Dreams and Shadows

chapter SIXTEEN

THE THUNDEROUS HOOVES OF TIFFANY THATCHER

Tiffany Thatcher had spent seven years with a rope around her neck, her heart heavy with regret, her feet charred black from the fires burning beneath her. She had but from the tolling of the witching hour to the ticking of its last, lingering seconds to find her prey and strike it down.

The Devil granted few reprieves; why he had chosen her she had no clue, but if it meant an hour off the noose she would take it without question—especially if it meant bringing that thing back with her. There wasn’t a moment she didn’t relive that night, not a second spared from the rope burn and the tears. But in Hell, she did more than choke, she spun lazily in front of a window, watching her husband drown over and over again beneath the lake’s waves as she burned.

And Jared’s murderer was here, dripping wet, wandering through the woods. Tiffany could smell the lake water on her; could smell the blood and tattered flesh beneath her fingernails; could smell the stain of her sins. Tonight she would drag that creature back to Hell with her, tearing apart anyone else that got in her way.

With her rode a morbid procession of a dozen maddened spirits, each somehow wronged, desperate to stave off the pits of Hell for even the smallest slivers of eternity. Together they rode, galloping through the hills of the material world atop mastiff-size goats as black as a starless night, looking for souls to take their place. The sound, deafening though it was, proved a comforting relief from the endless wails, moans, and screams that accompanied every painful, waking moment of the hereafter. This sounded like adventure; it sounded like life again. And though revenge was at the heart of their crusade, it was the exhilaration of the ride, the thrill of feeling alive again, that made it worth the extra suffering they would endure if they didn’t each return, soul in hand.

The gates of Hell were open and the Wild Hunt was called. They had a message for the world, and if the world was wise, it would listen.

The beautiful woman that was once Tiffany Thatcher was no more. All of her delicate loveliness had been drained, leaving a pale, ghoulish husk, her hair slicked down with years of sweat and grease. What strode atop that hellish steed was not the mother who had once cradled her cooing child, but a gaunt, cadaverous nightmare with sores oozing ochre puss and a beastly snarl that barked out orders to the braying hounds chasing behind her. Evil. Tiffany Thatcher was the very picture of evil. And she would have her revenge, even if she had to wipe the landscape clean with hellfire to do it.

So she led her charge and sounded her horns, setting the forest alight with the strike of her goat’s ebony hooves. Tiffany Thatcher was the master of the hunt, and tonight the hunt would take no prisoners.

ACROSS THE FOREST, mere miles away, two young fairies bounded through the brush, traveling swiftly toward the Wild Hunt rather than away.

“Hurry up,” Mallaidh anxiously called behind her. “We’re going to miss it.”

“I don’t think they’ve started yet,” Knocks reassured her. “Besides, a good hunt takes all night. That’s what they say.”

“I know, I know. But I don’t want to miss it. I’ve never been on a hunt before. What do you think Ewan will be doing?”

Knocks stopped in his tracks and grumbled abrasively under his breath. Mallaidh, already outpacing him, didn’t stop, nor did she look back. He hastily started again, trying to keep stride. “Probably nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?” she sang, as if to contradict him.

“Well, it’s his first hunt. He’s probably just watching. Maybe he’ll be a decoy for Eberhard or something, but I doubt he’ll get a chance to do anything. It’s not as if he’s really one of us, you know.”

Mallaidh stopped and turned around, putting two delicate hands on her hips. “I know that. That’s what makes him special.”

Finally able to catch up, Knocks walked up to her and stopped, standing almost nose to nose with her. “What? Not being able to do anything special makes him special?”

Mallaidh thought about that for a second, then shook her head. “No. That he was chosen to be one of us makes him special!”

“Aw, phooey.” Knocks waved both of his hands, dismissing her outright.

Mallaidh giggled. “Phooey? You sound like an old woman sometimes.”

Knocks scowled. “Shut up.”

Mallaidh, unsure if he was joking, smiled big, melting Knocks down to his basest elements. “No, you shut up,” she said. She reached out, touching him on the shoulder, then gave him a playful shove. Even at her young age she understood her gifts. Knocks had no immunity to her wiles; he had to look away, his ill-hanging cheek-flesh blushing a purplish red. “Come on,” she said. “We’re missing it.”

“Wait.” Knocks looked up. “Do you hear that?”

“The thunderstorm?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“For the last few minutes or so, yeah. What about it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t sound right.”

“Well, come on. Let’s see for ourselves.” Mallaidh reached out and took Knocks by the hand. He smiled, as if somehow his life had been made complete, and the two ran off into the dark woods toward the distant sound of thunder. “Knocks?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“What’s a decoy?”

THE SOUND HAD grown deafening. The riders were sweeping through the valley, their charge seemingly unstoppable. Dithers bounded through the woods, Ewan thrown over his shoulder. He was fast and agile, but not fast enough to outrun unholy steeds; he had to stay high, out of sight. At first he traveled over branch and bush until he found a densely packed spot of brushwood where they could hide, shrouded on the upper limb of one of its tallest trees. There they looked out over the dark valley, the moon now hidden behind a plume of black clouds. Without the moonlight there was little to see. Orange embers drifted slowly to the earth like an ashen rainstorm, and the movements of the riders could be tracked as distant streaks lit by the glow of the fires set by their goats’ hooves.

“Dithers, what are those clouds?” asked Ewan, his voice cracking and buried beneath ten minutes of pants-wetting fear.

“Ewan, behind those clouds is Hell. Those clouds are there to keep us from seeing how awful it is.”

“But why is Hell here?”

“Because the Devil has unfinished business here on earth.”

“Is he coming for us?”

“No, no,” Dithers reassured him. “There’s no reason for the Devil to come for you. He’s here for someone else.”

“A fairy?”

“Maybe.”

“If he’s not coming for us, then why are we hiding?”

“Because he’ll take whoever gets in his way. And tonight, we’re in his way.”

“Like Eberhard?”

Dithers shared a pained, grieving look with Ewan. “Yeah. Exactly like Eberhard.”

“I liked Eberhard.”

“I liked him too.” Dithers looked off into the distance and said a silent prayer for the Aufhocker, hoping quietly that Eberhard wouldn’t suffer so terribly in Hell.

THE RIDERS MADE an end run up one side of the hill and down the other, three of them sweeping in, rejoining Tiffany Thatcher on the way back down. One of them, a particularly large, wicked-looking specter, rode by her side. His tangled hair was pulled back into a topknot, and slung over his shoulder he hefted a gargantuan, blood-spattered ax that had already split a person in half this night. Behind him he dragged two shrieking souls, their tormented screams barely audible over the galloping hooves beside them. Tiffany could see their sins. The diminutive fairy was covered in a layer of grime inches thick, with untold amounts of blood on his hands, and the girl, while no murderer, was also no saint; these were clean kills. They would pay the toll.

But time was running short. She whooped and cried, then lifted a horn to her lips. The call went out with a shrill twitter—riders dispersing in every direction without missing a stride; her only remaining companions two bounding hounds, their glowing eyes burning bright enough to silhouette their massive skulls.

And that’s when she caught wind of her prey.

It did not flee. Rather, it was headed right for her. And it wasn’t alone. No, there was something else . . . familiar. A second prize. A bonus to accompany her vengeance. Had all the parts of her that understood joy not burnt out long ago, she might have felt elated. She pressed her buck harder, her hands firmly gripping its hooked razor-sharp horns, riding it pitilessly into the night, a trail of cinders fluttering in their wake.

FEAR WAS NOT a feeling to which Nibbling Nils was particularly accustomed. While he was familiar enough with its taste and the tickle it caused in the back of his throat while probing through the thoughts and dreams of a good meal, it was something he had never himself experienced. Anger. Bitterness. Loathing. These were the emotions he was used to feeling, not fear. So when he found himself running through the woods on all fours, sprinting across broken limestone trails, vaulting over boulders to gain precious seconds on the time between himself and the three shadowy, brimstone-reeking riders behind him, he was understandably pissed. But being scared came as something of a surprise.

Other fae in the valley feared Nils; he was the stuff of nightmares, a draconian master of fright—not some rabbit to be chased down by dogs in a field. This was not how Bubers met their end. And yet, there behind him trailed a pack of slavering hellhounds, their jaws dangling midgrowl, smoldering craters left in the wake of their footfalls. As the three riders drove their hounds, so too did the hounds drive Nils and, for the very first time in his life, he was afraid.

No matter how hard he ran, they kept pace. No matter how inaccessible the terrain, they managed their way over it. No matter what he did, they would have him—or so it seemed. But he had one last trick up his sleeve, one last chance at making it through the hour. He was cornered, running out of ground to cover, headed dead on toward a cliff face. Nils was betting that no matter how fast they could gallop, they probably weren’t especially good climbers.

But he was.

It was a harrowing dash, with logs, boulders, and all manner of shrub in his way, but through thorn and thistle, past pond and pecan tree, Nibbling Nils made it to the last few steps before a massive limestone escarpment. Without even casting an eye back to see how close the riders had gotten, he shot up the rock face, grasping for handholds, propelling himself up the side. It took only seconds to skitter up the fifty-some-odd feet, and as he gave one last kick, he lunged upward in an arc, over the edge of the cliff, landing squarely on his feet.

Much to his surprise and almost immediate alarm, he was not alone. He had managed to land almost perfectly beside Dragana, who stood there weeping, her eyes welling with tears. Together they peered over the side, watching as the riders and hounds sat patiently below, staring back at them. Nils extended his middle finger their way, smiled a crooked grin, then sneered at Dragana. “What the f*ck’s your problem?”

She looked up over her shoulder, nodding into the forest behind her. They were not alone. Three more riders perched atop their flickering midnight steeds, leaning casually forward, each goat’s fur ruffling in the wind. They gave one another knowing looks, then let their skeletal, rotting jaws flap loose an infernal scream before heaving forth, blades held high.

Nils’s expression fell. “Aw, hell,” he muttered. He looked over the cliff once more, seeing that the riders below hadn’t moved. Dragana took his hand in hers and wiped away a stream of tears with the other.

Nils reluctantly accepted her hand, giving her a weak smile. “Well. That’s that, I guess.”

THE WORD PASSED quietly through Dithers’s lips like air leaking from a balloon. “Shit.” Below, the rider blazed by without missing a step, its ax slicing through the core of the tree as easily as it would flesh. Flame licked the trunk, showering the ground with a spray of smoldering splinters. There was only time for instinct now. Dithers grabbed Ewan, slung him onto his back once more, and then flung himself off the limb toward the earth below. He grasped at passing branches, slowing his descent, but still cratered down with a concussive thud, knocking the wind out of Ewan.

Dithers bounded forward. The riders were on to him almost immediately, but Dithers launched himself a good twenty feet into the air, flying once again branch to branch, far out of the riders’ reach, matching their speed when not occasionally gaining ground.

Ewan held on tight, gasping for air as he tried to recover from the hard landing. His stomach hurt, but as he finally managed to force his lungs back into action, the pain subsided, air rushed back in. He looked around, seeing only a blur of foliage and the occasional flicker of flame. “Dithers,” he asked, “what’s happening?”

“The Wild Hunt,” said Dithers.

“I thought you said they weren’t coming for us.”

Dithers paused. “I was wrong,” he said. Ewan tightened his embrace; it was the only thing he could think to do.

WHUMP! The blackened arrow struck Dithers in the chest with the force of a clenched fist. It was a full inch thick, carved from hellish black wood, tipped with forged pieces of jagged nightmares. He doubled over in midair, flailing backward, frantically grasping for a branch to regain his momentum. Ewan lost his grip, tumbling to the ground while Dithers slammed into the trunk of an oncoming tree, folding to a stop over a large limb. Ewan scrambled to his feet, running into the thick brush. Hoping to hide while Dithers collected himself, he dove headlong into a bramble patch.

He looked up, saw Dithers dangling from the tree with an arrow driven all the way through his chest, the searing tip flickering a blue-green flame out a hole in his back. Dithers twitched a bit. Ewan closed his eyes tight, clenching his fists, rocking gently back and forth, unsure of what to do.

“WHAT’S THAT SOUND?” shrieked Mallaidh.

Knocks quivered in place, too frightened to move. “I . . . I don’t know.” What at first had sounded like distant thunder now nearly deafened them. It was clear that, though they could not see it, something was tearing through the forest around them, kicking up a terrible fuss. The earth trembled like a pounding kettle-drum, the whole world falling apart just beyond the trees.

Then from out of the woods sprang a grim shape, dripping wet, its teeth bared, green skin slick with algae.

“Mama!” he shouted, recognizing her. She threw her arms around Knocks.

Laila the nixie looked down at the little boy in her arms. “Oh, child, I’m so happy to see you.”

Knocks looked up. “Mama, what are you doing here?”

“Child, this is the Wild Hunt. These things will kill you. What are you doing out here?” Knocks stammered for a moment. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be out. More important, he knew he shouldn’t be anywhere near the scene of a hunt. He was in trouble. Big trouble.

“Mama, I—”

“He was with me,” interrupted Mallaidh, the full brunt of her charms brought to bear for Knocks’s sake. “I wanted to see the hunt.”

Laila looked askance at her adopted son’s escort. “You’re as much trouble as your mother, you know that? You could have gotten my boy killed.”

Mallaidh shook her head. “No. We were just—”

“You were just leaving,” interrupted Laila. “You will not seduce my boy with your wicked ways, slut. Get out of my sight.” Laila stroked Knocks’s bulbous, balding head with one hand, pointing away fiercely with the other.

Mallaidh stood there, humiliated, her eyes narrow and bitter. Her ears rang with the sound of thunder, no longer able to tell where it was coming from. She had no sense of the rider galloping straight at her. Laila stared wide-eyed at the form riding up behind the young fairy, stood up, her son gripped tightly in her arms, and took off into a full run. Knocks reached back over his mother’s shoulder, trying to grab Mallaidh—despite her distance—screaming at the top of his lungs, “Mallaidh!”

Mallaidh turned around, only then spying the looming rider about to trample her. She shrieked, but just a little, a slight, scared yip escaping her delicate mouth as she completely seized up in fear. Something slammed into her from the side, tackling her to the ground mere inches from passing hooves. She looked up, the ground exploding around her, to find the kind eyes of the boy who had just saved her life.

Knocks watched helplessly as Ewan emerged from the darkness of a nearby bramble patch to save Mallaidh, Ewan standing in the place where he should have been. Even as scared as he was, he felt his stewing hatred of Ewan simmering stronger still.

Back in the grove, Ewan and Mallaidh gripped each other as firmly as they could, the sound of hooves growing closer by the second. The rider trotted slowly up behind them, its goat bleating, grunting against the reins, the goat wanting little more than to stomp these creatures underfoot. Flanking it on each side sat drooling, snarling, muscular piles of awfulness—hounds beset with razor-sharp fangs and shaggy fur matted with blood and ichor.

The children looked up at the mount and its rider, the beast’s nostrils choking the air with sulfur. The rider leaned over, its face emerging from shadow into the dim light. Pale, sickly, rotting from the inside out, Tiffany Thatcher looked nothing like she had the last time they had met; the only mercy in this moment was that Ewan had no idea he was looking upon his own mother.

Tiffany had trouble finding words. She could feel the minutes ticking away, her time on earth drawing to a close. She had a toll to pay; this was not it. Her eyes darkened and she cast a single finger at Mallaidh. “She will be the death of you!” she spat at Ewan. “She and her kind will kill you to spare their own. I have seen it!”

Shuddering, Ewan looked up, shaking his head. “Go away!”

His mother looked down at him, feeling only the slightest, fleeting pangs of motherhood. Then she nodded. “You’ll die for her,” she growled bitterly. She tugged at the reins, urging her steed into the woods. With a sharp whistle she called off both her hounds. Mallaidh and Ewan looked on as the creatures bounded into the forest after her, leaving them alone.

“You saved me,” whispered Mallaidh into his ear.

Ewan released her, and jumped to his feet, brushing himself off nervously. “No, I . . . I’m sorry . . . I mean . . . I . . . was on the other side of the bushes.” He hadn’t realized in the moment how tightly he’d held her or, more important, how tightly she’d held him back. In the most ladylike fashion possible, she too rose to her feet, took Ewan by the hand, kissing him gently on the cheek.

“My hero,” she said softly. Then she looked down at her small hand held in his and quietly begged, “Don’t let go. Don’t ever let go.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“I know.”

TIFFANY ENTERED THE small clearing where the two stood, slowing her lurching beast. Her hounds hurdled over hedges, flanking her quarry, preventing their escape.

It had been nearly seven years but Knocks recognized the demon on horseback. The face of his first adopted mother was something he could never purge. She was dead, of that he was certain. He’d watched her tie the rope around her neck, cheered her on as she wobbled, toppling the chair beneath her. From the looks of it, she too had not forgotten their time together.

“Knocks,” whispered Laila into her son’s ear, “I’m going to put you down and I want you to run as fast as you can. Can you do that for Mommy?”

“No, Mama,” he whimpered back. “I can’t.”

“Yes. Yes you can. And you will,” she said sternly. “Mama has something she has to do.” Slowly, she put Knocks down on the ground, giving him a shove. But he was only able to take a few steps before the two hellhounds brayed a deep bellow that stopped him in his tracks. He wasn’t going anywhere. Laila took a few steps, putting herself squarely between Tiffany and Knocks.

Tiffany Thatcher sat atop her uneasy beast, her eyes steeled upon Laila. Laila, naked, dripping with mossy lake water, didn’t let her nakedness or stature disadvantage her. She held firm, unwilling to give up an inch of ground.

Tiffany’s goat paced back and forth, its powerful muscles impatient to charge—ready to surge forward and run this creature down. It bleated once more, sounding its restlessness. But Tiffany Thatcher stayed her mount. Cold and unrelenting she stared at Laila, then opened her mouth, letting out a shrill shriek in some pained language spoken only in the deepest, darkest parts of Hell. The trill formed words that came out in a deathly warble sounding eerily like a chorus played backward.

“He was not yours to take.”

Laila looked around, a little confused. “He was not yours to begin with,” she replied.

“No!” Tiffany shouted, her anger whipping up a hot wind that rustled the trees and kicked up a cloud of dry dust. “He. Was not. Yours. To take.” The goat was having a hard time keeping itself in check. With a jerk of the reins and a firm hand on its horns, Tiffany dug spiked barbs into the fiend, managing to stay it a bit longer. “He was mine,” she hissed.

“I didn’t take your son. I only took what was left for the lake. Your quarrel is not with me. And it is not with my boy.”

“No, you took him! You took him and you drowned him! And you kept his soul! He was mine!”

“Your son isn’t dead. He’s . . .” Laila fell silent, her heart breaking. Tiffany Thatcher had not pierced the veil of Hell and ridden across time itself to kill the doppelganger that had driven her to suicide. This wasn’t about that at all. This was about Laila and the man she had drowned beneath the waves of Ladybird Lake half a dozen or so years ago. Until then, Laila was ready to die—she had something to die for, something that actually meant something. But this wasn’t sacrifice; this was revenge. Laila wasn’t going to die for her son; she was going to die for her sins. For her nature. And that wasn’t a very good reason at all to die.

“I loved him. I love him still,” said Tiffany of her husband. With that, she let loose her hellbeast and rode it full bore into the waiting nixie, whose eyes stayed locked upon Tiffany’s.

This fate was unavoidable. The only thing Laila had left in this world was one last lesson to offer her son. She turned, looking at Knocks—who cowered crying behind her—and mouthed “I love you.” Then she turned back to see the smoldering blackness of her own death.

The huge infernal goat ran her down like a cardboard placard, its hooves tearing off limbs as it passed over her. Knocks leapt to his feet, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Mama!” He stopped in his place, his arm outstretched, as if he were capable of stopping time in its tracks. But the goat still lunged, dragging limp pieces of his mother along with it, meat smeared and tangled in its long black fur.

Tiffany reared the creature around, passing within inches of Knocks, and wheeled about again, trotting back toward him. She stopped, looking squarely at the boy while holding Laila’s agonized soul firmly by the scruff of her neck.

Tiffany’s lip snarled back across jagged teeth—sharpened and fractured from trying to gnaw her way out of Hell. Her eyes went black and what little color had remained in her skin vanished entirely. She raised her arm, pointing a crooked finger at the abomination below her. “That’s not my baby,” she howled on the wind. “That’s not my baby!” Kicking its sides, Tiffany urged her lurching steed forward once more, its hulking muscles surging toward the changeling. But as its shoe touched the dirt with its step, the hoof disintegrated into ash, like the end of a lit cigarette. The immolation swept up its leg to the torso, and in that fraction of a second, both goat and rider were consumed, exploding into a cloud of cinders. Her hour was up.

Ash and embers drifted slowly to the ground, the remnants of Tiffany Thatcher coating Knocks in a fine layer of gray and black. Not entirely sure what to make of what had just happened, he staggered in a daze over to where his mother last stood, but she was gone, every last bit of her dragged off by the Wild Hunt.

Mallaidh and Ewan emerged hand in hand from the wood, scraped and shaken, but no worse for the wear. Knocks looked up, seething. Mallaidh abruptly let go of Ewan and ran to Knocks. She put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but he struck it off, shaking his head.

He looked over at Ewan. “You. You did this! This is your fault!”

Ewan had no idea what he was talking about. While Knocks possessed a memory seven years long and perfect in every detail, Ewan had no idea who that horsewoman was, what she meant, or why she had killed Knocks’s mom. But Knocks knew all too well, and he hated Ewan for it.

“Nuh-uh!” denied Ewan. “It’s not my fault.”

“I hate you!” screamed Knocks, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Mallaidh tried once more to comfort him. “Knocks, Ewan had nothing to do with this.”

“Yes, he did!” he shouted. “Yes he did! Yes he did! Yes he did!” He looked directly at Ewan. “I hate you!” he screamed again. Then his passion cooled and his eyes grew cold. “I will see you dead.” He straightened, stiff as a board, storming off into the forest. For a moment his choked sobs were the only reminder of his presence, but soon even they vanished.

DITHERS AWOKE TO a ghostly quiet, a searing pain in his chest. He shook the cobwebs from his head, wondering just how it was that he came to find himself draped over a creaking limb in the middle of the night. Then at once it all came screaming back to him. THE WILD HUNT!

He scanned the ground frantically for any signs of his young ward. If he returned to court without Ewan, they would have his hide. One job, he had but one job to do: protect that little boy from harm. But now he’d lost him, given him up to a pack of unruly hellspawn that had no doubt carried him back to the very pits of Hell.

He sniffed the air. The brimstone was gone. Gone too were the clouds that had obscured the moon, the entire valley awash in bright blue hues. While the scattered remnants of fallen trees and smoldering hoofprints remained, there were few other signs that the hunt had even taken place. The arrow that had pierced his chest had vanished, its flaming tip having cauterized the wound into a painful burn. The valley was empty, quiet, abandoned even by the dead.

Dithers dropped down from the tree. He looked up, held his breath, and waited. They’re gonna kill me.

The bushes burst apart, Ewan springing from them in a full run. Dithers threw his arms open wide, his crooked mouth splayed ear to ear with a glowing, thunderstruck grin. “Don’t you ever run off like that again,” he chided, swinging Ewan around.

“But I had to. You dropped me.”

Dithers paused for a moment, still holding the boy a foot off the ground, trying to recall what had happened. “I did, didn’t I?” he asked, the memories fading back into place. “I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again. Where did you run off to?”

Mallaidh emerged from the woods behind them. “To get her.” Ewan pointed.

Dithers smiled coyly now. “I see. You had to save the pretty girl, didn’t you?”

Ewan looked away, embarrassed. “Nooooo.”

“Yes he did,” said Mallaidh. “He saved me quite well.” Ewan shrugged, words failing him.

Dithers’s grin slowly drooped. “And the others?” he asked. “Did anyone else make it?”

“Nixie Knocks did,” Ewan replied. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

Dithers set Ewan down and let out a shrill whistle. “ANYONE OUT THERE?” he called into the night. “ANYONE?”

For a moment there was no reply, until . . .

“Well, shit.” Emerging from the dark seeped the misty form of Bill the Shadow. “That was a nightmare.” He gazed over at Dithers, looking him up and down, then tipped his hat. “You look a little banged up, old buddy. How you holding up?”

“I’ll be fine,” muttered Dithers. “Hurts like a thousand needles stabbing me all at once, but I’ll live. You see what happened to anyone else?”

Bill nodded sadly, reaching up, removing his hat, holding it politely over his chest. “Dragana and Nils.”

Dithers swallowed hard, shaking his head, his eyes glazing over with the hint of tears. “They were good friends.”

“As good as one can find in the Limestone Kingdom,” agreed Bill.

“Well,” said Dithers, “I guess we should collect Nixie Knocks and head back to the court.”

“Bah!” cursed Bill. “Let that creepy little shit run back to his precious mama in the lake. Let her deal with him.”

Mallaidh spoke up sadly. “His mom got killed. The horse lady got her.”

“You saw it?!” asked Dithers. Both children nodded slowly. Then Dithers looked at Bill. “What did they want? Did you hear anything?”

Bill shook his head, but Mallaidh nodded eagerly. Ewan looked at her as if to tell her to stop, but it was too late. Mallaidh spoke up, sounding a little hurt, trying to make sense of the words coming out of her own mouth. “She said I was going to kill Ewan.” Bill and Dithers traded confused looks. “She said she saw me kill Ewan.”

Bill shook his head, spitting in the dirt. “Aw, hell. Now we’ve got to talk to Meinrad.”

“We were going to have to talk to him anyway,” said Dithers.

“Yeah, but now it’s messy.” Bill motioned to Ewan. “This could have been about him.”

“We don’t know what this was about.”

“No,” he said, peering out from beneath the shadowy brim of his hat. “But I could hazard a guess.”

Dithers looked cheerlessly at the children, then back up at Bill. “Let’s get them home.”

IT WAS ALMOST dawn before they arrived back at camp, the sun reaching up to pluck the stars one by one from the night sky, its glorious pink crown peeking over the horizon, the muggy morning dew drenching everything as if it had rained all night. Ewan wanted nothing more than to drink a saucer of milk and fall into bed. Dithers, on the other hand, had a long day ahead of him. He walked Ewan back to their cave, a small alcove set in a limestone rock face, sheltered by a large hackberry tree. On the stone floor, offset into a dug-out burrow, lay straw swept into the shape of a crude mattress. Next to it was a fresh saucer of milk, left by pixies sometime during the night.

Dithers pointed to the makeshift bed. “Go ahead and drink up your breakfast, then get some sleep.”

“Okay.” Ewan got on his knees by the bed, picking up the solid, stoneware saucer in both hands, and lapped up the milk, careful not to spill a single drop; he was told never to spill a drop. Then, after guzzling down the entire bowl, licking it clean, he set the saucer down, collapsed on his straw pile, pulling a brown rag of a blanket up to his neck. “Dithers?”

“Yes?”

“Did we do bad tonight?”

“No. Why would you say that?”

“Well, Hell came up to punish us for the bad things we were doing to those people.”

“No, no, no,” said Dithers, waving his arms frantically, dismissing the thought entirely. “Hell came up for a very different reason.”

“What reason?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we’re going to figure out.”

“They weren’t mad because I killed that guy?”

“Ahhhh. So that’s what this is about.” Dithers bent down on one knee, putting both hands on Ewan’s shoulders. “What you did was gentle, Ewan. That boy was suffering.”

“But I killed him like a rabbit.”

“Yes, but he was already dying. You just killed him before the pain got any worse.”

“But that means Dragana killed him.”

“Well, yes. She did. That is what she does . . .” Dithers looked away, mourning for a moment. “Did, I mean.”

“But why did she kill people? Isn’t that wrong?”

“No,” Dithers said, shaking his head. “People are food.”

Ewan’s eyes grew wide and he sat up, propping himself on his elbows. “People are food? But I’m a people!”

“No, Ewan. You’re a special peop . . . person. You’re not like them.”

“Why not?”

“Because you were chosen to be a fairy, like me. Do you drink fairy milk?”

Ewan looked over at the bowl as if it should be obvious. “Yeah.”

“And do you play with the other fairy children?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are mostly fairy. And one day, very soon, your journey will be complete and we will celebrate under a full moon and make you one of the court forever.”

“Will I have to kill people?”

Dithers laughed. “No. You’ll be a special sort of fairy.”

“What kind is that?”

“One with a very important destiny.” He smiled, pointing a knowing finger at the young boy. “Every fairy has a job, a reason for being. We all serve a purpose. Some fairies are rulers, like the Limestone King; other fairies are hunters, like redcaps or nixies; some fairies dance; some fairies, like me, make beautiful music for all of their friends. Each one of us has something to contribute, something we are called on to do. And sometimes that involves killing things.”

“But isn’t that wrong?”

“No. It’s wrong to kill each other. But every fairy has its own special way of feeding, and sometimes that involves the life force of people.” Ewan looked at Dithers skeptically. “Tell me this, Ewan. Would you have felt bad for that rabbit, had you gotten a chance to kill it for dinner?”

“No,” he said, looking guiltily down into his lap.

“Why not?”

“It was going to be dinner.”

“Well, that’s all people are to some fairies. Dinner.”

Ewan looked up, tears welling in his eyes. “But no fairies will eat me, will they?”

Dithers laughed again. “Nope. I won’t let them. That’s my job. Meinrad gave that job to me almost seven years ago and I haven’t let him down yet.”

“Is that your job? Taking care of me?”

“You bet. And I’m good at it, don’t you think?”

Ewan smiled, nodding, wiping his eyes dry with his sleeve. “Very.”

“Well then, give me a hug.” Ewan wrapped his arms around the Bendith’s neck, Dithers squeezing back. “Get some sleep.”

Dithers stood up and stepped outside. He gazed into the distance at the sun cresting over the hills.

“Meinrad wants a word,” said a familiar voice from over his shoulder. He looked back. Coyote. The old trickster stood there staring at him, sullen, with mournful eyes as Dithers’s heart sank into his stomach; the only thing worse than Coyote smiling at you was when Coyote wasn’t smiling at you.

“Shit.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” said Coyote. “You’ll be fine. As long as you told someone about taking the Tithe Child on a hunt before you left.”

Though it seemed impossible, Dithers’s expression fell even further and he buried his face in his hands.

Coyote smiled. “Like I said, I wouldn’t worry. I knew.”

Dithers looked up at him. “How did . . . ?”

Coyote cocked his head back toward Dithers’s cave. “Ran into your boy yesterday. And no one can keep anything from me that I don’t want them to.” He patted Dithers on his meaty shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go get you out of trouble.”

The two walked off together out of the camp, into the woods.

“So what do you think they were trying to tell us?” asked Dithers. “Do you think it’s about the tithing?”

Coyote smiled. “For your sake, my friend, let’s hope not.”