Free The Witch and the Huntsman by Rod Kierkegaard Jr J.R. Rain

window; in spite of her new, more or less solid physical state, she still had this habit of just moving from place to place like her own version of teleportation. For example, she never used the bathroom door—she just showed up in one room or the other. It was kind of unsettling, and I wished I could think of a tactful way to ask her not to do it anymore. At least I had her wearing the ghost of one of my T-shirts to sleep in.
    I noticed that my breath made a little frosty patch on the window, but this new Millicent’s didn’t. When her bare arm brushed against mine, her skin felt even colder to the touch than Sam’s.
    “ What’s the Wild Hunt?” I asked her.
    “ It began in prehistory when demons and their hellhounds, along with the spirits of the dead, would hunt at Samhain, what we now call Halloween. Their horses would race across the sky or just above the ground, leaving no tracks, and the noise of their passage was heard as thunder. Their prey was most often human folk—or witches like us.” She shivered. “It’s a mercy that you cannot remember it, child, but we three were hunted by these horrible creatures several times over the centuries. Once in Bavaria, once in Scotland, and the last time just outside Salem, Massachusetts. We were trying to escape from the witch trials.”
    Okay, now I was getting spooked out.
    “ You think they’re hunting a real person out there right now?”
    “ Yes.”
    Suddenly things dawned on me. “So that’s what happened to Marisa...?” I know, duh , right?
    She nodded. “I fear so.” She touched my hand, her fingers like ice. “Try to remain detached from this vile business, Allison. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it happening—it’s too late.”
    Now it was my turn to tremble, and Millicent put her arms around me consolingly.
    “ But the victim—whoever it was—was in my mind a minute ago! In my dreams, I was the one being hunted...who...who is it? Do you know?”
    She shook her head. “Never fear; with your psychic talents, you will find out soon enough. But for now, try to shield your thoughts, as I’ve taught you to do. Hush now—don’t fret, dear. There’s nothing either of us can do. At least the end will be swift.” She laughed bitterly. “You and I, of all people, should know that...”
    I stared at her in horror. “You mean… They caught us?”
    She nodded. “Yes. All three times. But our spirits were too strong for them to keep captive; we have all three been reborn many times since then.” She gave me the ghost of a smile. Or, in her case, a regular smile. “And now we’ve even reunited, after a fashion. See? Death, where is thy sting?”
    Even though the sounds and the flickering lights diminished and disappeared, I still didn’t get much sleep the rest of the night. Dawn couldn’t come too soon, as far as I was concerned—and after it did, I gave up trying to doze and got up and took a shower. Then I dressed and went for a long walk along the ski trails up the mountainside, looking for traces of last night’s hunt. I’d heard horses, or things that sounded like horses, and in my dream, the horned demons had been riding on horses and some kind of animals like huge goats or rams, but I saw no hoof prints in the snow. Or droppings or ashes from the torches they all carried.
    Maybe it had all just been a bad dream.
    Or maybe not. Just like before, I kept having the feeling I was being watched, and I kept noticing what I thought were shadows stalking me from deep in the fir trees. So I wasn’t exactly paying attention when I almost bumped into a man standing as still and silent as a statue on one of the ski trails.
    “ Sorry, Allison,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    My eyes adjusted to the sunlight, and I was flooded with a terrific sense of relief.
    “ Eric! Wow, am I glad to see you. But what are you doing out on the slopes so early?”
    “ What do you mean?”
    “ I thought I heard you taking a hunting