One hour ago, Ricky Turner was setting up a board game on his kitchen table. Now he sprinted through a dead forest, a guitar bouncing on his back, and he had no idea how he got here. He only knew one thing. He needed to get home and finish that game. But two rotting badgers wanted to eat him first. Ricky glanced over his shoulder. The pair chased him low to the ground. Their fur hung in ragged strips. Their eyes glowed sick green. One snapped its jaws, and drool flew off yellow teeth. They were gaining. Guater ran at his heels, barking. The shepherd looped in front, then behind, herding his master away from the snapping teeth. Ricky's fine beard was slick with sweat. His legs burned. He couldn't outrun them. He knew it. Then he saw the shack. It leaned in a clearing ahead, its boards warped and gray. A broken window gaped like a mouth. The door hung crooked on one hinge. It looked ready to fall down. Ricky didn't care. It had walls. "Guater, go!" he shouted. He hit the door with his shoulder. It swung open, and he tumbled inside. Guater shot in after him. Ricky spun and slammed the door shut. He dropped the guitar and jammed its neck through the door handle, wedging it against the frame. The badgers slammed into the wood. The whole shack shuddered. Dust rained from the ceiling. Ricky pressed his back to the door and pushed with all his weight. Claws raked the boards outside. One badger shrieked, high and wet. "Come on, hold," Ricky said. His voice shook. "Please hold." Guater growled at the window. A badger's snout pushed through the broken glass, snapping. Guater lunged and bit its nose. The badger yanked back and screeched. Ricky grabbed a rotten plank off the floor and swung it hard through the window. It cracked across the badger's skull. The creature stumbled off into the trees. The second badger threw itself at the door once more. The guitar neck bent. Then the badger stopped. Ricky held his breath and listened. He heard scraping. Then quiet. He risked a look through the window. Both badgers had backed off. They circled the shack slowly, eyes fixed on him, but they did not charge again. They settled into the dead grass and waited. Ricky slid down the door and sat on the filthy floor. Guater licked his face. Ricky wrapped his arms around the dog and laughed once, a raw and shaky sound. "We made it," he whispered. "They can't get in." Then he looked around the shack. Broken furniture. A cold fireplace. No back door. One window, too small to climb through. He was safe. He was also trapped. The badgers had him boxed inside, and he had no food, no way out, and no idea where home was.

Ricky sat against the door for a long time. The badgers stayed in the grass, eyes glowing green, watching the shack. He counted them through the broken window. Two. They did not sleep. He knew he could not sit here forever. No food. No water. He needed past that door, and the only weapon he had was a bent guitar and a rotten plank. Guater whined and scratched at the floorboards near the fireplace. Ricky ignored him. Then the dog barked and dug harder. A board popped loose. Ricky crawled over and looked. Under the floor sat a shallow crawlspace, packed with dirt and old jars. "Good boy," Ricky whispered. But it was no tunnel. Just a gap. He almost gave up. Then a voice came from below. "You'll wake the whole forest, stomping like that." Ricky jumped back. An old woman climbed up through the gap. She had wild gray hair and huge sunken blue eyes that fixed on him. Her face was blotched and hard to look at. She wiped dirt on a flowered dress and stared like she'd been expecting him. "Who are you?" Ricky said. "Katy Harrow. I live under the boards. Safer down there." She jerked her chin at the window. "You brought the badgers to my door." "I'm sorry. I just need to get away from them." Katy snorted. "Away. Everybody wants away." But she reached into her jacket and pulled out a small cloth pouch. "Rot-badgers hunt by smell, not eyes. Those glowing eyes are near blind." She shook the pouch. Gray powder puffed out. "Ash and bitter root. Rub it on. They lose your scent. Then walk out slow. Don't run." Ricky stared at her ugly, earnest face. Everything in this world wanted to hurt him. She was the first thing that didn't. "Why help me?" he asked. "Because nobody helped me," she said. "Now hurry, before they get hungry enough to dig." Ricky rubbed the powder over his arms, his neck, his beard. He coated Guater too. The dog sneezed. Ricky pulled the guitar from the door handle and gripped the plank. "Ready, boy," he said. His hands shook. "Slow. We go slow." He eased the door open. The badgers lifted their heads. Their green eyes swept the doorway. Ricky stepped out into the dead grass. He did not run. Guater pressed against his leg. One badger stood, snout twitching. It sniffed the air and found nothing. It looked right through him. Ricky walked past them, one step at a time, into the trees. The badgers stayed by the shack, guarding a door with no one behind it. He made the treeline and finally breathed. He was free of the shack. But he stood in an endless dead forest now, powder wearing off, with no idea which way was home. Behind him, Katy called out one last thing before the boards swallowed her. "Follow the crooked tower. If you dare."

The powder was gone now. Ricky squinted through the dead trees. Far off, the crooked tower leaned against a gray sky. It was his one landmark, and the sun was dropping fast. He fixed his eyes on the tower and walked. But the trees crowded thick between them. Every few steps the tower vanished behind a black trunk. Lose it once in the dark, Ricky knew, and he was finished. "Keep it in sight, boy," he told Guater. "Don't let me drift." The dog trotted ahead, then circled back, tail wagging like this was a game. Ricky's boot caught a root. He stumbled. When he looked up, the tower was gone. Only trees. He turned in a slow circle. Nothing. His chest went tight. Night was almost down, and he had lost his one mark. "No. No, no." He spun again. Guater barked. Ricky spun toward the sound and froze. A rabbit stood on a fallen log. He came to Ricky's waist, with tall ears and a red scarf at his throat. He wore a little green jacket and scuffed boots. He grinned like he'd been waiting all day. "You're going the wrong way," the rabbit said. "Badly." Ricky grabbed his plank. "You talk." "Fletch Wingsworth. And yes, I talk, and yes, you're lost." He hopped down. "The tower's that way. You turned around at the root. Everyone does." He pointed a paw off to the left, at more trees that looked the same as all the others. Ricky did not lower the plank. "Why should I trust you?" "Because in a few minutes you won't see your own hands," Fletch said. "And I know a path that stays in the open." He whistled. Guater bounded over and sniffed him. The rabbit scratched the dog's ears, and Guater leaned into it, tail thumping. Ricky watched. His dog trusted almost no one that fast. "There's a road," Fletch said. "Wide and straight. It runs right to the tower's foot. No wandering, no losing your mark. But we have to reach it before full dark." He tugged at Ricky's sleeve with a small paw. "Come on. Big fella like you, scared of a little forest." Ricky let out a breath and followed. The rabbit moved fast between the trunks, ears bobbing. Guater ran at his side. Ricky kept both in sight and did not stop for the tower now. He trusted the rabbit's feet instead. The trees broke open. A road lay before them, wide and packed hard. Huge mushrooms arched overhead, orange caps dripping in the last light, forming a long tunnel above the path. Far down, past all that shadow, Ricky saw a faint blue glow. The tower waited at the end of it. "There," Fletch said, ears high. "Straight road. Can't lose your way now." Ricky stared into the dark tunnel of caps. He was no longer lost. But something about that glowing throat of mushrooms made his skin crawl worse than the open woods ever had.

Ricky stepped under the mushroom canopy. The caps dripped overhead. The blue glow at the road's end pulled him on, but a worse thought slowed his feet. He was walking toward that tower on a rabbit's word alone. He had no proof it held a way home. He had followed Fletch through the dark forest because Guater trusted him. That wasn't the same as knowing. "Fletch," Ricky said. He kept his voice loose, like the question didn't matter. "So this tower. What's inside it, exactly?" Fletch's ears twitched. He glanced back and grinned. "You don't know." Ricky's face went hot. "I know plenty." "You don't," Fletch said. He stopped in the middle of the road. "That's fine. Only a fool pretends he does. The tower's a door. People come through it wrong. Some go back the same way. That's why the old woman sent you here." Ricky's chest loosened. A door. A way back. He hadn't asked outright, and Fletch had told him anyway, plain and fast. But then the rabbit's ears dropped flat. "Quiet," Fletch said. "Both of you. Off the road." Guater's hackles rose. He faced the trees and did not bark. "Something waits ahead," the dog said. "Something big. It waits." Ricky froze. Down the road, past the next arch of caps, the packed dirt was churned and torn. Deep grooves cut the ground. Something heavy had dragged through here. Fletch crept to the edge and parted the vines with one paw. Half-buried in the growth sat a wooden chest. Vines wrapped its sides. Small mushrooms dotted the lid. The lid hung open, and inside lay a long sword, its blade catching the blue glow. "Take it," Fletch said. No setup. No warning. "The road ahead isn't empty. You'll want it in your hand." Ricky knelt. He lifted the sword. It was heavier than his old plank, and cold. His seven years of dice and cards had not prepared him for the weight of it. "I don't fight," he said. "I play board games." "You fight now," Fletch said. "Or you don't reach the door." Guater pressed against Ricky's leg. "I smell it," the dog said. "I smell it coming." Ricky stood. The sword shook a little in his grip, then steadied. He looked down the long tunnel of caps toward the glow he now knew was a door home. The road no longer felt like a trap without a reason. It felt like a road with something guarding the end of it. "All right," Ricky said. He gripped the sword with both hands. "Show me where it comes from." Fletch swung up onto the road and pointed ahead. Whatever had torn those grooves was still close. And now Ricky walked toward it, armed, no longer blind to what waited.

The grooves in the road led to a shape the size of a barn door. She walked toward them under the mushroom canopy, joints grinding with each step. Her skin pulled tight over a dead frame. Her sunken green eyes found Ricky and did not blink. Fletch went still on the road. "That's not for you to fight," the rabbit said. "Run. Run now." Ricky turned to run. Guater did not. The dog shot past his legs, straight at the giant woman. "Guater!" Ricky screamed. Guater planted himself between the creature and his master. He bared his teeth and held the ground. "I smell hate," the dog said. "I smell hate on her." The blue glow of the tower waited behind Ricky. One clear run and he was home. He had wanted that for days. But his dog stood in the dirt, small against a thing that had killed and gotten back up. Ricky's hands shook on the sword. The door home was thirty steps back. Guater was ten steps forward. He went forward. Ricky ran at the giant and swung the blade at her leg. The edge bit dead flesh and stuck. She looked down at him with no pain in her face. "Living," she said. One flat word. She swept her arm and knocked Ricky off his feet. The sword tore loose from her leg and spun into the vines. He hit the road hard and lost his breath. Guater lunged and locked his jaws on her wrist. She lifted the dog off the ground and shook him. Guater held. Ricky crawled for the sword. His fingers closed on the grip. Then the ground shook, and a gator crashed out of the trees. Fletch rode on her back, low behind her eyes. "Her ankle!" the rabbit shouted. "The stuck leg! Now!" The gator clamped down on the wound Ricky's blade had opened. Bone cracked. The giant woman toppled. She dropped Guater and hit the road, and the whole canopy shivered. Ricky scrambled up. Guater ran to him and pressed hard against his leg, breathing fast. "You came," the dog said. "You came back for me." "Move," Fletch said from the gator's back. "She gets up. They always get up." Already the giant clawed at the dirt, dragging her ruined leg under her. Ricky did not go to the tower. He grabbed Guater's collar and pulled him off the road, into the trees, away from the glow. The door home sat wide open behind him, and he ran the other way to save his dog. They crashed through the dead brush together, Fletch and the gator close behind. Behind them the giant woman rose. The tower's light shrank between the trunks. Ricky had reached the road's end and chosen his dog over the door. Now he was off the path, lost in the dark, with a thing that could not die hunting his scent.

Ricky ran until his legs burned. The trees closed tight around him. Their trunks stood thick as barrels, and the branches locked overhead. Only faint threads of light reached the ground. Guater ran at his side, breathing hard. Fletch and the gator crashed through the brush behind them. Somewhere back there, the giant woman dragged herself forward. Ricky could not see her. He could hear her joints grind. "She smells me," Guater said. "She has my master's smell. She will not lose it." Ricky stopped against a wide trunk. His heart slammed. The dog was right. The giant hunted by scent, and Ricky's scent was a straight line through the dark. "Fletch," he whispered. "How do we shake her?" Fletch slid off the gator's back. His long ears twitched toward the sound of grinding bone. "You don't outrun her," the rabbit said. "You break the trail. Mud kills scent." He pointed a paw toward a low black gap between roots. Water glinted there, thick and still. Ricky did not like it. The mud looked like a trap. But the grinding grew louder, and a shape moved between the far trunks, tall enough to scrape the branches. He grabbed Guater and dropped into the water. Cold mud swallowed him to the chest. He smeared it over his arms, his neck, his beard. He rubbed handfuls into Guater's fur. The dog shook once and held still. "All of it," Fletch said. "She wants the living. Cover the living smell." Ricky coated himself until only his eyes felt clean. The gator sank low beside them. Fletch pressed flat against her back. They waited. The giant woman came out of the trees. Her ruined leg dragged a furrow in the dirt. Her green eyes swept the ground where Ricky had run. She stopped near the water. Her head turned. She sniffed the air, slow, then slower. "Living," she said. One flat word. She took a step toward the mud. Ricky stopped breathing. Guater trembled under his hand but made no sound. The giant leaned close. Her sunken eyes passed over the black water and found nothing warm, nothing that smelled like the thing she hated. She straightened. She turned her ruined leg back the way she came and dragged herself off, following a trail that was no longer there. The grinding faded. Then it was gone. Ricky let out his breath. He climbed from the mud, shaking, and pulled Guater up after him. "She's gone," he said. "She lost us." "She lost the smell," Guater said. "She did not lose the hate." Fletch stood and wiped his paws. His excited face had gone flat. "Good. You're alive." He looked past Ricky, into the deep dark of the locked trees. "But you ran the wrong way. The tower's light is behind us now. And I don't know these woods." His ears dropped. "Neither does anyone I'd trust."

The mud dried on Ricky's skin and cracked when he moved. He stood in the packed trees and turned in a slow circle. Trunks stood thick as barrels on every side. The branches locked overhead. No glow reached the ground. He could not find the tower. He could not even find the sky. "Fletch," he said. "I need to see the light. If I can't see it, I can't get home." Fletch sat on the gator's back and worked his nose. His long ears turned like he was listening for something buried. Months in a swamp had taught the rabbit to read ground the way Ricky read a game board. "Down here we're blind," Fletch said. "So we go up." He pointed a paw at the widest trunk. Its bark ran with old vines, thick as rope. Guater pressed his nose to the roots and huffed. "Something walked here," the dog said. "Something walked here fresh." Ricky grabbed a vine and pulled. It held. He climbed. Bark scraped his palms. Dried mud flaked off his arms and fell into the dark below. His legs shook, but he kept his eyes up. The branches thinned near the top. A cool wind touched his face. He pushed his head through the last screen of leaves and looked out. The forest rolled away in black waves. And there, far to his left, a faint yellow glow pushed up through the canopy. The crooked tower. His door home. Ricky fixed the spot in his mind and marked it against a lightning-split tree that stood taller than the rest. Then he climbed down fast, half falling, and dropped hard beside Guater. "I found it," he said, breathing hard. "The light. It's that way." He pointed past the split tree. "We go now, before I lose the line." But Guater was not looking at him. The dog stood stiff, ears flat, staring into the trees. A shape moved between the trunks. It came slow and quiet, hooves soft on the roots. A white horse stepped into the gray light. Its coat was clean and bright in a place where nothing was clean. It had no rider, no rope, no reason to be here. The horse stopped and looked at Ricky. Its calm eyes held him. Then it turned its head, slow and sure, straight toward the split tree he had marked. Toward the tower. "It knows the way," Ricky said. Hope jumped in his chest. A road home, on four legs. Guater's low growl rolled up from his belly. "Do not trust it," the dog said. "It smells wrong. It smells wrong under the pretty." Fletch's excited face had gone flat again. He gripped the gator's neck. "Guater's right," he said. "That's no lost horse." Ricky stared at the animal that offered him everything he wanted. He had his direction now. He also had a beautiful thing standing between him and it, waiting.