The basket is heavy, loaded with young cheese and fresh strawberry jam—dark red, like clotted blood, with seeds that stick in the teeth. Mama said to go straight through the woods, get the basket to Grandma before dark.
But darkness brings magic.
Light faded hours ago. The trees and bushes awoke and scurried over damp earth to secret circles. Their leaves parted to reveal a sparkling path.
Look close. A path made of sweetness. Not hard rocks, but crumbling bits of biscuit. Breadcrumbs? No. Sconecrumbs, the sugar glinting in the moonlight. Your tongue jumps in your mouth. It splashes in a pool of saliva like a whale breaching the sea. You gobble up the tiny treats as if you’ve never experienced sweetness before.
Forget about the bread from the morning—that sticky roll with bits of fruit. Forget about the jam. It’s nothing compared to pure sugar. You keep your nose down, close to the scent escaping through the crumbling delicacy.
One step. Two. Feet on the path.
Signs show up infrequently at first, then more often. A blackbird cawing in the branches screams to not continue. Caterpillar feet on leaves whisper to go on. A musk tiptoes on still air. The scent of matted fur and muscles hot from use. The flutter of first attraction is our fight-or-flight response kicking in. Our bodies know. They understand. Attraction is dangerous. Lust is an exciting, lush, decadent danger.
This path belongs to a witch. Its enchantments lull you, tripping you forward. A witch or a wizard, maybe a sorcerer. Definitely someone magical, pretending to be a mortal, made of magic, down to the marrow of their bones, but they also wield magic. They’ve sent shoots of illusion here and there—tentacles probing for the soft pulsing of a heart. Your heart.
Him. The witch with eyes dark as the forest floor, hair flowing like the fronds of a weeping willow dances in your imagination. Beneath his tentative smile, what big teeth he has.
The better to pulverize your heart with.
It doesn’t matter. Aren’t these sconecrumbs delicious?
Bite-sized sweetness the witch baked from longing and desire. The recipe comes alive in your mouth:
2 cups disinterest
4 tsp possibility
A pinch of pain
1/4 cup broken promises
6 tbsp slippery sweet nothings
2/3 cup heavy yearning
Desire scooped from the cunt of his last victim
His house is humble, but not a hovel. It reaches up from the forest floor and twists. It bends with the wind, like a mirage that might vanish if you close your eyes.
You close your eyes.
Imagine the hands of a witch, deep in the ingredients of a love spell. His slim fingers are strong and ready to crush your heart. He pulls you close without touch. His breath is steady. Calm. Even. He will juice you like a plum.
Your eyes open. You enter the door that’s suspiciously ajar.
The witch stands in front of a fire. Warmth seeps around him. Out of him. It hints at tenderness. The flames light the thick hair over his bare skin and flicker at destruction. He stares. Crooks a finger. Beckons you to him.
Do you go?
That question was answered pages ago. When the leaves part to magic, when your stomach knots into possibility, you go. Forget risk. You go.
His embrace smells familiar. The weight of his arms and press of his chest cover you in a blanket of safety. Except he’s neither familiar nor safe.
You can’t trust a man who knows he’s gorgeous and pretends he doesn’t. But you can fuck him.
It’s a double, double toil and trouble game he’s playing as he spins you. He twists your body into impossible shapes, traces your curves as if measuring you for the butchery. He runs his tongue along crevices, tasting where you might be cut. Hung up in pieces to dry. Salted for future use.
Wolves are carnivores, after all.
He lets the moment simmer, boiling your blood to slowly suck the sweetness of your longing. He liquifies you and churns your insides into a potion of yearning. He holds it to your mouth. You sip. Consume yourself. You’re delicious.
You can fuck a man who swallows honesty to craft perfect moments. But you can’t love him.
The thrill of an unexpected kiss is timed to make you wonder where he ends and you begin. It’s all an illusion. Curated and performed for you. Designed to possess you through your desire.
You are owned—property of the lupine divinity.
In the gray of morning, he vanishes. The trees return to their roots. The bushes settle as if dead in winter’s chill. There’s no sign of the witch’s home. You are naked and shivering on the forest floor. Solitude wraps around you, choking you.
Nearby, a tail flicks. A muzzle bends to a broken basket, eating jam and fresh cheese, mocking your empty hands. You turn towards home but stop. What kind of mother sends her daughter into such a haunted wood, so close to dark, so near a witch? The wolf saunters away. Your heart echoes his sway as you follow him.
