideon at the center of it all, two sirens with beautiful faces.

She'd caught them before they allowed her to see. Corpses with no hands. Eyeless sockets stuffed with blue blossoms. Human hearts, carefully cut free and placed in boxes to bury. Flesh turning blue and black, disappearing under the soil.

"I wanted to stop them," she says. "I tried. But nothing worked."

She'd tried warning the victims. She'd tried calling the police. She'd tried to weave a spell of protection around the house. She'd fallen on her knees and begged her siblings to stop.

Amelia has always seen what others refuse to see, and nobody has ever listened to her. Gideon and Melody used their velvet voices and sunbeam faces to knit a spell stronger than anything Amelia could produce. Everyone in town loved them. The farmhands loved them.

The travelers passing through, the immigrants they'd hire to work odd hours, the runaways they'd invite into the warmth—all loved them. Until the siren song lulled tired bodies to sleep, and the knives came out.

"Some people matter," Gideon had explained once, very gently. He'd always talked to Amelia like she was a small child, even when she was a grown woman. "And some people don't. We do matter. So it's okay to take what we need."

"It's good to make use of things, sweetheart," Melody added, giving Amelia a piece of honeyed toast. "Like fertilizer. You sow it into the earth, and flowers grow." She kissed Amelia's forehead and chuckled. "Think of it as repurposing."

They never paid attention to the ghosts in the walls, the ghosts sitting in empty chairs, the ghosts in the bathtub, the ghosts in every room and every field and every doorway. Probably they never saw the dead at all. But Amelia could never stop.

Prim steps forward and grasps Amelia's arms, reeling her back into the present. The ghosts hover nearby but don't do anything. There is no violence in this touch.

"If you're going to kill me," Amelia mumbles, and Prim cuts her off.

"I'm not. I would never hurt—" she swallows hard, biting her lip. "I love Wendell. I'm not a killer. We thought…we came here to learn why people disappeared."

"What," Amelia says, not sure she's heard right.

In a rapid voice, Prim replies, "I was talking to a new friend on the cruise, mentioning Hunter's Honey. She said her uncle vanished near this area three years ago. No one could remember seeing him, and the police gave up quickly. It caught in my brain, and I started asking questions—there were lots of disappearances near this general area. One woman sent a postcard with Melody's photo back to her family. I couldn't let it go, so I asked Wendell…"

Another surge of pain shoots through her face, but she continues, "He can see through illusions. He told me about the faint gray shapes around the property, how something wasn't right. That's why we stayed. We weren't sure about this place or about you. We thought we'd take turns trying to draw you out."

"Oh," Amelia breathes. She should be suspicious, but somehow, she isn't. She's heard so many sugar-sweet lies over the years that the truth tastes like rain, and she recognizes it as soon as she hears it. She tries to reconcile this with everything she's ever thought about her cousin. Then it hits her. "If neither of us is the killer…"

Prim grits her teeth and says, "Then someone is in here with us."

Amelia automatically glances throughout the room, but she can't hear or see anything. Apart from the ghosts and poor Wendell's body. Her eyes go to the phone, running down the line until she sees the cut and mangled wire. "Look."

Cursing, Prim moves to Amelia's side. "No calling for help, I suppose. Do you have a weapon handy?"

Without speaking, Amelia grabs one of the fireplace pokers and hands the other one to Prim. They stand close together against the wall. Prim grips the poker tight, though presumably she will rely on her water magic in case of a true fight.

Amelia's heart is trying to get outside her chest again, scratching and shrieking. Then she makes herself look at Wendell's body. "Melody and Gideon killed people in the same way. Took their eyes, hands, and heart."

"Well," Prim says, breathing slowly as if she's trying not to be sick, "Who else knew that? Any farm hands with a grudge? Any…"

She trails off as she looks around the room. Really looks this time. Amelia sees the exact moment when Prim's blue eyes spark, when they catch on one spirit, then another one.

"Cousin Amelia," Prim says, "are we surrounded by ghosts?"

This question makes Amelia bite back a sudden, pained laugh. "Always."

All credit to Prim, she doesn't run or curl into herself. Her legs are visibly shaking, but she stands straight and asks, "Did any of you wispy bastards kill my friend?"

The ghosts all shiver in reply. Then as one, they shake their heads.

"They can only move small objects," Amelia says, though doubt slices through her. Didn't the spirits all push Prim away from her just a moment ago? Haven't they been protecting her this whole time? She saw Wendell as a threat. What if they…

Please tell me I didn't kill him, she thinks, bile rising in her throat.

As if reading Amelia's mind, Prim snaps, "Are you sure about that? And are all the ghosts victims? Or are Melody and Gideon here too?"

The idea is monstrous. Amelia shakes her head so fast her neck hurts. "No. No, I made sure they were buried in Mother's family plot, and that's far away. I had the bodies sent there. I wouldn't let them go into this soil. So I've never, ever seen their spirits here."

Prim doesn't look wholly convinced. "But who knows exactly how spirits work? Maybe they migrated. Did they?" She addresses this last part to the cloud of ghosts. She's still gripping the fireplace poker, even though it won't help against dead things.

The spirits don't appear to comprehend the question; they throw glances at each other, some shaking their heads, some shuddering, some crawling on the floor to escape the room in a way that's reminiscent of their dying.

With everything that's happened, Amelia has nearly forgotten the message on the mirror—and the gift beneath—but in racking her brain for some answer to Prim's question, she remembers. "Someone has been writing messages on my walls and mirrors for the past week. Tonight, they left a handful of human teeth."

"God," Prim says. "What did the messages say?"

"The first was written in lipstick and the second in nail polish. Similar colors as yours, so I thought it was you writing them, but um. I guess they could have been Melody's old makeup from a drawer somewhere? The first said… ‘Feed me more.' The second was, ‘I'm hungry.' And the third was, ‘They always fed me. You are a bad thing.'"

"Good God," Prim says again. "And you thought I'd write that? Does ‘they' mean your brother and sister?"

Amelia hasn't had much time to think about it, but now she swallows hard. "Probably. Who else?"

All the time they've been talking, it felt like time had paused. Like nothing matters but this moment where they finally see each other. But now, Amelia feels the seconds pass, and she imagines what type of monster might be creeping toward them. Wendell's blood seeps across the floor, and she thinks, We can't just leave him there. We need to save ourselves, and then return for him. A storm still rages outside, but compared to being locked in with a killer, driving seems like the smaller risk.

And if she can get out of here tonight, she's not sure she will ever come back. It's always felt impossible to shrug off this place, but perhaps her cousin's support will work like alchemy, transfiguring Amelia into the sort of person who's capable of leaving the past behind.

It's terrifying to allow herself to hope for this.

"Maybe we could make it to your car." Amelia whispers this, in case someone has been listening. "Run to town and wait until daylight." A stab of anxiety hits—what if the murderer goes after her animals? She doesn't care much about anything but the cockatrice. What if the killer knows that and hurts her?

Prim looks uncertain, but she nods. "We could return with reinforcements. It's what…" A sob chokes her briefly, before she cuts it off. "It's what Wendell would suggest."

No one has ever come to Amelia's aid before, but people might listen to Prim. At the very least, she and Amelia can protect each other.

As quietly as possible, they creep to the front door. No one appears to be outside. On Prim's silent count, they run for it. Her car is waiting where she left it, near the far end of the gate. This time, Prim doesn't bother wasting magic to block the rain, so both of them are soaked to the bone within seconds.

In the lightning flashes, Amelia sees Prim's light blue car. "Oh no. Look."

The tires have been slashed, all four of them. Prim snarls and kicks one of them. "Son of a bitch. Are there any other—"

"My car's been broken-down for two weeks," Amelia says. "I've been meaning to have someone work on it…but I get everything delivered. I was putting it off."

For a moment, despair seems to overtake Prim. She leans against the car, breathing hard. Amelia has absolutely no idea how to comfort her. Then Prim gathers herself and says, "We walk to town then. We have to."

"It'll take hours," Amelia protests. "We'll catch pneumonia." Even the closest neighboring farms are miles away; Hunter's Honey is surrounded by undeveloped land.

"Have you got a better idea than staying here with some monster who chops off limbs?" Prim snaps. "For God's sake, at least Gideon and Melody had the decency to drop dead one day—"

Then she sees Amelia's face.

For two years, Amelia has avoided thinking about it. She's fragmented her memories and shoved them down into the dark. But with everything that's happened, her memories drag themselves back to the surface, clamoring to be seen. Her breath catches, and her head spins.

"But they didn't just die, did they," Prim says. No question mark. No doubt. "It was you."

Somehow, Amelia is able to reply. "I… stopped them from hurting people."

Nothing else was ever going to work. She couldn't have them arrested, they'd already talked their way around the police. She couldn't appeal to their better selves because they had none. She couldn't let the murders go on because the house would swell with ghosts until there was no air left to breathe.

And her siblings never checked for poison in the honey on their morning toast.

Now, when she looks at Prim, she sees less judgment than she expected.

"All right," Prim says. "Makes sense." And without another word, she turns and marches toward the gate.

Amelia opens her mouth to say more, but something grabs her from behind and yanks her backwards. The shock of it makes her drop her weapon.

"Prim!" she gasps. Hands covered in cloth are gripping her close. Amelia twists and kicks, but those hands don't loosen.

Whoever is carrying her walks away from the gate, toward the bird enclosures and the trees. Their movement is jerky, but fast.

Behind her, Prim is shouting. "Put her down, you goddamned rag doll!"

Rag doll, she thinks. The person holding her halts, turns to regard Prim. Amelia recognizes the cloth arms, the pale yellow dress that's now blood-spattered. She twists her head around to look at the bright pumpkin face. "Poppet?"

Of course, there is no expression and no answer. But the cut-out eyes and mouth glow with an unfamiliar gold light. Staring into the jack-o-lantern mask, Amelia feels her stomach sink. This is not the enchanted scarecrow that's been in her family for years. There's something else peering out from those triangle eyes. And it seems to recognize her.

The nearby ghosts edge away, bodies collectively trembling. Whatever this entity is, they are not willing to fight it. Even the dead have limits.

Prim raises the fireplace poker, rain drops swirling around it like spikes on a club. Before she can do anything, Poppet wraps a hand around Amelia's neck. She doesn't squeeze, but Amelia tenses against the pressure.

"I am going to hazard a guess," Prim says, lowering the poker. "I think you butchered my friend. Is that right?"

At first, there's no reply. How can Poppet answer when she doesn't have vocal cords? Amelia wants to ask if the scarecrow left those messages too, but before she can, someone does speak. A familiar, smooth masculine voice. It says, "Hunters owed me. Hunters broke our deal."

For the first time tonight, Prim screams.

It's Wendell speaking. But not Wendell. It's his mutilated body, all drenched in blood. He moves oddly, like a puppet on strings. Lavender bulges out of his eye sockets.

Amelia screams too, but she reaches her limit fast. The panic ebbs again, giving way to a sick, numb sensation. She asks, "What are you?"

That red head turns toward her. Perhaps he can still see, even though his eyes are gone. Wendell's mouth flaps open, blood dribbling from his lips. Possibly he's bitten his tongue during an early attempt to talk. He says, "I live in the soil."

"What?" Amelia replies, and he gestures with sliced-off, bloodied wrist bones.

"In the soil," he repeats. "In this land. I was here, small and weak. Then Hunters came and took care of me. I offered them wealth, if they gave me food."

All that time that Gideon and Melody were sacrificing people to the land, Amelia had thought they were just feeding their own power. She had never considered the idea of an intelligence behind it all. Not that this changes how she remembers them; she's certain that no one made them do anything. If there hadn't been a convenient monster in the back garden, her siblings would have still found another reason to hurt people.

"My cousins," Prim says, hoarse. "They were decadent bastards, weren't they?"

"Are you going to eat us?" Amelia asks, because she can't think of anything else.

His jaw works strangely, twisting and clacking before he manages to open it properly and speak again. "Promised not to eat Hunters. Or workers in the light of day. But you—"

He shoves a bloodied stump against her cheek, tapping for emphasis. "You broke our deal. Was full for a little while, but not now."

Blood smears on Amelia's face. She wants to shrink down inside herself and not surface again, but that will not save her or Prim.

"Well," Prim says. She's still shaking, but she hasn't taken her eyes off the corpse and Amelia. "We can bring you someone, if you'd give us a chance."

Poppet's cloth hands squeeze Amelia's shoulders, hard enough to bruise.

At the same time, Wendell's body says, "No need. Hunter blood runs thin in you. Think deals can bend for branching lines." His lips curl up into a hideous smile, all reddened teeth.

Prim blanches and raises the fireplace poker. Wendell's body advances, and she plunges the sharp end into his chest. It goes in easily, but it doesn't stop him. He continues to walk forward at the exact same pace, heedless of the blade sliding deeper into his chest and poking out the other side.

"God," Prim chokes, and she lets go of the poker. Rain drops collect around her upper body, wrapping around her like a shield. She backs up, eyes on him.

The creature inside him is going to pull her apart, Amelia's brain howls. Think! Do something! Whatever this entity is, it can inhabit more than one vessel at a time. It's inside both Wendell and Poppet. Probably, it can only dwell inside containers with no minds, or else it would have turned her into its servant years ago.

Can it die? Does it have a body of its own somewhere under the earth?

Something moves out of the corner of her eye. She turns, aching against Poppet's vice-like grip, and she sees one of the ghosts. Most of them are hanging back, near-invisible in the storm. But this one is watching her, mouth moving. There's something familiar about the gray shape. She thinks this spirit might want to help.

"Get her off me," she says to the ghost. "Take back control."

The next moment, spirit hands plunge into the scarecrow's body. Poppet shudders as this new entity climbs inside, fighting against the monster that's already there. It only lasts a second before the ghost is flung backwards, into the fog. But a second is long enough; Poppet's grip loosens, and Amelia runs.

As soon as Prim sees that Amelia is free, she runs too. They clasp each other's hands and charge away, scrambling through the mud. Behind them, Amelia can hear two sets of footsteps, but she doesn't dare turn around.

"We need to circle back and get to the gate," Prim gasps. "We're just heading deeper into the land now—"

"I've got an idea," Amelia says.

Up ahead is the cockatrice's enclosure. Amelia hisses, "Use the water, blindfold yourself." And she flings herself against the lock, opening it.

A second later, Poppet has caught her around the middle. She slams Amelia to the ground, dragging her through the dirt. Amelia tastes soil and leaves, as well as her own blood. Wendell's corpse says, "Bad things don't get protection."

Worms brush Amelia's face and arms. Then they begin to burrow into her skin.

She howls, clawing at her body. The stinging pain blocks out all thought. But she hears an answering shriek, not Prim or any other human. The cockatrice is enraged.

Nobody is supposed to look a cockatrice in the eye. Both their gaze and venomous bite burn you from the inside. Gideon had always thought it was funny to keep such a deadly creature on the property, eating her eggs and taunting death. But Amelia has always cared for her: cockatrices never hide what they are. They are trustworthy in their monstrousness.

She hears the cockatrice charge out of the enclosure and lunge at the entity's two vessels. There's a great deal of screeching and tearing, and she hears the sound of a beak going into skin. Then the smell of sizzling flesh and fabric.

Two bodies hit the ground with a thud. The worms cease burrowing, and Amelia rips them out of her. She feels the cockatrice nuzzle her cheek, and she strokes the scaly head and its crown of feathers without looking up.

"Thank you," she murmurs, near tears. She stands, and the cockatrice buries her face in Amelia's nightgown.

"Is it safe?" Prim asks, shaking. She's followed Amelia's order and blindfolded herself, keeping a ring of water drops over her eyes.

"Yeah," Amelia says, then corrects herself. "That thing's still here though. In the dirt."

Wendell and Poppet lay scorched and ruined, no longer functional vessels. But Amelia is sure that the entity hasn't gone. Didn't it say it lived here? Perhaps the cockatrice weakened it, but how do you kill something that seems to exist beyond the physical?

Prim lets the watery blindfold drop. A sob escapes her at the sight of Wendell's body, but she doesn't break down. She wraps an arm around Amelia, looking horrified by the little rivulets of blood running down her face, courtesy of the worms. "We should leave."

Instead of agreeing, Amelia looks around. Her gaze settles on the ghosts, who form a circle around them both. They are a fearful blur of indistinct faces, but their stance is protective. Ever since Amelia got rid of their murderers, they have cared for her.

Every part of her aches to run away. But how can she abandon them to this place?

"What is it?" Prim grips her arm.

She swallows. "You traveled all over. Did you ever learn how to exorcise spirits?"

Prim's blue eyes grow wide. "Amelia, who knows if that thing will come back in some form or another—"

"If we don't free them now, while that thing's weak, I don't know if we ever can." She's not certain if the monster trapped them or if their deaths bound them here, but her instincts insist that this is the moment, that it must happen now or never. And after those instincts helped her put an end to her brother and sister, she's learned to trust them.

Prim's lips press together in a grim line. She says, "I read once that to free ghosts, you need to burn or drown the thing they cling to. Maybe the monster is the same way."

Amelia knows it's too much to ask after all her cousin has lost tonight. But this is for her ghosts' sake, not for hers. "Will you drown it for me?"

For a long moment, Prim stares out into the dark. Then she looks at Amelia and her face softens. And without another word, she flings up her hands and sings a spell.

Stumbling back, Amelia watches as Prim catches the rain and dances with it, weaving each drop into a spiderweb. But this isn't enough. Her song changes, becoming wilder and deeper. Amelia feels the earth shift beneath them. Something hisses from below the ground.

Her cousin only grows louder, more insistent. This is not an everyday enchantment; it sounds like she's rending her soul. It sounds like dying, like the taste of fear and desperation and rage. Her grief swirls through the rain, black space between stars.

The entity claws at the earth beneath Amelia's feet; she feels the vibrations. It's going to uproot itself, use the worms and bones and rot as weapons to feed its hunger.

But before it gets a chance, Prim raises a tidal wave.

The water pours out of the earth and sky; it even tears from the well and pipes to coalesce in front of Prim. Liquid swirls through the air, and Prim's song reaches its crescendo.

When she flings it back onto the ground, Amelia clings to the cockatrice with one hand and grips her cousin with the other. The water crashes over them, and Amelia is lifted by the wave. For a few seconds, she can't breathe. But the water flows over them quickly and lets them go. The cockatrice squawks but doesn't raise her head from Amelia.

The rain has lightened to a drizzle and the moon peeks out from the clouds, so Amelia can see what's happened. The fields are destroyed. All the plants have torn free and lie on the flooded soil.

In the distance, lightning illuminates her house. She suspects the beehives and phoenix coop are undamaged—they are newly built with sturdy materials—but the house itself has older foundations. It looks as if it's been knocked off its axis, walls coming apart. It sags, bloated and decaying, and Amelia feels a stab of delight.

Prim collapses without warning, not even trying to catch herself. She's gone chalky and her pulse is irregular. Amelia grips her hand, finding a renewed sense of fear beneath the shock and exhaustion. "Prim. Cousin Primrose, get up."

No movement at all.

The ground ripples. The ghosts all shiver as a dark, undulating bloodstain pulls itself out of the earth. It swims through the air like a jellyfish, and Amelia feels terror coating her tongue as she moves in front of her only remaining family.

The creature hovers, trembling and pulsing. Bits of its body seem to be falling off. The next moment, it swims up to the sky and vanishes. Amelia scans the black clouds, but she can't see anything. The farm feels…light. As if a splinter has finally been pulled out.

One by one, the ghosts begin to disappear as well. They swarm over her, kissing her cheeks and holding her close before coming apart at the seams. Gray arms, legs, and bodies all drift away into the fog and darkness. As they go, their faces sharpen and clarify. Amelia recognizes many of them: people she met the night before they died.

"Prim, it worked," she tells her cousin. But even these words don't seem to have an effect. That spell was a massive, soul-deep thing, and she has no idea if it's damaged Prim beyond repair. She needs a doctor, but how can Amelia possibly summon one in this continuing storm, with no telephone and no car?

This can't be the end. The tears that Amelia has been holding back roll down her cheeks at last, but that doesn't mean she's given up. She refuses to be the only one who survives.

Someone taps her shoulder. She looks up and sees that one ghost has refused to leave. He's a bit less gray than the others, probably because he's been dead less than an hour. He doesn't appear worse for having grappled with the entity inside Poppet and being tossed away.

"Wendell, do you have any ideas?" she asks.

He bends over Prim, looking miserable. Then he mouths something, over and over. It takes Amelia a minute to recognize what he's saying, but then she knows. This is, after all, a word she's heard her entire life. And it's the nickname Prim gave her.

"Wait with her," she tells him, before running to the beehives. She'd only kept one jar of honey in the house, and they'd used all of it in the past week. So she opens the beehives, not bothering to suit up.

The bees are not happy with their near-drowning. They crawl over her hands. Some of them sting. She barely feels it. Amelia scrapes the beeswax off with her fingers and breaks apart bits of honeycomb. Gathering the sticky mass, she charges back to her cousin.

As Amelia pries open Prim's mouth and drips honey inside, the moment fractures into a memory: watching Melody and Gideon spoon their gold syrup into coffee and onto toast, holding her breath as they ate, trying to contain her terror. But they never noticed the poison until it stopped their hearts.

She's exorcized all her ghosts tonight. It's time to let this one go, too.

Trying to remember all she's read about healing spells, she coats Prim's eyelids and lips with honey as well. She traces all of Prim's visible veins, painting them in amber. She doesn't know any proper healing songs, so she hums tunes she remembers from the radio and trips to the pictures.

She and Wendell's ghost watch Prim lie there for what feels like hours. Until Prim finally gasps and opens her eyes. She tries to stand, but it's too much all at once and she sinks back down into a crouch. "Amelia? I wasn't sure we'd both still be here."

"Me neither," Amelia admits.

Prim's gaze flickers over to Wendell, and she starts to cry.

He brushes her forehead, face mirroring hers.

Amelia says, "When the storm clears, I want to sell this place and leave with you." Her cockatrice nuzzles her hand. She adds, "And she's coming with me."

And who knows where they'll go from here? She doesn't have the faintest plan, but leaving this place will help her dream one up. In the meantime, she wants to know her cousin better. It seems an unlikely and fragile thing, to have family in her life again. She won't waste it.

"Good," Prim replies, and she lets Amelia help her stand so they can move under cover. Wendell takes her other hand, and though he blends and blurs with the fog, he doesn't disappear.

The rain continues to fall, but Amelia's grown used to it.

___

Copyright 2026 Natalie Wollenweber

Natalie Wollenweber is a writer and lover of gothic and fantastical fiction. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San José State University. In her writing, she likes to explore macabre folklore, witches, and haunted places. Her work has appeared in Red Wheelbarrow, Corvid Queen, and Dracula Beyond Stoker.

Giganotosaurus is published monthly and is edited by LaShawn M. Wanak.

http://giganotosaurus.org