CHAPTER 7: THE FIRST PAGE'S SCREAM

The thorns splitting Julian's skin sang as they grew, vibrating with the same frequency as Sabrina's screams inside the willow. Julian clawed at his own ribs, fingers slipping on sap-blood hybrids, but the child just laughed and pressed closer.

"You need the first page to stop it," it whispered, lips brushing the thorns now protruding from Julian's navel. "And Father Elias ate it, didn't he?"

Another vision struck—this one fresh and vicious:

Elias Thorne on his knees before the grandmother, desperately chewing a scrap of parchment as roots speared through his cheeks. "You'll never take my son!" he garbled around a mouthful of ink and blood—

Julian vomited black petals.

The child caught one, twirling it between fingers that grew too long and jointed. "Grandmother made sure he'd never tell. But..." It leaned in, its breath smelling of Sabrina's sweat when she'd ride him, "There are other ways to open a throat."

Above them, the willow holding Sabrina shuddered, its bark splitting to reveal her writhing form within. She was changed—hips wider, belly rounded, lips stained violet from the grove's nectar. Their eyes met through the pulsing membrane, and for one horrifying moment, Julian recognized the look she wore—the same desperate hunger as when they'd first fallen into bed together, all teeth and grasping hands.

Then the child plunged its hand into Julian's thorn-filled mouth.

"Let's ask him together," it giggled.

Julian's jaw unhinged as the child's arm thrust deeper, its fingers wriggling down his esophagus like inquisitive worms. He choked, thrashing, but the tiny hand just clamped around something deep inside him and—

Pulled.

Elias Thorne's voice erupted from Julian's throat, but the words weren't his own. They came in the grandmother's creaking rasp:

"To end the line, the seed must be returned to soil. Burn the child. Burn the lover. Let the ashes feed the—"

Sabrina screamed from inside the willow, a sound so anguished it cracked the trunk wide open. She came crawling out on all fours, her once-beautiful body now a living altar:

Willow saplings grew where her nipples should be

Her miscarried womb hung visible behind translucent skin, thick with squirming roots

The wedding ring on her finger had melted into her flesh, the gold replaced by sap-hardened amber

She grabbed the child by its throat.

"You lied," she snarled. "The ritual requires both of us."

The child smiled beatifically. "Yes, Mother. But Father doesn't know which version you'll choose." It licked her wrist, its tongue splitting into two probing tendrils. "Will you burn our Julian? Or let him bloom inside you forever?"

Behind them, Elias' corpse-vines began to chant.

CHAPTER END: The first fully formed willow flower burst from Julian's eye socket.