“I need to go home,” Caitlin said. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I need to go home.”
She waited and watched. The path didn’t change. The bushes didn’t sink into the ground to give her an easy way to skirt around the mud and pick up the path farther down the hill.
Giving the thorny bushes a hard whack with her hoe handle, she retreated up the path. Then she set off through the trees. If the hillside behaved, she should come down close to where the path crossed the meadow behind the cottage.
But as she picked her way through the trees, watching for ankle-twisting roots and dips in the ground, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Ephemera really was trying to stop her from going back to the cottage.
The Eater of the World flowed through Raven’s Hill, nurturing the bogs of doubt and fear that lived in human hearts.
Yes, it whispered to three boys whose hearts already embraced the Dark. The woman in the cottage. Nothing but a hag, a whore, an old liar rejected by the Ladies of Light. She sullies the village with her presence.
As the boys headed for the cottage that held the heart full of Light, the Eater of the World drifted back toward the harbor. Something on the water was producing a faint resonance with this place. Something strong enough to leave a resonance, despite the murky bedrock of the Landscaper’s heart.
Whatever was coming would never leave again. The Eater—and the sea—would make sure of that.
Uneasiness became an itch under Michael’s skin. He knew Kenneday and the crew were becoming infected by his uneasiness, but he couldn’t stop prowling from one end of the ship to the other, watching the sea, the shore, the sky. Something out there. But what was it? And where was it?
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kenneday hand over the wheel to the first mate, so he stayed by the rail and waited for the captain to approach.
“Is there something you need to be telling me, Michael?” Kenneday asked.
Michael shook his head. “I need to get home.” The moment he spoke the words, the certainty of it was like a fist pounding against his heart. “I just need to get home.”
“We should have you ashore in another hour or so. Not in time for tea, I’m afraid, but maybe in time for supper if the wind doesn’t die on us again.” Kenneday hesitated, then added, “If you’d come north by land, it would have taken you longer, even with the delay we had in that fog.”
Hearing a defensive apology in the words, Michael offered an understanding smile. “I know that. I’ve just been anxious since I read my aunt’s letter. I’ll feel easier when I find out the fuss turned out to be a trifling matter.” I’ll feel easier when I know for certain that an hour from now isn’t an hour too late.
But that wasn’t something he wanted to think about because he had the strangest feeling that if he thought about it, and truly believed it, he would make it true.
“Old hag! Old hag!”
“Come get what you deserve, old hag!”
Doing a trip and stumble—and just managing not to land on her face—Caitlin rushed down the last few man-lengths of the hill. She knew those voices. Coyle, Roy, and Owen were the village troublemakers, but they had always kept clear of the cottage.
“Old hag! Old hag!” That was Coyle.
“Owen! Stop diddling with yourself and bring us more rocks!” That was Roy.
Using the curse words she’d heard Michael say once—words that had earned him a slap upside the head because Aunt Brighid had also heard him—Caitlin paused at the bottom of the hill to decide what to do.
Coyle threw another rock, shattering the glass in an upstairs window, while Roy jumped up and down, yelling at Aunt Brighid, yelling for Owen. And Brighid was doing some yelling of her own but was sensible enough to stay inside.
Since her aunt’s yelling was filled with anger rather than being the sound of someone crying out in pain, Caitlin decided to wait until the boys had thrown their last rocks. Then she could wade in. Maybe a hoe handle applied to their backsides would teach those hooligans a few manners.
But as she waited, she noticed the ground changing between her and the boys. Fear shivered up her spine.
There had been no sand when she’d gone up the hill that morning, but there was a large patch of it now, beginning at the base of the path she usually used to reach her garden and stretching out toward the cottage. It looked like someone had poured barrows of sand over the meadow to create a long-fingered, bony hand.
But there were no grasses or wildflowers poking up beneath the sand, which didn’t look deep enough to have covered the plants. And she’d never seen rust-colored sand before and knew it hadn’t come from any of the beaches around Raven’s Hill.
As Coyle and Roy threw more rocks at the cottage windows, Caitlin watched meadow grass disappear as two of the sand fingers stretched a little farther toward the cottage.
There’s something out there that can change the land, she thought. Something…evil.
The cottage was too isolated. She and Aunt Brighid would be nothing but hens waiting for the fox if they stayed. Which meant getting Brighid out of the cottage and escaping to the village proper. Which meant getting past those black-hearted boys.
Holding the hoe handle in a two-handed grip that would make it a useful weapon, Caitlin scanned the trees at the base of the hill, looking for some movement. Where was the third boy, Owen? It was rare to see just two of the boys when they were causing trouble, so the third had to be around.
Deal with the here and now, Brighid always told her. Well, the here and now was the two boys she could see.
This is my place, Caitlin thought as she stared at Coyle and Roy, who had their backs to her. This is my land. You’re not wanted here. You’re not welcome here. Leave this place!
She wasn’t able to influence people, and she didn’t expect anything to happen. The words were merely a way to bolster her own courage before she made a dash for the cottage that would bring her to the boys’ attention.
You’re not wanted here. You’re not welc—
Her focus shattered as she saw three of the sandy fingers shrink, the sand changing back to packed earth. It was bare earth—the grass and flowers didn’t magically reappear—but it was earth, not sand.
I can change the meadow back to the way it was. I can fight this evil, make it go away.
Then her attention came back to the boys. They were waiting for her, staring at her. Each boy held a filled whiskey bottle with rags stuffed into the necks of the bottles like a wick in an oil lamp.
The rags were already burning.
“No!” Caitlin yelled.
The Eater of the World flowed toward the hillside as fast as It could. The Landscaper was trying to destroy the access It had created into the bonelovers’ landscape. She was sending her resonance into the world and Ephemera was responding.
It would stop her. Yes, It would. She was stronger than many of the Landscapers It had destroyed at the school, but not as skilled or powerful—or dangerous—as the True Enemy. It could pull her into Its landscape, just as It had done with the others. The bonelovers would do the rest.
Coyle and Roy flung the burning whiskey bottles through the broken windows. Then they grinned at her and ran, no doubt intending to be far enough away that they could claim ignorance when she accused them of setting the cottage on fire.
Because it was burning. Too much. Too fast.