You’ll need me again. They always do.
“Let them go,” she said. “Then you get it.” m3zatka
“No,” Marta said.
The thing had been sealed in the well nine hundred years ago, during the first Christian king’s purge of the old faith. But a piece of it had been left out—the comb, carved from its own finger bone by a witch who pitied it. As long as the comb existed outside the well, the thing could reach through the cracks. It could pull. It could feed. You’ll need me again
The thing tilted its head. A sound came from behind its sewn lips—a wet, grinding whisper. Not words. A need . “Then you get it
It wanted to be unmade. The comb wasn’t a weapon. It was a key.
She could feel it inside her now. A cold little knot below her ribs. A hunger that wasn’t hers. And a voice, quiet as a comb’s tooth running through hair, whispering: