Orin Wanderwood knew three things about home, and he was losing them fast. There was a tree with pink flowers by the front step. There was a woman who sang while she cut apples. There was a younger sister whose name started with an L, or maybe an E. He crouched at the edge of the Fen with his knees in wet moss and tried to hold those three facts still, because the Fen ate memories the way it ate footprints. He had been walking since the mist came up. He did not know for how long. The Fen shifted while you weren't looking. A path you took an hour ago became a black pool. A stand of reeds turned into a bank of stones. He needed a direction. He had no direction. He only had the tree, the woman, the sister, and the certainty that his family was somewhere past the Fen, waiting, or looking, or forgetting him back. A small ghost girl stood in the reeds ten paces off. She wore a pale dress and no shoes. She watched him the way a deer watches a road. Orin held very still. The dead could see him, he had learned that already. He said, quietly, "I can't remember which way my house is." The ghost girl did not answer. Her mouth moved, but no sound came. She had been dead too long. She lifted one hand and pointed, not at a direction, but at his chest. Then she pointed at the air above his shoulder. Orin turned his head. A pink butterfly sat on his collar. He had not felt it land. Its wings opened and closed, slow, patient, like it had been waiting for him to notice. The butterfly lifted off and drifted three feet and stopped in the air. Orin stared. He knew this butterfly. He knew it the way you know a smell from a room you grew up in. His mother kept a jar of them once, or drew them on the kitchen wall, or one had landed on his sister's finger while she laughed. The memory was thin, but it was there, and it was pulling. He stood up. His knees cracked. Somewhere far off in the mist, something tall moved between trunks, a shape with long ears and a human back, and Orin felt it turn its head toward the sound of his joints. He did not look. He did not want to be seen looking. The ghost girl was already gone. The butterfly floated forward, one slow beat at a time, waiting for him to follow. Orin followed. He fixed the three things in his mouth like stones under his tongue. Pink tree. Singing woman. Sister with an L. He walked after the butterfly into the shifting reeds, and for the first time since the mist came up, he was moving in a direction that meant something.

The butterfly led Orin between two black pools and up a low rise. He kept the three things under his tongue. Pink tree. Singing woman. Sister with an L. But the words were going soft at the edges. He tried to picture the pink tree and got only a color. He tried to hear the woman singing and got only the shape of a mouth. He walked faster. The butterfly did not. At the top of the rise, the mist thinned, and Orin stopped. A small orchard stood in the Fen where no orchard should stand. He counted the trees. An apple tree heavy with red fruit. A lemon tree hung with yellow. A plum tree, purple and white. A peach tree with pink blossoms. An orange tree crowded with round fruit. They grew in a rough circle on dry ground, and none of them belonged to the Fen. Orin stepped into the circle. The butterfly settled on a branch of the peach tree and folded its wings. It was waiting for him to see something. He turned in place. The peach blossoms were the wrong pink. Too pale. He moved to the plum tree. Its blossoms were closer, but the fruit was wrong. He passed the apple, the lemon, the orange. He came back to the plum tree and put his hand on the bark. The memory opened like a door. His mother stood under this tree, or one like it, with a knife and a bowl. She was cutting fruit and singing. His sister sat in the grass by her feet. His sister's name was Lily. Not L, not E. Lily. The word came whole into his mouth and stayed there. The ghost girl from the reeds stood between the apple and the lemon. She had followed him, or she had been here already. She watched him with her hands at her sides. Orin said, "It's a plum tree. The tree at my house. It's a plum tree." The ghost girl nodded once. Her mouth moved. He could not hear her, but he thought she was saying the word with him. He broke a small twig from the plum tree. The blossoms were still on it. He held the twig in his fist, tight enough to feel the bark bite his palm. Pink tree became plum tree. Singing woman became mother with a knife. Sister with an L became Lily. The three soft things went hard in his hand. The Fen could take the mist and the path and the hours, but it could not take what he was holding. The butterfly lifted off the peach branch and drifted past him, back down the rise, into the mist. Orin followed. Somewhere behind him, farther off than before, something with long ears moved through the reeds. He did not look. He held the plum twig against his chest and walked.

Orin came down off the rise with the plum twig against his chest and the butterfly a slow pink drift ahead of him. The mist closed again below the orchard. He watched the butterfly's wingbeats. They were slower than before. It rested on a dead reed, opened its wings once, and almost did not open them again. Orin understood then that it was tiring. When it stopped, whatever thread it was drawing home would stop with it. He did not know which way home was. He had turned too many times in the Fen. The butterfly knew, or something in it knew, but the butterfly was dying in his sight. He tried to walk faster to keep it moving, as if his steps could push it forward. It only sank lower. It landed on his knuckle and stayed there. A voice came from his left. "It won't last." The ghost girl from the orchard stood in the reeds. She was small and pale and barefoot. She looked at the butterfly on his hand. "I've seen them go out. They go out fast at the end." Orin held the twig tighter. "Then tell me the way." She shook her head. She did not know. But she said there was a boy who might, and she called for him without raising her voice. A second ghost came through the reeds, gray-sweatered, hands in his pockets. He looked at the butterfly and then at the plum blossoms in Orin's fist. "Break a blossom," he said. "Feed it the smell. They follow what they remember." Orin pinched one blossom off the twig and crushed it against his thumb. He held it under the butterfly's feelers. The butterfly's wings twitched. It lifted, dropped, lifted again, and began to move. Not fast. But it moved with purpose now, in one direction, low over the black water. The ghost boy walked beside Orin for a while and then stopped. "That's as far as I go," he said. "Keep feeding it." Orin walked. He broke blossoms one at a time. Each blossom bought him a stretch of ground. The butterfly held its line. The reeds thinned. The mud went firm. He heard, faint and behind him, the long-eared thing moving through the reeds, and then a woman's voice further off, and then boots. A girl stepped out of the mist ahead of him with a knife at her belt and a hood pulled low. She was not a ghost. She was breathing hard. She looked at the butterfly, and at the twig, and at his face. "You're the boy from the notices," she said. "I'm Marrow. I've been looking for someone who came out of the Fen alive." Behind Orin, the butterfly settled onto the last blossom on the twig and folded its wings for good. The trail was gone. But he was standing on hard ground, and someone living was standing with him.

The butterfly folded its wings on the last blossom and did not open them again. Orin stood on hard ground with the dead twig in his hand. The girl in front of him had not moved. Her knife was still at her belt, but her fingers were near the grip. She was studying his face the way people study a page they mean to tear out. "Wanted for what," Orin said. His voice cracked. He had not used it in a long time. Marrow drew the knife. She did it slow, so he could see it happen. "Killed a woman in a shed near the north pass. That's what the notice says. Your face, your name. Orin Wanderwood." She stepped closer. "I've pulled two bodies out of these reeds this week. I'm not adding my own." He held up the twig. It was a stupid thing to hold up. The blossoms were bruised and brown. "I was a child when I went in," he said. "I don't know how long ago. I only got my name back an hour ago. I got it off a tree." He heard how it sounded. He kept going anyway. "I have a mother. I have a sister named Lily. That's all I know. If I killed someone, I don't remember it, and I don't believe it." Marrow's mouth tightened. The knife did not lower. Behind Orin, something moved in the reeds — the long-eared shape, standing at the edge of the mist, watching. Marrow saw it over his shoulder. Her eyes changed. Then a small voice came from the reeds beside them, flat and clear. "He's telling the truth." The ghost boy in the gray sweater stood there with his hands in his pockets. Beside him was the little girl in the white dress, barefoot, luminous. "He was in the Fen the whole time," the boy said. "Years. He couldn't have done it." The girl nodded once. "We watched him forget everything. He only just got it back." Marrow stared at the empty air where Orin was staring. She could not see them. She heard something, though — enough to make her jaw set. "Who are you talking to." Orin said, "Two dead kids. They're vouching for me." It was the worst answer he could give. He gave it because it was true. The long-eared thing took one step nearer in the reeds. Marrow's knife hand twitched toward it, then back to him. She lowered the blade. Not all the way. Halfway. "We're not staying here," she said. "That thing behind you is close. You walk in front. Hands where I can see them. If the notice is right, I'll know by morning." She jerked her chin at the mist behind her, away from the Fen. "There's a road that way. My camp's on it." Orin nodded. He put the dead twig inside his shirt, against his skin, and started walking.

Orin walked in front with his hands where Marrow could see them. The plum twig pressed against his chest under his shirt. Behind them, the reeds hissed. Not wind. Something moving through them at a steady pace, matching their speed. Marrow glanced back once and did not glance again. "It's out of the Fen," she said. "It's on the road now. Walk faster." The road was two ruts in packed dirt. Ahead, a lantern burned low on a stump. That was her camp — a canvas lean-to, a fire pit, a pack. A man sat by the pit with a small brass box on his knee. Black coat, black hair, a white rabbit at his feet, ears up. He looked at Orin, then past him, at the thing following. "It's close," he said. "The box is losing sound at ten paces behind you." "Mr. Echo," Marrow said. "I told you to wait at the pass." He did not answer. He turned a dial on the brass box. The needle jumped and held. "It eats sound," he said. "Same as her. Different mouth." Orin stopped at the fire. The hare-eared shape stepped onto the road behind them. Tall. Thin. The ears were the only part of it that moved. Marrow drew her knife. Mr. Echo stood up slow. "A knife won't reach it," he said. "It goes quiet before the blade lands." He looked at Orin. "You brought something out with you. From in there." Orin pulled the plum twig from his shirt. Three bruised blossoms still clung to it. He did not know why he offered it. He held it out. Mr. Echo took it, looked at it once, and crushed the blossoms in his fist. The scent came up sharp and sweet. The rabbit at his feet bolted straight at the hare-eared thing. The thing turned its head to track the rabbit. In that half-second, Mr. Echo threw the brass box into the fire pit. It burst open. Every sound the box had swallowed for a year came out at once — screams, church bells, a dog barking, a woman singing. The road roared. The hare-eared thing folded in on itself like paper in water. It did not run. It came apart. The ears fell last, twitching in the dirt, then gone. The rabbit trotted back and sat by the ashes of the box. Marrow lowered her knife. Her hand shook once, then stopped. Mr. Echo looked at the empty road. "That was the last one I had," he said. "Three years of listening." Orin sat down hard in the dirt. The twig lay broken in Mr. Echo's palm. Marrow crouched in front of Orin. "You're not the man on the notice," she said. "That thing wanted you specific. Nobody hunts a killer that hard." She stood. "In the morning we go to Copsefire. There's a woman there looking for her brother. You and her should talk."

They walked into Copsefire at midmorning. Marrow led. Mr. Echo followed with the white rabbit at his heel. Orin kept his hands loose at his sides. The town was one street of low houses and a well at the center. A woman was drawing water there. Dark curly hair. Red sleeves. She looked up when Marrow raised a hand, then looked past Marrow at Orin, and her mouth went flat. "That's her," Marrow said. "Kate. She lost her brother three years ago. February." Marrow stopped ten paces from the well. "Go slow. She's talked to too many people who wanted something." Orin walked the last of the distance alone. The plum twig was gone. He had nothing in his hands to offer. He stopped at the well's low wall. Kate set her bucket down. Up close her eyes were tired in a fixed way. "You came from the Fen," she said. Not a question. "Marrow's notice said a boy walked out. That's you." "Yes," Orin said. He had a list of questions in his head and he threw it out. One wrong word and she would close. He said the smallest true thing. "I had a sister. Her name was Lily. I lost her a long time ago." He waited. Kate's hand tightened on the bucket rope, then let go. She did not answer. He said, "I don't know if she's yours to look for. I only know mine." Kate sat down on the well wall. She looked at the dirt between her shoes. "My brother's name is Will," she said. "Not Lily. Lily was a girl he was trying to find up there. He told me." She lifted her head. "He said she lost her body in the trees." She watched Orin's face while she said it. Orin felt the ground tilt one degree and steady. He kept his face still. "Then he knew her," Orin said. "My sister." "He was looking for her," Kate said. "He may have found her. I don't know where either of them is now." Marrow came up behind Orin. Mr. Echo stayed back by the road, head turned slightly, listening to something no one else could hear. He said, quiet, "There's a shape at the tree line. Long ears. It's not moving." The rabbit at his feet sat very still. Kate looked past Orin at the trees and her face did not change. "She sends them down sometimes," Kate said. "The one at the hilltop. The pale one. She doesn't like people asking after Will." Orin turned back to Kate. "I want to help you find him," he said. "He was with my sister." Kate stood up. She picked up the bucket. "Then you come inside," she said. "We're not talking about them out here." She walked toward the nearest door and did not look to see if he followed. Orin followed.

Kate's door closed behind them. The room was small. A table, two chairs, a stove gone cold. Orin took the chair by the wall so his back wasn't to the window. Marrow stayed by the door. Mr. Echo did not come in. Through the thin glass Orin could see him at the road, the white rabbit at his boot, both watching the tree line where the long-eared shape had stood. Kate set the bucket on the floor. "Someone saw you at the well," she said. "By tonight the whole street will know a boy walked out of the Fen. Marrow's notice has your face on it." "I know," Orin said. He had felt it the moment the woman across the road stepped out onto her step and did not step back in. He had felt it in the two men who stopped talking by the cart. "I need to find Lily. I can't do that from a cell." Marrow spoke from the door. "Notice says you killed a woman at the north pass. Reward's forty silver. Half this town would take it." She looked at Kate. "He didn't do it. I'm sure now. But sure doesn't matter to a rope." Kate stood at the window a long moment. Then she walked to a shelf above the stove and lifted down a small painted panel. A dark swallow flying under a thin moon. She turned it over. Underneath, tucked into the frame, was a folded paper. She unfolded it on the table. It was the wanted notice. Orin's face, badly drawn, the words KILLER and REWARD in heavy ink. "My brother left this here before he went up," she said. "He said the woman at the pass was killed by the pale one on the hill. Not by a boy. He wrote it on the back." She turned the paper. There were three lines in a cramped hand. A name. A date. And the words: the pale woman did this. "Will saw it happen." Orin read the lines twice. His hands were flat on the table to keep them still. "Then take it to whoever holds the warrant here," he said. "Before someone at the well decides to be brave." Kate folded the paper. "The constable drinks with my father. He'll listen once. That's all we get." She looked at Marrow. "You come. You're the bounty on the notice. If you say he's cleared, it holds." Marrow nodded once. They went out the back way. Kate walked ahead with the paper in her fist. Marrow walked at Orin's shoulder. The street behind them was already filling with voices. By the time the constable set his cup down and read Will's three lines and struck Orin's name from the book, the sun was past noon and the shape at the tree line was gone. Orin was free to walk in Copsefire. He was not free to leave it. Kate said, "Now we find where they went."

The constable's ink was barely dry on the struck line when Orin followed Kate back to her door. Marrow stayed a pace behind, watching the street. Mr. Echo waited at the step with the white rabbit at his boot. He did not look at them. He was looking past the last houses toward the trees where the Fen began. "They ran," Kate said, unlocking the door. "Lily found her body. They ran for the pass. I don't know which way they turned after." Inside, Kate spread a rough map on the table. Three trails left the Fen's edge. She could not point to one. "The pale woman uses my brother's voice now," she said. "If she calls them, they'll answer the wrong way." Marrow set her knife on the table. "We pick a road and we're wrong two times out of three. Wrong once and they're dead." Mr. Echo came in then. He carried a small tin cone wired to a copper coil. He set it on the table beside the map. "I don't hear sound," he said. "I hear where sound stops. The pale woman is a hole. Wherever she walks, sound goes missing. I can follow the hole." He held the cone over the map and turned a small screw. The coil ticked. He moved the cone north, along the pass road. The ticking slowed. He moved it east, along the low trail through the alders. The ticking stopped. He held it there. "Here," he said. "Sound is thin on this line. Something is eating it as it walks." Kate leaned close. "That trail runs past the old shed. The tin roof." She looked at Orin. "Rain covered us there once. If Lily heard my brother's voice on the road, she'd go toward it. That's where the voice would lead her." Marrow was already pulling her pack from the wall. "Then we go now. On foot we lose. We need the cart." Orin took the painted panel down from the shelf without asking. The dark swallow under the thin moon. He put it in his coat. "For her," he said. "If she's forgetting, I'll show her something her brother kept." Kate did not stop him. She took the map and folded it small. Mr. Echo wrapped the cone in cloth. The rabbit went to the door and waited. They took the east trail before the sun dropped. Mr. Echo walked ahead with the cone in his hand, listening for the shape of what was missing. The ticking grew slower with every mile. Orin kept his hand on the panel in his coat. He did not know if they would reach the shed before the pale woman did. He knew, for the first time since Copsefire, which way to run.

The cart rattled onto the east trail an hour after dark. Mr. Echo held the cone up beside the driver's bench. The ticking had thinned to almost nothing. Kate held the reins. Marrow sat behind with her knife across her knees. Orin kept one hand flat on the painted panel inside his coat. He kept turning the same worry over. Lily had not seen his face in years. To her, he was a stranger climbing down from a cart. If he showed her the swallow too fast, she would run, and the pale woman's voice would catch her on the road. They saw the tin roof through the alders. Kate stopped the cart short and they walked in on foot. Lily stood at the shed wall with her back to the boards. She was small and barefoot in a white dress, hair pale as smoke. She saw Marrow first and pressed harder against the wood. She saw Orin and her face went blank the way a candle goes out. Orin stopped where he was. He knelt in the dirt. He did not say her name. He took the panel from his coat and set it on the ground between them, dark swallow up, thin moon showing. Then he stepped back three paces and sat. "Your brother kept this," he said. "I brought it because he can't." Kate stayed behind him. Marrow lowered her knife into the grass. Lily looked at the panel a long time. She did not move toward it. She moved toward the trees instead, one slow step, then another, listening for something none of them could hear. Orin's throat closed. He had brought the right thing and shown it the right way and she was going anyway. The white rabbit ran past his knee. It stopped between Lily and the trees and sat up on its back legs. Lily looked down at it. Her mouth opened. The rabbit's ears twitched twice. Whatever passed between them passed in the silence the dead share with animals. Lily turned back. She walked to the panel and picked it up in both hands. She looked at Orin over the top of it. "Ollie's," she said. Her voice was thin but it was hers. "You have his face a little." Orin nodded. He could not speak yet. Behind them, past the alders, a tall shape stepped onto the trail, long ears against the sky, and stopped. It did not come closer. It watched. Mr. Echo's cone went dead quiet in his hand. "She knows we're here," he said. Kate lifted Lily onto her hip. Marrow picked up the panel. They ran for the shed door as the silence began to walk toward them across the field.

They ran across the field with the shed roof shining ahead. Kate had Lily on her hip. Marrow held the panel under one arm and her knife in the other hand. Orin looked back once. The pale woman walked. She did not hurry. Every step she took, the crickets went out around her like snuffed candles. The shed was still a hundred yards off. Lily's head bumped against Kate's shoulder. Kate was slowing. They were not going to make it. "Stop," Orin said. He grabbed Kate's sleeve. "Keep going. I'll slow her." Marrow turned back with him. "Two is better," she said. Kate did not argue. She ran on with Lily toward the tin roof. Mr. Echo stayed a moment, pressing his cone toward the field. The needle inside had gone flat. "She eats sound," he said. "So give her too much of it to swallow." He pulled a small tin from his coat and pressed it into Orin's hand. "Firecrackers. From the new year. All I have." Then he ran after Kate. Orin and Marrow stood in the wet grass. The pale woman was forty yards out. Her hair moved without wind. Her mouth opened, and Will Bush's voice came out of it, calling Lily's name soft and close, as if from behind Orin's ear. Lily's cry answered from Kate's arms. She twisted to look back. "Cover your ears," Marrow said. She struck a match on her belt. Orin held the tin open. She lit the whole bundle of firecrackers at once and threw it low across the grass at the pale woman's feet. The field cracked open with noise. It was not the small popping of a festival. It was one long tearing sound, dozens of shots at once, hammering the air. The pale woman stopped. Her head jerked sideways. The stolen voice broke off mid-word. She lifted both hands to her face and the field kept ringing. Orin felt the shots inside his chest. He grabbed Marrow's arm and they ran. Behind them the pale woman went to one knee in the grass, still covering her ears, the silence around her filling with sound she could not eat fast enough. They hit the shed door and Kate slammed it behind them. Rain started on the tin roof, soft at first, then heavy, drumming everything else out. Lily sat on the floor with the painted panel in her lap, breathing hard. Marrow bolted the door. Mr. Echo pressed his ear to the boards and listened. "She stopped," he said. "She's still out there. But she stopped." Orin knelt beside Lily. His hands were shaking. Outside, past the drumming rain, the field was quiet again in the wrong way. They had bought the shed. They had not bought the road home.

The rain kept up on the tin roof. Kate sat against the wall with her knife across her knees. Marrow watched the door. Mr. Echo folded his coat and set his cone aside. Orin knelt by Lily on the floor. The painted panel lay in her lap. Her fingers traced the dark bird on it, over and over. "Lily," Orin said. "When the rain stops, we run. But I need to know where we're running to." She did not look up. "Where did we live. Before the trees. Before the Fen." Her hand stopped on the panel. Her mouth closed. She shook her head once, small. "I don't remember," she said. It came out flat. He had heard her say her own name in that same voice. It was the voice she used when she did not want to be pulled any further. Orin sat back on his heels. He thought about pushing. He thought about the pale woman in the field, waiting for the rain to thin. Then a cold spot moved through the shed. A boy with white hair stood at Lily's shoulder. Ollie. His hands were in his pockets. "She does remember," Ollie said. "She won't say. Mom grabbed her arm at the trees. Told her to wait for morning. Lily pulled away. That's the last thing before the cold." Lily's shoulders went tight. She did not turn to look at him. "Ollie," she said. "Stop." "No," he said. "He needs it." Orin looked at his sister. "The house," he said. "Just the house. Not the trees." Lily pressed her thumb into the panel until the wood creaked. "Pinewood," she said. "Two floors. A chalet. The road came up from the south. There was an orange tree in a pot by the door. Mom brought it in every winter." Her voice stayed level. "That's all you get." She set the panel down and folded her hands in her lap and would not say another word. Orin looked at Marrow. Marrow was already thinking. "South road, pine chalet, orange in a pot," she said. "That's the old holdings past the south fork. Two days walking. I've been through there." Mr. Echo nodded slowly. "I can find it from that." Orin's chest felt loose for the first time in days. He had a direction. He had a place with a door. The rain thinned on the roof. Ollie was already looking at the wall, toward the field. "She's standing up," he said. Kate got to her feet. Marrow drew the bolt back a finger's width and listened. Orin picked up the painted panel and put it in Lily's hands and closed her fingers around it. They knew where home was now. They only had to live long enough to reach it.

The rain slackened to a thin patter. Orin crouched by the door beside Marrow and watched a slice of the field through the crack. The pale woman stood in the wet grass, tall and stiff, head cocked. If they ran now, she would hear the smallest step and take Lily first. Orin's hand tightened on the last two firecrackers in his pocket. Two would not be enough to cover the run to the trees. Mr. Echo knelt by his pack and pulled out a pair of red shoes. The heels were scuffed. The bows were bright. "My sister's," he said quietly. "She danced in these. Loud. On boards." He set them on the floor. "Sound clings to a thing that was used hard. Not much. Enough to walk on its own for a minute, if I ask." He looked at Orin. "They'll go the other way. She'll follow the sound." A cold spot slid across the room. The little ghost girl who had first pointed Orin toward the butterfly stood by the wall. Beside her, a boy Orin had never seen: dark hair, pale as milk, hands in his pockets. He looked at Kate and Kate went still. "Will," she said. Her voice cracked on it. Will Bush nodded once. He did not speak. Ollie stepped up beside him. Three dead children in the shed, and only Ollie could still make words. "He can walk out there," Ollie said. "He's not living anymore. She can't take what he is now. He'll carry the shoes. We'll go with him. She'll chase the noise and the shapes both." Kate shook her head. Her knife shook in her hand. "No. I just got him back." Will looked at her. He lifted one hand and touched his chest, then pointed at Lily. He mouthed something. Kate closed her eyes. When she opened them she was crying, but she nodded. "Go," she said. "Go and come back." Mr. Echo whispered over the shoes and they twitched, then stood on their heels. Will picked them up. The little ghost girl took one of his hands. Ollie took the other. Orin eased the bolt back. Will stepped out into the field. He set the shoes down ten paces from the shed and let them go. The heels struck the mud in a fast, bright rhythm, tapping east through the grass. The pale woman's head snapped toward the sound. She took one step, then another, then broke into her long stride after the shoes and the three small shapes leading her away. Orin threw the door open. "Now." Marrow had Lily by the wrist. Kate ran last, watching the field until the last second. They crossed the wet grass and hit the tree line and did not stop until the shed was gone behind them. The way south lay open. Behind them, somewhere in the dark field, the tapping had stopped.

They ran south through the trees until Lily stumbled and Kate caught her. Orin stopped and listened. No tapping. No stride. Just their own breathing and the last of the rain in the leaves. He put his hand in his pocket and closed it around the two firecrackers. Two small paper tubes. Damp. He pulled them out. The fuses were dark and soft. He rolled one between his fingers and it came apart. Wet powder stuck to his skin. He looked at Mr. Echo. "These are done." Mr. Echo took the ruined tubes and dropped them in the mud. "The box is empty too. I used the last of it on the hare thing." He said it flat, like naming a fact on a page. "If she comes back, I have nothing loud to give her." Marrow crouched and pulled Lily against her side. "Then we don't let her come back on us," she said. "We move. We stay quiet. We get to the chalet before she finishes with the shoes." She looked at Orin. "You lead. You're the only one who remembers the way." Orin started south. The ground climbed. He kept his steps on moss where he could. Kate walked behind him with Lily's hand in hers. Behind Kate, Mr. Echo. Behind him, Marrow with her knife out. They went that way for a long time without speaking. Then Orin heard something come up beside him on his left and he stopped hard. A dog stood in the ferns. A collie, long coat matted with mud, one ear torn. It looked at Orin and did not bark. Marrow made a small sound in her throat. She went past Orin and dropped to her knees in the wet leaves and put her hands in the dog's ruff. "You came out," she said. Her voice broke on it. The dog leaned into her and licked her jaw once. Then it turned its head south and its ears went up. "He hears something we can't," Mr. Echo said. He watched the collie's ears. "He's been in there. He knows what she sounds like when she moves." He looked at Marrow. "He can walk point. If he stops, we stop. If he runs, we run." Marrow wiped her face on her sleeve and stood. She did not answer. She put her hand on the dog's back and nodded once at Orin. They went on with the collie ahead of them. It moved low and sure, nose to the wind, ears turning. Orin still had nothing loud in his pockets. He knew that. But the woods felt different now. Someone else was listening for them. When the collie's tail dropped and it froze in the path, all four of them froze with it, and Orin heard, far behind them in the dark, the first light tap of a heel on wet ground.

The tap came again, closer. Orin turned and saw Lily on her knees in the wet leaves. Kate was pulling at her arm, but Lily's head hung down and her breath came in small ragged pulls. The collie looked back at them with its ears flat. Marrow's face went hard. "She can't run anymore," Kate said. "Orin. She's done." Orin knelt in front of his sister. Her hair stuck to her forehead. Her eyes did not lift. He tried to think of what their mother would do and could not remember enough. He said her name. She did not answer. Behind him the tap came a third time, slower, testing the ground. "Carry her," Marrow said. "I'll walk behind you. If she catches us I'll make her deal with me first." She had her knife out and her other hand on the dog's back. Mr. Echo shook his head. "You'll last one breath. She'll take your voice and use it on him." He looked at Orin. "How far to the door?" Orin looked up through the trees. He saw the shape of the ridge he remembered. Past it, the ground fell toward the south road. "Ten minutes if she walks. Twenty if I carry her." He did not have twenty. He crouched and put his back to Lily and pulled her arms over his shoulders. She was heavier than he expected. He stood with her and his knees shook and held. Then the small ghost girl was beside him in the ferns, pale as milk, her bare feet not pressing the leaves. She pointed off the path, west, where the ground rose under a low cherry tree still holding a few late blossoms. Orin did not understand at first. Then he did. The dead knew paths the Fen kept. She was giving him a shorter one. "Go with her," Mr. Echo said. "We'll draw the sound east. Marrow. The dog. Me." Marrow's mouth opened and closed. She nodded once. Orin carried Lily off the path after the ghost. The ground under the cherry tree was firmer than it looked. He heard Marrow snap a branch behind them, then another, loud on purpose, moving away east. The tapping turned and followed the noise. Kate came up beside him and took some of Lily's weight without speaking. They climbed the small rise. On the other side, through the trunks, Orin saw a roof. A pine wall. A dark shape by the door that might have been a tree. They reached the door before the tapping came back. Orin set Lily down against the step. Her eyes opened a little. Kate was crying without sound. Orin put his hand on the wood of the door he had not touched in years and pushed it open. The others were still out there. But his sister was home.

Orin pushed the door and it moved an inch, then stopped. He pushed harder. The wood shivered but held. He looked down and saw the bolt seated in the frame. The door was locked from the inside. He had no key. He had never had a key. He was six years old the last time he stood on this step. Behind him, Lily slumped against the stone. Kate's face was wet and her hands were shaking on Lily's shoulders. Far off in the trees, a branch snapped. Then another. The tapping had turned back. Orin put his shoulder to the door and drove his weight against it. Pain jumped up his arm. The door did not give. Kate whispered, "The window. There has to be a window." She moved along the wall, dragging her palm over the pine, feeling for a shutter. Orin looked at his sister on the step. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was open a little. He could not carry her over broken glass. He could not leave her here either. Then the ghost girl was beside the door again. She pointed low, at the base of the frame. A black cat sat there in the dirt where she pointed. Orin had not seen it come. The cat looked up at him with clear green eyes and stepped sideways, showing him a gap under the step where a stone had sunk. Something pale gleamed in the hollow. Orin knelt and put his fingers in the cold dirt. He pulled out an iron key on a rotted string. His mother's, he thought. She used to hide it there for his father. He remembered that now, small and sharp, like a splinter working out. The cat watched him. The ghost girl watched the trees. The tapping was close now, moving between the pines at the edge of the clearing. Orin saw a shape between two trunks. Long ears. A body too tall and too thin, standing where a body should not stand. It did not step out yet. It was listening for them. Orin put the key in the lock. His hand shook and the key scraped. Kate came back and closed her hand over his and steadied it. The bolt turned. The door swung in on a dark room that smelled of dust and old smoke. Kate lifted Lily under the arms. Orin took her feet. They carried her across the threshold and Orin kicked the door shut behind them and threw the bolt. He stood in the dark of his own house and heard his own breath. Lily lay on the floorboards where they had set her. She was not moving. Kate bent over her and put an ear to her mouth. Kate's face went white. "Orin," she said. "She's not breathing."

Kate pressed her ear to Lily's mouth and shook her head. Orin dropped to his knees beside his sister. Her chest was still. Outside, a long finger tapped the door once, testing. Then it dragged along the wood, moving to the shutter. The house was old and the shutters were thin. Orin could hear the creature counting the seams. "Breathe for her," Orin said. Kate tipped Lily's chin back and put her mouth over Lily's mouth. Orin left them and ran through the dark rooms. He knew this house the way he knew his own hands, even after ten years. He found the back door and threw the second bolt. He found the kitchen window and dragged the heavy table against it. In the front room, the shutters were already closed but the latch was rusted through. He pulled a chair over and wedged it under the crossbar. The tapping moved to the parlor window. A pale face pressed against the shutter slats. Long ears cut the moonlight above the frame. He saw the shape of her through the gaps, tall and thin, her hand flat on the wood. He knew her from the field. He knew her from the trail. She was not going to leave. Orin turned. The black cat was on the mantel, watching the window. The ghost girl stood in the middle of the room with her hands at her sides. On the sill inside the shutter, a pink butterfly opened and closed its wings. It should not have been in the house. It had been in the house all along, waiting. "Help me," Orin said to the girl. She looked at Lily on the floor. Then she walked through the wall toward the front step. Outside, the tall creature stopped tapping. Orin heard a small sound like a child's foot on stone. The creature moved off the porch to follow it. The ghost girl was drawing her away. He ran back to Kate. Kate lifted her mouth from Lily's and pressed on Lily's chest with the heel of her hand. "Come on," she said. "Come on." Orin took Lily's cold hand. He thought of the plum tree. He thought of his mother singing. He said his sister's name out loud, the way he had said it in the orchard. "Lily. Lily, wake up." Lily's chest jumped under Kate's palm. She coughed. She pulled in a thin, wet breath, and then another. Orin sat back on the floor. Kate was crying without sound. Outside, far off now, the tapping had moved to the tree line, following a ghost through the dark. The house was shut. His sister was breathing. On the sill, the pink butterfly closed its wings and stayed. Orin looked at the bolted door and understood the creature would come back before morning.

The tapping had gone into the trees, but the house was still full of listening. Orin crouched at the shutter and watched the yard. The ghost girl had not come back. She had drawn the pale creature off, and every minute since had made him more certain she would not return. Without her, he would not know when the creature circled back until its hand was on the wood again. Kate sat on the floor with Lily's head in her lap. Lily's eyes were open but slow. "We can't stay," Orin said. Kate shook her head. "She can't walk." "Then I carry her." "To where?" He did not have an answer. The black cat jumped from the mantel and crossed the room. It stopped at a low door under the stairs he had not seen open in his life. The cat scratched the base once and looked back at him. Orin pulled the door. Inside, a set of stone steps went down into cold air. He remembered the smell before he remembered the steps. His mother had kept jars down there. He took a candle from the table and went down first. The cellar was small. At the far wall, the stone had been cut through. A rough opening led into a wider dark. The candle showed damp rock and a low ceiling. He knew what it was without being told. A shadow cavern ran under the house, older than the house. Something moved in the dark ahead. Orin lifted the candle. A woman stood in the passage. Her hair was pale and long. Her dress was gray. She was barefoot on the wet stone. She was not the creature from the yard. Her ears were round. Her eyes held the candle without flinching. "Come," she said. "Who are you." "Lady Moon." "The girl who led it away. Where is she." "Kept." He understood. The pale creature had her now. The ghost girl was not coming back because she could not. "Bring your sister," Lady Moon said. "The cave goes under the hill. It cannot follow here." "Why help us." "A trade. Later." He did not like the sound of it. He heard the tapping start again at the front of the house, closer now, working back along the wall. He climbed the steps two at a time. "Kate. Down. Now." Kate carried Lily's shoulders. Orin took her feet. They moved her through the low door and down the stone steps. The tapping reached the kitchen window as the cellar door swung shut behind them. Orin dropped the bar. Lady Moon was already walking into the cavern. The black cat followed. The pink butterfly came down the steps last and settled on Lily's hand. Orin lifted his sister and went after the gray woman into the dark. He had traded one watcher for another, and he did not know yet what she would ask.

The cavern narrowed and then opened. Lady Moon walked ahead without a lamp. Orin followed with Lily in his arms. Kate came behind with the candle. The tapping above them had stopped. That was worse than hearing it. Without the ghost girl at the shutter, he had no way to know where the creature was. Marrow and Mr. Echo were still somewhere out in the trees, drawing it east. If it circled back to the house and found the cellar open, they would never hear it coming. Lady Moon stopped where the passage widened into a low room. A small tent stood against the far wall. Its cloth was patched and bright, made for a child. A lantern glowed inside it. "Put her here," Lady Moon said. Orin laid Lily on the blanket. Her eyes tracked the light. The pink butterfly stayed on her wrist. "You said a trade," Orin said. "Later," Lady Moon said. "First, your friends." She pointed to the wall behind the tent. A wooden rack stood there, carved with runes he could not read. A bow rested across it. Six arrows sat in the slots below, their fletching in colors he had never seen on a bird. "One shot carries a warning," she said. "Loose it above ground and the sound reaches whoever hears your name." "Marrow," he said. "And the man with the box." Orin looked at Lily. Her breath was thin. Kate knelt beside her and pressed a hand to her forehead. "Go," Kate said. "I have her." He took the bow. It was lighter than it looked. He chose a red arrow because red felt loud. Lady Moon led him back up a side passage that climbed. It came out under a slab of rock behind the house. Cold air hit his face. He crawled out into the ferns. The yard was empty. The tapping was gone from the walls. He could hear it now, far off to the east, working through the pines. Marrow and Mr. Echo were still leading it. He set the arrow to the string and drew. The bow pulled easy. He aimed at the sky above the tree line and let go. The arrow rose without a sound, then broke open at its peak. A clear note spread across the trees, not loud, but exact. It was Marrow's name spoken in his own voice, and Mr. Echo's after it. The tapping in the pines stopped. Then it started again, moving away from them, deeper east, chasing the false call north. Orin lowered the bow. He had bought Marrow and Mr. Echo time. He had also told the creature where he was. He slid back into the ferns and dropped into the passage. Behind him, at the tree line, something began to tap toward the sound he had made.

Orin dropped into the passage and pulled the slab shut. The tapping at the tree line kept coming. Slow at first. Then faster. It had his direction now. He ran the tunnel back to the low room where the child's tent stood against the wall. Kate looked up from Lily's side. Her hand was on Lily's forehead. "It's coming," Orin said. "I have to send it somewhere else." Lady Moon stood by the rack. Five arrows left. Blue, green, white, black, and one the color of wet bone. "Name a target," she said. "The arrow carries the creature to whatever you name. It will not stop until it reaches the name." He thought of names. Every one was a person. Marrow, still in the pines. Mr. Echo with his brass box. The constable in town. A farmer he had passed on the road. Each name was a door he would open for the thing above them. He could not do it. "A place," he said. "Not a person." "A place can hold a name," Lady Moon said. "If the name is true." The tapping reached the slab. It struck once. Dust fell from the ceiling. Kate did not look up. She was counting Lily's breaths under her hand. Then a cold shape stepped out of the wall beside the tent. A boy in a gray hoodie, edges lit blue. Will. Kate's brother. He had been drawn down by the arrow's call, or by Kate's fear. Orin did not know which. "Send it north," Will said. His voice was flat and quiet. "The peak above the north pass. She goes there anyway. Name the peak." Kate's head came up. "Will." "I know the road," Will said. He did not look at her. He looked at Orin. "Say the peak. I'll walk ahead of it. I'll keep it moving until dawn." "It will take you," Kate said. "It already did," Will said. Orin took the bone-white arrow. He set it to the string. The slab above them cracked. He aimed at the tunnel mouth and drew. "The north peak," he said, and loosed. The arrow went through the stone without sound. A long note pulled after it, thin as wire. The tapping on the slab stopped. Then it started again, moving away, climbing. It went north and did not come back. Will was already at the passage wall. He looked once at Kate. "Two sugars," he said. Then he stepped into the rock and was gone. Kate sat very still. She did not cry. She put her hand back on Lily's forehead and counted. Lady Moon lifted a small vial from a shelf behind the rack. The liquid inside was deep purple and full of small lights. "Now the trade," she said. "The girl is dying. This will hold her. In return, you owe me a name of my choosing, spoken when I ask." Orin took the vial. "Yes," he said.

Orin uncorked the purple vial and tipped it to Lily's mouth. The liquid slid past her lips. Small lights moved down her throat like slow sparks. Kate kept her hand on Lily's forehead and counted under her breath. Lily's chest lifted. Then it lifted again, steadier. Her fingers twitched against the blanket. Her eyes opened halfway. She looked at Orin the way she used to look at him across a table, tired and unsurprised. "Cold," she said. "I know," Orin said. He pulled the blanket up to her chin. Kate sat back on her heels. "She's breathing. She's really breathing." "Good," Lady Moon said from the rack. She had not moved. "Now carry her out." Orin slid his arms under Lily. She weighed almost nothing. Her head rolled against his shoulder. He took two steps toward the passage and she made a small sound in her throat. Not a word. A wet click. He stopped. He looked down. A thin line of purple ran from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were closed again. Her breath was there, but shallow, and her skin under his hand felt loose, like cloth soaked and wrung out. "Put her down," Lady Moon said. He knelt and laid Lily on the blanket. Kate's hands went back to Lily's face at once. "What's wrong with her," Orin said. "The vial holds her," Lady Moon said. "It does not carry her. Move her now and it spills." "For how long." "Until the potion sets. A day. Maybe two." "We don't have a day. The creature will come back." "It went north," Lady Moon said. "It will stay north until dawn. After that I cannot say." Orin looked at the low room. The child's tent stood against the wall, its bright cloth strange in the stone. He looked at Kate. Kate's jaw was set. "We stay," Kate said. "We stay and she lives. We move her and she dies in your arms. That's the choice." Orin took a breath. He had carried Lily through a field, through a door, down a hole in the ground. He had spent years walking to reach her. Now the walking was the thing that would kill her. "We stay," he said. He lifted Lily again, only enough to shift her onto the tent floor where the cloth was softer than stone. He set her inside the little bright shape. Kate crawled in after her and took her hand. "Two nights," Orin said to Lady Moon. "Then we go." "Two nights," Lady Moon said. "And the name I asked for is still owed." "I know." She stepped back into the wall and was gone. Orin sat down at the tent's mouth. Above them, somewhere on the peak, the tapping climbed. Beside him, inside the bright cloth, his sister breathed. He watched the cave passage and did not sleep.

By dawn Orin's stomach had gone from ache to knot. Kate had not eaten since the shed. Lily's lips were dry. The purple potion held her breath, but Lady Moon had said a body still needed food to knit. Two days in the cave without water or bread would leave Lily too weak to walk when the potion set. Orin looked at the passage. He looked at Kate. "I'll go up," he said. "The house has a well. There was a garden." "The creature," Kate said. "North until dawn. It's dawn." He touched Lily's foot through the blanket. "An hour. No more." Kate nodded once. She stayed by the tent. Orin climbed the cellar stair and eased the trap up. The house smelled of old rain. He crossed to the door, unbarred it, and stepped into gray light. The yard was empty. The tapping was gone. He ran the path to the well and drew a bucket. The water came up clean. He set it aside and pushed through the tall grass toward the back of the house, where his mother had kept rows once. He remembered onions. He remembered a smell like torn leaves. The patch was still there. Someone had tended it. Neat rows of cabbage, chamomile, sage, carrots pushed up through dark soil. Small wooden markers stood at the head of each row. A ribbon of smoke rose beyond the hedge. He found the wagon parked at the edge of the field. Round-roofed, painted, Marrow's name burned into the board above the door. A hooded girl sat on the step cleaning a knife. An old woman stood beside her with a basket of green tops. "You're alive," Marrow said. She did not stand. "We came looking for the house. Found her instead." The old woman set the basket down. "Elara Rootwhisper," she said to Orin. "Marrow said her friend was thin. You're thinner." "My sister is below," Orin said. "She can't move for two days. We have no food." Elara looked at him a long moment. "Then I feed her," she said. She did not ask about below. She filled a cloth with carrots, a wedge of cabbage, a jar of broth from her wagon, a stoppered flask. "Broth first. Small sips. The cabbage cooked soft. The flask is for you and the woman with her. Chamomile. It will hold the hunger." Marrow handed him a loaf wrapped in paper. "Bread. Don't argue." Orin's throat closed. He took the bundle. "We camp here till you come up," Marrow said. "Dog's watching the road. Anything taps, we know." He carried the food and the bucket down the cellar stair. Kate saw the bundle and put her hand over her mouth. Lily stirred at the smell of broth. Orin knelt at the tent and tipped the first spoon to his sister's lips. She swallowed.

Orin fed Lily broth one careful spoon at a time. Her mouth took it. Her eyes did not open. Kate tore a piece of bread and chewed slow. The lantern hissed. Above them, the cellar boards creaked as Marrow moved somewhere in the yard. Footsteps came down the stair. Not Marrow's boots. Softer. Orin set the spoon down and reached for the knife on his belt. Elara Rootwhisper ducked under the low beam. Her basket was gone. She carried only a small clay cup and her satchel. "Marrow said below," she said. "I came below." Kate stood halfway. Orin did not answer. The old woman looked past him at the tent, at Lily's face inside it, and her mouth thinned. "She's cold in a way food won't fix," Elara said. She knelt at the tent flap without asking. She laid two fingers on Lily's wrist. She lifted an eyelid. She smelled Lily's breath. She drew back like the girl had bitten her. "What did you give her," Elara said. "A potion," Orin said. "To keep her breathing. From the woman who lives down here." "Purple. Cold as well water. Smells like iron." "Yes." Elara sat back on her heels. She looked at the dark passage behind the tent, then at Orin. "That is not a healing potion," she said. "That is a leash. Whatever pale thing gave it to you is tying your sister to her, thread by thread. Two more days and Lily will wake belonging to her. She won't come with you when you leave. She won't be able to." Kate sat down hard on the stone. "You're sure," Orin said. "I've seen it in a dog once. Same smell. The dog followed the woman who fed it and forgot the house it was born in." Elara did not soften her voice. "Your sister is being drunk slow." "Take it out of her," Orin said. "I can't pull the potion. It's already inside. I can weaken the thread. Not cut it." She opened her satchel and set the clay cup down. She poured from a small bottle. The liquid glowed pink and gold, fine as sugar water, with a slow shimmer in it. "Hummingbird nectar," Elara said. "It won't fight her magic. It will feed Lily's own body enough that the thread has less to pull on. Buys you hours, not days." She lifted Lily's head and tipped the cup. Lily swallowed. Color returned to her lips, thin as a rumor. Elara stood. "You have to get her out of this cave before the next dark. Away from the woman who made the potion. Far enough that the leash goes slack." "She said Lily can't be moved for two days," Kate said. "She said that," Elara answered, "because two days is what she needs." Orin looked at Lily. The color in her mouth was already fading again. "Tonight," he said. "We carry her out tonight."

Orin lifted Lily in the blanket. Her head fell against his shoulder. Kate took the lantern and went first up the cellar stair. The pink and gold color Elara had put in Lily's mouth was fading again. They had hours, not the two days Lady Moon had promised. They were three steps from the passage mouth when the air went cold. Lady Moon stood in the tent's shadow. Her bare feet did not touch the stone. Her hair moved in a wind Orin could not feel. "Put her down," Lady Moon said. "No," Orin said. "She is mine until the debt is paid." "You said a name. I owe you a name." "Speak it now, then. Or set her back in the tent." Kate's knuckles went white on the lantern. Lily's mouth was gray again. Orin could feel the thread. It ran from Lily's chest into the dark like a wet string. If he walked out the cellar door, the string would drag her back before dawn. He had spent years reading lies before they finished. Lady Moon had not lied to him once. She had told him plain: a name he must someday speak. She had not said whose. He looked at her face. The eyes were tired under the anger. Old tired. The kind that came from walking a long time without stopping. "Someone took your name," Orin said. Lady Moon did not answer. That was answer enough. "You want a name back. You want yours." "Speak," she said. He thought of the low window. The morning light. The woman singing over the plum blossoms. He thought of everything he had walked toward for years and did not have yet. He had one guess. He had heard it once in a whisper down here, when she thought he slept. He had marked it and said nothing. "Diana," Orin said. The cellar went white for a breath. The lantern flame stood straight up. Lady Moon's mouth opened. No sound came out at first. Then a small dry sob, like something long held. The thread at Lily's chest snapped. Orin felt it go. Lily drew a full breath against his neck, warm this time. Lady Moon's bare feet touched the stone. She looked at her own hand as if it belonged to her. "Take her," she said. "Go." "The creature," Kate said. "Above." "Gone north. I called it there. Consider that paid too." Orin did not move yet. "You could pull her back tomorrow." "I could not." Lady Moon's voice was flat and final. "The debt is closed." He carried Lily up the stair. Kate followed with the light. At the cellar door, Orin looked back once. Lady Moon was already walking into the passage, into her own dark, saying the name to herself like she was learning to hold it. Outside, Marrow stood in the wet grass with the dog at her leg. She saw Lily breathing and lowered her knife. "Where now," Marrow said. Orin did not know. But the string was cut, and Lily was his to carry.

Orin came out of the cellar with Lily in his arms and Kate close behind. The wet grass shone under a thin gray sky. Marrow waited with the dog. She said the creature had gone north and stayed there. For the first time in days, no one was chasing them. Orin set Lily down under a plum tree behind the house. The blossoms were pink-white, the fruit dark purple. He had held this tree in his head for years. He looked up at the house he had brought her to. A pine chalet. Steep roof. Dark boards. No low window with morning light. No orange tree by the door. He had told Lily this was theirs. He was no longer sure it was. Lily opened her eyes. "Where is this." "Home," Orin said. The word felt thin. "It doesn't look right," Lily said. "You were small." "So were you." He made himself say it. "The window was low. The light came in yellow. There was a tree by the door with orange fruit. This house has none of that." Marrow crouched beside him. "Then this isn't it." "It could be the wrong side. The garden—" "Orin." Marrow's voice was flat. "We're at the pine chalet on the south road. That's what Lily told you. That's where we came. If the window is wrong, the house is wrong." The ghost girl stepped out from behind the trunk. She had followed them from the cellar road, small and pale in her white dress. She looked at Lily a long time. Then she looked at Orin and shook her head once. "She isn't your sister," the ghost girl said. Orin's hand went still on the blanket. Lily sat up on her own. She stared at him with no recognition, only the tired patience of a stranger being polite. "My name is Lily Whitmore," she said. "My mother is Rose. She grabbed my arm at the trees. I pulled away." Orin's mouth was dry. "I have a sister named Lily." "I'm not her." Something broke open in his chest, quiet and clean. He had carried her out of the field. He had spoken a name into the dark for her. He had done it for the wrong girl, and she was still alive, and that had to be enough for now. Boots came up the path. An old woman in a brown jacket. Blisters showed above her sandals. She had been walking a long time. She stopped when she saw the child under the tree. "Lily," Rose said. One word, no cry in it. "Mama," Lily said. Rose knelt in the wet grass and put her hands on her daughter's face. She did not weep. She said, "You went into the trees. I told you not to." "I know." Orin stood up and stepped back. The plum tree was his. The house was not. The sister was not. He still did not know where his low window was. But he knew, now, that it was somewhere else.

Rose took Lily down the path toward the village. Orin watched them go. His plum twig was gone, but the tree stood behind him, real. He had one true thing. He did not have a home yet. Marrow said they should walk into Copsefire and ask after a low window and an orange tree. Someone there had to remember. They went at midmorning. The road was muddy. Kate stayed at the pine chalet to rest. Marrow walked on Orin's left with the dog at her heel. The ghost girl trailed behind, quiet. Copsefire was awake. Two women at the well stopped talking when Orin passed. A man with a bucket set it down and stared. Orin's face had been on the notice for three years. The notice was struck, but the face was not forgotten. "Keep moving," Marrow said. An old woman on a stoop called out. "Wanderwood boy. That's the Wanderwood boy come back." Orin stopped. "You know my name." "I know the name." She squinted. "Your mother had a low window. Sunrise side. Orange tree by the step. Burned down the year they took you. South of the mill." Orin's breath caught. "Who took me." The woman opened her mouth. Then she looked past his shoulder and shut it. She stood up and went inside. The door latched. Marrow's hand went to her knife. "Someone doesn't want her talking." A boy in a gray sweater stepped out from the alley beside the stoop. He was not a boy. He was pale at the edges, and the dog did not react to him. Ollie. "You need to leave the road," Ollie said. "Now." "Why." "Man behind the smithy has a crossbow. He's been waiting since dawn. Word went out you were coming." Marrow already had Orin's sleeve. They cut between two sheds and came out in a small meadow tufted with wildflowers behind the last house. Orin dropped to a crouch in the grass. A bolt hit the shed wall where his shoulder had been. "Who is he," Orin whispered. "He carried you out that night," Ollie said. "He was paid to. He's been paid since to keep it quiet." "His name." Ollie's mouth went flat. "I don't know his name. I know his boots. I know he lives two streets from the church. I know he won't stop." Boots came around the shed. Marrow whistled once. The dog broke left, snarling. The boots turned after the dog. Orin and Marrow ran through the meadow into the trees. They stopped only when the village was out of sight. Orin sat down hard in the wet grass. His hands were shaking. "South of the mill," he said. "Orange tree. Burned." "You have a place now," Marrow said. "And a man who wants you dead for asking." Orin nodded. He had a direction. He had a hunter. The road home was shorter and worse than yesterday.

They walked until the village smoke was gone from the wind. Marrow found a track heading south along a low ridge. Orin kept his hand on the twig he had cut off a hazel branch. It was not the plum. It was something to hold. He needed the old woman's next words: south of the mill was a wide phrase. He needed the exact plot. And the old woman was two hours behind them, locked inside her own door. "We can't go back," Marrow said. "He'll be watching her stoop by now." "Then who else knew my mother." Marrow did not answer. The ghost girl drifted ahead through the grass. She stopped at the edge of a clearing where a broken church sat with its roof caved in. She pointed. Two figures waited on the church steps. One was a gray witch Orin had heard Kate speak of, an old ghost named Elspeth Moonwhisper who had helped Kate's group escape a house on the north slope. The other he had never seen. She was small, robed, holding a staff with a pale stone on top. Her jaw was set like she was biting down on something. "The dead sent word," Elspeth said. "This is Meridian. She finds graves." "I don't need a grave," Orin said. "You need the ground your mother is under," Elspeth said. "That is a grave." Meridian pressed her hand to her cheek. "Back teeth ache the closer I get. Give me something she touched." "I have nothing of hers." "You have her," Meridian said. "Blood counts. Hold my staff." Orin took the wood. Meridian shut her eyes. Her mouth tightened. She turned a slow circle and stopped facing south-southeast, off the ridge, down toward a stand of black pines. "Half a mile," she said. "Low ground. Two stones set close. Burned house above it. She's there." "You're sure." "I was wrong once," Meridian said. "A girl walked three years for it. I check twice now." She turned another circle and stopped in the same place. "There." Elspeth watched Orin. "Go before dark. The man from the village will pick up your track by evening." "Why help me," Orin said. "I owed a mother once," Elspeth said. "I failed her. This isn't that debt. It's the shape of it." Marrow was already moving. Orin followed her off the ridge, down through the pines, and the ache in his chest went ahead of him like a rope pulling. They came out at a burned foundation on low ground. Blackened stone. An orange tree stump by what had been a step. Behind it, in the soft earth, two flat stones set close. Orin knelt. He put his hand on the near stone. It was warm from the sun. "Mother," he said. A branch cracked in the pines behind him. Boots. Not Marrow's.