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.
“It’s here,” said Sugar. “The creature from Whitecliff.”
“What?” asked River.
“It killed a man right there,” said Sugar and pointed to the wall where she’d seen him fall.
River rose and cautiously looked out the door to the side of the house. She gasped.
“I told you something was there,” said Nettle.
Moments later River shut the door up and turned to face them. She made Sugar relate everything she’d seen. Sugar told her everything except Legs’s comments about seeing Mother. When she finished, River stood looking at the floor, gathering her thoughts.
After a moment, she looked up at them. “Listen to me. You have one chance, and that is out the back window. Run as quickly and quietly as you can. Under no circumstances will you come back here. None. I will meet you at the Creek Widow’s.”
The Creek Widow was like an aunt to them. Every year Da hauled them over to help her harvest her apples. Except this year, of course, because of their feud.
“Where are you going?” asked Talen.
“To play a game,” she said, “of hide-and-seek.”
Talen set himself to argue, but before he could say a word, River slipped out the door and into the yard.
Sugar felt like her one stay had just been taken out from underneath her. She wanted to cry out, but could