life.
She had bundled the gun in a blanket and lashed it to the back of her saddle. The shells were safely tucked in her saddle pack. But even though the shotgun was safely behind her, she wasn’t unarmed. A woman traveling alone, even near town, or perhaps especially, was most likely to draw trouble. Therefore, Mae kept a Colt in the saddle holster near her knee.
By the time Mae reached the outskirts of town, the day was burning down to evening. She decided to take the route through the fields outside town, rather than navigating the roads that would be traveled by the rail workers coming into town to gamble and drink.
Prudence seemed to walk slower each mile they covered and it was closing in on dusk by the time she had put Hallelujah far behind her. Mae pulled her shawl closer about her shoulders, feeling more than darkness closing down with the ebbing light.
The field and hill were interrupted ahead by a wallow, where a dense stand of fir stood between Hallelujah and her home.
Mae guided her mule into the forest, where dusk had already taken claim, stretching the shadows, cooling the air. As she rode through the trees, Mae felt something else, felt something following her. She shifted in the saddle and looked all around, but could not catch more than a slide of movement at the edges of her vision. No ground nesters rustling, the birds, the animals in the forest were strangely silent, as if they too knew something dangerous moved between the trees.
A cool stroke like a finger against bone sent a shiver down her spine.
“Witch.” The word was breathed and seemed to come from all around her.
Mae’s heart jumped.
The shotgun might be tied behind her, but her Colt was in the saddle holster near her knee. She pulled the handgun and put her heels to Prudence, urging her to break into a trot.
The mule jolted through a few steps, then settled back into her numbing plod. No matter how Mae wanted to hurry, the mule would not.
“Witch.”
Not her sisters. No, their call was dulcet tones. This voice hissed, scratched, scrabbled through the air.
Whatever that was, the voice, the follower, was danger. She scanned the ground, the underbrush, the shadows of the trees around her, ahead and behind. With every slow step closer to her cottage, the forest was swallowed deeper and deeper into darkness.
A rattling behind her, a scattering of leaves. She turned. Nothing but shadows.
Then one of the shadows behind her moved. The shadow was a man standing, watching her, his long, thin hands folded. Tall, he was stretched taller by the stovepipe hat upon his head. His black coat brushed the ground, the large collar hiding his neck and face, so that all she could see of his features were his eyes. And his eyes burned red.
“Who—,” Mae started, but the man was gone.
She clicked her tongue and urged Prudence faster. “Get on now,” she said. “Get on up.”
This time the mule worked up to a jarring trot, then stumbled into a lope. The tree line was just ahead. Beyond that was a sky with more light than the forest, a field, and the safety of her home.
Mae leaned forward, keeping her heels to the mule. “Get up, Prudence, get up.” She guided Prudence through the brush and trees, hooves churning the soft needles and loam, the mule’s breath coming out in snorts. Mae’s pulse ran faster than the mule’s hoofbeats, pounding in fear.
That man hadn’t walked away, nor had he hid himself. He had simply disappeared as if he were made of nothing but shadows.
She had seen spirits, and she had seen the things magic could do, but she had never seen such a Strange thing here, in this world, walking in the last light of day. Whoever he was, he had not come calling with gentle intentions.
The edge of the forest and pale evening light were just a few strides away. Light might not stop the man, but escaping the shadows of the forest would make him easier to see.
There. There—she was almost through the trees.
A hand grabbed for her reins, cold as stone and sharp as knives. Mae lifted her gun and fired, just as Prudence reared back.
The wind lifted, a hard breeze that shoved branches aside, letting a stream of light into the trees. Mae watched, horrified, as the man sidestepped the bullet as if it were a feather driven by a lazy wind. Then he was on her, long arms reaching up to her elbows, oily fingers catching at her shawl and skirt and skin, scratching, hooking, dragging.
Mae held her seat and fired point-blank at his face.
The man recoiled, knocked back, bent back, but still on his feet as if his boots were glued to the earth, long fingers of one hand securing his hat to his head. And then, as Mae raised her gun to fire again, he fell apart.
Like grain emptying a silo, or water from a tower, it was as if the pin had been removed from the undercarriage of his skeleton, and he crumpled, first from his boots, then dissolving downward in a rush that clattered and clanked like old chains. His hat was the last thing to hit the ground, falling into a dark smudge of shadow where just a moment ago flesh and bones had stood.
Mae swore and put her heel to the mule.
That man, that thing, was dead. It had to be dead. But that did not stop her flight.
Prudence jumped into a gallop through the trees, out of the forest, and into air fresh and clean with light. Her cottage was not far. The mule did not slow, headed toward the corral. They made quick work across the field. Mae glanced over her shoulder again and again, scanning the shadows, her gun at the ready, wind pricking tears from her eyes. Nothing followed, no man, no beast, no shade, no Strange.
She guided Prudence to the small corral and dismounted with the gun in her left hand. She unlatched the gate and led the mule inside the split-wood fence. Her hands shook as she removed the saddle and bridle, fingers slippery with fear that made even old Prudence tremble.
She soothed her, patting her neck before taking the bridle off over her head. Hooking bridle over the saddle, she hurried into the small shed with Prudence’s tack propped against her right hip. It might be dead, but she didn’t know if more of its kind were out upon the land. She wanted the safety of her home, her hearth.
“Witch.” The whisper scratched against the shed’s roof and scattered on the wind.
Mae untied the shotgun from the saddle and pulled the box of shells out of the pouch. Keeping her Colt within reach, she loaded the gun, levering open the chamber and sliding in the shells, slick, heavy, and cold, with trembling fingers.
“Yes,” she said to the empty shed, to the empty air. “And who do I have the pleasure”—she levered in another bullet—“of addressing?”
No answer, other than the wind creaking through the shed.
“Oh, now, don’t be shy.” Mae fit the last bullet and raised the gun hip high. “If you have some business with me, let’s have it done now.”
Nothing, not even the wind, moved. The only sound was her own blood pounding in her chest, thrumming in her ears. She had never felt a creature as dark as that man in the forest. The Madders had said the shotgun would kill any man, woman, or child. And they said it might kill any other Strange creature in this land.
Might be time to find out just how true their word was.
She thumbed the lever that snapped hard against brass, setting the gears in motion. The gun emitted a low thrum. While the mechanism warmed, she picked up her Colt. Ordinary bullets didn’t need any preparation.
There were scant magical protections on the shed, blessings to ease the snow and gentle the wind. The strongest protections against the Strange were within her cottage. Across the open yard, where she’d be exposed to whatever was out there.
Mae took a deep breath and said a prayer. Then she walked out of the shed, the revolver cocked and ready.
She strained to hear any stray sound, strained to catch movements, shadows. Not even a mouse shifted in the straw.
She hurried, her gaze on the front of her house, still a distance ahead. No porch or railing—Jeb had laid a wooden walk beneath the threshold of the door to stomp the mud from his boots before he entered their
