The monster had spoken of the stomachs the woman had already taken. And so Talen went back into the cave with Sugar and two loyal dreadmen.

They searched the chamber of battle. They searched the passageways leading in and out. They found many rooms, but they never saw a nest.

They were about to descend the broad path that led to the belly of the mountain, when Sugar asked if they’d been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps, she suggested, they should look up.

It took less than an hour to find the woman’s roost. In one room with a sulfur pool there were a scattering of her dead eel creatures lying on the floor. When the group held their torches aloft, they saw an opening to a small chamber above. It contained silk clothing that Lumen, the former Divine of the clans, wore, an ancient, cankered sword, and a handful of abominable weaves, including two of the monster’s stomachs.

And so it happened that on the morning of a cool autumn day, Talen placed the monster’s stomachs on a large slab of granite on their farmstead. The survivors of the battle in the cave gathered around.

Talen donned the fine, white, gold-studded gauntlets and removed the last hag’s tooth from its silver case. He held it up.

“This,” he said, “is to honor the bravery of Barg, Larther, and all the many other things that composed the servant of our enemy. May they find the safe path in the world of souls.”

Then he lowered the tooth to the stomachs. When its sharp tip touched the first stomach, it came to life and wriggled out of his hand.

All stood around the stone, watching the tooth weave its way in, around, and through the stomachs that lay on the rock. The blackness of the withies leached away, leaving behind simple wood.

A small breeze gusted through, and then, for the briefest moment, Talen thought he heard singing.

The tooth wriggled out of the pile of spent stomachs and rolled off the rock into the dust.

Talen picked it up. It had yet one more task to perform.

That evening Talen stood on the hill above the farmstead. At his feet lay three graves: one for Mother, a new one for Da’s body, and another for that of Sugar’s mother.

When Sugar had said she had no home, River and Talen had insisted she did. It was too risky for her to go back to her village and gather up any of her father’s bones that might remain. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t make a small monument for the time when they could retrieve the bones. Nor did it mean they couldn’t bury Sugar’s mother here.

Talen had expected someone to desecrate the graves, for the Fir-Noy were causing more troubles than ever. But that had not happened yet. Instead, they’d found gifts left on the graves in respect. Some were gifts of apples, others were bunches of late summer flowers. There weren’t many. But it surprised Talen. Once they even found a bowl of blood from a small sacrifice. It was believed by some that the ancestors could drink the Fire of a newly killed animal as it poured forth.

But there were no gifts this evening. Instead, Nettle crawled in circles below the graves as if searching for something in the grass. Uncle Argoth had told them all what he’d done, and it pained Talen to see Nettle so. Half mad, the other half lost. Legs, River, and Sugar were with Talen on the hill.

There were reports of something in the woods, something killing the deer and sheep. Legs said he’d heard it one night in the yard. They had found footprints the next morning, and the evening after that Talen had seen its face in the shadows staring at him. They’d tried to track it, but lost the trail, and the dead bodies of animals began to mount.

“Let us hope it isn’t the woman seeking revenge,” said River.

“If it were, wouldn’t it be killing humans?” asked Legs.

“It’s Da,” said Talen. “Who else could it be?”

“I don’t know,” said River. “We hardly know anything.”

“Well, I know this,” said Talen. “During that last battle, it was Da that was looking at me from the eyes of the earthen figure. It was Da in that awful body, and he wants release.”

They built a fire when the sun set, Legs sang a few mournful songs, and then they waited, watching the bats flit over their heads and an owl occasionally swoop silently across the field below.

Talen wore the gauntlets. In his hand he held the last raveler. The case now lay on the ground at his side.

The air was cold with the first breath of autumn. The leaves had begun to turn color and fall, and he could smell the fine scent of leaf mold. It had not yet frozen hard enough to kill all the insects, so the mosquitoes rose as the sun set, but an evening wind kicked up to blow them away. River fed the fire, and they waited, the stars shining above them in the night sky, a hard-edged sliver of a moon giving them light.

One by one each of the others fell asleep in their bedrolls, but Talen did not. He waited and watched, and when he began closing just one eye to rest it, he roused himself and stood.

A light burned in the window of their house across the field below. Ke was there, being nursed back to health by the Creek Widow.

Talen walked to a stone on the far side of the hill. When he came back, he found River awake, making them both a cup of tea, the Creek Widow sitting next to her. Talen took his cup gratefully, then sat with the two of them, sipping the red liquid and letting the cup warm his fingers.

He looked at his sister. She had tried to kill him. He did not hold it against her. However, she was not quite the sister he knew from before.

He’d just poured himself a second cup when a branch cracked at the edge of the wood behind them.

Talen turned.

He could make nothing out at first; the shadows along the forest edge were too deep.

“Just to the left of that great pine,” said River.

It was the earthen figure, the one with the vicious muzzle, the one the monster had awakened.

“Slowly,” the Creek Widow said.

They rose and faced the creature.

“Da?” Talen called out.

The thing did not move. It was covered in grass as the first monster had been. Talen hesitated. The other creature had been so powerful.

Behind them the fire popped, and Nettle snuggled up closer to Legs.

“Father,” said River, taking a step forward.

“Careful,” said Talen.

But the creature stepped out of the deep shadows of the wood into the remaining vestiges of the moonlight. In one hand, it held a doe by the leg, dragging it along behind like a child might an overlarge doll.

“We’ve brought help,” said Talen and held up the raveler.

The creature opened its ragged mouth.

It reminded Talen of the first creature, and he began to fear. What if the woman had returned?

He forced himself to take another step forward. Then another.

Soon he stood an arm’s length away.

This body was shorter than the first one. It was made of more than dirt and stone, for he saw many growths of withy wood rising from its skin.

“The ancestors are waiting,” said Talen. “It is time for your release.” He held the last raveler up.

The creature dropped the doe into the tall autumn grass. It stood for a moment, and then it reached out for Talen. At first Talen thought it was going to grasp him by the throat as the first had, and he stiffened. But it simply ran its rough fingertips down the side of his face.

River touched its arm. “You watched over us here. Watch over us now from the other side.”

The Creek Widow said nothing, but Talen could see she was trying to hold back tears.

The monster that was Da grasped the raveler. Talen could feel the horrid strength in that stony hand. Now was the moment. Talen wondered if it would destroy this tooth as the other monster had done.

“We will see you in brightness,” Talen said, and he released the raveler.