As Autumn lay impaled on the shiny spike of fate, she wondered: just what had she done to deserve this? What twisted and cruel deed had she unwittingly committed to be cursed this way?

Why exactly was fate shitting all over her life?

To her, it seemed like an overreaction on fate’s part.

Mildred, the eater of fingers, loomed over Autumn, glaring down at her with horrifying eyes and foul breath. Each exhale of the putrid air through rotten teeth tarnished everything it touched. It stained Autumn’s robes even further than they’d already been by the underground.

“My my. What a fine mess you’ve made of yourself.”

Mildred’s horrible eyes wandered gleefully over Autumn’s wounded form, like a fox before a trapped rabbit. Autumn herself was only alive right now because of the hag’s foul magic.

Why?

Autumn wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

A fleeting thought brushed past Autumn’s wandering mind. It was proving hard for her to keep focus given the lack of blood and the pain she was in. She wondered just how much fear could a person endure, could she endure, before their heart just…gave in?

Autumn had a cat once when she was little. A funny little thing. Every so often, it’d catch a mouse for her and bring it inside the house, where it’d torment the poor thing till it died of a heart attack. She’d also read somewhere that horses and deer could die of fright, too. Although she wasn’t so sure of that.

Mildred reminded her of that cat, just not the cute part, or little, or funny.

Those awful eyes watched like a predator.

However, Autumn noticed, even in the horrible state she was in, a glimmer of trepidation as she gazed upon Autumn’s wounds. Like she was afraid—no, not afraid—worried about something. Sort of like that cat, knowing it'd done something wrong in bringing the mouse inside and was wondering if it’d get scolded.

Worried of what? Of who? Autumn couldn’t say, but she paid attention.

Autumn spluttered, a fresh wave of blood leaving her lips.

The hag started.

“Hmm,” she muttered as she eyed Autumn, “best not take any chances. Not with that lot, at least.”

A long clawed hand wrapped around Autumn’s throat like a steel vice, the curling fingers almost, but not quite, pinching off her airways. Autumn fought and struggled to pull the fingers away, but it was for naught, she could not pry them off. Her finger inched for her blade, any blade she had, in the hope that it’d at least cut the bitch.

Go out swinging. What a fine way to go.

The hag leered at Autumn, a grin staining her cackling voice. “I’d hold still if I was you, girlie. This’ll hurt a lot. I’d be lying if I said I won’t enjoy this.”

Before Autumn could utter a word of pleading, or a myriad of swears, Mildred the hag tore Autumn free of the crystalline spike.

Pain.

It was all Autumn could think of as her mind whited out. Her wretched, tormented screams ripped free of her tortured throat and echoed out into the entire expansive cavern, reverberating the crystals all around, even cracking some. Her screams only gutted out when her throat bled from the abuse. With gritted teeth and sweat beading on her forehead, Autumn glared at the hag before her.

“Awww. Poor whittle witch~ Did that hurt?” Mildred mocked Autumn’s pain.

Autumn hung limply from the hag’s grasp, her legs limp and unresponsive. From the raw, ragged wound in her stomach, her blood and guts spilled free. Crimson ran down her lower half until it pooled beneath her like an eerie lake.

Mildred ‘tsked’ at the sight. “Now that won’t do.”

With a flex of her cracked and yellowed fingers, the gaping wound in Autumn’s abdomen writhed. Autumn watched on in stunned horror as her very flesh and bones came alive and started to mend. Her guts, looking like long strands of shredded spaghetti, were sucked back into her abdomen with a squelch while her blood reversed its downward direction to flood back into her body. The sudden rush made her even more lightheaded. Much like the hag herself, the magic she cast was cruel. It subjected Autumn to every painful feeling, every torturous movement. To her, it felt like her body was filled with maggots, and was remade by them, with them. In but a few moments, the last of her flesh closed up, and left her with pale scars criss-crossing her abdomen that looked like a mesh of the maggots they’d felt like.

Autumn puked.

Unfortunately, she missed the hag.

Mildred scowled at her anyway. “Wretch!”

As Autumn hung limp and exhausted from the hag’s steel-like grasp, a soothing coldness bloomed upon her chest. From within the soul cage resting upon her breast, an aura of undeath and icy fury radiated. Mildred, eater of fingers, didn’t seem to notice it, or simply didn’t care, her focus on other things. However, to Autumn, it was an oddly comforting feeling. She blamed it on her overtaxed mind.

Within the halls of her mind, she heard an echoing chant, “Kill her. Kill her.”

“There.” Mildred hissed, bringing Autumn’s attention back to her. “All in one piece.”

Glancing down at Autumn’s missing fingers she frowned. “Well. Relatively, at least.”

Flexing her foul fingers once more, she tried to regrow Autumn’s lost digits, however, nothing happened. Frowning deeper she gazed at the wound upon Autumn’s very being before huffing.

“Ah, a Fae-made wound. Those nasty buggers bite deep don’t they, right down into your very essence. There’ll be no fixing that, I’m afraid. It’s a part of you, your very soul. As far as anyone is concerned in terms of magic: you never had them. So, you still count as ‘intact’ in my books.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Mildred’s gaze sharpened.

“Speaking of books.”

Autumn paled as Mildred reached for her Tome of Witchcraft. Desperate to keep the foul hag away from it and the dark power that resided within, Autumn squirmed and fought, drawing her iron knife from its hidden sheath to cut the hand that held her. In a flash, Mildred backhanded her wrist, flinging her iron knife away in a clatter. At first, Autumn feared the force of the strike had broken her wrist, but to her surprise, she was unharmed. However, in her moment of distraction, Mildred ripped her tome free from her, tearing the leather bindings that’d held it to her belt.

“Give that back!” Autumn yelled through choked breaths, “It’s mine!”

Mildred stilled.

“Yours?” she asked incredulously, smoldering rage hidden beneath the calm surface. “You don’t even know what it is. Not truly. You carry it around like it’s a Gods-damned scribe’s library book!” Spittle flew as her voice rose.

“I know what it is.”

Autumn glowered, her bravery creeping out from below the mountains and mountains of fear. Below her, she felt her toes finally twitching as the feeling in them returned, albeit with a cascade of pins and needles throughout.

“Do you?” Mildred sneered. She turned reverently, hatefully back to the tome of the blackest craft. “This is The most powerful magical spell book in this fetid, squalid world. Wizards would cream their robes for just a glimpse inside and you just parade it around for all to see. Do you even know why I want it? No, I bet not. Why the bitch Augus left it to you of all people, I’ll never know, but it’s her mistake. It’s mine now, and after I’ve mastered it, I’ll kill her too.”

Autumn blinked, confused.

“What do you mean? I thought she was dead?”

Mildred scoffed. “See, this is what I’m talking about. Your ignorance is absolutely nauseating.” She shook Autumn roughly, bouncing her brain around till she was dizzy and sick. “She ain’t dead, for you see; Witch Augus invented a spell, a spell so powerful it made everything else in comparison simply child’s play.”

The hag of a thousand pacts pulled Autumn closer to the rotting sack shielding whatever horror lay beneath, her breath was even fouler up close, her eyes more malevolent. Autumn gagged, but there wasn’t anything left in her stomach to vomit. Her heart beat harder within her chest as the hag whispered a terrible and wondrous secret to her.

“And do you know what she called her Magnum Opus, hmm? An insipid name like…”

The world held its breath alongside Autumn.

“Wish.”

Autumn choked on her spit as her eyes shot wide open.

Mildred let loose a horrible cackle as she took in Autumn’s shock. With unconcealed contempt, she flung Autumn away like she was just a piece of trash, or a toy she had no longer had any use for. Autumn let loose a pained grunt as she crashed down upon the hard dirt and scattered broken crystals, only a few managing to scratch her skin through the torn robes. Collecting her bearings and swallowing down her nausea, Autumn tried to rise, but found she could not and was left sprawling in the blood-soaked dirt. Her gaze shot up to the hag towering above and the book she held. Mildred held it victoriously in her crooked hands, preparing to open it and devour its contents.

With it she’d become a dark new god and doom the world.

“Finally!” Mildred roared. “It’s mine!”

Her cruel claws wrenched at the covers.

The book did not open.

Mildred scowled behind her cloth mask, her confusion and frustration evident in her curled-over posture. She grasped the cover once more and with renewed effort tried to tear it open, but no matter how much effort she leveled against it, the book remained tightly bound, refusing to open for her. Powerful, corded muscles bulged into grotesque sizes as she strained. Foulest magic flooded the atmosphere till it warbled and shrieked as she pulled and pulled.

Yet, the book remained closed to her.

Autumn watched on in confusion as the book had never acted like this for her. In fact, she’d suspected that any sort of protection had faded away completely. Granted, she’d never had anyone else try to open it before.

Finally, after an age of effort, Mildred stilled, growing taut with anger. It radiated off her like waves of all-consuming heat.

Slowly, she turned to face Autumn, her eyes ablaze.

Autumn swallowed her fear. Was it triumph she was feeling or just horror?

“I see now,” Mildred said in a furiously icy whisper, like the calm before a storm or the crack before an avalanche, heralding great violence. “They promised me the lock while taking away the key. Clever, very clever.”

Fear coiled in Autumn’s breast, threatening to choke her heart, but she’d had enough. With a flex of will that powered through the pain, Autumn corralled it all into her hat, where it sat like a leashed monster awaiting her command, leaving her with only anger, frustration, and a stupid plan. Drawing her iron sword, Autumn rose on shaking feet, using it not as a weapon but as a cane. The sound of metal on rocks resounded deathly loud in the utter silence of the cavern, not even broken by the tinkling of crystals or the run of water.

Autumn sucked in a calming breath, ignoring the way it burned her throat and lungs. She looked up at the furious hag across from her and smiled. A smile that lacked any sort of warmth.

“Maybe you aren’t as clever as you think you are?”

The air was still. Autumn could admit that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t a good idea to taunt an irate hag, but that was kinda the point of her frankly stupid plan. While a little late in the end, she’d figured it out. It wasn’t like it was that hard in the end, given the hag’s muttering when she thought Autumn wasn’t listening, but it was the smell that gave her away.

“You made a pact with the fae, didn’t you? I was wondering what that horrid stench was. Well, besides you that is,” Autumn said, a mocking tilt to her voice. “You can’t hurt me, can you?”

After a beat of silence that weighed heavier than a mountain of corpses, Mildred spoke.

“Can’t and won’t are two entirely different things, girl. Don’t get them twisted up.”

Autumn shook her head with a wry grin. “Nah, you can’t or you’ll break the agreement. That’s why you've not done anything to me, and why you fixed me up right? What’s the consequences? Let me guess, it’s the book right?”

Silence greeted her, confirming her hypothesis.

Autumn shuffled from foot to foot, trying to regain any sort of feeling in them. She was no fool…well, maybe a little, but she knew that her words would more than likely provoke a fight. Even so, Autumn was resolved. Ever since she’d met the ferryman, that personification of death, she knew she was doomed. That was the story, right? The hero meets death and thinks they’ve escaped with their life, only to realize later that they never made it. She was half-convinced this was all a dream, and she was still on that boat, heading down the River Styx to her afterlife.

And if so, she’d poke a hag in the eye on her way down.

Not to mention that she couldn’t let the hag get to that spell.

The only thing she wondered was: should she have it? Or was that an equally bad outcome?

Finally, after a long silence, Mildred, the eater of fingers, exhaled. “My dear girl. You seem to be making two very poor assumptions about me.”

Autumn raised an eyebrow as she tensed. “Oh yeah?”

“One: you assume I can’t make your life a living hell without harming you.”

Autumn gulped.

“And two: you assume I can’t deal with the consequences of breaking a pact with some piddling Fae.”

A pair of ruinous, blazing eyes locked onto Autumn’s rapidly blackening eyes. She grinned so spitefully, so vicious and malign that it could be heard in her voice.

“I can.”

“...oh.”