Excerpt from Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by Victoria E. Schwab, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She passes Rafa at the edge of the yard, shoring up the fence, which always seems one strong breeze away from falling down. He glares at her as she goes by, and she knows he is looking to find something wrong. Stand straighter, María. Be tidy, María. Have some modesty, María. She smiles and curtsies as she passes, a gesture with all the flair of a curse.

The day started hot, but soon a swell of clouds rolls in, and by the time she's delivered her mother's work, a storm is churning.

She quickens her pace, the now-empty basket swinging from her fingers, the taste of rain on her tongue. She cuts through the copse that runs like a road along the edge of town, is startled when one of the trees steps sideways, and María sees it's not a tree at all, but the widow.

María stops, breath caught between her teeth.

The widow's face is uncovered, the veil tucked up into her hat brim. María stares at the curls of blond hair now visible against her neck. Stares at her smooth cheeks, her pointed chin, the smooth pink bow of her lips. She doesn't look sick, or old, or weak. If anything, she is younger than María would have guessed. And twice as pretty.

The wooden crate sits beside her in the grass, its lid thrown back, contents winking in the light. She's disappointed to see it holds only small, stoppered bottles and none of them look to have blood or feathers or bones.

The widow sinks to her knees at the base of a tree, gloved fingers sliding through the roots, and—

"What are you doing?" María asks.

The widow doesn't jump at the sound, doesn't even look up from her work.

When she speaks, her voice is smooth, and surprisingly low, and she speaks Castilian so well María doubts Felipe's guess that she is French.

"I'm gathering herbs."

"For a spell?" she asks, the words out before she thinks to stop them.

The widow looks up, then, revealing eyes that are a startling shade of blue, the edges crinkled in amusement. "For a tonic."

María frowns. "Is a tonic the same thing as a spell?"

"Only to a fool," says the widow. "Are you a fool, little girl?"

María shakes her head, but cannot help herself. "So you are not a witch?"

The widow straightens, and for a moment, the full force of her attention lands on María again, solid as a stone, before it slides past her, toward the town. "So much superstition, from a place that believes a roasted hen really sprang up off a dinner plate and began to sing."

She is speaking of the tale that made Santo Domingo famous.

"That," declares María, "was a miracle."

The widow seems to consider. "And how is a miracle different from a spell? Who is to say the saint was not a witch?" She says it blithely, as if the words have no weight. And María finds herself grinning at the sheer scale of the blasphemy. The way it would make Rafa scowl, and her mother cross herself.

"So you are a witch, then?" she asks brightly.

The widow laughs. It is not a witch's laugh, which María has always imagined would sound like the splitting of wood, or the guffaw of crows. No, the widow's laugh is soft, and heady, thick as sleep.

"No," she says, the humor clinging to her voice. "And this is not magic. It's medicine." She holds out a small red weed, pinching it between gloved fingers as if it were a rose. "Nature gives us what we need," she says, and for the first time, María thinks she catches it, the faintest trace of somewhere else, the edges of another accent, one she cannot place. "There are teas and tonics for many things," continues the widow. "To shed a fever, or ease a cough. To help a woman get with child, or get rid of it. To make a man sleep…"

María's gaze drops to the ground between them. She spots another crimson stem, is already reaching down to pull it out when the widow catches her hand.

Excerpted from Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by Victoria E. Schwab. Copyright © 2025 by Victoria E. Schwab. Excerpted by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.