The Maidens Vengeance

The blackened grass crunched beneath Selena’s boots like charred bone.

Twelve standing stones. A perfect ring. The pines leaned inward, curious, hungry. She could smell it before she saw it—that sweet-rot wrongness that never left this clearing, even after seven years. The earth here was the color of old scabs.

Selena knelt at the circle’s center and pres…