Cold sweat soft dripping down my spine. The house has been quiet for two days. I haven’t left the safety of the cupboard under the stairs. I know they’re still here.

The spring purification ritual is simple— you toss salt out of your windows as you chant to let the bad spirits out and invite the good ones in.

You can even invite the “bad” ones in if you know how to make peace with them.

I didn’t know my brother was performing the inverted ritual the same time I was. The duplication left the door open to something far worse than mischievous garden spirits.

They came during the dead of night. The old wooden bones of the house creaked as the last of my family fell asleep. I heard my brother tip toe up to the study in the attic. The last couple years he had spent most of his nights up there. Most of them I heard the muffled words of failed incantations.

I hadn’t worried then— he was my brother.

I worried now.

Dealing in the realm of spirits wasn’t expressly forbidden by the Kilmarnock contract of 1742, but only fools and priests skirted it’s edges. My brother had taken no godly vows— which marked him as the former.

I prayed to Orpheus— that he might guide a light for me through the preternatural darkness that loomed within the house. Shadows grew heavy and fell from the walls. Through the old, dusty slats of the cupboard I could see them pull themselves from the ground and inflate like warped balloons.

Orpheus ignored my prayers.

I prayed to Reynard— knowing the price of the Fox would be grave. But I couldn’t survive in the cupboard— my own waste made sleep impossible. My legs ached as the growing hours cramped them. I needed a trick to escape— I thought wistfully of Coyote— knowing he could escape these walls with ease.

A flash of red fur signaled Reynard’s presence. A heavy breath warmed my nape— though no space was available.

“Someone is scared to escape on their own,” his raspy voice said. No face greeted me— just a pair of glowing yellow eyes from the other side of the cupboard.

“I need your help.”

“What do you have to offer?” I could feel the eyes scan my huddled body. Reynard wasn’t know to be picky.

“A locket.”

“You think you can buy a god with a trinket? What else do you have?”

“You don’t know who it belonged to.”

“Don’t I?” He purred. My hand clenched the burnished silver— hoping I was right.

“One that escaped you, though she didn’t escape the flames.”

The eyes narrowed. “You don’t have that. No one has that.”

“I do. It feel before they burned her. Before they sacrificed her.”

“The lost amulet of Joan of Arc. I’m impressed, my little closet mouse. Whose name do you claim?”

“de Baudricourt.”

“Merde. You’re not a mouse. You’re a snake. I didn’t know your line still existed. How did Robert manage to recover the amulet?”

“You walk between worlds— ask himself yourself.”

“That can wait. You can’t. This cupboard will only hold you for so long. What is it you ask of me?”

“Show me how to escape without being caught. My brother can’t find me here. I fear he’s … not himself any longer.”

“You’re asking for magic. Are you prepared to sacrifice for it?”

“Sacrifice? You’ll get the amulet. This has been in my family for the last six hundred years!”

“But it wasn’t yours. It’s a trinket from a lost maiden that a dirty family stole. What of yourself will you offer?”

“Myself?” A sharp smiles hung in the air below the eyes.

“I’m waiting.”

“… Blood.”