“Run,” he orders, his voice even. “Now.”
Lys releases an inhuman snarl, grabbing the stake with both hands and wedging it slowly free. Blood trickles down his abdomen like water from a sieve. On the floor, the man goes scrabbling back, dragging a trail of dark in his wake.
“From the fount of the forest,” he gasps out, “comes the age of the beast. From the—”
“Parker,move!” shouts Asher.
She edges hurriedly toward the door just as Lys rips the stake free. As she passes, Asher rams the flat of the crossbow into her chest. She catches it, surprised.
“If something comes at you, shoot it,” he orders.
She nods and takes off running, Poppy at her heels. There’s the click of a loaded chamber, an unholy howl. A gun fires just as she and Poppy burst out into the night, their breath breaking over them in sheaves of gray. The night is overcast, the moon a pale disk in a nebulous sky.
They race toward the barn without stopping, stumbling over hilly pitches and crawling under fences. They emerge from the meadow soaking wet and shivering. An abandoned RV has been left parked alongside a tall tensile fence. All around them, the night is horribly, painfully quiet. Shea peers toward the house.
“Do you hear them? Do you— Is there anything?”
“No,” says Poppy. “It’s quiet. We probably shouldn’t stay out in the open like this, though. If anything is scenting us, we’re upwind.”
“Okay.” Shea palms the stitch in her side. “Okay, no—you’re right. Let’s keep going.”
On the other side of the fence sits a barn. It’s been built into a bank, the two-storied edifice jutting out of the shallow hillside like a dryad’s saddle. Searching until she finds a suitable stick, Shea tosses it at the wiring. When nothing sizzles, she gestures for Poppy to follow her, slinging the strap of the crossbow over her shoulder.
The fence is high, wires taut. They climb to the top of the RV before scaling the rest of the way on their own, careful not to snare themselves in the sumac veined along the posts. The drop to the opposite side nearly steals the breath clean out of her lungs. She doesn’t stop to recover. They keep moving, scrabbling one after the other over the stony pitch and slipping through a gap in the second-story door.
Inside is dark. By what little light illuminates the space, Shea can just make out the bare bones of a workshop slung with cobwebs. The air smells like dry leather and wet hay and—beneath it—something foul. Immediate unease swims into her. It isn’t the room itself, which at first glance doesn’t look all that different from her father’s workshop back home. Tools hang suspended from the walls in every direction. Muck forks and straw brooms. Pitchforks and shovels. A hacksaw, for cutting metal. A tenon saw, for shallow incisions. A panel saw, for hewing and splitting.
It’s what’s in the middle of the room that turns her stomach. A hook hangs from the ceiling, tips pronged sharp. The floor beneath is stained a dark, deep brown. The color of dried blood.
“This seems like the wrong time to ask,” whispers Poppy, poking at a moonlit blade, “but why do we think the watch isn’t allowed onto the premises?”
Below them, something bellows. Both Shea and Poppy freeze, their eyes meeting across the dark.
“Was that a cow?”
“I don’t think so,” says Poppy.
Another cry reaches them, higher and keener than the first. They follow the sound down the shallow set of stairs, emerging onto the first floor to find themselves in a cluster of stalls, all dark. The only light falls in through an open Dutch door at the far end of the barn. The air hangs still, smelling of stink. Of sweat.
“Something is in here,” whispers Poppy. “I can hear it moving.”
Shea readies her crossbow, her heart hammering, but Poppy hangs back, dubious.
“Whatever it is, I don’t think you should shoot at it.”
“Poppy, noteverythingis a stray animal in need of saving.”
“It’s not that. It’s just—what if you miss?”
Shea swallows, glancing down at the singular projectile lined along the barrel. She doesn’t have any more ammunition, which means she has only one shot. One chance.
“I won’t miss,” she promises.
She repeats it internally, in a desperate chant:I won’t miss. I won’t miss. Please, don’t let me miss.Inching forward, she peers into each stall in turn. Every last one is empty, the floors wet with straw. At the final stall, she rises up onto her toes and peers inside.
This one is different from the others. The straw is fresh and dry. The paneling looks strange, as if it’s been shingled in paper. She peers a little closer, bringing her face near the bars. As her eyes adjust, she can just make out the tiny typeset of baseball cards. Dozens upon dozens of them, same as there’d been on the bottom of the bunk.
In the dark, there comes a soft trill. It’s a sound she knows cold—a sound she’s heard a hundred times, seated at the bottom step of her cellar. Watching what’s left of her mother tear into whatever scraps she’s managed to bring home from the butcher’s.
