Chapter 10

The trees were full of eyes, full of whispers. Willow counted the dead-eyed rabbits: one, two, three, four, five. Five to add to a decent stew, and one fat pheasant she'd happened upon when resetting her traps. The Coven would be ambivalent, it was Willow's duty to help feed them, but at least they wouldn't be angry. At least, not at her.

She gathered the carcasses in her satchel, picked up her heavy walking stick, and began the trek back home. She stopped along to way to investigate mushrooms and berry bushes. The mushrooms she wasn't sure about – they were abandoned. Mushrooms were dangerous, and not worth the risk. The bushes still held some fat berries, those she snatched up first, trying to avoid the brambles but not very successfully.

A full satchel, a full belly. It would be a good day, she could feel it in her bones. She even sang a little, no longer quiet Willow, ashamed Willow, out here on her own. She stopped to wash her hands and scratched wrists in the frigid creek that led home. It stung fiercely, but provided some relief.

A branch snapped from across the bank, and Willow quietly slipped up the embankment and ducked behind huge rotting tree trunk. Voices carried, distant at first, but grew near. A canteen sloshed in the babbling creek.

"It's not really about the kid, anyways," a deep voice growled. "That's just to get things started. She doesn't want to kill them all. Waste of perfectly good hands and feet."

Someone slid on a slick pile of needles and swore. Willow didn't dare peek around the trunk, although she didn't quite know why. One of sounded like her own people. Perhaps Manny, Beartooth's right-hand man?

"What, you mean the woman?" A higher voice replied, raspy though, as if smoke itself could speak. More water splashed, and a hissed inhale of breath from the chilly water. "Shit, that's cold. What does The Witch want with all them kids? Too many mouths to feed. Best to leave them on their own, or put 'em out of their misery."

All them kids? Her stomach churned a little, then tumbled around even more as she watched a giant centipede slither towards her foot, all those little insect feet fluttering across the forest floor. She placed her hand over her mouth and breathed slowly, quietly through her nose. Were they talking about the settlement of kids that paid tribute? There were quiet grumblings in the Coven about stealing from a bunch of kids, but those supplies helped feed their own few scrawny children, and the rest of their people.

Willow held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. The centipede marched forward, a million legs tickling her bare ankle as it crawled past. After it was gone, she still felt creepy-crawlies up and down her legs, but she remained motionless.

Maybe-Manny replied. "You idiot- you see how curious they're getting? That woman will keep them in line only for so long. They'll turn into shithead teenagers soon- do you think they'll happily keep handing over their shit?"

"We need it though. We need their shit."

"And we'll keep getting their shit. Just gotta take care of the woman, then the kids'll be pacified for awhile longer. Then…"

It was silent for a moment, some gesture or unspoken meaning shared between the two speakers, then, they laughed. It was a cruel sound in the peace of the forest, and Willow's stomach seized.

The voices faded down the bank as they followed the creek, away from home.

Willow let out sigh and took in big lung-fulls of air. She didn't buy it, that they needed the other group's scavenges. It left a sour taste in her mouth, taking from other groups that were just trying to survive. Especially little kids. But she remembered that winter, long ago. All the graves they couldn't dig in the frozen earth. Lines of bodies, really just bones with skin, with neat holes punctured between their eyes, carried out before the weakened corpses could turn.

It was a dark winter. Willow still felt like it was in there, crawling around and corrupting her insides. Whoever had been put into that stew, that delicious, aromatic stew that saved Willow from sure starvation. Willow still refused to this day to eat any stew she didn't prepare herself. It had been an evil winter. The Witch was always reminding them of that, and who saved them. And who had betrayed them.

Willow stayed crouched for a minute longer, then peeked over the trunk – empty forest. Bile rose up in her throat, and she spat on the ground, her mouth burning from the acid. There were so many secrets now, and she didn't like it.

She had to go speak with The Witch.

/ / / / /

Littlechapel was in their usual organized chaos, each child at their respective jobs with their respective partners. Whistle while you work, tra-la-la-la-la.

But Lucy was distracted, distant. After they'd arrived back from the tribute drop-off, she'd warned the twins and Axel not to say anything, not yet anyways, fully aware that the warning wouldn't be heeded for long. Her fake cheerfulness did not go unnoticed (children are always far more perceptive than given credit for), and a tension hung in the air. Only the youngest were seemingly oblivious, still more concerned about whether they'd get chocolate pudding for dessert (over the dreaded butterscotch) or whether their Rest Day coincided with their friends.

Lucy sat in her office, which was really a narrow storage room with a desk that spilled out papers like water leaking out of a dam. She'd put Cupcake in charge while she was sequestered here, and she could hear the girl's loud voice carry through the ventilation system with an authority that brought tears to Lucy's eyes.

It's time, she thought finally. In the chaos somewhere was her red binder, and she sifted through papers until locating it deep within old discarded schedules that she still hung onto for some reason. Proof that she had kept this settlement going long after the other adults abandoned her, telling her it was a fruitless effort. They'd only lasted weeks, at most. Abandoned. Years had passed now.

The binder was full of scribbled notes and torn pages collected through the years. The plan, the future plan. At first, a distant dream. As time crept on, more and more a reality.

She rummaged for the walkie-talkie and found it under a pile of papers she'd just moved around.

"Cupcake?"

"Yeah?" the voice crackled over the tinny speakers.

"I need you to ring the bell twice in about an hour and get an announcement out. Anyone over thirteen need to stay after dinner and meet in the back office. The younger kids will get indoor freetime." How many will that be? Lucy made a quick mental checklist. Six so far.

"Everything okay?"

Lucy hesitated for a moment. The silence was too full of tension, unsaid things. Mustn't worry her, not yet. "Yeah, we all just need to talk."

"Alright, will do boss!"

Lucy spent the rest of the afternoon scribbling frantic notes and shuffling through teetering stacks of paper. Her thoughts were interrupted occasionally with flashes of the newcomers from before, Negan and his men. Why? They were long gone, and had no clue where Littlechapel was. It wasn't on most maps either, except on local brochures at the ranger's station and a few small-town stores. The brochures were promptly burned when found.

No trace anywhere. That was the scavenging motto, anyways.

Negan's million-watt smile. That baseball bat of his, wrapped in barbed wire. His men looked strong, capable in a fight. Hell, according to Billy, they held up on their own in the ambush for a long time. They obeyed her wishes while they were here… could they be trusted? A marble of an idea rolled around in her head. Around, around, around. She scribbled notes, then crossed them out. Her eyes watered from the strain, so she sat in silence and meditated. Not thinking, but not not thinking.

Dinnertime. It was the bell that alerted her, not the time. Lucy led them in grace, as usual, and the kids inhaled their dinner, as usual. They chattered and bounced in their seats while they negotiated free time allocation and traded desserts. The usual chaos, but it was their own.

After dinner, the younger kids had been shooed out and all stragglers accounted for. Cupcake delegated clean-up to the Sophies, who looked less than pleased but accepted their duty with only minimal grumbling.

Six of the kids (teenagers, Lucy supposed she should call them that now), gathered in her office: the twins Ethan and Nathan, Fletch, Cupcake, Rachel, and-

"Where's Ghost?" Lucy asked.

The teens looked around and shrugged.

"He's only here when he wants to be," Fletch said finally. "Which isn't very often at all."

"I didn't see him," Cupcake said, "so I left a note by the back gate a few hours ago. He might be out all night, you know him. He's like a stray cat."

Lucy sighed and rubbed her eyes. As if on cue, the door clicked open and a tall, straggly youth appeared in the doorway. He was a head taller than Lucy, with ice-blue eyes and a tumble of thick sandy-blonde hair shorn tightly. Patches of hair threatened his jaw with the whispers of a beard on his serious face. He wore camouflage smeared with dirt and soot, with a bow slung over his back.

"Ghost!" Cupcake cried. She searched for other words but found none, instead pulling on her braid and twirling it nervously through her fingers. The others grunted or nodded acknowledgement with all the enthusiasm that teenagers could muster.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and shoved his way into the cramped office. Rachel, far too polite for her own good, immediately leapt up to give him her seat on the edge of an empty desk, and she shoved in closer to Cupcake. Nathan clapped a heavy hand on Ghost, who smiled sheepishly. After a moment of shuffling and jabbing elbows, the teens settled in once more.

"Alright, we don't have these often," Lucy said. "But we gotta talk about some goings-on here. You know I'm happy doing all the Boring Adult Stuff, but sometimes, we need to get together to talk."

"A quorum," Rachel said, pushing up her glasses.

"Right. A quorum."

Nathan elbowed Ethan, who raised his hand tentatively.

Lucy sighed again. "Ethan, you don't have to raise your hand, there's only seven of us in here. What's your question?"

"What's a quorum?"

Rachel glanced around, and finding no takers, she answered. "The minimum amount of members in a group that need to be present in order for a meeting to be valid."

Ethan raised an eyebrow at Nathan, who shook his head slightly and shrugged. Rachel gave him a small smile. "I'll explain it later, it's just an official type of meeting."

Lucy took out the big red binder and let it thud gently on the desk. "So. The Shadow Coven."

The teens groaned collectively.

"I know, I know. They're bad people, bad news," Lucy said.

"They take all our shit!" Ethan burst out.

"Assholes," Nathan agreed. Fletch angrily kicked the desk drawer beneath him with a metallic clunk.

"They killed almost all the chickens. Tortured them, practically, then butchered them right in the coop." Cupcake said tearfully. "We nearly had a full flock, and had to start practically from scratch. Assholes is right, Nate." Nathan nodded. They all began to talk at once, all of the anger and frustration pouring out.

Lucy allowed it for a moment, but quieted them down with a firm clearing of her throat. Before she could speak, Rachel reminded them all of the worst of it.

"They took Melody," she said in a low voice, sad brown eyes cast to the floorboards. They murmured in agreement, and silence settled in.

"That's right," Lucy said. "They took one of our own just to prove a point. And then she died, under their watch. Never again." She stood up and began pacing around the room.

"As you know, Kira was spotted by the Witch, or the Shadow Coven, a few days back. She was at the perimeter fence, mending a hole she'd found out near the berry bushes. One of the goats got out, and we still haven't found him. While searching for the sneaky guy, she saw the Witch and some others. Why the Coven was clear out here, I don't know. But she saw something she shouldn't have."

"What?" Cupcake asked.

"I don't know, honey. Maybe it was nothing, and they're lying. I don't like it, though. She didn't know either, she says she just knew it was them, and they were in the middle of some dance or something. Maybe a ritual, hell, I don't know what they get up to. Anyways, now they want us to surrender her to them."

The twins leapt to their feet, and Cupcake slapped a hand to her mouth. "No! We…we can't!"

Lucy shook her head. "Hell no. That's not an option, and I told them as much."

Ethan nodded. "She did. Told the Big Man himself."

Ghost whistled low and exchanged a glance with Fletch. "Shit. Beartooth?"

Lucy nodded again. "Yep." Ghost laughed, a deep booming thing that Lucy hadn't heard before. When did they get so grown up?

"As you can imagine, he wasn't pleased. I should have delayed, made some excuse to buy us time, but I didn't. And now, well…" She swallowed hard. "They made their intentions clear, that they won't let us get away with defiance. We need to prepare. That's what I need to talk with you all about. They could be bluffing, just trying to intimidate us."

Ghost shook his head. "They don't bluff." If anyone knew, it would be Ghost. He was the only one who could move around the woods without being spotted by the Coven.

All eyes turned to him. He ran his fingers through his hair and shifted uncomfortably. "Meant to say something earlier but the timing didn't feel right. Been out there for a few days now, huntin' and trappin'. Got us some good meat to smoke in the garage."

"Well," Cupcake said breathlessly, "what did you see?" Her cheeks tinged pink. I'll have to keep on eye on that, Lucy noted. So far they'd managed to scrape by unscathed by the scandals that romance brought, but the kids were growing up, noticing one another a bit more.

Ghost looked around at the group before landing on Lucy. She nodded, though she didn't know what he was seeking permission to say.

He took out a piece of gum from his pocket, the packet crumbled and fraying at the edges, and chewed thoughtfully before selecting his words. "A camp, about a day from here. Small, just tents and a few lean-tos, probably haven't been here very long. At least not since last winter."

He dropped his eyes to the ground. "All dead. Murdered by the Coven and picked clean. Their bones and their stuff."

Cupcake gasped. "They…picked their bones?"

"Weren't no animal."

"How do you know?" Lucy asked.

Ghost's eyes were faraway, seeing the past and not the present. "They hung the bones from the trees. They carved out hollows in the trees for the skulls."

Rachel hugged Cupcake to her side. "Why did they just leave the bones? They usually leave the bodies."

Fletch shook his head. "I don't think I wanna know."

"Why?" asked Ethan. No one answered.

"How d'you know it was them?" Nathan asked. They all knew, but waited for the answer.

Ghost rummaged through his sack and pulled out some strange looking objects: sticks and animal bones wrapped in twine. They'd seen the talismans before, though: a calling card from the Coven. Danger, it meant. Or victory. It was left as an omen, or after a slaughter.

"Why were they killed?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might-"

"Are we next?"

"Focus!" Lucy said, her voice slightly raised. "Okay. Maybe they aren't bluffing, let's just assume not to be safe. What do we do? Do we stay and fight? Do we take the buses and leave? They show up from the trees like shadows. They've snuck through our defenses countless times to leave those talismans before. After they killed the chickens, before they took Melody." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I want to talk this through. We need to decide as a group, then take the plan to the rest of us."

Cupcake stood up, her lip quivering slightly. "This is our home. We've been here since the beginning, since the world went to hell! We were abandoned here. Left behind. Only Lucy chose to stay so we wouldn't die on our own. All our other teachers left, the other parents fled after getting their own kids. We're a family now, and we're all we've got. I say we FIGHT!"

The twins agreed, loudly. Ghost did as well, his head bobbing in agreement. "Yeah," he said. "What she said. We can take them."

Lucy glanced around. "Rach? Fletch?"

Fletch spoke first. "Why not both? We can 'Home Alone' this place with traps and stuff. We have the caverns, too, where we can send the little ones for safety. I already have emergency supplies in there, and Batty Barry can navigate that place safely, barefoot with only a penlight and a rope."

"Yeah," Rachel interjected, "but he's also a little…"

The quorum all began speaking at once with ideas, worries, and half-baked plans. Lucy sat back for a few minutes and let them talk it out, rubbing her temples. A headache was threatening to go full-migraine. Air. We need air.

The room was getting stuffy from all of them crammed in there, the air growing hot and oppressive. Beads of condensation trickled down the windows and Lucy walked over to crack one of them open for fresh air. Lucy stopped listening to the teens momentarily and looked out over the little corner of her world she could see from the window.

It was cooling down for the evening, and she could hear the murmurs from the recreation area on the other side of the building. Laughing, teasing, singing. A little voice said something, and many voices returned a hearty cheer. The gardens were healthy and growing, and she could spot slight movement on the walls beyond from the kids on guard duty.

Lucy's eyes welled up. Her plan, since day one, had always been the same: ensure they would be self-sufficient. If she died, heaven forbid, she wanted them to be safe. To have rules and structure to carry on afterwards. If she died, they would carry on.

And now, danger that threatened it all. It could all slip through their fingers.

"What about those men?" she said quietly. The others didn't hear her. She took a deep breath of fresh air; it was cool and crisp outside. It smelled of pine and sap, juniper berries and earth. Home. And the Shadow Coven threatened to take all that away. Away from children, for God's sake.

She slammed the window closed. The teens all jumped and looked at her, startled.

"What about those men we rescued?" she asked again. "We patched up one of their own and sent them on their way?"

Ethan nodded. "They said they had a lot more people, just not many kids," he said. "Billy said they had weapons at the bar, they'd just run out of ammunition."

Cupcake shook her head. "No way. They gave me the creeps."

"Everyone gives you the creeps," Ethan said.

Lucy agreed. "You guys don't get to interact a lot anymore with outsiders, besides the Coven. And they are exceptionally creepy. Negan and his crew certainly had a vibe about them, but not to harm us. I know we were watching them carefully, but they could have tried to cause trouble, and they didn't."

They all pondered for a moment. Finally Ghost spoke. "The Coven doesn't have a lot of manpower. It's hard to pin down their exact number, but I think maybe fifty or sixty? That might be just the capable ones, hunters and fighters. Their nest is deep in the woods, I know the direction but haven't gone there. If I bring enough supplies, I could stake it out…"

Lucy nodded. "We need to find their base camp. And we need to find those men."

Ethan and Nathan nodded. "What did they call themselves? The leather-wearing dudes?"

Lucy smiled. "The Saviors. I guess we'll have to put that name to the test. Now, who wants to help me find them?"

/ / / / /

AN: Still updating! My posting schedule is delayed still, not quite up to my usual level of cranking out chapters, so I appreciate everyone's patience. I had a good chunk of time the past several months where I was unable to write, but I've been delving back in and getting back into the swing of things. Hope all of you are safe and well, and stay tuned for the next chapter