Mara stepped out of her crooked cabin with a lantern in her hand. The cabin sat in the dark between things, where no light reached except the small flame she carried. The flame did not belong to her. It belonged to the souls she had already helped out of this place. They left their lanterns behind like coats by a door, and she gathered them up and used the light to find the next lost one. She had been a face and a pair of warm hands once. Now she was only an outline. She had run out of options before she ran out of waiting, and so she stayed and tended the drifting ones who still believed they could leave. Tonight something else was out among the trees with her. She felt it the way you feel a held breath behind your shoulder. The trees here were not trees. They were tall black shapes with twisted arms, and they leaned closer when she walked beneath them. She lifted the lantern higher. The flame pushed the shapes back a step. Somewhere ahead, a soul was wandering. She could hear the soft drag of footsteps that did not know where they were going. She had to reach the wanderer first. If the new thing got there first, the soul would simply stop being. That was how this place won. A noise came from her left. Not a footstep. A wet, peeling sound, like bark coming off a trunk. Mara turned toward it without hurrying. Hurrying taught the dark that you were afraid. She raised the lantern until her arm was straight above her head. Something pale streaked past her knees and was gone. Then she saw it properly between two of the leaning trees. It was a beast made of black smoke, with branches growing out of its back and a mouth that opened too wide. Its edges came apart as it moved, like ink dropped in water. It was looking past her, toward the dragging footsteps. Mara stepped into its path. "Over here," she said. Her voice did not echo. Nothing echoed here. The beast turned its wide mouth toward the lantern and crouched. She held the light between them and kept her feet planted. She thought of the people whose flames she was carrying. She thought of the one still wandering behind her, who did not know yet that anyone was trying. The beast lunged. Mara swung the lantern hard across its face. The flame caught its smoke and the smoke came apart in long black ribbons. The beast made no sound as it unraveled. In a breath it was gone, and the trees stood still again. Mara lowered the lantern. The dragging footsteps were still out there, closer now. She turned toward them. Tomorrow another beast would come. Tonight she had one more soul to find before the dark did.