Willow stood up.
The casting tore upward on Otter’s fingers. It felt like something was being pulled out of the center of her, pulled out by the roots. She gagged as it moved out of her — and then it was gone, leaving her head filled with lights and echoes. She fell back, panting.
Willow loomed over her. The sky was spread between the binder’s fingers — her human-colored fingers, her white fingers. The blue cords seemed to glow in the dim light. Cricket, still coughing, lifted his head, his eyes wide. Kestrel reached sideways and put her hand on her staff.
“More,” said Willow. Her voice was hollow, like the moan and hiss of the wind across the smokehole. It was not her voice. “More. Don’t stop.”
“B-binder —” Cricket sputtered. “I —”
Willow — the thing that was Willow — pulled her fingers slowly apart. The yarn stretched — Otter felt it stretch — and then the crossings and tucks of the pattern came undone all at once. The sky pattern burst open.
Around the lodge, the old, dry blessing knots popped off the wattle.
Pop, plink, tick — they fell one by one, like the first fat raindrops that herald a storm.
Willow took one step forward.
“Stop,” said Kestrel. Her voice was quiet. Her hand was on her staff. “Stop.”
Willow did not stop.
“Willow,” said Cricket. “Willow, tell me a story.”
And that, of all things, worked. The rain of knots stopped.
“Story,” said the thing, in that hollowed voice. And then Willow said: “What story?”
Cricket — sweating and shivering, his voice broken — straightened up. “‘Thistle said to Tamarack: I am going to lose my boys this year. Let me keep my daughter.’”
“And she did,” said Willow. “But the boys, she gave away. Moon and Owl. My brothers.”
And then she shouted — she screamed: “Thistle! Thistle!”
Thistle came.
Otter did not wonder at it at the time. Willow’s voice was like a hook in the heart. It pulled at her. She would have come. What wonder that Thistle came? Only later did she ask herself how long the ranger captain had waited, standing in the snow, slipping through the darkness, waiting for her daughter to scream her name.
“They never came back,” screamed Willow.
Thistle dropped the curtain and smoothed it before she turned: “Who?”
“My brothers,” said Willow. Her voice was softer, suddenly. “Oh, Mother: Moon and Owl. They never came back.”
“I know,” said Thistle.
“They went with the Walkers, and those Walkers —”
“I know,” said Thistle.
“What happened?” asked Cricket.
“When we send our boys away, they do not come back,” said Thistle. She did not look at Cricket. She did not look at Otter. She was looking at Willow. The wild hair. The white streaks reaching like little hands up the neck. “But we have news of them, stories — sometimes our granddaughters come. But those Walkers — they did not return to the prairies. They did not return to Westmost. They never came back.”
Willow reached with her white hand and smoothed her snaking hair. “Did you ever wonder why?”
“They died,” said Thistle sharply. “The dead had them.”
“But why did they not come back? I know you wished for them. You called their names.”
Thistle’s staff was in her hand, its butt off the ground, held light, held ready — but her voice was stiff: “Any mother would, Willow. You should know that, now.”
“But I called Tamarack and she came back,” said Willow, mad and reasonable. “She was bound and she came back. But the unbound dead — is that better then, not to bind them?”
“If we did not bind them, we’d be buried in them,” said Thistle.
“Do you think so?” said Willow. “But it feels … it feels …” Her hair was stirring by itself, and Otter could see the white fingers growing thinner, longer. “The ones I bound are buried, Mother. They are buried in snow. They are dried like meat — stretched out — drying —”
“Willow.” Thistle’s voice was soft. “Is it time?”
She tipped the staff toward Willow — and Otter leapt forward.
It was not a staff. It was a spear.
That was why. That was why Thistle had been near, near enough to scream for. She was waiting for the moment in which she had to kill her daughter. Standing in the darkness. Slipping through the snow. She must have trailed Willow like a wolf trailing a wounded dear.
Willow was bent up with shaking, her arms wrapped around herself. Against the ordinary suede of her shirt, the white hand looked strange — white as birch twigs, talon-tipped. “Not yet,” she said, her teeth clattering. “Not yet …”
Thistle, very slowly, lowered the spear until it was pointing at Willow’s heart.
“No!” Otter pushed herself between her mother and the spear.