CHROMO Countdown: 7

Today is June 23rd, and that means you only have 7 more days to pre-order the special edition of CHROMOPHOBIA. You can place your order HERE.

Today’s story:

Burn the Witch (Red)

By Lillah Lawson

The rain from the night before still saturates the forest; brown leaves, deadened but damp, give a muted crunch under her feet as she runs down the path. Off, some short distance away, is a burning pyre—she can smell the smoke, acrid but pleasant, stinging her nostrils, filling her lungs with muted gray. It’s pitch-black in the forest, but she can see well. Up ahead, over the looming, dark trees, she can almost make out the tendrils of smoke as they billow upward from the roaring fire.

The fire they have made is for her.

As she runs, her inky black hair whipping behind her, her dark blue cloak having fallen down to her bare shoulders long ago, she smiles a little. It is a wolfish smile, all teeth. Red lips curl over those teeth, which are pointed and straight. Her lips are so red that one might wonder if it was lipstick or blood.

Her feet are clad in little ballet flats, satiny and black, and they are now soaked from running through the wet forest. Caked with mud, and a little bit of blood, too. She has forgotten her wolf-skin boots. The gray fur that lines her hood is also damp, brushing up against her shoulders as she runs. She has picked up her pace, ignoring the burning tightness in her legs and the hot fullness of her lungs—she has caught his scent, and she will not let go until she’s tracked and caught him.

It’s almost imperceptible, his scent, over the smell of the burning trees that make up the funeral pyre. But she can smell him. It is a cloaked, hidden away smell, and were it not for her heightened skills, he might’ve gone unnoticed beneath the lingering stench of the villagers, with all their hate and judgment, and that incensed desire to see her burn, and the smoke, and the wine, and the heady scent of apples that permeates through the forest. But she is special—she has trained for this, has learned how to stalk her prey, and her olfactory does not fail.

She smiles that blood red, toothy grin again, stopping for a moment to catch her breath. She should hurry, she knows, but she relishes this. The hunt, the waiting. It’s glorious bliss, the anticipation. When she meets someone unawares, they are almost always immediately disarmed.

She always catches her man.

***

In just *seven days* the CHROMOPHOBIA hardcover pre-order window closes.

This is it, folks. The end is nigh!

We feel pretty good about this anthology. And, honestly, fortunate to have partaken in its creation. Just packed with talent from top to bottom. Can’t wait to see what the world thinks of our colorful little tome.

You can pre-order your hardcover edition of CHROMOPHOBIA HERE.

And, remember…