Theron Silverleaf had chased the ghost for twenty years, and he still didn't know where it slept. The Gallow ghost killed his sister when they were children. He had never found the place it haunted. Tonight he stood before a shed on a stranger's land, told by a drunk in a tavern that the dead thing lived here. The drunk had lied before. Theron pushed the warped door anyway. Broken glass crunched. Empty. Just rot and mouse dirt and another wasted night. He slammed his fist against the sagging wall. A board cracked loose. Twenty years of rumors, and every one led to a place like this. He had sold his family's crumbling mansion to fund the hunt. He had traded his youth for smoke. His sister's face was fading, and he still couldn't picture where she died. A sound stopped him. Not wind. A wet, chewing noise from behind the shed. Theron drew his knife and crept around the corner. A rabbit sat there, no bigger than a loaf of bread. A silver horn rose from its skull. It grinned with rows of sharp teeth, gnawing a thick green vine. The vine was no ordinary plant. It sprawled across the whole hillside, thick as a man's leg, swallowing fence and stone. It pulsed like something breathing. The horned rabbit looked up at him. Its eyes were too knowing for an animal. "You smell of grief," it said. Its voice scraped like a rusted hinge. "Most who come here do." Theron did not lower the knife. "You talk." "I do many things." The creature bit the vine again. Green sap wept from the wound. "You hunt the Gallow ghost. I can smell that too. You've been looking in the wrong world." Theron's grip tightened. "Tell me where it is." "Follow the vine." The rabbit hopped along the massive tangle. "It grows from the place the dead walk. It reaches for the living. Pull it back to its root, and you'll find your ghost." Theron followed. The vine thickened as they climbed. It coiled around a pale birch, its bark white as bone, its limbs knotted and dead. The vine plunged into a hollow in the trunk. Theron reached in and gripped the woody stem. He pulled. The hollow tore wide. Light spilled out, blue and pink, spinning like water down a drain. A gate stood inside the tree, tall as a door, humming with cold power. Runes lined its edges. Beyond the shimmer, Theron saw a gray land where shapes drifted like ash. The rabbit chuckled behind him. "There. The dead world. Your ghost has never been in yours." Theron's heart pounded. For twenty years he had searched the wrong side of a door. His sister's killer waited beyond the gate. He stepped forward, and the cold pulled at him like hands. Behind him, the tree groaned. The vine shuddered and began to close the hollow. If he crossed, there was no turning back. Theron crossed.