Raven ran her thumb along her left forearm and felt bone where skin should be. Three fingers of her hand gleamed white and bare. The thing that infected her town had done this, and she meant to find it and end it. First she had to get out. She stood in her doorway and stared at a house she didn't recognize. Her house wore a coat of fungus now. Pale mushrooms bulged from the walls. Purple stalks curled over the windows like fingers. The roof had gone black, and ravens hunched along its edge, watching her. She knew the shape of her own home, and this wasn't it. "Asher!" Her voice cracked. She hated that it cracked. He stood in the road, turning in a slow circle. His black jacket hung open over a shirt with a ribcage printed on it, which would have been funny any other day. The silver streak in his hair caught the gray light. His red eyes found hers, wide for once. The boy who never cared about anything looked rattled. "This isn't my street," he said. "I walked out my door and it isn't my street." Raven crossed to him. She wanted to grab his sleeve and didn't. "It's still our street. It's just covered." They turned together toward the road out. Raven's stomach dropped. A thick carpet of fungus had grown across the only way out. It climbed the walls on both sides and met in the middle, sealing them in. Spores drifted off it like dust. "We're trapped," Asher said. He stepped forward to test it. "Wait—" Raven lunged and caught his jacket. Too late. His boot came down and the ground gave. He pitched forward with a shout. Below him, half hidden in the fungus, a cluster of plants snapped open. Red jaws the size of dinner plates lined each stem, ringed with teeth. One mouth was already closing on a dead crow. Raven hauled back on his jacket with both hands. Her skeletal fingers locked like a hook. Asher's face stopped inches above the nearest jaw. It clamped shut on empty air with a wet crack. She dragged him back onto solid ground and they both fell. They lay there, breathing hard. "Okay," Asher said. "Not that way." Raven studied the sealed road and the hungry plants guarding it. The fungus was thickest here, right where they stood. Running at it would only feed those jaws. She thought about the bone in her own arm, how the infection had grown into her. Maybe it could be cut. Maybe it could be burned. She pointed past the snare of teeth, to where the fungus thinned near a leaning dark house wrapped in mushrooms. Ravens and vultures circled its spires. "The wall's weaker over there," she said. "By that house." Asher followed her finger and went still. "You want to go toward that thing." "I want to get out," Raven said. "That house is the way."

The air had gone thick. Raven took one step toward the thin place in the wall and her lungs seized. Spores drifted off the fungus like gray snow. Each breath pulled them in. She coughed, bent double, and spat. Asher grabbed her shoulder. His own chest hitched. The house with the ravens still leaned far ahead, too far to reach choking like this. "We can't breathe this," she rasped. "We need to cover our mouths." Asher tugged at his jacket collar and pressed it over his nose. It did nothing. The spores slipped through the weave. His red eyes watered. "That won't hold," he said. "It's too fine." Then Raven saw the old woman. She stood on the walk ahead, calm in all that drifting gray. Her hair hung pale and ragged. Bone showed at her wrists and through her thin cheeks. Her dress was printed with red flowers, worn to threads. She did not cough. She did not speak. She only smiled, as if she had watched a hundred children choke here and knew exactly what came next. "Who is that?" Asher whispered. Raven didn't answer. She didn't know. But the woman lifted one bony hand and pointed, slow, at the ground beside Raven's foot. There, half buried in fungus, grew a cluster of broad pale mushrooms with spotted caps. The woman tapped two fingers against her own lips. Then she went still again, smiling. Raven stared at the caps. The woman wanted her to breathe through them. It made no sense. But the spores were winning, and her head had begun to swim. She dropped to her knees and tore one cap free. The underside was dense with fine gills, packed tight as cloth. She pressed it over her mouth and pulled a breath. The air came clean. The gills caught the spores. Her lungs opened. She gasped and the swimming stopped. "Asher, take one." She shoved a second cap at him. He pressed it to his face and his shoulders dropped as the air reached him. They crouched there, breathing through mushroom caps, alive. Raven looked up to thank the old woman. She was gone. The walk stood empty. A crow had landed where she had been. Its breastbone showed white through black feathers, and small flowers grew between the bones, pink and red. It cocked its skull and watched Raven with one bright eye. "That thing has flowers in it," Asher said through his cap. Raven got to her feet. The caps let them breathe now, but her hands shook, and not from the spores. The woman had known. The woman had bones showing, like Raven did. Like Asher did. Whatever had done this to the town had marked the old woman too, and she had stood in the poison air and smiled. Raven breathed through the mushroom and started toward the house. Clean air in her lungs, a flower-boned crow at her back, and one question burning: who was that woman, and what did she know about the thing Raven meant to kill?

Asher's bone was winning. Raven watched it as they walked. Overnight his left forearm had gone white to the elbow, worse than her own slow spread. He flexed the fingers and the knuckles clicked like dry sticks. Her three bone fingers had taken months. His whole arm had turned in days. "It's fast," she said. "Too fast." Asher pulled his jacket sleeve down over the bone. "Then we cover it." She found a small shop built into the row, its front smothered in fungus and climbing flowers. Mushrooms crowded the awning. The glass held a few hanging shirts and a stack of folded ones, pale with dust. Raven shoved the door. It gave. Inside smelled of mold and old cotton. She grabbed a long black coat off a rack and pushed it at him. "Put it on. Cover the arm." Asher shrugged into the coat. The sleeve swallowed the bone. He said nothing, but his jaw tightened. He hated being handled. She knew that. She did it anyway. "I can't slow it," she admitted. "I don't even know what it is. I'm just hiding it." She buttoned the coat for him because his bone fingers couldn't grip. "That's all I've got right now." He looked at her hands on the buttons. "It's enough." Two words. From Asher that was a lot. Then the smell hit her. Rotting wood, something sweet beneath it. She froze mid-button. The same smell that had taken her town. She lifted her head and turned until it burned strongest. It came from the street, through the open door. "Down," she breathed, and pulled him behind the folded shirts. Through the dusty glass she saw it pass. A thing walked on four legs where a dog should walk. Its ribs showed bare and white. Fur hung in wet clumps. Flowers and mushrooms grew straight out of its spine, bright and swaying. One red eye rolled in the ruined skull. It dripped as it moved. Behind it came the shape that led it. Tall, two-legged, more bone than body, blooms bursting from its shoulders. It held nothing, yet the dog-thing followed like it was leashed. Raven pressed Asher flat. His bone arm was cold against her side. The pair stopped outside the glass. The dog-thing swung its skull toward the shop. Raven did not breathe. She watched the red eye search the dark. The tall shape made a sound, low and wet. The dog turned and followed it on down the street. The smell faded west. Raven let her breath out slow. Her hands were shaking. Not from fear alone. She had learned something. The bone spread. It made new legs, new eyes, new hunters. Asher's arm was turning white in days. She finally saw where that road ended. "That's what it does," she whispered. "It doesn't just mark us. It finishes us." She gripped his coat. "We find out how to stop it. Fast. Before your arm becomes the rest of you."

The sweet rot clung to Asher. Raven could cover his arm, but not the smell leaking from the bone. By midday it was worse. She smelled it on him even over the coat. The dog-thing had tracked by scent. More hunters would too. She pulled him under a low arch of fungus and waited, breathing shallow. Then a deer stepped out ahead of them. Its ribs showed white, fur hanging thin along its back. Flowers bloomed straight from its open chest. It didn't run. It looked at them, then walked. "It wants us to follow," Asher said. Raven hated trusting anything that smelled like the thing hunting them. But the deer moved against the wind, and the sweet stink didn't follow it. She went. The deer led them to a clearing packed with giant mushrooms. Their caps were painted in loud colors, swirled and spotted. Faces pushed through the stems, wide mouths frozen mid-word. A man sat among them. His coat was torn, his beard gray and wild. He was talking to the mushrooms like old friends. "Bob," he said, before Raven asked. He didn't look up. "You smell like the end of things." He tapped a mushroom cap. "They told me you'd come. They know everything. Ask them." Raven thought he was mad. Then one of the giant mushrooms spoke. The sound came from no mouth she could see, low and wet, filling the clearing. The painted caps swayed. She crouched by Bob. "Then tell me. The rot creature. The thing turning us to bone. How do I stop it?" She grabbed Asher's sleeve. "His arm's already going. It'll take all of him." Bob tilted his head, listening to something she couldn't hear. The mushrooms murmured together. He nodded slowly. "The golden spore tree," he said. "That's where it starts. That's where you end it." He pointed with a dirty finger at nothing. "They say go now. The smell on your friend calls the hunters. The tree doesn't wait." "Where is it?" Bob smiled with few teeth. "Not for me to lead. For them." The ground shifted at Raven's feet. Small mushroom people pushed up through the moss. Bright caps, round eyes, little grinning faces. A cluster of them, no taller than her knee. They waved tiny arms and started off, looking back to be sure she came. Asher watched the small creatures go. "You trust this?" "No." Raven stood. "But the smell on you won't stop. Standing still gets us killed." She pressed her palm flat on his cold bone arm. "The tree's the only answer we've got." The little ones led them out of the clearing. The sweet rot still trailed off Asher, thick and warm. Raven couldn't hide it anymore. So she stopped trying. She let it pull the hunters behind her, and walked toward the one place that might cut the infection at its root.

The little mushroom people hurried ahead, their bright caps bobbing through the moss. Raven kept Asher close. The sweet rot poured off his arm, thick and warm. Then she caught another smell under it. Older. Sharper. She stopped and turned her head, the way she always did now. The strongest scent came from behind. "Something's tracking us," she said. "A hunter." Asher's face went tight. "Can you cover it?" "No. It's already on us." She grabbed his good arm. "Run." The mushroom people broke into a scramble, their stubby legs pumping. Raven ran after them, dragging Asher through the fungus. Behind her she heard it coming. Branches snapped. Something heavy moved fast and low. The little guides led them toward a faint glow ahead, soft and gold through the growth. They almost reached it. Then the hunter leaped in front of them. It had been a wolf once. Now its ribs showed white through rotting fur. Mushrooms sprouted along its spine, red and purple and swollen. One eye glowed red in a half-skinned skull. It dripped and swayed and stared at them. Raven froze. Her bone hand curled into a fist. She knew her strength, but this thing was fast, and it stood between them and the light. She thought this was the end. Asher moved first. He yanked a can from his jacket pocket and flicked a lighter. "Back up," he said, calm, like he'd done this before. He pressed the lighter in front of the spray nozzle and squeezed. Fire roared out in a long yellow jet. It caught the husk full in the face. The dry fur went up fast. The mushrooms hissed and popped. The creature screamed, a wet choking sound, and thrashed in the flames. Asher held the trigger until the can sputtered. The thing collapsed in a burning heap and stopped moving. Raven stared at him. "Where did you learn that?" "I didn't." His hand shook. "Guessed." They didn't wait to see if it stayed dead. Raven pulled him past the smoking body. The mushroom people were already running toward the glow. She followed, lungs burning, until the fungus thinned and opened. Then she stopped. A tree stood in the clearing. It was huge, wider than any house. Golden spores clustered in its branches like clumps of light. Soft glows wrapped the trunk and limbs. The whole thing hummed, warm and bright, pushing back the dark woods around it. The little guides sat down in the moss, done. They had brought her here. "That's it," Asher said. His voice was small. "The tree Bob talked about." Raven looked at the golden light. The thing that had taken her town. The only cure for the thing taking him. Both. She felt the cold bone fingers of her left hand. She'd been hunting this. Now she stood in front of it. "We made it," she said. "Now we end it."

Raven stepped closer to the tree and stopped. A thing stood at the base of the trunk. It had been a deer, or a dog, or worse. Now it was mostly bone, two legs, with flowers and fungus pushing out between its ribs. It swayed and watched them. Behind it, in the trunk, Raven saw a hole. Deep in the hole beat a dark red heart. She knew what she had to do. She had nothing to do it with. The skeletal thing turned its ruined skull toward Asher. The sweet rot poured off his arm. It smelled him. It wanted him. Raven pulled Asher back a step. She couldn't rush the heart without the creature tearing into him first. The little mushroom people huddled in the moss nearby. They had carried her this far without a word. Raven crouched and leaned down to them. "I need something sharp," she whispered. "A blade. Anything." They looked at each other with bright, strange eyes. Then they scurried off into the fungus. Moments later they came back. The smallest one held up a dagger. It was carved from bone, pale and clean, and golden spores drifted around the blade. Raven took it. It fit her hand like it had grown for her. "Thank you," she said. They didn't answer. They never did. She turned to Asher. He stood with his jaw tight, watching the creature. She hated what she had to ask him. "I need you to pull it off the tree," she said. "It wants your arm. Give it your arm. Just long enough for me to reach the heart." Asher looked at the dagger, then at her. "You'll be fast." "I'll be fast." "Then go." He didn't argue. He didn't explain. He just stepped sideways, out into the open, and whistled low. The creature's skull snapped toward him. It lurched off the trunk and went for him, dripping, snapping its jaws. Asher ran. The thing chased, fast on its ruined legs. It cleared the base of the tree. The path to the heart opened. Raven moved. Her bone legs carried her faster than she knew she could go. She reached the trunk and shoved her arm into the hole. The red heart beat under her fingers, warm and wet. She drove the dagger in. The tree screamed. Not with sound, with a pulse that knocked the air from her chest. The golden light flared, then went gray. The heart split open and spilled dark rot over her wrist. Behind her the skeletal creature dropped mid-stride and crumbled into loose bone and dead flowers. Raven pulled her arm free. The spores stopped drifting. The whole tree sagged, its glow dying branch by branch. Asher walked back, breathing hard. He pushed up his sleeve. The bone on his forearm hadn't spread. But it hadn't shrunk either. "It's not curing me," he said. Raven looked at the dead tree. "No," she said. "It just stopped feeding."

The dead tree sagged behind them as Raven and Asher started back toward town. The spores had stopped drifting. With the tree's heart gone, nothing fed the rot now. Raven watched the ground as they walked. The fungus that choked the forest floor was browning. Flowers that had grown from bone drooped and curled. The sweet rot smell faded with every step. But where the fungus died, pale bone stayed behind, scattered in the moss. Those would never leave. The infection had stopped spreading. It had not undone what it already took. Halfway back, something moved in the brush. Raven stopped and gripped the bone dagger. A deer stepped out. She knew it. Flowers still hung from its ribs, but they were wilting, petals dropping as it watched her. It did not come closer. It only looked, then turned and walked into the trees, unhurried, like an animal with somewhere safe to go. "It led us to Bob, once," Asher said. He pushed back his sleeve and stared at the bone on his forearm. It had stopped at the elbow. "Guess it's just a deer now." The town gate stood open. The fungal barrier that had sealed them in was gone, dried to gray flakes on the stones. They walked the streets they knew. Flowers climbed the roadside clothing shop where they had hidden weeks ago. It looked clean now, the windows bright. A well-dressed man stepped out front, sweeping the step. Grey hair, grey beard, a neat suit. He looked almost like the hermit from the woods, but calm, like a man who had never gone mad at all. He nodded at them and went back to sweeping. "That's not Bob," Raven said. "Looks like him." "It isn't." She didn't understand it, and she let it go. They came to Raven's street. Her house stood at the end. The fungus that had swallowed it was gone. Flowers grew up the front wall now, pink and open. The lawn was green. The windows were whole. It looked like a place where nothing bad had happened. Raven stood in front of it and could not speak for a moment. "You thought it was gone for good," Asher said. "I did." She looked at her left hand, three fingers still white bone. "Part of me is. Part of the town, too." She thought of the old neighbor who left vegetables on her porch, the one she sat with at the end. The flowers wouldn't bring him back. "But you stopped it," Asher said. "Nobody else gets taken." That was the thing she had wanted. She had hunted the rot across the whole wilderness for this. Now it was done. She looked at Asher, at the silver in his hair, at the bone on his arm that matched her own. He had stood in front of the guardian so she could reach the heart. He had not asked why. "You didn't have to come to the tree with me," she said. "I know." "Why did you?" He met her eyes. He didn't look away, the way he usually did. "Same reason you pulled me out of that plant." He stepped closer. For once he didn't pretend. He knew how she felt. He had always known. He leaned in and kissed her, there on the green lawn, in front of the house that had come back from the dead. When they parted, Raven caught movement across the street. An old woman stood on the sidewalk, watching them. Raven knew her too. She had shown them the pale mushrooms to breathe through, then vanished into a crow of bone and flowers. She looked different now. Her hair was soft greyish white, swept up. She wore a pale gown. The bone still showed at her wrists, but she looked whole, and well, and glad. She smiled at Raven like she had known the ending all along. Beside the woman stood the deer. Its flowers had fallen away. Its fur had grown back over the bone. It leaned against her, gentle, and she rested a hand on its neck. Neither of them seemed caught between living and rotting anymore. They had crossed over to the right side of it. Raven understood then what the dead tree had given back. Not her fingers. Not the people she buried. Those were gone, and bone stayed bone. But the town could breathe. Asher would stop at the elbow and never spread further. The deer could be a deer. The woman could smile. Raven slid the bone dagger into her belt and took Asher's hand. She had gone into the woods to kill the thing that broke her home. She had done it. Now she stood on her own green lawn, half girl and half bone, and for the first time in months, she had nowhere left to hunt.