When River looked up, Talen saw her face go from annoyance to concern. “What’s happened?” she asked.

“It’s an overdose of come-backs,” said Nettle. “Or worse. Earlier, he’s a picture of liveliness-blinding fast, wrestling Fabbis to the ground, leaping to the tops of the trees. Now look at him. Nothing more than a smelly dishrag. And he’s seeing frights.”

“I need something to drink,” said Talen.

“He’s drunk a barrel today. I’ve never had to stop so many times waiting for a body to relieve himself.”

River cleared the table. “Put him here.”

“Did the Fir-Noy come here?” asked Talen.

Nettle dumped him on the table.

“I haven’t seen any Fir-Noy,” said River. She began pulling up the sleeve of Talen’s tunic. “Where did Da tie the charm?”

“How did you know he gave me a charm?” asked Talen.

“Where did he tie it?”

“Here,” said Talen and lifted the other sleeve. He looked down at his leg. The fright was there, squatting all knobby and hideous, staring at him with one of its raisin eyes.

River fingered the braid and cursed. Her face turned grave. “And he talks about risks.” She removed the charm and cast it to the floor.

“Who?” asked Talen.

“Nobody,” said River. She slid her hand into the collar of his tunic. She had no sooner put her hand to his chest than she gasped and withdrew it.

“He’s got the plague,” Nettle said. “Doesn’t he?”

“Do you have any of the baker’s goods left?”

“Three cookies,” said Nettle. Then he went back outside.

“Has he poisoned me?” asked Talen.

“No,” said River. “And it’s not Nettle’s plague either.” She looked at him, and Talen could tell something had happened. She was deciding if she should share some secret with him.

“Goh,” he said. “It was the kiss. That girl!” He’d been wrong; they would have to kill her after all. Talen’s weariness pressed down upon him even more. “And her familiar has attached itself to my leg.”

River said nothing. Of course, River wouldn’t kill her. Not if the girl had magicked her. His thoughts strayed for a time. He looked at River and for a moment forgot what she was doing. Then it came back to him in a rush.

“We’ll have to be quick,” he whispered.

“What?” said River.

“Quick,” said Talen more loudly. “Quick. Kill them, the boy and girl, quick.”

At that moment he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw the girl standing in the doorway to the back room.

River followed his gaze. “He’s out of his mind,” she said to her.

“I’ll divert her,” said Talen. “You clobber her with the pot.”

“Be still,” River commanded.

Talen looked at the girl for a while, waiting for her to spring. “Playing us like a cat? Is that your pleasure?”

“Sugar,” River said. “I need you to fill the mule’s watering trough. We’re going to need to lay Talen in it. Have Nettle help you drag it in here.”

Sugar looked at the two of them, a storm brooding on her face. Talen thought she was going to say something, but she must have decided against it, for she strode across the room and out the door.

“Now’s the time,” said Talen.

“Will you shut up,” said River. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. This isn’t her doing. It’s Da’s.”

That made no sense, no sense at all. But River wouldn’t listen to him. She brought a candle near to get a good look at his eyes and mouth. Then she began peppering him with questions: when did the thirst start, how many cookies did he eat, what did Da do when he tied the charm on his arm, had he been hearing a ringing in his ears? Talen struggled to answer them all. Twice she had to repeat a question.

Finally, he held up his hand. “My leg. It’s sucking the life out of my leg.”

Then he saw something at the window.

The shutters had not been closed tightly and pale twigs seemed to shoot in over the sill. From his position on the floor, he couldn’t make any sense of them, but there they were. Tree roots on the window. Then a twisted head appeared, followed by a long body. Another fright, smaller than the one about his leg. It pulled itself up onto the sill.

“There’s another,” he said.

“Another what?”

“Nasty little thing,” he said and motioned at the window. “It’s got cold fingers.”

River looked up and followed his gaze. “There’s nothing there.”

“There is,” said Talen. “And there’s another wrapped about my leg. Right there by your hand.”

The creature about his leg didn’t move. It just sat and watched them.

River put her hand on Talen’s leg, partially covering the thin fingers of the fright. Her hands felt warm.

“How many are here, Talen?”

“Two,” he said.

She cursed, then she calmly picked up Talen’s godsweed charm, took it to the hearth, and thrust it into the fire. “And thus a portion of my life goes up in smoke,” she said. Which made no sense to Talen. She picked up a bowl and put the smoking weed in it. Then she took a pair of tongs and removed three hot coals from the fire and put them in the bowl as well. The weeds smoked.

“Where are they now?” she asked.

“The little one’s at the window. The bigger one is right here.” Talen moved his leg.

River approached, blowing on the smoking braid. She blew it on his face. Then she blew it on his leg.

“Don’t worry,” said Talen. “Nettle says it’s just the come-backs.”

“Be gone!” said River. She blew again on the smoke. Godsweed was not a sweet herb and Talen did not like the taste of its smoke.

The knobby creature on his leg eyed her.

“It’s not afraid of you,” said Talen.

River blew again and waved the smoking bowl around him.

The creature turned as if trying to avoid the smoke. But River blew again and the thing released Talen’s leg and jumped to the floor.

“There it goes,” Talen said. The thing only shuffled a few steps then stopped. But the little one at the window was gone.

River followed Talen’s gaze. She waved the smoking bowl around in the air. Blew more smoke. Then the fright that had been attached to his leg scuttled up the wall and out the window. However, River kept moving about as if it were still there.

“You got it,” said Talen. “It’s off to torment the chickens.” Then Talen wondered why it would do that. Was this the reason Da’s last batch of hens died off? It seemed reasonable. “They’re the ones killing the chickens,” he said.

“You’re babbling,” said River. She went to the window and waved the smoking bowl there. Then she closed up the shutters and brought the bowl back and placed it in the middle of the room on the floor. There was no fire to it anymore. Just coals and smoke.

Nettle and Sugar opened the door and bumped their way through with the empty trough. They set it close to the hearth.

“Stand over that bowl,” she said. “Smoke yourselves.”

“Goh,” Nettle said. “Are you kidding? A real fright?”

“Just do it.”

When Nettle and Sugar finished, River said, “Now get the water going.”

“With a fright out there?”

“Move!” said River.

Nettle growled, and Talen couldn’t tell if it was in frustration at River or to muster up his courage to face the fright. Then he marched out the door, the girl right behind him. River walked over to the wall where their five white ceramic plates hung. She took down one plate, brought it to the table, and broke a cookie upon it. Then she lit four more candles and turned them on their sides about the plate to give the cookie more illumination.

She dug at it with the point of a knife, examining the crumbs. “I see nothing.”

She held one up and sniffed it. She took a bite. After savoring it for a while she shook her head and swallowed it. Then she ate the other two cookies and drank a cup of water. “Sometimes certain herbs magnify the effects of the charm. But I can detect nothing of that sort in these,” she said. “If there’s anything in them, we will shortly know. In the meantime you need to soak. Take off your clothes.”