Kaylee ❤️'s Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Kaylee counted the days on her fingers and stopped at six. Six days until the harvest moon. Six days to free the boy she loved from the underworld, or lose him under the earth forever. She stood at the gate of a crooked stone manor, its windows glowing green and orange in the dark. She had knocked on every door in three villages. Every one had turned her away. This was the last house left. The front door opened before she touched it. A girl in a black hood stood inside, boots laced to the knee, blue nails tapping the frame. She looked younger than Kaylee, but her gray eyes held something old and cold. "You're the girl asking about the dead," the witch said. It wasn't a question. "They call you Morgan," Kaylee said. "They say you walk through shadows. They say you've been down there and come back." Her voice cracked. "I need to go down. My love is trapped in the underworld. The harvest moon takes him in six days." Morgan didn't move from the doorway. "Everyone who comes here wants a door down. Nobody thinks about the way back." She looked Kaylee over, from her nose ring to her shaking hands. "You have no map, no charm, no coin for the crossing. You'd die on the first stair." "Then take me," Kaylee said. "Walk me through the shadows. I'll give you whatever you want." Morgan tilted her head. A slow smile crossed her face. "Whatever I want is a dangerous thing to promise a witch." She stepped back and swung the door wide. "Come in before you say it twice." Inside, candles burned in cracked jars. Morgan pressed her palm flat against the stone wall. The shadow under her hand spread and deepened, until it opened like a black mouth in the rock. Cold air poured out. Kaylee smelled wet earth and something older beneath it. "There's your door," Morgan said. "I can walk you to the bottom. But the shadow road closes behind us the moment we step through. I can open the way in. I cannot open the way out." She met Kaylee's eyes. "Getting your boy back is your problem, not mine. Still want it?" Kaylee stared into the dark. Six days. The boy's face. She thought of his hands, and how the earth had swallowed him. "Yes," she said. Morgan took her wrist. Her grip was ice. "Then keep hold of me. Let go, and the dark keeps you." They stepped into the shadow together. The manor's candles winked out behind them. The stone mouth sealed shut with a sound like a closing coffin. Kaylee stood on a narrow stair of black rock, falling down into nothing. She had her way down at last. And no way back up.