didn’t know who might hear. The farm, which only a short while before had seemed strange but mostly safe, now seemed to be a nest of fearsome strangers.
If that was Tyler, he was moving away from the farmhouse-not toward the silo, but out toward the pastures and the reptile barn. Perhaps he had already tried the silo and now meant to explore some other parts of the farm. He didn’t know how much danger he was in! She felt like a fool. Her brother had been right, she had been wrong. She had wanted everything to be okay, just like she always did, and she had kept her eyes closed to the things that seemed to suggest otherwise.
A shudder went through her at the memory of Mrs. Needle’s cold, bright eyes, the woman’s pale hand on hers. When had that been? She remembered drinking tea with her, but not being touched-Mrs. Needle hardly ever touched anyone, even her own son. But now the memory of that cool white hand lying across her own seemed as strong and painful as a memory of being burned.
The dark figure ahead of her was moving faster than she had thought. If it was Tyler, he was running. Had something happened to him? In any case, she could not simply let him roam the farm property without being warned. Too many of the farm folk were out tonight, and he needed to hear what Sarah and the others had said about Mrs. Needle.
Something came to her-a noise? No, it was a feeling, a distinct sadness floating into her thoughts like the wail of a ghost, raising the hair on the back of her neck.
Lost.
Gone.
Lost.
The feeling swept over Lucinda and made her stop where she was, quivering, as though a freezing wind had struck her. It was like a voice in her head, a voice without words that still spoke clearly of terrible grief and an equally terrible, deeply buried anger. Lucinda felt as though she couldn’t hold so much sadness inside her-that she would burst like a balloon that had been inflated too far.
Then the feeling was gone, although a sensation of powerful unhappiness lingered for several moments after. Lucinda’s cheeks felt cold. She touched them with her fingers and found that they were wet with tears.
What was going on here? Was it the ghost she’d seen in the mirror? What else could fill her with such a sensation of misery? Was the whole farm haunted?
While Lucinda had been distracted the dark shape, moving with surprising speed, had almost disappeared from her sight. She pushed herself away from the sheltering darkness of the buildings nearest the house and out into the clouded moonlight, one shadow following another.
Whatever or whoever she had been trailing was long gone, and Lucinda was stumbling through a dark wood at the far end of the pasturelands, just at the base of the hills that marked the edge of the property. The moonlight seemed to have weakened, and she had turned around so many times in the shadow-spotted trees that she wasn’t even quite sure which direction the house was in. She was crying a little despite herself, frustrated and frightened, and was just about to sit down and wait until people came in the morning to find her when she saw a light a short way up the hill.
Was it Tyler with his flashlight? No, it wasn’t a flashlight at all, but the uneven, flickering light of a fire. It must be the herders-Kiwa, Jeg, and Hoka-who liked to sit beside their campfire late into the night, singing mournful, deep-throated songs that seemed to vibrate like plucked strings. Still, even in the dark she didn’t think she could have stumbled that far out of her way. Also, although she could now hear a single gruff voice raised in song, it didn’t sound anything like the music of the Three Amigos.
Lucinda moved closer, worry and hope fighting each other inside her chest. She could see the fire moving and sparking in the gentle night breeze in a clearing just ahead, but there was no sign of the singer. She paused at the edge of the clearing, alarmed by the strangeness of the hoarse yet plaintive song, like the howling of some lonely animal set to slow, rhythmic music.
Something was lying on the ground just at her feet. She bent and picked it up. A boot, small as a child’s shoe, still warm from the leg and foot that had been in it. As if in a dream, she reached her hand into it, then yanked it out, startled. It was stuffed with shredded paper, which rustled beneath her fingers.
Something squeezed her arms against her sides with the strength of a giant snake. A huge hand folded over her mouth.
Lucinda screamed but no sound came out except a muffled murmur. She was lifted clean off the ground, feet kicking. Her heels beat against the legs of her captor, but seemed to make no more impression than kicking the trunk of an oak tree.
“Sssshh,” a voice whispered in her ear, the hot breath making her squirm in terror. “He will hear you. He has little enough freedom-do not take this from him.”
Then she recognized the voice. She was still frightened, but at least she knew who held her.
“I’m going to put you down,” Ragnar whispered. “Do not run-it will startle him, which might be dangerous. Do not speak, either. He will be off soon, to look to the fences.”
She had no idea who “he” was, but she nodded her head. The big man set her down as if she weighed no more than a coffee cup. For a moment, overwhelmed by the strangeness of the night, the succession of shocks and surprises, she almost ran away despite her promise, but something inside held her back.
No one’s hurt me. Ragnar wouldn’t do anything to me. Strongest of all, though, to her surprise, was that she wanted to know. For once she wanted nothing more than to get answers to the questions that were swarming in her head like startled bees.
A moment later a shape came springing down the hillside. There was just enough firelight to show its odd, jerky movements. It was dancing , she realized, leaping and capering with arms stretched high as if to clutch at the stars. From the waist up it had the shape of a naked man, slender and muscled, but below that were the haunches and narrow, hooved feet of a deer or goat.
The head dipped down for an instant into the firelight and Lucinda almost screamed. The face was Mr. Walkwell’s.
The animal-man leaped up again, then whirled around and was gone, bounding up the slope with tremendous speed and agility, disappearing over the crest of the hill. Lucinda, her knees suddenly too weak to hold her weight, sank down to the ground beside the discarded boots, the paper that had spilled from them crunching beneath her.
“He’s a… Mr. Walkwell’s a… ” She shook her head, shocked. “What is he?”
Ragnar laughed. “He is one of the Old Ones, child. I do not know the right name for his kind, but the Graekers worshipped them as little short of gods. The Greeks, I mean. Sometimes I still do say the wrong words, despite all my years here.”
Lucinda picked up Mr. Walkwell’s boot. The whole night felt like a dream, but she knew it wasn’t. “The poor man. He has to walk in these-no wonder he goes so slow. Always having to hide what he is.”
“Not always.” Ragnar helped her up and led her across the clearing toward the stone circle in which the fire burned. When she knelt to warm her hands he crouched beside her. “The nights are his-like this one.”
“Is he from… does Mr. Walkwell come from the same place as the dragons and the unicorns?”
Ragnar poked the fire with a long branch. A few sparks drifted up and winked out. “I do not know all of Simos’s story, because he was here long before the rest of us came… but in a way that is true. He is from the same place as the dragons. We all are. But place is not the right word. It is hard to explain.”
“Maybe somebody should try,” she said, but without anger. She had lost it back in the trees. “No one ever tells me or Tyler anything until we find it out for ourselves.” A sudden thought made her heart race. “Tyler! He’s out exploring-I have to find him!”
“He will be well,” the bearded man said. “Nobody will come onto the farm and hurt him when Simos is on guard.”
It wasn’t people getting in from outside she was worried about, but people who were already here-one person, anyway. “Sarah and the others-they said that Mrs. Needle is a witch.”
Ragnar frowned and took a moment before answering. “It is true that where she came from that is what they called her. They would have killed her for it too. But your great-uncle trusts her, and she has helped him, there is no doubt of that. After the fire took his laboratory and all his things I thought he would waste away in sorrow, but since then she has helped him find new life-new purpose.”
Lucinda’s mind was still whirling with questions, but before she could ask anything else Ragnar stiffened and
