*Gwen

Gwen shoved a couple of teeshirts, some black pants and her jacket in her bag. She dropped it on the floor as she ransacked her own shop, hoping to find anything salvageable, or more to the point, sellable. A few crystals, amulets, small animal bone sculptures and a set of fake runes went into the bag. That was it. The rest was trash—in so many ways.

The air was foul inside the van, and she could barely breathe. After working on the engine all day while the interior cooked, she would be damned before she spent the night in it. In fact, this was the end. She wasn't coming back.

There was nothing for her here. It had never been a home—it was just a place she stayed, a place that moved her from town to town while she passed the time.

Outside, she rounded the back to unhitch her bike. Then she remembered the cards.

"Fuck it. And fuck them."

She gripped the handles of her bike until her fingers ached. But she went back for the cards which were tucked away in the glove box. She left the box open. It would be better for when she cleansed.

She had one leg over her bike when she remembered the spindle. Her first thought was to leave it and let it be scorched, too, a fitting end to the last magical item taken from her mother's house and coven.

Groaning, she left the bike again.

This time, she crawled underneath the van's carriage, scootching in the filthy grass. There was a wrought iron box tucked securely to the underside of the carriage by a make-shift, hinged frame. She unbuckled the leather straps and swung the frame's metal bars apart. Wiggling on her back, she crawled out.

Her fingers itched. In fact, her palms tingled. More than from the pent-up, raw harvest energy. Something was wrong. She flexed her hands, opening and closing her fists. That warning signal was back, the one where her nerves buzzed and her skin prickled as if in cold wind, but there was nothing coming.

She could sense danger, though. A problem. A creeping dread. She was being closed in, trapped, caught by—

Her hands trembled so badly, she could barely undo the lock on the iron box. She wore the key around her neck on one of her many chains. It took three tries to get the key in the hole.

"Breathe, Gwen," she whispered. She didn't want to do this. She hated this in normal circumstances. Not that she ever spun unless there was an emergency.

But was it danger closing in or was she forgetting something? Something vital? Unfinished business would return to bite you in the ass hard. Had she truly settled her accounts? Besides the occasional witch she lightly hustled, like the blonde with the green bean, of course. That would hardly be enough to cause the near panic in her chest.

Corman?

No.

No, she owed him nothing. He had agreed to help her and be her willing minion for the night and nothing more. A drop of blood signed the agreement and he was free to go when they finished the job, their tracks covered by her magic to keep them both safe.

It wasn't Corman setting her heart racing in fear.

Which left spinning to find the answer.

She opened the box carefully, unwilling to disturb the contents. As always, the spindle was nestled in a pile of various fibers; rough, carded wools, iron-grey Gotland, curling Teeswater and Wensleydale locks, shiny mohair, angora, silk, stringy flax, merino roving, yak and camel, cotton, bamboo, possum, alpaca, and more, all tied in neat bundles with whatever string she had on hand.

Flexing nervously, she set the spindle—a carved, wooden rod with a delicate twisted form not unlike the fake magic wands sold in costume shops—upright by her thigh. Her hand fluttered over the fibers as she searched with her palm for which one to take. Electric sparks sizzled between her finger tips.

Groaning, she shoved the box and spindle away.

This would never work in her current condition. What else did she have? She stormed back into the camper van. There was a gore-coated pack of tarot cards, now stiff and dry. She pulled one card free and the face tore off—stuck to the next card. The glass bowl she'd picked up for a dollar at an antique store was cracked so it couldn't be used for scrying.

The runes.

They might be industrial, but they were still made with bone. Who knows, they might actually work. She returned to the grass, reached into the bag and took three from the bag, without looking, then tossed them to the ground like rolling dice.

There it was. Glaring as the white bones that littered the field. She had forgotten something important. Something she needed.

But what?

That left the spindle for answers.

"Don't make me do this," she whispered to the Fates, who were never listening anyway, if they existed. One of the most powerful tools at a witch's disposal—spinning, a secret kept safe for centuries—it was sure to go wrong now.

She cradled the box on her lap for several heartbeats, but finally lifted the lid. Which one? Closing her eyes, she let her hand hover over the tufts and bundles again. Her hand was yanked down. Curls, silky-soft but tangled and jumbled together. Cotswold? Leicester? Her other hand set the spindle to the bowl. She touched the fiber to the tip, ready to draft a leader. The energy in her hand turned to heat as she began to spin a bumpy yarn. Curled ends stuck out of the strand, giving it a wind-streaked cloud appearance. She kept flicking the spindle tip, adding fiber as it spiraled. Sparks flickered in her palm. Pain streaked up her fingers. She kept spinning. In her mind, the full moon appeared.

The fiber crackled as the faint stench of burned hair wafted to her nose.

"Not now," she said. "Keep it together, Gwen!"

She flicked the spindle tip again, letting it spin in cup shape of her fingers, but the fiber fizzed. Smoke poured from it. Flames burst into life along the yarn.

Jumping, she threw it to the ground to stomp out the fire before her wooden spindle could burn.

"Well, that was useless." She shoved everything in her bag. "Fuck it all."

The sensation of the curls sliding through her fingers haunted her though, as she revved her bike to life. Whatever she had forgotten was in bud, incomplete, but filled with potential. The moon was involved, a full moon, cold and distant. An echo of the ruined harvest? The lost potential of the power now wreaking havoc in her every attempted spell?

Maybe. But damned if she would search any further if she kept annihilating everything she touched.

Her wheels spun to life and carried her to the road. Left or right?

She had to put as much distance between her and the town and her botched harvest as possible. To the right, then.

As her machine roared down the road, the camper van behind her burst into flames three stories tall, not only scorching the interior, cleansing it of any signs she had ever occupied it, but obliterating the outer shell and half the field with it.

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