Rosemary, the carpenter’s daughter, the face of the woman he’d remembered after eating the man who had been humming as he washed himself. The man who was called Larther. And now Hunger had a name to hang that sorrow upon.

The water ran below him; three deer came to drink and left.

River was the one he needed. Her brother, the burning son, was nothing. He wasn’t even part of the Order yet. But River, she was skilled at all sorts of weavings. She would know the workings of the collar. She would fix it. And he would bind the Mother. Bind her and destroy her.

River had been a beauty to him, then friend, and finally sister. She would not run away; she would see through his rough form. He was sure of it.

He took a step toward the water and something moved downwind of the house.

He peered closer. Two men crept along in the grass, their helmets and knives shining in the moonlight.

Whatever their intent, they would flush River like untrained dogs bark and flush quail from the brush. Except once River ran, you did not catch her.

Those two would have to go. Silently, but they would have to go. Hunger waited to see if there were more of them, and when he saw they came alone, he descended the riverbank and quietly entered the dark waters.

Prunes stood in the shadow of a tree. Across the yard, Gid peered between the cracks of a shutter on that side of the house just to make sure there were only five of them. Prunes scratched his neck, and when he looked back at Gid something monstrous and dark rose, it seemed, from the very earth.

It was bigger than a man. Shaggy. Then Prunes recognized it from the stories of the creature at Whitecliff.

He shouted a warning.

Gid turned, but it was too late.

The dark shape engulfed him. Only the silhouette of Gid’s lower half was visible in the moonlight.

Prunes watched in horror as Gid struggled, cried out, and then was silenced. The thing shook him out like a wife shakes a rug. It cast Gid’s body aside in a heap.

The creature raised its head and chuffed like a horse. Then it turned and looked straight at Prunes across the yard.

He’d fought in a number of battles, nearly lost his life a dozen times. But nothing had ever put fear into him like the gaze of that rough beast.

By all that was holy…

His bladder released. He dropped his knife and backed up in horror.

Sugar stood in the barn, filling a barrel with barley and oats for the horse. They had a long ride ahead and the animal would need rich food. Legs stood by her side.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

Sugar hadn’t heard a thing, she was so lost in thought. Zu Hogan’s daughter sat at the table back in the house with Talen, making him open and close the doors in his being, whatever that meant, over and over again. For the last hour all River had done was sit there, holding Talen’s hand at the table, telling him to open and close, again and again, telling him that she had to be sure he could hold himself to himself.

In her mind, Sugar knew it was a great evil they practiced at the table. But in her heart she could not help but want to learn it as well, for when River had told her what her mother was, it had come, not as a shock, but a loss. Because she didn’t believe Mother was wicked.

“The story is never what you first hear,” Mother had always said. And she’d practiced that philosophy. When Sugar was a little girl and had been accused of stealing a village boy’s carved cherrywood horse, her mother had believed her denials. And later that day, when Sugar finally confessed and showed her mother the horse, her mother had not sent her away. She’d taken her in her arms and stroked her hair and kissed her forehead and said, “It’s a brave thing to admit to a lie. Foolish to lie in the first place. But brave to put the lie out in the sun for everyone to see.” She’d hugged her tight. “Your bravery is as fine as peas and fatty beef,” Mother had said. “Fat peas and fatty beef.” From that time forward “fat peas and fatty beef” had been their saying.

How many times had Mother seen through her mistakes to what was praiseworthy? Even when Da was teaching her to fight. She’d believed Sugar would find a young man in Koramtown and raise splendid children. And they’d talked about what they’d do together with Sugar’s future children, all the wonderful places she and Mother had visited with Legs in tow which they would visit with Sugar’s children. The crabbing bay, their waterfall in the woods, the patch of wild blueberries by the buttes. And Mother would come stay with her in Koramtown and join in the knitting hours and teach Sugar’s daughter how to knit just as she’d taught Sugar.

So much lost. For the first time since they left, Sugar could feel the emotion rising in her.

“There’s that sound again,” said Legs.

“What?”asked Sugar.

“A man,” said Legs.

The hairs on the back of Sugar’s neck stood up and she doused the lamp. She stood in the dark for a moment listening, then ran to a knothole in the side of the barn that gave a view of the yard. She put her eye to the hole and saw nothing at first. Then something large moved by the house.

She didn’t have her night vision yet, and thought, unaccountably, that it was the mule. But then the body of a man fell to the ground and a dark shadow walked out from the side of the house and into the moonlight.

The man was dead and broken, and the creature looked right at her, as if it could see her eye at the knothole. Fear ran up her spine. She drew back, grabbed Leg’s hand, and pulled him down. Surely it had seen her light earlier and heard her talking. It would know they were in the barn. Yet, she didn’t dare run, for then it would mark them.

She heard the sound of steps on hard dirt, someone running away from the beast.

They needed to hide, to burrow in the hay, but the creature was coming too fast. The door stood wide open to the moonlit yard and Sugar could do nothing but watch as a misshapen thing, huge and shaggy, walked into view.

A scream rose inside her. She cried out. She could not help herself, and the beast glanced her way.

But it did not stop. It walked past the door. Then it began to run and its heavy footfalls receded from the barn.

Sugar could not move. Her heart beat in her throat. She could barely breathe.

“Those heavier footsteps, what were they?” asked Legs.

Sugar did not reply.

“It was the thing that carried Mother away, wasn’t it?”

Sugar looked at him. How could he have known that? “I don’t know.” And yet, what else could it be?

“I held the charm today, down in the cellar,” said Legs. “Do you think the creature has come to help us?”

“No,” said Sugar. Not that thing. The wisterwives created beauty. That was from some other source. Whatever it was, River could offer more protection than this barn ever would. “We need to get to the house.”

“I saw Mother. I held the charm in my hand and saw her.”

“What?”

“I saw Mother.”

“With the charm?”

“Yes,” Legs said.

“But I thought you said you didn’t trust the charm.”

“River said it was a gift.”

She had said that. “Mother’s alive?”

“She was calling. Telling me to watch and be ready.”

“This is all too confusing,” she said. “River claims the creature is not part of this Order she and Mother belong to. It’s a wicked thing.”

Legs said nothing, and she could tell he wasn’t convinced.

“We don’t have time now,” Sugar said. “Keep it away. We’ll discuss it later with River.” She gripped his hand tighter, stood, then inched to the barn door. She peered into the night. Then with all the courage she could muster, she tightened her grip on Legs’s hand and dashed across the yard. When they burst into the dimly lit house, both Talen and River looked up at them.