Emma Hartley pressed Mr. Whiskers to her chin and counted the cracks in the ceiling. Downstairs, her mother's voice broke on a word, and her father slammed something flat against the counter. Emma was seven. She had learned that if she wished hard enough, sometimes the shouting stopped for a night. Tonight she wished her parents would love each other again. Tonight the shouting only got louder. She slid off the little grey bed with the mouse cutouts on the headboard. The floor was cold through her worn sleeper onesie. She held Mr. Whiskers with both hands the way she always did when her chest went tight. Through the lace curtains, the houses across the way glowed yellow and calm, like other families were fine. Emma turned her back on the window. Under the bed was her only plan. She had never made it a real hiding spot before. She got on her knees and lifted the dust ruffle. Something was already there. A girl her size sat cross-legged under the bed. Ink-black, pigtails, a small black mouse in her hands. Two white eyes, wide and scared, blinked at Emma. Emma knew this shape. She had seen it stretched on her wall every night for as long as she could remember. It had never turned its head before. "Don't scream," the shadow said. Her voice was flat and quiet. "I've watched you a long time. I know about the shouting. I won't think about that now." Emma's hands squeezed Mr. Whiskers until her knuckles hurt. Downstairs a door banged. Her mother started to cry. "You want it to stop," the shadow said. "I know a place where wishes work. Come with me before you go thin." Behind the shadow, the floorboards were gone. A black circle had opened where the wood should be, its edge cracked like broken plaster. It swallowed the lamplight. Emma could see nothing inside it, not even the shape of a bottom. Downstairs, something glass hit a wall. Emma flinched. Mr. Whiskers slipped in her grip and she caught him by one ear. The shadow held out her small black hand. She did not smile. She did not promise. She only waited. "Can it fix them?" Emma whispered. "If you wish it there," the shadow said. "Not here. Here nothing works." Emma crawled forward. The dust ruffle brushed her back. She did not take the shadow's hand, but she crawled past her, to the rim of the hole. Up close it smelled like cold basement. She looked down once at her sleeper, at the mouse in her fist, at the yellow line of light under her bedroom door. She tipped forward. The fall was not long. It was not short. Her room was gone above her. Mr. Whiskers pressed to her chin. The dark closed over her head like water, and then it opened again, and she was somewhere else.

Emma landed on her knees on cold ground. The hole above her was gone. She was in a place where the sky and the ground looked the same — flat black, with a gray mist between. The shadow girl who had led her here was already moving away, small and quick, pigtails swinging. Emma called after her without a sound coming out. The shadow slipped between two black trees and did not look back. Emma stood up. Mr. Whiskers was still in her fist. Her sleeper was damp at the knees. In front of her, tall trees stood in a tight clump, branches like cracks in a window. A path ran past them, black and wet-looking, its edges smoking into the air. She did not step onto it. She turned in a slow circle and tried to find the shape of the shadow girl again. There was only mist and trees and, farther off, rows of small stones tilted in a field of black flowers. Something moved between the trees. It was not the shadow girl. It was taller. It walked on legs that were not legs, more like burnt branches. Smoke poured off its back. It had no face Emma could find, but it was turning toward her. It came slow. It came sure. Emma's chest went tight the way it did at home when a door slammed. She squeezed Mr. Whiskers with both hands and stepped back onto the smoking path without meaning to. Her bare foot did not sink. The path felt like cold paper. "Don't run, child." The voice came from her other side, low and calm. Emma spun. An old woman stood there — or the outline of one. She was all black, thin as a pencil sketch, with white hair that looked drawn on. She held up a lantern. Inside the lantern, a small warm flame burned steady. It was the only real light Emma had seen since she fell. "Behind me," the woman said. "Now." Emma moved. She did not think about it. She put the old woman between herself and the smoking thing. The lantern lifted. The flame stretched. The branch-legged shape flinched, then came on anyway, closer, close enough that Emma smelled wet ash. The woman took two steps forward and pressed the lantern against it. The thing came apart. It unraveled like yarn pulled too fast, smoke peeling into smoke, until there was nothing where it had stood. The woman lowered the lantern. She did not look proud. She looked tired. "What was that," Emma whispered. "A smoke beast. They find children who drift." The woman turned. Her face had no eyes Emma could see, but Emma felt looked at. "You came down the hole." Emma nodded. "Then you'll want to go back," the woman said. "I'm Mara. I can't take you home. But I won't leave you standing here." Emma took her hand. It was soft, and weighed nothing.

Mara led Emma off the smoking path and between the black trees. The lantern swung between them. Emma held Mr. Whiskers tight against her chest with one hand and Mara's hand with the other. Mara's fingers felt like nothing. Only the shape of a grip. "Stay close to the light," Mara said. "It's how we don't get found." Emma looked at the flame. It was smaller than before. It had been the size of a walnut when Mara burned the smoke beast. Now it was the size of a thumbnail. The glass around it had gone dim at the edges. "Is it supposed to be little like that," Emma whispered. Mara stopped walking. She lifted the lantern and looked at it flatly. "No," she said. "It's going out." Emma's stomach dropped. She heard something wet shift in the trees behind them. Then another sound, farther off, on the other side. More than one this time. "They can tell," Mara said. "They wait for the dark." "Can you fix it," Emma said. "Not here." Mara pulled her forward. They moved faster. The mist thickened around Emma's knees. The flame guttered once and Mara made a small sound, not quite a word. Smoke began to gather at the edge of the lantern's light, low to the ground, feeling forward like fingers. Something slid out from under a root ahead of them and stopped in the path. Emma froze. It was a cat. A black cat, edges smoking soft into the air, tail curling like a question. Its eyes were pale and steady. It was the only thing in this place that had looked at her without hunger. The cat turned and walked three steps off the path, then looked back. "It wants us to follow," Emma said. "I know what it is," Mara said. She did not sound afraid of it. She sounded surprised. "It only comes for the lost. Go." Emma went. She pulled Mara with her. The cat kept ahead, weaving between roots, its misted tail bright against the black. Behind them, the branch-legged shapes broke from the trees. Emma heard the wet ash smell before she heard the steps. The cat led them onto a new path. This one was blacker than the last, with wisps trailing off its edges like ink in water. The moment Emma's bare foot touched it, the smoke behind them thinned. The beasts slowed at the path's edge and would not step on. Mara let out a breath. "They can't cross this." The lantern flame shrank to a pinprick and went out. Emma waited for the dark to swallow them. It didn't. The path itself glowed faintly under her feet, gray-white through the black. Mara stared down at the dead lantern in her hand. She did not lift it again. "That was mine for forty years," she said. Then, flatly: "We follow the cat now."

The cat led them off the glowing path and into a low field of mist. Small white flowers floated in the mist like stars caught in water. Emma held Mr. Whiskers against her chin. Mara walked a step behind, the dead lantern still in her hand, useless now. "Where's it taking us," Emma whispered. "Somewhere that will let us in," Mara said. "Or won't." The mist thinned. A dark shape rose ahead of them, tall and full of windows. A house made of shadow, wound with pale climbing blooms. The cat sat down at the edge of the garden and waited. Emma stepped onto the soft ground. Trees stood between her and the house, their branches heavy with tiny white flowers that shivered when nothing moved them. In the middle of the garden, near a bent tree, a woman stood with her back to them. She was a black silhouette under a grey veil. She held a small candle. Its flame was tall and perfectly still. Emma stopped. "Is that lady safe." "Quiet," Mara said. She had gone very still herself. The woman turned. She did not seem surprised. She looked past Emma, at something behind her, and lifted the candle a little. Emma turned to see. On the path she had just walked, something crouched low in the mist. It was shaped like a person, but wrong at the shoulders. Its head lifted. Two pale eyes opened where a face should be. It had followed them off the glowing path. It had waited for them to leave it. Emma's knees locked. Mr. Whiskers pressed into her collarbone. She could not remember how her feet worked. The woman with the candle walked past her. Her feet did not seem to touch the ground. She stopped between Emma and the crouching thing and stood there, candle held out, flame straight up as a nail. "Just look at me," the woman said. Her voice was almost nothing. "And don’t run" Emma did not run. She could not. The shadow thing in the mist rocked forward on its hands. It came one step closer. The candle flame did not move. The woman did not move. The thing lowered its head, sniffed at the edge of the garden, and could not seem to cross it. It made a small sound like wet cloth. Then it slid backward into the mist and was gone. The candle flame dropped. It flickered normal again. The woman lowered her arm. "Inside," she said, not looking back. "Both of you. Now." Emma looked up at Mara. Mara nodded once. Emma walked past the tall still woman, into the garden, toward the door of the shadow house. Mr. Whiskers was crushed against her chest. Behind her, the cat stood up and walked away between the trees, its work done.